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When I fuck her, I take care to do it like I know she likes. My girl loves to be commanded, which works into this show well.
When we’re not in my room, she keeps her head down and barely talks, but when I take her out for a walk in the gardens behind the house, we exchange glances that speak volumes.
Her green eyes seek me out, and I telegraph my promises to her as she limps slowly along beside me, recovering from her whipping.I will get you out of this. I will protect you.
Paxton always manages to appear minutes after we start our walks, and he lets his gaze rove Camille’s body in a deliberately provocative way. My blood boils. Under any other circumstances, I’d have skinned him alive very slowly and rubbed salt on his exposed flesh for good measure. But I just paste a look of indifference on my face and let him get all worked up as he prances around, posturing and preening.
He doesn’t realize the fuel he’s giving me. The eagerness to end him.
He’s not the one I’m worried about. Sure, he’s in great physical shape and has no doubt been training for this. But he’s an emotional weakling who’s easily manipulated, and that’s deadly when you’re up against a skilled opponent. How can he possibly think he’ll win? I would feel sad for him and his pitiful attempts to impress his father—if only I had access to the normal range of emotions.
Instead, I stick close to Camille and try to keep the gnawing fear of the unknown at bay.
It’s all I can do until this is all over.
CHAPTER26
Bastien
The morning of the challenge,I am summoned at 6:00 a.m. by a sharp rapping on the door, which I was expecting. I cast a regretful glance at Camille as I leave. I’ve never particularly given any thought to living or dying. I’ve thrown myself into every fight with an eagerness and no thought to the consequences.
Now I realize that I don’t want to die. I want to live, to protect Camille, to spend the rest of my life owning her and loving her and giving her what she needs, feeding her my darkness in just the right amount. I stuffed too much of my evil down her throat and choked her, but I can pull back. I can hurt her the right way and make her love it. If I die, somebody else will have her, and that is simply not acceptable.
So I will win the challenge, no matter what it takes. I will do it for Camille. Thinking about that lifts some of the heaviness from my shoulders, and for the first time ever, I realize that living for someone else is not a burden, it’s a privilege.
I am brought by a guard into a large room that contains only a full-size body scanner like the kind that they have at airports and cabinets. Senator Franklin himself is standing there with a solemn expression on his face.
I’m ordered to strip naked, and then I’m handed a pair of jeans and sandals. The jeans are hand-sewn, and the sandals are hand-made. They’re just like what Isaiah wore. The guard hands me a knife. It’s old-fashioned. The fucked-up family charter calls for using the same kind of knife that Isaiah did. It’s nothing but a hand-forged steel blade with a hand-carved wooden handle. I would have preferred a more modern weapon—serrated, for maximum carnage—but it’s not the end of the world. What wins the knife fight is not the weapon, but the man handling it.
Senator Franklin recites a lengthy speech about Franklin family honor, the weight of history, and being gifted by God with superior prowess, and blah, blah, blah. It’s the same old bullshit I’ve heard these psychos recite at every forced family interaction we’ve had since I arrived here.
I stand in place and try to look attentive. Just as I’m expected to. Elsewhere, senior members of the Franklin Family Council are repeating this same ponderous ritual with the other challengers.
Then Artemis leads me to the forested area. It’s fenced off with razor wire, and he gestures at the opening. “You don’t leave until you can lead us to the body of every last challenger or present us with their heads,” he says
I know the rules. If I attempt to leave before then, I will be executed in a very painful fashion in front of the Franklin Family Council, who would no doubt be delighted.
My mind briefly drifts to Simon. Has he been able to carry out my orders? I wish I could have checked in with him over the last few days, but I don’t have time to worry about that now. I have to trust in his capability and loyalty.
I slip through the narrow opening in the razor wire. Elsewhere along the fence, the other contestants are doing the same. Perhaps I should be afraid, or sad, or angry. Those would be normal emotions. Instead, I feel glorious, stripped of all emotion accept an eager craving to kill. The cool morning breeze smells sweet and the rising sun bathes me in a light and warmth made just for me.
This is what I was made for. To cut down true evil.
I jog for a short distance into the woods before pausing to smear dirt on my face, arms, and body so I’m harder to spot.
Then I strip off my shoes and glide through the forest, walking the way my father taught me when I was a child—completely silent, intensely aware of my surroundings, ears straining for any noise. I’m fortunate that I copied my father’s habit of keeping the soles of my feet tough by walking barefoot across beds of sharp gravel on a regular basis. I’ve always loved that; it makes me feel connected to the earth as if I can draw its power through my feet and into my blood.
He also taught me how to move swiftly but carefully, without leaving a trail. It doesn’t take me long to locate what I’m looking for. About fifteen minutes later, I hear the sounds of a fight. Grunting, thrashing, swearing.
Fierce joy flares inside me. I race toward the noises. With any luck, they’ll be distracted enough that I can slip in and take out two opponents at the same time.
Peering through the branches, I see two men wrestling. Both are bleeding. One of them has his back to me, and he’s in the act of strangling Benedict, who’s dropped his knife. This man did the same thing I did—smeared dirt all over himself.
I’m slightly irritated that these men aren’t all idiots like I had hoped.
When I burst through the underbrush and barrel toward them, I raise my knife to plunge into his back, but now that I’ve got a good look at him, I pause. This man’s head is buzzed close to his scalp, and I don’t know who it is. It’s not Paxton, or Artemis, or Solomon.
Alarm bells ring in my head, and I instinctively step back without stabbing. I circle around as Benedict’s eyes roll back in his head, and his body goes limp. And a wave of shock hits me like a blast of arctic air. The man strangling Benedict is my father.
