Page 4 of Mayhem

“What?” I asked. “I can be charming. People have said that.”

“People under duress don’t count.”

“They count more. They’re motivated to be honest.”

Runo laughed, but Samael only stood and gathered the remaining files into a neat stack. The movement had the familiar finality of him deciding a conversation was over before I found a way to make it worse. “Nichlas isn’t going anywhere tonight or tomorrow,” he said. “You have waited a year. You can wait one more day.”

One more day sounded ridiculous when his photograph was right there, when Aldrich was right there, when the whole shape of his safe little life had finally stopped hiding behind blank spaces and false names. I looked at the board again, at the clean lines of the campus map and the blurry proof of him walking around alive, rested, and unpunished.

My scar itched beneath my shirt, a long remembered line down my side, and I pressed my palm against it until the feeling passed. Nichlas had gotten school and protection and a future someone else paid for. I had gotten a pitchfork through me and a year of learning how many ways a person could vanish when the right monsters wanted him hidden.

“Echo,” Samael said, and his voice was softer this time.

“I know.” I hated that I did. I hated that he was right. I hated that revenge had logistics. “No bodies tomorrow.”

Runo’s brows lifted.

I sighed. “Fine. No intentional bodies tomorrow.”

Samael gave me the look again.

“Oh my god. Fine. No bodies at all tomorrow,” I corrected, because apparently Father Three had no respect for careful legal phrasing.

He crossed the room and rested a hand briefly against the back of my neck as he passed, squeezing once before heading toward the front of the office. Runo followed more slowly, pausing long enough to tap one finger against the edge of Nichlas’ photograph. “Do it wisely, baby,” he said, and because he was the only one allowed to call me that without losing a finger, I let it slide. Then he left too, taking the last of the laughter with him.

I stayed where I was after they were gone, facing the wall of dead ends that had finally become a road. My eyes moved across every bad address, every vanished account, every person who had lied, every mile between where Nichlas had been and where I had stood looking for him. Then they settled on Aldrich, on his photograph, on his name printed cleanly beneath the crest of a school that thought metal detectors and money could keep monsters out.

The smile came back slowly enough that it felt less like humor and more like something sharpening. “You used to be my ride or die, Nicky boy,” I purred as I ran a finger across his face before digging into my pocket for a letter opener I stole earlier. “I trusted you and maybe that was my mistake but you gave me up? And for what?” I dug the sharp edge into one of his eyes, remembering the pain for weeks afterward. I still didn’t know who chased me or what they wanted. I just knew Nichlas was dead. “I hope whatever it was, was worth it,” I said, my voice dropping a few octaves as I dug out the other eye and then drew a line where his lips were. “Because you’re going to pay,” I told his picture, quiet enough that only the empty office heard me. Tomorrow was my first day of school, and Nichlas’ last year of breathing easy had already ended.

echo

I dropped into the kitchen chair, hooked one finger beneath the stupid bowtie at my throat, and tugged hard enough that Father Two’s eyes lifted from the little row of things he’d already stolen from my jacket. “Before anyone starts telling me what I’m not allowed to bring, I need breakfast and an apology from whoever decided Aldrich uniforms require neckwear. I look like I’m about to serve tea to someone’s haunted grandmother.”

Aeron set a plate in front of me before I finished complaining. Steak, eggs, toast, roasted tomatoes, and more food than any normal person needed before eight in the morning, which meant Father One had decided calories could fix my attitude. They couldn’t, obviously, but I respected his commitment to the lie. He placed a sealed container beside my elbow next, gave the bowtie one brief look of disapproval, and said, “Eat. Then complain.”

“I’m going to a university, not war,” I said, even as I picked up my fork because Aeron had the patience of a saint only when people were bleeding in a way he approved of. Breakfast was not negotiable. Not eating was treated like a personal insult, and I’d learned years ago that arguing with Father One over food only ended with more food and a very quiet stare.

Samael looked up from the folder beside his coffee. “You packed three knives.”

“I said what I said.”

Slash slid a slim blade out from beneath the folded edge of my jacket and set it neatly beside the lock picks already on the table. There was wire too, and one small tool I hadn’t technically packed so much as lovingly considered packing, which felt like an invasion of my privacy and my artistic process. “Aldrich has high-density metal detectors at the main gates and in several interior buildings. You’re not bringing steel through them.”

“I could,” I said.

“You could get stopped.”

“I could be charming.”

“You could use what’s available on-site,” he said, nudging the blade farther away from me with one gloved finger. “You’re better when you improvise.”

That was probably a compliment. With Father Two, compliments usually came dressed like professional criticism and holding something sharp behind their back, but I decided to take it because I was generous and because Aeron had just moved another piece of steak onto my plate. “Fine. I’ll go to school tragically under-accessorized. When I’m forced to defend myself with a sharpened cafeteria spoon, I want everyone to remember this moment.”

Runo laughed into his coffee from the opposite side of the table. Father Four looked disgustingly entertained for someone who’d helped create this entire problem by encouraging me last night and then pretending “do it wisely” counted as responsible parenting. “I’d like that written in the incident report,” he said.

Aeron tapped the edge of my plate. “Eat, Echo. Just for the record, I despise this idea.”

I glared at the man, narrowing my gaze in his direction. Everyone was so concerned that I was going to go off and kill my ex when these men had literally terrorized a goddamn city for years. And Father One ate them.