Chapter 27
27
Sonny
R aze has a bright red minivan parked outside. I’d laugh if we weren’t in such a dire position. And if Ava wasn’t shooting eye daggers my way.
As we each file out of the cabin, he presses a button and the trunk opens.
“He’s going to kill us,” Jonah mumbles.
“You need to stop saying that,” Raze tells him as he rounds the front of the van and opens the driver’s door. “I wouldn’t be so obvious if I were going to kill you.”
“But we don’t get to sit in a seat like real people?” Beatrix whines.
“Not unless you want to risk being seen. I’m not often spotted driving through town with four students.”
We each share a look. He has a point. With that, Raze gets into the car and waits for each of us to climb in. Ava makes sure to get in last and sits the farthest away from me.
“Lay down and use the cloaks to cover yourself,” he instructs over his shoulder before gently taking off.
“You have no reason to be mad at me,” I whisper to Ava across Beatrix and Jonah.
“Of course, I do,” she hisses back. “Once again, you’re found to be lying to us.”
“It wasn’t a lie,” I whisper-shout. “He first did it in the dungeons back at Ravenshurst, and I had no idea if it was him or me.”
“Don’t you think that’s valuable information to share?” she bites back. “Dr. Whitlock is supposed to be a Null .”
“I know that,” I say back, this time not even bothering to whisper. I peek out to see that Raze has started driving through a narrow trail in the woods, the sounds of the van hitting branches and bumps drowning us out.
“So it would have been nice to know that the man who could kill us all in one swift movement also possesses some sort of gift.”
“Probably Valerian,” Beatrix offers.
“We can’t talk about this here,” I reprimand, tilting my head toward Raze, who could also have freakish hearing or something on top of mind reading gifts.
“I may not have control of a lot of the stuff happening to me right now, but I can control whether I place any more trust in a liar ,” Ava spits.
“I didn’t lie,” I insist. “I just didn’t know how to explain it. I’m adjusting to all of this, too.”
“That’s still a lie by omission,” Beatrix mumbles.
“And how about the fact that you shouldn’t be able to do any of the things you’ve been doing?” Ava continues, ignoring Bea’s commentary. “There’s clearly something we’re missing here, and keeping secrets isn’t going to help us figure it out.”
I roll my eyes in the dark. This is such a ridiculous conversation to be having under a pile of coats in the back of a minivan. “I guess it’s a bad time to admit I’ve been seeing ghosts too...” I scoff sarcastically without thinking.
“Sonny,” Ava and Beatrix hiss my name in unison while Jonah clicks his tongue and throws his hands up dramatically, tenting the fabric.
“Let’s table this argument for later,” I suggest.
Their silence must mean they all agree, and none of us speaks for the next ten minutes. Raze takes a sudden sharp left and we all roll into each other.
“ You got me in trouble. ” I throw the thought toward him, initiating the conversation for the first time. I have no idea if it will work, but I still send a mental middle finger his way, just in case.
His low chuckle fills my mind. “ You didn’t tell me you were being visited by spirits, ” he retorts.
“Oh, yeah. Bane says hi . ” I wince, immediately regretting the words as soon as I think of them.
Bane’s message was supposed to be delivered with a lot more grace and instead, I’ve weaponized it.
This is why I keep my thoughts to myself.
Raze goes silent, both physically and mentally. He slows to a stop and I lift my head to look out the window just as we’re backing into the last driveway on the left. Ava, Beatrix, and Jonah sit up with me, and we watch as the garage door fills our view from the rear window, red brake lights glowing against the white metal door. The hot exhaust fills the crisp, winter air in foggy plumes, nearly blocking our view entirely.
My stomach tightens in dread as he shifts into park, and everything around us goes dark again as he lets off the brake pedal.
I can feel the nervous anticipation wafting off the others in strong waves. Their fear is something I’ve grown accustomed to sensing, but this uncertainty dancing alongside it is almost worse.
Raze has kept his word so far, feeding and clothing us as he sorts out whatever supposedly needed attention before we could meet with this so-called rebellion. Our conversations feel more open and genuine than they ever have. But full trust is impossible when he’s fooled me once before. The possibility that we could be walking into a house full of Midnight Syndicate members ready to slit our throats still looms overhead.
The worst part is that we have no choice. There’s nowhere else for us to go.
We wait for Raze to climb out of the driver’s seat before allowing ourselves to take in our location. It appears to be a regular, suburban neighborhood. No rebel flags or barbed wire.
The back hatch opens, cool air immediately blasting our faces. None of us move, though.
“Put your hoods up,” he commands after a weighted moment, realizing none of us really knows what to do.
We obey without a fight, each of us sharing one final look before we cover our faces. I scoot out first, and then Ava follows. Beatrix and Jonah get out together, their hands interlocked. We follow Raze’s dark figure on the cement path wrapping around the side of the garage, rounding the corner where a door sits closed on the side.
Raze avoids making eye contact with me, which only makes me feel worse. I’ve managed to ostracize myself from all four of them in the span of ten minutes. He waits until we’re gathered in a semicircle around him to knock. When he does, it’s to a melodic beat that’s clearly been rehearsed.
We only have to wait a few seconds before the door swings open.
“Raze,” a short, older woman cries in greeting. She wraps her arms around his waist and pulls him close.
“I’m fine,” he mumbles, running his palms along the woman’s curly hair.
The rest of us cautiously hang back, still not convinced we’ll receive the same welcome. The thought of being trapped back in those dungeons is enough to have me widening my stance, readying myself for a fight I’d likely never win. Until a man appears around the corner, brows lifted as he approaches me.
“You look just like your father,” the man muses. I can only stare back, unsure how to respond to that. Is it a good thing? When no one else says anything, he waves us in, his mouth blooming into a full smile. “Come on in. Get out of the cold.”
Once again, I step in first and the others follow. We keep our hoods up and huddle together in the center of the empty garage as the woman closes the door and latches three separate locks, then wedges a chair beneath the knob. When she’s finished with securing our only exit out of here—a thought that sends my anxiety soaring—she steps up to Raze and cups her palm against his cheek. He bends forward, planting a kiss on her crown as she mumbles something inaudible, and then he straightens back up.
So, those two are oddly friendly.
The man drags his feet toward another door and talks over his shoulder. “We’ve got coffee, water, and hot cocoa. Quinn whipped up a stew in case you’re hungry.”
Raze hums his approval, tucking his chin to his chest. The man opens the door and walks inside, and we’re hit with a blast of warm air and a delicious, savory smell. Unlike the dark garage, the home is lit up with soft, glowing lights.
Ava, Beatrix, and Jonah are silent behind me as we follow the others through a mudroom and into the kitchen. My muscles are coiled up, ready to strike at any given moment if something appears the slightest bit off.
But it all looks . . . normal.
Not some dark slaughterhouse. Not a torture chamber.
Just a sweet family home. The walls are littered with framed photos spanning years and shelves of books in all different genres.
Raze ushers us forward, his expression tight. When I look over my shoulder at him, he raises his brow, but doesn’t open the line to communicate his thoughts. Instead, he steps around us to open the cupboard closest to the sink and pulls down a stack of bowls. I trace his steps as he carries them to the stove, where there’s a lidded pot with a ladle sticking out of it.
I wish more than anything that we could have a minute alone so I can make things right again.
Quinn breaks off in the opposite direction, taking her seat on the far side of a long family table.
“I haven’t introduced myself,” the man points out, pulling our attention back toward the kitchen. “My name is Theo Willowmane.”
“Nice to meet you, Theo,” Ava finally says, her sweet voice the opposite of the speculation I recognize buzzing around her. “Willowmane...That’s a Viridian name.”
Theo places his hand across his chest, his smile faltering. “That it is.”
“Are you a Null?” Beatrix bluntly asks.
Jonah shoves his arm into her side, his eyes begging her to look his way, but she ignores him.
“Yes, I am. First generation.” He holds his finger up proudly, his tone teasing.
“You’ll find that many of the people on our side are Nulls,” Quinn interjects. “Those who aren’t are twice as protective of us.” She tilts her chin down and purses her lips disapprovingly, her brows raising as she openly assesses me.
I frown, but refuse to break eye contact.
What could this sweet-looking woman possibly have against me to cause this much malice in her stare?
“They’re well aware how hard we’ve worked to get to where we are,” Raze jumps in.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was defending us.
Quinn finally turns away, stubbornly plunging her nose into the air. “I’m sure.”
Somehow, even though I won the stare-off, I still feel like I’ve somehow come out on the losing side.
Theo steps around us with two steaming bowls in his hands, offering the first to Quinn. She shakes her head, and he sets both down before the empty seats next to her, then moves back to the kitchen for more.
“I have a meeting to get to,” Raze announces as he makes his way back toward the door we came in. Fixing his dark gaze on me, he lowers his chin. “Get something in your stomachs.”
He doesn’t wait for my snarky rebuttal before he turns away. Something has him stopping in his tracks to add, “Go easy on them, Mom.”
Mom ?
Quinn is his mother .
And by that logic . . . this must be his childhood home.
I blink, then twist around, really focusing on the family photos hanging on the dining room walls.
The same two young faces I saw in my vision in the woods stare back at me in formal clothing. Their hands are clasped before them while a younger Quinn and who I assume is Raze’s father stand behind them proudly. Another photo sits beside it of the boys standing in the ocean, the water up to their waists.
Banes’s innocent face stares back at me, his eyes holding that same faraway look he had when we spoke in the cabin.
“Sit down and eat. We’ve got a lot to discuss,” Quinn commands with the same dominance as her son.