“And then what happens?” she asked when I stopped counting down.
I snapped the watch closed. “Then he will force her to have his kids, and throw her back to the church, letting them do whatever it is they want to her.”
“You can’t let that happen.”
I wouldn’t have a choice if they continued on like this. “It’s their religion, Red, and you know how much I respectreligion.”
“Azrael,” she seethed, forcing me to meet her eyes. “You have to stop that. You have to help her.”
“And who will help the rest of them?” I asked, looking over. “I’m sure you saw the children. There are hundreds more wherethat came from, and more being born and sold every single day. Who helps them?”
Her blue-green eyes were alight. “I don’t care if you can’t save them all, I understand how impossible that is, but you can at least save her.”
A shuffle to my left had my eyes lifting back to the entrance, watching as my dearfamilystarted down the alley, anger on half of their faces.
My smile stretched from ear to ear.
“I’m sick and tired of your games, Azrael,” Jacky boy snarled, pointing a finger at me, the daffodil and hound right behind him.
Behind the hound were the mountains, the rose, the white wolf, and their fox, the cub and mouse following soon after. Ourfamilyhad grown so much, it seemed.
No masks on any of them, which was typical. They felt as if they were safe out there on the streets, and perhaps they were, but that was a risk I was too calculated to take.
My eyes shifted to the rose, feeling her studious strange eyes watching me. “Hello, wild rose, how are your thorns?”
“Sharp enough to listen,” she answered, glancing to Red and back. “You let her find you.”
“I allowed her to stay,” I confirmed, my eyes shifting to the mountains. “Hello mountain man, and how is my prodigy?”
His icy blue eyes hardened. “More in control than you could ever be.”
I chuckled. “She was born with an uncracked mind that cracked under pressure. Some diamonds need it to become their true selves, but the chessboard is hers now, and so your world.” I gripped my cane at my side. “Red here claims I don’t give you a chance. That, despite your impatience, your uncontrolled anger, and your abilities to observe long enough to taunt me with guesses,” I went on, finding the daffodil’s narrowing eyes, “that I should still ask for your help when she believes I need it.”
“You do need it, Azrael.”
“You only want me to need it, cub, because it would make your melancholy heart allfuzzyinside,” I hummed, reveling in his irritation. “But the truth is, Red is wrong. I can’t give you a chance because none of you, including you, dear wild rose, could handle this. Your anger, your pathetic weakened hearts, could not survive watching what I have watched without acting on it, which is the problem.Actingon it is the problem, and the fact that you are here, berating me into telling you aboutmyassignment, is exactly why I couldn’t tell you.
“Look at you all,” I purred, lifting my chin before they could get a single word out. “Foaming at the mouths because I have kept a secret from you for so many years, and youhatethat. You all hate that you don’t have control but forget that you all have secrets too. Jacky boy, you murdered your own brother just before hunting down your precious little rabbit and fucking the brand into her skin.”
The daffodil’s eyes swung towards him in question.
“The mountains and his grand delusions of the people he calls Them. TheSkinwalkerswho raised him.”
“Don’tuse that name,” he snarled, taking a step forward. “That was not what they were.”
“It’s what you called Them,” I purred. “Cub, have you told your little mouse about the murderous rampage you went on when you were 19? Some might have mistaken you for me.”
“Yes,” she said tightly. “Yes, he did.”
My eyes shifted to hers. Surprising, but not too surprising. The cub had a soft heart, I had assumed, at some point in their soft lives, that he would divulge his one slip up. After all, not even he could ignore what father dearest had turned us into.
“Lest we forget,” I went on, meeting each pair of the woman’s eyes, “how none of you would have the ability to stand back and watch an underage child be sold to a man four times her age sothat he can take her back and rape her over and over and over again before bringing her to church on Sunday and forcing her to ask their preciousSaviorfor forgiveness because she allowed herself to become impure with his cock.”
“What the fuck, Azrael,” the fox breathed out, shaking her head.
“Don’t,” the rose warned her sister, her eyes still locked on mine. “It’s not a game. That was real.”
“And so are the memories the daffodil has yet to remember,” I spoke with a deadly calm. “None of you have the strength to stand back and wait.”
