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The screams, the thrashing… it feels so right.
By the time I’m done with him, there’s a steady drizzle, but I only notice it when the water starts to puddle on the ground. Lightning forks overhead, casting a white-hot spotlight on the mangled body sprawled on the soft forest floor.
I’m flushed with exhilaration. I feel more powerful than God.
“Best we head back,” Solomon says, glancing up at the sky, but he doesn’t hurry. He strolls slowly, hand in his pocket. We find Artemis and Paxton standing a few hundred feet away in the open, watching us. Or rather me.
“So I passed muster?” I say to Artemis as we make our way back, rivulets of water streaming down our faces.
“You are a true descendant of Isaiah.” He smiles broadly. I imagine that’s high praise coming from him. I smile back, a genuine smile of the purest happiness, because the killing gave me a high like no drug ever could. He’s given this moment to me. For all his faults, he’s let me be who I really am, and I will be forever grateful to him for it.
We’re greeted by Maria and Jess, the blonde, and a couple of Artemis’s security team, holding fluffy towels, and we stand in the enormous foyer blotting ourselves off and kicking off our soggy shoes. Maria and Jess have shoes for us, too, and they hurry to put them on each of us, kneeling at our feet after they’re done.
“Where’s the stick?” I say to Artemis,
“The stick?” he says, eyebrows furrowed.
“The half-naked sex slaves kneeling at my feet and begging to suck my cock. The hunt. That’s the carrot. Where’s the stick?”
“Not much escapes you,” he says approvingly. He inclines his head for me to follow him.
We wind our way through the house and then come to a doorway with a security guard. He lets us pass him. Artemis uses a retina scanner and then a fingerprint scanner before we enter.
A guard sits in a swivel chair, watching a bank of video monitors. My eyes devour details, looking at the keyboards, the type of equipment they’re using, the scenes he’s watching. This room would be impossible to break into physically, but there might be other methods. I’ll find a way if I need to.
One of the monitors has a map with a bunch of little blips on the screen. “That shows the location of all the sinners. Once we put the collars on them, they can never be removed. Not even by us. Women are deceitful seductresses; from time to time, one might deceive a servant into taking pity on them and setting them free. But the collars prevent that.”
“So if they step beyond a certain point, they die?”
Artemis shakes his head. “Good heavens, no, then they could just escape their penance by committing suicide. They’re knocked unconscious, so we can retrieve them and deal with them. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, we make all the other sinners watch over the course of several days. Makes quite the impression.”
Artemis points at one of the monitors, and anger chokes me when I see Emilie in her living room, sitting down on a sofa with her husband and children. It’s their home on my father’s property. They’re playing a board game. I wear my mask of calm perfectly, but inside, my gratitude of just a few minutes ago has evaporated, and I’m eviscerating Artemis with a dull knife.
“Impressive,” I say, my voice calm and politely admiring. “I know my father has top-notch security systems. Yet you managed to not only get someone onto his property but also managed to install surveillance without him knowing.”
“I don’t enjoy having to threaten you.” He looks politely regretful. “This isn’t personal. Every single member of the Franklin family is monitored in the same fashion. Men, women, children, we watch them all. If you attempt to warn her that we’re monitoring her, we’ll take her and violate her in ways you can’t imagine, making her husband watch until we end his life. Then we’ll kill her children in front of her.” He shrugs. “That goes for everyone in the family. This is how we ensure that our family doesn’t foul up and soil our name.”
My gaze roves over the other screens.
Senator Franklin, a white-haired man in his sixties, is on one of them. It looks as if he’s in his office. He has a young woman bent over his desk. He’s pulling her hair, and her face is contorted in pain as he takes her from behind. He must know he’s being watched, but he doesn’t seem to care.
I arch an eyebrow. “What if someone doesn’t have family that they care about, and they’re willing to take you on?”
He smiles. “We do our best to raise our sons right so that will never happen. However, we all have an implant containing a GPS tracker and two little sacs of special compounds we’ve designed. One has a sedative, and one has a tiny amount of deadly poison. Only the patriarch has the code. If you attempted to expose us or violate family rules, such as freeing any sinners, we would be able to find you instantly, anywhere in the world.”
Interesting. I don’t feel any ache on my body that would reveal the tracker’s location.
His cold eyes meet mine. “I will give you one last chance. If you wish to drop out of the challenge and go quietly on your way, never saying a word about us, you may do so. Of course, we would continue to monitor your family.”
I snort at that. “Fuck no.”Because I’m going to take you out for threatening my sister, asshole. “So what’s next?”
“The challenge is May fifteenth.” He looks me up and down appraisingly. “You might have a chance. You’ll be an interesting contender.”
I nod with understanding. “Part of the appeal of bringing me here. I’m cannon fodder. Something to put between you and them, a way to draw them out. And that’s why Robert never warned me they were gunning for me.”
Annoyance flares in his eyes. “Do you ever get tired of showing off how clever you are?”
That stings, but I deserved it. And I make a mental note.Stop revealing how much smarter I am than them. Clever only gets you so far.
