Thirty-Eight
Ara
The harsh reality of life is that it forces you to face the things you’ve buried deep, the things you never want to confront. And now, I’m drowning in them.
I’ve spent years clinging to the lies I told myself, the ones I told Iyra and Ivy, too. They could always see through the cracks, but I stayed firm, refusing to revisit those months, refusing to let the memories resurface. Even now, I’m not sure why I’m unravelling it all. Maybe because Harley forced me to. Maybe it's because I’m too tired to keep it locked away anymore.
It wasn’t just the guilt of killing those innocent women—though that alone could drown me. No, it’s more than that. So much more that I’ve shoved it into neat, impenetrable boxes and buried it deep. Yet, it always finds its way out, twisting my nights into nightmares and poisoning my thoughts when I’m alone.
Talking about it again is like tearing at old wounds, wounds I’d convinced myself had scarred over. But they’re raw and bleeding now, the pain more vivid than I expected. I’m forced to confront the truth: those months showed me exactly how weak I was. How pathetic. A pushover, a naive fool who couldn’t even save the one person who had kept her sane.
My hands tremble in my lap as I finish speaking, my voice a ghost of its former strength. The pain on my skin is not compared to anything that’s burning in my heart. Harley hasn’t moved since I began—she stands rigid, her sharp eyes burning into me. There’s a cold fury there, the kind that simmers and waits for its moment to explode. I can’t hold her gaze for long.
When I glance at Vince, his expression is softer, tinged with something I can’t accept: sympathy. I look away, disgusted.
I don’t deserve sympathy. I don’t deserve pity. I killed them. I killed all those women. I killed them to survive, and nothing will ever change that.
The silence stretches, heavy and suffocating. It gives me too much time to think, to feel the old fears clawing their way back to the surface. I focus on my breathing, trying to steady myself, trying to shove everything back into the mental cages I’ve built. But it’s harder now. The walls are crumbling.
Harley finally moves, her hands balled into fists at her sides, her jaw tight. I expect her to lash out, to throw the words I’ve been dreading. But when she speaks, her voice is low and controlled, even as tears burn in her eyes.
“You are a killer,” she says, each word clipped. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”
Vince steps closer to her, his hand brushing her shoulder. She flinches at first but doesn’t pull away. His touch seems to ground her, at least for a moment. When she turns back to me, the hatred is there again, a deep-seated need for vengeance burning brighter than before.
“Do whatever you want with me,” I manage to say, my voice steadier than I feel. “Kill me if you have to, but keep my family out of it.”
Harley’s eyes widen briefly, the surprise flashing before she schools her features. Then she laughs—a dark, unsettling sound that sends a shiver down my spine.
“Kill you?” she echoes, shaking her head. “Oh no, sweetheart. I have grander plans for you.”
The way she says it, with that eerie promise of pain, makes my stomach drop. Vince shifts uncomfortably, but he doesn’t contradict her.
“We need her compliant and willing,” Vince murmurs.
Compliant and willing? I frown at his words, but before I can question him, Harley smirks, the expression sharp and cruel.
“Oh, she’ll be compliant. Once she realises how well Devlin and I have closed off all her paths, she’ll have no other choice.”
My breath catches. Something in my heart threatens to break imagining that he was in with her.
“He knows?”
“Not yet,” Harley admits with a shrug. “But he will. Most of our plan depends on discretion, for now.”
“Our plan?” The words feel foreign on my tongue. “What plan?”
Harley’s smirk widens. “To bury that bastard Vir and his cult so deep that they’ll never crawl out.”
I’m already shaking my head, the memories of Vir and the horrors he wrought slamming into me. “I want nothing to do with any of that nightmare.”
Harley steps aside, revealing the bound men behind her. The bald one stirs, groaning as he tries to lift his head. Neither Harley nor Vince seems bothered by the sight.
“Why me?” I ask, desperation creeping into my voice. “You look capable of handling it yourself.”
Harley chuckles again, the sound cold. “Flattering, but Vir isn’t easy to kill. We need help.”
“There’s no we, Harley. I have a family. I’m not putting them on his radar.”
Her eyes narrow, and the sharpness in her voice cuts through me. “For someone so brilliant, you have your moments of idiocy. You’re already on his radar, sweetheart. You and everyone you love.”
The weight of her words crushes the fragile hope I’d been clinging to. I thought I’d escaped him. I thought he believed the fire had killed me.
“I thought he believed I was dead,” I whisper, my voice hollow.
Harley’s expression shifts, a spark of amusement in her eyes. “Oh, he did. You did a commendable job with the fire, darling. The dupes, the DNA… It was convincing. He let it go for a while.”
She chuckles to herself and shakes her head. “He wasn’t fully convinced, but he let it go. He had a lot on his plate after the death of King’s brother. There was constant vigilance on everyone, especially the one who was up for the run towards the chief of counsel. Until…”
“Until?” I press, my heart pounding.
“Someone tipped him off. An anonymous message, much like the one Ivy received about the warehouse in Roarfort.”
Her admission is a knife to my chest. I can barely breathe as I stare at her, my mind reeling. She tipped him off. She put me—my family—at risk. And she doesn’t even deny it. Instead, she nods, her smirk never faltering.
“Why?” I demand, rising from the chair. My voice cracks, but I don’t care. “Why are you doing this? Is it because of Willow?”
Her smile dims slightly at her sister’s name. “Partly. And partly because you’re an important piece in the grand scheme of things.”
“I told you, I want no part of your asinine plans,” I snap. “They won’t work.”
“And I told you,” she says, her voice ice-cold, “I don’t give a shit. They will work.”
I’m trembling with anger, my fists clenched at my sides. “Then tell me, Harley. What is this grand plan of yours? How do you intend to kill a man so untouchable he might as well be a god?”
The weight of my question hangs in the air, heavy with the truth I’ve carried for so long. There’s a reason I chose to run instead of reporting Vir to the police. There’s a reason no one dared to stand against him then, and no one can now. Vir is a man fortified by wealth and powerful connections, indispensable to kings and men of influence across the globe. Over the years, his empire has only grown. The man who performs rituals is merely one face of many, and each face is more untouchable than the last.
“You’re exaggerating. He isn’t all that powerful.” Harley rolls her eyes, dismissing my words.
“You wouldn’t have sought me out, gone to the lengths of befriending me, tipping him off, and whatever else you’ve done if he wasn’t.”
My voice is steady, reasoned. I’ve tucked the emotional wreckage deep into the recesses of my mind. I can fall apart later, but not now—not when I’m staring into the chaos Harley has dragged me into.
“She has a point,” Vince says, his voice quiet but firm.
Harley’s frown deepens, and it feels strangely satisfying to see someone else puncture her arrogance, even momentarily.
“Fine,” she concedes, “he’s something, alright. Killing him is not the end goal here—well, it is. But we need to end that fucking cult first. Then we kill him. In the same ritual grounds where he killed my sister.”
“Brilliant,” I say, crossing my arms. “And how do we do that?”
“We force his hand to start a war.”
“War with whom?”
“Why, the devil, of course.” She smirks, her words laced with venom.
It takes a moment for her meaning to register, and when it does, my blood runs cold.
“Why is he involved?” My voice is barely above a whisper, but the dread in it is unmistakable.
“Oh, darling, he is the main fucking picture.”
“You’re making no sense.”
“There’s a reason I orchestrated your paths crossing,” Harley begins, her words striking like a blade. “There’s a reason I tipped Ivy off about that warehouse in Roarfort.”
Her voice is deliberate, almost taunting, as she peels back the layers of her scheme. Each word sinks deeper, unravelling the fragile threads of understanding I’ve clung to.
“I won’t bore you with the details, but Devlin and Vir’s paths will cross eventually. The reason being you.”
“Me? Why?” I spit the word, incredulous.
“Coming to your classes, stalking you, killing people for you—” Harley giggles, the sound sharp and jagged, like shards of glass scraping together.
My breath hitches at her last words. “What?”
“We’ll get to that later,” she says, waving it off. “My point is, we’re going to use Devlin against Vir.”
“And what makes you think he’d do that?” I demand.
“Vir is the threat,” she says simply.
I shake my head. “Wrong. I am. Eliminating me is easier and comes with far fewer losses than going to war with Vir.”
“True,” Harley admits. “But he won’t.”
Her confidence is maddening, and I can’t help but press. “What makes you so sure?”
Harley chuckles, a low, sinister sound. “Villains like us don’t love, darling. We obsess. And anything that dares touch our obsession? We bury it.”
Her words hang in the air, cutting through my resolve. I shake my head, refusing to dwell on what she’s implying.
“You’re wrong,” I say, my voice steady.
“Let’s put it to the test, shall we?” she says, her tone mocking.
Before I can react, Vince rises. He looks at Harley, his expression torn between exasperation and reluctant compliance.
“You’re going to get us killed,” he mutters.
“How else do you know you’re alive?” Harley quips, turning back to me with a glint in her eye.
Vince snaps a picture of the bound men and unconscious Yuri, typing something into his phone as he walks towards the back door. He halts as he is about to step out and looks at her.
“You’re absolutely fucking sure?” He checks.
“Oh yes,” Harley cackles. “Devlin does have interesting reactions whenever Dr Sinclair is included.” She winks, and Vince walks out.
She’s set something in motion, something irreversible. My chest tightens as I realise I’ve been manoeuvred into a game where the stakes are far higher than my life.
“By the way,” Harley adds nonchalantly, “Vir’s sent teams of men all over the world looking for you. Different groups—he’s thorough like that. I didn’t tell him exactly where you are.”
The words strike like a thunderclap. “And these men—have any of them reported back to him?”
“Not yet,” Harley replies. “They can’t. Vir only gets reports when he initiates contact, not the other way around. It’s his rule. But if any group finds you, their orders are simple: deliver you to him, no questions asked.”
I grit my teeth, fury boiling beneath the surface.
“So killing these five men here will light a beacon straight to Walius. It doesn’t exactly work in your favour, does it?”
For the first time, Harley falters. Her brow furrows, a flicker of surprise breaking through her mask of arrogance. It’s a tiny crack, but enough to make me wonder how someone who has orchestrated so much could miss something so obvious.
“You’ve thought this through, haven’t you?” I say bitterly.
Harley’s expression hardens. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of it. I’ll send someone to eliminate the other groups, too. Conveniently, the ones who are all in hazardous locations—places where disappearing isn’t exactly a shock.”
The casual brutality of her words leaves me cold. This is the woman I’ve been forced to ally myself with—a woman who sees lives as pawns to be sacrificed at will. My anger simmers, but I hold my tongue, knowing I can’t afford to antagonise her now.
Harley steps closer, her voice soft but laced with iron. “You’re helping me kill him, Ara. Like it or not. Question my methods all you want, but we both want him dead. And whether you agree willingly or not, you’ll play your part.”
“And then what?”
She is quiet for a moment. A moment longer than I’d like it to be.
“Patience, darling.”
Her words sink into me like a cold knife, sharp and unyielding, freezing every corner of my mind with their brutal finality. She isn’t going to make me privy to any details that she doesn’t want me to know. My chest tightens, and an involuntary shudder ripples through me, the weight of her manipulation suffocating in its cold precision. I don’t have a choice. Vir will never stop hunting me. He’ll come for my family first. Iyra, Ivy, Cas…none of them will be safe. If we somehow kill him, I’ll be more than willing for her to kill me. She has every right to do so.
“I don’t have a choice, do I?” My voice cracks, my gaze dropping to my hands.
“No,” she says simply, without malice.
I nod, the weight of inevitability settling over me. “What now?”
“We make things interesting,” she says, her voice cold.
She pulls a gun attached to a silencer and fires—five shots, each finding its mark with ruthless precision. The masked men drop like marionettes with their strings cut.
The bald man stares at me, defiant, even in silence.
“Devlin will enjoy making him talk,” Harley says, her smile chilling. “But we cannot make it easy for him.”
I watch, horror-stricken, as Harley crouches down in front of the bald man. She pulls out his tongue, cuts it off with practised precision and throws it away.
Before I can even comprehend what the hell is happening, Vince returns, pale and shaken.
“When Devlin finds me, he is going to kill me.” He gulps.
I see a glint in Harley’s eyes, something far more dangerous than what appeared all this while.
“He will have to cross me, first.” She promises. “Is it done?”
“Yes,” he nods, his face still ashen.
“Good,” Harley replies, her voice steady, too steady.
She claps him on the back and hands him the dismembered organ, her face betraying no hint of disgust, unlike Vince’s grimace as he throws it away. Then, she turns to me, her expression shifting in a way I’ve never seen before—cold, calculating.
“Get ready,” she says, her tone chilling in its finality.
My stomach tightens, and my breath catches halfway. “For what?”
She doesn’t answer—not with words.
The sting of the dart pierces my neck, sharp and unexpected. My hands fly up in instinct, but my limbs betray me. The world tilts, my vision blurs, and I crumble to the floor.
“For the Devil.”