“I have my sources,” he says. “That’s all you need to know.”

“I thought I was part of this,” I say with slight offense.

“You’re not the one killing them.” He buries his hands deep in the pockets of his jeans. “If it ever comes down to that, you being expected to kill someone, then you can ask all the questions that you want.”

I don’t like his answer, but I accept it and leave it alone. I sigh heavily and walk over to stand with my back pressed against the brick wall, crossing my arms over my stomach and propping a foot on the wall behind me to hold my balance.

“Speaking of me killing people,” I say. “I feel like Hamburg and Stephens are drifting farther away from me every day. I’m tired of waiting. I want to kill them. I want this done and over with.”

Fredrik stands next to me, with his back against the wall, too.

We both look out into the street, watching cars pass through the green light.

“What are you going to do when they’re dead?” he asks. “Is that going to be it? You finish them off, get your revenge, and then go about your life?”

“No,” I say without looking over at him, my voice distant because my mind is faraway thinking about it all. “No, they won’t be the last.”

I realize that this is something that I haven’t even said to Victor yet. Not because I was keeping it from him, but because I’m only now understanding it myself. Surprised by my own answer, I become lost in the moment, staring at the intersection as the cars blur in and out of focus.

“You’re not so different from me. You know that, right?” Fredrik asks.

Finally, my head falls to the right and I look at him. I look at his tall brooding form, his calm demeanor that I know is only a disguise which perfectly hides away the dangerous man who truly lives in there, not so far from the surface. I see a man who although I haven’t the slightest clue as to why or how he turned out the way he did, other than what Seraphina did to him, I know that he went through something much worse than she could ever inflict. I feel it. I sense it. And disturbingly enough, I feel like I can somehow relate to it.

“Maybe so,” I say and look away. “Though, when it comes to how we…deal with people…you and I are nothing alike.”

“Oh, I’m not so sure that’s true,” he says with a smile in his voice.

Perhaps the fact that I don’t argue with him about it right away is proof that he might be right.

Thankfully, Fredrik changes the subject. “Have you had breakfast?” he asks.

“I’m not really hungry.”

He leans away from the wall, dropping his hands to his sides and then steps around in front of me. Jerking his head back once he says, “Come on, I’m starving. There’s a bakery down the street. I haven’t had a decent pastry in a long time.”

I start to decline the invitation, but then decide to join him anyway. I poke my head inside the studio, standing halfway outside at the front door and yell across the room to Spencer and Jacquelyn, telling them where I’m going and that I’ll be back later. Spencer, with that untrusting look in his eye, argues with me for a second, saying I shouldn’t skip out on anymore training. He’s right about that, but I know really what he’s worried about is me leaving the studio with Fredrik.

Moments later, I hop in Fredrik’s car and we’re driving toward the bakery a few miles from the studio.

“Fredrik, why do you think Niklas would betray Victor the way he has?”

Fredrik merges onto the freeway.

“I don’t know,” he says. “Jealous, I suppose. Niklas always did live in Victor’s shadow in the Order. For as long as I’ve known them.”

“Yeah but…,” I sigh and glance over and then keep my eyes trained out ahead, “…I just don’t understand why he’d do that, I mean…,” I look right at him now, finally figuring out what I had wanted to say. “Niklas tried to kill me to protect Victor. He shot me. I guess I’m just having a hard time understanding what could make him do what he’s done after everything he did before to protect his brother. How any person can change like that.”

We turn right onto Paseo De Peralta and before long I see the big red oval sign on the bakery building out ahead as we get closer.

“I’ve worked with both of them for many years,” Fredrik says watching the traffic. “Niklas was always on the unhinged side. He would do anything for his brother, but I just felt like he was a disaster waiting to happen.” He glances over at me, and our eyes meet for a brief moment. “Honestly, I think you had a lot to do with why Niklas betrayed Victor.”

I swallow hard and look down into my lap momentarily, coiling my nervous fingers around one another. I have often wondered about this, a part of me almost convinced that this was all my fault, but not only did I not want to believe it, I also felt stupid thinking that I could cause such a rift between two people. I’m not that important of a person. I don’t have that much power, not even over Victor.

Surely not…

“Why do you think that?” I ask, hoping that whatever answer he gives me, isn’t believable. Ridiculous, even.

“Because in a sense, Victor chose you over his brother.”

All of my hopes and dreams of the moment come crashing down around me. His answer isn’t ridiculous at all, it makes perfect sense. And I hate myself for it.

“Victor decided to leave the Order after he met you,” Fredrik begins. “He may have had his qualms with Vonnegut before, but ultimately you were the turning of the key. And even before Victor went rogue, he was risking his position in the Order, and his life, by helping you. Niklas was trying to keep Victor from destroying himself. Killing you, he thought, was the only way to do that because reasoning with Victor regarding you didn’t work. Victor even lied to Niklas about you.” He looks over at me again. “In Niklas’ eyes, Victor chose, replaced, him with you.”

We come upon the parking lot of the bakery but instead of pulling in, I catch Fredrik staring toward the rearview mirror, his eyes focused on it and the road out ahead at the same time.

Getting the distinct feeling that he’s looking at something behind us, I start to turn around.

“Don’t,” he says quickly. Everything in that word shakes me to my bitter core. But his expression, his demeanor and the way he continues to casually steer with both hands on the bottom of the wheel, is as if nothing is wrong.

“What is it?” I ask, unable to mask the concern in my voice as he could.

“We’re being followed.”

My chest hardens and I stop breathing for a moment. I want so desperately to look behind us, but I opt for peering through my side mirror instead, and making no obvious movements. There’s a black SUV, looks like a Navigator, tailing us.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Sarai


My hands clench stiffly onto the corners of the red leather seats beneath me. I don’t take my eyes off the side mirror, or my mind off the possibility that it could be who I think it is and what I know is about to happen. I can’t see the passenger or the driver through the Navigator’s tinted windows.

“Are you sure?” I ask.

Fredrik turns his blinker on and we turn left at the next street. He maintains the speed limit and doesn’t appear to let those in the vehicle know that he’s on to them. I just hope he’s wrong.

“They’ve been following us since we pulled out of the studio,” he says and my heart sinks. “They were watching us, parked in the lot across the street.”

“So, they’re why you decided to get breakfast,” I assume.

Fredrik nods and turns right at the next stop light.

I’m kicking myself, feeling so goddamned small and inexperienced that I wasn’t smart enough to notice these things. I wasn’t observant enough of my surroundings to know that we were being watched the whole time. But this isn’t the time or place to be frustrated with myself. I just hope there’s time for that later.

“What are we going to do?” I ask nervously.

Fredrik presses on the gas pedal and suddenly we’re doing fifty in a thirty-five, and heading straight for the on-ramp to the freeway. The Navigator is close behind, staying on our tail. I grab my seatbelt strap and pull it tighter and then I grip onto the seats again.

“We’re going to lose them,” Fredrik answers as we go from fifty to seventy in a couple short seconds as we get onto the freeway.

I’m holding on for dear life, my heart in my throat, as the car weaves recklessly in and out of traffic, cutting people off and even going around vehicles by way of the shoulder. But the Navigator stays right on us, weaving its way through the same path that we take. Horns honk noisily, angrily at us as we speed by.

“HOLD ON!” Fredrik shouts.

In that second, my shoulder is crushed against the side window as Fredrik makes a sharp turn from the center lane into the right, just mere inches from the front bumper of a little white car. I hear the squealing of the tires, ours and the white car’s, and then I’m shoved to the other side of my seat when he abruptly steadies the vehicle.

I turn awkwardly at the waist in the front seat, the seatbelt still wrapped around my body, holding me in place, to see the Navigator coming at us from behind a blue car. The car swerves left, trying to get out of the way and clips the front of the white car we just passed. Both cars spin violently in the middle of the freeway, the white one squealing to a stop in the far left lane, narrowly missing the concrete wall barrier separating this freeway from the other side. Smoke billows from underneath the tires. The blue car rolls over onto its side, crashing. I gasp, my hand comes up over my mouth.