We’d warned him about this. I’dtried to tell him. And now it was happening, at the worst possible moment it could.
Marcus knew it, too. His voice was strained as he rasped, “Kallie.”
“It doesn’t matter. There’s nothing we can do about it now,” she snapped.
The phone on the wall rang. We all jumped at the noise. It kept ringing and ringing. I wondered if anyone was going to answer it, or if we even should.
Then, Marcus’ footsteps echoed across the floor as he picked up the phone. “Hello?”
There was a pause, and Marcus said, “They’re asking for you, Charlie.”
He shakily handed the phone to me. I picked it up and barked, “Yes?”
“Hey, Charlie. It’s nice to speak to you again.”
It took a moment, but I recognized that voice. It was Killian Ryan— the supernatural bounty hunter I’d met before I’d leftthe Institute. He and his partner, Colter, had come to thank me for my criminal profile about the Dollmaker, which had led to the warrant for Valen’s arrest. They’d thought I had potential as a future bounty hunter, and wanted me to join their team once I’d graduated. They must’ve shown up with the rest of the Union reps to help bring us in.
“What do you want?” I kept my voice flat. I didn’t want to give these guys an in.
“We want to help,” Killian said. “We’re outside. You guys have gotten into a bad spot.”
I huffed. That was undermining the situation as much as fucking possible. “You can’t help us. We come out, you’ll take us away.”
“We can work something out,” Killian promised. “We know you kids aren’t bad people— you’re just confused. It’s normal, after everything you guys went through, trying to escape the Institute the night it burned. You’re upset and acting out. We’ve found other students like you, and we’ve helped them.”
Yeah, right. I knewexactlywhat had happened to those inmates who’d managed to escape the burning prison and gotten themselves arrested again afterward. They’d been sent to Mission indoctrination camps, and that was the last place I wanted to go.
“We’re in too deep. If you want me, fine, but I’m not letting my friends take the heat for this. Arrest me, and let the others go,” I said.
“You know we can’t do that. Come on, Charlie, this isn’t the way you want to do things. You’re a good guy,” Killian insisted. “You don’t want to scare all these people.”
I knew what they were doing. They wanted to get on my good side, appeal to any sort of empathy I had, so they could save hostages and hopefully make an arrest in the process. I wasn’t going to bend.
“I’m doing the only thing I know how to do,” I said blatantly. “This is what the world made me to be, so now it has to pay the price.”
Killian must’ve handed the phone over to Colter, because the next voice was deeper. “We know you’ve got your wife and friends in there with you. You don’t want to put them in danger, do you? You’re the leader of this group, aren’t you, Charlie? You want everybody to get home safe.”
I gave a soft laugh. “I’ve learned not everybody gets to go home at the end of the day.”
“Don’t do this, kid. You’ve got a bright future,” Colter added. “If you turn yourselves in now, there might still be a chance you could join us someday. We know you want to be a bounty hunter like us. You can have that, Charlie. Think about it— you could provide for Ava, have some kids, a good life. You don’t want to throw it all away.”
His words made me second-guess everything. Maybe Ishouldn’tbe doing this. Maybe this was the wrong thing to do. I was hurting people, and I didn’t want to do that.
But if we didn’t get this key,everyone—on the Earth and in the afterlife— would get hurt. These guys didn’t understand that I had to make some impossible choices.
Yet even the good guys working for the Union had been compromised by the Warden. The Union was under his control now, and I knew if we surrendered we’d never see the light of day again— if we even made it to the next morning.
I had dreams. Dreams that I desperately wanted. But I should’ve known they would never pan out. I wanted to be a supernatural bounty hunter, but I wasn’t, and I never would be. I needed to make a choice. I could keep chasing after a foolish hope, or decide to become the villain my familyexpectedme to be.
It wasn’t like I had much of an option. I had to let that dream go now. What I wanted in the face of what my family needed absolutely didn’t matter.
The phone shook in my hand. I could physically feel my future crumble into pieces as I replied, “I’m the grandson of Emperor Cassiel Majestica, and an underboss of the Elven crime family. This is what I was born to be.Thisis the life I choose.”
I hung up the phone. Seconds later, it rang again. I thought of the pleading words of Killian and Colter, and I felt guilty. Perhaps I could explain things to them. They didn’t know about the keys and how important they were. If I told them about our destiny, they might understand, and want to help.
I hesitated before I picked it up again. “Hello?”
“Hello, Charlie! We’ve missed you!”
