Icalled the rose, knowing it would anger everyone around her when it was her phone that rang.
“I know we’re not meeting here.”
“Clever of you,” I answered evenly. “You all want to play my game, you will play by my rules. Leave all of your devices there. Every electronic on your being, Havoc will watch them, and don’t worry, wild rose, I’ve already disabled the tracking devices in you and the daffodil’s pretty little necks.”
They didn’t know Havoc, but I did, and while he and his brothers didn’t live here, they did have a shop here they ran, which made things easier when I called him for help. He and his brothers were just like me, save for one difference; they had been in that asylum far longer than I had. None of them had been born with the same mind as I had, but that asylum reworked their innerworkings just as it had reworked mine.
“You what?” the mountains snarled in the background.
“Shh,” Olivia told him. “Fine. Where are we going?”
I rattled off the address, hung up, turned the phone off, and tossed it into the nearest trash bin on my way down the street.
“How much money do you spend on those a month?” Red asked, glancing over.
“There isn’t a price on never being found.”
“Yeah, but it sure makes things difficult,” she muttered as the people gawked and stared.
This world didn’t like the idea of masks, yet they wore them every single day. Makeup and glasses, dying their hair, piercing their face, marking their skin, injecting themselves with plastics and liquids just to try and become the beauty they saw on the television, not realizing that they were all becoming the same person. Copy and pasted all around the world. Fake tits, fake muscles, fake cheeks, fake asses, fake skin, fake hair, fake personalities.
At least my porcelain mask could be removed. They couldn’t remove their ignorance.
“You’re making the children cry,” Red stated in irritation as we turned the corner.
“Good.” I pulled out another phone and disabled the cameras on the next block, putting them on a loop while simultaneously erasing my steps up until this point, replacing one recording of me going right with a recording of me going left.
When the rest of them went to the address I gave them, there would be no trace of their steps, no memory on any camera anywhere of their faces being seen.
They’ll find a letter left under a napkin dispenser on the third table on the right telling them where to go next. I had twenty minutes before they found me.
15 minutes later and we were finally nearing the alley of my choosing. “What are we doing, Azrael? Why all of these…” she waved her hands, “theatrics just to tell them the truth?”
I would give themtheirtruth. I never said I would give themmytruth, and if they were smart, they would already know that. “There is a time and a place, Red, and unfortunately for the nine of you, you jumped the line. We have had the patience beat into us since we were very young, and yet all of you thought you had the right to step into what was mine. So, you will do this my way, or I will not hesitate to cut the beating hearts from your very chests.”
“They’ve been patient,” she replied, a frown clear in her voice. “Rae’s been waiting for over three years to get her revenge on her father. Olivia has been waiting a couple of months. You’ve kept this secret for years, running and fighting and hiding from us all. You’ve always caused me grief, but these last two years? It’s as if you are trying to figure out a way to take us down from the inside out.”
“If I truly wanted to kill you all, I would have done it years ago.” I looked over. “You all may have been trained by father dearest himself, but I’m the one who birthed the program as it is today too extreme for even the dear king to agree to. You will never beatme.”
“Arrogant,” she muttered. Red then lifted a hand. “If that’s the case, then what are we doing here?”
I felt that smile grow. “The daffodil didn’t beat me; she made an educated guess out of impatience and irritation.” I turned back to the sidewalk just as we rounded the corner into the narrow, abandoned alley. “You’ve been poking the bear a long time, and now the bear is awake. It’s time to deal with the disrespect before you find yourselves in a place you cannot come back from.”
“But I saw the service, Az. They can help you. Taking down an established institution like that? I saw the girls. We can help—”
“And boys,” I cut in. “There are daycares and branches and churches across continents interwoven into our society like parasites ready to feast,” I sang. “As you’ve already proven, patience is not any of your fortes. Four years I’ve been doing this. How many assignments have they had in that time? Hundreds,” I answered before I could stop myself. “The only one with any dedication to one place is the cub, and he’s tookindfor this world.”
“He is strong enough to handle anything, you just don’t give him a chance. You don’t give any of us a chance.” She steppedin front of me. “I saw them walk towards that door behind the stage before I left. He was taking that girl back there, the one I’m assuming you’re working with. What do they do in that hall, Az? What are they doing to her?”
She should never have stayed in the sanctuary long enough to see that. “Take your pick.” It was careless.
“I won’t,” she said, her voice tight with anger. “I need you to tell me. I don’t know the rules here. You have to, foronce, be open to me. Tell me. Let me be your partner.”
I inhaled deeply, wanting nothing more than to feel someone’s blood splatter across my face to ease this feeling within me. However, now that she was in the church, the only way to keep her safe was to give her what she wanted. To a degree. “Penetration makes them impure, but one of the Leaders broke that rule quite some time ago. So, now her mouth is free game until the day of her wedding.”
She released a breath, pure horror in her eyes. “Which is when?”
I pulled out my pocket watch, clicking it open to watch the seconds tick tick tick by. “7 months, 9 days, 23 hours, 43 minutes, and 16 seconds, 15, 14…”
