Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 90672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90672 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
“You think but don’t actually know. Based on what he described, he seemed to be jumping around in time.”
“It’s something to go off of, at least,” Seth mumbles before Cody interjects, I assume to keep Seth and me from spinning around in our frustration.
“The original Sinners said the Slashers need to take breaks after they feed—at least in their early development. It’s a physical creature, an animal, so it grows and evolves like any other. If we’re right, we have some time to sort this out. I say we all meet with Luke again. This time, we have a more open dialogue about everything, including the Lust you two are experiencing, if you’re both comfortable sharing that. And then we start acquainting Luke with some of the tricks we’ve used. Help him figure out his powers the way we learned how to figure out ours. Luke’s powers seem to allow him to get inside this Slasher’s head. If he can find a way to control that, maybe we can find out where it’s hiding.”
“What if we don’t have time for that?” I ask.
“I’m not strong enough to go back under yet,” Cody says. “I do wonder if there’s a way I could piggyback off what Luke’s doing and maybe use that, but that’s gonna take time to figure out.”
“I don’t like that,” Seth says. “It sounds dangerous.”
“It’s all dangerous,” Cody says. “But with that thing out there, we’re gonna have to take risks. We also have to hope I’m right and that we have some time to try and make sense of this.”
“And if we’re wrong?” I ask.
Cody’s gaze sinks. “Then at least one more person will die.”
So like with so much of this shit, what choice do any of us have?
15
LUKE
“You can’t keep doing this,” I say.
Brad messaged me this morning to let me know the guys were meeting at the church again. He didn’t push, but I agreed to meet them. We were gonna have to deal with all the shit that came up on Friday sooner or later.
Once there, Cody took the lead, telling me about their interpretations of the visions, about a monster called the Slasher that the original Sinners discussed, and about their plan.
“Keep doing what?” Seth asks. I don’t know if this guy can talk without sounding like an asshat.
“You clearly had another of your secret club meetings and reached all these conclusions without running any of this by me.”
“We actually know what we’re dealing with here,” Seth says. “You don’t.”
“If I’ve learned anything, it’s that you don’t know all that much about what’s going on. And as long as you keep having secret meetings, I’m always gonna be in the dark.”
“Luke has a valid point,” Cody says, glaring at Seth. “I understand why you feel that way, but we were trying to give you some space, and we had some insightful discussions that included how we need to involve you more.”
His words set me at ease. Given how pissed I was when I rushed out last time, I hardly expected them to text me to brainstorm about our next steps. But they did ask me here, and at least Brad and Cody sound like they’re trying to involve me in the process.
“That’s fair,” I say. “But I don’t think you guys appreciate how shitty it is to always be the last to know what’s going on, and on top of that, getting curveballs like finding out my dad was in this group and none of you bothered to mention it. It makes me feel like you’re probably not telling me other things that are gonna rear their head and fuck with me later.”
“I get that,” Brad says. “But that’s not how we’re moving forward. You said it yourself: we have to work together if we’re gonna find and kill this thing. And the plan Cody was describing isn’t set in stone. You can interject if you have a better idea or if you think of a way of looking at this that we haven’t considered.”
I’m waiting for Seth to chime in with some asshole remark, but he just stands there, arms folded, silent.
Even though the guys sound much more reasonable than on Friday, it doesn’t change that they kept that secret about my dad from me. It’s the sort of thing that’ll make it hard for me to trust them, but knowing Dad was part of the original Sinners when he went to St. Lawrence is one of the reasons I’m standing here today. As much as these guys may have tried to fuck me over when I first got here, there’s an important connection here, one I have to explore.
“Okay,” I say. “So based on what I described, we have some time to see if we can find this Slasher—if that’s what we have to call it.”