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TWENTY-SIX
Decima
My spine stiffenedwhen Blaze gestured to a dirt lane up ahead. “That’s the turn-off,” he said. “Another half a mile and we’ll reach the house.”
Julius took the turn with ease, and a white-walled building immediately came into view in the distance, expanding gradually as we zoomed toward it. I couldn’t see it perfectly yet, but I could already tell it was the house from the basement photograph.
And that wasn’t the only thing we could see. At least six cars were parked outside the building. I recognized Damien’s, Aunt Mabel and Uncle Henry’s, and my grandparents’. The other three might have belonged to other relatives I’d spent less time with.
“Looks like we have plenty of company,” Julius said, taking them in.
Talon handed one of the pistols we’d cleaned and loaded to Blaze and brandished another himself. “Nothing we can’t handle.”
Were all of those family members in on Garrison’s kidnapping? My stomach knotted as we reached the end of the lane.
How had they justified that crime to themselves? Saving me from bad influences? Did they know what the crew did but somehow didn’t realize that I was in the same line of work? Or did they just figure they could bring me over to the “right” side once they’d gotten rid of my men?
My jaw clenched. It didn’t matter what they wanted. They were sick, child-murdering psychopaths, and every kindness they’d ever offered me was tainted by that fact. I knew I wouldn’t feel at peace until every one of the Maliks who’d had a hand in the murders was six feet under themselves.
Talon was right about one thing: some people needed to be taken out of this world before they could do more damage. Who better than me to deliver that sentence?
Julius parked at the side of the lane a short distance from the official parking area where the other cars stood. So far there’d been no signs of movement. No one stirred in or around the vehicles. The house’s windows were dark. A small barn stood beyond it across about twenty feet of scruffy grass, its tall double doors shut and latched.
“Everyone ready?” Julius asked.
I slung a holster over my arm, tucked another gun into one at my hip, and wrapped my fingers around a third. We couldn’t go into this too prepared, as much as a small part of me, the part that’d craved a real family, still balked at the idea of firing the weapons at the people I’d thought of as that family. “I am.”
We got out onto the dusty earth, the guys similarly armed. The wind swept over us, carrying a dry scent that itched in my nose, like stale hay.
We’d only just walked past the cars, starting to cross the stretch of patchy grass between the parking area and the covered porch, when the front door swung open. The four of us halted, guns at the ready.
Nearly every person I’d met at that first reunion spilled onto the porch before my eyes. Aunts, uncles, and cousins, my grandfather, and of course, my father. The only people missing were Carter, Grandma Ruby, and my mother. Had my brother spilled the beans about my call, or had the rest of the family been waiting here already in case we figured out where they’d taken Garrison by some other means?
I stepped a little ahead of my men, my finger curled around the trigger of my gun. If any of the men and women before me were armed, I could blow them away before they so much as set their hand on their weapon.
“Where is he?” I demanded.
My father pushed to the front of the crowd, resting his hands on the porch railing. I couldn’t read his expression, it was so stern and yet haunted at the same time. His gaze slid from me to the men around me, and his forehead furrowed. Had he expected me to come alone? As if the crew wouldn’t stand by their lost member.
“Who the hell are these people?” he demanded.
As if he didn’t already know. “The closest thing to a family I actually have,” I said. “Now answer the question. Where is he?”
Damien’s attention jerked back to me. “Your brother? I told him and your mother to stay home after he told me you’d found out about this place. I don’t know what led you to it, but I promise you, I can explain.”
Fury seared through me so fast it burned away everything but my horror at everything else I’d discovered. “Explain what?” I spat. “Why you torture and murder little kids for your own enjoyment?”
If I’d still had any doubts about whether the Maliks were responsible, Damien’s flinch was enough to dismiss them. The rest of the family stirred around him with restless murmurs. Aunt Mabel made an uncomfortable grimace. Margaret’s eyes flashed as if she was eager to have this secret out in the open. Grandpa Bo shook his head as if he was disappointed in me.
“That’s a vast simplification of a complex and honored process,” the older man said.
“An honored process?” I said. “Are you kidding me? I’ve seen pictures. What you did to them is nothing but sick.”
Damien raised his chin. “It’s the opposite of sick. The Maliks have a divine mandate going back over a century to stop the spread of the criminal sickness through this country. We offer up the pain and lives of the tainted children to a higher power to prevent more pain and lives lost at the hands of those who’d turn to unlawfulness and sin.”
I stared at him. It took all my willpower to stop my jaw from gaping open. “You seriously think that some sort of god wants you to torment innocent kids as a way of stopping crime? You’re fucking insane.”
“Insanity is in the eye of the beholder,” Margaret muttered, as if that was helpful.
