“You aren’t listening. He ain’t the same, Ava. There’s a part of Charlie that ain't Charlie no more. Just the guy who was trapped in Cellblock 9,” Chancey said grimly. “I know you destroyed the Institute and all it was, but that piece of him is always gonna be stuck down there. Cellblock 9 for him is what the Infernal Underground was for you. You can't look me in the eye and tell me that I’m wrong."
Rage quivered inside of me, threatening to burst out and light the room around me ablaze. I went down into the Infernal Underground and didn’t come back out. I refused to evenconsiderthe same thing had happened with Charlie when it came to Cellblock 9.
I shook out my hair, to try and appear that I was keeping my cool. “I don’t know what you guys are talking about. He’s doing better than ever since we got to Ilamanthe!”
Oberi cooed in agreement, and I knew I was right. She wouldn’t agree with me if I was in denial.
“Would the Charlie that lived at the Institute be happy to torture someone to get information out of him?” Chancey questioned. “We both know the answer to that.”
“Those prison kids wouldn’t have survived out here,” I spat. “We’re alive today because we’re willing to do things we weren’t before. If some lowlife gangster has to endure a little pain for us to get our hands on the vampire key, I’m not going to lose any sleep over it, and neither is my husband.”
Chancey shook his head. “I’m telling you, something’s not right with him. What they did to him down in Cellblock 9 screwed his wiring up. He ain’t the same person.”
“I understand your concern, but there's nothing to worry about,” I said shortly. “I’m his wife. I have it under control, and if he does end up slipping, I’ll be there to shut it down.”
“You can't keep him on a leash,” Danny warned. “One day you’re gonna find he's broken the chain, then he’ll be there to bite your hand.”
I scoffed. "Charlie? You've got to be kidding me. He'd never hurt me."
Danny turned his back on me. “You don’t see what we see because you don’twantto see it. But you will. Just make sure you’re at a distance when he goes off, so you don't get hurt.”
I was done with this conversation. I unlocked the doors and wheeled myself out of the room. Danny and Chancey, the bastards they were, hushed into a low conversation.
“Told you she wouldn’t listen,” Chancey grumbled, and the door swung shut behind me.
I was aggravated, but maybe Danny had a point and it was worth looking into. “What do you think about this, Oberi?” I asked. “Do you think they're right?”
Oberi bristled her feathers and responded,I think they're wrong, in a way. Charlie has always acted like Charlie. This is just a new side of him we haven't seen before, a piece that he hides, and now it's being coaxed out. He could be concealing something for all we know, but maybe it’s not for sinister reasons. He probably doesn’t want any of us, especially you,getting hurt, and if the plan he’s concocting is dangerous it’d make sense to keep us out of it.
“If that’s the case, we need to talk to him about it before it gets worse.”
I didn’t want to completely invalidate their concerns. I was annoyed they were taking it this far, but I might as well look into it.
I got ready for bed once I returned to the room. I didn’t expect Charlie to be back so soon, but he came in only an hour after I got there.
“Hey,” I said as Charlie sat on the other side of the bed. Oberi, who was laying as a husky across my legs, lifted his gaze. “Back so soon?”
There was blood on Charlie’s button-up that wasn’t his. It should’ve bothered me, but you know what? It didn’t. He took it off and tossed it in the hamper.
“He didn’t make it,” Charlie said roughly. “We didn't get what we needed out of him before he corked off.”
I didn’t like Charlie’s tone. Terror tightened in my throat, but I told myself to settle. “Did we get enough information from the other mobsters to know where the key is?”
“Let’s hope so. Marcus is piecing together what he found out.”
I nodded, then dared to ask, “How’d you kill him?”
Charlie was emotionless as he responded, “You don’t need to know, pidge.”
My insides flipped nervously. “Was that the right move? Salvatore will go looking for him, and we’ll need to hide the body.”
“It was what we had to do. Asa and Ares have it handled.”
I trusted the Elvish Associates to do their job. After all, this is what they’d been trained to do, and what the Elves had done forthousands of years. Torture and disposal of enemies was in the job description.
I wish I could say the thought was hard for me to stomach, but it wasn’t. It was just what had to be done.
“Do you think we have enough clues?” I worried.
