Page 13 of Like Grim Death: Part One
“Is she who hit you?” Mav asks with amusement, glancing at Cain’s bruises. “And does she look as roughed up as you do?”
The corner of Cain’s mouth twitches, and I don’t know if it’s a grimace or a smile he’s trying to hide. “I don’t hit girls.”
I glance at Maverick and watch as he exhales smoke through his nose again. He shrugs one shoulder and says lazily, “Can’t relate.”
I don’t want to hear any more about his fucking kinks. “So, who was withMikhail?”I press, trying to get us back on topic.
But before Cain can reply, Ezra swears under his breath. When I glance at him, he’s not looking at us. He’s got his phone’s flashlight on, his flask in one hand, and I see the metal lid is missing. He walks away from the circle, searching for the damn thing.
I roll my eyes and look back at Cain.
“I didn’t get any details on the girl except she had a huge cross around her neck, and she’s got a fat ass and big—”
“There’s gotta be something dead this way. Smells worse over here.” Ezra’s deep voice cuts off Cain’s useless information. Ezra is probably about to find the fucking deer or whatever.
“We’ll buy you a new one, Ez, don’t pick it up from fuckingcarrion.”Of course Maverick would use the word “carrion.” Cain might be an encyclopedia, but Mav is a 19thcentury poem.
“Anyway,” Cain continues, his tone even as Ezra wanders further away. I glance over my shoulder for a second and see the flashlight of his phone jerking haphazardly over the cold ground. “We’ve clearly got some visitors.You…”His eyes narrow onto mine. “Need to ensure you donotfuck up while Mikhail is here. Not when you’ve got Rain to worry about—”
“Fuck,”Ezra says again, something like panic furled in his words as he interrupts Cain.
Slowly, we both drag our gazes toward Ezra. He’s far from the circle, and we can only see him by the glow of his phone’s flashlight, several yards away standing with his back toward us, gazing out at the dying grass in the field.
I push off from my car and pull the gun from the back of my pants, my finger on the trigger. Cain and Maverick follow as I squeeze between mine and Ezra’s cars, my shoes scuffing in the dirt at the same time headlights swing in this direction, coming from Sanctum.
I stop walking, glancing up, and Cain says, “Just Atlas’s Range.” He seems to be coming pretty damn fast along the bumpy dirt road, and I feel dread twist a knot in my gut, but I don’t know why. It’s like my brothers and I have this connection I can’t explain, where we read each other without words, and tonight, it feels like something bad is about to happen between us.
I tighten my grip on the Glock.
Then I tear my eyes from Atlas approaching and close the space between me and Ezra, my brothers fanning out around us as Atlas parks his car adjacent to Ezra’s, and I hear the silence creeping as he cuts the engine.
I stop short when my shoulder brushes Ezra’s, jostling his flashlight over what he’s staring at, the rest of him completely still.
There’s a sour taste on my tongue, the hair stiffening along the back of my neck, and that rotting scent swells.
Because curled up in a fetal position at our feet is a goddamn body.
And as my eyes trail over the blue of his bloated, bare toes, the whites of his wide-open eyes, deep gashes across his face like he was whipped, and the bullet wound in the center of his temple, wrists and ankles bound by thick, black twine, his bare chest exposed because he’s only wearing damp, white boxers—like he pissed himself before or after he was shot—Atlas’s footsteps sound behind us.
There are more lashes, across his torso. Was he whipped for punishment? Or to leave a message? Both?Why?
There’s something written on the inner bicep of his left arm, scrawled silver marker with the word,Silentium.
Silence, in Latin.What the fuck?
Atlas walks around our semi-circle, so he’s on the other side of the body as he looks down.
I tear my eyes away from the corpse, and I note Atlas’s dark gaze is bloodshot, his face pale. Slowly, he shifts his focus to me, and for a long moment, all five of us stand in silence around a corpse while Atlas and I stare off.
Then he says, his voice clear and alarmingly calm, “It’s Natalie’s little brother. Samson.”
The CollegiateGothic architecture isn’t how I remember it, but nothing has changed. Mercy Tower still stands tall and looming in the night. Next to it, the Malikov Science building’s spiky turrets jab against the stars, stretching for the full moon. From my view—tucked against a gray stone column of Fren Hall, a cigarette between my fingers—everything looks the same. It’s just, in my memories, Alexandria University’s entire campus is tainted with a drab, pitying hopelessness.
A girl dressed as Lilith with a gun strapped on her thigh changed all of that for me one Halloween, but that was after I graduated.
Monday night in October, a few students walk with their heads down, books or phones clutched to their chests, a couple of girls in a group shooting glances my way, giggling as they quickly walk off. But all the lights are off at Fren—home to literature professors; a building Lilith would love—and no classes will meet tonight. Could be divine timing, or it could have a little something to do with—
“Salve.”Elijah.“You seem to create a little fan club everywhere you go.”
