Chapter 20
CHAPTER
TWENTY
LINCOLN
M y breath catches as I reach the top of the stairs and slide into the kitchen, keeping myself as calm and composed as possible considering I mutilated Cali’s arm moments ago. It was me, all me, in that moment.
The clatter of plates and the swish of water fills the air as Lucy, the housemaid, scrubs the dinner dishes. Lucy’s in her seventies; her family worked for Dr. Garcia’s parents before she handed the house over to us, and Lucy right along with it. I’m certain she’s well-aware of the girl in the basement.
Over the years, I’ve come to realize that Lucy knows everything and says nothing. She’s aware of every single thing that happens here.
She dries her wrinkled hands on her apron. She fixes her gaze on me and a flicker of movement crosses her eyes. She helped raise Mikael before I took over; she knew him first, yet welcomed me with open arms. Xander’s parents ran off and abandoned him, so Dr. Garcia and Lucy raised him, too.
Lucy pauses before she says, “Would you like a drink before joining the others?”
I wipe the sweat building on the back of my neck. I flash her a smile, unsure of where my threshold of sanity lies. “Please,” I say to her calmly. “Make it a double.”
She pours whiskey into a crystal glass—neat, how I like it—and hands it to me, but doesn’t quite let the glass go as her fingers graze mine. Her eyes penetrate me, seeing right through my facade.
She gives me a cautious smile, seeming to sense my racing heart. My palms are sweaty and my adrenaline is still high—these are not normal reactions for me. Just the sweat alone should make her weary. Finally, she releases me, as if confirming what she needed to by her lingering touch.
As Summer and I grow closer, Mikael’s getting stronger and his triggers are getting worse. His emotions are blurring with mine, and my impulses are loosening because of it.
And that is a big problem.
For now, I ignore it. Being around people helps. He won’t come out if he’s uncomfortable, and at least for now, he prefers to watch.
“Let me know if you need anything else,” she says.
“I sure will, Lucy.”
Lucy always liked me the best. I offer what Xander is lacking, primarily in manners, bringing a sense of sophistication to the house. Xander is more about ruling with an iron fist. Despite his parents leaving town, he had a spoiled upbringing. Dr. Garcia’s familial wealth knows no boundaries.
The sip of liquor calms me. Mikael is no longer hissing in my psyche as I ease back into my naturally composed state, but something still grips me. That alien sensation is slowly becoming part of my skin, interlocking with every muscle, every vein.
The fragment is growing.
I make my way out of the kitchen and down the dark, narrow hallway to the grand entryway of the house, leading to the great room where Xander usually hangs out.
In contrast to the basement, which is cramped and dimly lit, the rest of the house is grand, with elegant windows overseeing the forest beyond. This is an old house, built in the early 1900s, but it was renovated and reconstructed in the 1970s, and the windows are the only vintage part of the house. A large staircase leads to the rooms above where Xander takes up the primary bedroom, but I much prefer the basement, where it’s soundproof and quiet.
It’s always been my bedroom.
When I open the door to the living room, Xander and Bianca are sitting on the couch. Well, Xander is sitting on the couch wearing a backwards hat, his cuffs rolled up over his tattooed arms. Bianca is on the floor in front of him with a sour look on her face, her hair tied up in a tight, dark ponytail.
His eyes are shadowed, and she’s saying something to him, likely talking back, and as I suspect, he yanks her head back slightly, using her ponytail as a grip.
His body is tense, but he’s grinning at her and she’s smiling with adoration in her eyes. He grabs her shoulders and starts rubbing them as the music pounds from the surround sound in our ceiling.
Her body visibly relaxes.
Xander has a way with the ladies, and he’s cocky. And Bianca only seems content when he’s dominating her and giving her his full attention, which she doesn’t like sharing.
On the surface, the two of us couldn’t be more different. But he’s smart in ways I’m not. Everyone thought I was different, but I quickly learned how to function in society. When Mikael disappeared, he embraced me, no questions asked. No one touched me while I was with him.
I don’t love him—I’m not capable of it—but I am loyal to him.
The usual group, the other children of the shadows, are here. The offspring of those who scorched eternal bliss above for fleeting earthly desires of money and power. Wendy, the mayor’s daughter, and Gabe, the police chief’s son, are cuddled together on the couch. Bianca is also one of us; her father is the town physician. To everyone else, we are a small group of friends who don’t enjoy interacting with anyone else. But to us, we are bound by blood and oath.
Well, everyone except for me—I have no blood ties to the Order, and therefore, will never truly become one. I’m agnostic to the entire thing, or at least I was until Mikael marked Summer.
Xander turns the music down when he sees me and grins, causing the entire room to look in my direction. “Look who rose from the dead. What do we owe the pleasure of the almighty professor?”
“I’m not a professor yet,” I remind him, making sure I look bored as usual.
Bianca observes me and scowls. She knows about my dark past, just not all of it. Dr. Garcia kept Mikael well hidden as a child and throughout his adolescence, and then introduced me to the outside world as Lincoln. No one is stupid enough to question her openly, even though none of it adds up. They know I started my life as Mikael. They didn’t, however, truly realize what Mikael was or the reason I changed my name.
And none of them truly comprehend the depravity of what almost happened beneath them. How close Cali was to getting slaughtered if I hadn’t had the foresight to get the fuck out of there.
I slam my drink back and place the glass down on the coffee table.
“You good, man?” Xander asks, watching me carefully, his eyes jerking to my wrist.
Well, fuck, blood is splattered on my wrist. I washed my hands after I cut Cali, but I must have missed a spot.
I fawn a smile. “Never been better. Why do you ask?”
His eyes linger on the blood. I don’t know what Xander would do if he discovered the missing girl everyone is talking about is tied up downstairs.
We have a critical rule…don’t get caught. After 2002, the members vowed silence and secrecy. No more public displays of violence, and under no circumstances are we to get caught.
Xander snaps his fingers at Bianca, curled up at his feet. “Go get Lincoln another drink, babe.”
She grimaces at him, then rises and heads to the kitchen to find Lucy. “Fine,” she mutters as she saunters out of the room. “I need a cigarette, anyway.”
His eyes flicker, revealing his own internal demons. “You need a fucking attitude change, babe,” he yells at her and watches her leave like she’s a piece of meat.
Once she’s gone, he rises and moves to sit next to me.
Bianca knows her place and has accepted the fact she will never be his number one. She’s not his number one because she’s not dead yet. He hasn’t chosen her.
She comes back a few minutes later and hands me a drink, then heads back outside for one of her many cigarette breaks.
“You’re talking to Summer Landry,” he says slowly, his face growing dark and serious.
I turn to look at him and quirk a brow. “She’s a student in my class, that’s all.”
He leans back, wrapping his hands around the back of his head. “You’ve always had a thing for her, but this is vicious, man, even for you. You gonna kill her?”
I take a sip of my drink, the cubes clinking against the glass. “I think it’s poetic justice, don’t you?”
The liquor burns my throat. The bitch gave me bourbon; I hate bourbon. I’m more of a whiskey guy, especially when my brain is consumed by death. That flicker bubbles up inside me.
Xander pauses and doesn’t say anything, but he keeps his gaze steady on mine. “Well, I think she’s hot, a lot sexier than she used to be.”
Mikael jerks from deep inside, and I have to push him down. Summer Landry isn’t just hot; she’s the most beautiful girl I’ve ever laid eyes on. He just had eyes for someone else.
Xander runs his thumb over his mouth, his eyes gleaming. “I think her friend Dani is hotter. Do you think you can get the girls to the house for our party next Friday?”
We make eye contact, an unspoken pact for me never to interfere with his shit as long as he doesn’t interfere with mine. Xander technically still needs to choose a girl to become a full member, and he’s had eyes on Dani ever since his great-uncle put her father in prison.
Love is an integral and necessary ingredient as part of the sacrifice.
That’s the way.
By now, Bianca must be aware she will not be the only important girl in his life. I know Xander, and she’s not the one.
“I’ll think about it,” I tell him. But I won’t. I don’t want Summer anywhere near here. I want to keep her all to myself.
He takes a sip of his drink, and his eyes fall on Bianca, who saunters back in and talks to Wendy, keeping his voice low. “All that work with Summer and you’re just going to kill her? That doesn’t make sense.”
I shrug. “It’s not unusual for members to play with their marks before the ceremony.” It is, however, unusual to mark the daughter of a former member, considering it’s technically Summer’s birthright, not mine.
He tilts his head to the side, his darkness swirling in his eyes. “Is that what you’re planning on doing, Lincoln? Playing with her? Or is it someone else who wants to do that?”
I stare at him for a long, cold second. A second ticks by, then another, the tension palpable between us.
“Is he back, Lincoln?” His jaw tightens. “Don’t fucking lie to me.”
I keep my face tight and lie, “No, he’s not back. Why would you think that?” I still have time to control this; Xander doesn’t need to know Mikael has returned.
“Because you’re acting weird, and you and Summer have a shared history. I don’t believe for one second her being here hasn’t had an impact on you. Plus, you marked her, which should be impossible, since you don’t have a fucking heart. Does my grandmother know he’s back?”
I take another sip. “She doesn’t know because there is nothing for her to know.”
He reaches out and grabs my glasses off my face. I don’t bother stopping him. My vision blurs, and all I see are the outlines of his hands waving in front of my face before he leans in closer. “Mikael, are you in there, you crazy son of a bitch?”
Mikael’s usual tendrils crawl over my spine and, for a slight moment, his pain is my pain. His emotions fuse with mine.
“Tell him. I dare you. I think he misses me.”
Mikael and I separate once more as I work to dissolve those feelings with emotional acid. I hate that he can talk to me…at times, it feels like a possession.
I swipe my glasses back, ignoring the little devil on my shoulder. Xander’s grinning at me once I’m able to get them back on.
“Mikael’s dead,” I say in a calm and careful voice. “And if he were still here, Xander, do you really think he’d like you waving your hand in his face like that?” Xander was kidding, I think. But even his jokes skim too closely to the truth.
My gaze draws down to the scar on his hand. “Didn’t Mikael burn your hand once, for waving it in his face?”
Xander snaps his hand back faster than I can blink and grimaces at the clear memory. I remember it vividly. Mikael secretly entering his room, dipping his hand into a pot of scalding water while he was sleeping.
They had a relationship of sorts before I progressed into myself, before Dr. Garcia discovered the mind hiding inside that disturbed boy. Once she discovered my IQ, she drew me out.
Dr. Garcia was appointed to Mikael’s case from the very beginning to keep the entire thing buried. More than likely, the Order of the Shadows didn’t know what to do with the orphan, so they kept Mikael alive.
“Do you know the last thing Mikael said to me?” Xander says as he brings his drink to his lips.
I look at him, but I don’t really want to hear the answer. “He said he loved her, that he would do anything to be with her. Then, as soon as she comes to town, she’s suddenly marked.”
My phone buzzes, drawing both of our attention to the sound in my pocket. I lean over to grab it and can’t help the smile that pushes on to my face.
Summer: How badly do you want me?
I quirk my head, a small smile hints at my lips.
I click a quick response.
SF: More than anything.
Summer: Do you remember what you told me to do with the stick?
A photo pops up on the phone, and I literally spit my drink out. Xander arches his eyebrows, reacting to my very few occasions of outward emotion.
I stare at the photo for a long second and push my glasses up to make sure I’m actually seeing what I’m seeing.
Summer’s in the woods, on her knees, wearing nothing but a bra with a stick stuck right up her cunt. Her body and hair are smeared with mud, and it’s hot as hell.
All-consuming anger erupts inside me. Anger, lust, sheer obsession. Darkness fills every pore, and I barely have a grip on myself as Mikael twinges deep within. He’s seeping into my skin, my bones, my identity. My dick nearly explodes at the sight of her.
Perfect Summer Landry, humiliating herself for me. I’ve always been obsessed with her beauty, but this…? I will never get this image out of my mind.
He either wants to rip her to shreds or fuck the living daylights out of her, I can’t tell. The two of us sing in perfect harmony.
Xander nudges me. “What’s got you so fucking excited?”
The sound of his voice snaps me back, and all the emotion is sucked out like a vacuum. While I’m still coherent, while I’m still myself, I pull up the picture of Cali dripping with blood and send it back to Summer.
It looks like a fresh kill, and that’s what I want Summer to think.
I set my glass on the table and slip out of the room before Xander can ask me anything else. “I have more papers to grade,” I tell him flippantly, though I can barely contain my excitement as I head downstairs. I’m not going to chase her in the woods…not yet, at least.