Page 25 of The Reaper
I wasn’t happy, but I accepted Adam’s reasoning. Iwasthe best at running this place. I took pride in it. In a matter of hours, we’d be opening those doors to the public, and business needed taking care of. Will, Adam, and Colton were more than capable of teaching some low-life street rat a lesson without me.
“Fine,” I said, making my way slowly up the stairs. “Call me if you need me. Oh, and Colton? Maybe try a sledgehammer instead of a standard hammer. The long handle will give you more momentum for a better, harder swing, and the larger, metal head will create more damage. It’s the wider surface area, you see. Less cracking, more smashing.”
And with that, I made my way back to my room, smiling as I heard Colton say to Ross, “Seeing as you like tools so much, I can’t wait to show you the ones Devon has collected in his battle store.”
A battle store.
I liked that description, and in many ways, we were fighting a war, but in others we weren’t because wars end, and what we were faced with day-in-day-out was never going to end. Human nature would always harbour this curse, the virus in society. All we could do was hold back the flood. Do whatever we could for the common man. Give people hope in a world where hope didn’t exist, not really. Not for us, anyway.
Once I was inside my room, I closed the door behind me. Feeling the weight of my mother’s guilt, I sat down on my bed, gazing out of the window. There was a flutter against the glass as a blackbird landed on my windowsill, stared at me for a moment, then flew off into the dusky evening sky. Instantly, it made me think about her, the little raven who seemed to be flitting around my mind, pecking away at my subconscious.
The raven and the reaper.
Even though there were a million and one things I should be doing, things that needed my attention, I pulled my phone out and opened Google. I typed ‘the reaper and the raven’ into the search bar, just like she’d suggested, and clicked on the images. Paintings, cartoons, graphics of a dark, shadowed reaper flanked by a raven flooded my phone screen. I scrolled, fascinated by the imagery, the idea that the dark visitor had a dark passenger, a shadowed friend.
It felt like fate was tapping me on the shoulder with her bony finger. Pointing things out to me that I wasn’t ready to acknowledge. My life already had a shitload of chaos piped through it like fucking Blackpool rock. I didn’t need a girl thrown into the mix to add to that. And yet, I couldn’t get her out of my head. She’d set up home there. Taken roost like the bird she seemed to love so much.
I threw my phone down onto the bed and headed into the shower. I needed to clear my head and get ready for what the night had in store for us. No distractions, no complications. That would be my motto.
I didn’t need a raven to be the best reaper I could.
ChapterEleven
DEVON
Afew hours later, after giving the staff the low-down on how things were going to run tonight, I strolled into our living room to find a three-tier wedding cake sitting on the kitchen counter. On the top were two figures; one a bride dressed in white, the other was Shrek.
“That’s Colton’s idea of a joke,” Liv announced, walking in behind me. “And if you think that’s bad, you should’ve been here when Adam saw the box of sex toys he bought us as a wedding present.” She huffed out a smile and added, “His face when Colton told him toys weren’t his competition, and to see them as his tag team. Priceless.”
“I’m not sure I want to know if he came around to the idea.” And from the way she smirked, I didn’t need to ask; I could tell what the answer was.
“He was just pissed that another guy had bought them. You know Adam. He likes control.”
Liv came to stand next to me and started pulling open drawers, taking out a butter knife, and then rooting through the fridge.
“Adam’s working the ground floor with you tonight,” she told me as she grabbed the bread from the side and placed two slices on the counter.
I stole a slice of ham from the pack she’d taken out ready to use and said, “If it’s the same as most Saturday nights, we shouldn’t have a problem. I’ll send him back to you and cover it all with the main security. It’ll be fine.”
She smiled and picked up a hastily thrown together ham sandwich, thrusting it in my direction before getting busy making another.
“Eat. You don’t look after yourself. And don’t take on too much, Devon. You’re not superman. I think I can survive a few hours without Adam stalking me. Who knows? I might even get to shower on my own.”
At that moment, Adam strode in and stated gruffly, “Where’s the fun in that?”
He picked up a sandwich from the counter and started eating, winking at Liv as he did. I wanted to ask him about the lesson he’d just taught the guy downstairs, but I thought better of it. I doubted he’d want to discuss it that freely in front of Liv, despite his insistence that she was kept in the loop.
They started bantering with each other, and I heard Adam mention some guy called Ronnie. I really didn’t want to know, I was too busy running through the security checks in my head, focusing on the night to come. So, I left Adam, Liv, and her giggles about Ronnie behind and headed to the ground floor.
* * *
Once the night was underway and the clubbers were flooding through our doors, the others took their places on duty. According to Colton, Ross––the thief that wouldn’t be so handy from now on––had been taken care of and sent on his way. He was a nobody. Not worth the distraction. All that mattered now was making sure everything ran smoothly at The Sanctuary. Our reputation in this business meant as much to me as our reputation as soldiers. I prided myself on doing a good job, keeping the floor running like clockwork.
It was another busy night, and the dance floor was already heaving. The DJ was playingHeathens, ‘The Koosen Remix’, and I was just thinking how apt the lyrics were and that he’d probably chosen it for us, when the hairs on the back of my neck started to prickle. I always felt like I had a sixth sense for bullshit, and I listened to my gut when I needed to. Something, or rather somebody, was about to test my patience. I turned, bracing myself for what I might find behind me, and when I saw her, I stopped dead in my tracks.
Leah May.
My little raven.
