Page 54 of All Saints Day
“You can’t let them go through with it,” I stammer out, sweat beading at my brow, rolling down between my shoulder blades as the panic grips me anew.
“Let who go through with what?” Dennis challenges, lifting his chin.
My vision doubles—Dennis and Mike stand side-by-side in the same pose before I shake it off, only Dennis standing in judgement as I blather on.
“You can’t let Louise and Quentin dose me with those suppressant melters, you can’t let Rook get ahold of either of them!” I plead desperately.
Dennis just shakes his head wearily.
“Unless you want to tell me what the Windmill’s plans for the Zeitnot virus are, there’s no way to stop that train—it’s already coming down the tracks,” he snorts dismissively.
“You don’t get it—none of you understand what you’re dealing with when it comes to the Windmill,” I protest, trying to make him see reason if none of the others will. “C’mon Dennis, you’ve seen the corruption—don’t tell me that you didn’t think Susan Lowry was pure as the first snow before you found out.” I press my point, and I can tell by the nearly imperceptible downturn of the corner of Dennis’ mouth—that I’ve struck a nerve.
“They must be pretty bad, considering what it did to you, Frank,” Dennis finally speaks, getting his jab in.
“Yeah—take it from a fool who knows, kid,” I snap back, we don’t have time for this kind of waffling.
“For you to have to become Rook, to have made someone that awful to hide behind to protect yourself,” Dennis shoots back.
My vision starts to swim before me, and I can hear the ringing in my ears spinning up louder and louder.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I growl out. My hands want to cover my ears—to squeeze my skull until it shatters or the noise stops—whichever comes first.
“Oh but I do,” Dennis sighs sadly—pulling a chair, spinning it around backward so that he can sit facing me—leaning against the high back of the chair; a bandage peeking out from beneath the sleeve of his t-shirt. “From the minimal stuff I can find that the Windmill didn’t scrub from the record—young Francis Castle seemed like a good kid, a sweet boy who was too soft to make it in his father’s violent family business or in the Windmill.”
I pinch my eyes shut—images projected in clips on my minds eye; throwing up on the sidewalk outside the bar the first time I saw my old man slit a guy’s throat, my own hands slick with blood as my father lay dying in my arms, Susan Lowry teaching me how to break fingers in the most painful and frightening way possible in an interrogation on a call-girl who had been stupid enough to try to blackmail Compton, picking at the flecks of gunpowder in my hand after my first kill—like Lady Macbeth trying to wash her hands of her dirty deeds in her sleep.
Out—damned spot!
“Shut up!” Is all I can manage to blurt out—my head spinning, my grip on reality slipping away.
“You made yourself a monster to hide behind—to do the dirty work while sweet, soft Francis kept his hands clean.”
I feel the bile rising in my throat, the air in the room becoming thin, the walls closing in.
“But Rook was too dirty—too rough and tumble to go undercover at the FBI like your handlers wanted,” Dennis continues as I struggle against my bonds—animal screams rising up to try to drown out his words so that I don’t have to hear the truth.
“Now, what I can’t figure out is what carrot they dangled in front of you to keep you going forward so blindly,” Dennis ponders aloud, looking me up and down from behind the cold front of his icy rebuke.
I just shout and snarl—because it’s all I can do as the darkness inside begins to take hold.
“For whatever reason, you were their dog, you followed their orders—you had to make yourself a new face, a new mask to wear to do it, Frank Stone; not the kid who lost his father the red collar criminal at a young age, not the monster that the kid created to get vengeance for dear old dad, but someone smarter, smoother, sexier—who could fit in with the boy scouts and carry himself with power and swagger.”
“If you know so much, why don’t you just put a bullet in my brain!?” I bark, momentarily stunning Dennis into silence.
“I know you expect me to take the tough guy route—to tell you that the only reason you’re still alive is because we need information,” Dennis growls back, flexing his own alpha aura on me—Sea Salt, Thyme, Hyssop, like a clean breaking wave over the jagged rocks of my frayed nerves. “But I’ve seen it, Frank—Francis; whoever you really are inside there.” He jabs at my sternum with his index finger—those blue-green eyes crackling as if lit from within as he fixes me with his stare. “I’ve seen a place where all of us can belong.”
I shut my eyes and try not to see Michael’s blood spray as the bullet bores into his skull.
It isn’t possible. It’s a lie—all of it. Fated Mates, the Saints, Lucifer, and me—Dennis doesn’t understand. No one does.
I don’t get a happy ending.
The ringing builds louder until it drowns out everything else.
So I descend into the depths, into the madness, into the ringing darkness.
Chapter 19
