Page 17 of What Doesn't Kill Us

It’s moments like these where I feel I should just lay it all out on the line. I should tell her everything I know and see if that information turns the key on the lock in her brain. I know there are a lot of things she would be better off not remembering; however, not at the expense of forgetting the important pieces.

Me.

Once she’s secure with Lilith, I head back down the street where Agatha is waiting for me. I get into the passenger seat of the car, and she looks at me expectantly, a worried expression on her face as she asks, “Everything okay?”

I take a deep breath and nod. “It will be.”

She remains quiet as she pulls away from the curb. She drives for a few moments and then she reaches over and pats me on the leg, and I narrow my eyes at her in confusion. “Why are you touching me?”

She shrugs. “Honestly, you look like you could use a hug, but that’s too far for me.”

“I’m fine. I wish I could do more for her, but I know she’s in excellent hands.”

She glances at me, unconvinced. “If you say so.”

I realize we’ve never had the chance to have a proper conversation about anything other than how we think we might get ourselves out of the shitstorm we’ve been in. It’s proving impossible to get ourselves out of something we don’t understand, especially when we’re still not sure who’s fueling the fire.

I turn toward her. “Do you know anything about Lilith?”

She shakes her head. “Not really. I was raised away from her and didn’t even know anything about her until recently. I wasn’t aware I had any siblings until my so-called father brought it up to me that if I wanted an opportunity to be at the top of a bigger organization, I could take it for myself. And since, according to him, my much older sister, Lilith, had already eliminated most of the competition, it probably wouldn’t be difficult. But then, the more information I gathered about her revealed she would not be easy to overturn at all. And then there’s the fact I didn’t even know if I wanted to be at the top of the food chain because it kind of seems like the shittiest job ever. I was hesitant to get involved.”

I give her a knowing look. “So, you took me as a ploy to potentially take over The Dead?”

She laughs. “No. I took you to be annoying. And not to be annoying to only Lilith, but also to be annoying to whatever fucking asshole thought they were gonna buy you and do whatever they pleased with you. I couldn’t have that. But then my twatface father had to interfere, trying to teach me a lesson by locking us up in hell for a couple of months. I wish I could’ve had the pleasure of stabbing that fucker in the face myself, but I know in those types of situations, you never let the bad guy breathe for a moment longer than he needs to. I don’t care what information you think they might have; eliminate them before they find an opening to overpower you.”

I nod. “Abso-fucking-lutely. We see it all the time: someone wants to gloat, and the next thing you know, they’re fucking dead.”

She snorts, nodding her head with me. “Fucking right. Never let the enemy speak.”

I pause for a moment, thinking over the events of the past few months. We’re still not sure who bought me, most likely intending to torture and murder me, and since I now know everybody involved in that entire event is dead, that leaves us back to square one. I’ve had to smoke out ghosts before, but this one seems to be a little smarter than the rest.

There must be some reason they’ve remained anonymous for so long. I turn back to Agatha, saying, “This person has to be directly related to the infrastructure of The Dead. Some unknown link, an unknown entity—something. Some skeletons in the closet that somehow stayed a secret for this long. Someone with not only an agenda but also a big grudge. They’re also smart enough to know that once we have a face, the odds of them pulling off any kind of coup goes down significantly. It’s much harder for us to defeat the faceless enemy.”

She nods, shrugging her shoulders as she maneuvers the car through a spot of late-night traffic. “I’m the last person who would know anything like that. I was sent away to another country as a child, and they did not mention it to me at all until recently. I was raised to believe my family was my family, and our reach was limited to the city we lived in. I’m not even sure if my father brought up my biological family because he wanted me to take that power for myself or him. I have no fucking idea. I suppose hindsight being what it is, asking him these questions now would be ideal. But c’est la vie.”

I chuckle, thinking about our rescue from prison and how her men leveled every enemy without pause. It was quite magnificent and definitely the way to handle those types of situations when the enemy’s intentions are unclear and too much talking will only get you killed. They asked no questions and killed anyone and everyone who posed a threat, getting us out of there without nary a scratch on any of them.

It wasn’t until we were well away from there that her man told her he had shot her father in the face for daring to double-cross her. She blinked in shock but didn’t seem too upset by the turn of events, so I assumed no love was lost between them. “Did you love your father?”

She jacks the brakes, the force of the car coming to a stop, locking my seatbelt as I’m thrown forward toward the dash. She twists in her seat until she’s looking directly into my eyes and says quietly, “My father was a vile waste of a human being, and his being dead is a tremendous relief to me and everyone who ever had the displeasure of knowing him. My only regret was not being able to end his miserable life by my hand, slowly and painfully.”

I can’t stop the bark of laughter that falls from my mouth, and she narrows her eyes at me and asks, “What’s so funny?”

I laugh even harder as I explain. “All of you sisters are the fucking same. Blood-thirsty and deadly. It’s shocking, given the fact you weren’t even raised together.”

She scoffs. “Yeah, well, we were all raised with the same ill intentions, so you get what you get.”

“What does that mean?”

She gives me an impatient look, then continues. “I don’t know a lot about you, Darius, and frankly, I don’t fucking care. But one thing you need to understand about the women in my world, in our world, is that we’re kept for the sole purpose of men getting ahead. They are disposable, replaceable, and very few people mourn them when they’re gone. The only way you can get ahead is to set yourself up a path to freedom with no one being the wiser, and even then, the odds of survival are close to nil.”

“And this is what you were doing when you made the plan to steal me from whoever bought me from Dickwad? Paving your way to freedom?”

She shakes her head. “No, that was a stupid flex that almost got us both killed. A total man move, really. And I knew better, but did it anyway because I was an impulsive asshole.”

I laugh, inclining my head at her as I reply, “An impulsive asshole move I will always be grateful for. If you hadn’t done that, I would most likely be dead, or worse, wishing I was dead.”

She sighs, nodding in agreement. “Most likely, yes. And we’re fortunate we’re not both dead, given how close my men were to not being able to get us out. They took an enormous risk coming for me, and I took an even bigger risk insisting you come with us.”

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