I caught up to her and swerved into her. I couldn’t believe how easy it was. I barely bumped her car, but she went tumbling and flipping through the air. After that, everything happened so fast. I ran to look in the car but I saw she was still alive and I just froze.
I left her there and jumped back in my car and sped away. I paid a small fortune to quietly have someone come fix my car out at my parent’s place, and I kept my mouth shut and did my best to shove down the guilt I felt at hurting Cherry.
I’d never admit any of this to anyone, of course. I just kept silently going along, hoping I’d come up with some way to get out of all of this alive.
“Now, on to the important stuff,” Anton continued. “This weekend is the weekend we’ve been waiting for, gentlemen. The virgin’s birth is a day to be celebrated and a day to worship the spirits that so generously gifted her to us. We will drink the milk of purity and we will chant and sing to our goddess, Luna, and we will bathe in her light and dance in her shadows and receive the forgiveness we so seek.”
“Amen,” the others said in unison.
It was hard not to roll my eyes. None of this made any fucking sense. It was just these stupid old men who got together and stroked each other’s egos at the expense of some poor girl’s life.
They were so arrogant that they thought their yearly purity ritual from the last few years was what had given them success. It was a twisted tale of greed and blood and sacrifice and violence that made absolutely no sense, as if anything like that ever did.
“Carlisle, do you have all the supplies?”
“I do,” he agreed, his eyes shining with sick glee.
Once again, the feeling of being trapped was overwhelming and I fought the urge to flee.
“Davenport, do you have your plans in place?”
“I’m trying,” I said, exasperation washing over me.
“Trying isn’t good enough,” Anton warned. “If you don’t bring us the offering, we’re going to have to choose for you.”
The choice I had to make was impossible. This is what Anton was holding over me.
“Are you sure we can’t consider someone else?” I asked.
“We’ve talked about this before,” Finley said. I glared over at him, in disbelief that he could so easily go through with this. “Our family was chosen, son. That’s just the way it has to be. If you don’t choose between Magnolia or Clementine, then we’ll have to decide for you.”
“Rose is your daughter,” I said. “This will break her!”
“Rose is a good woman, who has served us all well, even you, I might add,” he replied.
“They’re all three humans, and they don’t deserve this,” I said.
“This isn’t about what anyone deserves, Davenport,” Anton said, trying hard to put on his fatherly voice but just sounding like a villain instead. “This is about continuing the lifeblood of this town. It may not make sense to you now, but someday it will. Life needs blood, and blood needs life, son.”
“I understand it now,” Carlisle said, shaking his head with sick enthusiasm. “I know the pain I felt at losing Josephine was worth it, because now I’m pure, too.”
“You’re not pure, you have the blood of your child on your hands!”
I was pushing it, I knew that. Any one of them could whip out a gun and shoot me right there, and then kill either of my girls after that.
“That’s enough!” Anton barked, his anger surfacing.
“You will do as we demand, Davenport. We’ve given you everything. A wife, kids, a career, a community. It’s time you paid the price for that. Unfortunately, we don’t accept cash as a form of payment anymore,” Bradley said, crossing his arms over his chest.
“Are you threatening me?” I asked. I’d never pushed back this hard, but the thought of what they were asking me to do was just too much.
“Consider it a promise, son,” Anton said, standing up and coming face-to-face with me. “Bring us the girl. Or else.”
He turned on his heel and left us all there. I shook my head, looking at them all with disgust, before heading back towards the front door and leaving.
Chapter 41
RYDER
Davenport had only been inside the house a short while before he stormed out, his face contorted with intense anger. I waited for him to start up his black Porsche to leave, and moved to follow him, but then the front door opened and several other men poured out of the home.
I grabbed my camera and started snapping photos of them, until they’d all climbed into their respective cars, and then I took photos of their license plates.
Something about this doctor wasn’t right, that I was sure of.
I’d decided to follow him to see what I could find out and this all looked like a good place to start digging.
I sent the photos to Riot for analyzing, texted all the Gods to meet me at my hotel in the morning, and headed back to Grace and Sadie for the night.
Chapter 42
SLADE
Saturday night in Savannah was a little bit sleepy. The town seemed to roll up by midnight, leaving not much for me to do but hang out in my ghostly room or stroll through the ghostly park across the street.
Since I was a night owl, and opposed to getting assaulted again, I opted for lots of booze to get me through the night again. I figured if I was drunk enough, maybe I wouldn’t notice what the ghosts were doing to me.
Ironically, I’d still not heard the voices of any children while I was here, although, admittedly I’d spent as much time outside of this damned inn as I could. I still wasn’t giving in. Riot kept digging to see if I was freaked out, but I kept my cool and didn’t let him see me
