Page 27 of Dark Knight

"Like together?" I asked, playing dumb.

"Nobody knows," the other girl said, sounding sorry that she couldn't give me more answers. "Nobody saw them for a while, and a smell started coming from the room. So the RA investigated, and there was some spilled food and drinks and stuff like that on the floor. Apparently, there was no sign that anybody had been in the room for a long time. And then one day, a week or so later, there were movers here packing everything up and taking it away."

"Movers?" I asked as confusion filled me. "Like somebody came and just took all of their stuff?"

They both shrugged. "That's all we know," the defensive one said.

"Thanks," I called as they turned back around, heading out once more.

I stood staring at the doorway for a little while, unsure how to leave. Part of me wanted to stay, half expecting Lyric to suddenly show up as though she knew I'd be there. The other part of me wanted to run as far away as I could.

If we had both gone missing, it sounded like Sampson took her as well. Based on what he said he was going to do to her, I knew she wouldn't be in any state to try to find me. My only hope was that she had found freedom somehow, either in his death or her own before he made her life hell.

A lot of people didn't understand that death could mean freedom. Those people had never been in a situation where ceasing to exist felt like the only option when the world was closing in on you, pressing down on you like gravity was twice as strong but only on you. In those situations, there was nowhere for you to run, no one for you to turn to. You could endure, but there was no guarantee that your hell would ever be over.

Sometimes, I wondered if that was what happened to the last Light Mother. Had she taken her own life somehow? The other members of the cult all said the same thing, that she died in childbirth and that the child didn't make it either, but nobody knew if that was actually the truth since we never saw the body. Well, I should say that the women didn't know if it was the truth since we were never told anything and the men were close-lipped.

I shook myself. I couldn't dwell on these thoughts here and now. Not if I wanted to keep moving forward. With a sigh, I turned away and headed back out of the dorm.

The sunlight cascaded across my face as I walked out into the open air. Heading toward the car that Dylan and Hudson were still sitting in, I gave them a small wave. I knew that the drive home wouldn’t be fun.

They had fulfilled their part of the deal, and now it was my turn to fulfill mine…in the form of answers to the questions they had asked before. They had likely come up with more while they were sitting there waiting for me too. They were all questions I didn't even want to think about, let alone come up with a response to. I'd have to if I wanted to survive.

14

Evie

When I got back to the car, I faced a barrage of questions, mainly about the fact that I appeared to be empty handed. I took the photos out of my back pocket and flapped them around in the air a couple times.

"These are what I wanted," I said before tucking them back in my pocket and putting my seat belt on.

"Surprised you didn't run when you had the chance," Hudson said, the snark in his tone evident.

"First off, I told you there were no other entrances or exits to that building. At least not that you can open without triggering a fire alarm, which I wasn’t about to do. Secondly, being with you guys isn't so bad. I mean, clearly you're villains, but you're definitely not the worst I've encountered."

"Villains, huh?" Dylan said with a smirk. "And what makes you think that we're villains?"

Hudson pulled out of the parking lot, pulling onto the road to go back to Dylan's mansion. "Well, you appear to be loaded, but you don't appear to have a job that you go to. Plus, you were at a fucking human auction. Good people don't go to those. Also, Hudson's crazy, and most sane people don't employ crazy people to be their bodyguards."

A bark of a laugh escaped Dylan.

"Well, then they're just missing out, aren't they?" Hudson said, sounding huffy. "I'm very good at what I do. Right, boss?"

Dylan was still chuckling silently to himself. "Right," he said when he finally calmed himself down. "Now, on to more important things. You got your end of the deal. Now it's our turn. How do you know Sampson?"

I took a deep breath and tried to think about everything as though I was relaying a story instead of the events of my life. "He was the person who kidnapped me. He took me from that dorm room I was just in and me for weeks before selling me at the auction. Well, not even at the auction itself. Apparently, he sold me before the auction even took place."

"That's it? No other run-ins with him? Nothing to link you to him. He just randomly showed up at your dorm room and kidnapped you?" Dylan glanced at me with an eyebrow raised.

"He took me because he wanted to hurt my roommate and he knew that I could be used as leverage."

When I didn't say anything further, Dylan sighed heavily. "And who was your roommate?"

"Lyric Sterling." I didn't miss the way their gazes snapped to one another.

Hudson and Dylan clearly knew the name, which both surprised me and didn't. The Sterling family was, after all, very wealthy. I had known that for a long time, and based on what Lyric said, her dad's company was not fully legit. Based on the fact that Sampson worked for them and was planning on torturing Lyric, it was clear that there was a lot that I didn't know or understand about their family dynamics.

All I knew was that they were not normal. Not that I really had a great concept of what normal family dynamics were, but still, this was so far off base that it was bizarre.

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