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Rummy and her smooth golden hair didn’t move as I walked up beside her, careful that my boots didn’t slip against the few slick remaining shingles before sitting down.
We let silence linger between us for a few minutes. That was one thing I liked most about Rummy: She understood how comforting the night was. I breathed, taking in the cooling air that somehow seemed cleaner up here. Fresher.
I let my foot mimic Rummy’s, hanging off the edge of the roof as I reclined onto my back.
“You look like shit,” she remarked, twisting her neck until her dark green eyes met mine. “Bad fight?”
I blew out a puff of air. “You really have a way with words,” I joked. Peering out at the city, I shrugged. “It was fine. I won.”
She propped herself onto her elbow and scanned my face in the darkness. Her pointed ears twitched as she focused in on me. “Fine isn’t good, Hunt. Lord isn’t going to let that go.”
“I know,” I answered, trying not to snap at her. “I did my best. He was a lot bigger than me and a hell of a lot stronger. But I still won.”
Rummy shook her head. “How long has it been since your last punishment? Two weeks? Has your skin even healed?”
“It’s healed enough,” I said stiffly.
My mind wandered to the lingering pain on my back, the dull stinging that hadn’t quite disappeared since I lost a fight two weeks ago.
It was rare for me to make a mistake.
It was even more rare for me to lose a fight.
Lord didn’t approve.
Rummy knew Lord. She wasn’t a Phantom, but she had been my friend since I was a child. If Lord knew she existed, he didn’t show it. Sometimes, I thought he knew about our late-night meetups and hidden conversations in the shadows, and maybe he let me have this. Let me have this friendship.
Rummy was strong and fierce and loyal, but she despised him. She hated that I was a Phantom, and she hated that Lord controlled me. She was smart enough to pick up on a few things over the years: bruised fists, lashings on my back, days where I went missing with no contact.
I saw it in her eyes, in the way she flinched slightly when I told her about my fights and my training sessions.
“Don’t say it,” I sighed.
“Say what?”
“Whatever judgmental and incredibly unhelpful comment you’re about to make.”
She huffed, throwing a hand up. “I just don’t understand why you don’t leave. You could run, Huntyr. You could escape, and he would never find you!”
I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head. “You know I can’t do that, Rummy.”
“But why?” she demanded.
We had the same conversation every few months, but lately, they had gotten more and more frequent. Rummy had a certain desperation about her she could hardly contain.
Lately, though, my training had grown more intense. My fights were harder, my punishments fiercer. Lord had been leaving no room for error, not from me or from any of the Phantoms.
But Rummy didn’t understand. Nobody could. Lord may have been just a teacher to the rest of the Phantoms, but not to me. He had taken me in when I needed him the most. He had raised me as his own daughter.
It wasn’t as simple as leaving Midgrave. I would be leaving the closest thing I had to a father. And worse, I would be disappointing him.
That was something I couldn’t bear to live with.
“I need him,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “He’s made me strong. He’s made me a survivor.”
“He’s made you his pet.” Rummy turned her face back up to the sky, spitting out the wordpetas if it were poison. “Are you going to let him control your life forever?”
She didn't get it. She didn’t understand. Every fight, every punch, every whipping—it was all to strengthen me. It wasall so I could survive out there in the world withthem, the bloodsucking vampyres who took everything from us.
