Darius drove the wheezing car through Verweald's afternoon traffic as I read him directions off my phone's GPS app. I had never traveled to Weatherly before, and seeing as nothing concerning our contract had ever taken the Sin out this way, Darius had never visited the area either. We drove south until Verweald's streets and lights were swallowed by the rising hills.
I think the Sin and I both exhaled with relief when the city faded from view.
"So this...Weatherly," Darius asked as he adjusted the rearview mirror to his liking. The noon sun blazed overhead, filling the car with intolerable heat and the smell of evaporating rainwater. The thunderstorm had dispersed during the night. "It's not part of Verweald?"
"Not exactly," I mumbled as I watched the address flash closer on my phone's screen. Distracted, I was not in the mood for idle chatter, but I understood Darius's desire to redirect my thoughts. "It's in Verweald County, but it's its own...township, I think you'd call it. Technically, so is Evergreen Acres and another suburban area known as Lindengrove in the east. I think Winfield once tried to petition the city of Verweald to become its own town, but city council shot them down. Has something to do with skewing the per capita wealth of Verweald or something. Would have ruined market values."
Darius snorted. "Market values. I'll never understand why humans are so stupid. What a preposterous thing to worry about. I remember when a decent cave and a chance at seeing the next dawn were sufficient enough for you people."
I covered my mouth to hide my smirk. Honestly, what he had said wasn't funny but my thoughts were frazzled and my emotions temperamental. "Was that back in your day, grandpa?"
The Sin peered at me sidelong as he continued to drive. A frown marred his lips. "Are you mocking me?"
"Perhaps."
Darius made an irritated sound. "Do remember what I am, girl."
"How could I forget?" I continued to smile despite his frightening expression. "The legendary Sin of Pride who's going to devour my soul once all those names within that briefcase on my dining table disappear." I waved a hand over the sun-bleached console separating us. "If anything, that gives me more license to mock you, not less. Tell me about those dinosaurs now."
Darius grumbled. "There were no dinosaurs by the time we came. Just bloody humans."
I chuckled—but my amusement soon fled as he found the turnoff for Weatherly. A cheery sign stationed along the roadside welcomed us to the neighborhood, and the first manor became visible through the scruffy oak trees. Weatherly was a small place, comprised of roughly one hundred private residences and a demure town center offering a convenient store, a post office, and a trendy café. I personally didn't know a single person who lived in one of these more exclusive homes—but Tara obviously had.
Someone living here had paid money to have her killed. Someone who wanted me alive.
Shaking my head, I returned my gaze from the window to the GPS. "It's, uh, two drives down from this one on the right."
Darius had to continue for another mile through the twisting California hills before we arrived at the address Eoul had provided us. The house built at our destination suggested the owner was capable of financing a hitman. It sat upon a raised foundation, many of the sharply angled walls covered in thick windows while a wraparound deck offered an expansive view of the Pacific Ocean from the side of the lot's cliff. The detached garage was almost as large as the modern art deco house, and beyond a grove of oranges, I spied a fence guarding a tennis court.
Who was this person? Who had Tara made an enemy of without my knowledge?
"There's a slider ajar on the deck." The demon pointed toward the available entrance point as he parked the car in the shade of a shedding eucalyptus tree. The deck extended outward from the second level, so I wasn't sure how the demon expected us to get up there, but I didn't argue. I got out the car and together we crossed the soggy lawn until we stood beneath the ledge of the redwood deck. We were out of sight of the entryway, but it would not be wise to linger.
"So, do you see a ladder or—?! No, wait! I'm not ready—!"
While I stared upward at the deck, the Sin had stepped behind me and wrapped his hands upon my waist. With a grunt of effort, Darius flung me straight up, and I snatched onto the railing before I could descend again. Darius leaped to the deck next to me, landing upon the wood slats with ease. He smirked as I straddled the balustrade with one leg while the other kicked thin air. The wood was treated, but I still managed to push splinters into my bare legs. I regretted wearing shorts.
"H-help—!" I hissed at the Sin as I stretched for his arm, but Darius moved a breath out of my reach as he continued to smirk.
"You have more license to mock whom, now?"
"Oh, you ass—!" My hands were too sore to keep a firm grip. I slipped, then began to fall. Darius hooked his hand upon my upper arm and lifted me over the railing. I shooed him, reassuring the Sin I had my balance—only, I didn't. I overestimated my equilibrium and stumbled into the railing. My elbow smacked a potted calla lily and sent it flying over the far edge. Darius and I froze as the damn thing fell, hitting the earth below with a loud crash.
The Sin and I were proving to be inept burglars.
Mouthing unflattering things under his breath, Darius hurried me through the open slider, then shut the door behind us. The absence of the coastal breeze was stifling. We entered a living area styled in overhyped, contemporary-chic furnishings with a decidedly masculine flare. The room was a loft, as was visible by the open railing located on the far side of the expanse. A set of steel steps led downward to the first floor.
The widescreen television had been mounted to the ceiling on a sturdy, swiveling arm, though the screen was blurred by the afternoon glare coming in off the ocean. It was currently displaying a Spanish soap opera, the volume lowered to a hushed murmuring. A marble coffee table sat at a crooked angle before the low suede couch. It held a slim laptop, a magazine, a phone, and a steaming cup of tea.
"He's downstairs," Darius said as I approached the seating arrangement. I eyed the Sin and he cocked his head, pointing at his ear. "In the kitchen. I can hear the dishes clattering and smell the spices burning."
"He, huh?" I whispered as I plucked the laptop off the coffee table so I could read the page it was on. The resulting onslaught of numbers and lines was mind-numbing. "Stocks. Whoever it is, they've been playing the stock market—and judging by their portfolio, they've made a killing 'predicting' changes in Verweald's industries as Balthier's torn through the area."
Darius twisted his hand in his accustomed circular gesture. "I've known younger Sins more concerned with material possessions to do the same or similar. They'll slaughter all of a village's goats to drive the price of cows up, etcetera."
I shut the laptop and tossed it onto a convenient armchair. Uncomfortable with the entire situation, I returned to the Sin's side as Darius slowly yet deliberately paced the outer limit of the room, putting the opening to the stairs directly in his line of sight. "What if they're not here alone?" I asked as I scratched my arm's bandages through my shirt's long, black sleeves. "We acted rashly without figuring out a plan before coming here, Dar—."
The Sin shushed me by pressing a finger to his own lips. His eyes focused on the stairs as I turned. When I wasn't speaking, I could hear the steady slap-slap of slippers crossing the hard floor below, then ascending the steps. A head of dark, curly hair crested the landing and continued higher. A man dressed in a yellow polo shirt and blue slacks came into view. He carried a rye bread sandwich dripping with cooked meat on a white plate.
He froze at the top step as his brown eyes landed upon the two figures silhouetted by the sunshine invading his living room. "Who the hell are you?!"
My legs were dangerously close to collapsing, and I couldn't breathe. I recognized the man. "No," I whispered. "No—no, I...saw you dead."
Rick Vasquez, my late sister's fiancé, stood frozen with a dab of barbecue sauce in the corner of his mouth—looking very, very much alive. The realization filtered gradually—unwillingly—through my thoughts until I had to cup a hand over my lips to mask my quivering revulsion.
I remembered then that I did know someone who had lived in Weatherly. Rick's dad. I could recall the summer afternoon I had spent shopping with Rick and Tara, in which Rick and I had talked about his family and the house out in Weatherly his dad had bequeathed to him. I hadn't been much interested in the conversation, honestly. Tara and Rick had been planning to move in once they started their family.
I saw Rick dead. I saw—.
But what did I see? Over the past days—weeks—I had come to realize I saw very little at all, that what petty illusions the monsters of this world spun blinded me just as easily as they blinded anybody else. I saw Rick that night. I saw him hanging on that rack, and I saw red soaking through his pricey dress shirt.
I had not seen red in the basin. The basin had been clean—because he hadn't bled. He hadn't bled a drop.
That son of a bitch.
"Sara!" Rick cried as he dropped his meal. It splattered upon the floor, forgotten. He finally recognized me and took two, hurried steps in our direction. "Oh my God, Sara! You're alive! Thank you, thank you, God!"
The irony of Rick's words had Darius grinning like a sharp-toothed devil.
"I thought, I thought—!" Rick kept coming nearer, though he didn't make a move to touch me yet. "I thought you were dead!"
"Rick," I whispered, still hiding half my face. "What have you done?"
The man fidgeted as he brought his hands together. "I don't know what you mean—."
"Do you think they let me go?" I demanded as I took a resolute step away from him. I couldn't believe this. Not this. "Do you really, truly believe that? Look at me, Rick!" I dropped my hand to display my fresh bruises and the large cut in my lip. "Do I look like a woman who survived that?!"
Rick swore in Spanish, his voice thick with the unshed tears welling within his eyes. "I swear, Sara, they weren't supposed to hurt you!"
"But you knew! You knew they were going to—!" I couldn't say the words aloud. I couldn't give my voice to that heinous accusation. I had to take two deep breaths to clear the darkness in my vision and to prevent myself from vomiting. "You knew they were going to kill my sister!"
Rick was quiet. Ashamed, perhaps, or unable to defend himself. He rubbed his unshaven face as a single tear broke free of his thick lashes and crawled across his cheek. "You weren't supposed to know," he murmured. "You were never supposed to know."
The fury and disbelief roiling in my gut dispelled my stupor. "How could you?!" I accused as tears began to cloud my own eyes. "How could you?! She was my sister! She was your fiancée! How could you, Rick?!" I angrily wiped my face with my sleeve. "She was going to have your child!"
"It wasn't my child!" Rick exploded as he clenched his tanned fists. His words echoed through the living room and seemed to dance upon the windows. It was growing colder, but Darius remained quiet and unmoving behind me. Rick inhaled and continued in a calmer voice. "Does that surprise you, Sara? Yeah, it wasn't my kid. Your sister wasn't as perfect as you thought she was."
"You lie!" I cried.
"Why would I lie about this?!" he demanded, coming closer. "She was cheating on me with half the staff at Verweald General!"
"Liar!"
"Who knows if the baby would have come to term, anyway?" Rick snarled. He took savage pleasure in tearing into Tara when she wasn't here to protect herself. I didn't know this man. I didn't know this raving, furious man who wore the visage of my sister's smiling, handsome lover. "She was addicted to whatever pain killers she could get her cold hands on. Didn't know that about your precious sister, did you? When she wasn't working at that hospital, she was sitting at the apartment completely out of her mind!"
I refused to hear what he was saying. It couldn't be true. How dare Rick malign Tara like this?!
"And she was envious." Some of Rick's bluster went out of his sails, and the man seemed to physically deflate. A strange light filled his eyes as he continued to stare at me. "She was so, so envious of you, Sara."
"You lie." My voice was weak, unsure. I had come to demand answers, but these were not the answers I wanted. My fingers crept over my lips again, and my shoulder bumped into Darius's chest. "You lie."
"No. You know I'm not lying." Rick was close, close enough to whisper and be plainly heard. "She wanted your willpower. She always did. She wanted to stand up to Eleanor as you did, to live the kind of life she wanted without worrying about what her mother would say. But Tara was weak. She caved to pressure. She lied, she cheated—she made my life miserable. Don't you see, Sara? I did this for you. For us."
I froze as Rick reached for my face, aiming to caress my cheek.
"I've loved you for so long, Sara. I love your spirit, your mind. You're so kind, so good, so strong. I didn't know how to tell you. It was planned that the three of us would get taken that night, but you and I were supposed to wake up from the drugs and 'escape' our kidnappers. When I woke up alone, I—! It was supposed to work out so well....With Tara out of the way, maybe—."
Darius stopped Rick's hand before he could touch me. Rick seemed to finally realize there was someone else in the room, and he glared at Darius. "Who are you? Get away from Sara!"
The Sin grinned as his grip tightened upon Rick's wrist.
"You don't know a thing about me," I said, unable to look Rick in eye. I couldn't look at him. I refused to see him. "You disgust me!"
I turned away.
"Sara!"
Darius touched my arm as I rushed from the room, but I didn't stop. "I can't—," were the only words I could force past the knot in my throat before I ran from the living area. The fresh air clung to my tear-streaked face and filled my heaving lungs. I barely reached the railing before I vomited over the edge into the flowerbeds below.
This was not how this was supposed to happen. I had expected to find a tottering megalomaniac, some unknown bastard who Tara had offended, some overpaid, unstable hospital executive my sister had gotten on the wrong side of in her quest to heal people and better society.
I was not supposed to find her fiancé, the man she loved. A man I had known for years, a man I had invited into my home and family. Rick wasn't a faceless stranger. I had sat across the table from him at dinner with Tara, had gone to the movies with him, had spent the day at Tara's apartment with him in the past.
He was not supposed to fill my head with lies about Tara.
I wanted to claw his words from my ears—but they remained etched within my mind, impossible to forget. I refused to believe the falsities, but they existed. They would always exist, like the weights of fishing lines pulling my thoughts deeper and deeper into the darkening mire.
The Exordium had given me many things. Pain. Agony. A heaping dose of distrust. But of all the things they had done, of all the ruin that had wrought in my world and in my life, the very worst thing they could bring was exactly what Rick had given me: doubt. Doubt in the woman I had loved since my first breath.
I sank to my knees as I rested my heated forehead on the rail. I felt as if I had misjudged every person I had ever known, for good or for worse. Mitch, Eoul. Amoroth—Darius. I had misjudged my own family. I understood nothing. Nothing.
Was it human nature to lie? To cheat? To betray?
Darius stood behind me. I couldn't see him, but the breeze brought the scent of ash and copper to my nose, and his heat was a palpable sensation at my side. "It's done."
I shut my eyes to the sight of the blue coastline. "You were right," I told him as I wiped my mouth. "You were always right. Humans really are stupid. Stupid, terrible, and wretched."
Darius touched the top of my head. "Not all humans," he said as his fingers slid through the dark strands of my hair. "Not all of them, Sara."
* * *