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Adoor clangs in the distance.
I haven’t seen anyone for hours. After the confrontation at The Conservatory, they bundled me back into the van. Being trapped in a moving vehicle with a corpse and the twin of the man your friend killed is not an experience I want to live through again. Callen has a perfect shot.
We didn’t return to the Killers Club base of operations straightaway. While I slipped in and out of consciousness, they stopped to dispose of the body. After they dumped it, the bloodthirsty twin took out his frustrations on a human punching bag. Me. Even when he’s not around, Callen manages to get me into deep shit.
Now I’m locked in a dungeon. Heavy metal shackles around my ankles secure me to the wall like an animal. The sterile torture chamber they held me in before was bad, but this is much worse.
The damp air smells like stagnant water. The concrete floor and brick walls are icy cold—the type of coldness that seeps into your skin to make you feel permanently wet. There’s no window or light source, besides a slim crack around the doorframe. The door reminds me of a prison cell with a small window where they can push scraps through if they decide not to let me starve to death. A hole in the floor serves as a toilet on the far side of the room. Luckily, I’m not used to five-star hotels.
If the walls could speak, they’d whisper about death. Buildings hang onto energy, and I sense it here. It’s sucking the life from me. Give me pliers and a branding iron any day. Torture makes you feel something, but this? It’s an empty void that traps me with my thoughts.
A dinging sounds again, but I can’t tell whether it’s in my head. I hear distant screams and sink to the floor to cradle my head and cover my ears, hoping it’ll keep the memory away. It doesn’t. It never does.
Men, women, and children scream. Fathers desperately try to save their families from the burning building. When they do, they’re thrown around like Catherine Wheels. Smoke fills the already dust-filled air and snakes through the streets, stealing people’s breath. Everything burns.
Flames lick at the remains of houses, destroying and smouldering school books. It chars clothes fluttering in the breeze like meat roasting on a barbeque. A community pours from their homes, terrified they will be next, collapsing to their knees when they discover what’s happened. What I’ve done.
My comrades slap my back, complimenting my aim, telling me how it couldn’t have gone better. They laugh at a woman crying as her friends hold her back to stop her from dashing in to save what could be her only child. Their anguish carries through the wind and taints the land, cursing it. It’ll be an act they won’t forget, and I did it. War takes casualties and innocent lives. We understand that, but in what world is this okay?
Back in the dungeon, two voices pull me back to reality. I blink to push away the images and focus on their conversation. They’re fighting. Soundproofing the cells is pointless when their prisoners won’t leave alive.
“We should kill him!” the man argues. “He killed my brother!”
“I know you’re upset about Aaron,” she replies with cold indifference. She’s acting like he’s lost his favourite jacket, not someone who shares his DNA. “But Ivy is with them. We’ll get our revenge, but we need to wait.”
“But we haven’t heard from her!” he blasts. “Why hasn’t she been in contact?”
The woman’s voice turns aggressive. “Ivy’s our best agent. She will be in contact when she can. Alaric gave her three days. If we don’t hear from her by then, we’ll extract her.”
“Precious fucking Ivy,” he scoffs. “You all think the sun shines out of her arse, but don’t you think it’s weird how the guy knew her? She’s been dead for five years, yet he sacrificed a Duke for her. What’s their connection?” He’s met with silence. “You don’t know, do you? She never told you about him during our tests! How can you trust her?”
The reminder stings, but I don’t blame Freddie for picking her. He’s driven by his motivation to protect people. He balances risk. On paper, she appears to be the most vulnerable. Unfortunately, he’s missing half the facts and has inadvertently welcomed a murderer into their lives.
“Don’t question her loyalty, Tom,” she says. “Aaron died because of his carelessness. If you’re going to be irrational, we’ll take you off-duty. We had to kill everyone at the crematorium after finding the bullet was sending out a signal. Do you know how difficult it is to find a crematorium in London to do business discreetly? Everyone died because Aaron walked into a fucking bullet.”
If the guy hadn’t beat the shit out of me earlier, I might feel sorry for him. A phone rings, cutting through their frosty silence.
“What did you find, Penelope?” the woman snaps. “Uh-huh. Yes. Okay.”
“What is it?” Tom asks. “Have we found out who they are yet?”
“They tracked the bullet to the crematorium, as we suspected,” she says calmly. My heart sinks. The Dukes walked into a trap. “And now we can follow them. Penelope’s got a plate and an address. We know exactly where they are.”
“Who?” Tom asks.
“We have an ID on two of them,” she says. “Frederick James and Callen Campbell. An ex-cop turned weapons dealer and a disgraced doctor. They’re an unusual team.”
“There’s at least one more,” Tom says. “The driver of the car.”
“We haven’t traced the driver yet,” she says. “The house and car belong to Frederick.”
Seb is safe… for now.
“We should patrol the area!” Tom explodes. “We should be there around the clock. What if they get away?”
“Ivy’s on the inside,” she says. “If they have sophisticated security, they’ll be onto us the moment we get near the house. Why cause a scene when we don’t have to? Ivy has taken out mafia kingpins before. She can deal with a small gang from London.”
“But—”
