“This isn’t a trial, Miro.” Jack spoke easily—seeming the least unsettled by the evening’s turn of events. “We want to protect her as much as you do, but if that’s the way you want it, then fine. We’ll ask you our questions instead. Who’s first?”
“Where is Weston?” Yas spoke up immediately, her gaze fierce on Quillan, though her arms shook as she crossed them over her chest.
“Weston is in a secure location,” Quillan answered easily. “As is Danny.”
“Danny?” several voices questioned at once.
“Danny is the one who has been stalking Seraph. Silas… detained him. They’re both locked in Weston’s prison at Le Chateau.”
I tried to peer behind Quillan, but Silas remained stubbornly in shadow. I supposed that they had managed to speak in private while I was gone, because it didn’t seem as though Quillan was lying.
“Danny?” Yas echoed, shock lining her face. “Danny has been stalking her?”
“He has the Dead Man’s power,” Quillan said by way of confirmation. “Somehow none of you noticed that, even when he was younger. You blamed another girl—”
“Eva,” I supplied, my voice cracking.
Everyone turned to look at me, but Quillan quickly demanded their attention again.
“The incident that you locked Eva up for was actually orchestrated by Danny. The death of Aiden and his pairs was also orchestrated by Danny—that’s why you didn’t find any wounds or signs of organ damage on any of the victims. Danny used his power on Aiden. Initially, he only knew about Seraph’s bond with Noah and Cabe, and his main focus was separating her from them. That focus shifted at the end of last year, when Dominic Kingsling arranged to have Seraph kidnapped, which ended in the accident—an accident that you are all aware of. What you aren’t aware of, is the fact that Dominic had her locked in his basement for days following the accident. At some point during this mess of events, Danny saw Seraph’s second mark. Silas found out who Danny was while Weston had him hostage. I’m sure you all know how…”
“Yes, I suppose we do.” Alice sounded thoughtful, but also a little shaken. “Weston has always tasked Danny with torture and interrogation projects. He has never been fond of the boy—Danny represents a failure to Weston, since he never declared an ability. We always assumed that Seraph had stolen Danny’s power somehow while the two of them were in the womb. It made sense, seeing as they should have had one each and yet she was born with two and he was born with none—”
“Except that he wasn’t.” Obasi drew everyone’s attention to where he and Nahab were once again positioned against one of the walls. There was a dark undertone riding his words.
“Does he also have two powers?” Nahab asked, his voice thickly accented.
“No.” I spoke up, since I wasn’t sure that Quillan could answer that question. “Not while we were younger, anyway.”
“Takeo,” Alice interrupted suddenly, turning to the silent Japanese man behind her. “Grab your instruments. You’d best come with me; Danny always liked you best.”
Takeo inclined his head slightly and we all watched as he reached down beside one of the chairs and pulled up a black briefcase before following Alice out of the room. I waited for Adie to follow them as well, but he stayed where he was, blue eyes fixed on their retreating forms until they slipped through the mosquito nets and disappeared outside.
“Takeo took Danny on as an apprentice of sorts,” Jack explained, seeming to direct the statement to everyone who wasn’t a Klovoda member, since his attention bounced from Quillan, to me, and back. “He knows Danny better than the rest of us; he’ll have a better chance of dealing with this.”
I frowned, thinking about the fact that Danny had worked with people in the past—people who knew that he was doing bad things… but if Takeo was one of them, then any other member of the Klovoda could also be involved. The entire Klovoda could be involved. I turned my frown on Jayden, who met my expression with raised brows.
I wanted to voice my concern, to ask each of them to give me a good enough reason to trust them… but there wasn’t any point. There was no way to tell a truth from a lie in this room. Instead, I would wait. I would wait for their true colours to show, just as Jayden’s had.
For now, I only wanted to get my pairs as far away from Danny as possible.
The Klovoda could do their job for once, and deal with the rest.
“How?” Jack snapped the word into his phone, his voice projected in distress for the first time since I had met him. “How long? How did they get out?”
It had barely been half an hour since Alice and Takeo had left, and I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing. Apparently, the others were just as shocked as I was.