We stay there until the sun sets, until the world grows cold and the others come to find us. We don’t say much, but it’s enough.
When he finally drives us home, I’m shotgun, Issy and Rhett in the back, Colton sleeping off the painkillers somewhere in the hospital with Julian watching over him.
Leaning over the stick shift, I rest my head on his shoulder, eyes closed, listening to the thrum of the engine and the pulse of his heart. I think of the baby, of Caius and Ophelia and the future they fought to build.
I think of the future I might have, if I let myself want it.
Idolet myself want it.
I hold Bam’s hand, and in that small, perfect violence, I find everything I ever needed.
Chapter 20: Bam
Afteraweekofconstruction, the Academy is mostly fixed from the damage. All of it was contained to the outer quarters, the Admin Building and the Greenhouse.
True to tradition, the first thing done, is for the Board to call for a meeting to discuss recent events. Unfortunately for them, half of the original 12 are dead, including Abelard, which leaves Rhett solidly in charge.
The Board room is glass and darkness, more cathedral than conference hall. At the head of the table, Rhett sits, and to his right, me. Not because I want to. Because I won. Because no one else left alive can do what I can do: keep these old vultures in line and support Rhett in doing just that.
The six new Board members are a study in discomfort. Each handpicked for blood, breeding, and, most important, obedience.
They wear their discomfort differently. The one nearest the window keeps checking his Rolex. Another one—a woman with hair pulled tight enough to recontour her face—taps the arm of her glasses against her teeth, over and over. The silver-haired patriarch at the far end, Prentiss, is the loudest on paper but the quietest in person. His family once owned a state. He can't even own the table.
Sunlight cuts through the windows, burning a stripe across the walnut. It lands on my hands, the knuckles white and cracked, nails bitten to quick. I keep them flat against the surface, always visible. A warning.
I wait. They talk. It's noise—rebuilding plans, endowments, media strategy, which dead to mourn and which to erase. It's all posturing, the last spasms of the old regime. Rhett fields their bullshit with the grace of a snake oil priest. He agrees. He sympathizes. He sets up my kills and then sits back to enjoy the spectacle.
He glances at me. The cue.
I lean forward, all shoulders, all intent. The chair creaks under my weight.
"The next Night Hunt starts in three months," I say. My voice isn’t loud, but it causes visible discomfort. Guess these oldfucks aren’t used to someone younger than them giving them commands. "Colton’s Hunt, this time. New candidate, new rules. And here’s the only one that matters—no more Board games. You want to survive in this room, you find Colton a proper match and you play it straight."
The tapping stops. So does the watch-checking. The woman in the pearls blinks twice, then dares a question. "What do you mean by straight, Mr. Ellis-Black?"
I almost smile. "No more using the Hunt as a cover for your dirty wars, your blood feuds, your family fixers. You run it like the Law says or I run you. Understand?"
Silver-hair at the end finds his balls. "The Law is ambiguous," he says, voice wobbly with self-importance. "It was always intended as a… flexible guideline."
I look him in the eye and he flinches, just a flicker, but it’s all I need.
"Then I guess it's time to stop flexing," I say. "Colton gets the girl. We get the secured bloodline. You get to live out the year without a bullet in your skull."
Prentiss goes red. The lawyer next to him, some Harvard inbred, whispers urgent in his ear, but Prentiss waves him off.
"You threaten us now?" he tries. "You think because you have the muscle—"
I let him talk. I want him to say it.
"You’re an animal," he finishes. "We can buy you, or we can break you. Don’t pretend this ends any other way."
Rhett smiles, teeth so white it’s blinding. "You’ve tried before, in your last position, Prentiss. Remind me how that worked out?"
Prentiss sits back, lips thin as paper.
Rhett cuts in. "What Bam means is, the Academy is dead if you try to run it the old way. The world’s changed. Too many eyes, too many watchdogs. You need a new model. One that looks like tradition, but doesn’t smell like a slaughterhouse."
He slides a folder down the table. The page inside is all graphs, charts, talking points. It’s a script, a script for them to follow and sell to the outside funders, the cops, lawyers and judges on their payroll.
