by Vic Tyler
But why should a little girl who has nothing to do with the dirty, slimy underbelly of our world stay here?
He gives me a scathing look like he sometimes gives Turan when the senseless brute of a man snarks at the Cardinal. The only thing sharper than Turan’s right hook is his tongue. And I know West is mentally blaming my mentor for my outspokenness.
“A mental hospital?” He chuckles. “Tie her down and drug her into submission? Ship her off to Social Services and into the care of people who’ll shrug if she disappears? Pray tell, Dog, where should we send her?”
I don’t have an answer, but all the opposing arguments are flooding my mind.
Here, she’ll be surrounded by sociopaths with militaristic training and psychopaths who have free range to submit to their fantasies.
Is that really any better?
And why does he care about what happens to her?
She’s an innocent — a civilian — but we don’t care for the lives of each individual one. It’s not our responsibility. Sure, she’s young, defenseless, and helpless, but it’s not like there aren’t other resources for her.
My back stiffens as West approaches me, stopping only when his belly is inches from my stomach. He leans forward, and my reflection in the black pools of his eyes looks just as uneasy as I feel.
“Until I tell you otherwise, stay by her side and watch her.”
I startle. “What?”
“Think of it as your newest assignment.” He watches me carefully, and there’s a note of excitement in his eyes that fills me with dread. “She will be your primary concern from now on.”
“She’s stuck here.” I can’t keep the incredulity out of my voice. “She can’t even move. Why would I need to watch her?”
When he doesn’t answer, my blood boils. I’m a goddamn assassin, not a babysitter. “Tell one of the maids to do it.”
He bares his white teeth menacingly. “They won’t be able to protect her.”
“From what?”
“From anything.”
The skin on the back of my neck bristles, and I force myself to stand my ground, narrowing my eyes. “What would she need protection from?”
“There are a lot of men under this roof.” He smirks with insinuation. “You never know what may happen.”
My lips curl over my teeth. “You’re a twisted fucker. Why are you keeping her here?”
“For you.”
“What?” I’m dumbfounded. “Why?”
“Like I said, your job will be to accompany her and protect her.” He smiles as he leans forward and murmurs, “After all, you wouldn’t want anyone else to damage your new toy.”
He catches my fist with ease and claps his big, hammy hand against my ear, disorienting me. The second my head starts spinning, he drives his knee straight into my thigh, and my bone feels like it’s going to shatter. I hiss and collapse to my knees, gritting through the pain.
The next thing I know, West’s hand is gripping my hair and yanking it back to force my face up. Every time I move, his hold tightens and my scalp burns.
“She’s a civilian,” I snap.
He has his rules about civilians. He doesn’t involve them in our schemes. He watches over them.
“She’s a means to an end.” He peers down at me impassively past his nose. “Tell me, do you still dream about your sister?”
I grit my teeth as my shoulders tense. My biceps vibrate with corded anger.
“When you see her, is she smiling and laughing in your parents’ home or do her screams and cries echo while you sit next door in that dirty cell, safe and sound while she’s losing her innocence over and over again?”
A snarl rips from my throat, and my legs try to launch from my kneeling position, but West tightens his grip until searing pain rips through my scalp. My body vibrates with pressure, but it knows the effort is fruitless.
Useless. Weak. Cornered into submission like always.
“Or perhaps you remember her being silent, having lost all will to live? Has your imagination filled in the blanks of what happened to her? All the ways she was defiled and ravaged? Do you watch it happen?” He chuckles, lowering his voice suggestively. “Does it excite you?”
“I’m going to make you pay for what you did to my family.” My voice shakes with rage, and the words seethe from between my gritted teeth. “When I kill you, it won’t be a merciful death. I’ll send you on a winding path down to hell in the most painful way possible.”
“That’s what you said five years ago,” he says, sounding bored. “When do you plan to make good on your word? I’m growing impatient.”
“When I take your life, you’ll know without a doubt. I won’t sneak up on you like you did my parents in the middle of the night like a coward, taking children as hostages and trapping them.”
“Hardly my fault they flaunted their vulnerabilities.” Disdain edges his tone.
“Normal people have families and lives,” I spit. “Not everyone is a psychopath like you and everyone else in this goddamn house.”
His lip curls in disapproval, and his grip on my hair tightens. “It’s because you think like this that you are still weak. And that is why you will watch over Adriana Wintrehall.”
“What does she have to do with anything?” I snarl.
His expression suddenly grows solemn and grave. “You must stand by her, watch over her, protect her, use her to reconcile your past, and only then can you be saved from yourself.”
My jaw clenches. What is this? Some kind of fucked–up therapy session?
Then, his mouth twists into a smirk, just barely holding back his glee. “And then you will dispose of her.”
My blood freezes in my veins. “What?”
I’ve taken numerous lives but never one so young, so innocent, and faultless.
I can’t do it. That’s not what I do.
Fuck. He wants to keep her just to butcher her?
My hands clench around his arm, my fingers digging into his illogically hard flesh.
He’s too far for me to reach, and even under that suit and blubber, his muscles are steel.
Physically, I’m no match for him. And outside Venti, his resources outweigh mine incomparably.
But it’s not impossible. It’s not impossible to get her away.
West laughs aloud as though he knows what I’m thinking. “There’s nowhere on this earth where she can hide. If you want to ensure she lives as long as possible, you’ll do as I say.” His smirk widens tauntingly. “Perhaps I will be merciful and let her go. As long as you shed your weaknesses and become the perfect deviant.”
Stepping closer so he towers over my helpless, kneeling form, he pats my cheek with a thick, rough hand, almost affectionately.
“Remember this position because this is exactly where you belong.” He chuckles when I growl. “You do not deserve anything more when you are weighed down by your past. The reason you are the Dog is because you are a rabid beast licking your open wounds, baring your teeth and biting the children who poke and prod you with sticks.”
“Then it’s your children that deserve to have their throats ripped out,” I snarl.
He smirks. “I have no need for a crippled mutt. A dog does not overthrow its owner. Throw away your pride, and learn your place as one of mine. That is what being one of the Twelve means. Only my children may overtake their king. Because when the time comes to kill me, you mustn’t be led astray or hesitate. There is no room for sentimentality in our world. Emotions are a luxury we cannot afford, and if we do, we steal it at the cost of hundreds of lives.”
Even though his hand releases its grip on my hair, my head still burns. Neither of us move, and my legs refuse to move, my heart weighing me heavily to the ground.
“Forget your weaknesses. They’ll only serve to kill you.” Sauntering over to the table next to us, he thumbs through the pile of folders. “And if you’re foolish enough to flaunt them in front of the world, others will use them to destroy you.”
West and all his cryptic, meaningless bullshit.
Grabbing a banded folder, West tosses it onto the ground in front of me. “Familiarize yourself.”
I flick off the bands and pour out the contents. Photos of a family spill out, along with leaflets of text and documents.
I stare at the face of the younger of two girls, standing in front of their parents in what looks like a Christmas greeting.
She’s recognizable but unfamiliar. What used to be her lustrous dark brown hair is now matted into a stringy, tangled nest. The toothy smile on those chubby round cheeks flattened into a grim, tight line on a sunken, skeletal face. The innocence and shine of her large brown eyes dulled lifelessly.
She may be five years older now, but her body doesn’t look like it’s grown much. If anything, she just looks like she lost all her baby fat.
“What is this?” My voice nearly cracks.
He can’t be serious. This can’t be real.
“The dossier on your person of interest. Everything there is to know on Adriana Wintrehall since she was born until she disappeared five years ago with a little more information on her activity since then. Including your report on the Stepanovs’ interrogation.” West’s lips curl knowingly. “Save for Rodion Stepanov, of course.”
I make the mistake of trying to look straight at him, but I’m too shaken by the information in my hands.
My eyes can’t quite meet his, sliding past him instead. “He escaped.”
“How interesting.” His flat tone indicates he finds it anything but.
“You prepared all this.” My throat dries. “Since when?”
He chuckles, his eyes twinkling. “Since the moment your eyes landed on the girl in the Windrose.”
No. It couldn’t be. He couldn’t have. “There was nothing special about her.”
“Indeed.” He nods. “Only the potential to.”
I feel nauseous. “Why?”
“As long as your emotions go unchecked at the slightest whisper of your demons, you do not belong in the Twelve.” His gaze pierces through me, holding condemnation. For the first time, I dread playing this role. “The only reason you are is because you passed a test, but that is it. Those who ace the bar or the MCAT do not make the best lawyers or doctors. Likewise, you are unworthy of your position, but you gained an advantage over beating those who are less worthy.”
The papers scrunch and crinkle in my fists. “Then why don’t you just get rid of me?”
“You have potential,” he says with exasperation. “But it is inhibited by your defects. Shed them, and show me you can be someone worthy of the Cardinal name.”
He disappears from my sight of vision, and I hear him walking around his desk and sitting his bloated body into his creaking leather chair.
I don’t look at him, letting my feet carry me out of his office.
Instead of going left, I turn right, going down the hall, up the stairs, and to the other side of the mansion where hardly anyone ever goes.
To the east wing. To the one room I’ve studiously avoided for the past month.
“Master Zephyrus,” the nurse exclaims before clapping her hand over her mouth and peeking at the still figure on the bed. “She’s asleep right now.”
I wave my hand dismissively, looking at the tiny figure whose body is nearly fully encased in a thick shell of casts.
Her face looks peaceful, the bruises fading to a mustard yellow and the cuts scabbing over.
A hint of the chubby faced child in the photo shows through.
She’s healing. Slowly. But she’s healing.
And soon, I’ll be the one to crush her again.
West tossed a bone to me, saying he’d potentially let her go, but I can’t believe him.
I won’t. To do so would be naive and stupid.
I’ll have to keep my distance from her as best I can while watching over her, but in the end, she’ll be gone, one way or another.
Just looking at her stabs a pain deep in my chest.
I was her age when I lost everything. I know how devastating the loss feels. The emptiness it leaves you with.
She’s a prisoner here, but at least she can live under the protection of West. As long as she benefits his schemes. As long as I play his game.
I can’t help wanting to save her.
She has the chance to live, which is more than what Elena and I had. She deserves to experience a normal life.
So I’ll protect her for as long as I can. I’ll do my best to ensure she makes it out alive and well.
But at the same time, I have to be prepared in case she doesn’t.
There will always be casualties of war. There will always be victims. And this one, between West and me, is no exception.
Maybe she’ll get lucky. Maybe she’ll turn out to be a survivor.
But honestly, I don’t know.
Because I can’t always choose who makes the final cut.
chapter nine
“What’s that?” Dr. Isla doesn’t sound disgusted or wary or anything.
She’s curious. But only mildly, kind of like if anyone else asks what presents you got for Christmas.
Except this gift is more like a package from a backwards Tooth Fairy than from Santa Claus.
But I know exactly who left this here, although I’m not sure why. He hasn’t come to see me in the month I’ve been lying in this bed. I thought the collision was the extent of our interaction, but now…
I look at the four teeth suspended by clear wires in the black leather box I’m holding in my hands. It hasn’t left my hold ever since I found it on my bedside drawer after I woke up.
Four teeth. Three of them in perfect condition, roots and all, floating over three letters: F, I, and K. And then the last tooth with its root chipped. The one floating over the etched A below it.
But no R.
It gives me the tiniest bit of hope that Rodion is still alive.
This is the best present I’ve ever received.
Maybe it’s an apology for the car accident. I have a strange inkling that he feels like he failed me in the same way he feels that he failed his sister.
Maybe Cardinal Westlake feels guilty too. Unlike Damien, apparently the Cardinal’s visited a lot while I’m asleep. Missy, the maid nursing me, let it slip accidentally.
At first, I dreaded having to see him, but in the past month, there’s been no sign of him coming to talk to me.
So I tried waiting up, but it’s like he somehow knows whether I’m awake, so he doesn’t come.
Or maybe he’s just gotten bored of seeing the kid in the cast. I mean, I haven’t moved from this bed for a long time.
But at least no one’s said that I’m leaving. I don’t know if that’s any better, but I’m finding that I like the company of the people around me. Like Missy and Dr. Isla.
It wasn’t until just last week that I found out that Dr. Isla is one of the Twelve. I think I might remember her from the party, but I was so focused on Cardinal Westlake that honestly, I don’t remember most of the others because I wasn’t really looking at them.
I also found out exactly what the Twelve is. Or… what the Twelve are… Or does it go both ways…
Missy said they’re like the generals of Cardinal Westlake’s organization. She said a lot of words I didn’t understand, especially when my head was so groggy from all the medicine, but I know these people are important, powerful, and scary.
But Dr. Isla doesn’t seem scary. She’s a little weird but incredibly smart, and she speaks clearly, making her explanations easy to understand but not in a condescending way.
Everyone here makes me curious. Really curious. For the first time in a long time.
“Number thirteen.” Dr. Isla’s large hazel eyes don’t blink as she peers over and studies the teeth. “Right cuspids. Canines. Cleanly extracted.” She tuts as she looks at Andrei’s. “Except for that one.”
I wait for her to ask why I have them, but the question never comes.
Instead, she fusses around my wounds, taking meticulous notes.
I look curiously at her. “You don’t think it’s weird?”
“What’s weird?” she asks, distracted by whatever it is she finds interesting on my body.
Having someone take such a clinical interest in me is strange but not unwelcome.
“That I have four canine teeth.” It’s not like I grow the same one repeatedly and collect them in a box.
Dr. Isla pauses and sits up to look at me. “Is it weird to collect teeth?”
Uhh… “I think most people might find it a little weird.”
“Oh,” she says disinterestedly, turning back to the scab on my forearm. A few beats pass before she glances at me. “What about phalanges?”
I tilt my head. “What’s that?”
She holds her hand up with the back facing me and points to her finger, but there’s no ring on it.
We stare at each other for a moment, and she responds, “Finger bones.”
Oh.
“Um… I’m not really sure,” I say hesitantly. “I don’t know anyone who collects them.”
“Huh.” Dr. Isla sounds scandalized. “Now, you do.”
I don’t say anything because I don’t know what to say, and I’m not sure if I want to ask how she got enough finger bones to make a collection out of them.
She doesn’t seem to notice as she keeps scribbling in her crinkly notebook.
I finally ask, “What are you writing?”
“I’m studying your healing process.” Her pen flies across the paper. “I don’t encounter many young people. Most of the children in the Blood Trials die early on, and the ones that don’t are trained off the grounds with a medic on hand, so I don’t get to see them until they come back. Being able to document your healing process from the beginning is a rare opportunity. The recovery rate is fascinating.”
A shiver runs down my spine.
Blood Trials? Children?
I can’t bring myself to ask more about it, afraid to know exactly what she means.
As soon as Dr. Isla stops talking, she’s immediately absorbed back into her observation mode.