Sinners Reunion (The Slaycation #5)

Chapter 1

Chapter One

King

Rain pelts the rear windshield, and the deep rumble of thunder vibrates the car’s interior. I sit in the back, encased in leather. Supple texture glides beneath my fingertips, and I settle a little further into the seat.

The driver turns off the main path and pulls onto a less traveled street. We cut through side roads until he guides us between walls of towering palms and tropical foliage. The car stops at a gate, and the back window lowers with a nearly silent whir.

Another cloud booms overhead as I flash my credentials to the security guard seated in the tiny white booth. He nods through the rain glare, presses a button, and the gates ease open and allow us inside.

After winding past a small walking area for the residents of this Florida establishment, the driver pulls the car to a stop at the building’s side entrance. I won’t call it a secret entrance, as this entire place is a secret now.

Once a home for the aging and infirm, Jim has turned it into more of a VIP retreat for the dying. In exchange for spending your final days in the lap of absolute luxury, his scientists get to run their experiments.

Well, on all but one of the residents.

I slide out of the car and walk toward the entrance, where I let myself inside with my key card. The driver knows to wait for my return. Gary has become one of our most trusted Cattle-turned-staff, and he often ferries me around when he isn’t busy helping Jim.

I guess it’s more fitting to call him a Sinner now, though he hasn’t taken a kill since his grand moment at Quinn and Aven’s wedding. We’ve tried to bring him along on hunts, but he hasn’t taken up the offer yet. We hope this road trip is just the push he needs to really get him into the hobby.

Before the road trip can begin, however, I have to visit a dying woman.

Orderlies nod as I pass. A nurse helps an elderly man back to his room.

The walls, the floors, and the ceilings gleam a bright white.

Voices carry from small rooms and cracks beneath doors.

Doctors and scientists discuss findings and treatment options.

All is right and all is well, even at this late hour.

I push my card into a slot to take the elevator to the VIP suite on the top floor.

Quiet greets me as I step into a dark hallway. Jim wanted somewhere more private for Bennett to visit his mother, and this is where she’s been ever since. She was moved to this floor shortly after its completion.

The door opens with a quiet whoosh as I enter her bedchamber. I don’t know her on a personal level, but Bennett has taught me a great deal. He speaks of her often. Jim and I hope this road trip will soften the blow of what comes next for that boy. Because death is on its way.

I step closer to the bed. She lies with her head on the most expensive pillows Jim could find. Can she feel them? I don’t know. She hasn’t spoken a coherent sentence in weeks. She hasn’t opened her eyes in days.

The door clicks shut behind me, and I turn to find Bennett entering the room with a cup of coffee in his hand.

“So . . . you’re here, then,” he says, his voice barely a whisper.

“I’m here,” I say.

He nods and sips the coffee. As he steps closer, we look at his mother as if she’s already dead before us, lying in a coffin.

“She’s just as beautiful as she was thirty years ago.” I brush a stray gray curl from her forehead.

Bennett scoffs and shuffles his feet. “You didn’t know her thirty years ago.”

“No, but that picture over there looks as if it were taken about that time.” I nod toward the framed image on the nightstand. In it, she’s a much younger version of herself. A much brighter version.

“Oh.”

I lean forward to adjust the nasal cannula, and Bennett gasps.

“You aren’t doing it with me standing here, are you?” he asks.

I move the plastic tube, seating it further inside her nose to provide more oxygen. “No. I won’t do it while you’re present if that’s not what you wish.”

He relaxes. “I thought I’d want to be here, but I don’t think I can.”

“That’s okay. She won’t be alone at the end.” I turn and place a hand on his arm. “Do you want to wait until after the trip?”

He shakes his head and stares into his cup. “She’s stuck in there. I want to set her free.”

I pat his arm and nod, my lips tight. Nothing more need be said.

He turns to leave, but then he returns to the bed. “Wait . . . let me tell her goodbye.”

I go to leave the room, but he starts talking before I can get to the door, locking me inside this very uncomfortable situation.

When I said I’d kill Bennett’s mother, I didn’t agree to listen to final goodbyes.

Sentimentality isn’t a feeling I’m privy to, and it’s not something I wish to witness now.

“Hey, Ma,” he says, and I want to disappear.

At least I can turn around so that I don’t have to watch the way he holds her frail hand. I’m crawling out of my own skin.

“When you turn into a ghost, you might not want to hang around me and Cat too much. You might see some things that—”

I literally feel his body turning to see if I’m bloody listening. As if I wanted to be trapped like this.

He drops his voice to a whisper, but it’s not low enough. “We do things with food, okay? It’s not anything I wanted you to know about, but I don’t know what ghosts can see. So just be mindful . . .” His voice cracks. “Okay, Ma?”

Oh, fuck. He’s crying.

“This guy will make it quick,” he says through sniffles. “You won’t be trapped in there anymore. You’ll be free again. Just remember that if you see us grabbing the rubber sheet . . .”

His sniffles slow, and he quiets. I continue my awkward vigil by the door.

“I think I might marry her, Ma. I wish you could have met her. She doesn’t seem like it, but she’s really smart. She’s going to nursing school.” He clears his throat, and when he speaks again, he’s fully regained his composure. “I brought her to see you a few times, but you weren’t home.”

The room falls silent for a beat. Bennett shuffles his feet a few times, trying to figure out how to let go of his mother’s hand. Ezra, Frankie, and Aven have already experienced this moment to varying degrees. Now it’s his turn to learn what it feels like to be parentless in this cruel world.

Bennett draws a deep breath and prepares his final goodbye. “I’m gonna go now, but I know you’ll be with me again soon. Always. Right, Ma?”

The sound of a chaste kiss against a cold cheek shatters what’s left of my heart.

“Okay,” Bennett says. “You can do it now.”

We cross paths, stopping briefly as we meet in the center of the room. We consider what needs to be said, then decide to say nothing is best. He leaves the room, and I continue forward.

The door clicks shut behind me, and I’m alone with her once more.

“What a bad lot you’ve been given,” I whisper as I pull the syringe from my pocket. “I’m sorry for that.” I lower the syringe and look at the ceiling. “Maybe for more than that.”

With a sigh, I raise the IV line and insert the needle into the port.

“You’ll be the first kill of the trip.” I shake my head with a soft laugh as I depress the plunger. “Why can I find no joy in this task?”

My phone vibrates in my pocket. If it’s Bennett asking me to stay my hand, it’s far too late. She was sedated hours ago. This was the kill shot.

Her breathing slows. The death rattle begins. I check my watch.

“He wasn’t kidding about the food,” I whisper down at her as I count the seconds between each intake of air. “Must be another of those genes from his father. He certainly passed on a lot of his worst traits, didn’t he?”

A sad smile slides onto my face when she doesn’t draw the next breath.

“Goodbye.” I glance around the room, remembering Bennett’s ghost wishes. “Goodbye, wherever you are now.”

I pull the sheet over her face and leave the room.

My phone vibrates against my thigh as I’m boarding the elevator. I pull it from my pocket and consider sending Jim to voicemail, but I roll my eyes and answer.

“Yes?”

“Sorry, were you busy?”

I clear my throat. “No, just killing Bennett’s mother. Nothing I couldn’t step away from.”

“Oh, that was tonight, wasn’t it? Many apologies, but this couldn’t wait!”

It usually can’t with Jim.

“Go on, old man.” I punch a button, and the elevator doors close. “Tell me what has you so wound up. Did you find that blasted monkey you’ve been looking for?”

He huffs and stumbles over his words before getting going. “It’s not a monkey, King. You aren’t even in the right family. It’s a pygmy three-toed sloth! They’re critically endangered. Show some respect, man!”

“Aren’t they incredibly slow? Shouldn’t it be easy to catch?” I try to muffle my annoyance, but he hears it.

“If you aren’t taking this seriously, I’ll just cancel the entire—”

“You make this threat every time, and you will do no such thing. Now stop being a blagger and just come out with it. What have you uncovered?”

“Since Aven and Quinn killed our only connection to the Brickle operation, I thought we’d never find the rest of the animals, but Ezra has found all of them aside from that sloth.”

“Yes, I’m aware. Get to the part I don’t know.”

“Will you just let me have my moment?” He huffs, and I can picture the pout on his face. “He had a sister, King!”

“The sloth?”

“What? No! Terrence Brickle, the man Aven and Quinn dispatched during the amusement park retreat.”

“The bloke with the lemurs?”

“The very same.”

I struggle to keep all of Jim’s recent animal events straight.

Names blur, and species mix together. It’s a worthy cause, but I can’t match his level of excitement when hunting down endangered species for conservation efforts.

I’d rather hunt down the men who poach them from the wild. So that I can kill them. Painfully.

That’s more my speed.

“Does his sister have the sloth?” I ask.

“Well . . . we can’t be certain, but Ice Pick and Grim are working to kidnap her and—”

“Ice Pick and Grim? Working together? And kidnapping, Jim? Are you certain this is wise when we’re about to embark on a trip? We leave in two days.”

“All the more reason to tie up this loose end before we go.” He sighs into the receiver, and I pull the crackling speaker away from my ear. “How can I enjoy a cross-country killing spree when I know there’s a sloth in danger out there? I can’t, King. I just can’t.”

I close my eyes. He’s fucking right. He’d be miserable the entire trip, and by the transitive property, the rest of us as well.

“Okay. Just tell me what you need from me,” I say, relenting to whatever part I must play.

When he speaks again, his smile comes through loud and clear. “Meet us at our cabin on Kenny Lake tomorrow night. Dinner is at seven sharp. Don’t be late, and wear your finest. It’s our kickoff dinner.”

He disconnects the call before I can ask anything else.