Equilibrium: MM Gay Shifter Romance (Kingdom of Night Book 3) Page 21

  That part she didn't find so funny. She looked to Prentice, her eyes wide with horror. "Is that true?" she croaked. Whatever he said, it didn't matter. Emily was nothing if not paranoid, so the damage had already been done.

  Was it petty? Yes. Cruel? Maybe. Did I give a shit?

  Something in his gaze made her take a step back. "Oh my God."

  "Emily, please," he said, reaching for her. She was already gone. He turned to me with an unreadable look before he pursued her.

  "Emily, it's okay!" I called, half-heartedly jogging after them. "He was just doing the Patriarch's work!"

  I waited for the sounds of arguing to disappear up the stairs before I headed to my room. I pulled on my shoes, grabbed a pair of sunglasses and a jacket and headed downstairs. The chaos with Emily had cleared out the foyer as I had hoped, so I grabbed the keys to Prentice's SUV that were sitting on the hook by the door and headed outside.

  I turned around as I backed out of the driveway to check my blind spot. When I looked out the window, there was a figure blocking the path. It was Clive. He walked over to the window as the vehicle idled. "You cause all that chaos in there?" he asked, leaning in through the window.

  "Yep," I said matter-of-factly. "You gonna stop me?"

  He hesitated for a moment, like he was thinking about it. "When they inevitably bring you back, I didn't see anything."

  "Seriously?" I asked in disbelief.

  He shrugged. "For old times' sake, I guess."

  I didn't know what to say, but finally decided on, "Thanks."

  He glanced down at the car. "What're you gonna do with it?"

  "Honestly?" I looked around at the flawless upholstery and custom stereo Prentice had put so much money into. "I'm gonna total it."

  He grinned and patted the hood before stepping away. "Remember, you didn't see me."

  "See you where?" I asked, giving him one last smile before I headed out onto the road. To my amazement, I got past the front gate and the sensor located inside Prentice's car automatically raised it. With each passing mile, I felt sure I was walking into a trap. Every dark, inconspicuous car on the road triggered a panic attack, but it wasn't until I was a few hours into my drive that I realized they weren't coming. Maybe Prentice had finally washed his hands of me.

  It was only when I passed the exit for Olympia that I realized where I was going. I still had one last errand to complete, but if I somehow survived the trip, maybe there was something else I could do for Remus after all.

  I decided that I had taken Prentice's SUV far enough. I took an exit and a few random turns until I found a road that was satisfactorily isolated. Then, I began phase two of operation make Prickface's life a fraction as shitty as he had made mine. The luxury SUV could take a lot more heat than the Pinto ever had, so I revved the engine and took her as far as she would go. It doesn't say a lot about my character, but revenge was a far more powerful motivator to fling myself into the arms of death than heroism ever had been. At least at speeds over 140, the SUV did the work of picking a tree to wrap itself around.

  The airbags deployed and kept me from bouncing around the cabin as the vehicle rolled over an embankment and bounced a few times before sliding to a stop. Somehow, I didn't fall unconscious. I reserved judgment on whether I had survived the crash until I could puncture the airbags and get a good look at myself.

  Aside from some nasty cuts, a potentially broken sternum and a concussion from the airbag itself, I was disappointingly undamaged. Pulling myself through the shattered window proved a far more injurious process than the accident itself. For me, at least. Prentice's beloved toy was pretty much a twisted hunk of scrap metal.

  Stupid fucking safety features.

  Once I was out of the car, I decided to search it for anything useful. It probably would have been a good idea to do that before I'd wrecked the thing, but I wasn't exactly in a logical mindset. There was nothing in the armrest compartment or the back of the SUV, but the glove compartment had Prentice's tablet in it. Somehow it wasn't completely destroyed, although there was a huge crack in the screen. I took it out and carried it with me.

  I limped my way up the ravine and added a twisted ankle to my checklist of injuries. Guess I wasn't becoming a hunter anytime soon. I was admittedly curious as to whether we really needed to go through the secretive ceremonial rites to be raised from the dead or if that was yet another way of making us dependent on our dear leader.

  Once I made it onto the road, I began my shuffling attempt to get back to the highway. I was going on blind instinct at that point, because my sense of direction was and always had been utter shit. It was almost like something was guiding me, but I tried to put that kind of thinking behind me.

  I must have looked pretty pathetic, because it wasn't long before a truck stopped. I looked up and smiled tiredly at the driver. "You alright, kid?" he asked, frowning at me. "You need me to call an ambulance?"

  "No thanks," I said. "Just a ride."

  "Hop in," he said. I did, holding the damaged tablet in my lap. "Where you headed?"

  "Ivers, but anywhere further down the highway is good."

  "Well, I can take you as far as Mason," he said, giving me a once-over. "There's a hospital at the next exit, too."

  "I'm fine. I just hit a telephone pole and I don't want my parents to freak before I can get the car repaired," I lied. "It's kind of my first big out of town trip."

  He looked doubtful but he didn't call me out on my bullshit. Fortunately for me, he was the strong silent type. "So," he said once the Mason exit came up. "What's waiting in Ivers?"

  "My college and a mechanic who's willing to travel," I said, keeping my hand on the door handle as the truck pulled over. "Thanks for the ride."

  He snorted. "Do me a favor and get to a doctor, hm?"

  "I will," I lied. I turned to hop down from the cab when he grabbed my arm and squeezed tightly. When I turned back, the truck driver's blue eyes had turned gold.

  "Did you really think you could run from me, Arthur?" It was the truck driver's voice but it had Prentice's inflection. "There is no sanctuary from me, not in this world or the next."

  I stared at the human marionette in horror. "You're even more of a monster than I thought."

  "Let this be a lesson to you," he said coolly, releasing my arm. "Everyone who gives you aid, from shelter to the time of day, will suffer. Now you can live with the knowledge that it was your doing."

  "No," I cried as he shoved me out of the cab. I hit the ground hard and the tablet fell on top of me. Before I could even right myself, the truck took off at full speed with its passenger side door still open. I staggered to my feet and ran after the truck as it picked up speed until it was going at least ninety. All I could do was watch in horror as it turned sharply and drove into the ravine below with a ghostly roar. There was an explosion of yellow light that caused the other cars on the road to swerve and a few to pile up.

  People were getting out of their cars as the truck burst into flames in a scene that felt like it had been plucked from a movie. I was the only one who knew that there was nothing about the frozen TV dinners in the back that would cause a truck to explode like that. The true source of the flames was not one that the emergency responders who were due to arrive any minute would uncover.

  There was no time to indulge in my horror. Ignoring the pain in my ankle, I took off on foot and skirted the scene as widely as I could. As I ran, the death of the man I had been talking to only moments before settled heavily on my shoulders and something deep inside told me that it was only the first of many.

  Chapter 17

  ARTHUR

  Running turned into stumbling as I made my way along the highway. It was the only way I could be sure of reaching my destination, even though I had to turn down rides every couple of minutes. I probably looked as pathetic as I felt, but there was no way I was going to put anyone else on Prentice's radar. Knowing I was responsible for one death was enough.

  But how could I hav
e known even he was capable of something like that? Grandpa Hugh had been right, as he always was. Prentice was far more now than just a hunter or even a clan leader. His power was growing exponentially and he was primed to use it in the most heinous ways possible.

  I had been all confidence and bluster when I kicked the hornet's nest, but looking back I could only see the foolishness of my actions. How had I ever thought myself capable of standing against him?

  The exit for Ivers came into view, but thirty miles seemed like an impossible feat in my condition. When I thought I couldn't possibly walk another step, I forced myself to keep going. The thought that the kindly truck driver's wife was probably being asked to identify his burnt corpse right about then was what kept me going.

  Another car pulled up alongside me and slowed to a crawl. I kept my eyes fixed ahead and struggled to look just a bit less helpless, but it did no good. The car kept rolling alongside me and I heard the passenger side window roll down. "I don't need a ride," I said sharply. Politeness wasn't really so polite when there was a potentially omnipotent hunter watching your every move, waiting to put anyone who gave you so much as a handshake on his shitlist.

  "You sure about that?" The man's voice was vaguely familiar. Even less of a reason to get him involved. Probably someone I knew from the college. "You look pretty rough."

  "I'm sure," I snapped, limping faster.

  The car's brakes screeched and I heard the unmistakable sound of a gun cocking. The door opened a moment later. "I think you really might want to reconsider."

  I turned slowly and raised my hands, still holding the tablet. It was a dark red sportscar that had been following me. I recognized it, too. Long before I approached the car, I knew it was Victor's.

  "Well," he mused, looking me over. "You're still human after all. With the trail of destruction in your wake, I expected otherwise."

  "Sorry to disappoint."

  "Get in."

  I did as he said, slipping inside the car. The door slammed shut on its own. He kept the gun on me as he started driving, blowing past the Ivers exit entirely.

  "How did you find me?" I asked, collapsing against the seat from exhaustion.

  "Wasn't hard. As soon as I heard the hunters were back, I started looking. From there it was just a matter of following the news reports."

  I leaned against the window, pressing my cheek against the cool glass. "Where are you taking me?"

  "Somewhere I can be sure the others won't follow you," he muttered.

  "You're in danger, you know. Just me being in this car has put a target on your head," I said, feeling that it was only fair to warn him even though I was enjoying the break from walking.

  "Who?" he asked, clearly not too concerned.

  "Prentice."

  Silence. "You and your cousin have caused a lot of trouble for us."

  I laughed. "Not yet."

  He didn't seem to like my comment. The gun pressed sharply into my ribs. "You know, I've always wondered exactly how mortal an infant hunter really is."

  "That makes two of us," I murmured drowsily, oblivious to the gun. "Depends on the circumstances, or so they say."

  "What the hell are you talking about?"

  "You know, if we get killed without fulfilling our mortal purpose, supposedly we come back as soulless zombies who need to be put down," I said matter-of-factly. "If we die fulfilling our purpose, like my cousin Clive did when he attacked Remus, then the Patriarch blesses us with ascension."

  "And the difference is?" he asked tersely.

  "In the latter case, we're soulless zombies with country club memberships."

  He took his eyes off the road long enough to gauge whether or not I was joking. "What the hell happened to you?"

  "Exactly how much time do you have?"

  As it turned out, he had a while. Thirty-something minutes later, I was cuffed to a chair in the nicest room at the Bergendorf Hotel and Victor was in front of me with some makeshift torture implements he'd cobbled together from room service. I'd had a contract with him at one point, so I had no doubt that he could do an exemplary job with the subpar materials. Unfortunately for him, I was kind of an expert at being tortured.

  "The presidential suite? Gotta say, this is an improvement from what I'm used to," I mused, looking around. "Believe it or not, the last guy took me to a treehouse. I've still got splinters."

  "I'm glad you find this so amusing," he said, twirling the tip of a steak knife against his fingertip. "Because the situation as I see it is rather bleak as far as you're concerned. You know, I don't even care that you're a hunter half as much as I care about the fact that you broke Remus' heart."

  "That's sweet," I murmured, tilting my head. "Up until now I was pretty solidly on team Sebastian, but I'm starting to see the appeal underneath all the layers of brooding and melodrama. I'll be sure to put in a good word for you."

  His eyes narrowed and he pressed the knife against my neck. "You're never going to see him again, nor anyone else if you keep mouthing off instead of coming up with a reason why I shouldn't kill you."

  "The tablet," I said calmly. "That's a reason."

  His gaze flickered over to the device resting on the bedside table. "What's on it?"

  "I don't know. I pulled it from Prentice's SUV after I crashed it."

  He looked me up and down. "Let's hope it came out better than you," he muttered, reaching for the tablet. "Look at that, it turns on. What's the password?"

  "Try twelve ninety."

  "Let me guess, the date of his first kill?" Victor asked dryly.

  "His wife's birthday."

  Victor snorted. "That's not it. I can get in if I take it back to the Lodge, but that's playing with time you simply don't have, so you'd better guess again."

  I sighed. "Prentice is predictable. It's always a birthday. Try his mother's, August seventeenth, nineteen twenty."

  The date gave him pause, but he shook his head and typed it in. "Nope."

  I ran down the list of every family member I could think of. "You're sure it's a birthday?" he asked.

  "Positive."

  "And you're sure that's everyone in your family?"

  "Unless there are even more family secrets than I ever imagined."

  "What's your birthday?"

  This time, it was my turn to snort derisively. "It's not mine."

  "Humor me."

  I sighed. "August nineteenth, ninety-three."

  I waited for him to scream at me. Instead, he announced, "I'm in. Guess you're the favorite."

  If he only knew. "Find anything good?"

  "Well, you were right about the predictability part. So far every file marked school-related has been related to the Family," he murmured, growing silent. "Holy shit, these are coordinates."

  "Probably the locations of our homesteads," I said. "Prentice is kind of the record keeper."

  "I can see that," he said, turning back to me. "You do realize that if this checks out, you've essentially given your family over to the enemy?"

  "That's what I figured."

  "What, did mommy and daddy cut your allowance?"

  I laughed. "Daddy's dead and the only thing mommy ever cut was me. Guess again."

  He frowned. "Alright, then why are you being so cooperative?"

  I shook my head. "Not you. I'll answer all your questions, even the ones you never thought to ask, but first I want to see Remus."

  "In time," he said firmly, walking towards me again with the knife in his hand. He raised it and held my face in his other hand, bringing the tip of the blade torturously close to my eye. When I thought I could hold off on blinking no longer, he tossed the knife away and instead I felt him cutting into my mind. "First I'm going to make sure you're telling the truth. Unfortunately, I don't think you're going to enjoy this session nearly as much as the last."

  I screamed and writhed as he forced himself inside my head in a way that even Prentice never had. Not that he needed to be so direct. Victor held his other hand t
o his temple and closed his eyes. "Let's see, the subject has daddy and mommy issues in abundance, genius-level intellect but he plays dumb because he wants to be liked, black sheep status in the family, hopeless levels of devotion and he's terrified of going through transition and losing himself. Ah, here's the plot twist--he also hates himself and wants to die. How terribly ironic."

  When I screamed again, he gagged me. It was at least partially so I couldn't bite through my own tongue. I could already taste the blood from the first slip. It felt like he was pulling my mind apart, thread by thread.

  "Hm, what else. Let's get to the deep stuff, the dark little secrets. You're afraid of something--petrified, really--but you're drawn to it at the same time." He frowned in concentration, closing his eyes. "It's a person. You love this person, this man, every bit as much as you hate him and you'd do anything for him, things you never even dreamed you were capable of. From the greatest feat of compassion to the coldest act of murder, torture, anything at all if it meant seeing him smile. The depth of your devotion terrifies you. And the name of our mystery man is..."

  His game show announcer impression faded out and his face contorted suddenly into an expression of pain that rivaled my own. He let out a scream and crumpled to the floor, clutching his head. "No!" he cried out, looking up sharply as if whatever he had seen in my mind had manifested itself in the room.

  We stared at each other for a moment, gasping in mutual fear. "What?" I pressed. "What did you see?"

  "Eyes," he breathed. For the first time since I had met him, Victor looked scared. No, not scared--petrified. "Yellow eyes, they were horrible. It was......" He trailed off and paused to regain his composure, standing. "That wasn't you," he realized out loud. "You're weak, you're not even a true hunter yet, but this... This was no ordinary hunter. It was powerful, beyond anything I've ever seen. And angry."