Page 4 of Saint

“Let’s focus on what you can do here and now,” Beck suggested. “We’re here to prove it was Dew who broke into the clubhouse, correct? How else can I help?”

“You’re already doing more than enough. Why are you even here anyway? The Order tasked us with doing this, not you.”

“I can’t exactly walk away, not when I witnessed so much today already. Besides, you know I’ve always been on your side. I want the three of you to succeed.” Beck leaned in conspiratorially and lowered his voice. “I don’t know if you’ve heard or not, but I sort of hate my father.”

“Ah,” Yejun opted to play along, if for nothing more than to lighten the mood, “so you’re not really out to help us, you’re out to screw over your dad.”

Beck laughed. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“But you aren’t denying it.”

“Do I really need to?” He sobered some. “In our world, very few things are believable. The fact that a person would side with even their sworn enemy in the name of revenge? That’s the most comprehendible thing any of us have ever heard.”

True. Lake had spent the better part of a decade doubting his cousin, testing Beck any chance he got in the hopes of slipping him up and revealing his true colors. West had stood up for him, but even Yejun had been convinced that Beck was lying in wait and the nice guy was all an act. As the years had passed and they’d grown, however, his suspicions had been proven wrong.

Beck had stepped in to shield Lake against one of his father’s schemes more times than Yejun could count on both hands. On the surface, he kept the peace with his father, but they all knew better.

“Here,” Beck held out his multi-slate, “check the messages Dew sent me. Maybe they could be useful.”

“I’m not sure how hitting on a professor will help prove Dew tried to infiltrate Club Essential.” It wouldn’t even help prove that he was the one who put Iris up to betray them, which was the real problem.

The whole hacker breaking into the club thing? They’d made that up to protect themselves.

“Still, it could—” Beck stopped talking when they heard the sound of the metal doors finally opening.

One of the doctors who was on the Bardin payroll stepped out and bowed in greeting. “We’ll have to wait a little longer for all of the tests, but we’ve gotten a few of the results back, as well as an official cause of death.”

That seemed pretty obvious to Yejun—the guy had smashed his skull against the pavement, after all—but he stood and waved the doctor closer. “Tell me everything.”

The sooner he finished here, the sooner he could get back to the Roost, and ideally begin making things right with Nix and the others.

Chapter 2:

Nix kept his head under the harsh spray, letting the hot water cascade down his body. If only the shower could help wash away the thoughts tumbling in his head as well, then everything would be great.

Nothing was great.

Everything sucked.

It was bad enough that the image he’d registered of Dew falling outside the window kept replaying on repeat, but now that he was alone, it’d also unlocked old thoughts he’d wrongly believed had been dealt with.

Like what Branwen must have looked like when she’d taken her own life in a similar fashion.

How she must have seemed when she was finally discovered, broken and bleeding out on the street. By the time the medics had arrived, she’d been declared dead at the scene,but Nix had always wondered if she’d suffered. If she’d been forced to lay there, slowly dying, knowing the end was near.

The rage he’d felt over that possibility had spurred him into concocting this asinine plan. If he’d just stopped for a second, breathed and grieved like a normal person should, maybe he would have seen reason.

Maybe he wouldn’t have fallen so easily for her note.

The one she’d left him, and only him.

He’d always been a pushover when it’d come to her, he’d just been too devoted to see it. Now that he was aware, it was painfully obvious what Branwen intended when she’d written him that letter. There was little comfort in having discovered her true motive, if anything, it left his heart feeling heavy.

Had she ever really cared for him? Clearly not in the same ways he had her, because the idea of sending her into a a place like Foxglove Grove would have sent shivers down his spine. Even if she’d believed he wouldn’t get involved with the Demons, she’d always known she was sending him into danger by having him hunt for the person who’d pushed her over the edge.

Or…

Was that fair to assume?

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