Chapter 8
Turns out the two serial murderers I’ve been ordered to take care of have been killing women for the past decade. A decade. A quick math tells us the creepiest little statistic: Four girls a year. Forty girls total. And the girls were kept alive long enough to watch the next one come in.
I’m not the Almighty Judge, but in my humble understanding of right and wrong, it sure seems like they deserve to be hunted down.
And if that’s not enough to tip a person over the edge, we find out some other gruesome facts.
The couple doesn’t kill quickly. Suffering is basically the whole point. They drug the girls first, then break them down. The Grims said there’s always a spot for two girls to be tied up in the back of the van. Supposedly there’s even a drain in the floor.
The worst part?
They have a custom mix that paralyzes without knocking the girls out, so the body can’t fight while the mind stays awake enough to understand.
Yup.
Certified scum.
Mark screams again from the basement, and for once the sound doesn’t hook into me the way it usually does. It just… slides off.
He’s small fish compared to these fuckers.
“I still hate Rhea,” I say. The girls are long gone, so there’s nobody left to threaten to kill me just for saying it. “But I’m not as mad that we’re going to do this as I was before.”
I turn around and look at my boys. Talon’s a bit more normal by now, but he’s still in a serious mood. Nathaniel’s been scribbling on his notepad for the past thirty minutes, writing down every scenario we might need to prepare for. Cassian is fully in executioner mode.
His jaw ticks left to right as he stares at the map in front of him.
“Yeah,” Cassian mutters. “Seems like a job just for us.”
If not for the hollowness in my chest, I’d smile.
“Does that mean you don’t want to burn the world anymore?”
He glances up from the map.
“I don’t like it when someone threatens you,” he says, as if that answers my question.
Well, in some way, I suppose it does. It leaves room for interpretation, at least. So I take the version that feels most like peace and nod once.
“Copy that, Mister Touch-Her-and-Die,“ I say.
It doesn’t even make him smirk. Or anyone, for that matter. All I see is one serious face after another.
Someone needs to do something about that.
“Alright.” I walk into the center of the room and slap my thighs. “Seems like we need to go on a hunt no matter what. The situation with the wraiths is unresolved, but apparently we have a lead, because Rhea knows about them.”
“Too bad Rhea’s not here to explain this shitfest,” Talon mutters. “I can’t fucking believe she’d go that far. Hurt you like that, Skye. She’s changed. Like… fucking transformed.”
“I can imagine,” I say, even though the image refuses to settle in my mind. “But that’s not the point, is it? The point is we need to talk to her again. And maybe she’ll be gracious enough to help us save the world.”
Talon scoffs. Nathaniel just cocks a brow from beneath his lashes, and Cassian sneers.
Yeah. Not a very positive outlook on life between the four of us.
No matter.
I can carry this.
“Guys, yesterday was the best day of my life,” I say. “I refuse to end this roller coaster in a crash, okay?”
“Whatever you say, Skye,” Nathaniel says.
Oh, goddamn it.
“How about we go down to the basement and each try to kill Mark for fun?” I blurt. That gets their attention. All three pairs of eyes lock on me, sharp and focused. “Death said he’s basically… immortal. Wouldn’t it be fun? To torment the fucker a little? He has to come with us for the hunt anyway.”
“Come with us?” Talon echoes. “How come?”
I cross my arms over my chest. Cassian’s expression shifts. I’d say he looks excited by the idea, but that’s too strong a word.
“Do you have a better plan?” I ask. “Leave him here without food or water while we’re gone for who knows how long?”
“I mean, if the dude can’t die…” Talon trails off.
That shuts me up for a moment. I mean… yeah. Maybe he’ll basically turn into a mummy—desiccate from the inside, then pop back to life once he gets a hamburger.
“If someone breaks into the hospital while we’re gone, he could be discovered,” Nathaniel murmurs.
“I don’t know about you, but that’s a chance I’m willing to take,” Talon replies.
Nathaniel just stares at him.
“I don’t take chances.”
And… that basically settles it.
“Mark’s coming with us, then,” I say. Then I look at each of them again. “So what do you say? Want to test the extent of his immortality?”
A little voice of reason tells me I shouldn’t be suggesting it. Death told me to be a good little pawn and merge myself back with Pain instead of insisting on revenge, but so what? Death isn’t here, can’t help me. He only throws problems at me like I’m a genie in a bottle.
Besides, my boys look at me like I’ve just suggested we go bowling. So that’s a win.
Cassian is the first to move. He straightens slowly, rolling his shoulders back, the map forgotten for the moment.
“Who knows?” he muses. “This might be for the best.”
“His immortality?” I cock a brow.
“I want to know how much he can take,” he says.
Figures.
Nathaniel closes his notebook with a snap.
“We don’t have much time,” he says. “We’ll need to leave soon.”
“All the more reason to indulge a little,” I purr at him.
He’s hit with the same memory I am. Oh—me, him, and the needle. Never would’ve guessed a sentence like that could make my cunt clench on a regular basis, but here we are.
Talon drags a hand over his face, pacing once, then twice. “I’m not against it,” he says slowly. “I just want it on record that this is a dumbass idea. A fun dumbass idea. But still dumb.”
And that… surprises me.
“Okay,” I say carefully. “What happened to starving him for days?”
Talon looks off to the side and shrugs. “That’s not us doing the torture, you know? You lock the fucker up, he doesn’t eat, and nature does its thing.”
“It’s still premeditated,” I counter.
“Yeah, yeah.” He works his jaw. “It just… feels different when it’s you signing off on it.”
Okay…?
That’s how I know something is really wrong with him. And I don’t mean he’s rattled by what we need to do, or stressed because our world just got flipped upside down.
I mean deeper than that.
I don’t feel it through the bond anymore—probably because his emotions aren’t as intense now, they’re buried—but that doesn’t change the fact that something’s in there. Emotions like guilt or loneliness are quiet and slow. They eat you from the inside, and most people never notice.
I exhale through my nose.
“How about you two go down to Mark?” I tilt my chin at Cassian and Nathaniel.
“What about you?” Cassian asks.
“I’ll… join you in a minute,” I say, casual like it’s nothing.
But Cassian’s gaze flicks to Talon anyway. Then to me. Then back again.
He gets it.
“Sure,” Nathaniel says before Cassian can comment. “Let’s go, man.”
Cassian huffs like this is a huge inconvenience, but he just stands, rolling his shoulders again.
“Fine,” he mutters. “But don’t take long. We shouldn’t split up for long.”
Nathaniel falls into step beside him, and in a couple of breaths, they’re gone. The door shuts behind them, and it gets really quiet in here.
“Real subtle, Skye,” he says at last. Skye. Not Little Grim. “Might as well have told them, ‘Go take a lap, I’m about to crack Talon open.’”
“I just think you could use some heart-to-heart,” I say, already moving closer. We’re not exactly fluent in emotion, either of us, but we already talked some heavy shit once. We can do it again. “They get it.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Even Cassian didn’t object.
“What can I say? He listens to me a lot better now.”
His mouth twitches. Not a smile. More like the ghost of one.
“Can’t argue that.” He tilts his head. “We all listen to you. You’re like… the middle of this whole thing.”
“The shitshow?” I joke.
“Nah.” His eyes lift to mine. “Life. Like you’ve got gravity, and we’re all stuck in your pull.”
And, um… I think my heart skips a beat at that. He already confessed his feelings for me once, but that was before his ex crawled back from the dead. Still, it gives me enough courage to be the calm one—to nudge us toward actually resolving our feelings.
You know. Communication. Honesty. Acceptance. All that terrifying stuff. And without meaning to, he just handed me the spine to try.
I lift my chin. “Sit down on the floor.”
Talon blinks. “You for real?”
“Yeah. Come sit down on the floor with me,” I repeat, already dropping down.
The tile is freezing and hard, but I remember these exercises from the early days at school, where you were supposed to name the thing out loud before it ate you from the inside.
They called it the Truth Stack, or something.
I don’t know who invented it, probably some sadist with a clipboard, but it worked.
Talon blows out a breath like he wants to argue, then drops down anyway, back against the sofa, legs stretched out, hands clasped so tight his knuckles go pale.
“Look at me,” he mutters. “Taking orders and everything.” His eyes cut to the tile. “So what’s this for?”
“We’re gonna play this truth game,” I say.
It’s the first time he laughs. It’s kind of a mean laugh, but it’s a laugh, so I’ll take it.
“A truth game?”
“You heard me.” I nod. “Just a little game I played at school.”
“Alright, Miss Teacher.” He snorts. “What’re the rules?”
“Rule one: we don’t share to fix anything. We just tell the truth.”
“Okay.” He nods.
“Rule two: two minutes per stack. You talk, I shut up. Then I mirror what I heard. Then we switch. You can be ugly. You can’t be vague, though.”
He stares. “What do you mean, ‘can’t be vague’?”
“It means you don’t get to say ‘I’m fine’ or ‘it’s complicated’ and think you did something. You’re supposed to get to the root of it.”
Talon lets out a humorless huff. His mouth twists. “Sounds like some rich-people therapy shit.” He tilts his head. “They really teach stuff like that in those uppity schools?”