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The last thing I saw was him falling to his knees as the uniformed men fall on him like wolves on a lion, dragging him under in a flurry of fists and punches.
And again, my life pivoted on the head of a pin and I would be forever defined by a gunshot that would change everything. A single shot that would echo with me until the last breath I drew. Until the last neuron fired in my brain and the lighting-sharp electrical charge of life drained from my body.
I screamed until I lost the edge of where my voice ended and the engine roar of the SUV began. As I screamed, the hand left my mouth and hooked under my chin. I was dragged backwards onto a man’s lap, and despite the pain and horror rolling through my body in traumatic shockwaves, the way he touched my cheek silenced my primal painful cries.
His hand stroked my cheek and cradled my face like he was a parent. Like he cared for me. Like he hadn’t just sat by and orchestrated the devastating destruction of my life. My screams might have been extinguished, but still I sobbed, noiselessly but painfully, like my heart was clenched tight enough I couldn’t breathe.
I struggled against him, but the way I was positioned, the weight of my grief, and the unbearable horror of my current entrapment all bore down on me at once. My body sagged and I went limp against the luxury leather of the SUV’s seat. The car hit a bump in the road as we sped away, and my head lolled towards the seat opposite of us. To my shock, there was a person there, another girl who seemed vaguely familiar. I sat up just enough to take a better look.
Penny’s unconscious form was splayed on the seat across from me, her eyes rolled back in her head and her mouth hanging open. For a moment I wasn’t certain she was breathing. I fought against the hand holding me down and tried to get to her, to see if she was. The hands were strong and kept me pressed down, unable to roll away.
“Don’t worry, she’s alive,” a voice with a lisp and sense of self-importance informed me, and I recognized the old man at the head of the table from my one and only meeting with the Organization. I tried to take a breath to scream again, but his hand clamped onto my mouth and nose once more, clogging my exhalation and forcing me to choke on the salt of my own tears.
“If I let you move, do not scream. I can’t stand the sound of it, it’s pathetic,” he said. “And don not try and bite me. I do not want to be cruel to you, Everly, but I will be. Do you understand?”
I nodded yes and he removed his hand. I tried to sit up but he kept me pressed down, my head on his lap, so he could stroke my hair as he talked.
“If you hadn’t called for your boyfriend, he’d still be alive,” the man continued as he petted me like a prize lapdog. “I want you to remember that in the coming days. You brought this all on yourself by disobeying the rules and flaunting it in front of us. If you had behaved like a Tribute, you would have been treated as such.”
“But you destroy your Tributes at the end of the year, anyways,” I said, my voice weak and shaky. I could barely believe I was here, that this was real life.
“You would have been treated like a princess until then, an acolyte for Bellua,” he said and sighed as if I was hurting him, not the other way around. As if he hadn’t just torn my heart from my chest and destroyed my life. “I want you to remember that, too. When we get to where we’re going, remember that we would have treated you well. He would have treated you well.”
I wanted to tell him to fuck off, and I wanted to bite his hand as he petted me and stroked my face. I wanted to tell him to go fuck his Bellua, whatever insane thing it was. But I didn’t.
I wasn’t broken, but I was careful now. I was stupid, but I was learning. I hadn’t taken any of this seriously enough, and I was regretting that bitterly now.
He can’t be dead, Kingston can’t possibly be dead.
I wouldn’t believe it until I saw him dead in front of me. He would fight to live, to come and save me. Besides, Valen and Archer would never let him die. They would call Ryker and the four of them would rally to plan my escape from the Organization.
“Now, of course, you’ve really messed things up, haven’t you? You’ve brought this other poor girl into it. You told her too much and dragged her miserable life into your bleak existence.”
“Let her go,” I said. “She’s my friend and she won’t tell anyone anything.”
“We can’t do that now that she knows everything,” he said. “Her family has been given immunity from the Organization because of their religious affiliation. Their church negotiated it decades ago, and it’s held strong ever since. They provide us with a place to wash our money, and we give them immunity from our particular needs. Now you’ve gone and caused quite a problem.”
“Just let her go. Let me go. We won’t say anything to anybody, I promise,” I said. “Please, Mister…Bellua?”
I realized I still didn’t know if that was his name.
He chuckled, an indulgent sound as if I was a simpleton. “No, not Bellua. I would never take such a powerful moniker and claim it as my own. You may call me Mister Thackeray. Miles Thackeray.”
“Do you run the entire Organization?” I asked, trying to understand the depths of horror I’d found myself in. I realized he’d removed his hands from my face and hair and was digging in a bag on the seat next to him.
“Oh dear, you are too kind,” he said with a scoff. “I am merely one of the many, many people within the Organization who keep it running for our overseers. I am but a cog in the machine.”
“What am I, then?” I asked, fearing his answer.
I felt a pricking pinch in my neck as his fingers came back around to stroke my face. I flinched, but he wrapped his other hand around my neck and held me there. My eyes rolled in their sockets and I locked them on Penny’s sleeping form to keep myself centered.
No matter how hard I focused, I lost my grip on consciousness. I felt the darkness tugging at me, pulling me beneath its comforting depths. As I slipped into it at last, as the hot liquid that entered my neck through the needle in his hand carried me there, I heard him say one more thing.
“You, broken Tribute, are just the fuel that keeps the machine going. You will be used up and turned into nothing but vapor before you have a chance to fight back. So sleep, now, we have a long journey ahead of us and you will be tested to see how much it takes to break your spirit.”
Somewhere in the dark, I swore I felt Kingston’s hand touch my face and settle on the nape of my neck where he liked to keep it, and then it was gone. I was left alone, vulnerable to the forces at work against us.
I screamed again, a silent sound of grief and fear bouncing around the inside of my skull as my world dissolved around me and the Organization drew me into their twisted game once and for all.
THE END
