Page 25 of Unlocking Ruin

“That’s impossible, Steffen.” Alister sighs.

This conversation aggravates him. We’ve had it a million times, yet he’s refused to open negotiations with The Rites of Passage. That’s because he’s scared of what they’ll ask him to do. I don’t give a fuck anymore. I want my revenge, no matter the cost.

“We’ve been through this. You have to let it go,” Alister tells me. I hear the caution in his voice, the sound of his feet moving as he no doubt glides through his mansion and gestures to the guards.

Yep, that’s the sound of his favorite pen clicking; he always keeps it in his pocket. He’s writing something down.

My vision doubles, fury pulses through me, leaking out of my pores. A horn blares; I barely adjust my swerving car in time. I look back, making sure Rylan is okay. I grab my own seatbelt and drag it away from my neck.

“I know you’re mad,” Alister declares as he furiously jots down something to one of his guards.

Mad? I was nothing anymore. Just bones wrapped in skin that had been charred and forced to heal without the man who helped raise me. I lost the man who desired me to be better than him. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Think about it: no man wants another man to outdo him. We’re selfish. We want to be the best.

Unless it’s a father looking at his son. A father wants his son to be better, to do better than he did. Sons get one cheerleader in life. One! Outside of that small circle, men fight for the top spot.

I lost my father, my supporter. I wasn’t mad—to wrap my loss into three letters that mean such vagueness is a monumental insult.

The car lurches forward. I lift my foot and correct my mistake. Taking a deep, measured breath, I tell him, “You looked me in the eye and told me Nelson was dead. Alister, you told me the man who murdered my father is dead. While my skin was grafted and forced to heal, you sat by my side and told me he was dead! You broke every string of trust I ever had in you. You wrapped me up in a fucking band-aid and watched me heal, watched me try to move on!”

His breath tries to form into hands, reaching through the speakers, grabbing onto me. “I was trying to comfort you.”

“Comfort would have been watching Nelson take his final breath,” I reply, shaking my head. “You want to see Rylan?” I ask Alister in an assertive tone. “Get me Nelson.”

Memories of Alister helping raise me are erased. I respected him and loved him like a second father. Now I might spit on his grave.

“I swear to God, if you—” Alister begins.

No, no, old man. I hold the bargaining chips. Not you.

“You swear to God?” I cut him off. As the light turns green, I gently accelerate, making sure I exceed the speed limit by only three miles per hour. Too slow or too fast, and I’d stand out more than I already do. “I am God now. You pray to me. You listen to me. You make sacrifices in my name, do you understand?” My voice is sharp. There’s a prickling heat snaking up my back.

His exhale is so loud I glance back at Rylan. She’s still out cold.

“Your first sacrifice is going to be handing me Nelson, alive.” I drag my tongue over my teeth, trying to carve off my father’s killer’s name. Nelson. The man I have been hunting for two years, the man I was told was killed.

Lies. He’s alive. The lie Alister Baine told me will cost him dearly.

Nelson’s life isn’t pleasant; he sits in a jail controlled by The Rites of Passage, an organization that oversees the world. He made a trade with them in exchange for life in their prison. It just so happens that the man on the other end of the phone—Alister Baine—is part of The Rites, and he can get me Nelson.

“I can’t give you a location if I don’t know it,” Alister sighs.

“Hire a cartographer and figure it out.” I snap, my voice dripping with mockery.

“Then you’ll release Rylan?” The touch of worry in his voice makes my nose wrinkle.

Worry? He should have worried more. I’m not the only monster after Rylan. Frank, her stepdad, unleashed a few after she drained his account. That’s why I was hired to find her. I’m the best tracker. After Rylan slipped away, Alister wanted her back, this time under his lock and key.

Alister had no idea I had been watching, planning, just waiting for the right moment to make my move. By the time he asked me to track Rylan down, I already had the house behind hers rented.

I knew about the hack into BANKS Corp before Alister did. I could have stopped it long before it happened, but I was curious. I wanted to know what Rylan would do with the money. She wasn’t like us—she returned it—and that made me want her more. It made me want to keep her out of our world so it didn’t taint her.

So I let her run, let Alister panic and feel what I felt when something was taken from him.

My mistake was underestimating Frank. Frank’s actions gave me no choice but to taint Rylan myself. Bring her into this world where she belongs.

“Nelson gave The Rites of Passage something,” Alister stresses. “He exchanged his life for it. He’s rotting in a cell. Isn’t that satisfaction?”

“Satisfaction?” I repeat the word as my eyes fix on the yellow-dashed paint on the road. “My father is rotting, his body is no more, his flesh still stuck to mine where the fire fused us. Satisfaction?” I spit, still hearing the sound of the fuel tanks exploding. The weight of my father’s body crushing mine as the ceiling landed on top of him, further pinning us down as the fire raced toward us. “I want blood. I want Nelson’s death. Each day he wakes is a mockery of my father’s memory.”