In Fury Lies Mischief (Midnight Mayhem 2)

This cabin? Maybe before today, I wouldn’t have been able to look at another cabin without thinking about that night. Now, I can at least replace that with something new. To have an emotional trigger to a past event is giving your demons power to control you. To control what is going to set you off. It’s never going to be easy, but the first step we can do is work to take back that power.

Kyrin. I don’t think I’ll ever know the true torment that’s embedded into the dark corners of his soul, but I do know everyone is different. What works for some won’t for others.

Killian stands in a white shirt with sweat seeping through, but leaves his jeans unbuckled as he reaches into his pocket to pull out his smokes.

I take one, and he lights it before lighting his own.

“Why did you kill Hope?” I ask the question that I’ve been wanting to ask but couldn’t gather my thoughts fast enough to ask it. Between the murder and the sex. “Was she not good…”

“Not good?” Killian mirrors my tone sarcastically. “She was barely fucking human. There’s a lot that I need to talk to you about with your family, Patience, Kiznitch, and hell, even this cabin. Can we do this back in Kiznitch, or fuck, even on the plane? Got a lot of shit that I need to do, including be there for my best friend whose mother just died.”

There’s a part of me that is disappointed with his answer. I know that Delila being dead is going to cause a massive shift in the Midnight Mayhem world, but my world has also shifted. I’ve found out parts of myself that I didn’t know existed, and now I don’t know who I really am.

“Of course, I get it. But when she came here, why did you kill her?”

Killian draws in his smoke and then blows it out. “She tried to cut a deal with us. Wanted you out. Said that she couldn’t have you as a liability anymore, and that she was worried you’d flip on Patience. She wanted you dead, so I killed her instead. I admit, Delila was pretty pissed at me for doing it, you know what with my impulses…” He smirks at me. “There were a few of us there, and the whole thing was caught on video, so if you don’t believe me, I have proof. I couldn’t tell you at first because we were still trying to figure everything out. Could you imagine if I had told you then and there? You would have thought I was a psycho.”

“Ehhh.” I shrug. “Still up in the air.” I shake my head. “I don’t understand why she would do that.”

“How is that not obvious to you right now?” Killian drops his smoke on the ground, crunching onto it with the bottom of his boot. “She was Patience through and through, Saskia. She bled that shit. She was weak-minded, all of them are—but not you, and that’s because of your DNA.”

“How can you be so sure about my strength?”

Killian steps closer to me, bringing his finger up to my face. “Me and Maya rescued Kyrin the day he was brought in here. We stumbled upon the cabin when Maya was running me around the woods. They tried to take him, a fucking up-and-coming Brother, but they failed. We didn’t have time to call it in and Kyrin never wanted The Four Fathers to know, so we kept it secret, until Delila got it out of Maya years later. After spotting him through the window, I went into murder mode and needed him out, so we waited until the guards were upstairs or out the front before we snuck in through the back. While we were untying him, we saw you tied to that table too. I remember thinking there was something about you but not knowing why. You were young, wearing a blonde wig, makeup all over your face. It’s how you looked the night we came to the show.” He breathes out. “You are fucking Kiznitch. You were born to be a fucking Gladiator warrior. There was no way that this was going to define you.”

I sigh just as Kyrin stumbles inside, carrying a gasoline container. “We’re burning this shit to the ground.”

I take one of the containers and make my way into the sitting room where I saw the boy all those years ago. I pause before slowly tipping gasoline over the spot. Kill and Ky go upstairs and empty out the rooms before coming back down just as I’ve finished dousing the kitchen.

I pull out my lighter from my pocket. “I hate this Zippo.” Killian watches me carefully. “I started smoking when I was fourteen as a way to cope with whatever was going on at the time. Kosta gave me this as a gift, had the patterns inscribed into it. Now that I know my real name and heritage, I understand the meaning of the hidden dragon.” I flick it open and toss it into the puddle of gasoline. “Up in flames.”