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Maybe that’s for the best. I’m not here to party. This is a mission — it’s not supposed to be fun. We’re going to do a job. We can celebrate on the way home, when all of the Masters have been arrested, detained and charged.
Including Jamison.
Still, it will be nice seeing the looks on their faces when everything they’ve taken for granted gets ripped away from them, once and for all. Technically, Anton has already done that — the Masters are only alive because it’s served his purposes, for the time being. Perhaps they’ve expected Anton to fail and that they would survive in the long run. Considering what Ingram’s accomplished, that’s not unrealistic. However, soon that hope will be dashed. Any illusion they maintain about escaping justice is about to come crashing down.
Then there’s the fact that Ingram’s the one responsible. Will they be surprised at this point? They all seemed so sure he was dead. Have they questioned how Death knows so much about them, or written it off as Timo and Lincoln’s dying admissions? Maybe they’re hoping it’s Ingram, figuring that he’ll restore the Masters to their former glory once Anton is gone — and two of their friends were an acceptable sacrifice.
It would be foolish to believe any of those men truly care about one another. They’ve called themselves a brotherhood, but how many tears did they shed after I killed Victor Sovereign? He was a liability to them — they were glad to have him gone. They enjoyed watching me suffer for it — like his death bought them days of entertainment, and that was fine.
They’re lucky I’m not out to watch them suffer — at least, by my own hand. Hopefully they’ll suffer plenty in a federal penitentiary.
“Kate?” says Ingram.
“Yeah?”
“Do you remember what you told me outside the barn when we rescued you?”
It feels like a lot more than a few days ago. After months of a dreadful daily routine that turned every day into a war with insanity and despair, the past week has brought me pleasure, excitement and hope. I can remember every waking second with perfect clarity — though I may have lost count of the seconds I spent recovering from an orgasmic haze.
“I said a lot of things.”
“The part about wanting to be the one to kill Anton.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“You said if you could do that, you’d never ask for anything else.”
“I was in a different place then,” I say.
He takes out a dagger from a wooden case. Decorated by gemstones on the hilt, the blade curves almost like a sickle.
“Remember this? It was a gift from Anton, back before he joined the Masters. I think it would be fitting if you cut his throat with it.”
He mimics dragging it across flesh; it looks sharp enough to slice through skin at the softest touch.
Is that what I still want? To kill him myself? Isn’t it more important he face justice? If I start killing to sate my own desires, I’m not necessarily better than men like Anton. But, what if he’s too powerful to let live? We’ve made the mistake of not killing him when we should have before. It’s practically self-defense, like when I shot Victor.
That doesn’t mean I have to enjoy it. It’s a necessity.
But, I would enjoy it. After everything he’s done to me, I would. The last year is still too fresh in my mind — I can’t just forget what he’s done. All the ethical reasoning won’t change the fact that he hurt me, and I want him to pay.
“Ingram, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what’s right or wrong anymore.”
“The Masters don’t worry about right or wrong, Kate. Put that aside,” he says. “If you could kill Anton in any way you want, what would it be?”
I laugh.
“I don’t know. Do you?”
“Of course,” Ingram laughs. “I think about it all the time.”
I snort, shaking my head.
“What did you come up with?”
“Oh, there are plenty of possibilities. I mean, it would be fun to just kick the shit out of him until he had a heart attack from the pain. I could have him strapped to a wall and practice some archery. I think my favorite idea is locking him in the Enclave dungeon’s oubliette and let a hundred starved rats loose in there with him. But those are all over so quickly.”
“The rats don’t sound that quick.”
