“I’ll show youaround.” The voice sounded distant as if it were coming from across the room, and if it weren’t for the factGriffin watched Ivan’s lips move, he would have doubted he spoke at all.
“Sure.” Griffin didn’t want to go anywhere with this man. He had a hard time determining his eye color, let alone his intentions. Ivan was dangerous. But maybe this would lead him in the direction ofwhyhe was in Violencia in the first place. So far, it didn’t seem like a bad nation at all. If anything, they had more rights than the people of his country, and they didn’t have priests breathing down their necks either.
And the best part of all, they didn’t have a High Priestess.
Fighting through his uneasiness, Griffin followed Ivan. Even as he led him outside of the room, down a long thin hallway with a low ceiling that caused him to duck. They carried on towards a gloomier section of the building, one that almost appeared forgotten.
When Ivan opened the door at the end, a rush of smoke billowed out. As Griffin stepped closer, it cleared. What he saw made him realize that perhaps Violencia wasexactlylike the rest of the world.
Just as fucked up and evil.
He swallowed down the bile that had risen up his throat and found exactly who would join him.
The victims inside the room.
Those who needed hope the most.
Chapter 10
Consume His Suffering
Raven
Present Day – Catastro Sea
Slipping out of Griffin’s door, I was grateful to find Julian and Levi still waiting for me. But they both appeared on edge, Levi immediately taking up my guard.
“Are you okay?” Levi asked, raising an eyebrow and clocking my wet hair and new attire.
I had forced Griffin to let me use his bathroom, the shower a necessary decompression after dealing with him, and he had given me clothes to wear.
His clothes. The sweatpants were held up by a drawstring and the long sleeve shirt was bunched up on my wrists, but I felt cozy.
“Yes. You know Ivan is most likely on this ship?” I whispered softly to him. Just mentioning his name out loud caused a scattering of pin-pricks across my skin.
The feeling of being watched magnified past the point of discomfort. Ivan was a Skinwalker. He could be anyone. It was what he did best.
He was the creator of the Retrieval Faction, the driving force behind their art of disguise.
Levi flinched before inclining his head. “It wouldn’t be like him to act now, but we can’t be too careful. Everyone has been on guard, and we will continue to be when we make it to Grypheem.”
When we make it to Grypheem.
Then Ivan would be free to become whoever he wanted. And I wouldn’t know any better in a country of strangers. He had been the originator of the Retrieval Faction, a master of disguises, before he went rogue and joined forces with the Government.
Another thought circulated. “What about 32… Amelia?”
“She’s not his target. You are,” Julian replied, grabbing hold of me and tangling his fingers with mine. His hand swallowing mine whole. “But Felix is watching over her nonetheless. And before you ask, Maverick, Enzo, and Oleks are all on alert. We all are. But I don’t think he will act while we’re all at sea.”
Unease and another unexpected feeling percolated throughout my body. “Can you both take me back to my room? I’m afraid once we get there, everything is going to go sideways. We won’t know any peace.”
Griffin had filled me with a variety of emotions. He had plucked and peeled away my second skin, forcing me to face my feelings straight on and now Julian was igniting an entirely different array.
He squeezed my hand, tugging me back towards the room I had woken up in on the other side of the ship, and the windwhipped around us as we moved. The new attire offered a better reprieve against the unexpected chill. Made me almost feel comfortable.
While I was still forcing the numb to wrap around me, to push down the fact that Sparrow and Jayce were in Violencia with Nightingale, I could allow myself to open up to my surroundings.
To Levi.
