“I killed him,” he finally says in response to my question, his voice devoid of emotion.
“But why?”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it matters,” I answer, though my voice cracks. “How could you do something like this?”
He lets out a harsh laugh that makes my blood run cold. Even on the night he tricked me into making a deal with him, he wasn’t this vitriolic.
“Does it even matter if I attempt to justify his death? No matter what I say, I’ll always be a monster in your eyes.”
He stalks out of the maze without another word, flicking the knife closed and shoving it into his pants pocket, and I force myself to follow him, if only to not be stuck in a dark garden with a dead body.
As soon as I find my way to the open garden, I promptly lean against a statue and heave, emptying the contents of my stomach against the concrete sculpture. It’s one thing to kill a person who’s been harming people, but it’s another to murder a man who runs a charity and lights up a room.
Maybe hediddo something terrible, but if Ambrose won’t explain to me why he killed this man, then I can’t help but assume it’s unjustified. Why else wouldn’t he tell me? It’s not like he’s hid his nature from me before. Maybe I was stupid to believe that his intelligence and bouts of kindness meant he was a good person deep down.
But he’s right; he is a monster. I see that more clearly than ever, and turning his secrets over to the angels to prevent him from killing more is beginning to seem like a reasonable option.
CHAPTER 22
“Ihave a proposition.” I stand in the doorway of Ambrose’s study with my arms crossed, determined to plead my case. We’ve hardly spoken since the masquerade event, having driven home in tense silence that night, both of us stewing in our emotions. That night, I had briefly hoped that maybe he was softening toward me and wondered what that could mean for my future, only to see him later for the monster he truly is. It was the harsh reminder I needed not to fall for his deceitful charm.
It’s been a couple days now, and I’ve had enough time to plot out my next steps. As much as I wish to keep my distance from him, I’m still at his mercy in some regards. So, I’m forced to be friendly in hopes of getting what I need, even though the sight of him killing Richard in cold blood without an ounce of emotion refuses to leave my mind.
Ambrose looks up from the book he’s reading. “And what would that proposition be?”
“Well—” I sink down on the couch across from him “—our deal is that I need to take lives for you. However, I’vedecided I’m only going to do so by killing men that deserve it.”
He gently closes his book to give me his full attention. His eyes glint with amusement. “Okay… and?”
“And it’s hard for me to determine who really deserves it without having all the information. I can’t exactly just walk into town and ascertain someone’s true nature by having a friendly conversation.”
“You seemed to do it easily enough with that bartender,” he counters.
I spear him with a glare. “The bartender dug his own grave by trying to drug me. I wouldn’t have gone after him if he hadn’t. I gave him a test, and he failed.”
Ambrose’s lips lift in a smirk. “Whatever you say. Are you going to tell me what your proposition is?”
“Yes. You said you have internet here, and I’d like to have a device I can access it on. You know, to do some research. I’ll be able to complete our deal more quickly by figuring out who to target, and you know that I don’t have anyone to contact to rescue me even if I wanted to.”
He’s silent for a moment, thinking, so I continue.
“Plus, if we’re bonded or whatever you call it, it would be stupid for me to try to escape considering it would kill me anyway.”
His eyes are fixed on me, as if he’s trying to discern whether I’m being truthful or not, before he finally nods. “Okay. I’ll get you something tomorrow.”
Well, that was easy enough, though I wish I had been lying about not having someone to help me escape.
The next day, Ambrose hands me an older looking tablet that has a few scratches but otherwise seems to function fine.
To my surprise, he hasn’t blocked any of the social media sites I pull up, though I only check them out of curiosity. Ihaven’t actually used any of them in years since Joel would always freak out and accuse me of trying to talk to other men whenever I was on them. Even if I happened to remember my passwords for any of the accounts, I wouldn’t log into them anyway. There’s nothing and no one I miss from my old life.
My old life. It feels weird to think of it that way, because does that mean I’m consideringthismy new life? Or maybe just a stepping stone to a new life? Yeah, that’s it. It’s a middle ground between where I’ve been and where I want to be. A temporary place where I’m forced to endure hardship until I’m finally free.
I plop down on the couch and am scrolling through a news page on the tablet when it hits me that I may very well be one of these news stories if Joel cared enough to report me missing.
I open a new tab and type my full name into the search bar. Nothing comes up aside from the generic sites that offer up a person’s private information for a fee, and one article from a local newspaper written a dozen years ago about an academic award I had won in high school. Otherwise, no missing persons reports.
