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“Why the hell would I do that?” came the hard retort. “I don’t want to be stuck in that farmhouse, going nowhere, working minimum wage for the rest of my fucking life.” She stopped and looked over with a glare. “Please. What the fuck do I need that for. I’m better than that.”
“We’re your family.”
“You are what I left behind.”
Nyx shook her head. “You don’t meant that—”
“You don’t know me.” Janelle seemed to get taller, even as she stayed the same height. “I’m where I want to be, doing what I want to do. While you’ve been looking for me, I haven’t thought about any of you even once.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Like I said, you don’t know me—”
“I was there when you saved that horse from the flood. I patched the roof on our house with you in that snowstorm. You used to hold Posie in your arms and rock her to sleep right after she was born because she would only settle for you. Mahmen always said, ‘Give her to Janelle—’ ”
“Stop it.”
“‘—she’ll only fall asleep for Janelle.’ And after mahmen and dad died, you stayed up all day talking to me. You were the only reason I got through that—”
“Stop it!” Janelle put her hands over her ears. “That is not me!”
“It is!” Nyx rushed forward, to the point where she was almost out of the cell. “Let’s go. Let’s leave here together. You don’t belong here. You’re here under false pretenses. You were framed—”
“How did you find us?” Janelle dropped her arms. “How the hell did you find us?”
Nyx stopped. “Does that matter?”
“How.”
“I went to that old church with the graveyard. The one that’s west of our property. I found the crypt, and I went down—”
“Did you kill my guard. The one who was scorched?”
“He’s not your guard.”
Janelle’s face was subtly changing, the flush leaving her cheeks, the mouth thinning. “He most certainly was mine. Did you kill him?”
“He put a gun to my head! He was going to kill me—”
“And you took his gun after you shot him.”
“The gun went off when we struggled over it—and I wasn’t going to leave him with the thing.” Nyx slashed her hand through the air. “What the hell does that matter—”
“You’re the one who stole a gun and made a prisoner take you to the Wall.”
“Because I wanted to know if you were alive, if I could help you—”
“And you put that gun to the prisoner’s temple, didn’t you.”
“I’m sorry?”
“You threatened the life of one of my prisoners, didn’t you. You put a gun to his temple and forced him to carry you—”
“Janelle, why are we talking about this—”
“Because I am in charge here! This is my prison!” Janelle jacked forward on her hips. “Do you have any idea how long I have worked to get this far? To get this authority? Decades, you stupid idiot. I had to play my cards smart, develop allegiances, learn how to bribe guards. And as the glymera lost interest down here, I took my opportunity and seized control. I’m someone here, goddamn it. I matter—”
“You matter to us! I’ve been eaten alive by the idea that you were put away falsely—”
“Are you fucking kidding me? I killed that old motherfucker. What are you talking about?”
Nyx clamped her jaw shut and felt the world spin. “What,” she whispered.
“I killed that old male. I snapped his neck because I was sick and tired of him telling me what to do.”
Blinking hard, Nyx couldn’t process what was being spoken. “But . . . why didn’t you just quit if you were unhappy with the job?”
Janelle’s chin lowered, and she stared out from under her brows. “Because I wanted to know what it was like to murder someone.”
“You don’t mean that.”
“Oh, I do. And I’ve learned a lot more about death since I took over down here. I like it. I’m good at it.” As Janelle shook her head, the last of the light that had so briefly flared in her eyes faded. “I belong here. This is my world. The sister you had is dead and gone and I’ll prove it.”
She slammed the door to the cell shut and then stepped up to the mesh. “You put my gun to the temple of that prisoner. What else did you do with him?”
“What?”
Janelle punched at the panel between them, the mesh rattling against the iron bars. “What else did you do with him, you whore!”
As a sickening realization ran through Nyx’s aching head, she took a deep breath. And that was when she made the connection. The scent on Janelle, that sandalwood, which she hadn’t smelled anywhere else in the prison . . .
. . . had been in Jack’s hair.
When the door to the Command’s quarters opened, Jack shot his eyes in that direction even as his head remained where it was. He braced himself for guards. Many of them. Or maybe the Command with Nyx’s body—
