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There was also the chance that Maddox found this all weird and annoying. He was a powerful ice dragon with the bravado of a movie star and the dick of a porn star. He could get anyone he wanted in this world, so why would he want me? I was just a washed-up detective Marvel who could barely use his own powers. I lived in a shitty apartment and worked out of a shitty office and usually sported a shitty attitude. Meanwhile, Maddox lived in a beachside castle in Malibu and didn’t have to deal with things like jobs and bills.
Yeah, I had to snap out of it. This was going to last as long as it took to find the paintings, and that would be that. We’d go our separate ways and likely never speak again. It was something I was used to with any of the guys I’d fallen for in the past. Things just never lasted for me. Maybe it had a little to do with my inclination to self-sabotage, or maybe it was just the guys I pulled, but whatever it was got me accustomed to being pushed away and left out.
Kind of like what my parents did to me.
“The Center Of Betterment is right up there,” Maddox said.
“I know.”
“You… you know?”
I stopped walking, realizing I had fallen directly into my own trap. The lie I had carefully constructed earlier fell apart like a house made of sticks in the wind.
“I mean…” I could keep lying to him. I could keep hiding my past. If our destinies really were meant to split after this, then there was no need to reveal everything I’d been through. I looked into those bright blue eyes, and even under the magic of the mask, I could still see the warmth and kindness that Maddox radiated. Yes, he was a big-chested himbo who could also be a little aggressive when it came to defending his family, but when he wasn’t holding an icy-cold blade against my throat, he was actually one of the kindest men I’d known.
So I felt like I could trust me. “Before we go in, Madds, I want you to know something…” I looked down the street toward the front of the building that held so many horrors for me. “I’ve been here before. I’ve… I told you I had a friend who joined the Crimson Ring. But Maddox, it was… it was.” Shit. I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t tell him I was part of them. “It was scary when I came here with him. This is where they coerced him to join. We were just walking down Hollywood Boulevard, bored and hungry teenagers, when they told us they were showing a free movie and giving out free food. Of course, we ran inside. They actually did have a movie and food, but they also had recruiters, who separated us and convinced him to join.”
“Fuck. I’m sorry. If it’s too much for you, I can do this alone.”
I shook my head and steadied my trembling knees. I felt terrible. Lying to Maddox didn’t feel right at all. But how was I supposed to tell him the truth? He’d think differently of me from the moment I said the words: I was part of the Crimson Ring. He’d never trust me. That thought hurt me more than the lie that fell from my lips. “Come on, let’s do this.”
Maddox looked me over. His eyes scanned me from head to toe. For a moment, I was terrified he’d use his dragon powers to sniff out my lie. Should I have just told him? Ripped it off like a Band-Aid and dealt with the fallout?
No. Not now. We had work to do. It wasn’t the time for distractions. I started walking down the palm-tree-lined street toward the building made of mostly glass and pale white stone. It stuck out from the more colorful buildings that surrounded it, Ripley’s Believe it or Not just down the street with a moving Tyrannosaurus rex head bursting from the light green ceiling.
The Center of Betterment hadn’t changed one bit since I first walked in almost fifteen years ago. Most people knew it was a front for the cult that worshipped the end of the world, but many others were oblivious, and those were the Center’s targets. And they had plenty of targets to find in the center of a city known for broken dreams and crushed hopes. They concealed their activities by keeping all the real dark shit under tight wraps. Even when I had first become an initiate, they were extremely secretive about where I was being taken and where the ceremony was being held. I’d never forget that night, though. Being blindfolded and gagged, tossed into the back of a car, dumped onto the floor. The space felt damp. The air had been thick. The blindfold never came off, even when people started to yell and cry and vomit. I kept it on, said the words I needed to say, and made it through the night as one of the cultists.
