“My loyalty is just fine. Thank you for saving those kids. Do you know how many there are?”
I managed to save one a trip in the last two years. “I lost count,” I told him. “Do be careful, some may be as fragile as me.”
He huffed and shook his head. “You are anything but fragile.” With that, he headed after his Claim.
Red and I turned to the remaining people. The fox, the mountains, the wolf, and the wild rose.
“How does it feel talking so much?” the mountains asked, angling his chin.
“Painful,” I replied, glancing towards the mouth of the alley and back.
“So, the church is here then,” he went on. “In Seattle.”
I studied him carefully before turning to the wild rose. “How are your studies?”
Her fingers brushed over the fur of her dog, the creature’s ears on a swivel. “I’ve considered going through the program but figured I may as well wait until next year. I can be the test subject of the one you and Ev are putting together.”
I looked her over quickly. “You’d be the first and only to survive.”
“No, I took out a few of your suggestions,” he cut in. “The Initiates don’t need that kind of rigorous testing, if they go on to study to be one of us, then yes, they’ll need it, but for now, we are focusing on regular Initiates.”
“I do hope you change the names,” I muttered, pulling out my watch to check the time.
“Are you going to protect the girl?” the rose asked.
I snapped the watch shut. “Don’t you worry your darling little bud, wild rose, we’re made of the same sharp edges, I aim only to uncover them.”
Her eyes hardened. “Are you going to kill her along with the rest of them?” she asked blatantly.
I glanced from one eye to the other before turning my attention to the end of the alley. “Some goals are not often achieved. How is your writing going?”
“Abigail Ross has published another book, but I’m sure you know that.”
I smiled. “Basing fiction off truth is a dangerous game. You shouldn’t record assignments like that.”
“Hiding in plain sight is how the best of us get away,” she reminded me. “Just like you, hiding in plain sight. All these years, and you’ve always been here.”
“A hit to Red’s fragile ego, no?”
Red huffed, folding her arms over her chest. “You can’t damage my ego anymore, Az, if anything, finding you last week was a boost.”
I clicked my tongue. “It’d be best if you didn’t brag about such things. Before you three try and ask any more questions, don’t waste your precious time. I won’t tell you where, when, or how. I won’t give you names or addresses. I won’t even give you a hair color.”
“Why are you keeping this one such a secret?” the mountains asked. “If it stretches so far and wide, why did you keep even Pops from knowing?”
Since the daffodil’s call last week, I have been in a different state of mind. The kind that didn’t allow me to slow for even amoment, and tonight, I have finally started feeling the effects of it. It was hard to play the game when the cards were on fire.
My eyes shifted to the wild rose, ignoring the mountains all together. “She’s in Wonderland,” I told her, watching her dark brows pull together. I may be cunning and quick, but I am smart enough to know that there are things I don’t know, and within this state I live, even I have forgotten what it was like to be in that room from time to time, but the rose? It was more recent for her. If I’m to utilize the little sinner fully, then I need to know how to access all of her.
After a moment, she straightened, her fingers threading into her pup’s fur, her knuckles turning white while the quiet, psychotic rage drifted across her face, blowing her pupils and shifting her features into something almost unrecognizable.
The woman they had turned her into. The woman who bled and bled and screamed, who gave up the earpiece to save her lover from the cracks she had experienced.
Her throat bobbed once, moving that pretty pink and black collar gently around her neck. “How long?”
“Her entire life.”
Her shoulders fell an inch and tightened at the same time, but it was the mountains who spoke. “Azrael, after that long, her mind is lost. How can you trust that her information is worth anything?”
