Page 6 of Sick Bargain

“Do anything interesting last night, Rem?” Soren asks as we walk down the street.

“Like what?” I play along.

“Make any deals with devils?”

I grin into the foggy morning. “Nah, just got wasted at the party.” I glance at him. “Apparently.”

“Apparently,” he echoes, smirking. “Have a good day.” He turns the corner, going in a different direction than I am.

Soren doesn’t work for anyone other than The Misfits now. I don’t know what he does for them, but he’s an unremorseful sort of person, so whatever he does, I’m guessing it’s brutal. I hold a level of resentment towards him because, before he joined the gang, we worked together. Owned a business together. Got along and wanted to beat this curse side by side. Fate eventually won out, and now we’re pitted against one another in a world so cruel our blood bond doesn’t matter. Soren might kill me or I might kill him, and whichever way it turns out, I hope it ends the curse on the Sauder men.

Now I own the shop alone. I run it with my best friend Cain, who excels at instrument repair.

Musical talents in a town this small are usually one in a million, but Moros breeds deceptively talented people. It’s sad how many of us turn to music as our escape, but it’s even more depressing how many of us excel at creating darkness with our instruments. It makes my music store a busy place.

Unlocking the front door of my shop on the main street, I enter the dim room to hear the serene sound of the cello. Piano joins it, and together, the harmonies are so haunting my heart stops for a moment of appreciation. My eyes close in remembrance, and nostalgia sweeps through me.

It’s a recording, more than four years old, from when my dad would play along with my cello. He never questioned the gloomyvibe of my music, he just matched it, adding a second sound to make the sadness brighter. I keep it on while the shop is closed, afraid to listen to it while I’m here, but not wanting the music to be wasted. So, I play it for the emptiness of my space—the space willed to me and my brother after our dad’s death. The space Soren walked away from to join The Misfits.

I can’t help but pause with my back against the door to listen. Maybe if I don’t move, it’ll be like I’m not really here. Like I’m just one of Moros’ ghosts who listens to chilling music in the dead of night at vacant little music shops. I can almost picture him playing. I can scarcely see myself from years ago, my cello between my legs and my bow gliding across the strings of its own free will. I never made music. Music made me, and I followed its muse.

But I’ve been cut off from it lately. Since Soren left.

The front door chimes a second before it slams into my back. “Sorry. Didn’t see you standing there,” Cain says, coming inside and taking a moment of his own to listen to the recording of me and my dad. “You okay, Remi?”

Furthest thing from it. I nod, offering him a smile he knows is fake. “Yeah, good. You go to the party at The Misfits last night?” I move through the shop to shut off the music, killing the nostalgia along with it.

“No, but I heard you were there.” He laughs. “Why didn’t you call me? I would have come with you.”

“It was a last-minute decision,” I say. “There are, like, fourteen repairs booked this week. What’re you doing here on a Sunday morning?”

“Wanted to get a head start on some of them. The parts for that grand piano are supposed to come today, and I want to be here when the delivery guy shows up.”

Out-of-town delivery drivers tend to get spooked in Moros, so more often than not, our parts end up at the post office onthe edge of town. If Cain is here to greet the driver and promise nothing bad will happen if he walks inside the shop, things go over easier.

“What’re you doing here?” he asks me the same thing.

I bargained away my life and needed to come somewhere I felt safe.“Same reason. Wanted to get ahead.”

And distract myself. I haven’t visited my dad’s grave since the day we buried him, and tonight isn’t the night to start. But at midnight, I’ll be there despite my wishes because I’m no longer in charge of my life.

The whole thing is a template for destruction and I know I’ll be the one ruined in the end.

4

SICK

KRYPT

The town thinksthere are only ten of us. The history of Vile House has always worked in tens, so the theory remains mingled with all the other myths about the house, its occupants, and what we actually do. We’re more than a gang. We’re a society, one only possible because of the town itself.

In the real world, we might be considered asecretsociety, but in Moros, we’re just a fact. In a town already brimming with sinister people, wicked intents, and history so dark it draws attention from the outside world, we’re the bottom of the barrel.

Which makes us elite. Royalty, even. A belief that locals rely on and everyone else fears. Because we’re an offshoot organization that works in corruption. Not because we balance it, but because we challenge it. We’re that thing that goes bump in the night and acts like it’s nothing come morning. We are the literal definition of two wrongsdomake a right.

And we’re run by a selective team of past members, almost like alumni. Our director, the only man who keeps us in check, comes from a long line of leaders who have run Vile House since it switched from an insane asylum to what it is now.

Virtue In Lives Exchanged.

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