Page 94

It was needless to say who “they” were. There was only one freak cult in Emberlyn, and their notorious reputation didn’t leave much area for doubt.

A wind blew past them, making a dark strand flutter into Xen’s eyes. Those eyes, which were glowing scarlet like the tip of Evan’s cigarette.

It had been a while since the last time Evan had seen that scarlet gaze, and a shiver shot down his spine involuntarily as a brief look of unsettling darkness flitted past Xen’s face.

There it was, that sudden shift in his demeanor. The drop of temperature. The heavy demonic energy radiating off his tensed shoulders.

“Xen?”

As soon as his name was spoken, it was like he’d been released from a spell by Evan all over again.

Xen blinked, then blinked some more, processing the word that’d left Evan’s lips. It was the first time Evan had willinglycalled him by his name. The scarlet flickered in his eyes before fading away with a tic of his jaw, his gaze trailing back to Evan. “Mm?”

Evan studied him, blowing out a puff of smoke before carefully prodding. “I asked what their intention behind the Bloodbath was.”

“They want to awaken something,” Xen’s strained voice echoed in the space between them.

That reaction was so out of character for Xen that Evan couldn’t help the question that surfaced in his mind. Couldn’t help it when it fell from his lips, doused in suspicion.

“How do you know all this?”

Xen paused, then glanced up at the darkening sky. “I’ve seen it happen before.”

That’s it. No further explanation. And it wasn’t even surprising at this point. Xen only revealed what he wanted others to know, what he deemed sufficient to solve an issue. Anything beyond that was impossible to draw out of him, not by tactic, definitely not by force.

Deciding to drop the questions about where Xen had seen such heinous ritual in the past, Evan took a drag from his cigarette, his brows furrowing as he tried to untangle the matter at hand.

“We have to stop this ritual. Obviously. Or else sixteen people will lose their lives for absolutely nothing.”

“Fifteen,” Xen prompted.

Evan flicked the cigarette and stomped over it, then stepped over the chains restricting access to the area. “Including Aaron, sixteen.”

As he dipped under a branch and rose, Evan walked straight into a fresh cobweb. He spluttered, the web plastered across his face, decorating him with artistically designed insect spit.

“Fifteen,” Xen said again, following behind him, unperturbed by Evan’s distress.

Spitting and scrubbing at his face to get off the remnants of spiderweb, Evan snapped at him. “What?”

“Remember what you saw on the recording.”

Digging his face into the crook of his arm, Evan furiously wiped his face into his coat sleeve. It took him a moment to compose himself and wonder what recording Xen was talking about before he made anahsound of realization.

The video that Choi had shown him.

“What about it?”

Evan mentally replayed the video, wandering into the abandoned area through overgrown wild weeds and dodging more spiderwebs. But no matter how much he recalled, all he could remember were the three tents, a mysterious firefly, and the six people who disappeared from it.

Huh?

Wait.

Evan abruptly stopped, eyes transfixed on the ruins of old houses peeking over the weeds and bushes as a residential area neared as the gears in his head turned.

“Seven loggers disappeared from their tents without a trace,” Choi’s voice rang in Evan’s head. Following close behind were Delos’s words when Evan had asked him about the missing people.“Over fifteen. Including seven loggers who were working on the road construction project.”

Evan raked a hand through his hair. How could he have missed that?