Chapter 25
Chapter
Twenty-Five
MALICE
This tightness in my chest wasn’t something I was accustomed to.
I think they call it anxiety, and I have realized quickly that I am not a fan of it in the least. Merri hadn’t shown up for last night’s dreamwalk, at least so far as I could tell.
She certainly hadn’t come to visit me, nor had I heard an update from any of the others.
My internal alarms had been sounding all night, going from a general sense of unease to a full-blown klaxon drowning out all other thoughts. Was this what dysregulation felt like? How did people exist in this state? I’d damn near paced a hole in the rug over the last hour.
“Fuck it,” I grumbled when I made yet another full circuit of my bedroom.
I was driving myself mad, waiting to see if she was going to call me to her. I needed answers.
Chaos’s room was closest to mine, so I stormed down the hall like a man possessed and pounded on the door. I wasn’t even finished knocking before the door swung open and Chaos greeted me with his own anxious frown.
“Did she come to you?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
“No. You?”
“No.”
“Fuck.”
Without another word, the two of us hauled arse to Sin’s room. This time, Chaos hit the door, and it was a frantic Sin on the other side.
“Any word?” he asked.
“No,” Chaos replied.
“She didn’t visit either of us,” I confirmed.
“Do you think she went to Grim?” Sin asked.
We all exchanged glances containing varying degrees of hope.
“Only one way to know for sure,” Sin said.
The three of us went down the hall to visit Death, which was never a good idea. Grimsby didn’t welcome anyone into his space uninvited, no matter how long he’d known them.
But his room was empty.
“Where could he be?” Chaos asked.
“The study?” I guessed. He certainly spent a lot of time there.
“Grimsby!” Sin bellowed, not content to blindly continue our search. “Where the fuck are you hiding?”
No response came from anywhere on the estate. I wasn’t surprised; Grim wouldn’t be summoned for anything less than the end of the world. Which really made his silence concerning, come to think of it.
“Grim!” I shouted, adding my voice to Sin’s as the three of us trotted down the stairs and made our way to his usual haunt.
I didn’t realize how badly I was hoping we’d find him knocked out due to being pulled into a dreamwalk with Merri until the sight of him sipping his stupid overpriced whiskey sent my heart plummeting to my feet.
“Are you fucking joking right now?” I asked, slapping the glass out of his hand mid-sip.
“I beg your pardon.” Grim’s voice was low and threatening as he rose to his full height.
“Didn’t you hear us calling for you?”
“When have I ever resorted to bellowing through a house like some sort of town crier? If you want to speak to me, you can come find me like the civilized being you’re supposed to be.”
“Spare me the fucking lecture on proper decorum. This is serious. Merri didn’t show up for any of us tonight.”
“And?” he asked, one brow lifted. So help me, I was about to throttle him.
“And that means she’s either purposely avoiding us or something is wrong. You are such an unbelievable prick,” Chaos said.
“Unless there’s something you haven’t told us,” Sin added.
“No. Nothing of note.”
“Of fucking course not.”
The three of us stood as a united front, frustrated, angry, and at a loss for what to do now.
Grim had two choices before him: join us and save her, or leave.
I needed him to understand the damage his indifference was doing to not only his relationship with Merri, but his relationship with us.
We were, and always had been, meant to be a team. The horsemen didn’t ride alone.
Grim’s choice to be down here instead of his room suddenly struck me. He never believed he had a chance of being the one Merri came to visit. He’d already removed himself from the equation because he fucked up so badly.
“When we get her back, you will fix this with her,” I said, walking across the room and picking up the glass I’d sent flying. Lucky for me, it was high quality and the carpet was soft. Not even a crack.
I refilled his drink and poured one for myself, then returned it to him.
“She won’t want me to fix anything.”
“She may not, but you’ll try anyway. And you’ll keep trying until you can’t anymore.” Chaos must’ve picked up on the same thing I did because his voice was gentler than I’d ever heard from him.
Grim’s expression didn’t change, but his posture lost some of its rigid tension.
Taking that as my cue, I pressed on. “We have to figure out what’s going on. She could be hurt. We can’t keep waiting for her to come to us with information. We need to get it for ourselves. She’s depending on us.”
Chaos nodded along. “It’s time to go on the offensive.”
“Have you already tried to reach her through your access to the dream realm?” Grim asked Sinclair.
“Me? It’s not my turn.”
“How bloody thick are you?” Grim muttered. “She’s not reachable by anyone in this room other than you. Now’s not the time to wait your fucking turn.”
Sin’s mouth fell open, eyes wide as Grim’s words registered.
“He’s right, Sin. You need to go after her and make sure she’s okay.” Chaos dragged a hand through his hair and sighed. “I hate this. Knowing he has her and could hurt her whenever he wants.”
Sin flopped into the closest chair, immediately leaning his head back and closing his eyes. The rest of us just sort of stared at him, waiting for something to happen.
He peeled one eye open. “Can you all do something else? It’s super hard to concentrate when I can feel you all looking at me. I know I’m the most gorgeous man in the room, but this is a personal moment.”
“No,” I said. “Get on with it.”
He sighed and settled in, wiggling his shoulders and fidgeting until he seemed fully comfortable.
The three of us watched on, and if Grim and Chaos felt anywhere near the tension I did, they were buzzing with anticipation.
Sin’s brows drew together, a deep groove forming between them.
It softened for just a moment before it returned, followed by the distinct downturn of his lips.
I already knew what he was going to say before he opened his eyes.
“She’s alive, but I can’t reach her. It’s like she super reinforced her mental barricade or something.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” I asked.
Chaos tilted his head in a considering way. “It could be. I’m more interested in the reason she’d need such strong defenses.”
“You think it's protection against Lucifer?”
This time, Grim answered my question. “We all know he can reach her there, especially now that he’s physically with her.”
“Fuck.”
Chaos took the word right out of my mouth.
“What is our next step? If she has to keep her walls up, we won’t stand a chance at finding her without outside intervention,” Sin asked.
“It’s unlikely Lucifer is ever going to divulge that information, even if she hadn’t put her defenses in place.
It’s like Chaos said, we need to make a move.
No more waiting for her to tell us how to find her.
” I was already filtering through potential allies in my mind, hoping we could find at least one of them.
“Lilith,” Grim murmured, almost like an afterthought.
“What about her?” Sin asked.
“She’s our only link to both Merri and Lucifer. If anyone knows where he could be keeping her, or the best way to go about tracking them down, it will be her.”
“Great, but isn’t she in hiding too?” Chaos asked.
“She is, but I know a surefire way to reach her,” Grim said.
“Well, don’t leave us waiting,” I said.
“It’s time for the four horsemen to pay a visit to The Den of Iniquity.”