Page 102 of Anywhere

“Dude, you’re going to need to give me a bit more information. You asking that is like me asking if you know the girl I wanted to fuck? There is such a long list. How the hell am I supposed to guess?”

“Such a comedian, the one called Sydney,” Devlin snarked back. “The point is, I know you don’t want your triad, and I really don’t fucking want mine, so how do you plan on getting out of yours? Can we just kill them?”

I smacked myself in the face. “Yeah, about that.”

“No, bro, I’m fucking serious, and I’m sorry I was all up in your grill and making fun of you when Dad shipped your ass to that shitty little island. I was an asshole to go to the airport with the banner and bottle of Champagne, and I’m just sorry. So now, what’s the plan?”

I remembered him clearly yelling congratulations when I walked through the small private airport door. He’d been holding a banner that said Just married, now tied down forever. There was a part of me right now that wanted to go back to that version of myself, but just the thought of leaving filled me with so much pain it almost brought me to my knees.

“Okay, first of all, why are you talking about you being in a triad? You haven’t even had a ceremony where your name was mentioned,” I asked, confused. Reaching down to the floor, I grabbed my discarded T-shirt and pulled it on before going in search of a pair of jeans.

“Oh, let me start over. So the night you were selected, so was I. I’m paired with Reese. Shit, you might have known if you decided to actually show up to the ritual.”

“What the fuck?” I yelled into the phone as I leapt to my feet. “You were named too, and no one told me? You son of a bitch, and you have the nerve to say I keep shit from you?”

“Yeah, well, it was entertaining to watch you squirm, and I was happy to be paired with Reese. We have our own thing going. But back to the girl I want to kill. She is the sacrifice.”

“The one name Sydney?”

“Yeah guy, keep up. She’s the one whose father killed Mom. Then Dad went nuts trying to find? That other woman took off with her and hid from Dad for years. Remember?” Devlin said.

I knew what he was talking about, but like everything else in my life, I’d managed to keep that hurtful tidbit pushed as far away from my day-to-day thought process as much as possible. We were just kids when Mom had been murdered, and Dad had gone all crazy. I hadn’t really understood his anger as a child, but the thought of someone killing Rhys or Elewyen brought an instant murderous rage into my chest. So much so that I needed to take a deep breath to calm myself down as the air around me began to crackle.

“Yeah, I know who you’re talking about. What about her?” I asked, pinching the phone between my ear and my shoulder and hopping on one foot to get the other one inside my jeans.

“We found her, and the fucking little cunt is my chosen. I found the birthmark and instantly felt the connection, man. That is a no fucking way.” I heard him hit something on the other end of the line, then heard a crash. “I’m not uniting with the daughter of the man who killed our mom,” Devlin growled into the phone while I stood up straight and zipped up my jeans.

“I’m sorry. What did you just say?”

“Seriously, I swear you don’t listen to a word I say.” I pulled the phone away from my ear and looked at it as I contemplated tossing it out the window. “The fucking little cunt is my third. So how do we go about getting out of this? I was just going to choke her while I fucked her to death. A total win, win, but now I’m afraid to put my cock inside of her. She may keep me, you know, suck my soul out through the end or some shit. Besides, you know Dad. He’s all like, but she’s your chosen, and it doesn’t matter who her father was, only that the match has been made. Blah, blah, blah. I’m not doing it. I’m not marrying that little bitch.”

I quickly pulled on my socks and shitkickers while Devlin continued to rant about the girl and called her every colourful name in the book and even ones I’d never heard before.

“Okay, okay, okay… enough already. You and your rants, fuck me,” I grumbled and slipped out into the hall. I was still very much on my own mission, and mine was to put my fucking triad together.

“Wait, you said her name is Sydney?”

“Oh my god, are you really going to make me repeat this again?” Devlin grumbled.

“No I’m just thinking that it’s fucking ironic,” I said and laughed hard.

“What? What’s wrong with her name? Not that I care, it will just add one more thing that I hate about her to the long list.”

I poked my head in every single room I passed, not taking any chances that Rhys was hanging out in one. “Devlin, did you not learn anything in Faction lessons? I mean, I thought I didn’t pay attention. Sydney is the name of a city in the country of Australia, which is now part of Faction One. They hate us, like full-on hate us, from what I remember. Just ironic.”

“No, no, it’s not ironic. It’s because she’s…”

“All right,” I barked out. “Enough with the name calling. Look, here’s the thing. The girl’s father is the asshole who killed mom. This Sydney wasn’t even born. That’s like someone blaming you for something Dad did before you were even born.”

“I don’t think I like where you’re going with this,” Devlin said.

“Probably not. All I’m saying is, give her a chance. She may be annoying now, but she may also end up being a great third,” I said and walked through the massive dining hall that was so large my footfalls echoed.

The tall walls held elegant portraits of family members. I had no clue who they were, but each one was framed in ornate gold frames. The table had to be custom and, with a quick count, held sixty people with elbow room and still space to run a marathon along the outer edge.

“What the fuck? I thought, of everyone, you’d be the one person that I could turn to and count on to have my back. I mean, you don’t want your triad, so what the hell?” Devlin asked as he sighed dramatically into the phone.

I was passing by the library when I spotted Rhys sitting at one of the tables with a couple books laid out. They were so thick that they could’ve been used as weapons. I closed the door behind me and locked it in place before putting my hand over the lock and spelling the fucker closed.