Page 28 of Creed
Unfortunately, there were two of us. If Kayden was right and they wanted me to crack the code on Lisianthus Milford’s journal, then I was the only one they needed. Kayden was expendable.
Eventually, we were brought to a stop, and someone kicked the back of my knees, forcing me to kneel. The landing was soft. I was kneeling on a thick carpet. Wherever we were, this wasn’t some forgotten basement out in the middle of nowhere.
Hopefully, the setting was different enough that it wouldn’t trigger any unwanted memories.
We were left waiting for several long minutes, hands bound, completely blind and mostly deaf.
The definition of helpless.
There was no warning before the bags were suddenly removed from our heads. One minute my vision was shrouded in black, and the next bright light assaulted my eyes. I wanted to blink, shake my head, or do something to help clear my vision, but that would only make me look vulnerable. Instead, I kept my expression calm as I waited for my eyes to adjust, pretending that I could see clearly the entire time.
“So, you’re the one whose been giving us so much trouble?” a voice said.
I could just see the vague outline of a person standing a few feet away. If not for the voice, I wouldn’t have even been able to tell if they were a man or a woman.
Rolling my eyes, I put on my most irritating smile. The one that used to make both teachers and bullies hate me as a child. It hadn’t been intentional when I was younger. According to Kayden, my “face just wasn’t built for smiling” so the expression always looked insincere on me.
Now, I used it to my advantage.
“You must be mistaken. I only arrived about a week ago.”
My vision finally cleared enough for me to see who I was talking to. The man had a clean-cut look, like a pastor, but there was just a little too much muscle under his tailored clothes. This was not a man who sat around all day preaching.
The man glared at me but didn’t come any closer. “Don’t try to be funny. Your friends may have started this, but you were there when several of our members were arrested.”
I pretended to think for a moment, which likely only pissed our captors off more, but it gave me a chance to cast a quick glance over at Kayden. He was obviously afraid, but he was doing a good job keeping himself together. His face was neutral, and only the stiff set of his shoulders and the way he bit his lip to silence himself gave away the fact that he was terrified.
“Oh, was that you?” I said, feigning nonchalance as I shrugged. “Sorry. I didn’t realize. What was your name again? Something about souls, right? The Tired Souls? No, that’s not right. The Trained Souls?”
“Shut up!” the other man snapped. He took a step forward as if he meant to approach me, but then stopped and regained his place on the other side of the room.
That was when I realized the man wasn’t alone. There were other people in the room behind me, that much I could tell even without seeing them, but there was someone else directly in front of me as well. The second man sat at a small but elaborate desk, reminding me of the way that a king would sit on a throne while holding court. He was very old, his sparse hair completely white, and the wrinkles on his face too numerous to count. The way he sat there, not saying a word and barely moving, made it seem like he wasn’t paying attention, but his eyes were very active as he tracked the activity around the room.
The younger man shouting at me may pretend to be the one in charge of this little cult, but the older man was the real leader.
That’s who I needed to watch out for.
The man who’d shouted at me laid a hand on the back of the chair of the man sitting down. Just that little gesture was enough to calm him down, and he spoke to me in a much more level tone.
“Mister Landry. Let’s not play these games. We both know why you’re here.”
I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of giving him the answers he was looking for.
“We’re here because you kidnapped us.”
The younger man—I really wished they’d introduce themselves, so I’d have some names for them—squeezed the back of the older man’s chair. His knuckles turned white, like he was on the verge of losing control again, but he managed to keep himself calm.
“We’re here because your friends discovered the missing body of our late founder. Generations ago, something important was stolen from him. It was so important that he gave up his life trying to retrieve it. The items your friends found with his body are likely the key to getting back what was stolen. For that, we need your help. The locket and the key have already revealed their secrets, but the information stored in the journal continues to elude us. You have skills that will help with that.”
So, we’d reached the negotiation stage of our kidnapping. At least things were going better than the last time I’d been captured.
This time, everyone spoke the same language.
“I have no connection to you or the Milford sisters. The only reason I’m involved in this at all is that my friends and I were unlucky enough to buy a property that had a coffin buried in it. So, what’s in it for me if I help you?”
The younger man was clearly furious over my continued attitude, but it was the older man’s reaction that caught my interest. He’d clearly been paying attention to everything, but up until that moment he had given off a sense of indifference. When I mentioned the Milford sisters, however, his expression shifted. Just for a moment, the wrinkles of his face tightened and twisted into a look of absolute disgust.
Whatever the younger man was saying, I ignored him and turned my attention fully on the older man.
