27

Jack

January 17th, 2020

The house was quiet. No television playing her favorite movies, no music, no breathing.

I walked into our room and found the bed was just how I had left it before I flew out two days ago. I knew she would have gone straight to the cathedral, but I hadn’t expected her to stay there.

I wasn’t worried, more so irritated that she hadn’t returned any of my calls or texts since I left. I had to show some compassion, given what she might have discovered while in that basement, but I still expected her to follow the rules. She was strong enough to follow my rules even during a life-altering revelation.

I picked up her phone and grabbed a syringe from the bathroom on my way out, just in case.

It took me five minutes to get there, and only one minute to get to the basement door.

I shoved it open and immediately knew the truth by the smell that wafted from the stairs.

Goddammit.

I had expected a lot. Missing toes, missing fingers, maybe muffled screaming or some tongues on the ground. Even a dick or two, but not this. Not this particular smell.

I ran down the steps, slowing on the last few when the room came into view.

I had to admit that if Azrael had been in the country, I would have assumed that he had done this and left the mess for her to clean up, laughing the entire way back to the fucking Wonderland he lived in.

As it was, he was gone, and Zo was still in Texas. Rae was the only one around for miles, save for the two initiates I had put a few miles down the road.

Limbs had been severed, a flood of blood pooling below the four bodies, splattered along the walls. Teeth were missing, fingernails gone, chunks of hair ripped out. Dicks and balls on the floor, some of the flesh charred, others shredded.

She had done her due diligence.

They were all dead. Long since by the smell. All of them, what was left of them, hanging from the ceiling by chains wrapped around her neck.

I hadn’t left them like that and neither had Zo.

I turned to the workbench and found her sitting on the floor, leaning against it, blood soaking her, most of it dried. She was still holding a pair of pliers in her hand, her stare blank, her wrists propped up on her knees. She hadn’t slept since I left. Not a blink, I could see it. She massacred four people in a way that would make my youngest brother overjoyed and she hadn’t slept, she probably hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink either, and her mind had just shattered in a way I might not be able to fix.

At least Azrael would be proud.

I couldn’t remember a time in my life that I had felt this kind of fear. I wasn’t going to lose her to her own mind. That wasn’t fucking allowed.

I shoved my hands into my pockets and lifted my chin. “Princess—”

“They have a tape,” she revealed, her voice holding a kind of rage I had never heard come from her mouth before. Her voice was cool and clear, chilling. It sent shivers down my spine hearing her speak like that.

Her eyes lifted to mine, the blank stare shifting into something I had only seen one person give me: Azrael.

Fuck.

“What do you mean; they have a tape?”

She wiped her bloody forearm across her nose, still wearing the clothes she had put on two days ago by the way the blood crusted and cracked in certain places.

She shoved herself to a stand, steady on her feet. “A tape,” she said, gesturing towards the dead with her pliers. “They have a tape. His name is Blanchard, no first name, just Blanchard,” she went on, walking around the bodies, still hanging from the ceiling. “Just Blanchard,” she said, looking up at Nora as if she had given her the answer.

We already knew that. She had probably pushed for another name or perhaps she had simply forgotten that we had gotten that name already. Sleep deprivation was the worst thing a person could go through. No sleep, no eating, no drinking, all while torturing four people, listening to them screaming, trying to pull answers from them. Even if she hadn’t found out a single thing, this whole situation would have made her mind a little unsteady.

But now I had to figure out what she did know. find out everything they had told her so I could bring her back.

“A-and there’s more of them,” she went on, finding my eyes.

That’s my girl. She did get something, but she was sounding almost manic. Her words coming out in stuttering gasps, as if she couldn’t get them out fast enough.

“More people. They kept saying ‘them’ over and over again, so I kept digging. I-I used the trowel,” she explained, taking a few steps towards the bloody workbench, gesturing to it. “I literally dug. Max caved first, weak. He was…he was weak. I wasn’t that weak,” she assured me, finding my eyes. “I lasted four months—four,” she shouted suddenly, her brows lifting. “I lasted all of them. All four. That’s 12 weeks, 120 days, give or take a few because everyone always rounds down, you know? Always down.”

I angled my head. She was losing it. Had lost it.

“He s-said that there were more. More people. More than Blanchard,” she went on, turning back to the bodies. “Higher up. Way higher up. Untouchable. Bosses. Plural.”

She gazed at them for a few seconds before inhaling sharply and gesturing to Carrie, turning to me when she reached the body. She was smiling. “But Blanchard is the one who hired these four, but he didn’t hire the others. They don’t know much, but they know some. Carrie lasted longer than Max. She was good,” she laughed. “Real good, yeah, she held out a whole 10 hours. 10 hours and 43 minutes. I counted.”

I needed to get her to bed. “What did Carrie tell you, Princess?”

“Oh, not much,” she laughed. “Not much at all. She had the note in her pocket though, you guys never checked,” she sang, tapping her temple. “Never checked, but I did. Why?” Her smile dropped as she took a few threatening steps towards me. “Because my parents trained me. They trained me to check all of it, everything. I think I might be better than you. Smarter.”

It was an effort not to punish her just for that. I was getting around to checking, but meeting her father seemed more important than dealing with these four meatsuits. Although Zo had spent plenty enough time down here. She should have checked. “What was so important about the note?” I asked.

Her eyes lit up like a fucked up kid in a candy shop of horrors. “So much.” She jogged over to the workbench, her knuckles white around those pliers as if she might fall apart if they slipped out of her hand. “It’s here somewhere—oh!” She pulled it out from under a few dismembered fingers, blood covering it. “Here, look,” she held it out to me, but didn’t make a move closer.

I walked over and took it from her, reading over it. Exactly how Nora described, save for one detail.

“It’s not ‘Gage’,” she said as my eyes lifted. “It’s G.A.J.E. Who has those initials?”

We did. Greyson, Azrael, Jack, Everett.

But why sign—

“You’re probably wondering why your name?” she asked and then turned to the bodies again. “Benji was real helpful there, weren’t you, Benji?” she chided, grabbing his jaw and squeezing. She released him with vigor and turned to me. “Benji here overheard someone making a phone call. It was all about your family. Do you want to know what they said?” she asked, her tear-filled eyes betraying the smile on her lips.

Fuck, she was unsettling. “What?” How did Zo not get any of this? Maybe she needed to go back through the Program. Rae’s parents might have trained her well, but there was no way they trained her better than Malachi trained us.

She walked up to me, the tears digging trenches into the blood and dirt on her face. “It was all…your fault,” she stated, poking me in the chest with my own pliers.

I snarled quietly in warning.

“The Family,” she breathed out, fanning out her hand as if this were a goddamn Broadway performance. “My mom found something out about you guys that she wasn’t supposed to, and because of that, the people in charge of Blanchard targeted us. Sent people after us and everything. Don’t know what it could have been, but according to Carrie, they weren’t after you, they had no affiliation with you. So, I don’t know why they gave a fuck,” she snarled, pointing the weapon at me.

“I don’t know why they gave a fuck about her finding out whatever the fuck she found out about you because there is no fucking connection. None. Not any that they knew about. It’s a hierarchy, you see. Every level knows different information and these four imbeciles knew almost nothing. Nothing about Blanchard’s bosses. I think Blanchard was trying to hire outside of his organization when he turned me into a goddamn game.”

I searched her eyes, my own anger simmering. Why did they care and what did Marla find out about us that would make someone else try and kill her? Charles hadn’t known about it, but if he had seen her only four months ago, there was a chance she was still alive. Maybe I could find her, extract the information myself. Figure out what exactly set these people off.

“And don’t ask me if I know, Jack, because I don’t.” She laughed. She grabbed her knees and laughed. “I don’t know because I was fucking tortured!” she screamed, the sound scraping against the concrete walls around us. “For four months! They wanted to play a game, an experiment. That’s all these four idiots knew. It was a game. All of them were put in my life as a part of their sick little game. Keeping me fucking alive. Letting me go on for those eight months before the bosses found out and hired you to get rid of me, for what? It doesn’t fucking make sense,” she said, slamming her fists against her temples as she turned back to the bodies. “It doesn’t make sense. Why hire you? Why…”

I let her rambling go on as I pulled the syringe out and popped the cap off. She needed rest, we could finish this in the morning. She had done enough, and I needed to make a few calls.

I walked up to her and slid my hand over the front of her neck, pulling her back to my front. I slid the needle in, feeling her body tense against mine. “Sleep, Princess.”

Her knees gave out seconds later, the pliers slipping from her grasp.

“I need answers,” she mumbled as I swung her into my arms.

“We’ll get them, I promise.” First call would be to Jade, next to Malachi. What the fuck was going on around here? The puzzle kept gaining pieces and we had yet to put together the edge. Malachi needed to give me some answers. He no longer had a choice.