out of the building and locked up behind me.
It was almost five in the morning but I knew I wouldn’t sleep tonight. I’d hardly slept at all since Kyan had caught the virus. If it wasn’t worry for my brother that kept me awake, it was anger at myself for allowing him to go to that club, for encouraging it.
I’d been so caught up in the idea of tearing down Royaume D’élite that I’d allowed him to put himself at risk, my own stupid vanity making me believe that we could pull it off without a hitch just because I believed it should be so. But if I’d really been as powerful as I tried to make out then I shouldn’t have needed to ask for their help in uncovering the location of the club or the information on its members.
Even now, I was still struggling to piece everything together to take them down, using the challenge of it to distract me from my fear for my friend, but I wasn’t really any closer to the answers we so desperately needed.
And if it turned out that what they’d uncovered for me wasn’t enough for us to take the club down and rip apart the people running it, uncover the truth about what had happened to Tatum’s father and reveal it to the world, then what had it all been for? Kyan had risked his life for this information. He may even die because of it and I wasn’t sure I could even deliver on the promises I’d made him to destroy them.
I strode down the path to The Temple, circling the lake and casting my gaze around, hunting the shadows as I wondered whether the Justice Ninja might leap from the darkness to take me on.
I wished he would. I ached for a fight like that. An opponent I could destroy. Someone who I could make bleed for the pain I felt in my heart and soul.
But of course, all remained silent between the trees and I was left with my impending grief, my overwhelming concern and a total sum of nothing even close to helpful that I could do to change the path of fate that we were on.
When I finally approached the building where I’d made my home with my brothers and our girl, I stepped off of the path and circled through the trees towards Kyan’s room at the back of the building.
I came to a halt outside his window, gazing at the closed curtains beyond the glass and moving forward until my forehead was pressed to the cold pane. I exhaled slowly, my breath fogging against the glass as I imagined I was truly with him, like I could feel the heat of his flesh, reach out and press my hand to his chest and know that his strong heart still thumped with a savage stubbornness and a clear refusal to give up.
He wouldn’t leave me. He wouldn’t leave her. He wouldn’t leave any of us. Not if he had even the slightest say in the matter. He’d make a deal with the devil and stab an angel in the back if that was what it took to keep him with us. Because we belonged together. We weren’t just a bunch of kids playing games and naming ourselves the Night Keepers to justify our depravity. We were five twisted, blackened souls who had always been destined to meet and come together. I refused to believe any other version of the truth. Each of us was missing something, each of us haunted by something, each of us craving something. And the only answers to those needs were in each other. I’d swear to that fact until my dying breath.
When I couldn’t take the excruciation of standing there not knowing any longer, I headed around to let myself inside and then moved down to the gym in the crypt.
I’d bury my fears in exercise until my body was screaming at me to stop and the sun had risen to shine light on the truth.
Tomorrow was another day. I just had to pray that it wasn’t the beginning of the end.
"I' ll ram a tangerine down your throat and make a fruit juicer outta your asshole...then make your mama drink it."
I jerked awake, finding my flesh warmed by another body. I lifted my head as Kyan murmured some other nonsense and I laughed out loud. He hadn't done that since before the virus had hit. And as I grabbed