Authors: Megan Morgan
“Oh God.” June gripped Sam’s arm, heart racing.
“What have you two been doing up here?” Ethan asked. “We’ve been downstairs, waiting for you. It’s rude to keep us waiting.”
June clung to Sam’s arm with both hands, trembling, adrenaline pounding through her veins.
“We’re impatient,” Ethan said. “An old friend wants to say hi, Sam.”
The man with the gun stayed behind Ethan, his gaze sharp and glittering.
“Robbie is no friend of mine,” Sam said. “Why did I ever trust you?”
“Why did you?” Ethan focused on June. “Don’t try to use your voice on me, by the way. Paul here, he’s a telepath. He’ll know what you plan to do before you do it, and he’ll put a bullet right there.” He tapped the center of his forehead.
“How did you know we were here?” Sam asked. “No one was watching the building. I checked!”
Ethan stepped over to the counter and slid his arm behind the microwave. “We weren’t in the parking lot.” He drew his arm out and held something up—a little black box. “Paul was listening from a few streets away. He gave me a call when you came in.”
Sam gritted his teeth.
“Don’t beat yourself up about it,” Ethan said. “You couldn’t have gotten away even if you didn’t drag your feet up here. Paul was downstairs waiting for you. If you tried to take off before I arrived, he would have detained you. Everything was covered. You did your best. Gold star.”
“How long have you been working with Robbie?” Sam snarled. “In fact, how long has Robbie been working against me?”
“All your questions will soon be answered. You can ask Robert yourself. He’ll be glad to tell you. He’s eager to share.”
“Robert.” Sam sneered. “All grown up now, is he? Where’s Muse? She better be alive, or you’ll pay.”
Ethan chuckled. “So cocky. Always thinking you have your hands on the controls when the truth is, there’s more buttons and levers than you’re smart enough to work. Nice time we had in the park today, wasn’t it?”
“Where’s Muse?” Sam demanded again, louder.
“Don’t worry. She’s alive and in one piece. For now. Maybe you’ll get to see her, if you behave yourself.”
Sam sagged against June’s side. She clutched him tighter, her muscles stiff, body poised to run.
“How could you do this?” Sam lowered his voice. “Killing your own, setting us back decades. Destroying everything we’ve worked for.”
“It’s been a long day, Sam. I understand this is a bit trying for you, but as usual, you simply don’t understand the scope of what we’re trying to accomplish. You don’t see the big picture.”
“Please, enlighten me.”
“This is what always should have been. What you should have been aiming for the entire time: superiority. But you couldn’t stay on track. You started listening to the activists, letting the normals have too much say in our future. You aligned yourself with the SNC.”
“The SNC want what we want. They want the Institute shut down.”
“Only because the Institute gives us validity. It makes us part of the normals’ society. They really want us back underground, in the dark, and in graves.”
Sam shook his head. “That was Aaron’s father. He’s not his father’s son.”
Ethan drew closer, and they shrank back.
“Your alliance with them is the reason your brother is dead, Sam. Who else do you want to die?”
Sam didn’t reply. He was breathing through his nose, chest working.
“Robert has been highly visible,” Ethan said, “where you were not. You weren’t smart enough to notice him. He’s done his recruiting out in the open, even more so lately, while everyone’s been worried about finding you and Aaron. You could say you helped this happen by being a short-sighted fool.”
“You won’t get far with this,” Sam said. “You can’t expect this entire city to bend to your will.”
“Can’t we?” Ethan focused on June again. “You know, it’s sad, Siren. Seeing you like this. Being lied to and led astray by this moron.”
“I tend not to take the side that kills their own.” Her voice shook. “It’s a pet peeve of mine.”
“You’re powerful,” Ethan said. “Don’t you want to tap the full potential of what’s inside you? Don’t you want to be with the people who can help you do that?”
“I’m the wrong gal to tempt with power. I wish I didn’t have it at all.”
Ethan curled his lip. “That’s an ignorant thing to say. You’ve never had the opportunity to explore who you truly are. But now you can.”
“Leave her alone.” Sam put his arm across her. “You’re giving me a headache. Just do what you’re here to do.”
Ethan laughed. “I’m not here to do anything. Robert will take care of you personally.”
“Then shut up. I don’t feel like being pumped full of propaganda right now.”
“You know all about propaganda, don’t you, Sam? I thought you enjoyed the sound of rhetoric.”
“I like the sound of
my
voice.”
A beep sounded. Ethan drew his phone from inside his jacket and peered at the screen.
“Ah, that was quick.” He looked up at them. “Robert has arrived, and he’s eager to see you.”
June searched for a means of escape. She couldn’t get past the angry dude with the gun, without taking another bullet or six. Jumping out a window spelled broken ankles or worse.
“If by some chance you survive this”—Ethan strolled up to Sam—“I do hope you won’t think too badly of me. I really do admire you and all the things you tried to stand for. Being a part of the Paranormal Alliance was the highlight of my paranormal existence, however brief a time.” The light flashed on his glasses. “And if you don’t survive, well—at least you’ll go to the great beyond knowing that you touched me, Sam, so very deeply.”
Sam touched him again then, with his fist to his jaw.
Paul had his gun pressed to Sam’s temple. June had plastered herself against the wall next to the kitchen doorway, her heart pounding in her ears. Sam, despite his situation, didn’t cower or beg forgiveness. He clenched and unclenched his bloody fist at his side.
Ethan clutched his broken glasses in one hand, mopping at his bloody nose with the other. He was red-faced and seething.
“You better not move an inch,” Ethan snarled at Sam. “Robert’s on his way up right now.”
“Don’t shoot him,” June begged. “Please!”
Paul narrowed his eyes at her. Ethan stepped forward.
“Get over there.” Ethan placed a hand in the center of Sam’s chest and pushed him toward June.
Sam shuffled backward to where she stood and pressed his back to the wall next to her. She clutched his hand. His palm was slick with sweat, his knuckles slick with Ethan’s blood. Paul backed off but kept the gun pointed at Sam.
“You’re going to pay for that.” Ethan clamped a hand over his nose. “I hope you enjoyed it, because it’s the last shot you’ll get.”
“I loved it.” Sam’s voice was dark.
June clutched his hand tighter. “Don’t make this worse.”
Ethan let out a wet, harsh laugh. “Oh, it’s about to get as bad as it can get, Siren.” His hand muffled his voice.
The door to the hallway, still half-open, pushed inward and swung open wide. A gangly, narrow figure dressed in black breezed across the threshold.
“Hello there, Sam,” Robbie said.
His hair was pulled back, making his visage strikingly gaunt, and the scar that striped his face stood out deep red against his pale skin. A milky film covered his eyes, their iridescence shining through the haze. A smile twisted his thin lips.
“This jackass punched me,” Ethan complained through his hand.
Robbie’s smile widened, stretching freakishly over his teeth. “Still feisty as ever, Sam, I see.”
Sam fixed his gaze on Robbie, hard and burning. He looked almost as crazy as Robbie. His hand trembled in her grip.
Robbie shifted his attention to her. “June Coffin. It’s good to see you again. You’re my hero, you know.”
“I am?” she squeaked.
“Yes. You escaped the Institute and got your brother out of there as well. You didn’t let them steal your secrets. Good job.”
“And my life has been wonderful ever since.”
His face smoothed and he stared at her. Her skin crawled under the weight of his milky gaze. She forced herself to think hard and graphically about the time Diego got raging drunk and threw up on the side of her car.
Robbie tilted his head. “Too late. I already know where he is. It’s easy to snatch information out of that thing you call a mind.”
She pulled in a sharp breath. “He’s of no use to you.”
“He’s of great use to me.” He shifted his attention to Sam. “I’m glad to see you again. I wanted to ask you what you thought of the show today.”
“You’re a monster.” Sam’s voice crackled with rage. “A sick, twisted, psychotic piece of filth. I’m going to rip you to pieces. Mark my words.”
Robbie tutted. The light gleamed on his hair. Everything about him seemed to glisten, in an unnerving preternatural way.
“I only did what you couldn’t do, Sam. What you wouldn’t do. Don’t be jealous because I had the guts to do what the paranormal people in this city have needed for years.”
“Except the ones who died,” June said.
“The weak die. The strong, the smart—they flourish.”
“I never should have trusted either one of you,” Sam said. “I should have given that information to the FBI myself.”
“Oh, don’t worry,” Robbie said. “They got the information. Now they just need Micha. They’ll close the place down. No more paranormal people will walk in those doors. And once the building is empty of our people, we’ll burn it down. Then we’ll hunt down every researcher who ever worked there and slaughter them in their beds.”
“So that’s your plan?” Sam said.
“It’s the second part of my three-part rise to power, actually.” He held up three long, spindly fingers. “First, I gain the respect of my rightful followers by exerting my influence. I did that today.” He lowered one finger. “Two, I gain their trust by giving them a gift I’ve long promised—the Institute is shut down.” He lowered a second finger, leaving his middle finger up.
“And the third part?” Sam said.
June held her breath.
Robbie lowered the third finger and smiled his wide, sinister smile. “I gain their loyalty, by standing before them with your head in my hands. Or on a spike. That would be more festive.”
Sam’s shoulders stiffened. “I’d make an ugly maypole, trust me. But you, you’d look great on a skewer.”
June let her breath out, but she still couldn’t get much air in.
“I fail to see how you’d get me on that skewer.” Robbie kept smiling. “But if it makes you feel better to do all this posturing in your final moments, then by all means.”
“Where’s Muse?” Sam asked. “I know you took her.”
“Yes, I did.” Robbie passed his fingers over his face diagonally, tracing the scar. “That little bitch has to pay for what she’s done. She’s a fighter, she is. I can’t wait to take that out of her.”
“I think she improved your face,” Sam said. “Still pretty damn ugly, though.”
Robbie strolled toward them. June shrank against the wall.
“And is this what you consider beautiful?” Robbie gestured at her. “This frightened, quivering thing, hiding from the truth? So scared of what she is, she doesn’t understand her own nature? You claim to stand for paranormal people, but you abide by her self-hatred and the hatred of everything like her.”
She opened her mouth but couldn’t form words. She might have been belligerent if she weren’t terrified.
“There’s no use talking to them, Robert.” Ethan’s nose was still oozing blood, his voice nasally. “They’re scum. They’re the sort of disease we need to get rid of. They’re no better than the normals and the activists.”
Robbie lifted a hand to him and Ethan fell silent.
“I want to see Muse,” Sam said. “If you’ve hurt her, I don’t care if it’s the last thing I do on this earth, I will destroy you.”
“She’s unharmed,” Robbie said. “Do you really think I’d hurt her without you present? I want to enjoy the look on your face while I torture her. But it doesn’t have to come to that.” He spread his arms. “I thought perhaps if you heard me out, you might change your mind about joining me.”
Sam laughed. “You can’t be serious.”
“It’s the only chance you have of living through the night, and a slim one at that.”
June glanced at Paul, hovering in the doorway, gun still trained on them. She couldn’t get past him no matter how fast she moved.
“There’s no way in hell I’d ever join you,” Sam said, “or condone the things you’ve done. You killed innocent people.”
“So did you, when you made a treaty with the SNC. You got your brother killed. He was innocent, wasn’t he?”
Sam tensed again, his fingers curling around hers.
“Let me tell you a story,” Robbie said. “I used to look up to you, Sam. You used to give me hope. I was a lost soul when the Institute first opened. Certainly, I had my books, my vast library of the paranormal. I learned much, but I never felt connected to any of it. Others like me—they seemed scary, so disorganized and angry and shiftless. I found them hard to approach.”
Sam grunted. “Yeah,
we’re
scary.”
“I went willingly to the Institute when it first opened. I thought they were trying to do something good and bring our community together. I thought they were the direction we needed. It only took a few days to discover what was really going on. I managed to escape because I was clever and powerful.”
He stepped closer to Sam.
“And then you came along. Your rise to power impressed me, dazzled me even. You hated the Institute, and you hated the SNC. Mr. Jenkins’s people didn’t care we were being tortured by the Institute. They just wanted us to go back into the shadows. They were killing us: hate crimes, mobs, oppression. And there you were, a shining hero come to save us.”
“I never advocated violence against violence,” Sam said.
“But you should have. You had such a promising platform, but instead you chose to make a treaty with the SNC, rather than take their blood in return.”
“Aaron is not his father,” Sam said. “His father made them a hate group. Aaron wants to clean that up and he has. I aligned with him to benefit both of us, to give us numbers against the Institute.”