Sound blotted out. I opened my eyes, and rising towers of cabinets met me.
Some called this a memory palace. I liked to think I wasn’t that pretentious. It was a simple receptacle for that which must be stored. In all instances, that described a storage room. Not a palace.
Rainey de Souza.
Rainey: English girl name meaning queen. Uncommon.
I did not go deeper down the aisle connected to names and meanings. Irrelevant trivia. If any name was to be important, it was de Souza.
De Souza: name originated from Sousa River in northern Portugal. History of name in Bedlam...
I took five steps, passed smaller cabinets, and turned down an aisle housing the history and families of Bedlam, once Crystal Canyon.
My fingers twitched, moving with me as I flipped through the folders, searching, searching, searching—
Here.
I withdrew the first instance of their name, sinking into my four-year-old memory. Mother is sitting on the couch, laying my flashcards on the kitchen table. I kneel on the carpet, glancing up at the television in the interval.
“—local couple passed in the accident on Chaney Bridge. Hudson and Aria de Souza. They leave behind two little girls and a family that will love and miss them dearly—”
I pulled out of the memory, letting the flood of information it sparked pour in.
That accident was caused by a drunk driver swerving into the wrong lane. That driver was a wasted nineteen-year-old, and he wasn’t killed, only Rainey’s parents were. There was no logical or illogical way to look at that tragedy and find fault with Rainey or her family. That could not be the catalyst that started all of this sixteen years later.
But I have the correct file. This is the right family.
I scanned for something recent in connection with Rainey herself. I came up with nothing. Rainey’s path may have crossed the person she called the Letter Man, but it did not cross mine.
I abandoned that and continued up the family tree. I unearthed a line in an old Dante byline of the Bedlam Journal:
This year’s rulers of Ruckus are Gabriel Lopez, Lincoln Wilson, Anne Thompson, and Elias de Souza.
“Date,” I hissed. The pressure built, bearing down on my skull as I forced the eighteen-year-old me to look up, see the date, remember. Come on.
He looked up, lighting on April 14, 1969.
“1969,” I said to Legend. He was still in the middle of creating what I knew would become French bread pizza. “Dante named an Elias de Souza a Ruckus King.”
“Interesting. What does that make him? Rainey’s grandfather?”
“Or a great-uncle.”
“Anything happen that year?”
I shook my head. “An event that could lead to what is happening now would be closer to the surface. Easy for us all to recall. Some Royales were broken up by the cops. One was hosed out in 1976 when revelers set a fire that got out of control. Nothing special happened that year.”
“Nothing that we know about,” he corrected. “Who were the sacrifices? Maybe Cavendish’s grandpa ended up on a stake.”
“A family member’s humiliation is not enough to motivate a young member to give his life avenging them. None of the sacrifices died that night. We were first in Royale history to lose one.”
“Again I say, that we know of. Something could’ve happened that night that no one knew about. Something they covered up,” he said. “Rainey said she and her sister were never allowed to go to the Royales. Their grandmother kept them in. If her husband or brother was happy to take part and be a King, what caused her hatred of the party years later?”
I nodded, going down another aisle. “Your reasoning is sound. There is something going on that none of us knows about. Not even Rainey herself. But if she can’t give us insight, we have no way of understanding who or why this man has targeted her. It is safe to assume Elias de Souza is either dead or incapacitated, otherwise Rainey would’ve had someone to reach out to when this began.”
“Most likely,” he agreed. “I’d like to say this isn’t our problem, but—”
“—it will be if she finds out.”
His clenched jaw and neck were visible from across the island. “Some freak-ass death cult press-ganging pretty farm girls into burning men alive. That’s the kind of thing that gets a town noticed. She’ll order us to put them down if she gets word.”
“Or put down Rainey.”
Legend’s gaze drifted up, peering through two floors to where our pet slept. “Yes. Or her.”
“I’d rather she not die,” I said, and found I meant it.
“Same. The girl can take a paddle as good as Roan,” he said. “Plus, I get hard just thinking of that hot little mouth. I’ve been lying through my fucking teeth saying she isn’t good at blow jobs.”
My pants tented. I can imagine.
And imagining was all I was doing. All logic and reason dictated there was no sight more delicious than Rainey de Souza on her knees, glaring defiantly even as those ivory cheeks readied for another slap. She said it would do me good to slip in a few treats amid my health shakes. What the hell else did you call my morning dates with her?