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Chapter thirty-three
The man in the mask chuckled as though he’d heard that line a hundred times before. He opened an arched wooden door behind him, leading down a concrete staircase. Our only source of light were red-flamed torches on the cobblestone wall. A quiet stillness loomed in the air. With every step we took, it felt more and more like walking into a tomb.
All I could think about was finding Anniston. The man outside had saidother girls. I knew what these men did to women. Malcolm Huntington was willing to sacrifice his own daughter to the Brotherhood. So far, Winston Radcliffe hadn’t proved to be any different.
We reached the bottom of the stairs where the man opened another wooden door, nodding for me to go inside. The room was dimly lit, just the same red flames and a couple of tall candelabras. Three men stood along the back wall. They were dressed in the same black suits, but their cloaks were solid black and their masks were white with gold flares around the eyes. These men held more power than the others. The air around us thickened as if even the walls of this holy place could sense their godlessness.
The man in the middle took two steps forward. “Hello, Chandler. We’re pleased you accepted our invitation.” His voice was deeper than a normal voice, camouflaged by some type of filtering device. “There will be three stages to your induction: separation of self, transition, and deliverance. You will be tested beyond your limitations. Walk through the darkness and come out in the light.”
Bring it on, motherfuckers.
“I’ve been walking in the darkness my whole life.”
“In that case, let’s guide you to the light.” With his words, he stepped back in line with the other two men as a light flickered on behind me.
Ice filled my veins the second I turned around. Numb. Frozen. Unable to speak.
Leo was strapped to a wooden chair with a blindfold around his eyes. Attached to the top of the chair, next to his head on both sides was a tin can.
“What the fuck is this?”
One of the robed men walked over, stopping beside me. “This is your separation of self. Your loyalty lies with us now. Your trust is in us.” He handed me a gun. “Don’t worry about the gun. The cans are the real weapons. One of them is filled with regular carbonated soda. The other with hydrochloric acid. Shoot the wrong one and… well… I’m sure you can figure it out.”
Bile rose in my throat. My blood went cold. No fucking way.
I narrowed my eyes at the man I was almost certain was my father. “Fuck you.”
“Chandler, I know what you’re thinking,” Leo’s voice broke through the tension. Fucker didn’t sound scared at all. “Just do it, man. I trust you.”
It wasn’t me I was worried about.
The first time I fired a gun, I was thirteen years old at Crestview Lake with Caspian and Lincoln. Our fathers threw us in the middle of another one of their fucked-up rituals. We all became men that day.
I knew my way around a trigger, and my intuition was typically pretty fucking spot-on. But I didn’t trust these motherfuckers for a second. Knowing them, both cans were filled with acid and I was about to burn the flesh off my best friend’s face. Probably do a bang-up job on his hearing and make him go blind while I was at it. No fucking thank you.
“Fuck you, too. I’m not fucking doing it,” I said to Leo, then turned and aimed the gun at the man standing in front of me. “You have a twisted fucking idea of loyalty.”
I have no limits. There’s nothing I won’t do.
I was wrong when I said those words to Anniston, so fucking wrong. This shit right here… this was my limit.
“You are always welcome to leave.” The robed man gestured toward the door. “No one is forcing you to stay.”
I started to hand him the gun and walk out when her face flashed in my mind, her off-beat singing and dancing in the kitchen, the way she looked in that dress, the way she fucking smelled after she came all over her fingers. There was no telling what they were doing to her right this very minute. If I left now, I’d probably never know.
Fuck! Fuck. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck.
I raked a hand through my hair, pulling at its roots, and let out a howl that bounced off the walls.
“Just shoot the fucking can, you pussy,” Leo yelled back at me.
“No, goddamn you.” I looked at the robed man. “There has to be another way.”
He stared at me in silence.
Mother of all fucks, I wanted to kill him. I wanted to kill all three of them.
“Shoot the can,” Leo shouted.
