Sacrifice (Ritual Sins #2)

13. Rose

13

Rose

It only took a few minutes of walking down the path away from Alderwood for the full weight of my decision to hit me. The village was already behind me, up on the mountaintop, but I could still feel it—every stone, every shrub, every face, every memory, pulling at me like invisible threads.

Twenty-four years. My whole life, my whole world , was back there in the village. I kept telling myself that it was the right choice, that leaving was necessary for my survival, but knowing that didn’t make it any easier. My father’s heartbroken face was lingering in my mind’s eye, haunting me, and I had to grit my teeth and physically stop myself from turning around and running right back like nothing had ever happened.

Sebastian squeezed my hand again, flashing me a faint yet reassuring smile as we trudged down the moonlit path. I returned the smile, eyes conveying a silent message: Thank you.

He was the only person I knew beyond Alderwood; the only reason I was able to find the strength to break away from all the years of conditioning and take my first steps into the outside world.

Every time he looked at me, with those gorgeous eyes that seemed to peer right into my soul and understand every part of me, I felt a surge of warmth mixed with profound longing. I loved him more than I’d ever imagined loving anyone.

Choosing to be with him meant losing everything I’d once known, and I knew the pain from that would stay with me for a long time. But I had his love and support. That would get me through it all in the end.

“What are we going to do once we get off the mountain?” I asked, tilting my gaze toward him again.

He glanced at his watch. “It’s four in the morning, so I think the first thing we should do is go home and get some sleep.”

“Good idea.” I nodded slowly. “And your father? Do you have any idea what you’re going to do about him yet?”

His jaw tightened. “I’ll turn him in. But I want to speak to him first. Confront him and record the whole thing.”

“So you have evidence to give to the police?”

“Exactly,” he replied in a low voice. “He’s got a hell of a lot of wealth and power on his side, and he’s already been shielded from the consequences of what he did for two decades, thanks to my family. That means it’s going to take a hell of a lot more than my word to put him away for the murder.”

“Do you know how you’ll approach the conversation?”

Sebastian shook his head. “I’ll have to think about it. Figure out the right wording,” he said. “But thankfully, we have the upper hand right now.”

“Because he doesn’t know that you know anything yet?”

“Yup. Right now, he thinks I have no idea at all. Thinks he got away with everything and always will. So he won’t see it coming.”

“You must be utterly furious with him,” I said, upper lip curling with a mix of revulsion and anger. “He lied to you all these years. Made you and the rest of the world believe the Covenant was responsible for everything that happened, when it was him all along. He’s a monster.”

“Fury doesn’t even begin to describe what I feel toward him right now,” he replied. There was a hard steel beneath his words. “I can still hardly believe it.”

“Me neither,” I murmured, casting my eyes to the ground. “There’s a lot I’m finding hard to believe right now.”

“I can imagine.” Sebastian withdrew his hand from mine and slung his arm around me instead, pulling me even closer. “But like I said before… it’ll all be okay in the end. We’ll get through this. Together.”

“Together,” I repeated, giving him another faint smile.

We finally reached the bottom of the mountain and made our way over to Sebastian’s car, which he’d left parked at an empty rest stop across the road. It was nearly five o’clock in the morning now, but the world around us was still dark, the air frigid and biting.

When we reached the car, Sebastian’s phone began to chime in his pocket.

“What’s that? Is someone calling you this early?” I asked, brows rising.

He shook his head and clicked a button to unlock the doors. “It’s all my notifications coming through now that I finally have cell service again,” he said as he reached down to open the passenger door for me. “Probably just emails.”

“Ah.” I had no idea what an email was, but that seemed like a question for another time.

I got into the car and leaned back in the seat, savoring the immediate warmth that washed over my skin. Sebastian went around to the driver’s side and climbed in. When he switched on the car, his phone automatically connected to the car screen, displaying several notifications.

“Shit,” he murmured. “Jesse tried calling me thirteen times while I was up there.”

“You should probably call him back. There could be some sort of emergency.”

Sebastian nodded as he pulled the car out onto the road. “Call Jesse,” he commanded the car. Like magic, it did as he said, and a ringing sound echoed through the space surrounding us.

Jesse answered on the seventh ring. “Hello?” he said, voice sounding groggy with exhaustion.

“It’s Seb. You called me a bunch of times. Everything okay?”

“Not really.” Jesse let out a long, drawn-out yawn. “Fuck… what time is it?”

“Around five. My phone only just got service again. Anyway, what’s happening?”

Jesse yawned again before he replied. “Have you spoken to your dad lately?”

Sebastian stiffened, and he tightened his grip on the wheel. “Not really. Why?”

“I got fucking fired last night. By him. ”

“What?”

“It was so weird. I ran into him at the hospital just as my shift was ending. We chatted about some boring stuff for a while, like the weather or whatever, and then I asked him if he’d caught up with you when you were here a couple of days ago,” Jesse said. “He asked what I was talking about, so I told him that we’d both been looking into some possible errors in the reproductive health archives. Specifically in the old IVF data.”

A tiny muscle was ticking in Sebastian’s jaw. “You told him that?” he asked, voice low. “In exactly those words?”

“Pretty much. I figured he’d want to know, and I also figured you might’ve told him about it already. But as soon as I brought it up, he fucking fired me.”

“Shit,” Sebastian muttered, drumming his fingertips against the wheel.

“It was like a switch just flipped in him,” Jesse went on. “He was totally cool when we first started talking, but as soon as I brought up the IVF archives, he suddenly got angry and started raving on about my ‘poor quality of work’ or some bullshit. And that was it. My job, down the drain. He marched me down to security, practically ripped my ID badge off, and told the guys there not to let me back on the premises. I mean, what the fuck, man?”

Sebastian coughed to clear his throat. “You definitely told him that I know about the data anomalies? Not just you?”

“Yeah.” Jesse’s voice was tinged with confusion now. “I mean… you do know about it. But why the fuck would he fire me for finding a bunch of stupid old mistakes that probably don’t even matter anymore? Has he said anything to you about it at all?”

“No. But I’ll sort all this shit out. Just hang in there, man, and don’t talk to my dad again. Don’t even go near him if you can help it, okay?”

“Okay.” Jesse sighed. “Staying away from him won’t be an issue, seeing as I’m not allowed at the hospital anymore.”

“I’m sorry you got caught up in this shit, man. Really. I’ll do my best to fix it.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem.” Sebastian pressed a red button on the car screen to end the call. Then he braked, opened his window, yanked his phone out of his pocket, and tossed it outside.

With that, he started the car again and took off down the road, lips set in a grim line. “You heard all of that, right?” he said, glancing over at me.

I nodded, eyes wide and heart racing. “Every word,” I said in a tremulous voice. “Your father must’ve realized that you know now, right? Or at least that you suspect something?”

“Yup.” Sebastian’s grip was so tight on the wheel that his knuckles were turning white. “He knows we’re onto him. He fucking knows .”