Page 58 of Brody

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Well, yes. It made an odd kind of sense. Creed was the most cunning and the most ruthless of all of us. Survival was a special skill of his, which he had honed down to an art. In all the years we’d served together, I could only think of a few times where he’d ended up in legitimate danger, and those instances had always been cleanly handled by the end.

Suddenly getting captured was so out of character for him. However, the thought of him orchestrating it on his own actually made more sense.

But why?

What would he stand to gain from such a deception?

We’d never know for sure until we asked him, and even under the best circumstances it would be several months before we saw him face to face again.

A rhythmic tapping of metal against wood caught my attention.

Ellis sat beside me, half listening to the conversation and half lost in thought, while idly tapping a painfully familiar key against the table.

Despite clearly being distracted by his own thoughts, he immediately noticed when he had my attention. Looking down at his hands, he realized what he was doing and shoved them in the pockets of the hoodie he’d borrowed from me, hiding the key out of sight at the same time.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“No, it’s all right,” I insisted, cursing myself for putting such an ashamed look on his face. “I just didn’t realize you still had Poppy Milford’s key. I thought we’d locked that away.”

“Oh.” Hesitantly he took the key back out of his pocket, placing it on the table in front of him without ever letting it go. “It was put away, but I got it out again. I know it’s silly, but this key is the last thing my brother gave me. It feels tied to him, so I just like holding onto it. I hope that’s okay.”

Grabbing the key and his hands all at once, I curled his fingers around the slightly warm metal and pushed it back toward him. “Yeah. It’s fine. Given the situation, I’d say you have just as much right to it as anyone.”

Clutching the key close, Ellis turned it over and over in his hands so the light from the window caught on the subtle floral design carved into the handle.

“You know, the sad thing is, I don’t think my brother even knew what this key was for. He just knew it was important to thoseTamed Soulspeople. The only reason he took it was to get back at the cult that deceived him with false promises. He could have gotten back at them in a dozen different ways, but he chose tosteal the one thing that ended up leading me here. It all feels so… fated.”

I kept my reaction to his words under strict control, not wanting to offend him. I didn’t believe in fate, but if that thought gave Ellis comfort then I wasn’t going to take it away from him.

Magnus, however, had no reason to hide his own reaction. He snorted with obvious disdain and leaned back on the legs of his chair far enough to make the wood creak.

“I wouldn’t bother talking about fate until we know what that key is for. It could turn out to be a red herring for all we know.”

Trent laid a hand on his thigh, pressing downward until Magnus had to bring the front legs of his chair back to the floor. “Considering you found that key hidden in a coffin that was buried on your property, I doubt it’s meant to be a trick. Red herrings are usually easy to find. That’s their point.”

Magnus scoffed again, but he sat a little straighter and let his hand rest over Trent’s. “A coffin that held a body we still haven’t identified. Wouldn’t it be ironic if the body turned out to just be some unimportant John Doe, and this whole thing has been a wild goose chase.”

While I didn’t believe in fate, I also knew better than to issue such a challenge to the universe as Magnus just had. Usually, such challenges would be beneath the universe’s notice. However, every now and then, when a challenge was issued, the universe would answer.

Today was one of those lucky days.

Mere moments after Magnus finished speaking, with his breath probably still lingering in the air around him, the ground beneath our feet started to shake.

I instinctively grabbed Ellis, while across from me Magnus did the same with Trent.

Was this an earthquake?

I’d never been through one before, but it didn’t seem right. I could hear something moving outside, like crumbling rock, and the tremors were coming from mostly one direction.

The earthquake—or whatever it was—didn’t last long, but it made a horrendous noise and seemed in danger of shaking my house right off its foundation. I’d built the place with my own hands, and if I’d cut corners anywhere it probably would have collapsed.

Under different circumstances, I would have gloated over the strength of my construction. When the shaking finally stopped, my house was barely affected except for a few items that had fallen off the shelves. Unfortunately, pride was the furthest thing from my mind as I slowly removed myself from the protective shield I’d formed around Ellis.

“What the hell was that?”

Magnus also stood up slowly, helping Trent to his feet as well. “That wasn’t an earthquake. I think… something happened outside.”

Something had happened, all right. We didn’t have to do more than open the front door and step out onto the porch to get our answer.