Chapter 9 ALEX
ALEX
I leaned against the breakroom counter, picking at one of the pastries someone had brought in—a flaky, sugary thing that looked better than it tasted.
I took a bite, the dough turning to ash in my mouth, and spat it into a napkin before grabbing my coffee mug and taking a swig.
The bitter burn washed away the disappointment, but it didn’t get rid of the brewing curiosity regarding that meeting happening in my office.
In the span of several weeks, Killian’s place here at The Revival went from unseen to front page news.
At first, I thought it would lead into exclusives revolving around some of the top ten bachelors but the longer I watched Killian Matthews, the more I realized that the story was him.
That he was going to give me that next big break.
Jamie swaggered in, his suit just on the side of too tight, bulging around his belly like it always did.
It didn’t usually bother me, what with the stories he brought in, but today it did.
Everything bothered me. Mostly because I wanted to be in that room, watching Killian’s facial expressions as that officer interrogated him.
“I don’t know why you still employ Killian,” Jamie pushed out, grabbing a donut from the tray. “He’s a liability at this point. Made sense when we thought we’d get a story, but now?”
We all remembered the shock of finding out he knew all three bachelors during those interviews, that he had dated them.
I went a step further and found out that he had reconnected with them but no amount of bribes to either those men or Killian had gotten me a solid story.
Phoenix had offered at one point but we had thoroughly pissed him off.
The only story we’d get now was from Killian, himself.
I set my mug down and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. “You don’t understand anything then. Sure, he’s never given us an actual story, but there’s so many interesting things about him. So many things that happen to him or around him. He is the story, not everything else.”
Jamie snorted and bit into his donut, crumbs falling onto his shirt. “You’re chasing a ghost, Alex. He’s a mess, not a headline.”
Before I could argue, Stacey—one of the copy editors and unofficial interview photographers—popped her head into the breakroom. “I caught him having an entire conversation with himself this morning. It was fascinating but also a little terrifying. The look in his eyes was so dark.”
A smirk spread across my lips as I leaned back a little further. “I was wondering if we’d ever see it.” Jamie paused mid-bite, his brows furrowing. “What? You guys don’t know?”
Sarah frowned, stepping fully into the room, her arms crossed. “Know what?”
I pushed off the counter and swiped a donut, hoping it would be better than the pastry. It was not. “It’s not hard if you do a little research. His mother had HMD, which is supposedly hereditary. Nyla mentioned a few things before she was murdered.”
Stacey's eyes widened further. “HMD? I read about it as an undergrad—thought I wanted to be a psychologist for a minute. That fell through but I thought that shit was fake.”
"It's very much real, Stacey. Nyla told me she saw him talking to himself before, muttering names like Finn and Daemon. She was definitely scared of him toward the end. I thought it was just stress, but after she died, I started digging. Killian’s not just a quirky journalist. He’s a walking mystery. ”
Jamie shook his head, tossing his half-eaten donut back onto the tray. Gross. “You’re obsessed, man. He’s not worth the paper we print on.”
Stacey hummed as she moved toward the sink and swiped the coffee pot to pour herself a mug.
She stared at the steam rising from the decorative pink ‘wake up or else’ porcelain before taking a long sip.
“Jamie, I don’t know. The muttering I saw this morning wasn’t just..
. incoherent. He was arguing, like he was fighting with someone who wasn’t there.
His eyes—they weren’t just dark. They were…
empty, like he wasn’t even him. Everyone’s also noticed that his eyes are both gray now, right? ”
I hadn’t explicitly noticed that but it made sense because those two different colored eyes freaked me the fuck out. Somehow, though, this version of Killian put me on edge. “And that’s what I’m talking about. There’s something there and if I can just—”
Jamie cut me off. “Do what you have to, Alex, but count me out. I might be a little unethical in how I grab my stories but this is a bit much. I’m not going after a fucking kid, especially one that works with us.”
“Funny how you didn’t say all that shit when you thought he might be able to give you a story on Phoenix.
I think it’s time to get a few answers.” I pushed my way past him and headed back to my office, Tyrone stepping out at the same time.
He bowed his head in thanks to me before walking down the hall to the entrance.
I slipped back in and took a seat at my desk, grimacing when I realized I had left my coffee. Not that it mattered.
Because I had a goldmine sitting right in front of me. Mentally checking through the codenames I had given past projects, I decided to name this one Malachite.
My attention fell to Killian, trying to understand the blank look on his face.
Things had changed since he had first stepped in here about fifteen minutes ago.
Blood seeped through his shirt just above his hip, a dark wet patch calling me to address it.
I wouldn’t. I didn’t need to know what that was from but I was curious.
Mentally, I made a note.
He looked conflicted, his face twisted in some internal battle, his hands clenched in his lap.
His eyes truly were both one color now—a terrifying ocean gray that swallowed the light, no hint of that mismatched honey-gold I'd seen before.
He just looked both tired and terrifying, bags under his eyes but a sharpness in his gaze that made my skin prickle.
Something was different about him, like a switch had flipped, and I wondered if the darkness that HMD boasted was finally making an appearance in Killian.
I'd held the kid back for years, wanting to see what would happen, mostly because he was a great employee and never complained.
He showed up, filed his pieces on time—mostly, and kept his head down.
There were a few times he asked for a promotion or eluded to as such but he rarely spoke up like some of the others.
But when I started realizing that some of Killian’s stories about his past didn’t line up, I wanted to know more. I'd dug a little, found his mother's HMD diagnosis buried in an old press conference his father had done, and it clicked.
Killian had all the same signs.
I kept him around not just for the work, but for the potential story, the quirk of having a walking mystery in my newsroom. He was tangled up in something bigger, and I'd loved watching it unfold.
What Tyrone and most people didn’t know was that I had a bug in my office.
I'd planted it only just recently, a tiny device hidden in the desk lamp, feeding audio to my private server after weird shit had started happening over the past several weeks.
I had caught most of the current conversation with the earpiece but I could listen to the rest later.
To think that the police believed those three hottest bachelors in the city might also be the Three Terrors would be a story that would set The Revival up for life.
Unable to hold back, I pulled out a notepad from the drawer and began scribbling across the lines.
"Three Terrors = bachelors? Killian connection? HMD link to crimes?
The potential headlines danced in my head, the kind of expose that sold papers and got me interviews on local news.
A wild grin took over my face as I leaned over the desk. “Killian, tell me what you know because I feel like you know something. Something that would turn this city on its head.”
He looked up, his ocean-gray eyes locking on mine. “I don’t know anything.”
I watched as he tried to play innocent, his face smoothing out, but the look in his eyes betrayed him.
Killian wasn’t scared or shy, not like he used to be, fumbling excuses for late stories or avoiding eye contact.
There was something bold about him now, something that wanted to kill, destroy, and upend the world around him.
I grinned wider, wondering if I was speaking to Killian at all.
Maybe one of the alters Nyla had whispered about before she died.
“I used to think you might know something because of who your father is, but I’m beginning to think you know something because of the company you keep.
They’re the Three Terrors, aren’t they? That’s why you didn’t want to do a feature on them or yourself.
You’ve seen stuff, haven’t you? Have they threatened you? ”
Killian stood up abruptly, his chair scraping the floor.
“Your sick need to make everything a story is why you’re still so pitifully alone.
I’ve been through hell and back, lost my mother to a debilitating sickness, and am now trying to just survive under a boss who won’t fucking promote me.
But you, you need a story, and I’m sorry to say, I don’t have one for you. ”
He was lying, though. There was a story somewhere there—for the same reason why Phoenix had offered to give us a story if we’d leave Killian alone.
The boldness of his tone sent a shiver down my spine because I wasn’t talking to Killian, was I? “You’re not Killian, are you? You’re one of the ones that Nyla kept telling me about, or trying to.”
He hesitated and threw me a deviant grin, his eyes darkening until they were the same color as a torrential storm. “I’d really keep that to yourself. Exploiting an employee’s sickness isn’t a story, but if that is the route you choose, just know that I have a path of my own to walk down.”
Killian left the office, the door clicking shut behind him, and I leaned back in my chair, grinning because I’d got that all on tape.