I look down. Donovan, Max, and the rest are staring up at me.
I’m back where I started. How did I get here so fast?
As I circle to land, the relief I feel at seeing the others hits me harder than the storm did.
Weakness,my father’s voice whispers in my memory.
I know better than this. Caring for others is a mistake. I opened my fucking idiotic heart to Wes and Donovan, and they abandoned me. I care about Aurora, and she’s become a pawn.
Why don’t I ever learn?
It’s not like I haven’t had plenty of first-hand experience with how friendships are a weakness.
My father’s office was on the eighteenth floor of his city high-rise. I didn’t often have to come here, but now and then, he’d get it into his head to give me another lesson in power and authority.
“You have to choose, Cosmo.”
I look at the unknown man tied and bound before me. His eyes are wide, pleading.
“What’s the choice?” I whisper. I don’t want to ask, but I know that stalling only makes things worse. Last time, he had me cut off all the accountant's fingers for failing to hide some money.
“Whether this man lives or dies.”
Oh, fuck. I know this can’t be so simple, but I cross my fingers and hope. I’m only eight, so I still believe things might come right in the end.
“Then…he lives.”
“Are you sure?”
I look at my father, at his ice-blue eyes. Please let this be OK. “Yes, father.”
“Very well.” Father clicks his fingers, and another door opens. A lackey is tugging a figure into the room. Wait! That’s…
“Ramond? What’s he doing here? Father?”
“Quiet, boy. You made your choice.” Ramond is crying, massive gulping tears. He’s six years older than me, but still my friend. He helps his uncle in the gardens. I know Ramond isn’t quite right…quite right in the head, because mostly it feels like I’m his older brother. But he’s funny and kind, and plays tag with me for hours.
“Father?”
My father, Tyrus Drakeward, nods to the man holding my friend. The next second, Ramond crumples onto the corporate carpet, a long, thin knife sticking out of his ear.
“RAMOND!” I run over and kneel at his body. Nobody stops me. “Why? Why? What did he do?”
“He did nothing, Cosmo. You made a choice. If the accountant lived, Ramond would die.”
“But you didn’t tell me, I didn’t know the rules.”
“There are always consequences for every decision, and it’s the strong who decide what those consequences will be. You don’t like it, then you fight to be the strongest in the room. Become the leader. I hope you’ll remember that in the future.”
I shake my head, the roar of the wind drowning out Ramond's scream in my memory. The past is dead. I'm alive. I tuck my wings and dive.
Father was right about one thing. The strong make the rules.
But right now, I don't feel strong. I feel like that eight-year-old boy again, watching a friend bleed out on a carpet because I didn't understand the game.
As I come to land next to the others, my eyes flick to the tiny girl covered in sparkles.
Is Theodora Fucking Wilson our leader?
