Page 79 of Sleeping with the Dark (The Righteous 3)
It took a few minutes, but Trev found Arek’s signal in a house and broke the lock on the backdoor. The door handle made a soft click as the mechanics snapped inside the old door. As soon as he stuck his head inside, he could hear talking and paused in the dark kitchen to get his bearings. He looked up at the ceiling as the floor squeaked. Pulling his gun, he moved like a ghost through the space. With an agonizingly slow pace, he made his way up the stairs.
He was one with the dark as he moved. Trev paused in the shadows outside the bedroom door to take in the situation. He knew who this was, the look on Arek’s face said he didn’t have a clue, but then again, this man didn’t cause the most amazing person in Arek’s life to die. Those voices, those faces never left you—like apparitions, they were always there in the peripheral of your vision as they taunted you.
He hadn’t paid attention to the interview, not the way he should’ve been, distractions were fatal, and his blasé cost Ray his life. It was a mistake he wouldn’t make again.
He had believed this man was dead. He hadn’t celebrated his demise, but he would’ve been lying if he said that he’d shed a tear. Never did he think he would be faced with this particular demon again.
“I’ve been looking forward to this for so long. I just want to savor the look on your face a little longer,” Miller snorted a giddy sort of sound. “Okay, I’m good now.”
Miller sighed like he’d taken a sip of a cool drink on a hot day, his eyes eerily relaxed.
“Get on your fucking knees, Arek, at least die like a man,” Miller said. The thin thread between sanity and insanity was getting ready to break.
“Hello, Miller.”
Arek and Miller looked his way, shock registering on both their faces a moment before Trev pulled the trigger. Miller yelled and stumbled back as the shot took him in the shoulder. The next one was a stomach wound, and Miller’s gun clattered to the floor as he gripped at the wound.
“Trevor…I…you….”
“You really should’ve stayed dead, Miller,” Trev said and finished the job, a hole forming where his eye had been a moment earlier. The man collapsed into a heap on the dirty wooden floor, his arm smacking the television knocking it to the floor with a crash. Trev’s long coat brushed the floor softly, the swooshing the only loud sound in the otherwise quiet room.
He stared down at the man that had tortured Mel. Her kindness and fairness had no effect on him. Trev had seen the pleasure Miller got from emotionally beating her beautiful soul down. No, he would never feel guilty for this death. She was stolen from this world too soon, and her death was now paid for with Miller’s blood.
He took a shuddering breath as he watched the pool of blood grow larger. There was no peace. This kill was just finishing what he’d already thought was done.
“How long have you been here?” Arek stood from the chair and stared down at the body, mimicking his position.
“Long enough.”
“You were almost too late.”
Trev glared at his brother. “And whose fault is that?”
Arek shrugged, not answering the question before looking down at Miller. “I didn’t recognize him at all. He looks—so different.” Arek lifted his head, and Trev could feel the stare like it was a touch.
“I didn’t leave him behind the way he believes. I did think he was dead, though.” He looked at his twin and shrugged. “We were arguing about Mel’s death, about what he’d said to her just before….” Trev looked away from Arek’s eyes. “Before that happened, when the building we were in took the first of the RPGs that claimed Scooter. I’d come running out to join the rest of you in the fight, and in all the confusion and rubble, I didn’t see him. The room we’d been in was gone under a mountain of debris. The smoke and dust were thick with the crumbling building and fire. I assumed he’d either run off or suffered the same fate as Scooter. Never did I think that I’d left him there alive.”
His eyes took in the lifeless body.
“No matter how much I hated him, I couldn’t have done that. He was still a soldier under my command. I would’ve brought him home whether he deserved it or not.”
Arek gripped his shoulder but didn’t say anything for quite some time. “What do you think he meant about The Righteous,” Arek finally asked, breaking the silence.
“I don’t know, not yet anyway.”
“Maybe we should’ve kept him alive long enough to find out,” Arek commented as he wandered away to search the room.
“Really? Is that what you think is best? Torture a man who was so obviously damaged by whatever happened to him in the sandbox after leaving him there to fend for himself. Does your brand of justice seem fair for that?”
Arek pulled a small black book from the dresser drawer and thumbed through the pages before holding it up like a prize. “Fair, maybe not, but it would’ve been nice to know how he found us in the first place. Then again, if he was tortured for months, I don’t know if even I could get him to talk, not without it getting really messy.” He lifted a shoulder and let it drop before he stuffed the book in his back pocket.
“There are lines that even I wouldn’t ask you to cross, Arek. Lines even you shouldn’t be willing to, do you hear me?”
Arek bit his lip and stared at Miller’s body, his face shifting to that of the man that could and would kill anything that breathed.
“He sent men to our house and shot at my pregnant fiancée, Trev. No amount of brotherhood can allow me to forget the look of fear in Renee’s eyes as those men burst through the door. He’s better off dead because what I would’ve done would’ve been far worse, lines be damned.”
They stared at one another for a minute. The dark that you could almost see swirling around Arek drifted away, and he smiled wide. “You really need to see the shrine to us in the other room. If he hadn’t been a creepy stalker set on killing us, I’d actually be rather flattered. At least we have the answer as to who was setting us up and got Ray killed.”
