Page 29 of Demise

When I come down the stairs, I find Maggie sitting on the bed with Liam, playing a video game, and she’s absolutely destroying him.

“Hey! You can’t shoot me!” Liam whines.

“The fuck I can’t. Keep up, Walcott. There is no place for losers on my team,” she says as she makes her character run.

Liam grumbles as Asher shakes his head and scrolls on his phone. Obviously, Vincent left, but I’m not sure where Wesley and Ronan are. Asher looks up from his phone at me, smiling softly as he pockets it and pats the couch he’s sitting on.

I hesitate for a moment before I make my way over to him, sinking into the cushions as his arm wraps around me. I can’t get Vincent’s words out of my head, though. Like word vomit, it slips out before I can help it.

“Did you guys know Nathaniel Ingersoll?”

Like all of the sounds in the world have been ripped away, the room goes deathly quiet. I’m not sure anyone even breathes before Maggie pauses the game, three sets of eyes on me. After a moment, Liam nods.

“Yeah, we did.”

Okay, well I was hoping for a little more than that.

“What happened to him?” I ask.

Liam and Maggie glance at each other before looking back at me.

“He died,” Maggie says.

“Yeah, I know,” I huff out before taking a deep breath and turning to look at Asher, who is currently staring at the bottom of the bed frame.

“Ash?” I ask softly.

His eyes slowly come up to me, a blankness to his face.

“What happened to Nathaniel Ingersoll?”

He shrugs. “Same shit that happens to anyone who is caught breaking the rules, they’re eliminated.”

“Eliminated?” I echo. “Like what Vincent does?”

“There are more eliminators in the Brethren than just Griggs, princess,” Asher answers.

“Well, Vincent just told me that you were the one to kill Nathaniel…any idea why he thinks that?”

Asher screws up his face at that as he shakes his head.

“I did not. I was only nineteen back then, about to be twenty. I hadn’t even killed anyone until—”

His words break off as he glances at Maggie before those brown eyes come back to me.

“I didn’t kill him, princess. I don’t know why Griggs told you that, but he’s a fucking liar.”

There is a deep sincerity to his voice. It’s a little comforting, I suppose, that my husband isn’t a murderer…well, at least not the murderer of one of my boyfriends’ best friends. Then again, it has me wondering why Vincent feels this way, why he’s shifted the blame onto Asher. Maybe Vincent feels guilty for something? Maybe he had a hand in Nathaniel’s death, whether he wants to admit it to himself or not, and he’s deflecting? I don’t really know, but without Vincent here, there is no more digging to be done on the matter, and based on the way he left, it’s probably best to let it lie for a bit.

Maggie seems to take the lead in changing topics, and I’m grateful for it.

“I’m bored? Want to watch a Christmas movie and stuff our faces? I saw someone baked sugar cookies,” Maggie says as she points to the large platter of cookies on the stove.

I smile over at them. After the great flour battle of Salem, and the even greater threesome that followed, Ronan and Wesley came downstairs and helped me clean up and make a bigger batch of cookies. Their argument was because we have so many people in and out of the house. Really, I think it was because we all know how snacky Wesley can be.

Nodding, I rise to my feet.

“I’ll make some popcorn too.”

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