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Finally, when it feels as if I’m going to self-combust from the tension saturating the air and inflating me like a balloon, I turn toward him. “What?”
One of his brows arches. “I didn’t say anything.”
“But you want to say something.” Is this about Zane? Neither of us has been exactly subtle that our relationship has progressed, but I thought Landon was okay with it. He was the one who assured me that everything will work out in the end.
My heart seems to be squeezed by fiery hands as I wait for Landon’s condemnation. This is the moment that will make or break this precarious relationship we’ve just started to form.
Will he tell me to stop seeing Zane? Act betrayed? Hate me?
But I should know Landon better than that, because he simply says, “Have you thought any more about what your uncle told you?”
An entire freaking katana sword manifests in my throat. It suddenly hurts to swallow.
“About The Divine One killing my parents?” Even saying those words does something to my soul. I haven’t allowed myself to think too closely about Uncle Raymond’s shocking revelation. A part of me wants to remain in my opaque bubble, thank you very much, completely oblivious of the horrors that plague the world. I want to believe that what happened to my parents was an accident.
The alternative is too much for me to even process. My brain quite literally puts up an Out of Order sign as flames eat away at the machinery and smoke billows. A random monkey begins repeatedly pressing a single red button in the hopes of stopping this mayhem. But of course, it’s futile.
“You don’t need to talk about it if you’re not ready to?—”
I cut Landon off. “I don’t know if I believe it, but at the same time, I don’t know if I don’t believe it. I want to believe this is nothing but a scare tactic Raymond’s using to get me to join his side, but I’ve seen The Divine One work up close and personal.” And I still have nightmares. I don’t think they’ll ever go away.
“If it’s true, then we need to figure out the why of it all.” Landon’s long fingers tap against the steering wheel as he thinks. “The Divine One does everything for a reason. He doesn’t just kill in cold blood.”
I snort at that. In the deepest recesses of my brain, I know what Landon’s saying is technically true, but a serial killer is a serial killer, regardless of his targets. It doesn’t matter that he seems to only be killing people to keep the religion of “Cassia” alive. He’s still a part of a sinister cult that sacrifices victims to a pretend goddess.
A cult that created an app for the rich and depraved to watch people die.
A shudder works its way through my body like unrelenting wildfire, hot and dangerous, scorching everything it comes into contact with.
Landon’s voice is fierce when he speaks next. “We’ll figure things out, Ellie. I promise you that.”
“You know you can’t make that promise.” I shake my head somewhat sadly. Landon could offer me the moon, and I’ll believe him.
But he can’t promise me our safety, no matter how much he might wish to. POP has its spindly hands on every major agency in the government. It has seeped into Congress and the White House. No one is safe from it.
All of that stems back to the question…
Are we in over our heads?
Are we just six high school kids playing pretend?
Can we really destroy an organization that has been around for hundreds of years?
Maybe we shouldn’t think about eliminating POP.
Maybe, just maybe, our new goal should be one thing and one thing alone—surviving it.
No one is more surprised than me when it’s Raymond who picks us up, his huge black SUV idling in the back alley behind the gym. Well, Raymond and his right-hand man and chief of security, Teak—a muscular man with light brown skin, dark hair, and fathomless black eyes. But it’s Raymond I focus on.
He peeks at us over the frame of his sunglasses, and I’m struck speechless all over again at how similar he looks to my late father. I shouldn’t be surprised, considering they’re brothers, but an incessant pang begins in my heart at the sight of him.
Same brown hair sprinkled liberally with gray streaks.
Same blue-gray eyes, even though Raymond’s are mostly obscured by the dark frames of his sunglasses.
Same large, muscular body.
One of the biggest differences is the jagged scar that slices through Raymond’s right cheek, somehow demoting him from approachable to intimidating.
