My attention fell to Killian, trying to understand the blank look on his face. Things had changed since he had first stepped in here about fifteen minutes ago. Blood seeped through his shirt just above his hip, a dark wet patch calling me to address it. I wouldn’t. I didn’t need to know what that was from but I was curious.
Mentally, I made a note.
He looked conflicted, his face twisted in some internal battle, his hands clenched in his lap. His eyes truly were both one color now—a terrifying ocean gray that swallowed the light, no hint of that mismatched honey-gold I'd seen before. He just looked both tired and terrifying, bags under his eyes but a sharpness in his gaze that made my skin prickle.
Something was different about him, like a switch had flipped, and I wondered if the darkness that HMD boasted was finally making an appearance in Killian.
I'd held the kid back for years, wanting to see what would happen, mostly because he was a great employee and never complained. He showed up, filed his pieces on time—mostly, and kept his head down. There were a few times he asked for a promotion or eluded to as such but he rarely spoke up like some of the others.
But when I started realizing that some of Killian’s stories about his past didn’t line up, I wanted to know more. I'd dug a little, found his mother's HMD diagnosis buried in an old press conference his father had done, and it clicked.
Killian had all the same signs.
I kept him around not just for the work, but for the potential story, the quirk of having a walking mystery in my newsroom. He was tangled up in something bigger, and I'd loved watching it unfold.
What Tyrone and most people didn’t know was that I had a bug in my office. I'd planted it only just recently, a tiny device hidden in the desk lamp, feeding audio to my private server after weird shit had started happening over the past several weeks. I had caught most of the current conversation with the earpiece but I could listen to the rest later. To think that the police believed those three hottest bachelors in the city might also be the Three Terrors would be a story that would set The Revival up for life.
Unable to hold back, I pulled out a notepad from the drawer and began scribbling across the lines.
"Three Terrors = bachelors? Killian connection? HMD link to crimes?
The potential headlines danced in my head, the kind of expose that sold papers and got me interviews on local news.
A wild grin took over my face as I leaned over the desk. “Killian, tell me what you know because I feel like you knowsomething. Something that would turn this city on its head.”
He looked up, his ocean-gray eyes locking on mine. “I don’t know anything.”
I watched as he tried to play innocent, his face smoothing out, but the look in his eyes betrayed him. Killian wasn’t scared or shy, not like he used to be, fumbling excuses for late stories or avoiding eye contact. There was something bold about him now, something that wanted to kill, destroy, and upend the world around him.
I grinned wider, wondering if I was speaking to Killian at all. Maybe one of the alters Nyla had whispered about before she died. “I used to think you might know something because of whoyour father is, but I’m beginning to think you know something because of the company you keep. They’re the Three Terrors, aren’t they? That’s why you didn’t want to do a feature on them or yourself. You’ve seen stuff, haven’t you? Have they threatened you?”
Killian stood up abruptly, his chair scraping the floor. “Your sick need to make everything a story is why you’re still so pitifully alone. I’ve been through hell and back, lost my mother to a debilitating sickness, and am now trying to just survive under a boss who won’t fucking promote me. But you, you need a story, and I’m sorry to say, I don’t have one for you.”
He was lying, though. There was a story somewhere there—for the same reason why Phoenix had offered to give us a story if we’d leave Killian alone.
The boldness of his tone sent a shiver down my spine because I wasn’t talking to Killian, was I? “You’re not Killian, are you? You’re one of the ones that Nyla kept telling me about, or trying to.”
He hesitated and threw me a deviant grin, his eyes darkening until they were the same color as a torrential storm. “I’d really keep that to yourself. Exploiting an employee’s sickness isn’t a story, but if that is the route you choose, just know that I have a path of my own to walk down.”
Killian left the office, the door clicking shut behind him, and I leaned back in my chair, grinning because I’d got that all on tape.
SAMAEL
The moment Runo left for work, I started packing up and moving everything to the estate, a far safer and more protected place than the fucking woods Runo and Slash had been chasing Niles through last night. No way in hell was I going to just fuckingsitthere while Runo was off playing whatever fucking game he had dragged us into.
However, some part of me wanted to play this out with Runo—the only reason I was watching Brent still tied up, but now in my basement, through the security cameras in my office.
His glare was fixed on the camera like he could burn a hole through my soul. My original plan was to move him so that I could focus on actual police work, but focus was a fucking fantasy. Not with one of my best friends and my confidant, bound and gagged below. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to kill him. Letting him go wasn’t an option either—not after he’d seen us with Runo, not after Niles’ blood-soaked end in the woods.
I glanced up, my gaze landing on Slash who was passed out on the couch, his arm slung over his face. He hadn’t been himself since last night, not since that crazed look burned in his eyes. I used to love that look, back when we were kids, feeding our demons in dark alleys.
We’d found ways to cope since then, burying those urges under control, under routine. Hell, I thought we’d tamed them altogether and locked them away forever. But last night had changed everything. Runo had dragged that demon out of Slash, and part of me hated how much it thrilled me, a dark, sensual pull that made me wonder when it would be my turn.
With each darker part of our fourth that was revealed, I found myself falling in step with them rather than turning them in.
As if the darkness itself was what I craved.
I sighed and leaned back in my chair while rubbing my temples, the monitor pulling my attention again when it flickered. Brent still hadn’t moved, his stare unwavering as he no doubt was deciding my fate should he be let out.
