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He grips me by the throat, forcing my eyes onto his. There’s no anger, no sadness, no—emotion. Void empty pits of nothing stare back at me. “You need to run.Now. And don’t look back.”
“Wicked—” He tightens his grip around my throat.
“You need torunbecause if I don’t kill you,they sure as fuck will.” I blink back the tears but my hands fall to the side.
“I’m not going anywher—” A dark shadow falls over his face, but before he can open his mouth to say anything else, the chanting gets louder, and I can almost feel the flames against my face.
“Well, isn’t this unfortunate…” Another voice comes from behind Wicked’s body, and he freezes. His whole body turns to stone, but he shifts closer to me. Whether it was on purpose or coincidental, I notice it.
Slowly, he turns around, his back now against my face. “What have you done?”
I start to shift to the side, wanting to know who it is that’s behind whatever weird shit happens here, but Wicked moves faster, blocking my view.
“You know the rules, Hangman. You broke them anyway…”
He steps forward, but my hand flies out to his, urging him back. I don’t know why I did it. It makes no sense. I hate this man. He would havekilledme. Yet something deep inside wants to protect him anyway.
He stops. “What. Did. You. Do.”
There’s a long stretch of silence, and when I finally manage to see around Wicked’s body, my eyes collide with an older man dressed in a suit covered in a robe. He wears a similar mask to Wicked, only not bone. He has dark hair slicked back, a shadow of a beard. He’s big. Bigger than Wicked even. There’s a small diamond tattoo on his chest, where his suit is unbuttoned, and when I travel back to his eyes, dread fills my blood when I see he’s already looking at me.
Wicked shoves me farther behind his back. “I did everything Skully wanted me to do. For years. I obeyed…”
“Tsk, tsk…” The man’s loafers come into view. He moves closer. There are other men surrounding him too, and I swear the chanting is so close that the people who are doing it have to be within view. “You’re mine now, and your little Poppy? Well… unfortunately—” He steps to the side and everything happens at once. Wicked’s body falls to the ground slowly until his knees hit the dirt, and what he just saw is staring back at me, exposed. An upside-down cross has flames burning around the ankles of ahalf-crisp corpse. Her head is tilted to the side, her face torn off. The flesh on her face has been peeled back—or melted back—to the skeletal remains, as the angry flames of the fire ignite the rest of her body, ripping through the clothes I last saw her wearing from the party.
Wicked screams a roar loud enough to cause a ripple effect throughout the village, and I drop down beside him, my hand on his shoulder to pull him closer into me.
“Pick them both up—” the man with the diamond tattoo says, and I look up at him from below. “They’re mine now.”
One of the men leans down to grab both Wicked and me, but I rear my foot out and kick him straight in the dick. Wicked launches forward, pulling his knife out from his jacket and whipping it across the man who is closest to me. The man stops, his eyes wide and his hands flying to his neck where blood spills between his fingers in a gush of urgency.
I stand back and stare blankly as I watch the life drift from his eyes.
Good. I wish I could say I felt remorse, or even sick to my stomach. I don’t. They killed Poppy, and now they want us.
“Wicked!” I yell, just as arms squeeze around my body. He spins around to find me, just as someone comes in from behind him and everything goes black.
I don’t think I’ve ever thought about the way it feels to be loved. Not just by your parents, but by people who aren’t programmed to love you. That unconditional love. The kind that has nothing to do with the fact that you share the same blood. I’ve never had that. Except for maybe Betty, but not the kind that Wicked and Poppy had. I always assumed that they were blood siblings—they were that close.
I sit perched on a king-size bed. It has black silk sheets and a fur bed cover. There’s gold trimmings and architraves thatare carved into small patterns on the ceiling, and if I squint my eyes tight enough, I can see the carvings that are cut into the light fixture hanging in the middle. The chandelier style crystals dangle from above, and when I truly take in the room, the opulence of it all sneaks up on me. Everything is black—the bedding, dressers, and even the rug that sits at the end of the bed. There’s one door to the side of the room, and behind the bed there’s a simple blank wall. No windows. Probably a red flag if I didn’t already know that why I’m hereisa red flag.
Wicked.
I push up from the bed and lift my foot to walk, when I look down to the clunky heels on my feet. What? Moving to the side of the room, where a large Victorian-style mirror hangs off the wall, I pause when I see what I’m wearing. There’s a bruise on the side of my head, and when I turn to the side a little, I wince when I see the stitching.Poppy.I’m dressed in a black lace bra and black panties with suspenders hanging down my thighs. Pulling the silk robe closer to my body, I tie it around me and turn back to the task at hand.
I need to find Wicked. Whatever has happened with Poppy has to be killing him. An overwhelming feeling of protectiveness washes over me for him. For both of them.
I rush for the door when it flies open before I can reach it, and Wicked is standing at the threshold, dressed in black jeans and a white shirt. His lip is split and his face void of any emotion.
“What—”
His eyes trail down my body, and despite where we are right now, I blush when he settles back on my face. “You’re leaving.”
“What is this place? Wicked, this—your world!” I whisper-yell, and he steps in closer, kicking the door closed. “It is crazy! What the fu—”
He grabs me by the cheek, pulling my face into his. His lips find mine and I bring my arm up to the back of his neck. Idon’t think his intention was to kiss me, but I kiss him anyway. Flicking my tongue over his bottom lip and over the graze, I lean up on my tippy toes, massaging the back of his head. “We can get out together.”
He shakes his head slowly, but his other arm hooks to my back, holding me in place. “This is different, Rubs. This is beyond me, and hell… even beyond Skully. Wherever the fuck he has disappeared to. This?” He brushes the tip of his nose against mine. “This is beyond even the Honored Society.” His hand falls to the nape of my neck. “You need to get out. Tonight. Because what he has planned for you is worse than you can even imagine.”
