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It’s surprisingly easy to figure out where the Dandies are headquartered. Or, not exactly easy, but certainly not as difficult as it should be. It only takes one girl with trembling hands to escape and tell Pete what the place looked like. From there, he can work backwards. There aren’t that many abandoned nineteen-twenties hotels around.
He doesn’t tell the rest of them what he’s up to. He probably should, just in case he gets ambushed or he loses or something like that, but he knows they’ll try to talk him out of it if he does. Patrick and Joe will, anyway. Andy might not approve but he would probably understand. Pete doesn’t tell any of them where he goes when he goes searching for the building. And when he doesn’t spot Beckett among the Dandies at the brawl, he manages to slip away.
He’s staked out the building for weeks. Still and silent between branches, watching groups of neatly dressed men filter in and out. Beckett always has at least three of them with him. Pete recognizes Carden by now, always at Beckett’s side doing most of his dirty work. The other two seem to vary. He’s pretty sure that every Dandy, Carden included, he’s seen coming in and out of the building is at the brawl. Minus Beckett. From the branches, the hotel looks like there’s no one within. No lights. No sounds. No movement, no shadows. Pete drops down, preparing the crossbow as he makes his way across the courtyard. Dead leaves crunch underfoot. The silence unsettles him more than anything else.
Pete pauses. The front entrance is unlocked, which doesn’t seem right to him. If Beckett isn’t there, he can at least get a proper look at the inside of the place, maybe even determine which room is his. The doors open easily, hinges barely creaking despite their age. No one is in the lobby. It’s certainly grand. Intricate runners cover marble tiles. Plush furniture is arranged in a nearly welcoming way. Cobwebs hang from the glittering chandelier. Pete creeps across the lobby, sure he’s alone but on his guard anyway. It hardly looks like anyone’s been here since its heyday, even though Pete knows that’s not true.
Everything is silent. The grand staircase steps don’t make a sound when he ascends. Pete’s always been light, nearly weightless on his feet, but the still silence of the building can’t be attributed to just his own swiftness. He hopes he finds Beckett so he never has to be in this place again.
He opens the door to every room he comes to, and there’s no one in any of them. Most of them are in half-disarray. Open drawers, upturned boxes, unmade beds, scratched walls and stained carpets. Most of the windows have been boarded shut. It’s the same story room after room. On each floor, the decor seems to get a bit nicer, ornate wallpaper that’s all scratched up rather than paneling.
The air is different on the last floor. He shifts, tightens his grip on the crossbow, and creeps across the hall. Most of the rooms don’t even show the disarray of the previous floors, all covered with a thick layer of dust. Pete nearly coughs — even though he doesn’t really breathe the same, dust and pollen and things still tickle his nose. He steps away from the room and closes the door quietly.
“He’s not here.”
Pete almost jumps out of his skin, whipping around and raising his weapon in the direction of the voice. “What?” is all he manages in response. There’s the scratching sound of a match being lit, an orange glow blurring out from one of the rooms. Despite his instincts telling him to leave, he moves slowly towards the glow, coming to the room with his crossbow held, ready to fire.
It’s not Beckett. Pete knew that. It wasn’t his voice. And Beckett would’ve just started taunting him from the beginning. The boy in the room stands over a candle, catching the flame of the match to the wick. When he succeeds, he moves across the room to light another. He doesn’t even look at Pete when he comes in.
“You know, for what it’s worth, I thought that him turning you was a stupid idea.” The boy shrugs his shoulders and extinguishes the match, flicking it aside. “But my thoughts about those things matter very little. And when William’s set on an idea… well, you’re intimately familiar.”
Bewildered, Pete repeats himself. “What?”
“He’s not here, though. So unless you’re looking for me, which I suspect you aren’t, I wouldn’t stay around.”
In different circumstances, Pete might have said maybe I was looking for you. In these circumstances, he gathers himself and, unyielding, points the crossbow directly at the boy’s chest. “Where is he?” Pete asks. He lights a cigarette from the wicks of one of the candles and looks at Pete, bored. Pete thinks of princesses trapped in towers or laying dead in glass coffins until the boy scoffs.
“Please. Why would I tell you?” He shrugs again, one of the sleeves of his hastily buttoned pajama top threatening to slip off his sharp shoulder. It catches Pete’s eye for a fraction of a second. “And I don’t know, but he’s not here. I don’t know when he’s coming back, either.”
The boy sits on the edge of the bed and crosses his legs. He looks at the crossbow, then up at Pete, and extends the pack of cigarettes towards him in offering. Pete doesn’t take it, remaining steady and keeping his aim. “Who are you, then?”
He seems to think to himself for a moment, taking a drag of his cigarette. “Ryan,” he says, setting the pack on the nightstand. “I’d make yourself scarce. I don’t know when the rest of them will be back either.”
“Ryan,” Pete echoes, stepping forward. Ryan doesn’t flinch, barely even looks again at the crossbow. “Before I kill you, what can you tell me?”
Ryan sighs, seeming more inconvenienced than threatened. “Very little. And I know you’re rash, but it would be rather stupid to kill me.”
“Really?” Pete scoffs, moving closer still. Still, he doesn’t flinch. He hardly moves except to smoke his cigarette. It’s irritating. “You don’t seem all that important to the cause, else you wouldn’t be here alone.”
Ryan finally moves, leaning against the headboard and stretching his legs over the bed. Pete adjusts his aim with it. “I never said that. It would be stupid to kill me because Carden would tear your throat right out.” He mimes the action with a nearly wistful grin.
“You really can’t tell me anything?” Pete asks, trying not to let his frustration seep through his words. Ryan hums, playing with the hem of his pajama shirt mindlessly. He’s not very threatening. Pete’s certain it would be easy to take him out, but something stops him from firing. Maybe the threat that Carden would tear your throat right out, or that it just feels too easy.
He seems to come to a decision, holding up three fingers. Pete waits for him to exhale his smoke and start talking. “One. There is no ‘cause’. You’re overthinking — he just likes power.” Ryan folds down one finger. “Two. Keep an eye on your friend. The short one?”
“Patrick?” Pete shifts his weight from foot to foot, feeling suddenly as if the walls are about to close in. “What about him?”
“McCoy likes him.” Ryan shrugs and folds down another finger. He takes another drag of his cigarette. “Three. I’d leave through the window if I were you. I don’t feel like cleaning you off the floor.”
Outside, there’s a sudden commotion, a nearing cacophony of hoots and hollers. Pete jolts, swinging around with the crossbow still in hand. Ryan points at the open window, amused. He escapes through it without a second thought, catching himself on tree branches. Ryan closes the window and resumes his position on the bed, not bothering to look in Pete’s direction.
Pete doesn’t know why he didn’t kill him. It feels so stupid now. He had a Dandy, alone and passive, at the end of an arrow, and he didn’t shoot. He doesn’t know why he doesn’t leave straight away either. From his vantage point, he can see the hotel start to come back to life as the returning horde swarms inside. He doesn’t spot Beckett among them, even with his heightened vision. What he does see is Carden standing over the bed, seemingly having entered Ryan’s room in the split second he looked away, grinning and holding up a bloodied scarf. Ryan grabs at it, but Carden is quicker, wrapping it around his neck and pulling him up to kiss him hard.
It would be so easy to kill them both while they’re distracted, but he doesn’t want to watch any more of this and the branches underneath his feet are starting to quiver and his phone is buzzing, undoubtedly Patrick chewing him out for disappearing. He leaves, dissatisfied.
Later, when he checks Patrick’s files on all the Dandies they know of, there’s no Ryan. None that look like him, none with the same name. He goes over Beckett’s folder, then checks Carden’s again. If it was a trap or a test, it was a damn good one.
He thinks about Carden wrapping the bloodied scarf around his neck, and thinks it might be better if he doesn’t know.