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“He has a secret,” she blurted, her internal pressure releasing in a flow of words. “It’s something he keeps close to his chest with his friends. And there’s been some kind of theft. He doesn’t know it yet. When he finds out, he’s going to be very angry, and it takes him to a dark place…”
“What kind of a dark place.”
She touched the center of her chest. “It’s inside of him. A dark place in his soul, and he will endanger us all.”
Vishous muttered something. “Did you talk to him about this?”
“Not really? It just kind of happened. I mumbled words to him, and I mean, I don’t really know him. We grew up in parallel, you know?Not in each other’s lives. I’ve always thought he was kind of apart from everybody.”
“Yeah, he got that from his sire,” came the dry response.
“So I don’t know what to do. I thought because you have experience with visions, you could tell me how I should… I don’t know. And then, really, because it’s him, this is not something I feel like I should handle myself.”
Vishous tapped his hand-rolled, this time because he needed to if he didn’t want to ash on his keyboard. “You did the right thing coming to me.”
“I don’t want him to get in trouble.”
“He isn’t.”
Overhead, cool air drifted down from a vent, and she realized how hot the towers under the desk had to be. It must be like having space heaters blowing on your ankles, she thought as she glanced down at the Brother’s shitkickers.
As everything got really quiet between them, the fact that Vishous was just sitting in his ergonomic black leather chair, not even smoking, probably wasn’t a good sign.
“Does this make any sense to you?” she asked.
He opened his mouth as if to answer, but then he frowned and glanced at his monitors. Sitting forward over his keyboards, he moved a mouse around and clicked it a couple of times.
“You need to go, Bitty,” he said. “I’ve got business to take care of.”
Jumping to her feet, she nodded like a bobblehead. “I shouldn’t have bothered you—”
The Brother reached out and took her hand. As those diamond eyes bored into her own with an earnest regard, she took a deep breath and tried to calm down.
“You did the right thing,” he repeated. “And I’ll never tell you not to talk to your parents, but outside of that? Let’s keep this quiet.”
“I’ll do that. I promise.”
“You can always come to me, anytime. About this or anything else.You know my rules, though. Health or safety, and I have to go to your parents or even higher up the food chain.”
“I understand. That’s what we do at Safe Place.” She focused on the glowing floor. “I need to know, though. Do you have any idea what this is about?”
The grave way he shook his head seemed like regret at the situation, rather than a denial.
“You’ve got to go now, sweetheart. You know where to find me.”
The exit opened on its own, as if he had willed it so, and she made a mumbling, stumbling departure. As she went down the aisle between all the IT workstations, none of the males or females looked up, and she couldn’t decide whether her invisibility made her feel better or totally lost—
At the opposite end of the open space, the inner entrance to the facility opened, and as Bitty got a gander at who’d arrived, she immediately hopped to the side to clear the way.
L.W.’s father, the great Blind King, stepped through the jambs with his service dog and his private guard—and the imposing male seemed to take up all of the space and air in the entire building. As a ripple of fear went through Bitty, she didn’t get it. She’d been around Wrath before, going all the way back to when the Brotherhood and their families had lived together in the mansion on the mountain. Sure, she hadn’t seen him much after the Brotherhood had moved off the estate and into that subterranean village in the ’burbs, but she’d been at the new Audience House from time to time and run into him there. More to the point, he’d never once been mean to her, no matter how hard his expression always was.
Bitty narrowed her eyes. Still, there was something… different about him now.
Then again, maybe her nerves were just plain shot. And anyway, the King wasn’t even paying attention to her. He was focused straight ahead, his wraparounds trained on Vishous’s office—while that Brother slowly stood up from his desk chair and came forward with an expression of shock.
Even though Bitty knew she was staring, she couldn’t look away as the two stopped in the doorway of the glass office.
“About time,” Vishous said roughly to the King. “What took you thirty years.”
