“You didn’t immediately try to taunt me. Finn pushes back. You submit. Subtle differences at times but easy enough to pick out if you know what you’re looking for. Now, answer my question, or better yet, I have a different one. Who’s Runo?”
The color drained from my face as I tried to fix the fear running through me. “He’s one of Finn’s. I just… he’s not good. He’s in jail right now and I’m hoping he stays there.”
“Hoping?”
Finn was going to kill me for this. I could already feel him slowly ripping me from the driver’s seat. “He’s getting out this weekend.” And then I was gone.
FINN
Fucking bastard giving away our secrets. None of them were supposed to know about Runo and the fact that my father shared everything with Samael pissed me off. Samael watched as I settled into our body, the detective picking up on the change. “You’re getting a little too good at that, Finn.”
I shrugged and pushed to my feet, making the split-second decision to walk around the table and press a kiss to the man’s forehead. “Because I’m done taking their shit. Killian might be the original but he took over for long enough. It’s my turn to have fun before he inevitably stuffs me away again.”
“And that involves Runo?”
“Yes.”
“Runo who?”
“Runo Ipse.”
When Samael didn’t respond, I left the room. Something was off again but I couldn’t pinpoint it. None of the alters were trying to talk, not even Killian after I so rudely ripped him out of the driver’s seat. The action had been taxing, that lead feelingslowly filling my arms and legs. If I didn’t make it back to my seat fast enough, I would collapse on the fucking floor.
SLASH
“Niles knows.”
Samael and Aeron glanced up at me from the safety of Samael’s office as I waltzed in from the library. I had been relaxing on Samael’s leather couch after lunch, minding my own fucking business when Niles decided to video call, piecing together clues and evidence that didn’t even make sense. He mentioned that my resignation was denied and that we could meet to talk about my future.
When I all but cursed him out, he started picking at my relationship or lack thereof, fear evident in his expression until he whispered the words‘It’s you’.There was no proof and Niles was a fucking coward so I knew he wasn’t going to run to the police.Yet.The problem was that the connection was now outthere. People would laugh it off, calling Niles crazy until some person believed it.
“What do you mean Niles knows? Your fucking boss?” Aeron asked. “Fucking hell. You’re going to kill him, right?”
“Sure. The problem is that taking him out like I do everyone else will raise suspicion because everyone knows Niles has been hounding me to come back. If he suddenly disappears, Chief Matthews is at least smart enough to question me.” All of this was bullshit. Finn’s appearance completely turned everything on its head and at first, we found some excitement in the idea of the new and chaotic.
Now?
I needed Finn to get his act together because it was going to take a miracle to direct suspicion elsewhere. It took me a few minutes to realize what I had walked into, pictures and red yarn networked across one of Samael’s walls. He kept all of his police work at the precinct for the most part so I didn’t understand what I was looking at until a picture of our stepmother’s glared back at me.
“What is that?”
Samael let out a strained laugh. “Seems like our cannibal got a little bored without anything to eat in the house. While you were off letting Niles connect the dots, Aeron here was trying to figure out when we would have first met Finn. Seems like he’s been in a lot of the same places as we have.”
“I can’t take all the credit,” Aeron started. “Most of this shit needed Samael’s access to get to. It was locked up real tight and redacted—”
I walked over to my cannibal and wrapped an arm around his waist before kissing his cheek. “You’ve been real busy today, haven’t you? Couldn’t sleep?” I stared into those sea-glass eyes realizing that while Aeron was fully on board with Finn, he was also a little freaked out. And who wouldn’t be after an event like this morning?
I craved a shared moment with Finn, knowing his crazy ass would enjoy it but I knew that I’d be deep in my thoughts afterward. Sharing that moment with Daemon, blades and all had fucked me up a little. Even if we shared those three special words afterward. “So, what am I looking at?”
My cannibal pulled away from me and spread his arms wide. “Finn has been with us from the beginning or close to it. He’s been in every goddamn location we have. All those foster homes, college, jobs. He had something in the same cities and granted, we’ve been in the same state for most of our lives after we left high school but—”
“Wait, thesamecities?”
Aeron nodded, pointing near the beginning of the timeline. “He was in the same district as where I went to high school. And then here, that accident. And then at the college with me but his main psychiatrist was at Slash’s hospital. When they officially moved into Primrose, his father was chief of police which offersa connection to Samael but he also had a membership to the same gym. That retreat—Nyla won the tickets but there had been a few resorts to pick from. They just so happened to pick yours? Bullshit.”
I stepped back, taking in every connection they had put together. We thought Killian had fallen into our laps but Finn had been watching us from day one. It felt… odd. “Why do I feel like there’s more?”
Samael pushed to his feet, letting out a heavy sigh. “Because there is. All of those presents Finn presented to us were based on his own sentiments. He brought you your stepmothers because he was around or in the vicinity when that happened. He wanted them dead, just as much you two did. However, it’s worse than that. I spoke with Killian’s father and he showed me some of his medical records. Finn is a problem, yes. But it’s worse than that. The chief mentioned one of Finn’s friends, one that’s on fucking trial for murder. Runo Ipse.”
