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“How very right you are.”
I blinked a few times as I tried to ignore the one name on the tip of my tongue because it just wasn’t fucking possible. “Finn?”
The kid’s eyes lit up, and I realized that we had started playing a game I had never intended to start. This kid wasn’t innocent, and I wasn’t sure how far back Finn had existed. He had been unfamiliar with the other identities for sure, but the fact that Killian had never had heterochromia, to begin with? I sucked in a breath as Killian pushed to his feet, that sinister smile still hanging between us. “You always were the smart one. I’ll see you in a little bit, all right?”
Killian had told us a few times he tried to even out his eyes to stop the whispers, wearing a contact to match one eye, but that was the extent of it. Were the contacts a trigger? It couldn’t be that fucking easy. It almost meant that his original diagnosis—HMD—didn’t fit. The disorder constantly fractured the mind until there was nothing left, but Killian’s psyche wasn’t fracturing. It was unfolding, revealing the layers beneath it. We were dealing with an unknown here.
I didn’t wait another moment before I hightailed it out of the hospital and rang Samael. Slash’s voice filtered through the phone, and I knew they were both there to hear the news I had just gathered. “Guys, we fucked up.”
We had never been the masters of our own destiny. We had been the pawn of someone else’s game – of Finn’s sick and twisted game – and we had just tried to lock him away. The true master was about to be set free, and he was done hiding.
And he knew every single fucking thing about us. We had nowhere left to hide.
EPILOGUE
SAMAEL
Three fucking days had turned our lives into a shitshow. We had been trying to protect Killian, to save him from the demons that plagued him and we had just made it a whole lot worse. Not to mention that I had no idea what to do with Nyla. She wasn’t high profile like the Gods from The Revival, but people would miss her.
I hoped that she knew what was good for and kept her mouth shut. Until I figured that out, I’d make sure someone kept an eye on her.
Now, I just had to deal with the kidnapping case.
Killian’s doctor had called me in to retrieve his medical records from the incident as I had been both his next of kin on the sign-in sheet and the detective on the case. Conflict of interest? Probably but I didn’t care. With another 12 hours on Killian’s hold, I was hoping to have more information in case they actually let him go.
I knew how to deal with Killian, Dark, and Daemon. Finn, though? That was an entirely different beast. He had been toying with us for weeks. I didn’t even want to think about the possibility that it had been years, that Finn wasn’t a ‘new’ alter but rather a rediscovered one.
The medical examiner—Gideon—and Killian’s doctor had been working together to identify the marks on my killer’s skin but I wasn’t sure forensics were involved.
“What am I looking at here? And why are you here?” I pointedly asked Gideon. He shuffled behind the doctor’s chair, giving me a sheepish smile.
“Did you bring Killian with you?” The doctor asked as she shuffled the pictures on the table so that they were in order. I hated staring at the lingering cuts and bruises along Killian’s arm from that kidnapping.
We obviously knew that hadn’t been Finn but that bastard had still toyed with our lover. The pure agony Killian had suffered still pained me.
“He’s… He was submitted to a mental institution for a hold just in case he became a danger to himself.” That wasn’t really a lie but I wasn’t going to drag Aeron and Slash into this problem with me. There was no reason the world had to know we dropped our lover off three days ago.
“That’s probably best,” she whispered as she pointed to the first picture. “We didn’t have much time before but I had been going over these and then asked for a little bit of help. Gideon made a few worrying revelations. Detective, these wounds are self-inflicted.”
My brows shot up. “What?”
“The angle of the knife, the way they are carved—they’re done by someone’s non-dominant hand. Why would someone else use their non-dominant hand?” She looked physically pained by the revelation.
Gideon’s sharp nod corroborated her words. “Even the depth of the cuts points to them being self-inflicted. We all have pain levels but self-inflicting pain causes hesitation points and the depth of the cuts will vary. If you look closer,” Gideon pointed to the third picture, a close-up of the words etched into Killian’s arm. “You’ll see what I mean. Like someone picked up and put down the knife several times.”
“I’ve submitted these to the mental facility down the street so that they can take this into account. It’s good to know that Killian is already there. Please be careful with him. His mind is a fragile place and with this current case, I can’t imagine what he’s going through.” She stood up to shake my hand as I packed up the folder for the case.
I shook her hand and then Gideon’s but her words had me thinking that Killian wasn’t going to stay locked up forever. For as secretive as Finn had been, there was a possibility he could fool medical personnel if they didn’t know what they were looking at.
My phone buzzed and I knew I couldn’t ignore it this time. “Excuse me, I have to take this.” I slipped out of the office, the folder of Killian’s medical records tucked under my arm. “Yes?”
“How’s Killian?”
A deep sigh fell from my lips as I headed out to the car. Chief Matthews had been calling on and off about his son but never once visited him. “He’s still under observation, Chief Matthews for his HMD. After the next 12 hours, we’ll know more.” Yet another secret played on my lips. I couldn’t tell the chief about The Three Terrors and now I couldn’t mention the newest killer in Primrose—or was he the oldest?
The Revival had dubbed him ‘The Unknown’ and the department had finally realized that there were two different killers running around the city.
“You should go see him,” I prodded.
