Apathy by L.K. Reid

Ash

My lips still vibrated, remembering the feeling of her lips on mine. Her taste, her touch, her moans and cries, they were already etched in my mind. I expected to feel disgusted, revolted, but my body wasn’t listening to my mind, and I wanted more.

I wanted to bite, lick, and suck every inch of her body, and I couldn’t, because succumbing to my desires would mean betraying my family. Skylar Blackwood was my enemy. Her entire family was an enemy we vowed to eradicate. It didn’t matter that my body wanted to feel her hands on me, my mind had to win this war. It didn’t matter that she tasted like the sweetest sin, and I wouldn’t mind being the sinner, or that her eyes flashed with desire that could consume me, because she was who she was and I was on the opposite side.

We weren’t a match made in heaven, but she didn’t know it yet. I could see it there, the fight she was trying to start, how she tried to push me away, but she felt this just as much as I did. She just didn’t know that what we felt meant nothing, because there were forces stronger than our desire.

I made a promise when I was just a child and I planned to fulfill it. Nothing, and nobody, least of all a Blackwood, would stand in my way. I waited my whole life for the moment when I would be able to avenge my parents for what the other founding families did to us. The scars on my back were the constant reminder of that vicious night, when they betrayed us, throwing us aside.

Now was the time to get it all back. To get the Crowell name back into town.

They thought they destroyed us all, but they forgot the first rule—never leave any survivors. And me and my brother, Sebastian, we were the survivors. We were going to be their worst nightmare. They just didn’t know it yet.

As I drove down the street toward the bridge connecting the two sides of Winworth, I couldn’t stop thinking about the sick history this place had. Winworth had so much beauty and so much depravity, that no matter what we did in the upcoming years, nothing would cleanse it from its sins. My uncle used to say that there were places on earth whose soil was filled with so much blood, that nothing good ever came out of them.

Winworth was one of them.

I always wanted to laugh when people talked about the history of this place, and the alleged witches that had escaped the trials and settled here. They weren’t completely wrong, but it wasn’t the witches that built this town from the ground up. No, there were darker forces that played their wicked games here, building the town on skeletons of those they sacrificed.

When our ancestors came from Europe, they didn’t just bring their families, food, and clothes, they brought something much darker, wicked in its nature.

The Black Dahlia.

The worshippers of Satan. Sons and daughters of Central and Eastern European pagans, who hid under the cloak of night, worshipping the dark forces rummaging through earth. They hid until the church found out about their wicked deeds and then they had to run.

And they ran, until they came here, loving the nature and seclusion this area offered. Loving it so much that they decided to shower its soil with the blood of their sacrifices. And my family was one of them. My ancestors were one of those who came here, and who destroyed the land and everything surrounding it. They poisoned young minds, turning brothers against each other, taking children in the middle of the night, and controlling the entire town.

They were still doing it.

The Order was created by five families, who tried to gain more power, more money, more territory, because what they had wasn’t enough for them. Others followed, seeing the growing riches of those families, thinking it was all due to the satanic worshipping they were doing.

I liked to think that they managed to get more money and more power because they were shrewd, ruthless, and without remorse. Because they knew how to play people, how to get what they wanted using their silver tongues and the money they already had. They sold their souls for power, tricking others to join them, making them believe in the dark forces.

But there was never Satan or a demon who came to claim their souls. People loved blaming the underworld for their depraved deeds, because they didn’t want to accept that their souls craved it and Heaven or Hell had nothing to do with it.

Unfortunately, I didn’t know enough about the Black Dahlia to strike immediately, which was why I needed to be here. I needed to learn their secrets, to get to their meetings, because you couldn’t take down the empire from the outside. No, you had to get in, make them trust you, make them see you as one of their own.

Our uncle was never a part of The Order since he wasn’t related to us by blood. He and our father were best friends, who met at university, sharing the same love for history and the written word. Before he died, our father shared some things with our uncle, but not enough for us to understand how everything worked.

Besides, I couldn’t go against the four most powerful families in the United States with only memories of a traumatized kid and a couple of documents that only mentioned meetings and those involved, but nothing else.

Our father wanted to leave The Order and Winworth. When I was six years old, he and our mom were getting ready to leave all of this behind and disappear when the Blackwood, St. Clare, Lacroix, and Maddox families decided that the only way to leave this place was in a body bag. So they hunted us, burned our house down, and killed my parents in front of my eyes.

I still couldn’t remember how Sebastian and I got away. Maybe we were lucky or maybe somebody saved us, but it took me years to remember everything about that night. Years to understand that my parents dying wasn’t just a freak accident, but an act of monstrous human beings who didn’t want to risk their secrets.

I could still remember cloaked figures surrounding us, chanting the song of death, and my mother’s tear-stained face as she pleaded with them to let us go. Sebastian was four at the time, and I was glad that he didn’t remember any of it. I, on the other hand, remembered everything.

I remembered Judah Blackwood as he held the dagger against my father’s throat. I remembered Harlow St. Clare as she laughed at my mother, while she held me against her body, squeezing my arm until I screamed.

The people that lived here didn’t know that they were surrounded by snakes. They didn’t know that they were being fed with poison since the day they were born. They were the prisoners of the town that never wanted to let them go. The missing girls, the whispers in the dark, they were doing it again.

They were preparing for Samhain.

My phone rang, breaking through my thoughts. I picked it up from the passenger seat and looked at the screen.

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?” I asked as soon as I placed the phone to my ear, hearing the chuckle from the other side.

“Well, we’re both supposed to be in school, but that apparently isn’t happening today,” Sebastian answered. “Where did you go?”

“I had something to do.” I didn’t want to talk about her with him. Unlike our uncle and me, he was still convinced that nobody had to get hurt. That we could just go to the police and report everything we knew about the Black Dahlia.

If only it was that simple.

Judah Blackwood controlled this area in more ways than one, and Harlow St. Clare held the reins in his pharmaceutical company as a CEO, while he shook hands with other politicians, plastering a fake smile on his face. The Maddox family controlled the police here and the Lacroix family owned Lacroix Corp., an investment company in Chicago.

Wherever you turned, they would have their hands on it. Not to mention that most of them had connections deeper in the underground with the Russian Syndicate and the Outfit. No, these weren’t the people that you could just report to the police.

Besides, who would believe us? The reports for our parents’ deaths showed that it was a freak fire caused by faulty electrical wires. It was even signed by the chief of police, and by the time firefighters arrived at the scene, the house we used to live in was already burned to the ground, leaving nothing but ashes and pain behind.

“You had something or someone to do?” he asked, snickering at the same time. I told him about my plan for Skylar, but Sebastian being Sebastian was adamant to change my mind. After seeing her picture on Snapgram, he started nudging me to go after her for all the wrong reasons.

“None of your business, baby brother.”

“Argh,” he groaned. “Can we please lose that nickname? Please?”

“No can do, baby bro,” I teased. “You are younger than me.”

“Only two years younger. I’m sixteen not six, and if you saw how some of the girls were eyeing me, you wouldn’t be using that name on me.”

“Hmm, do they know about the blanket—”

“No, Ash,” he threatened. “Don’t you dare.”

The story about the blanket he used to carry around as a child always worked.

“As much as I love hearing your lovely voice…” I started speaking as I parked in front of the pub a few feet from the bridge. “I would like to know why you’re calling me.”

“I need to ask you for a favor.”

I turned the ignition off and unfastened my seatbelt. “I’m listening.”

He hesitated for a moment, the line going silent.

“Seb—”

“I want you to teach me how to drive,” he blurted out, piercing my heart.

Our dad or mom was supposed to teach him how to do that, not me. I loved our uncle, but he knew more about cars than kids, and most of the time it was up to me to make sure that Sebastian wasn’t walking with his shirt inside out, or that he actually did his homework. After he found out about our parents’ death and after we came to him, it was as if the only thing he could think of was revenge against the people in this town.

I never really asked why or how, but I had a feeling that it went further than just not liking what they were doing to innocent people, or what they did to his friends.

“Ash?” Sebastian’s voice tore through my thoughts. “Will you do it? I understand if you can’t, but—”

“Of course I’ll do it, Seb.” I dragged a hand over my face, hating that he had to ask me. If our parents were alive and he asked me the same thing, I wouldn’t hesitate to say yes, but that hole in my chest where they used to be seemed to expand even more with this request. “When do you want to start?”

“Really?” His voice, laced with excitement, drew the first real smile today from me. “You’ll do it?”

“I’ll do it. I don’t know why you sound so surprised.”

“Well…” he cleared his throat. “You’ve been quite busy with… things.”

Things being the plan to avenge our parents and use the kids from the other four founding families to get in.

“Seb—”

“It’s okay, Ash. I understand, trust me I do. Or at least, I try to understand. I just wish that there was another way.”

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to do this any other way.

They deserved to pay for what they did. They deserved to have their perfect little worlds shattered just how they shattered ours. They deserved to feel pain and despair, just like we did.

The only problem was that Sebastian couldn’t understand that. I was both glad and displeased with that. Glad, because that meant that my brother was a much better person than I was, and displeased, because he mostly didn’t want to have anything to do with our plans. But he was still my brother, and even if he refused to accept the truth, that these people wouldn’t hesitate to kill both of us, I would still protect him.

“Seb,” I took a deep breath before continuing, “how about this weekend? We can start then, and we’ll see how it goes.”

“Really?” The excitement in his voice pulled at my heartstrings. I couldn’t remember when the last time he sounded like this was.

He protested when Uncle Neal and I announced that we would be returning to Winworth this year. We grew up in New York and Sebastian didn’t want to leave the life he had there. Maybe if I had something worthy of staying for, I wouldn’t have wanted to leave either, but my entire life has been dedicated to this. I didn’t know anything better.

When I was eleven years old, Uncle Neal bought me my first knife and taught me how to use it. When I was thirteen, he bought me a handgun and brought me to a clear field, showing me how to shoot at the target. At the age of fifteen, when all my friends celebrated the end of the school year, I was spending my nights reading about Winworth and its most prominent families.

Sebastian tried to fight us on this decision. He begged us to stay in New York, to stay with his friends, to not be a part of this battle, this war, yet he still couldn’t understand that we weren’t merely following this battle. No, it came to us because of who we were, because of our last name. And as long as these people lived freely, we wouldn’t be safe.

When we left Winworth after our parents’ deaths, Uncle Neal lived in Texas, but we had to be constantly on the move. I couldn’t even remember how many schools we had to change because one of Judah’s spies was closing in on us.

Sebastian couldn’t understand because he was too young when it all happened. I couldn’t force him to understand, but I could protect him even when he thought that he didn’t need protection. Leaving him behind simply wasn’t an option, and even though he sulked and pouted for the last two months since we came to Winworth, he had to stay.

There was no other way.

And this sign of happiness, of excitement, was the first since we came here. I just hoped that he would be able to find more things to be excited about while we were in Winworth.

“Yeah, really.” I laughed. A lone figure entering the pub drew my attention, and I knew it was time to let Sebastian go. “Hey, listen. I gotta go, but I’ll see you later. Okay?”

I opened the door, welcoming the fresh morning air coursing through Winworth. For all its depravity, it did have nature like no other place. The cities we used to live in were usually crowded, much bigger, and a lot more polluted. Here, the people actually cared about the river and the surrounding area.

“Okay,” Sebastian answered. “Are you gonna be home for dinner?”

I stepped outside of the car and slammed the door behind me. “I don’t know,” I said as I started walking toward the pub. “I’ll let you know. I’m not sure what my plans are for the day.” I did know, I just didn’t want him to even think of snooping and trying to befriend those serpents.

“All righty. I’ll see you later then.”

“Bye,” I mumbled and cut the call off. I wasn’t sure if he was in school or at home, but wherever he was, I just hoped he wasn’t going to get into trouble. Sebastian was too trusting, too naïve for this world we lived in. If we weren’t careful, he would become just another casualty of this war, and I couldn’t allow that.

I pulled my other phone, checking the screen for any missed calls. As expected, there was a message waiting for me.

Cerberus is in place.

Good.

With hurried steps, I crossed over the sidewalk and headed straight for the pub. A dark Harley-Davidson stood a couple of feet away from the entrance, closer to the bridge than this side. I hadn’t seen it before, and it had an insignia that I have never seen.

Could it be?

An elderly couple exited the pub, holding hands and smiling at each other. I couldn’t help but think if our parents would be the same if they managed to live long enough to reach this age. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to dwell on what-ifs and the things that could never happen. I pushed past them and entered the pub.

I hadn’t been here before, but I visited enough pubs when we traveled to Germany to know that they definitely got the idea from there. The interior was mainly decorated with wood, from the walls to the floors, giving the medieval feeling to it all. Two crossed swords were the first thing you could see, standing proud just behind the bar, manned by one bartender. I looked around, noticing that it wasn’t as busy as I expected it to be.

The entire side of the pub was covered with windows, and I could see the river surrounded by trees. The balcony on that side was mainly empty, sans the one lone figure I saw entering the pub earlier. The cigarette he had between his lips lit up as he flicked the lighter in his hand, and he started looking over the edge of the balcony, toward the river.

I had never seen him before, but something told me that this was my guy.

I nodded at the bartender as I crossed past the bar and between the tables, heading directly to the balcony. The stranger pushed the hoodie off his head, revealing the dark hair—longer on the top and cut short on the sides—and the array of tattoos peeking through his collar. He looked around until his eyes landed on me, and his lips pulled at the side, in what he probably thought was a smile.

I’ve seen scary people in my life, angry people, but I had never met anybody like him.

As I exited through the glass door, leading to the balcony, my face was hit by the wind that was colder than on the other side. I pulled the collar of my coat higher, trying to shield myself from the cold, while he stared at me. I wasn’t fazed by a lot of things, and people often told me that I looked like I didn’t give a shit about anything—and I mostly didn’t—but this guy looked like he could eat me for breakfast, and just continue with his day as if nothing happened.

“Are you Lars?” I asked as soon as I stepped closer to him. The cigarette he lit earlier dangled from his fingers as he leaned back, staring at me.

“Maybe,” he answered with a cold expression on his face, pulling another drag of the cigarette. “Are you the Crow?”

I pulled the chair opposite of him and sat down. “Maybe. You don’t look like somebody called Lars.” I smirked and took the packet of cigarettes in front of him, opened it, and pulled one out.

“I don’t?” He grinned as I lit up the lighter and placed the tip of the cigarette on fire, letting the smoke coat my insides with one inhale.

“No,” I answered through the cloud of smoke I exhaled. “You definitely don’t.”

He kept looking at me, unmoving, studying me. I always hated when people did that. Skylar did that as well. She kept staring at people, trying to read them, to gauge their reactions. I bet it pissed her off when she couldn’t see past the mask I chose to wear.

“I like you, kid.” He laughed and extinguished the cigarette, only halfway done. “I’m Indigo.”

He removed the zipped hoodie he had on, revealing a cut with an emblem I saw once before, when we were moving from San Francisco to Orlando.

Sons of Hades.

We all heard the stories about them. The gruesome tales used to scare the kids at night. They were a walking nightmare, and he was here, meeting with me. I didn’t like this. I didn’t like this at all.

“Relax, kid.” He chuckled. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I cleared my throat and leaned back, still looking at the emblem. “I’ve heard of you guys.”

“Oh, really?” His eyebrows shot up. “Then I can assure you that whatever you’ve heard,” he leaned toward me, “the truth is ten times worse.”

For the first time since we came here, I was scared.

Six months ago, a guy named Lars contacted us, offering to help us execute our plan. We never met him, never learned his last name or where he came from, but he had information on The Order that no one else did. After careful consideration, we decided to go with it, and to let him feed us the information we were missing.

For example, every twenty or so years, The Order had to choose a new leader, a new high priest, and for that to happen, the sacrifices had to be made. It bothered me that we didn’t know his real identity, but everything he told us was true.

“Right,” I mumbled. “I’m sure you have better things to do. I was told you would have information for us. Well, Lars said—”

“Yeah, I know what Lars said, but I’m not exactly sure if you would want to know this.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean,” he looked around us as if he expected someone to be listening, “some things should be left alone. Some things should be handled by adults, kid. And some—”

“First of all,” I interrupted. “I was never a kid. They didn’t give me a chance to be a kid. Do you know what it feels like to lose everything you loved?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. I also know that look in your eyes, because I’ve seen it before on someone very close to me. And do you know where he is now?” His eyes narrowed at me. “In the fucking hospital, fighting for his life, because he was too reckless, too blinded by revenge, that he didn’t plan shit properly. So, I’m gonna ask you only once. Did you think this through with a cool head, or are you going to end up getting killed in the process?”

He took a mouthful of water, all the while looking at me. He wanted to know if I was reckless, if this plan wasn’t going to end up with me six feet under. Truth be told, I didn’t know.

I had no idea if getting close to them wouldn’t end up with me in a body bag, failing to fulfill what I had promised. But I did know that I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if I didn’t see this through. I knew that if it wasn’t for these people, for this town, I would have had a happy childhood, or at least, a childhood with both of my parents alive.

I wouldn’t have this constant burden on my shoulders, this constant pain in my gut, and the scars on my back if it wasn’t for them. Maybe I was too reckless.

I was recklessly getting involved with Skylar Blackwood, but I liked to think that I was just doing my part to secure that spot in The Order. Taunting her brother this morning wasn’t the best idea, but I couldn’t resist.

When he looked at me like I was a mere peasant, I couldn’t stop taunting him with everything Skylar and myself allegedly did. I could see it then, the same darkness swirling in his eyes, like it did in his father’s. I just knew that he was a part of it, that he knew everything there was to know about the Black Dahlia, and I had to push him.

Maybe it wasn’t the smartest idea, considering that he would be one of those voting for me to be a part of The Order. Maybe getting myself tangled with Skylar wasn’t the smartest idea either, but I couldn’t resist. I had to know the girl I only ever saw through pictures and stories. I had to know if she was worthy of saving or if she was just like everybody else.

“We have a plan, Indigo. A proper plan, not that it’s any of your business. I wouldn’t be sitting here with you if I didn’t have one. Lars trusts us enough to share the information we need in order to take them down. So, are you going to continue sitting there, acting like a concerned parent, or are you going to tell me everything you know?”

Brutality was second nature for these guys, and I knew that if I pissed him off, I wouldn’t be getting what I needed. But dammit, he was pissing me off. He was feigning concern when he didn’t know anything about us. Just because his friend fucked up, that didn’t mean that I would too.

Uncle Neal taught me well, and with him being an ex-military, I knew more about weapons than an eighteen-year-old should know, but it was necessary. If we were to get out of here alive, we had to know how to defend ourselves, if it came to that.

“Okay,” he finally answered.

“Okay?”

“Yeah, kid. Okay. But you will need allies. These people.” He scoffed. “If we can even call them that, they have connections everywhere. The things they’ve been doing over the years…” He trailed off. “I’m not gonna bother you with that, but you need to know what you’re getting into.”

“Are you talking about the Syndicate?” I asked.

“You know about that, huh?” He smiled. “Maybe you do have a proper plan.”

“Yeah, maybe I do.” I had to know.

“The leader of the Syndicate, Nikolai Aster, is dead.” That was news. “With him being dead, they will be extremely careful with the outsiders and the new members. You already know about their freaky Samhain rituals, and the new high priest, right?”

“Yeah, Lars told us about that.”

“Well, the thing that Lars didn’t tell you is that their meetings aren’t held in some house here.”

“What do you mean?” I placed my elbows on the table, leaning closer to him.

“Winworth has catacombs underneath the ground. Catacombs that are spread all around the town, built by the first settlers, the first families.”

Catacombs?

“They’re keeping their ceremonies there, in the main chamber, located underneath City Hall,” he continued. “Only the members have those keys. While Lars knows where the entrance is, he can’t tell you how to get in. That area is under surveillance twenty-four-seven, and The Order has guards keeping it away from curious eyes.”

“Where is it?” I asked, anticipation building up in me. This would be the first step to getting to them. If I couldn’t infiltrate The Order, then I could send the authorities to their hiding places. Even Judah Blackwood wouldn’t be able to get out of that. But I also needed documents, to prove their involvement with recent deaths and disappearances. I had to find something that could connect them with my parents’ deaths.

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“What do you think?” I huffed.

“Then what’s your plan?” He looked unconvinced, and I understood why. Here I was, basically a child in his eyes, trying to take down an entire dark empire. “You said you have one.”

“I do.” I grinned. “I’m going to become a part of The Order. The best way to take them down and find out everything I need to know is if I am there, with them.”

“And you don’t think that’s idiotic and reckless? Wait, fuck idiotic and reckless, how are you going to pull that off?”

“Because I’m a legacy.” I smiled wider. “I’m a Crowell.”