Daemon: As long as someone is getting fucked.
It was the first time we had all entirely been on the same page. I should have been terrified because that meant my alters were slowly melting into each other but I was more focused on the fact that everyone was excited Dad was going down.
I cleared my throat and set my elbow on the table before resting my chin on my inner palm. “Do you remember all those years growing up that you paraded us around as the perfect family? How about the years after Mom got sick, and you used her diagnosis to gain sympathy? How about after that, when you fucking ignored her and stuck her in a hospital? She criedfor you, wouldn’t eat, thinking you’d show up. Hell, she died because you never once came to see her. She held out for so fucking long.”
Dad’s voice cracked, his hands clenching the loaf of bread and cheese he had pulled out. “And what, this is your way of getting back at me?”
He had said those words so many times before to me, asking me when it would be the end. However, I had only been fucking around with him. I hadn’t really had a plan. I hadn’t had the resources or the reach I did now. “No, this is my way of saying fuck you to the system you built as I put you in the hell that you built for my mother.”
TYRONE
Hunched over my desk in the cramped office Chief Matthews had given me, my gaze ran across the papers strewn in front of me a billionth time. Photos of crime scenes, witness statements, and half-scribbled notes blurred together, my eyes burning from hours of staring.
I rubbed my temples, the knot of my tie loose after a long day of finding information but being unable to truly connect anything useful. Niles’ murder was the latest puzzle piece, and it didn’t fit—none of this shit did.
A knock on the doorframe made me look up. Officer Daniels leaned in, his uniform still crisp despite the hour, a laugh escaping him. “Burning the midnight oil?”
I leaned back as my chair creaked with the movement, a heavy sigh rumbling through my chest. “I have to. None of this shit adds up.”
I swiveled around to face the board I’d pinned together, a chaotic web of connections—photos of Killian, Ryker, Phoenix,Merchant, locations marked with red pins, and the recent murders scrawled in black marker. Niles’ crime scene photo was just off to the side, his body carved up like a goddamn pig. There had been some kind of scuffle beside where his body was found but the damp grass out there left little to go on.
That and the fact that the investigative team available in Primrose didn’t have the tools to preserve the scene. Daniels stepped inside, his eyes widening as he took all of it in. “Damn, you’ve been working overtime. Wait, why is Merchant up there?”
I stood and pointed at the man’s picture, his dark eyes staring back at me. Merchant was an enigma, a detective from old money, and an individual that could very well have his hands dirty. “Because I don’t trust him, and he’s been too connected to all of this shit. Everyone in Primrose has got these rose-colored glasses on, and I’m over it. Everyone’s tangled up in something but I can’t figure out why, and I have no evidence to actually tie them to anything.”
Daniels laughed, moving closer to the board, his shadow falling across the pins. “Well, that’s because everyone’s so close to the chief. He’s nice, but he definitely isn’t cut out for this job. The curfews and other rules he’s made do fuck all.”
I frowned and turned back to my desk, my fingers brushing the edge of a photo. “I just don’t get how all of this has been going on for years and he’s never made one connection with all the clues he’s gathered?”
Daniels shrugged, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “He’s real optimistic, but yeah.” Daniels turned to leave, then paused, glancing back. “Hey, just a question, how did you find that body so quickly? From what I heard, he was deep in the woods.”
I froze, my fingers tightening on the photo. “Another mystery, I guess.” I waited until Daniels left before letting my mind erupt into chaos. Needing something to soften the edge, I reached into the bottom drawer and pulled out the bottle of whiskey the chiefhad thrust at me when I first started a few days ago. I poured a healthy amount into the accompanying glass from the gift set and took a swig before turning back to my board.
“How did the Chief know where Niles was?”
The question burned hotter than the liquor in my throat as I took another sip, the burn spreading through my chest. The woods were at the edge of Phoenix’s house, but too deep for a body to be found so fast. Reports of screaming had trickled in, vague whispers from locals, but nothing solid, nothing that made sense.
There wasn’t much to gather from the crime scene except for the blood stains pooling beneath Niles’ body. Even then, the wet brush from the morning rain had smeared the evidence, footsteps of someone chasing Niles blurred into mud.
So much goddamn evidence and nothing to make sense out of it. The asylum killings caught my attention—Chief Matthews had reported those too, his name also tied to too many scenes. The last few murders were split—some found by Merchant, some by other officers, but the chief’s always had a pattern: killings by an unknown player, no suspect, just bodies and questions.
The public had dubbed the mysterious killerThe Unknownbut now I was wondering if the chief was a little more closely related to all this shit than he was supposed to be.
I chugged the rest of my drink and leaned closer to the board. “What if the chief is either covering for someone, or he’s involved? How has no one asked any of these questions?”
Maybe they had. And then they got shut down.
The chief’s optimism and his failure to connect dots made it feel like there was a bigger secret I still hadn’t uncovered. I mulled over my board for a few more seconds before grabbing my phone and scrolling to the chief’s number. The phone rang a few times before a soft, wary female voice answered.
I frowned and pulled it back to check the screen. I groaned, realizing I’d misdialed and called Jade, yet another person I needed to talk to, in order to connect the dots. I’d gathered intel on her days ago, seen her with Killian, but hadn’t planned to call yet. Better now than never, though.
“Hey, Jade?”
She scoffed. “Who is this?”
I kept my voice steady as I sat back in my chair and poured myself another bit of whiskey. “My name is Tyrone. I’m working with the Primrose Police Department, and I had a few questions.”
“It’s past midnight,” she snapped. “You couldn’t wait until the morning?”
