Page 33 of Beyond Hate (Beyond #3)

London

E verything hurt. One second I’d been talking to Otto, and the next there was a sharp pain in my temple and my vision swam to darkness.

I came to with a gun pressed to the back of my head and a woman I didn’t recognize glaring down at me with the coldest eyes I’d ever seen in my life.

“Officer Renn?” My head tried to swivel, and I felt metal bite into the back of my skull. It made me freeze.

A gun.

Of course he had a gun, he was a cop. I just didn’t understand why that gun was aimed at me. I didn’t understand anything that was going on.

“So glad you’re finally awake, Nicholas.”

Shit.

I was so tired of people calling me that name.

“My name is Lon—” I started weakly, but the pressure of the gun ramming into me cut me off.

The woman standing in front of me kneeled down to look at me.

A small part of me recognized that her eyes were the same bright blue as mine, but I was having a hard time wrapping my head around what was happening…

even when she reached out and took my face in one hand, her long nails biting into my skin as she turned me to look at her.

“You are the biggest disappointment I’ve experienced in every life I’ve lived, Nicholas. Stop playing dumb.”

A spark of emotion I didn’t recognize tore through me when she said my name again, and I wasn’t sure if it was because I suddenly knew exactly who she was, or if it was some lingering effect of a past personality finally coming to life.

“You killed him,” I snarled, trying to surge forward.

“If you move, I’ll fucking shoot you.” Behind me, Renn’s voice was hot and angry, and I didn’t understand why. I understood the woman staring at me with smug satisfaction on her face, though. Maybe a few months ago, I wouldn’t have believed it, but now… now, it made sense.

But what had I ever done to Renn, unless he was just in her pocket for the money?

“I’m sure you’re not a bad person.” I tried to keep my voice as calm as I could. “And I know you probably don’t want to hurt anyone. I didn’t do—”

This time, the gun smacking across the back of my head made my vision blur for a second, but it wasn’t meant to knock me out.

“Shut the fuck up .” The absolute fury in his tone took me by surprise, and the delight in the eyes of the woman in front of me as she stood and backed away was enough to tell me that nothing good was happening right now.

“Don’t sit there and act like you’re innocent.

I know what you are—I know what you did. ”

What I did ? Did I hurt someone else? It was completely possible. Otto only remembered as far as he’d been alive… and I…

“That wasn’t me.” This time the hit from the gun dropped me forward, so my palms slapped the ground, and I let out a low groan. If he kept doing that, I might actually remember the past. Either that or I’d have to figure it out in the next life.

“Come on, Nicholas. Hasn’t Otto told you… everything is your fault.” As the woman in front of me spoke, pictures fluttered from her fingers. Most of them landed scattered on top of one another, face down. I was careful when I reached forward and flipped the first one.

A pretty man with blue eyes and dark hair… who had his throat slit.

Beneath it, another pair of blue eyes were staring up at me lifelessly, and this time the cut was so deep I could see his spine in the wash of dried blood.

Oh.

Oh …

Oh, shit. My eyes rose to the woman above me, and the smirk on her face told me that she knew what she was doing—she knew the lie she was telling…

And it also meant the man standing behind me was actually innocent.

Behind me, the man in question kneeled down and flipped over another photo. Another boy with pretty blue eyes and dark lashes full of blood.

“Do you even remember my brother?” His voice was a furious, pain-filled whisper in my ear, and my stomach churned.

Brother.

Whoever Otto had been before, he’d killed a cop’s brother, and now there were bodies popping up all around me that looked like they’d been murdered the exact same way.

And for some reason, the woman in front of me wanted him to think I’d been the one who did it.

“I…” I swallowed hard. If I told the truth, maybe he’d let me go… but he’d go after Otto, wouldn’t he? I shook my head and focused my attention on the woman instead. Shit, I didn’t even know her name. “I don’t know you. You know that, right?”

“I’ve been… informed of the situation your brother put you in.

” Her voice was cold, and when she reached into the jacket pocket of her coat and pulled out a thick black book, I frowned.

“But everything you are and everything you’ve done is right here…

and I remember everything, Nicholas. I don’t need you to remember to get satisfaction from watching you pay for your sins. ”

My sins.

I still wasn’t sure what she meant. As far as I knew, the only thing I’d ever done was to Otto. The only person I’d ever hurt was him. So what was she talking about?

“What is that?” My eyes flicked to the book, which she carefully twisted in her hands.

“Your journal. You kept it so meticulously until the day you died. I wonder why Otto failed in this lifetime. It doesn’t matter…

” She flipped the pages idly, glancing down at paper I recognized as the same kind I’d gotten the letter on.

“Things have a way of working themselves out. I’m sure he’ll be here soon. ”

He…

Of course Otto would find a way to get here, and the last thing I needed was him walking into a trap.

I didn’t want him dying for me.

And just like always… it was like thinking about him too hard had summoned him, because his voice came from the door at the back of the room.

“You know, Elizabeth… Nathaniel promised I could kill everyone who hurt me. He didn’t tell me there was a bonus before he died.

” Otto had a gun out and pointed at the woman’s chest, and I wondered if I was the only one who could see the way his fingers were shaking slightly, the pulse of it traveling up his arm in a line of fury that made his eyes burn.

“Otto, I was wondering when you’d join us.” She sounded entirely too happy for someone who had a gun pointed at her head, but maybe it was because there was one pressed to mine too.

How much did she know about the way Otto felt about me?

“Otto, don’t.” My voice was a little broken, and the feel of the gun biting into the back of my scalp made me shiver. “It’s okay. I…”

I could do this for him, right? If Renn realized he was aiming at the wrong person, would he try to hurt Otto instead? It wouldn’t be that hard for a trained officer to put two and two together if he tried.

I wasn’t a killer, but I was Otto’s perfect victim.

And judging by the look on Elizabeth’s face, she knew that too.

“Oh, Renn.” Elizabeth’s voice was so sweet. “I think we’ve made a terrible mistake. Look at the poor boy you’re pointing your gun at.” Maybe he didn’t realize it, but I could see the absolute malice in her eyes. “He looks just like your little brother, doesn’t he?”

Renn frowned. “That’s the point, isn’t it?

You said he was… finding people who looked like him…

and…” Just like I was afraid of, Renn’s eyes trailed between Otto and me, and his brows snapped together.

My jacket wasn’t exactly covering up the bruises on my neck anymore, or the cut peeking up through the collar of my shirt.

I had more injuries than the ones he’d given me.

“It’s not him?”

“No, it was.” I tried to stop him even as he brought his eyes back to Elizabeth. “I did it, I—”

“I wonder how much pain he’s been through that he would try to save a psychopath like the man pointing a gun at me…”

“Don’t—” I started, but she kept going.

“I wonder if your brother went through the same.”

Renn’s hand on the back of my neck clenched, and when he hauled me up and Otto swung his gun around, I knew what was going to happen.

Renn’s hand coming around my waist wasn’t trying to hurt me. He was trying to protect me. I felt it in the way his posture changed, in the way he was dragging me behind him even though the gun was still loosely pointed in my direction.

And I felt it in the way his body started trembling.

“Did you kill my brother?”

Otto’s eyes flicked between the gun still so close to me and Renn’s arm around my body, and he shrugged.

The smirk on his face was all for show and I knew it, all bravado and coldness to draw that rage away from me and to himself.

It was worse, because Otto couldn’t keep his gun on Renn—he had to train it between the two dangers in the room.

Renn only had one target now.

“Yes,” Otto answered. “Doesn’t London look just like him? It couldn’t be more perfect, really.”

I was going to kill him when this was over with, because his eyes flicked to me for just a second and he shrugged again, almost helplessly, as I felt the tension leave Renn’s body…

He finally had a target. He finally had someone to punish.

Maybe he’d hesitated with me because I looked so much like his brother, but… shit, it was different with Otto.

He was going to punish him to rescue me , as if it could somehow rewrite the past and save the boy I’d seen dead in the photos.

And I… I didn’t really have time to think about it.

My fingers dove into my pocket and I brought the knife Otto had tried to teach me to use up as I moved.

Renn didn’t have time to turn his gun back to me before I flicked the switch and stared in horror as his eyes went wide and a line of blood trailed from the corner of his mouth.

Somewhere that bled a lot, he’d told me. A blade to the side of the neck did that, didn’t it?

And when I twisted it to make sure, and Officer Renn shuddered beside me before dropping his gun, I realized that I’d picked right.

His fingers were desperate when they scrambled at me, and I jerked the knife out to a wash of blood as he stumbled back. It made me take three quick steps toward Otto, and his arm wrapped around my waist to steady me before I completely fell. I was covered in blood.

I was covered in blood and I was staring with wide eyes as Renn fell to the ground and tried to hold on to the wound I’d left in his neck.

It didn’t seem to help. Blood was pouring from between his fingers, and I could do nothing but stare in horror as it spread around Renn in a red halo, and then he stopped moving.

“London, are you okay?” Otto’s voice sounded like it was under water. It came in a garbled mess, but I turned toward the sound and clung to him.

“No… no, I didn’t want to… I didn’t mean to… I—”

My fingers were shaking, and my heart was racing so violently I was seeing spots. When I turned to look at the ground again, Renn was staring up at me with the same blank blue eyes as the pictures scattered around him.

The same blank eyes as his brother, who he’d been trying to avenge.

He was innocent, and I’d killed him.

But when I glanced from his dead body to Otto’s shocked expression, I realized I would do it again. In every life, in every timeline… I’d stain my hands to keep him safe.