by Vic Tyler
I whip around to find a figure looming in the shadows of the trees.
When I step back, he steps forward.
My heart starts racing in my chest.
He’s the one they were celebrating that night. The person who sent me flying to the ground multiple times. The man they call Damien.
He’s young. Besides me, he looked like the youngest person at the party — a boy compared to the others — but he must be very important. I’m not sure what they were celebrating, but it was supposed to be a big deal for him to join the Twelve. Whatever that is.
A twinge of fear runs through me, but it’s not because I think he’ll rape me.
I saw him with that pretty blonde lady, stealing touches here and there in the corridors and in the hall.
At least he has a taste for older women. And that’s a relief. As long as it’s older than me.
No, my fear is in the way he moves.
His body isn’t bloated with amped muscles. He’s tall, lean, and slender, muscular but toned, and athletic rather than monstrous, unlike the strongman sitting next to him at the table of honor.
He must be powerful if Cardinal Westlake ordered him to kill the Stepanovs. And I believe it.
I’ve experienced firsthand how fast and strong this man is. The time I bounced off his brick chest and when he trapped me against the floor.
If I’m not careful, he’ll catch me.
Even if I am careful, he might catch me anyway.
“Why are you here?” My eyes dart around.
Where did he come from?
It’s an open lawn except for this line of trees by the fence, and I beelined straight for it. Where was he hiding? Up in the branches?
The man, Damien, doesn’t answer, although I don’t expect him to.
So many secrets. This place is full of them.
“Did you kill them?” The question blurts out of me before I can stop it.
Leaning against the tree trunk, he stands motionless, silently, as he watches me. He’s so still that if he hadn’t said anything, I would’ve never suspected I wasn’t alone.
Just when I think he’s not going to respond, he finally says, “The first and the last are left.”
My heart cheers and stomps in my chest.
Andrei is dead. So are his despicable brothers. Even if Feliks is still running around, at least the numbers of their eyes and hands have diminished.
Soon, I won’t have to fear every shadow and corner to see if they came back to find me.
Soon, I won’t be around for them to find anyway.
But just in case, I voice my anxiety, “Do you know where Feliks is?”
Even though he’s blanketed by the shadows under the trees, Damien’s bright blue eyes shine through the dark. He doesn’t blink even though his unruly black hair breezes over them in the wind.
Why did I stop here in the middle of the unobscured lawn? I’m completely exposed by the moonlight. It was stupid, but at the same time, I didn’t want to be snuck up on and grabbed from behind.
“Yes.” Damien pauses. “He’ll take his last breath tomorrow.”
Despite my resolve to use my adrenaline to escape, I feel my shoulders relax as a weight lifts from my chest. “Thank you.”
He simply nods.
I hesitate before my voice comes out quietly. “Can you spare Rodion?”
“I have my orders,” he says flatly.
“He saved me, so I’d like to save him.”
We stand there, unmoving, unblinking.
“He apologized,” I add. “A lot of the money I gave Cardinal Westlake was from him.”
I used as little of it as possible, just enough to eat and survive and occasionally buy secondhand clothes and shoes if I needed them.
Damien arches an eyebrow. Maybe he finds it ironic that the youngest Stepanov’s money funded his brothers’ deaths. “I’m not seeking justice. I’m carrying out orders.”
“Oh.” My gaze drifts to the side briefly, my chest feeling a little heavier for not being able to help my one friend.
“Are you done?”
My attention darts back to Damien who’s still watching me with the same impassive look that reminds me of Cardinal Westlake.
“He wants to send me away,” I say quietly.
Damien doesn’t respond at all. A few long seconds pass as my mind races with what to do next.
When my foot nudges back the tiniest bit, he says, “There’s nowhere you can run where I can’t catch you.”
There’s an arrogance in his tone and his stance. Even though he’s supposed to be here to stop me, he’s relaxed, lounging against the tree with his arms crossed.
There isn’t a shred of doubt in his eyes that I’m at his mercy.
I don’t like it.
Mustering up as much defiance as I can, I lift my head confidently. “I ran from the Stepanovs. I can run from you.”
He bursts out into a laugh, and I’m taken aback. It sounds genuine, and that smile suits him better than the detached blankness on his face.
“If you think I’m anything like the Stepanovs, you’re gravely mistaken.” His voice lowers menacingly, and a shudder runs down my spine at the sudden change. “Killing them was easier than you braiding your shredded bedsheets together.”
The pounding in my chest speeds up, and I can feel it beating against my ribcage.
How long has he been watching me? Did my words tip off Cardinal Westlake that he’d sic his dog on me?
The thought jars me to complete alertness.
It’s quiet.
Too quiet.
The barking I heard in the lawn every night over the past month is absent.
Cardinal Westlake anticipated I’d run. He replaced his canines with the one lethal hound in his arsenal. He’s making sure I can’t leave.
A scream threatens to bubble up my throat. I want to cry. My body starts to weigh down with hopelessness.
This is just a different prison, and I’m going to be forced into another position I don’t want to be in.
It anchors my determination, and Damien’s icy blue eyes narrow as though he can tell I’ve steeled my nerve. His guard rises so fast I can almost see it.
“Where’s Feliks?” I need to distract him long enough to slip through the bars. Just a few seconds.
“Enjoying his last night alive.” He sounds annoyed that I’m stalling.
I swallow, feeling uneasy. “Doing what?”
Is he murdering in cold blood again? Raping women? Drinking to oblivion?
“Breathing.”
I pause. He sounds so sure and confident of himself. “You have him?”
Damien doesn’t respond, and I’m starting to realize his silence speaks volumes over his words.
“Can I see him?”
His mouth tightens. He’s wary but not as alert anymore.
I let myself ramble on, half–hearing the random nonsense that spews out of my own mouth, but mostly I just focus on Damien. Watching him. “I dream about killing Feliks. More than Andrei. It’s because of him that my last memories with my family are of their screaming.”
Damien’s eyebrows twitch together, and the muscles in his jaw are noticeably tense.
“Mama cried and begged for them to leave my sister and me alone. Feliks said that if she and papa were quiet, they wouldn’t hurt Lottie and me. So my parents didn’t make a sound. Even mama while they hit her and did things to her, trying to wrench out every awful sound they could. When Feliks broke her leg, she finally cried, so they dragged Lottie away from me by her hair.”
His expression shows nothing, and my throat clogs with the nausea of recalling everything that happened.
Is this even working? Or am I talking needlessly?
“That was the first time I ever heard papa scream. It was the moment I realized we were at their complete mercy. Each of the brothers took turns beating him, but papa never stopped. Feliks had the most fun. He laughed and screamed with papa like it was a game.
“I can still hear them at night sometimes. Feliks’s laughter, papa’s gargled shrieks, and the sound of his teeth hitting the floor. I never knew people had so many. There was so much blood. That’s why he died so much faster than they wanted him to. I was thankful for that because he didn’t have to watch my sister die. She fought until the end, trying to save me.”
Instantly, something flashes across his face, but it disappears just as quickly.
His sister.
That tall, lanky, and creepy bird–like man talked about her. Something about failing to save her.
It was the only time Damien’s expression changed all night.
He was furious. Devastated. There was such depth to the pain in his eyes that I felt it over the distance when that man was holding me captive.
I understand how that feels. I watched my sister die, helpless, knowing that I was powerless to do anything but still wondering if I could’ve done something.
He must feel the same way
And I’ll use it if it means I get a chance to escape.
“My sister begged Feliks, saying she’d go with them willingly if they let me go. She begged all of them, one by one, and they all laughed and taunted her. Then they said, ‘Okay. If you play with us, we’ll let the little one go.’
“So she did. Lottie did everything they told her to. Ivan and Karol took turns making her do things she didn’t want to, but Feliks waited until she was bruised and crying. I should’ve told her not do give in, that we were going to die anyway. If only I wasn’t weak and confused and scared. But at eight years old, I didn’t know any better. I was stupid.
“And when Andrei started touching me, she screamed and cursed at them, biting and scratching Feliks. I still remember the look in his eyes. He had too much fun trying to quiet her. He treated her like a doll, shaking her and slamming her into things. And after one last hit, she just stopped moving.
“I thought she was knocked unconscious. But when they grabbed her, her body was like a rag. She stared at me, and she didn’t blink. Lottie never closed her eyes. She didn’t even react when Feliks tried to fuck her awake.
“He was really disappointed, you know. That’s why they were more careful with me. That’s why I survived. I wish they killed me with my family. I died that night, but I wish I stopped living.”
Damien’s face is closed off, his eyes blank like there’s a part of him that disappeared somewhere else.
I know that look. I see it in the mirror often.
But we’re different. He survived. He found something to live for.
I feel bad for making him go through whatever happened to him again, but I don’t regret it.
I spin on my heels and sprint to the fence, knowing that even one second will make all the difference.
Cutting to the side, I throw myself through the bars. They squeeze my chest painfully, but when my torso passes through, my spirits soar with triumph.
I made it!
But when something hot and solid clamps itself around my arm, my muscles tense with pure fear.
My arm is yanked back, and I scramble to keep my balance. As I wrap my body around the bar, tears spring to my eyes.
My shoulder feels like it’s going to rip off, and the vice grip around my arm digs into my bony flesh. It hurts so much.
From the other side of the fence, Damien’s expression is steeled fury, and if I weren’t fighting for my freedom, I’d be terrified.
Bracing my feet against the iron bars, I try wrenching my arm free, but then he grabs my other arm, and I’m trapped.
I’m going to lose.
I failed.
My foot slips, and my face slams into the bar as I’m jerked forward.
My forehead feels like it’s splicing open, and my nose is crushed flat. I can’t help the loud cry that bursts out from the pain.
It’s the end. There’s no way other people didn’t hear me.
But to my surprise, the pressure on my arms let up, and when I make one last–ditch effort to pull free, I stumble back.
My head collides against the packed dirt, the grass on this side of the fence not nearly as soft and cushiony.
Through the metal bars between us, Damien and I stare at each other in disbelief. And a split second later, his gaze hardens, and he climbs the fence.
He’s climbing the fence.
How???
How? How? How?
Run.
Run. Run. Run.
The two words blur my mind as I push off the ground and sprint as fast as I can.
Adrenaline pumps my thin muscles, bursting through my veins when I hear the thud behind me.
The few seconds it took for Damien to climb the fence was crucial for me to gain as much distance as possible.
But he’s too fast.
His footsteps are softer than mine, but I can feel him.
He’s right behind me.
Five seconds.
I can run for freedom for five more seconds.
Four.
Three.
A beam of light swerves onto the road ahead of me.
A car.
My legs pump faster against the ground, cutting a sharp angle to run towards the light.
“Stop!” Damien’s sudden cry rings out.
I do.
In the middle of the road.
I’m bathed in excruciatingly white light.
My ears drown in a painfully pitchy screech.
Body slams body.
Folds lifelessly against metal.
Bounces onto concrete.
I’m lucky I break easily.
chapter eight
“Is this going to be a problem?”
For once, I don’t look West in the eye, staring instead at the line of trees visible from his office window.
It’s the second assignment that I snapped on.
Be quick, quiet, and minimize casualties.
Those are the basic orders for covert operations.
Except each time I went out on the field, my vision went red and my body shut down, my mind losing track of everything. And when I fazed back into consciousness, I was drenched in blood.
Scarlet, liquid iron dyed my skin and seeped into my pores.
No matter how much I wash myself, it’s in my flesh. Staining my lungs. Flooding my eyes.
I’m lucky the cleaning crew came fast and worked even faster before I was caught in dangerous territory, surrounded by hostiles. And considering how brutally I ended their comrades, there’s no way I would’ve made it out alive.
“She’ll make a full recovery.”
Up until now, his words went in one ear and trailed off somewhere.
I processed the information. It just didn’t amount to anything.
But now…
My gaze darts to West’s, and he watches me with a blank expression.
No smile. And yet, no disapproval.
I don’t deserve it.
I failed. I failed on so many accounts. I don’t deserve his pity.
My voice is hoarse but steady. “I take full responsibility.”
For the two failed assignments? For the deaths of men who likely deserved it but not in the way I executed them? For chasing a little girl onto a road where she ran straight into an oncoming car?
A few more seconds, and I would’ve caught her intact. That fucking car wasn’t supposed to be in the area, but what timing for random passersby to make a wrong fucking turn.
“You should,” West remarks flatly. “For saving her life.”
My fists clench, and I grind my teeth together as I openly glower at West.
I must be suicidal.
The thought doesn’t bother me.
“I broke her,” I spit. He arches an eyebrow, almost amused. “I could’ve caught her before she even got to the road.”
“If you didn’t pull her back and take most of the impact, she would’ve died.”
“If I didn’t fall on her, she wouldn’t have broken as many bones.�
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She cushioned my fall. I can still feel her crushed and cracked underneath me. She was so fragile.
I still wake up in the middle of the night, expecting to find the brittle shards of her skeleton in my hands. To hold her lifeless body in my grasp.
“It was you falling on her or her body shattering in the car collision.”
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
My nails bite into my palms, and the same suffocation that’s been plaguing me from the pit of my stomach to my head starts taking over again.
I can feel myself slipping into somewhere dark. My vision going red while my mind recedes into black.
The faintest movement snaps my reflexes into autopilot, and I just barely block West’s iron kick to my thigh.
I grit my teeth through a wince, feeling a surge of white–hot pain shoot up my hip like my bones are melting from the inside out.
His lips curl with disapproval. “You were discharged too early. You’re off the field for the next six weeks. You can help Isla in the hospital ward or Jura in the attic.”
“West,” I start to protest, cutting short when his dead glare slices through me.
“I need you out there in top shape. Physically and mentally. I don’t need you to get yourself killed.” His voice is light. He finds the thought entertaining since if he wants me dead, he could easily do it himself. “Get yourself sorted out, and don’t come back until you’re of sound mind and your body can take a beating.”
I grimace at the unspoken promise that West is going to test me himself.
“And this time,” he continues. “If you coerce the doctor to discharge you early, I’ll cut your tongue out and give it to Isla. You’ll be able to visit it in her collection.”
Turning around, he dismisses me wordlessly, but I don’t leave.
“What are you going to do with her?”
He glances over his shoulder, and I can’t read what he’s thinking.
Not that I ever can, but this time, he’s a vacuum.
“She’ll stay.”
“Here?” I nearly sputter in surprise.
“Until it’s certain she won’t do anything drastic,” West responds wryly, turning to look out the window.
“There are other places that can do that.” My protest blurts out of my mouth.
West’s word is law. I shouldn’t question him.