Another predicament to layer on top of everything else I’m dealing with.
Today has been a fucking day. I’m over it. I’m not interested in dealing with stuff that doesn’t directly impact me, but despite my internal resistance, I follow after the shadow fae without a word.
I’m doomed.
The three of us round the building, the thumping of our boots on the dry, hard ground beneath us the only sound, accompanied by the glow of the moon. Every breath I take feels more ominous than the one before it. The heavy metal door creaks as Rion opens it, and the dark stairway leading down entices us. When the door clangs shut behind us and darkness fills my senses, Rion clears his throat.
“It looked like she was dealing with a lot more than the aftermath of poisoning herself.”
I sigh. Now we’re making excuses for her. Great.
“She ran, Rion,” I bite, irritated. “Fuck knows whose blood is on her hands now,” I add, the crimson stains mottled across Elodie’s skin flooding my vision.
“No more than any of ours,” Thorne mutters from behind me, and I shake my head, knowing he can see my dismay despite the darkness.
“Do you think The Sanctum knows?” Rion asks, continuing to lead the way, and I scoff.
“Of course they fucking know.”
That’s obvious and we all know it. You can’t do anything in The Vale without The Sanctum knowing about it. Making a whole-ass run for it is another level and definitely means she has theirattention, even more than she did before. Her unique abilities may have captured The Sanctum’s attention, but her reckless behavior is what will put her even further under their microscope.
Elodie fucking Blackwood.
She’s reckless, unreliable, and a complete liability. I should have considered all of that from the first moment I met her. Instead, I allowed my life to be tied to hers. She can’t fuck up like this again. That’s if The Sanctum doesn’t have both of our heads for this already.
The drag of another door grinding against the floor floods my ears, confirming we’ve reached our destination, and once again, I’m snapped from my chaotic thoughts.
“We’ve got bigger problems to be dealing with first,” I mutter as we filter into the dark and dingy space.
I sense Rion and Thorne head toward the center of the room, leaving me with the pleasure of reaching for the switch. Light dances over the room, revealing the dusty cobwebs gathered in the corners as the lightbulb swings in the middle.
Chains lay scattered in the far left corner, thick and rusty, with a single line trailing to the wooden chair holding the spotlight, where the man of the hour fills our vision. His head is hung low, his chinpropped against his chest. To the untrained eye, you’d be right to assume he’s dead, but I hear the slightest flicker of his useless heart keeping him alive.
Warren Blackwood.
Another inconvenience in my life, yet I’m drawn to the drama of it like a moth to a flame.
No.
That’s too cliché.
Like an addict drawn to their next vice.
Wiping a hand down my face, I feel the corner of my mouth curl up in a sneer as I stare at the fucker taking up far too much space in my mind right now.
We went for him because Rion insisted, and since we firmly placed a wedge between him and Laurie, the professor from Hell, I felt inclined to help because he needed to get the fuck away from that woman by any means.
Taking Warren was easy—he was passed out drunk, propped against the trailer door, every inch of the deadbeat his loose white tank stereotypes him as—getting the green light to leave The Vale, however, was not.
I need to up my intel on Elodie, which would mean being around her more. Something I agreed to before I realized she had made a run for it. I wasstill jacked up on the high of fucking her the other night, helmets firmly in place and the dirt beneath us. Now, I don’t see us spending any time together at all. Not without it turning into even more of a disaster.
I’ve already made a deal with The Sanctum, though, so I need to figure it out.
Fuck.
Tilting my head, I refocus my gaze and acknowledge his full presence before me. He’s more than just a deadbeat called Warren Blackwood; he’s her father.
A grunt vibrates in my throat. “You realize she was running toward the very person we took,” I bite, glancing at Rion, who shakes his head, his jaw ticking with barely contained frustration.
