I have a feeling Ben hit a dead end, but Ethan somehow figured out where I was. How? The not knowing is making me antsy, but I don’t know the answers to a lot of questions. I’ll just add this one to my list.
“Why would he want to find me after all this time?” I say, not quite successful in sounding dismissive, as warmth seeps into my chest.
He didn’t forget me. He wanted to find me. I crush the ridiculous hope uncurling in my stomach. None of that matters. He is dead. And I can’t shake the feeling that it is somehow my fault, but I ignore the thought for the sake of my sanity.
“He wanted to find you from the moment you disappeared.” Ethan looks away. “He never stopped wanting to.”
“That’s beside the point.” My voice isn’t quite steady. The confirmation that someone gave a damn about me releases a flood of regret and gratitude, but I stamp down on the useless emotions. “Hedidn’tlook for me when I disappeared. He knew I didn’t want to be found. So why would he start looking for me all these years later? What changed?”
“Who the hell knows?” Ethan takes a long sip of his beer, holding my gaze.
My eyes trace the line of his throat as he swallows, and my pulse picks up. These ... things he does to my body are doubly confusing because of all the emotions I don’t want to feel. I’m happy to see Ethan. I’ve ... missed him. But I’m gutted over losing Ben. Maybe that’s it. Maybe I’m just trying to distract myself from my grief.
Because ... fuck. If I let myself, I’d grieve. My closest friend in over a hundred years died. He wasmurdered. No matter how much I want to deny it, I’d have to be dead myself to feel nothing.
“All I know is why I wanted to find you,” Ethan says in a low voice, and my breath catches in my throat. Lust, longing, or whatever it is I’m feeling toward him is a messy distraction I don’t need or understand. But finding Ben’s murderer? And making that motherfucker pay?ThatI understand.
“How ...” I snatch the sweating bottle of beer from him and gulp some down. I hand it back to him and blow out a long breath. “How did he die?”
“I found him at the agency, collapsed on the floor.” Ethan shudders, and all color seeps out of his face. “I couldn’t do anything. I just ... watched him die in my arms.”
I reach for his hand but stop. He’s holding himself together through iron will. My sympathy will only undermine that. “Did he say anything before he ... he died?”
“He was delirious, rambling about not being able to serve me anymore.” Ethan scrubs a hand over his face. “Then he gripped my hand and looked me straight in the eyes. And I thought he was going to tell me who did this to him, but all he said was to break the stone and something about tears. Break the stone of tears, maybe? Those were his last words. Just gibberish.”
“He was already too far gone when you found him.” The image of the two brothers on the floor of the agency guts me like a knife.Gods.I shouldn’t have left them. If I’d stayed to watch his back, maybe Ben would be alive. “Do you know the cause of death?”
“That’s the thing.” His eyebrows draw together. “Other than a small laceration on his earlobe as thin as a paper cut, he looked completely healthy and uninjured. I even had an autopsy done, and they found no sign of a heart attack or a stroke. No traces of poison or asphyxiation either. His body just shut down, like someone flipped a switch.”
I keep seeing Ben, pale and limp, in Ethan’s arms. I swallow the painful lump in my throat. “Do you have a copy of the autopsy report?”
There are poisons from the Shingae that can kill like that, but I’m not going to jump to conclusions. Ben was human. The repercussions for murdering a human are dire. No one from the world of gods would do it lightly. I shudder and block out the image of bodies strewn across a faraway mountain.
“Yes, it’s on my laptop back at the hotel.” He looks askance at me. “But like I said, they found nothing.”
“I’d still like to see it.” I tap my finger on my chin while I think. I go through a mental list of poisons that can switch a human off. Focusing on the facts is far more productive than succumbing to feelings. Mourning is not going to bring Ben back. Finding the killer won’t bring him back, either, but Ethan needs closure. So do I. “What about the cops? Did they find anything?”
“The cops wouldn’t touch it. There was no sign of forced entry or struggle. They ruled out murder even before I got the autopsy done.” He scoffs, shaking his head. “They don’t want to sink time into finding out what really happened. Besides, they’d only get in the way.”
“What makes you so certain it was murder?”Iknow, because the whole thing stinks of the Shingae, but how doesheknow?
“I found this taped to the door outside the agency.” Ethan reaches for his phone and pulls up an image. “Does this mean anything to you?”
It’s a picture of a handwritten note, and my blood freezes drop by drop.
“You can read Korean, right?” He doesn’t wait for my answer. He already knows.
It takes me a few tries to swallow, then I translate: “Mihwa, are you well?”
Ethan nods, and I remember Ben taught him to read and write Korean. “My question is who the hell is Mihwa, and what does he—”
“She, nothe. Mihwa is a female name.” The name sounds foreign on my tongue, even though it belonged to me for the first eighteen years of my life.
“Right. What doesshehave to do with Ben?” Ethan is focused on finding his brother’s murderer, his grief under control. “Why did the killer leave this note?”
Because of me. A scream rings through my head. Ben’s dead because of me.
YEOIJU
