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Cold rage settles in my stomach. I grip the edge of the table, breaking the edge of my nail on the cold metal. I repeat Gabriel’s lyrics over and over in my head, reminding myself that my pain can be a weapon. A single line repeats over and over again.
Drink and be merry,
for tomorrow we bathe in blood.
My time will come. One day I will bathe in that man’s blood.
But it’s not today.
Today, I watch my uncle Brutus sling his arm over the back of the chair Julian August should have occupied. Today, soldiers I remember from my father’s office jostle each other to kiss his feet. Today, he bends over and snorts a line of cocaine through a small straw. The light illuminates the back of his hand – the skin puckered around an old injury. My father’s sacer mark, now so mangled with scar tissue it’s unrecognizable as the August sword and laurel. Brutus dares to wear it with reckless pride. I’m surprised he hasn’t had surgery to hide the sacer – we do live in Emerald Beach, home of the best plastic surgeons in the world. It must serve his purposes to have it on display, a sign that he’s beaten death.
I’m so busy glaring at the back of Brutus’ hand, twirling my butter knife around in my trembling fingers, that I don’t notice the fights have begun. First up is a couple of bouts between condemned men – disgraced soldiers from Lucian and Dio fighting to the death. One is a man named Cicero – a loyal soldier of my father’s, a man whose voice always sounded kind. Was his only crime loving my father?
The Imperators and their entourage show no respect for the men circling each other in the ring – they call out friendly insults to each other, placing wagers on which man will win his freedom.
Cicero gets in a few decent punches, but is stuck in the guts by his opponent’s trident and collapses in a pile of blood. Brutus pounds his fist in triumph as Cicero’s opponent hacks off his head and lobs it into the crowd.
After that, they bring out the lion.
I grind my teeth, dig my nails into my skin – anything to hold back my scream. The poor creature circles the ring, ribs sticking from his emaciated frame, his shoulders hunched and malformed from being kept in a too-small cage. He lifts his nose high, his dirty mane streaming behind him, and licks at the dried blood around his mouth, baring his terrifying teeth. The front rows of the audience lean away from him, unable to bear being so close to such beauty, to be confronted with what they’ve done to a graceful creature in the name of entertainment.
This close, they can smell the decaying human flesh on his breath.
The lion turns its head toward me, and all I see is my kitten. My Queen Boudica’s defiant yellow eyes peering back at me from the darkness behind the dumpster. This lion will do what it has to do to survive.
My father banned the beasts from the ring. It turned his stomach to see beautiful creatures reduced to this… this baseness… for entertainment.
But my father isn’t in charge anymore.
Brutus and Nero laugh and cheer as the lion stands on his hind legs and roars with wild hunger. A man is tossed from the gangway into the ring. He barely has time to stagger to his feet before the lion is on him.
When there’s nothing left but bones and gore, and the lion lopes away to fall asleep, they prod him back into his trapdoor, scoop out the carcass, and call for the night fight to begin.
Antony marches into the ring, his arms raised as the applause washes over him. I raise my hands to applaud too, even though I want to turn away in disgust. My phone – hidden in my bra – buzzes.
I slide the old iPhone from my bra, tracing the sparkly pink heart on the case. A notification flashes on the screen – a new SMS. The only person who messages me is Antony. Mackenzie Malloy used to get a few SMS messages from old school friends, but they stopped… except for…
Jace.
This guy must’ve been someone special to her, because he kept texting long after the others gave up. A few times I’ve almost been tempted to answer him. He seems so desperate for answers, I want to do something to put him out of his misery. But of course that’s insane.
My finger trembles as I tap the notification.
“Wherever you are, Mackenzie, I’m thinking of you.”
I’m thinking of you.
I choke back a sob. Today of all days it’s exactly what I need to hear. Somewhere out there, someone cares about me.
Except that this message isn’t for me. Except that Jace is thinking about a dead girl and the life I stole from her.
I wonder why he chose today, of all days, to message her?
I toss the phone on the table, trying to fight back the tears stinging the corners of my eyes. I’m not going to cry. I refuse to waste a single moment of my one night of freedom feeling sorry for myself.
I snap my fingers for the waiter to bring me another drink. As I sip, I focus back on the arena. It’s hard to see what’s going on because the crowd is on their feet, waving their fists in the air and chanting, “Barbarian! Barbarian!”
I stand and move to the edge of the platform, only a few feet behind Brutus’ table. The bastard is telling a story to his admirers, and they’re all cracking up as if he could possibly say something worth laughing about. If I’d brought a knife, I could twist it into his kidney before he even saw me coming. I’ve been practicing. I’m quite good.
