Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Izzy
We teleport into the living room. The guys are playing video games on a giant TV, and when Wilder sees the burgers, he leaps up, almost falling off the back of the couch.
To my shock, he picks me up and spins me around until I’m laughing, then sets me down and kisses me a bunch before snagging the bags and running for the dining room.
“Hey, I brought enough for everyone!” I call after him, laughing.
Everyone’s grinning until Aiden spots Reid and the small cut on his bruised cheek. “What the hell happened to you?”
He shrugs. “Got attacked by one of those idiot gods.”
“Did you give it to him right back?” Aiden asks, his expression darkening.
“You bet.”
Aiden nods, then shoves his brother’s shoulder a little when he’s walking past.
“All this emotion is beautiful,” I say, shaking my head.
“Shut up,” Aiden mutters, but he’s smiling.
“I mean, how can I when you basically just said you loved each other and embraced?”
Reid laughs this time, then follows his brother into the dining room.
Van is the last to go after the food. He’s watching me, those blue eyes of his intense. “You okay?”
My smile falters. I’m not. Not really. But being around these guys helps. “Yeah, but I have some stuff to talk to you guys about when we’re done.”
He looks like he’s going to move past me, but then stops and plants a soft kiss onto my lips. “Everything’s okay. We’re here.”
I reach up and brush my fingers through that flawless blond hair of his. “I know.”
A slight movement catches my eye, and I realize Oliver is watching us from the shadows of the hallway. He has the strangest look on his face, like he’s watching a miracle unfold, but when our eyes meet, his expression goes blank.
I move away from Van, and he turns to watch me hurry to Oliver.
The guy is leaning against the wall. He’s battered and bruised, with cuts that have turned to scabs all over his body, but his limbs are no longer twisted around him like they’ve been shattered into a thousand pieces.
He does look pale though, and like he’s in pain.
“Are you alright?”
He closes his eyes for a second, and I see his jaw move. “You guys killed me. Again.”
“I’m so sorry,” I rush out. “We would never just… We hadn’t meant to…”
His eyes open again, and I can’t tell what he’s thinking.
“I brought food.”
He looks surprised. “For me?”
I laugh. “What kind of jackass would bring food for everyone but one person?”
“The kind that keeps killing me?” he asks, lifting a brow.
Van is suddenly at his side. “You better watch it, buddy.”
Oliver looks over my big man, then relents. “I didn’t mean it. I’m just hurting.”
“Can you help him to the kitchen?” I ask.
Van gives that only for you look, and takes him gently under one shoulder, then helps him limp along to the dining room.
He sets him carefully into a chair, and Wilder looks up from where he’s handing out food and passes it on to Oliver.
My heart glows a little. My guys might be protective of me, but they are good down to their cores.
I sit down beside Oliver and take the burger I’m handed. “So, Oliver, what do you like to do?”
“Do?” he asks, while unwrapping his food.
“Yeah, for fun?”
His movements slow. “We didn’t really do anything for fun.
I mean, before Viggo took me, I was little.
I watched cartoons with my parents on Saturday morning.
I raced my bike around the neighborhood.
I’d eat sugary cereal for breakfast.” He sounds happier and happier with each word, and then his face falls.
“But now…we practice. We train. And if we fail in any way, we’re punished. ”
“Punished?” My stomach twists.
“I’m lucky,” he says, his laugh painful. “For me, nothing leaves scars.”
I feel sick. “Sometimes it’s better when people can see scars, because it’s easier for them to understand. It’s easier than the scars just being inside of you.”
He looks at me with wide eyes. “Yeah. Exactly. I told Thea that once and…”
My heart aches when he finishes unwrapping his burger and starts to eat. He looks like he’s been through hell, not just because of what we did, but because of what they did. Because of everything they took away from him.
“After all this is over, do you want to go back to your parents?”
He stops chewing the bite in his mouth, then visibly swallows. “If I go back with Viggo still alive, he’s promised to kill my parents. The only way to make sure they’re safe is if I never go back.”
“Or we could kill him. And make it permanent,” Aiden says, and there’s complete wrath in his voice.
Oliver looks surprised again. “Come on. You guys don’t care about me or what happens to my parents. You just want to make sure I help you defeat them.”
Van sighs and settles back in his chair.
“Look, buddy. Izzy is a saint. We’re mostly just assholes.
But we’re not heartless. Whether we liked you or not, we wouldn’t let some sadistic, child-kidnapping asshole kill your parents.
If they’ll never be safe with him alive, then he doesn’t need to stay alive. ”
“You can’t defeat him,” he says softly.
“We’re more powerful than some sick guy,” Reid answers, just as quietly.
“But you aren’t as cruel. And sometimes not having a limit to what you’re willing to do makes a person really dangerous.” He resumes eating, and I can tell by the look on his face that he’s done with our conversation.
So I change the topic. “I saw the man who took my sister today. The same guy who took Oliver and is training the bad gods.”
Everyone freezes.
I continue, trying to hide just how upset I am. “I tricked him into telling me he killed my mother.”
“Fuck,” Van mutters. “I’m so sorry.”
“He could be lying,” Wilder says. “That monster is just the kind of person to say something like that just to get to you.”
I shake my head. “He might be good at lying, but he wasn’t lying.”
“He killed her,” Oliver says, staring down at his food. “She gave both of you up to keep you safe, but he tracked her down and tortured her. She never told him where she hid you, but then he started looking through the foster care system and found Thea.”
I start to eat even though my stomach is turning. It’s hard to believe anyone is that evil. It’s hard to hear that it’s like a roll of the dice whether he found Thea or I. She’d just been the unlucky one.
“I’m so sorry, Izzy,” Reid says.
“It’s okay.” I release a slow breath. “I just hope there’s something still good inside of Thea. Inside all of those kids. Maybe this doesn’t need to be a fight between us. Maybe we just need to kill him.”
“I don’t think--” Aiden begins.
Van cuts him off with a look, then says, “Maybe, but we’ll have to see.”
Oliver laughs. “How can you guys be this powerful and this naive? There’s nothing good inside any of them. Viggo beat it out of them. If you don’t go in there ready to kill them, you’re dead.”
“And yet we’re giving you the benefit of the doubt that you have something good inside of you,” Van says, giving him a pointed look.
Oliver flushes. “I just meant…Thea isn’t as bad as Connor and Barret, but she’d slit your throat over the wrong pizza. I mean, her favorite hobby is to drown sailors. Her hobby is literally killing people.”
I set my food down. If that’s true…I think of the look in her eyes when she’d tried to kill me…
if that’s true, and it probably is, I have to push aside the thoughts of everything that could have happened.
I have to accept that no matter how these gods became so terrible, we are still the only people who can deal with them.
“So, my sister is a dangerous murderer who can’t be saved,” I say into the silence. “Okay then.”
I can tell the guys want to say something, but no one does.
Van opens his mouth, but then we hear a musical chiming.
I frown. “What is that?”
“The doorbell,” Reid says, standing.
We follow him to the door, but Oliver remains sitting, eating slowly. When we reach the door, I can feel at least a couple of the guys gathering their power to them. So, they had the same foreboding feeling that I did…that no one good would be ringing our bell.
I take a deep breath, unlock the locks, and throw the door open.
In front of me stands my sister, her face swollen.
Her eyes are blackened, her cheek and mouth bleeding.
She doesn’t wear a shirt, just a white bra.
And when her eyes meet with mine, she collapses in front of us.
On her back, her skin has been torn to shreds by a thousand marks that could only be from a whip, and blood runs down, coating her jeans.
“Fuck,” Van mumbles, and then they launch into action.
Van and Aiden both lift her, careful of her injuries, but she doesn’t make a sound. In that moment, I consider it a blessing that she passed out. They start to carry her into the house, but a voice suddenly stops us all.
“Thea?” Oliver’s voice is filled with shock as he leans on the doorframe. “No, no! Don’t save her. Kill her now, while she’s weak.”
“What?” My jaw drops open.
“Listen to me.” His voice is desperate. “This is a trap. It has to be. We’ve been beaten like that a million times. The only reason she’d come here is to trick you into feeling sorry for her. Don’t fall for it. She’s a snake. She’s dangerous.”
“We’re not going to leave a beaten woman on the doorstep!” Aiden roars.
Oliver shrinks back. “Mark my words, that snake is going to turn around and bite you.”
Wilder moves closer to Oliver, his voice low. “We gave you a second chance. We owe it to Izzy to give Thea a second chance too. Now, we don’t want to hear anything else about it from you.”
Oliver turns and limps back to the table.
The guys carry my sister into a bedroom and lie her on her stomach. I don’t know I’m crying until Wilder is there, wiping the tears away. I look up into his face, and there’s so much sadness there.
“What should we do now?” he asks.
“I don’t know.”