“You weren’t.” I retrieve a blanket from the old wooden wardrobe. “It’s the leaders’ fault, not yours.”
Elle slouches on the bed with a deep sigh. “It’s not their fault either.”
I peek at her over my shoulder. “What do you mean?”
“You didn’t know?”
“Know what?”
She taps the spot beside her like a granny who’s about to tell a story. Curiosity takes the better of me. I trudge towards her and sit down on the bed with the blanket on my lap.
“Do you at least know they aren’t natives in the mafia world?” She asks.
“Mist told me that she, Ghost and Shadow are bigger than the mobster business.”
“Correct. Scar and that silent bloke with the ginger beard, too.”
“Wait.” I hold up a hand. “Scar?”
Elle’s nose scrunches as if remembering something. “She’s one of them. I was surprised when I found out, too.”
“Well, she’s a bit crazy so it isn’t a complete surprise.”
“Hey! She’s the only friend I had there.”
I glare down at her. “You replaced me so soon?”
She bumps my shoulder with hers. “She helped me. We’re friends.”
It’s odd to imagine Elle being friends with Scar. Considering the latter’s level of hyperactivity, it must’ve been a nightmare on Ellie’s introverted scale, but at least she wasn’t alone there. And she is wearing Scar’s dress.
“Anyhow, Le Salon isn’t their endgame,” Elle continues.
“They’re killers for hire.” I fiddle with the blanket. “I know that much.”
I resist adding that I witnessed Shadow’s cold-blooded killing first hand.
My body still tenses at that emotionless look in his eyes while bathing in his victim’s blood.
“Then do you know about Omega?” Elle asks.
“Omega?”
Elle nods eagerly as if she’s been dying to talk about this with someone. “It’s a drug. They’ve been injected with it since they were kidnapped as children. The drug enhances their abilities, shuts down their pain receptors and turns them into unfeeling killing machines.”
My lips part as overdrive of thoughts overtakes me. That explains the way Shadow barely expressed any pain or how his conscious sometimes drifted to an unreachable place.
“They’re trying to detox.” Elle smiles a little. “Ghost is almost clean. Mist, too, I think. Scar is trying with meditating, so I don’t know where that will go.”
They can detox? A glimmer of hope starts at the back of my head until a grimmer thought squashes it. “I’m sure Shadow isn’t.”
Elle traces the firefly bracelet I’ve given her as a token of friendship. “I think he’s detoxing, too. He fights with Jul… I mean Ghost every morning and they bleed each other. It’s their way to purge pent up energy caused by Omega.”
“He could be faking it.” If there’s anything I learnt about Shadow then it’s his lack of care about people’s expectations. In fact, he might want to know what’s expected of him just so he’d do the opposite. He’s that type of unpredictable.
I fight the urge to ask Elle how he’s doing. If his shoulder wound healed. If he’s living well.
It’s none of my business.
“They have to pretend they’re still on the drugs,” Elle continues, oblivious to my torn emotions. “They need to keep it under wraps because they’re being monitored. The organisation they come from is called The Pit. The leader bastard whose name is Hades is holding their mates in Team Zero as hostages. He won’t release them unless Julian and the others take care of all the mafia business.”
Hades. The Pit. I heard those names during Shadow’s fight with the other man.
Something in my heart lights up a little. No idea why. Maybe it’s the fact that Shadow is forced into this or that he cares about someone other than himself.
That light withers away like a dying candle.
None of what Elle says changes what Shadow is.
Dad was also made into a killer for the British army. He even received medals from the queen for his courage. None of his shiny medals or visits to the palace erased the fact that he’s a murderer.
Deep down, that urge to destroy pushed him to end our family in the most gruesome way.
The only difference between my dad and Shadow is that one paraded his killer badge while the other lurks in the darkness.
“Zoe?”
Elle’s voice breaks me from my reverie and I realise I’m strangling the blanket. I smile at her expectant expression. “You little sneak. You gathered more information than me. It’s almost as if you had the forces’ training.”
The sadness from earlier returns. “Julian… I mean Ghost told me all about it.”
They must’ve been close if he trusted her with such information. My