Storm
I’m headed to the Rink. Might as well drink while we wait.
Wolf
We’ll meet you there.
Luke
Halfway there now. Mal’s driving.
Alex
If you get a drink, you put a twenty in the liquor jar. We’re running low, and we’re not funding your collective drinking habit.
Nathan set his phone to silent so he wouldn’t hear adingevery time one of them responded and slipped inside the cool, dark dungeon. The stone staircase descended down and opened up in the main hall. A shuffling sound on the far left alerted him to Weston before he actually saw him. The boy approached the bars and peered through them.
“Oh, it’s you,” he said dismissively.
Nathan strolled to a stop in front of the bars. “Yeah. It’s me.”
“What are you doing here?” Weston leaned against the stone wall beside the bars, folding his arms and cocking his hip out like he hadn’t a care in the world.
He was shockingly calm for someone who’d been kidnapped from the campus and held in a literal dungeon. Most people would at least be crying, maybe begging to be let go. But not him.
“You knew I was a paladin,” Nathan said. “You know who we are. You know why you’re here.”
Weston shrugged. “So what if I do?”
“‘So what?’” he repeated. “What do you mean, ‘so what?’ You know those pills you’re selling are killing people. You know what they do.”
Weston looked away, shrugging again.
“Why? Why are you doing this? It can’t just be for the money. You could sell regular pills and make money.”
“Why do you do whatyoudo?” Weston asked. “Why did you become a paladin?”
Nathan blinked. “I was raised here. I was taught that we needed to take up arms against the forces of evil and protect mankind.”
Weston snorted out a laugh. “Do you hear yourself? You sound ridiculous.”
“Do I? Those little pills of yours have been eviscerating people. Seems pretty evil to me.”
Weston sighed through his teeth. “They weren’t supposed to try breaking through so soon. He told them to wait. They’re impatient, you see. If they’d listened, you never would’ve found me. By the time you knew what was going on, it would’ve already been over.”
“But what’s the point?” He couldn’t tame the frustration in his voice. “Why are you doing this at all?”
Weston smiled, eerie and calm. “Who decides what’s evil?”
Nathan frowned. “What?”
“Who gets to decide who lives and dies? You paladins, you say you’re fighting evil. Who decides that?”
He opened his mouth to respond, but the words stuck in his throat. Not all demons were evil. He knew that now. Saying that every creature from Hell deserved to die, as he’d been taught, left a sour feeling in his gut. Storm didn’t deserve to die. Neither did any of the other demons from the Rink that he’d met.
Weston’s expression cleared with understanding. “You see it, too.”
He gulped hard. “See what?”
