Gage was instructed not to escort me into the room, which he claims is unusual, so I think that’s the reason he’s jittery. He has to wait in here. Idly standing by through someone’s struggles—or trials—is often harder than enduring them.
With my backpack slung over my shoulder, I pluck the envelope off the seat beside me and glide it through my fingers while he walks me over to the door.
“You have a minute to read the card, and then you need to ready your weapon, ditch your backpack, and walk inside,” he reminds me. “I’ll be right over here.”
Once he’s far enough away that he can’t read it—as mandated by the first card I got when we arrived—I tear into the envelope, my heart thrashing against my rib cage for the deliverance that is indisputably being ripped from my grasp.
Final Task: Rena
Kill the traitor.
For every sentence you speak, someone dies. Therefore, you are only granted one.
Everyone is armed. Time is ticking.
On the flip side of the cardstock, the bylaws are listed, but I shove the card into the pocket of my body-hugging black jumpsuitwithout much consideration. They won’t be relevant unless I pass. And it seems in order to do so, I’ll be adding murder to my résumé.
My throat is instantly dry as visions of Gage morphing into a green Hulk, tucking me under his arm, and crashing through the stone walls of this ancient cathedral flit through my mind. I glance back at him to exchange a tentative smile, knowing that route would surely get us all killed. Better to let the room change me. They’ll meet me on the other side.
Embracing my Noire roots, I retrieve my CZ Scorpion Micro from my bag, drop my backpack to the floor, flip open the brace, and let my fingers dance over the stock in a disconcerting familiarity. I’ve shot this gun thousands of times at our range, but never at something living and breathing. In a battle, I’d aim and fire without question. But this paints me as an executioner. Although I guess since the target is armed, I could also be the one condemned.
A chill burrows into my marrow, which has little to do with the blustery spring Chicago night. The church setting is fitting for the end-of-times vibe we’re working with. My free hand curls around the bar on the door, swinging it open with a piercing squeak, and I strut inside with a gangster confidence that is on loan from my brothers, who have shown me what it means to own our world.
The first thing that catches my attention isn’t the round oak table that Gage told me about or the chairs surrounding it in a half-moon arrangement. It’s the large black-sand hourglass resting upon it.
Marking time.
Or the lack of it.
And the nonexistent, plaguingtickthat the grains can’t deliver thunders through my bones anyway.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
The oak table is where the knights convene, but it’s empty. The clack of my heels reverberates off the weathered wood planks, the marble altar, the stained-glass story depicted on the windows—a daunting echo that would be a badass drumbeat at the start of aslasher film. That has my gut clambering up to my bile-coated esophagus because as I wade deeper into the eerie space, it’s clear this is a real-life horror.
Evident in every goddamn face peering back at me.
In the pews sit three.
Ty. Axel. Jax.
I whip my head around, desperate to find someone else here. Someone who isn’t mine. A traitor, a monster, a person I’d be willing to kill. Someone who deserves to die.
But there’s no one. Just an old pipe organ—muzzled, like me—and a beloved congregation, sentenced to death at my hand.
I try to plod forward, to take a few more steps toward them, but their blank expressions tell me they don’t know why they’ve been summoned here. And certainly not what I’ve been ordered to do. No one utters a sound, and the silence cuts through me like a blade. A spear.
Freedom gained on a mound of skulls.
Are they gagged too?
A tremor seizes my knees, matching the violent shudder from my chest. I drop to a squat, unable to fathom how we get out of this. Blood flow assails my eardrums as my breaths whistle from my lungs, my pulse thrums in the tips of my fingers, and my joints ache against the grip on my weapon.
Creaks and groans of the antique pews resound—telltale notes of the men who hold my heart squirming at the sight of my agony. But I can’t look at them.
The tears cascading down my cheeks storm furiously. For a fleeting beat, my mind scurries for rationalization, and my heart forages for hope, but my soul cracks and bleeds and burns. This illusive house of prayer offers counterfeit atonement.
Everything we endured was for a prize of defeat.
