Page 4 of The Blood we Crave: Part Two

They expect me to believe they’re here to help when all they’ve done is crucify those around me with no evidence?

“I respect you wanting to protect your friend. He’s lucky to have a girl like you.” Odette steps in, her tone nothing short of condescending. “But if I find out you know where he is or what his next move is, I will charge you all with harboring a fugitive. You can be loyal in a cell.”

“All good over here?” Rook’s hand appears on Alistair’s shoulder, a forced smile on his pale face.

The tension is so thick it almost chokes me, a heavy smog weighing on my lungs.

I feel my friends step next to me. Briar’s hand slips into mine and gives it a squeeze, but I can’t bring myself to return the favor. Not when I feel like this. Jaded. So vacant that I can’t make myself be there for anyone, not even myself.

Both she and Sage are trying too hard, desperately trying to help me, but I’m too far gone. Too secluded in the darkness to even see their hands reaching for me. I’ve turned into that dark spot inside of myself, allowing it to take me over.

“Perfect,” Alistair says through clenched teeth. “We were just leaving.”

Both detectives look at us lined up in a row, eyeing each of us with careful glances. It feels like the start of another battle in this never-ending war. A line drawn in the white snow in front of us, painting a clear picture of what side we all stand on.

I’m sure Odette and Gerrick feel that where they stand is on the right side of the law. That they are doing good by being here.

But if you’re not on our side, no matter the reason, then you’re against us.

They are the enemy by default.

“It will only be you who is hurt in the end,” Odette says to each of us but is quick to make eye contact with me with her goodbye. “Ask yourself, would he return this favor of silence? Would he put his freedom at risk for you?”

We turn, walking away and giving our final goodbyes to the woman about to be covered in dirt. Sweet May. Possibly the only innocent person involved in this web we’ve found ourselves trapped in. She didn’t deserve this, to die like that.

Cut up. Dissected. Robbed of her heart.

She’d done nothing but show each of these broken men a mother’s love, guiding and protecting them since they were young. I know their guilt is heavy; we all feel responsible for her death and Thatcher’s disappearance.

Rook squats down, pulling a coin from his pocket and flipping it. It rings in the air as it hits the wooden coffin. “We will make them pay for this, May. I promise you.”

A tear slips down my cheek, and I bite back a choked sob.

“We swear on the River Styx.” Alistair’s voice sounds like he’s choked on gravel, and I watch his gold coin tumble into the hole, landing with a thud.

“River Styx?” Sage asks curiously, blue eyes veiled with tears and pale skin tinted pink.

“Homer wrote that the gods swear by the water of the Styx. It’s their most binding oath,” I answer, chewing the inside of my cheek and allowing the silence to overtake us all. “It’s an unbreakable promise.”

TO BECOME A KILLER

TWO

Lyra

I turn the key on the music box once again, twisting until the tension is pulled tight before releasing it and filling my room with the sound once more. The twinkling melody echoes around the four walls, and it hadn’t taken me long to figure out the song’s title.

“Once Upon a Dream” was a song my mother used to hum while she was working around the house or in the kitchen, trying to cook, and sometimes she’d sing while she got me ready for bed. It’s a tune I’d remember anywhere, and I wasn’t sure if it was fate or some kind of destiny that I found this little trinket in the Library Tower.

Either way, it brings me a strange sense of comfort, and for that, I am thankful.

My phone vibrates on the bed next to me, and I don’t have to look at the screen to know it’s Briar calling.

Again.

I continue to let it ring as I stare up at the ceiling, my fingers tracing the golden swirls along the base of the box until the sound runs out. Sitting the whimsical object on the bed, I scoop up my phone and quickly send a text to my worried friend.

How could it have possibly been a month already? How is it the start of the new year without him here?

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