I didn’t reply. I had no reason to. He lived the same predicament, and his approval helped fortify my resolve.
In shared brotherhood, we made our way down animal tracks and through clearings, moving ever deeper into the treeline.
The outbuilding I’d decided on existed the furthest from the Hall. This one was hidden—alone with its horrible secrets. A place I’d never been able to enter after what happened to Jasmine, no matter what Cut did to me as a child. No matter the threats and corrections. No matter the curses and pain. I’d never stepped foot into the torture chamber again, boycotting its hateful memories.
Our clothing dappled with leaf stencils, trading sunshine for shadows as we traipsed deeper and deeper. The outbuilding nestled in the woods—swallowed whole by trees doing their best to delete the terrible atrocities.
We kept moving.
Cut didn’t struggle, his breathing loud and uneven around the gag.
More flickering hallucinations played havoc with my vision. Leaves danced, turning briefly into wolves. Bracken crunched, morphing into badgers.
Goddammit, I need to rest.
My hand went to my side. The fever I’d had ever since heading to Africa hadn’t broken or grown worse. If anything, it granted a heightened sense of everything, muddying outside influences, letting me focus entirely on what I wanted. What I needed. But it came with a price. A price of withering energy and health.
Soon.
Soon, I can rest.
Breaking through a final thicket, we stepped into a small glen.
The building loomed tall and ancient. Two stories high with oaks and pine surrounding it in their morbid cage. The double barn doors remained locked with a large padlock.
The key was hidden.
“Wait here.” Leaving the men, I ducked into the woods and searched for the tree I needed. Cut had taken me the night he’d told me of my birthday present and inheritance of Nila. He’d marched me through the darkness, filling my head with tales of what would happen and how proud he was that soon I would show him how worthy I was and finally take the place I was born for.
My eyes searched the green gloom.
Where is it?
It took longer than I wanted, but finally, my strained eyes caught sight of the symbol of a diamond and an outline of hawk wings signalling I’d found the right one.
Climbing a few feet up the coarse bark using gnarly roots and limbs, I found the knot left behind after a branch fell away and reached inside for the packet. Jumping down, I undid the fastening and tossed out the key into my palm.
A few others jangled free, landing with a hint of rusty metal. The extras operated parts of the machinery inside. Machinery I had no intention of using or ever switching on again.
Fisting them, I turned on my heel and stomped out of the brush past Cut, Kill, and his men and toward the brittle barn doors.
My breathing turned harsh as I inserted the key into the tarnished padlock.
The mechanism turned as smoothly as the day the lock was bought, the doors creaking on their frame as I shoved open one partition. The stench of dead rodents and rotting foliage mixed with time-stale dust hit my nose.
Barring the entry with my body, I turned to face Kill.
The biker came forward, delivering my father.
I held out my arm. “Give him to me.”
“You sure?”
“Very sure. I want to be alone for the next part.”
Kill passed over my father without another word. He didn’t try to talk me out of this. He didn’t have any obligation to remind me that this was murder, not revenge. That I would become as bad as those I hated if I went through with this.
Kill was not my brother or my conscience. He’d done all he needed to. His obligations were complete.
