“You said you weren’t going to hurt them!” I hear Dove scream over the ringing of my ears, and I shake my head because surely I misheard her. “You promised, you piece of shit!”
I look back at her just as Rufus backhands her across the face, the knife at her throat nicking her and sending a trickle of blood down her neck.
“Nightingale?” The note of devastation in my brother’s voice tells me I wasn’t the only one to hear her.
I watch as her gaze swings to us, fresh tears spilling over her cheeks. Her jaw works, but no sound comes out, just silent tears as she looks at each of us.
“Of course!” Rufus claps, still holding that damn knife, stained with her blood, a wide smile on his face. “You don’t know who your snake is, do you?” He stalks over to us, the gleam in his eyes turning malicious. “I’ll give you a clue. We know her as the Soldier’s Darling, but I hear that she’s known as the Tailors’ Ruin. Fitting name really, all things considered.”
“Little Bird?” Knox rasps, barely able to get the words out. “What the fuck is he talking about?”
A sob leaves her chest. “W–we don’t get much choice in this life.”
I turn to look at Jude, his brow furrowing and then raising as his own words come back to haunt him. “Oh, Nightingale.”
I turn back to her, the blood pounding in my ears as a guttural roar sounds from Knox.
“We could have fucking helped you!” he screams at her, and I see her flinch with every word he throws. “We were going to kill them all for you!”
Rufus laughs a dark and evil sound that sticks to my skin like fucking tar. “Kill us all, boy?” Chuckles sound throughout the room, and it sets my teeth on edge to hear the sound. “The eight of you against the eighty of us? Even a crook like you must see ten to one are not good odds.”
I look properly around then, a heavy feeling in my stomach as I take in the sheer number of men, of Dead Soldiers that fill the room. He’s been recruiting, heavily by the looks of it. It’s like an ice bucket has hit my core, my very being frozen as I take in our situation. The situation that I led us into. I drop my gaze.
“I see you realize your position, boy. Just how much you’ve fucked up. Gotta grate a little, right? You being the future leader and all.” My eyes raise to find Rufus standing in front of me, my head tilting back as I take him in from my knees. “But don’t worry, I’m not gonna kill you boys yet. No, I’m gonna trade you for whatever the fuck I want from Daddy Tailor. I’ll send him bits of you until he agrees to my terms, that’s the sort of language you Tailors understand, right?” I don’t answer, just narrow my eyes at him. “Take the four boys to the cages. Kill the others.”
“No!” I try to lurch to my feet, but one of the men holding me pulls my arm up sharply until it feels like the bone will snap, and I’m fucking useless to stop them as I’m dragged away, watching as the four Tailors who joined me and the guys tonight are shot in the back of the head, their bodies crumpling to the ground.
Just before I’m pulled through the door we came through what feels like hours ago, I catch bright blue eyes, sparkling with tears as she tugs against her own captors, calling our names. The door shuts just as Rufus pulls his fist back and punches her in the stomach, making her double over and breaking our contact.
The beast inside me roars, desperate to help her, even though she betrayed us, and my soul feels torn in two as I think about her words.
“We don’t get much choice in this life.”
She’s right, we don’t. I didn’t when I was forced to shoot her mother. Jude didn’t when he held June in his arms as she died.
But Dove did have a choice.
We gave her a choice. We gave her the choice of freedom with us. Of a life with us. I even promised that I’d get her brother out. Yet she chose to betray us regardless.
And that is not something I can choose to forgive.
Not quite the end…
