Halfling (Black Petals #1)

Chapter 6

Five minutes later, we pull up to a high-end apartment building and she parks the car in an underground parkade. She leads me to an elevator and then up to the second floor where we stand in front of apartment 224.

"It's your sister, open up, Mason," Aria says in a sing-song voice hardly loud enough for me to hear. She doesn't even knock, but the door opens and a male with dark blonde hair and brown eyes opens the door. This must be Aria and Crispen's brother Mason. Although his hair is slightly different than theirs, and his eyes a different shade, he bears the same jaw line and dimples as his siblings. His gaze lands directly on me.

"This is Megan, Crispen's...friend. The girl he's been with all the time lately," Aria introduces me perkily.

Mason doesn't look surprised. He smiles kindly and takes a step back, welcoming us in. So this is Crispen's apartment. His real home. I glance around at the taupe walls and white furniture. I guess being a doctor, he can afford to live like this. What about his student loans though? Surely he has tons of them racked up.

This apartment doesn't look recently moved into. It looks like they've been living here a while. More evidence that Crispen was never my neighbor.

I wonder what Mason does for a living, as I take in all of the high-end decor.

"I'm Mason, Megan. It's nice to finally meet you," Mason greets me and shakes my hand. "Where is our brother, sister?"

"He's caught up with a minor disruption. He should be here soon," Aria tells him flippantly. One wall of Mason and Crispen's home catches my eye. The left wall is decorated from top to bottom with all different kinds of knives and swords. The two siblings catch me staring wide-eyed.

"Quite the collection," I admire awkwardly. I'm admittedly freaked out. I've heard that collecting these sorts of things is a fairly common hobby, but I've never seen anything like this.

Mason grins. "You like them? Crispen and I collect them. You should see our training room!" he says enthusiastically. He obviously has a passion for weapons like these.

I catch Aria scowling at him. "Crispen would kill you. He doesn't want Megan to know anything."

They share a silent exchange. I break it. "Okay, this is getting a little obsessive, don't you think? I think I should get to know what it is that is happening around me, because quite obviously it's something that I should know about."

"I like her. She has balls, and Crispen needs someone to keep him in line," Mason observes and then glances to Aria. "If you're not going to tell her, then I will, because this is just stupid and silly. There is no reason for him not to tell her. If she doesn't find out everything soon, then she's going to be dead, and I'm pretty sure he'd rather have her alive. It's safer that she know. She's in this too deep now. Unless we somehow how miraculously get rid of every single person that wants her dead, then this is going to affect her for the rest of her life. She's going to have to know more eventually, so why not start today?"

Aria shrugs. "It's your head, not mine. Go for it, I agree. You're taking the fall for this one though, Mason, we both know why he doesn't want her to know anything. It's not safe for her to know anything either. Either way she's kind of screwed."

Mason seems unbothered by this. He motions for me to take a seat at the kitchen table. Aria and I sit down. Mason looks around the room and then grabs the table salt. He sits down with us, then he pours a little bit of salt onto the table. How can I just sit here after watching my house get invaded and Crispen fall from a flipping window? At least I'm about to get answers. Finally.

"Do you like salt, Megan?" he asks me. I'm surprised by the weird question. I shrug.

"I guess. I don't know. It's fine," I answer skeptically, not sure what this has to do with anything.