Dead or Alive_Part One Read online

  Xander’s hand squeezes mine, reminding me he’d asked a question not two minutes ago. I turn my head to meet his questioning gaze and see such worry swirling in those velvety pools, I know I can’t tell him that I’m somewhat uneasy and utterly confused.

  So I lie. Well, half-lie, ’cause there’s some truth there, it’s just not all of it.

  “Nothing.” I smile softly. “I’m just gonna miss our little island, that’s all.”

  He hums with a nod in tow. “I am too. It was especially nice having you all to myself.”

  “Can’t say I don’t agree, Mr. Royce,” I reply, cutting my eyes back out the window.

  “Are you ready for the hustle and bustle again?” he asks.

  “Meh. Yes and no. I’m excited to sightsee, but I’m not looking forward to adulting every day.”

  “Why? Because adulting means you risk running into something that may cause a trigger?”

  That voice…

  No.

  I freeze, feeling my hand run ice-cold. I don’t want to look because I know what I’m about to see, but my head turns anyway, and I’m met with that dirty hand again, followed by those dark eyes.

  Not again, please not again, I think to myself, and this hushed, amused laugh resounds beside me.

  “Yes, again, Eden. Maybe this time, you’ll make it a point to remember you can’t run from me,” she growls, throwing in a cheeky smirk.

  “Can’t you just go away?” I ask her, noting that although our setting has changed this time around, everything else is the same.

  Life around us has stopped completely, every passenger on board frozen in statue form. Xander is gone and she’s still wearing that tattered dress. She looks like she crawled out from hell…

  “I’m sure I probably can, but why would I ever want to do something so silly,” she counters.

  “Because I don’t need you anymore,” I retort, and she rolls her eyes, chastising me with a tsk.

  “There’s where you’re wrong. You will indeed need me, very, very soon.”

  A chill should follow her words, but I remain stoic. I don’t think anything of what she’s said because it’s preposterous. This isn’t real. I’m having another nightmare, hence the previous deja vu that flooded me, and I know her goal is simply to frighten me. I don’t need her…

  “Yes, you do,” she hisses, obviously reading my mind.

  “Why would I need you when there’s no longer a list in my possession,” I point out, crossing my arms over my chest.

  My dark passenger sighs as if I’m clueless beyond belief. “Because you are the list, Eden, and if you don’t get your head out of this wannabe honeymoon you’re pretending to be on, you’ll find yourself—along with your precious Xander—at the hellish mercy of your brother.”

  That’s it, that’s all it takes for any confidence I had to begin shriveling away. The mere mention of Alessio in all his depraved glory bests me with a reel of horrifying images, and I gasp. My eyes bulge as fear creeps out from the depths of my mind, and all she does is nod, smiling in nothing but complete satisfaction.

  “That’s right, they know you’re here. They’re right on your tail.”

  “You’re lying,” I grit out.

  “Am I?” she queries with a smirk, examining her claw-like nails.

  “You are. They have no idea where Xander and I are,” I spit, hoping like hell I’m right because if not, I have no idea what we’re going to do. We’ve foolishly avoided discussing that…

  “Believe what you want, Eden. I’m only trying to warn you. To save you. And lucky for you, when the time does finally come and you need me, I’ll be there to see you through the war, regardless of how you feel about me. Can’t promise you anything about Xander, but at least you know you’ll make it out alive.”

  “I don’t need you for Xander and I to make it out alive. We’re perfectly fine without you. Besides, there’s no end game to come out from anywhere. Daddy and the boys can’t possibly know where we are. You’re lying, and you know it.”

  “Again, believe what you want.” She sounds bored now. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you when you find yourself being dragged back to the states.”

  I roll my eyes, holding onto my last shred of gallantry. I refuse to fall captive to misplaced fear. She has to be lying.

  “Noted. Can you go now?” My question whirrs impatiently and she hooks a shoulder.

  “I can, yes, but I’m not sure I want to.”

  Of course not.

  “Why?” I ask her.

  “Because your sudden hatred toward me and resistance to accept your impending fate have left me vexed beyond belief. Don’t you see Xander is the problem in this equation? Follow the clues, Eden. He is your end game. Why are you trying to change yourself for a man anyway? If he really loved you, he’d accept you as you are.”

  My head rears back indignantly as ire shoots to the surface, overriding fear in tenfold. She’s lucky this isn’t real and I can’t hurt her…

  “He does accept me, but Xander is the embodiment of good and I refuse to dim his light with the darkness of my past.”

  “Jesus, you really are blind. Wake up, Angel. This”—she waves a hand through the air—“me, we’re not a thing of the past. The darkness owns you, Eden, it always has. Think back to how easily it intrigued you from a young age. No matter how hard you attempt to live a life without it, you’ll never succeed. The need to fulfill what you were born to do will always call to you.”

  “You’re wrong. I’ve been just fine since leaving New York,” I snap.

  “Because you’re living in a fantasy land. Once your family makes an appearance and you realize I was right, survival instincts will kick in and it’ll all come back to you. And at that point, I suspect your need to shed blood will be irrepressible.”

  “I don’t need to kill. I killed because it was my job.”

  She scoffs, as though it were the most ridiculous thing I could’ve said. “Clearly, you’ve forgotten how much you enjoyed it.”

  “No, I haven’t forgotten.” I narrow my eyes. “But there are two keywords you seem to be ignoring in that sentence—used to. No part of that is remotely enjoyable anymore.”

  “Or so you think. Just wait.”

  “Wait for what?” I ask, watching the black of her eyes expand demonically again.

  “For all the lives that will be lost at your expense.”

  A strangled scream didn’t wake me this time, but I did shoot up right, struggling to catch my breath. I could feel my heart ready to explode from my chest. A sheen of sweat clung to my skin despite the weather actually being that of winter here as a tidal wave of emotions coursed through me. My nightmare replayed at double the speed, dangling my dark passenger’s prophecy at the very forefront of my mind. It was all I could see.

  Bringing my knees up to my chest, I hugged them for dear life, breathing through a sea of tears that threatened to break the dam wide open. She had to be bluffing, she just had to be. There’s no way in hell Daddy and the boys would know we were here, not with fake passports and I.D.’s, no phones or credit cards to track us with either. We hadn’t seen or heard from them since leaving the compound.

  Or what if your plan wasn’t as foolproof as you thought, and they were on your trail the entire time, she hissed, plaguing me with an arctic hailstorm of goose bumps that churned my stomach to the point I thought I might retch all over the bed.

  Oh God, had they? Had they been following twenty feet behind us all along and we’d been none the wiser? Had we really been so blind to think we could outrun them? Considering who my family was and what we did for a living, the idea suddenly wasn’t as farfetched as I originally thought. Daddy did have connections everywhere, as did Alessio. Finding us was probably a lot more simple that I’d allowed myself to believe. But why would they have continued a silent pursuit for this long without ever striking, or at least cluing us in on their presence? It made no sense.

  Because they’re waiting for the pe
rfect moment…

  No.

  I refused to believe it, dammit. Refused to heed The Silent Reaper’s warning. Was I naive enough to think they weren’t after us? No, I knew they were. I mean, they’d come after us when we were on the run for LeRoux. Didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure they’d do so again, with all the more ammunition this time. But did I think they were as close as she wanted me to fear?

  No. Or so I hoped.

  Your hope is futile, Eden. Open your eyes. It’s almost time.

  No.

  “No,” I whispered, remembering the very last thing she uttered before I woke up.

  “For all the lives that will be lost at your expense.”

  Were these lives she claimed would be taken a diabolical product of her influence or were they lives to be taken as a casualty of war? Either way, it was a terrifying concept, though I was far more terrified of the former. I didn’t want to go down that road again, didn’t want to be that person again, yet I knew I didn’t have much of a choice…. Fiendish and malevolent, my dark passenger was intent on reminding me that while I may have run from who I am, hiding was not an option. She would supersede me eventually, I knew she would. And when the time came, I wasn’t sure Xander would be strong enough to yank her unrelenting claws free from my soul.

  How could he?

  She was too strong. Strong enough to make me kill again, and after all the strife Xander and I had been through, I was going to love it, like I always had. The innocent included in this instance, which only made her inevitable triumph that much more difficult to swallow. More harrowing. I’d never feared the person I became during a kill because my kills removed the vilest of scumbags from our world, but right now, as I realized I’d take out anyone who stepped within five feet of me and Xander, I did fear her. I feared myself. And if I feared what I was capable of doing if provoked, I knew Xander would too.

  What sucks about your gut never steering you wrong is sensing when something is off; like something is about to happen, but you aren’t sure of what that is. The anxious storm that consumes you, filling you to the brim with trepidation of the unknown; I hate it. And that’s all I’d been feeling since arriving in London.

  Actually, I take that back.

  The first few days were quite the pleasant start to our new adventure. We’d hit all the usual iconic spots, like The Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, The London Eye. We’d even stopped at a few of the outrageous foodie ones with the gooiest treats currently blasted online. But a week in, I woke up one morning with my stomach in unexplainable knots and this eerie feeling practically seeping out from my pores. With every turn we made, it felt like someone was watching us, keeping me in a perpetual state of nervously peering over my shoulder every five seconds. Obviously, my first thought was the Scarsis are here, but as the days went on without incident, I began to wonder if it was simply amounting paranoia from constantly being on the run.

  Still, I couldn’t shove my anxiety away and I realized it was because something about Eden was off too. She wasn’t as carefree as she’d been in the weeks leading up to arriving here. More reserved and far more vigilant, she clung to my side in a possessive way I hadn’t seen from her before. I suspected the smiles and laughs she gifted me were to keep up appearances, but the expression that seemed to have permanently taken residence on her face said it all.

  Something was coming. She sensed it. I sensed it.

  The question now was, what was it?

  “God, I’m exhausted,” Eden exclaimed as we walked into our room after a late lunch on The Strand near Trafalgar Square.

  She threw herself on the bed and draped an arm over her face, legs dangling off the edge. I hummed in accordance and peered down both sides of the hallway, hastily locking the door behind us. I wasn’t satisfied, though. Instincts compelled me to peek through the peephole one last time for extra precaution like a madman. I’d been expecting someone, anyone, to come out of thin air, but thankfully, not a soul showed themselves, even after a couple of minutes. Maybe I was just being overly paranoid.

  Satisfied we were safe—for now—I slipped off my shoes and padded into the room, swiping the remote control from the entertainment center near the foot of our bed to turn on the TV. I couldn’t take the silence. It offered nothing more than the space to think clearly, and the places my mind could go these days was shocking. Mindlessly, I flipped through the channels, only to linger on one of the news stations for a second too long and catch the beginning of a segment that would swiftly turn our lives upside down…

  “Let’s go to Sherise, who I hear has some good news for us on this Thursday evening. Sherise, what’s the latest on your end?”

  “Good news, I might have indeed, Victoria. A little over three months ago, a missing persons ad from the United States went viral. A man by the name of Vincent Scarsi alerted his local police department that his daughter and her new boyfriend had been missing for what appeared to be a few weeks. He claimed his daughter, Eden, had told him she and her boyfriend were going on a lengthy vacation, though she didn’t specify where. ‘Xander’s surprising me,’ Mr. Scarsi says the twenty-seven-year-old told him excitedly, so the first week of silence didn’t arise alarm. But the second week did, and when her phone began ringing through straight to voicemail, as did Mr. Royce’s, Mr. Scarsi knew something was terribly wrong.

  “When asked if he suspected Mr. Royce was at fault for their disappearance, Mr. Scarsi said he didn’t believe that were the case but with how abruptly the relationship had started, anything was possible. A large reward was thrown on the table as the search began to find the couple, but to no avail. All hope seemed to be lost in finding them or any answers, until an unexpected and baffling turn of events today…

  “An anonymous caller has apparently spotted the couple here in London. It’s not one-hundred percent confirmed but the caller is almost positive it is, in fact, them. Vincent isn’t getting his hopes up, in the event it isn’t them, but he’s willing to post another reward if it means someone will keep their eyes peeled. Here are the photos he’s provided of both Miss Scarsi and Mr. Royce. Again, he doesn’t believe Xander is at any fault, but nothing is out of the question at this point in time. If you happen to see them or have any information that may help us reunite this family, please dial the number on your screen. Victoria, back to you.”

  “Oh my God,” Eden whispered behind me just as the remote control slipped from my grip, onto the floor.

  There we were, our faces staring back at us from the television screen, as the newscasters continued commenting on the information they’d just been relayed. This is what had been brewing, what Eden and I had been anticipating, and it was so much worse than the Scarsis simply cornering us unexpectedly. I’d take a random show up at our door with guns drawn over this fresh hell any day. Pivoting slowly to where Eden now sat on the bed, I watched the color drain from her face in entirety as the severity of it all began to sink in. Then I felt mine do the very same, running down the length of my body to the ice-cold tips of my toes. My heart thrashed with such terror, I could hear my blood roaring through my ears a million miles per hour. Staring at Eden instantly gutted me with the reality that these could be my final hours with her…

  Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  This was it. This was how we went out. How I went out. Painting me as a possible villain, an abductor nonetheless, to use the masses against us. News like this would undoubtedly have the people of London on high-alert, especially with a reward. Anyone in their right mind would call us in, if not for the money, at least to save Eden from me. The odds were in their favor any way you looked at it, and once they finally caught us, I’d be dead shortly thereafter.

  “X…”

  My eyes refocused on Eden at the sound of her voice from the dark rabbit hole I’d fallen into. Her expression held one too many emotions for me to pinpoint what all was rushing through her mind, but her eyes spoke the clear, absolute truth. Nothing but pure fear wallowed within those blue poo
ls I loved so much, her hands trembling as she reached out for me in need. I don’t know how, but my legs carried me toward her without hesitation. I swallowed her in my arms, wanting nothing more than to soothe her and make this shitstorm go away, even if but for a little while longer.

  This could be one of the last times I hold her, I found myself thinking, and almost immediately the sharpest, most excruciating pain lanced through my chest, constricting my lungs, cracking my heart. I could do nothing else but hold her tighter, as though that would somehow keep away everything that threatened to take her from me. No sooner had she fisted the back of my hoodie in a death grip, when her sobs came at full-force, rattling her small frame against my own larger one.

  “I knew it. I-I knew it,” she hiccupped into my chest, shaking her head as if to bury herself deeper. Or maybe it was disbelief.

  “You knew what, Angel?” I tried to keep my voice even.

  “The other night, I had a-a nightmare. She warned me, Xander! She t-tried telling me they were on our trail and I-I dismissed her!”

  Though most of it was muffled and the rest was stammered, I heard her. I heard every last word. And while I had an idea of who she was talking about, I took her face in my hands and brought those blues on me, wiping matching streams of tears trickling down her cheeks with my thumbs.

  “Who is ‘she’?”

  “She. Her,” was all she imparted, but it was all I needed.

  In some sense, I’d been right. The shift I’d felt in us both wasn’t just some figment of my imagination or a result of paranoia. While the Scarsis had been scheming this plan, my body had been reacting to Eden’s silent cry for help—and I fucking failed us both by never asking her about it. The voice, the mentality, the persona—whatever the hell you want to call it—who fueled Eden through the darkness, had subconsciously warned her of our impending doom. Why she would ever try to help, I didn’t know, but had I made good on our promise and implored Eden to share with me what plagued her, we could’ve gotten out of here sooner, gone further away until a threat was no longer prevalent. Yes, I know, I sound crazy as fuck for even entertaining that the things Eden had once done were the result of a different entity, but I firmly believed my Angel was not that person. I’d seen the good in her one too many times to think otherwise.