“I wouldn’t do that if I were you, mon ami.”
The hand with my phone freezes midair. “And why is that?”
The huge blonde man purses his lips, then moves them to one side, then the next, squinting at me.
“Prospect!”
“Alright, quit getting your panties in a bunch.” He rolls his eyes. “Guy is looking worse for wear. Lookin’ like he was probably tortured a while judging by the -”
What the fuck? I push past him, his voice drifting off as I enter the house, following the smell of death, freezing in my tracks when I find the body. “Damian -”
“Yeah, Vex?” His voice coming from right next my ear.
“Next time you find a dead body, give us all the facts, yeah?”
“I did. Told you he was dead and had his damn cock out. That’s all the news worth sharin’.”
Closing my eyes I take a deep breath, trying to ignore the picture of the elderly man missing his eyeballs that is burned into my brain. Blowing out a breath I blink my eyes open, then slowly catalog the room. Everything looks neat and tidy, if not a little dated. There are pictures on the mantel, dried flowers in a little bundle sitting on the sideboard, and an open book on the coffee table. Nice. Cozy. Homely. Then there is the abomination in the middle of the room. His chair facing the doorway instead of the TV. He’s naked save for the underwear that Damian somehow put on him. Where the hell he found them I have no idea. The corpse’s wrists are tied to the arms of the chair, palms facing up and in the middle of each hand is a nail pinning him to the chair. His eyeballs are missing, eyelids pinned open, dried blood staining his cheeks. His body is covered in at least 100 small cuts, and long burn marks mar whatever skin has not been slashed. My stomach turns and I have to duck my head, gulping in breaths as I try to make sense of what I’m seeing. It’s disturbing and wrong and yet it feels…familiar somehow.
A whine to the left of me brings me back to myself, Barbara panting and whining in Damian’s hold.
“Shit. She ain’t takin’ it well, her old master bein’ likethat,” Damian’s arm swings around in a broad gesture before snuggling Barbara closer. “Don’t worry, sweet girl. I’ll takecare of ya.” He moves to turn and leave but freezes in place. “Ummm,”
Following where his gaze is I stumble back slightly when my eyes land on somethingveryfamiliar.
“Isn’t that some Eden’s Keep shit?”
I spin, eyes wildly taking in the man sitting in the chair. There is nothing remarkable about him, not one feature standing out. Yes, he’s been turned into mincemeat, but not enough for me to not recognize him if he was someone from the Keep. That knowledge should make me feel better, that he’s a stranger, but it doesn’t. Not when the two mirrored tree trunks is an image I grew up with. Both trunks face each other, forming a narrow doorway. The words “Only the worthiest pass through the Gates of Eden always” underneath it. I mean, clearly it was more a gate to hell, but as a kid, that image is burned into my brain. Which is why here, crudely spray painted on the wall in a town damn near 40 minutes away from the Keep, it sends shivers up my spine. It also fucking means that we have very few options in getting out of here without it blowing back on us.
Staring at the wall and ignoring Damian’s baby talk to Barbara, I slide my phone out of my cut, dialing the first number. “Prez, we got a problem.”
“You mean more than us hiding two kids and a woman who’s been beat to hell?” Prez asks drily, the sound of his boots thudding through the room before a door slams. “Hit me with it.”
I switch the call to video and turn my camera to the scene, first the body in front of me, then the Eden’s Keep symbol behind me.
“OK. Wanna enlighten me about what I’m looking at?”
“That is the symbol for Eden’s Keep. I can’t be too sure but from what me and my siblings went through before we leftEden’s Keep, he looks a lot like he’s been through confession. Albeit a fucked up one.”
The phone is dead silent as Dex’s brows hit his hairline. I wait patiently to hear back from him as Damian’s heavy-ass feet thump around somewhere in the house.
“Emergency services are out,” Dex finally says.
“Agreed. Anyone from around these parts will recognize that symbol. That’ll have the law on our asses.”
Dex nods, running a hand down his face. “Anyone see you two go in there?”
My gaze raises to Damian’s as he comes back into the room.
“In my defense, my momma raised me polite. If a neighbor gonna wave, I gotta wave back.” He shrugs.
A loud sigh sounds out over the phone. “We’re gonna need a full clean out. Body and all.”
“I can probably help with that,” Damian says, rocking Barbara side to side.
“How?” Dex asks, brow raised.
“Momma runs a funeral home. She’s tryin’ to retire, so business ain’t what it used to be, but we can disappear a body there easy enough,” he shrugs. Dex and I are quiet as church mice. “She’s a successful businesswoman,” he says defensively.
