My hope drains like Menace.He’s killing him!
There’s something uncomfortably familiar about the man’s face. Little of him is human, but there’s enough skin between the augments and cybernetic parts for me to know he was once one.
“I told you I would turn you into something special. I did. You’ve always been different. You can heal yourself. You can stop your Brothers from using their skills against you. No one else will ever control you again. You are the perfect Titan.”
“Except you,” Menace growls.
“Naturally.”
What the heck is he talking about?
“Why do you do this tome?” Menace rasps like he’s begging for death. The horrid sounds make me gasp in empathetic pain. Memories flash to the front of my mind of a past I’ve long pushed away. But they have found me again, clawing their way through Menace’s prime—now lacerated—body to get to me.
I know this madness, this destruction.
I felt it long ago.
“Of all the Titans, you suffered the worst human death, being ripped apart piece by piece. And still, you crawled your way out of that cave with one arm, didn’t you? Why?” Quris challenges.
Menace jerks on the restraints.
“Because of that girl, the one who became Mintaka.”
Menace roars with fury. “You do not have the right to say her name!” He moans in agony and hopelessness.
“You…” Menace chokes up. “You killed her then. You killed her as a human and a Titan!”
Quris tucks his hands behind his back and walks a casual circle around Menace’s torture cell, seeming all too comfortable with the pending death of someone else. “So many times, yes, because I saw potential in you and your brothers. Her too, but— We all have a price we are willing to pay for what we covet most. Your price is much lower than others, and yet you endure what they can’t.”
“Why side with the enemy?” Menace asks as Quris taps a knife just beneath the digibadge on his chest.
Come on, there has to be a way to kill this dickhead and get Menace out!But I don’t know how to kill a Creator because I’ve never in my life considered it until now.
“I loved the idea of winning as an underdog until I couldn’t see it happening anymore.” Quris shrugs and flicks the blade across Menace’s synthskin, slicing it open.
Menace’s muscles tense into sinewy threads. He strains for breath and groans.
My stomach feels weak and shudders at the sight, but I can’t tear my eyes away.
“Then I did the sensible thing and sold my services to the enemy because that quality of life was ironically better.”
Menace shakes his head and chokes out a sound of angry disbelief that makes my throat ache. Quris is mostly cybernetics. I’ll need a voltstick to tame him, something worse to break him.
As I search the room for a weapon that can do that, a gun barrel taps the back of my head. “Well, aren’t you the perfect little surprise? I think it’s time you come with me.”
Shit.
I turn slowly to face the soldier and instantly know he’ll pull the trigger without hesitation if I disobey.
“Sef, long time. Can’t believe you’re still alive. Thought Hunter Broknis would’ve sold you to Captain Hert by now.”
I lost sight of my surroundings because I was caught up in Menace’s pain, and now I’m stuck with a mutinous butcher who weasels his way onto every ship, then plants seeds of chaos so they don’t notice him stealing right from under their noses. I could not have made a worse mistake. “Sythius. What are you doing here?”
He licks his teeth and grins. “Doesn’t matter why I’m here, only that I am. And now I have you without anyone else around to stop me from taking what I want.”
He presses the gun barrel into the side of my neck. “Make a peep, and I’ll fire. You know I will.”
Digust squeezes my throat as he bonds his mouth to mine and grinds against me, crushing me against the rocky tunnel wall. He tastes of gilkyworm cakes and booze mixed with suracco, solcruean tobacco. I endure it because I have to if I want to keep my life.
He grabs me by the vest and slings me down a nearby hallway. “Walk.”
