Chapter 28 Azrael #3
“This is it, Azrael,” he told me, straightening. “If this doesn’t end, I’m done with you for good.”
My smile remained. “Little cub, we’re bound by more than just contracts. You will never be rid of me.”
He gave me a disgusted look and headed for the alley, leaving his little mouse behind.
She watched me for a long time, understanding shining in her bright green eyes. “Cracked universes live within us all, yours just runs colder than the rest, more chaotic, less…warmth. It’s difficult for most to get used to, especially when you have history.”
“Dear sweet, little mouse, your poetry means almost nothing to me, but if we’re using the stars to compare souls and scars, perhaps you should look at him. There is a reason your dear little professor holds such a hatred towards me.”
She shook her head. “It’s not hatred, Azrael, it’s fear. You should know that more than anyone.”
I lifted my chin. “I do.”
“Then you should also know that it’s not a fear of you, it’s a fear for you. You’re his little brother; all he’s ever wanted was for you to be happy.”
I chuckled. “My joy comes from bloodshed, he will never accept that.”
Her eyes hardened ever so slightly. “Jack and Everett kill. Olivia, Rae, Zo, and Evie have had their fair share of bloodshed too. It isn’t the killing that affects him, Azrael, it’s the way you go about it. You kill innocent people.”
“Innocent to him,” I replied.
“No, just innocent,” she argued.
“Dear, sweet, innocent little mouse, has he never told you of the first person he saw me kill?”
“Yes,” she breathed out. “You were 8 years old. He had been chosen by Malachi to go through the program, and he passed. You killed him not long after. He said that you told him that Malachi chose wrong.”
“And he cried wolf,” I hummed. “He doubted my intentions before anything else. He said I killed many Initiates over those years, he was angry about it, but a child has an imagination that can out-create even the most talented of writers.”
“What are you trying to say?” she demanded.
“They had intentions of their own after graduation. The early years of the program were filled with mistakes,” I explained coolly.
“Dearest father was only one man trying to run the world, things were bound to slip through the cracks. He chose men who wanted to take that power and hurt others. Not the ones we wanted them to hurt, but use it to fuck, to steal, to perhaps challenge father dearest himself. I always have my reasons, little mouse, I just don’t always voice them. ”
Her eyes searched mine, trying to find the lie in my truth, but she never would. I shouldn’t have to explain myself to any of them, yet here I was, angry and irritated, wanting nothing more than to return to my abode and wash away this encounter.
After a moment, she finally gave me a nod and headed after her cub.
The daffodil watched after her, Jacky boy staring at me.
My eyes shifted to his. “Yes?”
He shook his head, that anger still simmering. “Not all of those people you killed were guilty.”
I shrugged. “Enough of them were.”
The daffodil turned back to me, her own expression still just as hard. “When I first met you, you were the only one that I feared. I was angry and resentful, but I knew in my gut that I didn’t like you.”
“And you sucked your prince’s cock in front of me anyway,” I sang.
She didn’t even flinch. “I know you know what Charles did to me, and I know that there is some sort of jagged, untouchable scrap of a venomous heart in that chest of yours. You care, that’s why you’re doing this, but don’t mistake my submission to Olivia’s request for submission to you.”
“I wouldn’t dare.”
Her lip curled, but she only straightened. “Are you going to save anyone? The girl you’re using, the children. Will you at least try and protect them?”
I searched her eyes. Perhaps giving her something would ease her advances and give me enough time to keep at this. “Before I enable the tracker on your bikes—”
Jacky boy growled under his breath.
“—you might want to take a stroll down Sunshine Avenue. You’ll find a house there filled to the brim with boys and girls of all ages.”
Her eyes widened, a breath escaping her sparkling red lips. “You saved them.”
She sounded so shocked. “Deary, I’ve been saving people for years, but don’t bow down to your new god yet, even the snake knows when to wait and when to strike.”
The keeper of her collar looked me over in question before turning to the hound and giving her a nod. “Go, we take only the bikes, we’ll rent a van on the way.”
“Don’t forget to tell them who you’re with,” I called after her. “I told them the ace’s only friend was the joker.”
“Thank you, Azrael,” the daffodil said reluctantly, giving me a nod.
“Don’t worry, you’re still my second favorite.”
She gave me a less than amused look before she turned and jogged after the hound.
Jacky boy watched after her for a moment before turning back to me. “Trust is hard to give to someone who has never been truthful with us.”
“Have I never been truthful or have you just not liked what I’ve had to say?” I asked evenly.
He shook his head. “Maybe if you’d just be straight with us, it would be easier to hear you.”
“It’s not about hearing, Jacky boy, it’s about listening to what’s not being said. I have never lied to you. I have never completely omitted the truth either. Sometimes, you must put aside your distrust for things you don’t understand and do what you were trained to do. Your loyalties have faults.”
“My loyalty is just fine. Thank you for saving those kids. Do you know how many there are?”
I managed to save one a trip in the last two years. “I lost count,” I told him. “Do be careful, some may be as fragile as me.”
He huffed and shook his head. “You are anything but fragile.” With that, he headed after his Claim.
Red and I turned to the remaining people. The fox, the mountains, the wolf, and the wild rose.
“How does it feel talking so much?” the mountains asked, angling his chin.
“Painful,” I replied, glancing towards the mouth of the alley and back.
“So, the church is here then,” he went on. “In Seattle.”
I studied him carefully before turning to the wild rose. “How are your studies?”
Her fingers brushed over the fur of her dog, the creature’s ears on a swivel. “I’ve considered going through the program but figured I may as well wait until next year. I can be the test subject of the one you and Ev are putting together.”
I looked her over quickly. “You’d be the first and only to survive.”
“No, I took out a few of your suggestions,” he cut in. “The Initiates don’t need that kind of rigorous testing, if they go on to study to be one of us, then yes, they’ll need it, but for now, we are focusing on regular Initiates.”
“I do hope you change the names,” I muttered, pulling out my watch to check the time.
“Are you going to protect the girl?” the rose asked.
I snapped the watch shut. “Don’t you worry your darling little bud, wild rose, we’re made of the same sharp edges, I aim only to uncover them.”
Her eyes hardened. “Are you going to kill her along with the rest of them?” she asked blatantly.
I glanced from one eye to the other before turning my attention to the end of the alley. “Some goals are not often achieved. How is your writing going?”
“Abigail Ross has published another book, but I’m sure you know that.”
I smiled. “Basing fiction off truth is a dangerous game. You shouldn’t record assignments like that.”
“Hiding in plain sight is how the best of us get away,” she reminded me. “Just like you, hiding in plain sight. All these years, and you’ve always been here.”
“A hit to Red’s fragile ego, no?”
Red huffed, folding her arms over her chest. “You can’t damage my ego anymore, Az, if anything, finding you last week was a boost.”
I clicked my tongue. “It’d be best if you didn’t brag about such things. Before you three try and ask any more questions, don’t waste your precious time. I won’t tell you where, when, or how. I won’t give you names or addresses. I won’t even give you a hair color.”
“Why are you keeping this one such a secret?” the mountains asked. “If it stretches so far and wide, why did you keep even Pops from knowing?”
Since the daffodil’s call last week, I have been in a different state of mind. The kind that didn’t allow me to slow for even a moment, and tonight, I have finally started feeling the effects of it. It was hard to play the game when the cards were on fire.
My eyes shifted to the wild rose, ignoring the mountains all together.
“She’s in Wonderland,” I told her, watching her dark brows pull together.
I may be cunning and quick, but I am smart enough to know that there are things I don’t know, and within this state I live, even I have forgotten what it was like to be in that room from time to time, but the rose?
It was more recent for her. If I’m to utilize the little sinner fully, then I need to know how to access all of her.
After a moment, she straightened, her fingers threading into her pup’s fur, her knuckles turning white while the quiet, psychotic rage drifted across her face, blowing her pupils and shifting her features into something almost unrecognizable.
The woman they had turned her into. The woman who bled and bled and screamed, who gave up the earpiece to save her lover from the cracks she had experienced.
Her throat bobbed once, moving that pretty pink and black collar gently around her neck. “How long?”
“Her entire life.”
Her shoulders fell an inch and tightened at the same time, but it was the mountains who spoke. “Azrael, after that long, her mind is lost. How can you trust that her information is worth anything?”
“Not every shattered mind is gone, dear boy. Your wild rose is proof that some minds need to be shattered in order to find themselves. How is it, by the way?” I asked, angling my chin. “Fucking me.”
His eyes dried.
“It’s great,” the fox put in. “I mean, I fucked her before she went all ‘psycho agent’ but it was still the best sex I’ve ever had.”
The mountain’s jaw feathered.
The rose rolled her eyes. “I know that taking down this thing is the most important thing on your mind right now, but I also know that some part of you likes protecting people.”
“Our minds may have broken the same, rose, but don’t mistake your parasitic empathy for something I too possess,” I sang.
She shook her head, a slight smile drifting across her lips. “Never. I’m only going off of what I just learned. You saved as many of those kids as you could, however you managed to do it, but before you make your choice on whether or not to save her, ask her if saving is what she actually wants.”
My brows lifted in slight surprise. “Why, dear rose, are you suggesting I kill the captive?”
Her expression hardened. “I’m suggesting you ask her,” she repeated. “In whatever way she can understand. Maybe Wonderland isn’t where she wants to stay.”
I studied her carefully. Being out and about when the episodes wore off wasn’t generally how I did things.
I usually stayed locked away in my cave, meditating on my own mind to try and right myself for a few days before returning to the world.
I wasn’t my best Me in this state, and I was worried it was starting to show.
“Perhaps she just needs to be shown a better one, but I make no promises about the lives I will or will not save. Don’t you worry your pretty little head, if she wants to die, I have no problem filling the rivers with her blood too. Until next time, deary.”
I turned away from them, walking the opposite way they had all come. I was done with conversations, done with questions, done with looks and feelings. I said what I had to say, if they chose to go against it, then we were in for a war we were not yet prepared to fight.
All I could do was trust that this family actually cared enough about the innocents to let me work.