Dark Kings (Feathers and Fate #1) - Sadie Moss Page 0,30
know how much I can blame him for that.
Stop making excuses for him, I remind myself. He’s a sin, and so is Beckett. They’re the opposite of what you stand for.
As we drive, I can’t help but wonder what the relationship between these two is. What the relationship is between all seven of the brothers, actually. They’re not related in the traditional sense. They aren’t biologically related, and none of them grew up together. They were created fully formed, so to speak. But they’ve been around each other for millennia, and they clearly have some kind of rapport with each other.
How do they all feel about each other?
Beckett seems to be somewhat fond of Remington, but also easily irritated by him. Remington, on the other hand, seems to genuinely care for Beckett. Is it just his tricks again? Or is it real? I feel like down is up and up is down, and I have no way of making my world fit right again.
We end up on a small road that leads deep into the forest—two lanes, trees all around us. Beckett’s not checking a GPS or anything, so he must know where we’re going by heart, but I can’t see any road signs or anything to mark our way. We’re truly in the boondocks.
The car slows down, and we turn onto a lane leading into the forest. It’s one of those little roads that’s so perfectly hidden, you have to know it’s there before you make the turn or you’ll drive right past it.
We’re really in the thick of the woods now, and I notice that the silence in the car has shifted. Remington still seems fine in the back seat, humming to himself, but Beckett’s more… not tense like he’s angry, but more like he’s concentrating.
“The car… What are you doing with the car?” I ask. The vehicle is slowing down and moving from side to side, like a weaving snake.
“I’m avoiding the land mines,” Beckett says shortly.
“Land mines?”
“Phoenix doesn’t like visitors,” Remington explains, perfectly relaxed. “But he doesn’t want to have to bother chasing them off.”
Right, because he’s Sloth. “So he plants land mines?”
“Not everywhere. Otherwise his deliveries couldn’t make it to the house. But they’re placed at strategic points so that if you don’t know about them… kaboom.”
“I need you two to be quiet. I’m concentrating.”
We subside into silence as Beckett carefully maneuvers the car until we hit a point where the trees part, and I see a clearing with a massive—well, I hesitate to call it a fortress, but that’s sure what it seems like. It’s a very fancy mansion, if the mansion had a bunch of insane extra security tacked onto it after construction was completed.
There are concrete walls added onto the actual walls of the house, security cameras, all the works. If I was a criminal, I’d take one look at that place and decide “no thank you.”
The security cameras follow us as we pull up. Beckett rolls to a stop, opens his window, and leans out of it, pulling open a panel hidden in a tree. I wouldn’t have even thought of something like that. This all must’ve cost a fortune to set up. How much time did this guy have on his hands? And how much money? Quite a lot of both, obviously.
I wonder how he got so wealthy. Remington and Beckett both have jobs, but I don’t know what Phoenix does for a living. The idea of Sloth doing anything for a living at all strikes me as kind of the opposite of what he’s supposed to stand for.
Beckett punches in a code onto the panel’s keypad. I can’t see anything happen, but I hear the sounds of what seems to be some kind of machinery shutting down. I’m not sure that I even want to know what defense systems Beckett just deactivated by punching in the right key code.
Beckett looks back at his brother like the man’s lost his mind, then pulls the car forward right up to the house. “All right, we can get out now.”
I get out of the car, following Beckett, who pauses with Remington on the front steps of the house. Beckett neatly steps in front of me, and I realize a moment later as lasers appear, scanning his and Remington’s bodies, that he’s blocking me from view. From the lasers. They’d probably identify me as an unknown person and a threat, and I don’t even want to know