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Chapter Twenty-Seven
Aika
Shadows dance along my bedroom wall for hours, the reflection of the firelight taunting me with depictions of the nightmares I have been failing to keep at bay.
I close my eyes to avoid them and am faced instead with questions that have no answers playing on an endless loop in my mind.
The longer I lay here, the more I convince myself I am devolving into madness.
Hours pass, or minutes, I’m not sure which, but it’s long enough that my skin begins to crawl, like something is trying to slowly claw its way out of my body.
Long enough to know that if I don’t get out of this room, don’tdosomething with all of this pent-up insanity, I’m going to implode.
Without thinking about the consequences, I slip out my small window and shimmy down to the ground, easily evading Mother’s guards.
They weren’t trained as I was. Their skills aren’t forged in blood.
The moon is gone tonight, and I can’t help but feel as if even that small bit of light has abandoned me. There is nothing but darkness now, everywhere I look.
I roam the streets for hours, trying to get my conversation with Einar out of my head.
Trying to ignore the way that hope had surged in my chest for the smallest fraction of a moment when I smelled Zaina in his rooms, replaced by a soul crushing emptiness when I beheld the very real grief on the king’s features.
She’s gone.
My sister is gone, and she’s never coming back.
I hear her throaty laugh and see her flip her midnight waves and feel the way her hand would clench around mine in warning when Mother came storming through in a mood.
I see the way she would angle herself in front of me, edging me out of Mother’s vision, and I would stupidly think it was because she wanted the attention for herself.
I didn’t see that she was protecting me, and now that I do, I’ll never have the chance to tell her that I understand.
My skin crawls even more, like it can’t contain the maelstrom building within me.
All around me, inside me, is darkness.
So I go to create a light of my own.
* * *
My feet carryme to a rundown warehouse on the outskirts of the slums.
It’s a base for drug pushers who have taken to dallying in slavery lately.
Two birds. One stone.
Raw energy courses through my veins, burdening me with glorious purpose and propelling my every move. I circle around the back and slip in through an open window without even bothering to glance inside, stepping behind the closest man and neatly cutting his throat.
He falls to the floor with a soft thud, and I step over his bleeding corpse, daring the others in the room to make their move.
Most of them are seated around a table, smoking cigars, while a few stand toward the perimeter. It doesn’t take them long to notice me.
Once their initial shock wears off, shouts of alarm ring out and everything erupts into chaos.
How do you know he didn’t have a family?Remy’s voice melds with Zaina’s in a twisted harmony in my head, but I ignore them both.
If these men have family, those families are better off without them. No one who does the things these men do should live.
