Remington
I’ve been watching Didi sleep all morning while studying for my contract law final. The news of Professor Crux’s death has spread since they killed him three days ago, despite my father trying to contain it. He died in the hospital from his wounds. Now, there is a state-wide manhunt for Didi.
The three of them decided to spend the entire night fucking, letting me pick up the pieces as usual, instead of dealing with it.
After whatever they did all night, she came stumbling in at six AM and crawled into bed where she belongs.
But not before I took her into my shower to clean her up.
I don’t like Tommy’s smell on her, even if he needed her more than I did that night.
It’s been peaceful knowing she’s safe with me, at least for now, and I haven’t let her out of my room since.
They can have fun with her all they want, but the mark on her thigh is like scripture.
It will always mean something more powerful.
I’ve been thinking all morning of any legal way I can save her, if she ever is caught. Given that she’s legally dead already—thanks to my father’s power—she can’t get charged with anything.
A sharp rap on the door stirs Didi awake, and I suppress my irritation at whoever’s on the other side. It had better be important because I hate being interrupted while trying to focus.
“What is it?” I bark, and Didi’s eyes flutter open.
Lucy’s voice comes from the other side. “Phone’s for you, sir.”
“I’m busy.”
A pause. “It’s your father, and he’s being very insistent. He’s called four times.”
I let out a deep sigh, shut my textbook and place it on the edge of my desk, and put away my ink pen in its holder. It’s been a few days since the incident at the school, and we’ve been keeping a low profile since.
His death was so heinous, even my father couldn’t do anything to stop this. Before his last breaths, he told everyone it was the white-haired girl that killed him.
Diana Wells…officially declared dead on June 30, 1979, has arisen from the grave. The town is in a tailspin. Everyone is looking for her now. There have been “fake” sightings in the paper and in the media from neighboring towns. It’s gotten so out of control that my father can’t make it go away.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” I call out.
Diana pushes herself up from under the blanket, which has now fallen over her naked breasts, her brilliant hair falling over her face. She wipes her eyes and smiles when she notices me. “What’s going on?” she asks in a sleepy voice.
She has this way of looking at me like I’m the only one that exists. My stomach twinges as I look at her, a deep sense of foreboding in my gut. Sometimes it feels like she’s not real; that she’s fleeting and someone will take her away from me.
If I had my way, I’d keep her locked away in my room forever, safe from this town and whatever Talia is plotting for her.
Talia believes she embodies the angel of death, a herald of a new order, and she claims it’s written in that precious book.
But I think that Codex is just the ramblings of one madman, interpreted by another.
I read the passage I jotted down on a piece of paper. Talia and I’ve been studying the Codex for two days straight, trying to understand it.
Behold the harbinger.
Both hunter and hunted. Pristine, like winter’s breath.
I shall smile down upon her as if she is my child…my chosen. My gaze sealed her fate.
She rises, binding the chains of death.
Even perfect circles must crack.
She is my reincarnate. She is death.
Didi is nothing but a tool.
A weapon.
A harbinger of death.
Talia is in love with her—at least, in the way that Talia is capable of emotion.
Didi seems to bring out a side of Talia I haven’t seen since the day she came back from the dead.
Didi made Talia come alive again; she made all of us come alive.
She is the thread keeping this group together. She is the thread of our sanity.
Didi frowns as I lean down and kiss her harder than I ever have before. She leans into it, trying to pull me close. “What’s wrong, Remy?” she asks. Always so loving, always so ready to please.
My stomach twinges. Everything is so wrong and so right.
Our time is running out. Every little kiss feels like the last. When I get back to this bed after I speak to my old man, I’m going to fuck her until my name is the only one she remembers.
I won’t admit I’m jealous of my sister, and I’ll be fucked if I ever admit to being jealous of Tommy.
“Nothing, little lamb. Go back to sleep and wait for me.”
She yawns, mumbles something incoherent, fluffs her pillow, and lays her head down and closes her eyes, peacefully.
She looks so serene, her white hair splayed out. Her delicate body is swallowed up by my large four-poster bed. So small, yet capable of burning this entire town to the ground and killing anyone who gets in her way. I’ll slaughter anyone who lays a finger on her, including my own family.
I jog downstairs and walk into the study to take the call in privacy, even though I have a phone line in my bedroom. It’s early…no one else is up yet.
I lean back in the leather chair and pick up the phone, bringing it to my ear, bracing myself for his fury. I’ve been avoiding my old man since it happened, and the white hair girl rumors escalated to violence.
“Father,” I state with irritation.
A pause, then a dark voice. “Remington. About time you answered my calls, boy. Is the line secure?” My father’s thick Italian accent comes out when he’s angry even though he was born here.
I hear a click, probably Lucy or Maribel, wherever the hell that old goat is listening in on everything. “Now it is,” I inform him when I’m sure they aren’t listening.
My father growls. “You little son of a bitch, I’ve been calling for two days.”
“I’ve been studying,” I say flippantly. “Remember, I’m a student studying law, like you want me to.” He wants yet another way to control everything. He wants me to become a judge one day.
“Do you have any idea what kind of mess Talia made? She’s costing me thousands. Professor Crux is an internationally renowned psychologist. Think about that one for a second. She castrated him.”
I chuckle, then cringe at the thought. “Maybe if you hadn’t turned a blind eye when she was being raped by a priest.” My father doesn’t know the rest of it. Talia swore me to secrecy when I rescued her. He did, however, know Father Malcolm had his sights set on her and did nothing to stop it.
“This isn’t funny, boy. I’m about to throw that girl into a loony bin. You need to keep your sister under control.”
I run my hand through my hair. “And how do you suppose I do that? You certainly haven’t been able to.”
A tense silence. “Jimmy Garcia is asking for hundreds of thousands to keep quiet. He is demanding control over the trust. My hands are tied, son. I’m signing control over the fund.
The Vitals will be listed as beneficiaries, but we are no longer in control of the finances.
” Jimmy Garcia is Stephen’s father, and Kinsmen University’s twenty-seventh president.
They are the third original bloodline, and by right have claim to this money.
I’ve suspected this for a long time, but Talia didn’t.
Although I think she’s starting to figure it out.
I can sense him seething on the end of the line, and I don’t respond. This is exactly what Talia was worried about. Talia will lose herself when she finds this out.
“Do you know anything about this white-haired girl? The one I thought we buried in a well a few months ago? Tommy’s whore?”
My skin burns. “Nope. Haven’t seen her.”
He lets out a deep sigh. “If I find out you’re lying to me, Remy…”
I grab my matches and light a smoke, glancing out the window at the morning mist in the trees. “I would never lie to you, Father.”
“I will take her from you, Remy. She’s not one of us and can never be one of us.
We kill our sacrifices. We don’t keep them alive.
She’s caught the attention of very dangerous people, and because of your sister’s negligence, this is now beyond my control.
If she’s found and tied back to you in any way, we are all as good as dead.
So, I ask again, do you know where that white-haired girl is? ”
I clutch the phone so hard my fingers turn white. “I told you, I don’t know.”
“What about Tommy?”
“I doubt he’s involved. His dick is buried too deep inside your daughter’s cunt to notice what’s happening around him.”
“Language, Remington. If your mother heard you talk like that…”
I put the smoke out, burning a hole in the table. “Well, luckily for me, Mother is dead. Anything else, Father? I’m trying to study for my finals.”
“If I find her, I will kill her myself.” With that, the line goes dead.
I curse and head into the hallway, toward the kitchen, just as Tommy comes inside from the backyard in his jocks, with sweat pouring down his forehead.
He grunts and ducks into the kitchen ahead of me, yanking the milk from the fridge, chugging it straight from the jug.
I’m surprised he’s up. Tommy’s not a morning person, and I realize it’s been forever since we’ve gone for a run together. Too long.
“Talia would totally freak if she caught you doing that,” I say, sitting at the nook. My head feels like a ton of bricks, so I slump forward, face in my hands, waiting for some witty comeback. But nothing.
Instead, Tommy sits next to me. “Remy, what’s the deal, man?”
We haven’t talked much since the night with Didi, and even less since the other night when he and Didi were together again. But right now, I just need my best friend. “Is this about Didi?”
I stare up at him, and my jaw tightens. “My old man knows about her, man. He knows she’s here, and if she stays with us, he’s going to kill her. We have to do something.”
Talia saunters in, wearing a lacy nightgown, her dark hair flowing down her back, obviously overhearing everything.
Tommy stares at her bare, toned thighs as if he hasn’t spent enough time between her damn legs.
She stands with her back to the large window that overlooks the misty forest beyond, and she glances back and forth between us.
Her expression is controlled and emotionless, and she says, “The Sigma party is happening tonight, and we are going to make an appearance.”
“Talia, that’s a terrible idea. We need to lay low, not confront anyone,” I growl.
She raises her hand, silencing me. “Stephen is going to be there, and given he is now in control, we need to play nice with him. The false shadows will also be there, and I am sick of them taking the glory for what we created.”
“It’s a trap. They are trying to draw her out.”
Talia clicks her tongue. “That might be so, but this is our legacy, and we have the most to lose. We have lost our power, but we have Didi, and she will help us get it back. I have faith in the Codex. Either way, this ends tonight.”