Chapter 17
“Anything?” Lenore asked from where she stood watch at the doorway to Cosima’s office. She and Rue had partnered up for the search, while Bowie had stuck with Penn. They’d already swept the first and second floors, with the rest of the group having moved on to the third.
Rue had insisted on staying behind and checking Cosima’s office for clues. As of right now, they were in the dark—both figuratively and literally thanks to the power going out—and he couldn’t stop thinking about Ryker’s theory that none of this was an accident.
On paper, it sounded farfetched. Someone controlled the weather and…what? Summoned monsters from the mist? The universe was vast and all, but even it had its limits.
Probably.
Hopefully?
Fuck. Rue didn’t know anymore. All he knew was Ryker was out there with those things, despite the fact he believed someone in here was setting them up. Clearly they’d targeted him, since the mimic had known when he’d be on guard duty last night and had specifically called out to him.
Searching the first and second floors provided nothing. They didn’t run into the missing workers that Cyril and Thea had been sent to find earlier or Jesse. But Rue was honestly more concerned about those who remained.
If this was a horror production put on by someone, then the list of suspects wasn’t that long.
Cosima had honestly been his best guess, but since her body was currently in the closet, as out of sight as possible, that seemed unlikely.
Rue felt confident he could rule out his own friends, which left the children of the board members, and the missing board members themselves.
Without a motive, it was hard to narrow it down.
“Rue?” Lenore called him, and he realized he hadn’t answered her earlier question.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “She was surprisingly unorganized.”
There were folders and files in the drawers of her desk, but all without labels. It didn’t help that he wasn’t sure what he was even looking for in the first place.
Probably nothing.
He’d known going into this that suspecting her was a long shot, but he’d convinced himself he might be able to find something useful about the power, weather patterns of the area, or…he didn’t know. Something.
“There’s a list of emergency contact numbers,” he rambled. “A lot of good that does us. Passwords to the resort’s online accounts. A list of regular clients. A game pamphlet.”
“Cosima didn’t come off like the gaming type,” Lenore said lightly, clearly trying to brighten the vibe.
“Goes to show you never really know a person.”
“Speaking of…You and Ryker? Is that happening now?”
Rue paused and lifted his gaze, resting it on her where she stood across the small room. He’d opted to check the desk despite the body in the closet next to it, trying hard not to think too much on that part of the equation. Now he frowned, mind effectively distracted from the death and rot.
“Bowie is heartbroken you know,” Lenore continued, chuckling when Rue’s frown deepened. “Oh please. Don’t tell me you didn’t realize he’s in love with you?”
“He is not.” Rue dropped the stack of seemingly useless papers he’d been sorting through and straightened.
“He is,” she insisted. “But that doesn’t matter. You don’t owe him anything. I’m just saying, try to be…delicate. We’re all already under a ton of pressure. Seeing you with Ryker, especially after everything he’s done, isn’t easy for Bowie.”
Rue felt a stab of guilt at her implication. Though she hadn’t said as much, it was clear she was referring to the death of their friend. “Ryker didn’t kill Adams.”
“Bowie thinks he did.” She blew out a breath. “Can you blame him? That sort of thing is easy for a Black Hart.”
“I’m a Black Hart.” It was the first time Rue was saying it out loud and he tensed as soon as the admission passed his lips. This was a part of himself he’d been openly denying for years now. The privilege that his last name allotted him, a thing that set him apart from his friends.
Not something that made him better, he didn’t believe that for a second.
But a truth that neither of them could deny.
Rue had advantages that others didn’t. Advantages that came first from being the son of the Vadim family, then from being Rhys Hart’s step son, and now from being Ryker Hart’s…whatever he was.
Because he was something.
“He promised to keep you both safe,” Rue said then, not really sure what he was hoping to convey by telling her.
“You trust him?” She clearly had her doubts.
“Don’t forget all of the things he’s done to you.
I know you were friends practically your whole lives, but these past few years have been really bad.
We’ve all been worried about you. Especially when you told us you were transferring to Sacrum Cor.
Everyone knew it wasn’t going to be an easy transition. ”
“I can’t get back the life I left,” Rue agreed. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t still fight for the one that I want.”
“And that,” she pursed her lips, “is a life that includes Ryker Hart?”
“Yes.” It always had been. Ryker had always been Rue’s end game. His twin’s deceit had momentarily put a pause on things, had forced Rue to spend the last few years coming up with ways he could get Ryker back, but they were on the right track now.
The relief he’d felt when he’d learned he’d never been with Ryder was unparalleled.
It’d weighed on him, but now that guilt and self-loathing had transformed into a bitter anger toward the youngest Hart twin.
Thinking on it, it wasn’t out of character though.
While the twins were close, Ryder had always been the more devious of the two.
Ryker tended to be more upfront, his fury always burning too brightly to hide.
The more Rue thought on things, the more he felt he understood Ryder’s motives even. It wasn’t jealousy. The fact he’d chosen to abandon this world in favor of a virtual reality was proof that Ryder had never held any feelings for Rue.
That was most likely the real reason.
Feelings.
The twins had witnessed their father murder their mother at a young age. They’d both shut down for a time after that, and when Rue had finally seen them again months later, they’d been different.
Ryker had new anger management issues and a penchant to lash out, whereas Ryder had retreated further into himself. He and Uriel had spent most of their time playing video games together, but there was a detachment even between them, as though Ryder could no longer form connections with people.
His twin was his only confidant, and it was obvious now that even between them, Ryder had kept his real secrets close to the chest.
But his aversion to love and all things romantic was well known.
Was that why he’d done it?
He’d seen how things were progressing between Ryker and Rue, and had feared for his brother, or both of them?
Love had gotten his mother killed, and even though they’d hardly been children at eighteen, that mindset had stuck with Ryder as he’d grown.
That love was more than weakness, it was a dangerous attachment, one that could only lead to pain and loss.
Really, it was more surprising that neither Rue or Ryker had seen it coming, but hindsight was twenty-twenty. Rue might have also blamed him more before, but now, after having just lost his own mother to a brutal and unfair death…
He shoved papers back into a folder and closed the desk drawer he’d been riffling through, moving onto another. “Ryker’s belonged to me for as long as I can remember. Nothing can change that.”
Lenore stared at him a moment and then made an awkward sound he couldn’t quite place the meaning of. “You’re right. You are a Black Hart. You even sound like them.”
“Does that make you uncomfortable?”
“We’ve been friends since middle school,” she reminded. “I know who you are, Rue.”
There wasn’t really anything here. He sighed and gave up. “What I am is a bad detective. Let’s go join the others.”
“What were you even hoping to find?”
“I don’t know.” He blew out a breath. “But we’ve got to operate under the assumption that there really is someone behind all of this.”
“Behind bad weather and monsters in the woods?”
“When you put it that way, it sounds farfetched.”
“Yeah, because it is.” Lenore shook her head.
“They’re just being paranoid. I mean, I get they have enemies, especially Ryker’s dad, but they believe someone…
what? Got a ton of fog machines big enough to shroud the entire resort and filled it with creatures from a horror movie? And they got those where, exactly?”
“I don’t know,” he repeated. “But explain how a bear could sound exactly like my mom? And not just. It wasn’t screams like it’d been with Darae. That thing spoke full sentences. You heard it too.”
Lenore shifted on her feet. “Okay, but are we guessing someone trained them to do that? To mimic the voices of the dead, and—”
“Not just the dead. One pretended to be Uriel when Ryker and I were on watch duty the other night.”
“You were on watch with him?” Lenore crossed her arms and seemed to be taking him more seriously, but then she blew out a breath and shook her head a second time. “I just don’t believe it. It’s too much of a leap.”
While she had a point, Rue wasn’t convinced. Ryker wouldn’t have jumped to that conclusion if there wasn’t some merit there.
“You said it was Uriel’s voice?” She glanced over her shoulder as if worried one of the others would overhear, even though they were all meant to be on the third floor. “What if…What if you’re partially right?”
“What do you mean?”
“He was trapped in a game for three years,” she reminded.
“This isn’t a game.”
“But it’s like one, isn’t it?” She moved closer to the desk, lowering her voice. “Uriel has always been strange. What if being in that virtual reality messed with him and he’s the one doing all of this?”
“He woke up a week ago.” Rue might have considered her logic if not for that last fact. A week was definitely not enough time to pull a hoax of this magnitude off.