Page 43 of King of Lies (Mayhem Manuscripts Season One: 1nf3ction #6)

Keaton

As luck would have it, I saw them coming, something making me pause and look up just as I was about to set off on my daily mission of killing biters.

I couldn’t tell who it was straightaway, the distance too far.

But once I saw the red robe, it became obvious.

Only one man considered himself special enough to need to stand out.

His companion took longer to identify, wanting it to be August not enough to make it so, and I stood there until I was certain.

Once I knew, I immediately fell back to the tunnel, trepidation and anger swirling in my chest as I paced the small space.

This was it. August was going to bring him right to me, and I was going to kill the bastard.

Would I do it slow as I’d always planned?

Tie him up and torture him so he’d really feel it?

Or would I do it fast? Did he deserve that?

Not knowing how I might do it was telling.

I’d talked a good game, but I hadn’t truly believed we’d reach this point.

It had been a dream. Something to focus my mind on.

A cause worth dying for. Then August had come along—though you could argue I’d erupted into his life, rather than the other way round, and he’d taken dying out of the equation.

Now, I had this, and the promise of a future.

The bees were loud. Louder than they’d ever been, buzzing and jostling for space in my skull. Everything would become clear when I stood face to face with him. How could it not? And if it didn’t, well… then I had August for backup.

Seconds stretched like hours, minutes like entire millennia, my auditory focus fixed on the door a few rooms away.

It always creaked when it opened, so there was no way of not hearing them.

My heart pounded, and sweat broke out on my forehead.

I wiped it away and told myself to calm down.

I wanted to be made of rock when I faced William Anderson.

Or if not rock, ice. A cool customer. An assassin.

I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing me rattled.

I forced myself to breathe slowly, to remember it hadn’t been that long since I’d been a soldier with all the training that entailed. It worked: my heart slowed, the sweat dried, and by the time the creak came I was ready.

I stood in the middle of the room as the footsteps came closer, fingers wrapped around the handle of my knife, holding it out of sight behind my thigh. It wasn’t time for me to reveal I was armed yet.

The door swung open, and they both stepped inside. August immediately moved over to the far wall. “This is the man,” he said. “The one who has meddled.”

I didn’t look at August, following his lead in pretending we didn’t know each other.

Instead, I stared at the bastard, able to examine him up close for the first time.

He looked older than I’d expected. Smaller.

As incongruous as it might be, friendlier.

If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, it would have been hard to believe this man tied defenseless women to a stake and played Russian roulette with their lives under the guise of religion.

I watched him scan the room. What was he looking for? I didn’t have to wait long to find out as his gaze swung back my way. “Where is she?”

“She?”

He turned to August. “You told me the girl was here.”

“What girl?” I asked.

August leaned his head back against the wall, his expression saying he was weighing something up.

He’d been right about the robe not suiting him.

It drained the color from his face and made him look wan.

Or maybe the weeks in the castle had done that to him.

I’d make it up to him once this was over.

August let out a breath. “William believes you have a blessed girl here.” At my frown, he clarified, “Someone immune.”

“Right,” I said. “I don’t.”

William frowned. “If she’s not here, where is she?”

August laughed as he levered himself away from the wall. “She wasn’t real. I made her up to get you here.”

The bastard stared at August, a muscle twitching in his cheek. When August performed a mocking bow, his gaze snapped to me. “Why?”

“Why?” I echoed, the word carrying far more emotion than I intended. “Why what? Why don’t I have an imaginary girl here?”

“Why go to all this trouble to have a meeting with me?”

I laughed as I stepped closer, the sound bitter as my fury rose.

I tamped it down, reminding myself to stay calm.

If you were angry, you made mistakes, and I’d waited too long to fuck this up.

“Surely, you knew that one day a relative of one of those poor women would come looking for you. You’d have to be stupid not to know that. ”

“Most of them don’t have relatives. That’s why they’re chosen. I provide a new family for them. I provide―”

I raised my free hand, the hidden knife still behind my back.

“Don’t,” I said, my finger trembling with the force of emotion.

“Don’t give me all that religious bullshit.

It doesn’t wash with me. It’s just the three of us here.

No Seekers, so we can call it what it is…

an excuse for you to do whatever the fuck you want, to collect women like they’re trophies and throw them to the wolves once they don’t have the attributes you want or you’re sick of them. Serena deserved better.”

William nodded. “Ah, Serena, is it?” He studied my face, eyes narrowing. “Yes, I can see it now. In the nose and the mouth. Not so much the eyes. Serena had brown eyes.”

“She had my mother’s eyes. I have my father’s,” I said, the words sounding like they were squeezed through the smallest of apertures.

“She broke the rules. She accepted her punishment.”

“Your rules,” August said from the corner, “are arbitrary at best, and very much geared toward punishing women rather than men. When was the last time you tied a man to that stake?”

“It’s happened.”

“Not my question. When was the last time? This year? Last year? Two years ago?”

The bastard’s shrug was unsatisfactory. “I’d have to check my records.”

August laughed with derision. “Yeah, you do that.”

He studied August. “The Lord does not appreciate turncoats.”

“The Lord,” August spat, “is not a consideration in my life. Never has been. Never will be.” He ripped the robe over his head and tossed it to the floor, rolling his shoulders as if shrugging off both a physical and metaphorical weight. He shoved it with his foot. “Anyone got a match?”

“So, the visions,” the bastard said, “you made those up too?”

“I did,” August confirmed.

The bastard’s gaze darted between the two of us. “So what happens now you have me here?”

“You die,” I said simply. “I might not have been able to save Serena, but it will save future women from being used and abused by you. I can at least do that for her.”

The bastard raised his chin. “Where were you when we spent weeks wooing her? And yes, you heard me right… weeks. Not days. She was a tough nut to crack.”

If he’d meant it as a slight, it wasn’t. It made me feel better to know she’d put up a fight, that the sister I remembered hadn’t been completely gone. “In the army.” I drew the knife out from behind my back and held it in front of me. “So, death is nothing new for me.”

“Now would be a good time,” the bastard announced.

I frowned at the words, and at how loudly he’d spoken them, realization coming too slowly that he hadn’t meant them for me or August.

So slow that another man stepped into the room before I’d finished processing the thought, gun raised but not pointed at anyone.