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“Tell me why you did this, Mark. Why did you insist on going after Addie when you knew she was mine?”
His chin trembles, the waste of flesh the epitome of a pathetic old man.
“She was already marked.”
My heart drops, thudding down my spine like a deflated basketball rolling down a staircase.
“I took a picture of her because she looked familiar. And when she told me her name, I realized that she was a target of the Society’s. It worked out perfectly that they happened to call me, and I told them everything. She… she’s worth a lot of money, man. And the Society wants her. It doesn’t matter to them who you are—it doesn’t even matter who I am. When the Society wants someone, they get them. And if I was the one to bring her in… I would’ve been highly rewarded.”
He sniffles, though it doesn’t prevent the snot from leaking out of his nose.
“Why did they target her?”
Mark sputters out a wet, humorless laugh. “Why do they target anyone? If they’re young and beautiful and happen to be noticed, they’re on the Society’s radar. She brought attention to herself in one way or another. It could’ve been from her books, or you know how women are these days. With the way they dre—” I snatch his hand again and flick off another nail before he can finish such a stupid fucking sentence.
As if showing any amount of skin is a goddamn invitation to be raped and kidnapped.
His answering scream does little to lessen the fury.
“I-I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry. Look, you just don’t ignore the Society’s demands. And they’re going to come after you, Z,” Mark warns, his voice tight with pain but also grave.
I hope they do.
They’ll be saving me the trouble of coming to them.
Knowing that Addie was marked doesn’t only spark anger, it sparks genuine fear for my little mouse.
It never mattered if I came into her life or not—Addie was destined for human trafficking, and the fact that she happens to be the girl I’m absolutely crazy about feels like kismet.
It feels like fucking destiny that the man who haunts her is the same man who dedicated his life to destroying the people set out to take her life.
“I know you don’t care,” Mark forges on, noting the look on my face. “But the second they find out I’m dead, they’ll up and move.”
I’ve accepted this.
I look over at Sibby, the girl now having moved onto Miller. She could be a scapegoat.
If the Society gets word of a deranged girl killing these four men—a girl who’s killed before—they would chalk it up to the partial truth. Wrong place, wrong time. An unhinged girl who swears she can sense evil sniffed these men out and decided to murder them in cold blood.
She’s the perfect scapegoat, actually.
But the thought of using her—it doesn’t sit right with me.
She’s a lonely, fucked up girl who helped me carry out these murders. Doesn’t matter that she would’ve done it anyways had I not been there. Without her, I wouldn’t have gotten the information I did tonight. And I can?
??t let that go unrewarded.
So, I resign myself to protect Sibby. I’ll clean up the evidence, dispose of the bodies and do everything I can to infiltrate Savior’s before they relocate.
“Will they demolish?”
“Yes,” Mark answers quickly. I let out a slow breath and nod. By saving Sibby, I’m giving up the first lead I’ve truly had.
“I-If you let me go, I can get you in,” Mark barters desperately. “I’ll help you and you can do whatever you want. Just as long as you let me live.”
“The other three are already dead,” I say. “They’re going to relocate anyways.”
“Not if you pin everything on this girl. That’s what you planned, right? To let her take the fall for it?”
