Merciless Villains (Ruthless Villains Book 5)

By the time we had found the tunnel and made it through to the other side, the sun had slipped almost entirely beyond the horizon. Only a splash of yellow remained to the west while the rest of the sky was drenched in ever darkening shades of blue. I squinted at the gloomy gardens before us.

“So… we bypassed the army.” I looked over my shoulder even though the foliage was far too dense to provide any views of Quill’s army on the other side. Then I turned back to the equally thick woodlands still ahead. “But how the hell are we supposed to make it through the rest of the gardens?”

As far as I could tell, the escape tunnel had only taken us halfway to the mansion. I supposed it made sense. Grant being the paranoid sort that he was probably didn’t want people to be able to just walk right up to his home, in case the tunnel was ever compromised. And while I understood his reasoning, it posed a serious obstacle for us right now.

Callan shrugged. “I guess we’ll just have to hope that Grant finds us before we can slaughter each other while lost in some kind of magic-induced psychosis.”

For a while, we just stood there. Side by side. Watching the dusky woods.

Deep purple flowers that glittered as if they had been dusted with starlight dotted the trees up ahead, and along the branches to our left were some sort of round fruits that pulsed with orange light. The thick grass that covered the ground looked untouched. As if no one had passed through here in years.

Once again, I looked behind me in an effort to try to estimate how far from the border we were. But in the dark, it was impossible. I turned back around and met Callan’s gaze while lifting my shoulders in a shrug.

“Well…” I smacked my lips. “If we haven’t managed to kill each other for five years, despite our best efforts, I’m sure we’ll survive this too.”

Callan huffed out a laugh. “True.”

After drawing in a bracing breath, we started towards the mansion. I flicked a suspicious glance up at the sparkling flowers above, wondering what sort of emotion they had been created to summon. I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out. But at least they provided some much-needed light to the otherwise dark path.

“No dreamfoil,” Callan said after a couple of minutes of silence.

I swept my gaze around the area again while we walked. “No. But it’s a pretty weak plant compared to what Grant can create with his magic, so I guess it’s only used at the very edge of the gardens.”

“Weak? It made me think I was stranded on a pillar above a chasm.”

“I said compared to what he can create with his magic.” Bitterness crawled up my throat as I shot him an irritated look. “Did you even listen to what I said?”

He glared back at me. “You’re the one trying to downplay the dangers.”

“No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are.”

“Just keep your damn eyes on the path.”

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

We stalked forward in sullen silence. It was such a waste. We were walking through a beautiful garden, full of glittering flowers and magical plants, but Callan was ruining the whole experience with his damn attitude. Maybe it would have been better if we had split up.

However, before I could voice those thoughts, something moved at the corner of my eye.

Jerking to a halt, I whipped towards it.

Shock pulsed through me.

For a few seconds, I just stood there, staring at the scene before me. It was a kitchen. Or rather, half of a kitchen. The one from my childhood home. Three people were inside. By one of the polished wooden counters, my father poured coffee into a red ceramic mug, while my mother looked over the papers that were fanned out around her on the table. Next to her was my sister, Jenny. She was drinking from a tall glass of water. Sweat trickled down her neck, and her shirt was damp with it too.

And then, I showed up.

Appearing out of thin air, a younger version of me walked through the doorway and into the kitchen. Younger me dragged a hand through her hair and then stretched her arms above her head, as if she had been sitting in the same position for a long time.

“Audrey,” my father said, looking up from his now full cup. “We just got back.” He moved over to stand behind my sister’s chair and clapped her on the shoulder. “Did you know that your sister ran ten miles today?”

My fifteen-year-old self looked between the two of them. “No, I didn’t.”

He patted her on the shoulder again before taking a large gulp of coffee. “Well, she did. What did you do today?”

Bitterness swelled in my throat, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from the scene. Or rather the memory.

“Studied,” my younger self replied while an iron mask descended over her features.

“Well, that’s good. But remember what your athletics teacher said? You need to improve both your speed and your agility if you’re going to catch up to Jenny someday.”

Fifteen-year-old me stared back at them in silence for two seconds before turning around and walking back out of the kitchen while saying, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

The bitterness inside me was so potent that I could almost taste it as it burned its way down my throat and into my stomach.

“What are you doing?” Callan growled from my other side. “Why do you always act as if you know best when all you do right now is to slow us down?”

I whirled towards him, ready to spit a retort back at him, but something tapped at the corner of my mind. Bitterness. Why was I feeling so bitter all of a sudden? Both bitter at Callan and at…

Bitterness.

Fuck. Not again.

“It’s the flowers,” I said, trying to force my mind back into the present. “Callan, the flowers. They’re like that fruit we ate back in your dining room. The one we stole from this garden.”

Callan looked like he was about to argue. Then he blinked and shook his head violently. “Shit.”

“Yeah.”

Leaving the kitchen scene behind, I hurried over to Callan and took his hand in a firm grip. “Walk. And no matter how much bitterness you feel towards me right now, don’t say anything. This is meant to make us fight and drive us apart. Just hold my hand and walk.”

His strong hand was warm against mine as he held it tightly.

The kitchen scene faded behind me as we continued towards the mansion, but another one soon took its place. I gritted my teeth and squeezed Callan’s hand harder as another half-formed room appeared between the dark trees.

My parents were sitting on the couch in our living room, going through papers and talking softly. I was younger in this memory, somewhere between ten and eleven, and I was standing right outside the doorway, hidden in the shadows.

“Audrey learned to throw her magic today,” my mother said. Looking up from the document she had been reading, she met my father’s eyes. “I mean, not as well as Jenny, of course. But still.”

My younger self, who had been about to knock on the doorframe and go inside, turned and disappeared back into the shadows.

I ground my teeth so hard that I thought they were going to shatter. Why was Callan walking so fucking slowly? I just wanted to get out of here. We should split up so that I could go on ahead instead of having to linger here because he didn’t have it in him to move faster. Hell damn it, why…

Shaking my head violently, I tried to dispel the effects of Grant’s magic. It didn’t work. Bitterness welled up inside me like a flood, and it took everything I had to stop myself from yanking my hand out of Callan’s and taking out all of my misery on him.

A blurry classroom materialized on my right. I didn’t want to look at it, but my eyes were somehow still drawn to the thirteen-year-old Audrey who sat there. The teacher, an older woman with grey hair pulled into a bun, read the names of her new students from the paper in her hands.

“Audrey Sable,” she said eventually. Her gaze landed on me, and recognition sparked in her brown eyes as she repeated, “Sable. You’re Jenny Sable’s little sister, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” my younger self replied with a perfectly blank face.

The teacher waved her hand in the air while a smile spread across her face. “Oh, your sister was such a pleasure to teach. Bright, kind, polite, and top of the class on every test.” She gave the younger me another smile. “I’m sure you’ll live up to her standards too.”

I was one second away from yanking my hand from Callan’s grip and throwing an attack at the figures from my memory, or at the damn force mage himself, but right then he tightened his grip on my hand. It was so intense that a pulse of pain shot through my bones, and it snapped me out of the bitterness for a few seconds.

Glancing up, I found Callan glaring at the darkened trees on his left. I had no idea what he was seeing, but if his memories were as delightfully pleasant as mine, he wasn’t having a great time either. Forcing out a long breath through my nose, I tried to keep my mind in the present. But once again, another room from another bitter memory shimmered to life on my right.

This was going to be a long damn walk.