“What?” I ask, unsure of exactly what he means. He doesn’t reply. “What does that mean?” I try again. Still, he doesn’t answer. I stare straight at him and find that his eyes are closed. In my periphery, I see Ara is sitting against the bars. Pike is on the other side. They try to comfort each other. But my eyes only linger there for a moment. A female catches my attention.
Sitting with her back against the wall opposite my sister and with her knees tucked to her chest, her face is veiled by long, blonde hair that flows into her lap like liquid sunshine. Fairer than any hair color I’ve seen, it’s a yellow so pale it stands out against the dingy light of the cell. Thick and straight, it obscures her features. Bruises cover the parts of her arms and legs that aren’t covered. Old scars pair with fresher wounds. Despite the scrapes, cuts and marks, her posture remains intact, her spine straight with only her neck lowered. I’m startled when she looks up unexpectedly. It’s not the line of her long, slender neck, or the hollows of her clavicle that lead to narrow but muscled shoulders, and it’s not her high cheekbones, full lips or pert nose that cause my breath to temporarily catch in my chest. It’s her eyes. Arresting in every sense of the word, her eyes are ice over water, a blue so clear and unique, I struggle to look away. Her stare is chill as it clashes with mine. Defiance lingers in the depths of her gaze. That and ferocity, an indomitable will to live. I’m vaguely aware that my mouth hangs open and I undoubtedly look like a buffoon. I know I should speak. Say something. Anything at this point. But words completely escape me.
“What’re you looking at, corpse?” Her voice is velvet edged in steel as she addresses me unflinchingly.
I swallow hard and feel one corner of my mouth tilt upward. “Corpse?”
She smirks. It’s intended to be a mean expression but when she lowers her chin and her eyebrows raise with the smirk, she somehow manages to make it…beautiful. “Not yet, but you will be soon enough,” she warns. “Not many last more than a few days here.”
“What?” I ask. “Why is that?” I wait for a reply but am ignored. Her head snaps left to where two older females approach Ara. They position themselves on either side of her and pull her away from Pike.
“Well, aren’t you a pretty little thing?” One of them asks with a predatory gleam in her eyes. Long hair, ungroomed and resembling frayed ropes, hangs to the middle of her back.
“It’ll be a shame to ruin those looks of yours,” the other says and drags the knuckles of one hand down my sister’s cheek. Several of her teeth are missing and her hair is shorn short so that it sticks up in tiny bristles. I’d mistake her for a man were it not for the sharp curve of her waist.
Ara recoils. “Leave me alone.”
The two women move in closer, their movements are as rapacious as a Night Lurker.
Springing to her feet in one fluid movement, the girl with the ice-blue eyes and flaxen hair places her body between Ara and the women. “Back off,” she advises.
“We’re just having a little fun,” the woman with the bedraggled hair snarls. “Mind your business!”
“I’m making her my business.” Cobalt eyes flash with something untamed, something dangerous. Her shoulders are squared and her toned muscles are tense, revealing a strong, athletic frame. She looks like a warrior. She takes a step forward. Her nose is inches from the woman with knotted hair. Words are exchanged, low and inaudible. I strain to hear, but their tones are hushed, not meant for my ears. I’m grateful when both women retreat, leaving my sister in peace. “Thank you,” I say.
The blonde girl whirls on me. “I didn’t do it for you.” Her eyes are flat though she attempts to glare at me.
“What’s your name?” I ask.
“Reyna,” she replies and looks away from me.
“I’m Lucas.” I shift my weight from one leg to the other, hoping her gaze will return to me.
“And I didn’t ask,” she replies sharply.
Rendered speechless by her response, I’m left staring at her, my cheeks blazing and feeling like an idiot. She actively ignores me and I shift my weight from one leg to the other. Suddenly, however, my attention is ripped from her when a commotion in the tunnel distracts me. I hear loud voices and shouting.
“Things are about to get much worse for you.” A voice as soft as summer rain but shivering with bolts of power as raw as lightning reaches out to me. I look to Reyna and realize she’s addressing me. But before I have time to respond, the gate is opened and three more humans, who look to be around twenty, are ushered in. Each is male and each have physiques that look as though they’ve been carved from stone. All wearing their hair in long, low ponytails that hang between their shoulder blades, held together by leather bands. Blood smears mar their bodies, the metallic scent of it so thick as it surrounds them I can practically taste it. They enter, seemingly oblivious of me and my family. They’re too excited, talking animatedly to one another and offering congratulatory slaps on the back. When they do finally notice me, their expressions harden. Dark brown eyes narrowing to lethal slashes, the man closest to me leans forward at the waist, his fists planted on his hips. He glowers at Kohl, Pike and I. “This is the scum who killed Gannon, Teo and Keen?” he advances a step, placing himself arm’s length from me.
Seeing this, Kohl jumps to his feet and closes the distance between them. “Who wants to know?” Chest puffed out and shoulders back, thick cords of muscle cover every inch of my brother’s body, making him look as deadly as any man I’ve ever seen.
“I do,” the man replies, matching Kohl’s threatening tone.
“And who are you to ask?” Kohl’s muscles twitch visibly. He’s prepared to strike at any time. So am I. I feel the sick flutter in my belly that precedes battle. I’m becoming all too familiar with it.
“Cas, that’s who I am. And those guys you murdered were with us. You are not supposed to be alive.” Cas levels a deadly gaze at Pike and Ara, then at me. “Their deaths will be answered with yours.”
“They were going to kill us!” I protest.
Cas turns to me. “You still stand so they didn’t. But I will, rest assured.”
“We’ll see about that,” Kohl inches closer, commanding Cas’s attention.
“Don’t.” Reyna’s voice reaches out to me, urgent but sweet all the same. I turn, powerless to stop myself from following the sound. I’m grateful I do. When I see her, she points to the tunnel, to where two Urthmen approach. I return my attention to Cas. He leers at her then smiles. “Those Urthmen are the only reason I haven’t killed you yet.” He licks his front teeth then stretches his lips over them tightly. “Like we just killed the rest of your friends.”
“The rest of our friends?” I echo what he’s said, confused.
“We just met with the rest of the people you came here with in the arena. Don’t worry, though, it wasn’t a long meeting.” Cas chuckles. The sound is pure malice and causes the other two to laugh as well.
The reality of what happened to the rest of the people who came from our village—my friends—coats me like scum on a pond. The blood. Cas’ and the others’ excitement. It was a celebration. They were celebrating victory in the arena. Only their victory was the slaughter of any remaining kids from my camp. This realization dawns on Kohl, too. He lunges, shouting, “Murdering filth!” His fist is cocked when an Urthman moves to the gate.
“Separate, humans!” he commands. “If there’s any trouble here, no one eats or drinks for the next twenty-four hours, do you understand me?”
After hostile glances are volleyed from Cas and his friends and us, we reluctantly nod. They move to the farthest corner of the cell, where Cas holds court and regales the other two with how he decapitated his last kill. Hearing him brag outrages me. I have trouble ignoring him but force myself to remain silent. I want my family to eat, so I don’t have a choice. I make my way over to where Reyna sits and collapse with one shoulder against the bars. “What is happening here?” I ask Kai, who sits a few feet away.
“I told
you,” Kai’s voice echoes through the ether. “We are waiting for our time to die.”
Reyna drills me with her haunting gaze. And in the seconds after the words leave Kai, they linger in the air like spectral beings. Reyna and I understand their meaning. We understand our fate. Our days are numbered. We’re awaiting our slaughter.
Chapter 9
I startle awake to the sound of the cell door opening. I don’t know how long I’ve been asleep or what time it is, but I assume it’s in the hours before dawn. My body senses it, has that bone-tired weariness unique to middle of the night stirrings. Feeling as though I’m being sucked into the floor by an unseen force, I rally every bit of strength I have and prop myself up onto my elbows. Opposing the pull is a challenge. I’m exhausted in every sense of the word, yet something deep inside me warns that I need to fight the fatigue and stay alert.
Straining to see through the gloom of the windowless cell, I make out a shape. Large and hulking, I immediately recognize it as belonging to the Urthman who not only placed us in our cells, but also insisted on separating us. Wan light from an object at his hip draws my gaze to his face. His oblong head bulges on one side. His eyes are black, but rimmed in ruby-red, and one hangs markedly lower than the other, lending his appearance an aspect of fright that nearly matches his imposing height. He does not have a nose, just holes that are larger and deeper looking than any other Urthman I have had the misfortune of seeing, and his mouth is little more than a cruel slash across the lower half of his face. He rears his head back and the slash widens to reveal jagged teeth that resemble rows of sharpened arrow tips, and I feel my heart stop mid-beat. I hadn’t noticed just how grotesque he is earlier. I’d been too worried about Ara, then too distracted by Reyna. Now, however, in the deepest part of the night, when everyone sleeps, a veritable monster stands in my wake. I immediately tense at the sight of him, my hand flying to reach over my shoulder instinctively, to where my blade was always sheathed. Nothing is there, of course. I was stripped of my weapons days earlier. The hideous Urthman lingers in the doorway for several moments before entering. He doesn’t enter this side of the conjoined cells. Instead, he stays on the side the females occupy, moving from one sleeping girl to the next. He inches dangerously close to my sister, stopping. He stares at her for a long while, setting my heart racing at a gallop. Worry plagues me. No longer feeling as though they’re made of lead, my muscles bunch and my body jerks upright. All I can think of is that I will kill the towering, monstrous Urthman where he stands with my bare hands if he so much as lays a finger on Ara, though I have no idea how. Bars keep me from him, from protecting her. Still, I’m ready to spring to my feet and attack when finally he moves past her and grabs the arm of a girl who sleeps beside her and looks to be about sixteen. The girl’s eyes pop open and her face contorts into a mask of terror. “No, please, no. Not again,” she murmurs.
“Shut your mouth, human,” the Urthman growls in a low, threatening voice. “Unless you don’t want to come back at all.” He drags her from the cell, her body scraping along the unforgiving stone floor.
The girl doesn’t cry out in pain, and she doesn’t utter another word. Tears flood her eyes and flow down her cheeks. She sobs silently. The sight of it makes my stomach feel as though it’s filled with snakes slithering over and under each other. I rise, not sure of what I’ll do but powerless to stop myself.
“I wouldn’t do that.” A voice transcends the desperate darkness that veils the cells. I look over my shoulder and see that Reyna is sitting upright, her hair haloing brilliant blue eyes that pierce the gloom. She is the only one among the girls in the cell who isn’t lying still, pretending to sleep.
“Why?” I ask in a voice that’s little more than a whisper.
“He’ll kill her then kill your sister while you watch. Is that what you want?” she replies. Her words are a finely honed blade that drags across my chest. I look at Ara. She sleeps, her chest rising and falling evenly. I look around my cell. The men with me, including Pike and Kohl, sleep as well. I consider waking my brothers but decide against it given what Reyna has just said. There isn’t a need to rouse them so they can feel as useless as I do at the moment. There’s nothing I or they can do, so I let them sleep, unaware, just as my sister sleeps, unaware of the monster who stole into the cell moments ago and snatched a sleeping girl. When my gaze returns to Reyna, rage flashes in her eyes. “It’s the way of things here.”
I walk over to the bars, closer to her. “Where’d he take her?” I ask the question but warning whispers up my spine that the answer may make me feel worse than I do now.
She levels a cerulean gaze my way. “He took her for his own enjoyment.”
I lift one brow. “His own enjoyment? What do you mean?”
Her eyes narrow and she searches my face. “What do you think I mean?” The look on her face says it all. He took the girl to fulfill some perverse pleasure.
“An Urthman with a human? I didn’t think they’d do such a thing. I always thought that they looked at us as…I don’t know…animals.”
“They do,” Reyna hisses with disgust. “And if any of the others knew what he was doing, he’d be executed.”
I pause as I weigh her words. And when I do, another thought crosses my mind. I feel the blood drain from my face. “Does he do this to all of you?” This question thunders through my brain on a roar of panic as I look at Ara’s sleeping form.
Reyna follows my gaze. When I turn to her, a small frown curves her lips. “He usually waits a few weeks with the new arrivals.” She shakes her head and licks her lips. Her nostrils flare and her features harden. “It’s like he’s building up anticipation.”
By Reyna’s words, Ara only has weeks before he comes for her. “So my sister…” My voice trembles as it trails off. I’m unable to finish my sentence. The world around me tilts, the slick slide of fear and rage colliding and sending me sloping toward a dark abyss from which there is no return. “He’ll die before that happens,” I grind out each word, making my conviction plain.
“I told you already, doing that guarantees her a slow, painful death you’ll have to witness.” Reyna clips her head toward Ara. All I can see is my parents’ deaths. How brutal and vicious they were. I won’t allow that to happen to Ara, but the alternative is equally as hideous in another way.
I ball my hand into a fist so tight my knuckles turn white. “I know.” I close my eyes and shake my head slowly. “It’s a lose-lose situation.” I open my eyes and exhale loudly. “What about telling the others what he does? That would end it for sure, right?”
Reyna glares at me. “Do you honestly think they’d believe me over him?”
“No. No, I don’t,” I reply dejectedly.
“Of course they wouldn’t. It would end up far worse for us if I even attempted to speak out against him.”
Silence stretches between us for several beats. Reyna’s head is lowered but her posture remains ramrod straight. With her not looking, I study the multitude of scrapes and bruises. Some appear old, but many appear to be new. Though I know virtually nothing about her, my heart aches for her. She is lean and fit, and her posture exudes confidence and strength, but there’s something about her—an unspoken characteristic or quality—that exudes vulnerability. And while I know precious little about her, I’d bet that if she knew I was aware of that trace of vulnerability, she’d be furious. She’d be even angrier if she knew that a part of me wants nothing more than to protect that softness I see. The inexplicable urge to defend what she’d see as a flaw causes me to blush. I’m grateful for the dim light of the cell. I don’t dare look at her face lest her eyes lock on mine. I fear the clash would reveal what I’m feeling. My gaze drops again, and lands on her injuries. A sick pit forms in my stomach. “He’s done that to you, too.” The words float from me without warning. Before I have a chance to stop what should have been a question—if it slipped out at all!—it spills from me. I brace myself for her to lash out at me.
Her hea
d rises quickly, her chin tilted upward in an almost defiant manner. “He’s tried many times.”
“Tried?” I question the past-tense use of the word.
“Yes. Tried. He finally stopped. It wasn’t worth the effort.” She makes a soft sound as she exhales.
My brow furrows and I search her eyes. “What do you mean?”
Glacial tunnels of countless hurts lock on mine. The look is so withering I don’t know whether I want to shrivel into my own skin the way a turtle retreats into his shell, or leap from my seated position and wrap both arms around her, hugging her until the soul-deep chill in her eyes thaws. Of course, I do neither. Instead, I remain as I am, staring at her with goofy, wide-eyed wonder and a dose of inexplicable fear.
“I resisted. Made too much noise. I put up a fight.” She raises her hands to her head and rakes her fingers through her hair. When she does, I see countless black and blues all along her forearms. Defensive injuries, all of them. She catches me looking and lowers her hands to her sides. “Resisting him forces him to beat me. He’s beaten me until I nearly died each time.” She closes her eyes as if she’s reliving the scene. “But I’ll take the beating anytime over the alternative.” A small, mirthless laugh sounds from her throat. She opens her eyes, and what I see in them when she does makes my breathing ratchet up a notch. I see resolve. Resolve swirls in the depths of her mesmeric gaze. I’ve never seen such strength and courage in a woman. In any human being.
Suddenly parched, I swallow hard and wonder aloud why the others don’t do the same. “What about the other girls? Why don’t they fight too?”
“They can’t take it, can’t take the abuse.” She shakes her head in disgust. “It’s horrible. But I welcome his fists rather than the other option.”
The thought of his wretched hands on her sickens me. I look away and see Ara. Golden spirals fan out around her head. Sleeping, she looks even younger than her fourteen years. Imagining the vile Urthman coming for her evokes uncontrollable ire to snap through my veins like lightning. “What he does, it won’t happen to Ara. I won’t allow it to happen.” Veins of fury quiver in my voice. “We need to let the other Urthmen know. We need to make them know.”
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