‘No.’
‘What changed your mind?’
Lachlan stares at Kade for a beat and then looks away, leaving the question unanswered.‘The ritual required a sacrifice.’
‘I asked you aquestion,Bodyguard.’
‘And you won’t like or believe the answer.When everything was set up, and I signed my name while sitting in the blood circle—’
‘Are you fucking kidding me?’
‘When I was inside theblood circle,’ he repeats like an impatient teacher, ‘the instruction said that I had to sacrifice a single memory.I don’t know which one it was.’
‘This is suchbullshit, man.’
‘Were the bullets coming out of my chest bullshit?’Kade falls sullenly silent.‘The blood circle lit up and then I was talking to myself.A different version of me.Grotesque, demonic.He asked what I wanted.I said I wanted to kill everyone responsible for what happened to you and Mimi.He said… well, he said a lot and most of it rhymed, but then he touched my chest.The tattoo blossomed underneath my skin like a bruise.’
‘So what then?’
‘I woke up the next day convinced I’d imagined the whole thing.I trashed the place I was staying in, tore my hands bloody wrecking furniture and punching through walls, but then I noticed everything was already healing.Closing.Stitching itself back together.So I tried something worse.That healed in minutes too.When I shot myself, I knew it was real.’
‘You shot yourself?’
‘In the hand.’His gaze drifts briefly towards the sunrise.‘The demon told me I had until the full moon, so I got organised.Gathered supplies.Set charges.EMPs.Your generators were easy enough to hit from a distance, and I planted backups too in case I got caught early.’The newly risen sun drizzles his face in warm ribbons of gold cutting through the trees around them.‘My friend gave me intel of an incoming attack on your Tower, so I waited it out and then yesterday I came up through your disposal chutes.Made my way inside.Killed anyone who raised a weapon at me.’He pauses, smiling faintly.‘Then I saw your face,’ Lachlan says quietly.‘And you shot me in mine.’
Fucking hell.
‘Maybe it’s some kind of newly developed drug,’ Kade ventures slowly.‘Like, axolotls can regrow limbs and jellyfish are technically immortal, maybe it’s something Helixx cooked up.People are always saying we don’t really know what they’re—’
‘It’s magic, Jules.You don’t have to believe me but that’s what it is.’
‘I don’tbelieve you.I can’t.’
‘Then shoot me again.’
Kade doesn’t want to.
He looks away, jaw working.
‘So, what’s the catch?’
‘The demon said… well, it said a lot of shit, actually, but the part that sounded like the catch was this.I’ve got until the full moon to finish what I started.Once it wanes, if I didn’t kill everyone I set out to, then my life’s forfeit.’
‘So because Troy Harker is already dead,’ Kade says, playing along, ‘you think you technically can’t get revenge now?’
‘It seems like it.’
‘I won’t let you kill Riley.’
‘I’m not even sure he’d count.He wasn’t involved.’
‘Then you did all this for nothing.’
‘It’s not for nothing if I can make you remember.’
‘I’mnothim.’
‘You were once.’
