34. Konstantin
KONSTANTIN
S tanding in the shittiest part of Los Angeles on Christmas Eve morning was not how I had planned to spend the day, but life worked in mysterious ways sometimes.
I stared at the building in front of me, old and dilapidated, with garbage decorating the sidewalk leading up to it and people injecting themselves with God knows what on the front lawn.
“You sure that’s where he lives?” I asked my brother, who stood right next to me.
“Positive.”
We both started walking, careful not to step on dog shit or puke. The inside was even more rundown if possible. Used condoms were strewn on the floor; it reeked of piss and empty syringes were everywhere.
Once we came in front of apartment 5B, Dom and I shared a look before he knocked.
Noises came from inside, like someone was stumbling and hitting furniture to come to the door. When it finally swung open, a man who looked forty but should have been barely twenty-six faced us.
“Sam Mindings?” I asked, unsure that we had the right address.
The man looked at us carefully, before his fearful gaze fell behind us as he inspected the hallway. He looked scared, like he was waiting for someone to spring out of the darkness and attack him.
“Who’s asking?”
“You might not recognize me,” Dom started, “but we used to share a room… back at the Academy.”
At the mention of our school, the man’s gaze shut down and he moved quickly, intending to slam the door on us. I was quicker though and wrenched it open, so that both Dom and I could enter. My brother shut it behind him while I grabbed Sam by the lapels of his shirt and pushed him against the wall, making sure he wouldn’t budge.
His eyes widened and he looked scared out of his mind, putting his hands up in defeat and shaking his head. “I haven’t told anyone! I swear, I swear I haven’t!”
He looked crazed, and after sharing a glance with Dom, I decided to let go of him. His legs couldn’t even support his weight and he slid down the wall silently, mumbling incessantly about how he didn’t tell anyone.
“Hey, listen to me,” Dom crouched to be at eye level with him. I decided it was best of me to let him do the talking. “We’re not here to hurt you. We just want answers.”
Sam looked like he didn’t know whether or not to believe him. “Answers regarding what?”
“The Order.”
Gulping, the stranger started shaking his head. “I—I can’t say anything about that. They’ll know if I do. They’ll kill me.”
“I can guarantee you, they won’t know because we won’t tell a soul. Plus it’s us you should be scared of right now, not a bunch of fuckers who attack women to feel more powerful.”
Sam thought about it, a look of anguish etched onto his face. “T-they started killing again?”
“They never stopped.”
He swallowed thickly before sitting up straighter, fiddling with his pants. “After Stacy’s death, they agreed not to anymore, they said they’d find another way if I didn’t talk,” he said in a small voice, sounding almost like a child.
“Well, your generation might have found another way, but ours didn’t. Four girls in less than three months.” I counted Mia in because it was pretty clear from the stolen coroner’s report in my possession that she had been one of them. The modus operandi was the same, too.
A strangled sound came out of Sam and he squeezed his eyes shut like he was trying to erase an unwanted memory.
“So we need answers. We need to know where they meet so we can intercept them. We need to know how they operate. And you’re the only one who can help.”
“You don’t understand, they’re everywhere. Four sacrifices are nothing , that’s barely half the recruits. They meet up all over the castle and travel through it using secret passages.”
“How do they choose the girls? Is it random? Do they befriend them first, gain their trust before they choose them as a sacrifice?”
Sam looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “You think new recruits choose their sacrifice? You think I chose to kill Stacy? That I even knew it was her?” His voice was rising in anger before he gave a dark, humorless laugh. “You fool. Do you even know what a sacrifice is?”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we don’t know until the deed is done. That’s how we prove our loyalty to the brotherhood, by trusting them blindly, showing them that we would do anything to be one of them.” He glanced between my brother and me. “On sacrifice nights, we all… we all participate. In any capacity, some more than others. The more eager you are, the more chances you have of going high on the ladder of success.”
Something didn’t sit well with me.
“You gang rape them,” I came to the conclusion, given how carefully he’d tried to choose his words, and when the color drained from his face, regret crumpling it until he started crying, I knew I was right.
I punched him square in the eye before I could even think about it. “Enjoy your miserable life, moron. And congrats, now you have new people you need to hide from. You better pray our paths never cross again.”
Back in the car, driving far away from that hellhole, I checked my phone to see if there was anything from Elyssa.
Still nothing.
Letting my head fall back against the headrest, I sighed.
“She still ignoring you?” my brother asked, never taking his eyes off the road.
I grunted, still unwilling to talk to him about it. After Mia’s murder, or suicide, as the school deemed it, I was forced to tell him about her. He didn’t tell anyone else, because Dom was too loyal to break my trust. He knew I wouldn’t have spoken to him about Elyssa if I wasn’t serious about her.
Ever since she left for New York with her so-called family, she’d been ignoring me. No answer to my texts, no calls back, and she wasn’t active on social media either. It drove me mad knowing she was alone with those bastards and I couldn’t do anything about it.
“Maybe you need to lay off a little.”
I clenched my jaw, resisting the urge to tell him to fuck off.
“She just lost her cousin, brat . She needs time to process.”
“I know that,” I snarled. “I might be slow to process emotions but I’m not stupid. I just—” Cutting myself off, I sighed and pinched the bridge of my nose in frustration. “I just hate knowing she’s alone with them. They make our family look like saints.”
Dom was silent for a while as he drove us to the airport so we could catch our flight back home in time to be with our family tonight.
“Only one week left. You just have to be patient and trust her. She knows what she’s doing.”