Page 5 of Wicked (Dark Delights #5)

Isaac

Isaac was in a predicament. He was tied up in an undisclosed location by what he presumed was some kind of demon.

He didn’t know any other creature that could shift through space the way this one had.

One minute they’d been standing in the prison of HQ, and the next he was…

somewhere else. The chair he sat in was the only thing occupying the narrow room.

The green and beige tile floor was dingy and faded, though the walls seemed to have a fresh coat of paint.

There were no windows and only one door, which his chair was facing.

A strand of his long red hair had come loose from the haphazard bun he’d tied it into this morning, and he blew it out of his face absently. He twisted his wrists, trying to dig a finger into the knot, but before he could do more than curse, the door opened.

Adrenaline flooded his veins—and his eyes met Nathan Accardi’s. Relief hit him so fast his head spun.

“Oh, thank God,” he said. “Can you get me out of here? ”

Nathan winced, shutting the door and leaning against it. He folded his arms, and dread settled heavily in Isaac’s gut.

“Nate,” he said slowly. “Aren’t you gonna help me out?”

“How long have you been a spy for Commander Sloan?” Nathan’s voice was soft, his face blank. Isaac learned long ago from Sloan and Father Hawley that quiet anger was far worse than any other.

He thought about lying, but what was the point? “Always,” he replied. “He’s my commander. When he says jump, I’m programmed to do it. If he tells me it’s not high enough, I do it again, better.”

Nathan shook his head in disbelief. “I can’t believe this. I can’t believe you. I thought you were different.”

“Different how?” He was different. He was always told that was a problem. It was why Sloan and Hawley were so harsh with him, why they punished him for every infraction. Being different meant being punished.

“I thought you were like us!” He gestured behind him to the door, and Isaac realized exactly who’d kidnapped him.

“Us,” he repeated. “You guys are the ones who brought me here? One of your demons was at HQ this morning?”

“Talon,” Nathan said coolly. “He was taking care of Weston. I asked him to.”

“ You asked him to? Oh, wow.” He would never have guessed that the golden boy himself would one day ask a demon to kill for him.

Isaac was whipped like a disobedient dog for daring to enjoy the hunt, and somehow Nathan could be directly responsible for killing a man with zero repercussions.

“Well, tell him job well done. It was a beautiful piece of work.”

Nathan shook his head in aggravation. “I don’t understand, Isaac. I thought you could think for yourself. I didn’t think you were one of Sloan’s bootlickers!”

Rage was hot in his veins, and he tightened his hands into fists. “Shut the hell up, Nate. You have no idea what you’re talking about, okay?”

“What have you told him, huh?” Nathan’s face was twisted with anger, and he took a step toward Isaac.

Isaac let his gaze fall to the dingy floor. Nathan’s sneakers were the same ones he used to wear during training drills. Funny how things could be so different and yet the same.

“It’s a sin to lie,” he said softly, the crack of the leather whip echoing in his ears. “If he asks me a question, I have to answer.”

Through his teeth, Nathan said, “Not if it means innocent people could get hurt! You betrayed us!”

Innocent? Isaac looked up sharply. “Who’s the traitor here, Nate?

You? The demon fucker who abandoned his friends, his oath, his duty?

Or me, the one who followed orders?” He smiled, a bitter thing.

There were plenty of other things he could’ve said there—the one who was born wrong, the monster who masqueraded as a person, the sinner who dreamed of blood—but those secrets were for him and him alone.

Nathan’s eyes were glassy, but his mouth was set in a hard line. “Wow,” he croaked. “All this time…”

Isaac sighed impatiently. “All this time what ?” He wanted this conversation to be over. Anything was better than this gnawing sensation in his gut, like a thorn he couldn’t reach. It couldn’t be guilt, because he did what Sloan asked, and Sloan’s word was law .

“All this time,” Nathan said coldly, “I thought you were our friend. I thought we could trust you.”

Isaac told himself it only hurt because the ropes were too tight. No other reason. “Well, you thought wrong.”

Nathan’s mouth curled, and he lunged, slamming his fist into the side of Isaac’s face. Pain exploded in his cheekbone, loud and dizzying. He tasted copper, and the door banged shut behind Nathan, leaving Isaac with a throbbing face and a knot in his stomach.

Hawley had always told him he would hurt the people around him if he wasn’t careful.

He didn’t think it would be by following Sloan’s orders, but perhaps his malignity was truly as inevitable as they said.

It didn’t matter whether he followed orders or not.

Someone would always get hurt, and he would always be alone. He’d learned that a long time ago.

His mother brought him to the guild when he was five years old.

She led him to an empty nursery room, all but dragging him after her.

He didn’t want to be there. The building was too cold, and everyone kept looking at him strangely.

His only reprieve was that this room was empty.

His mother’s heels clicked smartly on the cream-colored tile, and some of her red hair had escaped her bun.

She sat him down on the colorful children’s rug and gestured to the box of baby toys in the corner.

The gold crucifix she wore around her neck dangled in front of his face, glinting in the light, before she backed away.

“Why don’t you play with some toys while you wait for Doctor Maxwell, okay, sweetie?

” Her smile was brittle around the edges.

It always was when she looked at him these days.

Ever since the dog. In fact, she made him stay in his room most of the time now.

He’d already learned to stop asking to leave it. She always said no.

“I don’t want to play with baby toys,” he said, picking at a loose thread in the rug. “When are we going home?”

That smile, if possible, tightened further. She was one wrong move from shattering. “Just listen to Doctor Maxwell, okay? He’ll take care of you.”

He sighed. “Okay.”

She escaped and closed the door behind her. It would be some time before he’d realize that was the last time he would ever see her.

There was a large, rectangular mirror set into one wall.

Strange for a nursery. He stood, padding over to the toy box and rummaging around.

None of the toys interested him, but there in the bottom, he found a screw that had come loose from the lid.

It was almost as long as his finger, and he picked it up curiously, carrying it back over to the rug and sitting down with it.

He twirled it between his fingers, feeling the thin, sharp thread that spiraled down its length.

He counted absently while he waited. How long would it take her to return this time?

He knew there were sixty seconds in a minute, so he counted to sixty and then pricked his thumb.

One minute. At two minutes, he pricked his index finger.

Then his middle finger. Ring finger. Pinky.

The pain reminded him of the Fourth of July, before his mom started making him stay in his room.

They’d gotten sparklers and lit them in the backyard.

One of the sparks had landed on the back of his hand.

It felt like a sparkler had been lit behind his eyes, colorful and hot and exciting.

He pricked his right thumb, and the door opened. A grownup in a white lab coat—a dark-skinned man with thin glasses and a clipboard in hand—rushed into the room .

“Mister Morrow, please put that down,” he said calmly. “You’re hurting yourself.”

“I’m keeping time,” Isaac said, setting the screw aside.

“You’re bleeding.”

Isaac shrugged. “It’s just pain.”

“Pain hurts, doesn’t it?”

Isaac shrugged again.

Maxwell made a note on his clipboard. Ah, Isaac thought. He’s one of those kinds of doctors. The ones who made notes and then told him he was different than other people. Usually his mom sat in on these meetings. Sometimes she cried after.

“Where’s Mom?” he asked, eyes darting to the door and back to the doctor.

“She’s talking to one of my colleagues right now. Do you know why she brought you here?”

“No. But you’re a doctor. She brought me here for another diag-a-sis.” He frowned, unsure of the word.

“Diagnosis,” the doctor corrected kindly.

Isaac nodded.

“And no. I’m going to evaluate you and see if you’d be a good fit for our special program.”

“What kind of program?”

“We’ll get to that. Your mother… she tells us that you’ve been killing animals. Can you talk to me about that? Why did you start?”

Isaac scowled. “I don’t want to talk about it. I screwed everything up. She looks at me funny now. She doesn’t kiss me goodnight anymore.”

“The first one was a dog, wasn’t it?”

“It bit me,” Isaac said defensively. “My ball rolled up to the fence next to it. I wasn’t going to reach through the fence and mess with the dog, but when I reached for my ball it snapped at me and its teeth went past the metal wires.

” He looked down at the scar on the webbing of skin between his forefinger and thumb.

“Mom had to take me to the hopsital ? —”

“Hospital.”

“—and give me stitches and shots to fix it.”

“And then what?”

Isaac looked away, picking up the screw again to have something to focus on. The doctor inhaled as though to reprimand him, but when Isaac didn’t do more than hold it, he let it back out.

“Mom was complaining about a neighbor who put antifreeze on his back step so any strays who wandered up to his house would eat it and die. She keeps some in the garage for her car. All I did was pour some in a bowl and leave it by the fence. It’s not my fault if the stupid dog stuck its tongue through the fence and drank it. ”

Maxwell studied him for a long, inscrutable moment. “Do you understand why your mother was upset?”

“Not really. That dog hurt me. There are kids living on the other side of that house, too. That dog could’ve hurt any of them.”

“What about the other animals? Why did you kill them?”

Isaac looked down at his lap. He knew it was wrong—he’d been told often enough now. “I wanted to see the blood. I like blood.” He looked at his fingertips. They weren’t bleeding anymore, but the drops of blood had smeared on his fingers and palm, stark red against his pale skin.

“But you understand that it’s wrong to harm another living creature?”

“I know. They told me.”

“And when they told you, did you stop?”

Isaac nodded.

Maxwell was quiet for a moment, his pen scratching rapidly across his paper. “Have you ever hurt any other children? Or had the urge to? ”

He shifted. “Those are two different things.”

“How so?”

“I can want something and not do it. I like chocolate but I’m not allowed to have much. If I have too much, I get in trouble. I can want to hurt somebody and not do it.”

“Because doing it would get you in trouble?”

“Yeah.”

“What if you could hurt someone and avoid getting in trouble? Would you do it then?”

Isaac thought about it. His mother once told him, ‘You shouldn’t tell lies, Isaac.

Even if I don’t find out, God knows. God sees all.

What you do now will be punished when you die.

’ What was the point in doing bad things if he would go to Hell for it when he died?

He didn’t want to spend eternity roasting in a fire.

“No,” he said finally. “Mom says God is always watching.”

Maxwell smiled. “That’s right. But through Him, all things are possible.

I think you’ll be a good fit here, Isaac, with the right direction.

Wait here—and I’ll take that.” He held his hand out, and Isaac reluctantly dropped the screw into his palm.

“Thank you. I’ll be back with one of my colleagues, Commander McLeod, in just a moment, and we’ll talk about the program in more detail. ”

“Will Mom be with you when you come back?”

Maxwell paused, softening. “I do wish she’d explained things to you better, Isaac. You see, you won’t be seeing your mother again for some time. You’re going to be living here with us. You’ll go to school here, you’ll live on-campus, and you’ll train with others your age.”

Oh. That was… big. He’d only ever known his quiet little world with his bedroom and his things. He’d gone to church with his mom, went to Sunday school lessons and the weekly preschool cl ass his mom signed him up for. He’d never spent a night away from home before.

“What about my stuff? My clothes and toys and books?”

“Your mother has packed up some of your things, and you’ll have your own space to store them. You’ll share a room with another boy your age until you’re old enough to live on your own in a dorm.”

Another boy. He wasn’t sure he would like having someone else in his space, but maybe it was for the best. Maybe he would like it here.