12. Sage

Holy water might be enough to wash clean an original sin, but even baptism by fire won't cleanse me of this.

The walls shudder with the thud of my boots, and I'm pretty sure this structure is going to give.

Dad pauses with his back against a wall, holding his Smith and Wesson 45 close to his body. He peeks around the corner before waving his gun when he doesn't spot anything, motioning for me to move around him.

"I'm heading upstairs. I think I hear movement." Dad tips his chin at the staircase up ahead. "You go clear the basement."

"Got it."

"And Sage—" He plants a hand on my shoulder as I walk past, stopping me. "Remember what Kane said."

Dad's oceanic eyes used to have some life to them instead of the cool abyss they've become lately. And as he narrows his gaze, I'm not staring into the eyes of my concerned father. He's handing me an order as the Twisted Kings VP.

I nod my head. "Whatever the price."

A bullet. A limb. A soul.

Not like I care. If I had something to live for, I gave that up when Lyla walked out the door three weeks ago, and I realized it was probably for the best. At least it saved her the future she didn't see herself having.

Tonight was supposed to be the night I'd finally patch in. No longer a prospect, and instead a full-fledged member of the Twisted Kings. It's the moment I was supposed to get everything I ever wanted.

A moment I would have cared about a couple of months ago, and now it's just another excuse to find my way to the bottom of a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue.

Except I'm doing neither of those things. Kane sent Dad and me on an emergency mission, and by the time I do get back to the clubhouse and patch in, I'll probably just fall asleep.

Doesn't matter.

Nothing matters anymore.

Especially when I'm chasing ghosts through this haunted house, still not sure why the fuck Kane sent us here. I've been so wrapped up in missing Lyla lately that I haven't been paying attention like I used to. Kane's been stressed about whoever is trying to oust him as president while trying to figure out who would betray the club. It's all white noise at this point. A lot of yelling and not much action.

At least tonight I can do something. Anything is better than sitting in my thoughts.

"Retrieve the package. Whatever the price."

Whatever the package is. If I had to guess, Satan's Reapers are trafficking drugs in our territory again. And even if the Twisted Kings do some morally grey shit, we have our limits. Weed, coke, guns. But Kane won't touch heroin or meth, which has made it easy for Satan's Reapers to take control of that market.

Worse than that—they'll traffic women.

I just hope what I find downstairs is bricks of powder and not humans.

Dad disappears once he reaches the staircase, and I make my way to the basement door. It creaks on its hinges, so if anyone is down there, they'll be ready.

I spot a light switch but leave it off. Between the old creaky floorboards and rattling walls, it's already difficult enough to mask my movements.

Starting down the staircase, I keep my back to the wall. My gun in position for whatever might meet me at the bottom, so I'm slow and careful. I'm halfway down when I hear a soft whimper, and I can't tell if they're crying or in pain.

All I know is I pick up my pace.

Kane and the rest of the Council didn't fill me in on the details of the mission, which is one of the downsides of being a prospect. It doesn't matter what they need, I just have to do it.

Taking another step, I try to quiet my boots. To steady my breathing. To focus on the mission ahead of me.

No matter what I find at the bottom of the staircase, I need to keep it together. But then that whimper starts up again, and my gut's in knots.

I've seen gnarly shit working at the clubhouse. Cleaning up the horse stalls for years means I've just about seen it all. But something about that sound coming from the basement feels like a bad omen, and I don't fucking like it.

An echo of metal scraping concrete has my blood raking my veins with every pump of my heart. And even if I've never given much weight to intuition like Lyla's always talking about, in this moment, I almost sense what she meant by it.

This is the problem with following orders. One demand, and I'm no longer in control of what happens.

Gut instinct, fear—it all goes out the window.

This is a sacrifice for the club if it comes down to it.

Keeping my gun up, I make my way down the staircase one step at a time, as quiet as I can be.

When I reach the bottom, I press my back to the wall when something shuffles on the other side. Someone is moving things around the basement. They're humming, tapping, shifting objects.

In the darkness, everything is amplified.

And if it wouldn't give away my position, I'd call up to my dad to let him know I've found what we came here for. But I can't risk it.

I keep my back flat to the wall for a moment, staying hidden and out of sight to see if whoever is down here will come to find me.

They don't.

So I measure my breathing to the haunting sobs coming from the other side of the wall. Quiet and barely there. Broken. Guttural, like every breath rips a piece of them away. It drowns out every other noise except for the blood pumping between my temples.

I don't know how many Satan's Reapers are down here ready to make Swiss cheese out of my chest when I turn the corner. But that soft crying turns my insides to iron, and there's no turning back.

Get it done.

An order.

An initiation if I want to become a Twisted King.

With my gun out, I quietly make my way around the corner and am met with the dim light in the basement. A man is standing on one side with his back to me, and I can't figure out how he didn't hear me until I spot the headphones tucked in his ears. He's rummaging through packages on a table.

He's not wearing a cut, which isn't surprising since the Satan's Reapers often use lackeys to keep the target off their back and make sure shit doesn't get tied back to them. And he doesn't know I'm here yet.

The basement's no bigger than a twenty-by-twenty cement cell, and it's too dark to make anything out clearly.

But I don't miss the blood.

It paints the floor and hangs in the air. Thick enough to taste it. The room reeks of sweat and piss, and as my stare locks on the opposite wall, my stomach plummets.

Two girls are buried in the shadows, but even with barely any light, I can tell they're not in good condition.

One of them is lying in a wet pool that might be water, blood, or bodily fluid, and her dark hair is matted over her face. She's not moving. Not so much as a hint of a breath inflating her chest as I stare at her.

The other girl is curled in a ball rocking back and forth.

Back and forth.

Like a pendulum that's going to live in my nightmares until the end of time. She sobs on every rock. Her face is buried against her thighs and her jet-black hair hangs messy over her bare legs. It paints a trail of ink over her pale, blood-splattered skin.

She's stripped down to a thin T-shirt and underwear, and her legs are covered in bruises.

My fingers grip the gun tighter as I watch her run her hands over her skin. Like she's searching for pieces of herself that are now missing.

And that's when I see it, the silver ring that lives on her pinky finger, and my eyes move to the girl on the floor. To the matching band on her unmoving hand.

The air is sucked from the room. It's vacuumed from my lungs. And I have no vision, only rage.

How the fuck could Kane not tell me?

Some moments happen so fast that they feel slow. Everything shifts at once. A picture flipping from one to another. It's so quick, but so gut-wrenching, you see every fraction of a second.

I'm still processing the silver pinkie rings when a gunshot rings out upstairs and the girl pauses her movements. I don't know if it's Lyla or Ellie, and I can't think about it as her breath hitches and the room gets silent.

My gaze darts back to the man who had his back to me.

He spins around and freezes. And that's when I realize he isn't a stranger at all. It's Nick.

A Twisted King.

A member of the council.

A traitor.

His hands frantically reach for anything he can use as a weapon, but he's not fast enough.

A fraction of a second.

I've already pulled the trigger—and it doesn't matter how much blood I've mopped up in the past year, I've yet to spill it myself. The bullet pierces his chest on the left. The right. The center. I empty my chamber in his ribs like it can ever be enough.

Nothing is enough for what he's done.

He betrayed his club.

He took her.

Between each shot, the sobs ring out. My ears are numb. A piece of my soul is sliced off.

Until there's nothing left but the click of the trigger, and Nick's body slamming to his knees as he crumples to the floor.

I don't know if Nick is working alone or with another club, and right now I don't care. All I need is the rush I feel when his life leaves his eyes. When his heart ceases to beat.

I wish a soul was a tangible thing so I could grab onto his and decide what happens to it. So I could make sure he suffers for what he's done.

I'm sure I should feel guilty for the first blood I've spilled. The first life I've taken. I'm sure I should question the fact that I don't. But there's no time with the scream ripping my chest apart, and I know it's her.

I hurry over to her, and she's rocking again. Crying again—not that she ever really stopped.

Up close I get a better look at her matted black hair, the cuts, and the bruises. There's so much blood it's impossible to tell if it's hers or her sister's. All I know is she's my heart beating outside my chest and she's in pieces.

"Lyla, look at me." I plant my hand on her shoulder, and she freezes.

She's shaking so hard; I wonder how I'm not hearing her bones chatter.

Lifting her face to meet my gaze, her cheeks are soaked with tears and her lip is cut open. But all I see are those violet eyes that are unlike anything I've ever seen.

"Sage?"

My name has never hurt so much to hear. Maybe she didn't even say it and I'm imagining things. She's so quiet, and the gunshots upstairs have my mind spinning. That and the suicide mission I'm just now putting together.

His daughters. Kane's fucking daughters. How could he keep the truth behind this mission from me? He might not know what happened between me and Lyla, but he knows we're close.

He knows I haven't been the same since she left the compound a few weeks ago.

Holding her tear-streaked face in my hands, I now want to turn my gun on myself. I let this happen to her. I didn't chase her that night she walked away. I assumed she needed space, and I wanted to give her time to think.

I figured we'd work through it eventually. After all, she's always spouting on about destiny and fate. It was bound to come full circle, it just hadn't yet.

But she never came back. She disappeared into Los Angeles, and I traveled to the bottom of every bottle of whiskey I could get my hands on.

"I need to get you out of here." I brush her arms, and they're thinner than they were a few weeks ago. I don't know how long she's been in this basement, but I can't let myself process that right now, or I won't be able to see straight.

Lyla's lashes brim with tears and her eyes dart to her sister. "She's… Sage, Ellie is…"

Dead.

She doesn't finish her sentence, but we both know what's happened.

Once more, Lyla buries her face in her thighs and starts crying.

She's rocking, and that familiar sound of metal scraping concrete fills the silence.

Nick chained them like animals.

My vision darkens as I stand up and walk over to the table. There aren't keys, but at least there's a pair of bolt cutters that should do the trick.

"It's going to be okay." I cross the room, knowing I'm lying as I step over Ellie's body to once more kneel down in front of Lyla.

I cut the chain and free her ankle, thankful that's all that's keeping her tied in place as I toss the bolt cutters to the side.

"Lyla, stay with me." I brush my hand over the back of her head. "I'm going to get you out of here."

Her hair is sweaty and damp. Her body shakes and her teeth chatter.

I want to ask her what she needs—how long she's been here. But she probably doesn't know either.

All I can do is get her out of this hellhole.

She always deserved better than what her father gave her—what the club gave her. She deserved more than what I gave her. And still she became a pawn in this game. All this time Nick was working behind Kane's back to take him down, and he tried to use Lyla and Ellie to do it.

"We need to get out of here. Kane—"

Lyla shoots upright, backing up to the cement wall and shaking her head. "No. I can't go back there, Sage."

"Lyla—"

"This is all his fault." She's shaking as she pulls herself to stand, and I have to grab her waist when she nearly topples over. "Nick told me I'd pay for what he did. That he didn't deserve his title and they were going to take it from him. That we'd pay for Kane's sins."

They.

Confirmation Nick wasn't working alone.

"I'm not going back there." Lyla shakes her head. "I'm his daughter, that's all I am to them. They'll just do this again."

"I know." And I fucking hate it.

A sob rips out of her, and I catch her weight as she collapses forward against my chest.

She's shivering in my arms, and every shake pulls her apart a little further. When she finally tips her head back, I brush her black hair off her face, baring those violet irises to me.

She's so fragile. So small.

So perfect.

And they fucking hurt her.

"I'll protect you, Lyla. Not Kane, me," I say. "Just trust me, okay? I'll fix this. I won't let anyone hurt you."

"You can't." Lyla's eyes widen as she shoves at my chest, pushing me a step back. "You're one of them, remember?"

Her fists clench, and she plants her hands on my cut. Her eyes drag to my member patch, ready for tonight's ceremony.

"I tried to stay." She's crying now; her eyes are filled with fear. "I tried for you. But look what they've done. You can't take me back there."

Genuine fear fills her gaze when she looks up at me.

And it isn't like the people in town who avoid making eye contact when we roll through. It's the kind of fear that burns from the inside out. The kind that says she doesn't trust me to keep her safe.

She's the only person in the clubhouse who has ever mattered. The only light those walls have ever seen. And she's pulling away from me.

"Don't take me back to him, Sage. If you care about me at all, you won't make me go back there." Lyla's violently shaking her head. "Kane won't understand."

"Won't understand what?" I try to reach for her hands, but she claws at me. Her palms brush mine as she pulls away.

"Why I left." She stumbles as she shoves past me. "I'm sorry."

I should chase her. Kane will string me up for letting her out of my sight. But I'm frozen, staring at the back of her head as she runs up the staircase. As I watch the only love I've ever felt leave me.

I used to tell her it was na?ve to read the stars. That it was ridiculous to believe in soulmates. But now, watching her disappear, I'm not so sure. Lyla needed a soul in this basement, and in letting her go, I handed mine to her.