Perhaps it was time.
Lucas Scott would be my reaper.
Still embroiled in the dream, I battled a profound urge to cry. When I signed my name that day, I didn’t want this war to be my new reality. Nia Williams asked me to lay down my history, my future, my desires, my ideas of the life I had wanted, and follow her into a lost cause.
I think I’d known even then our chances were slim. The Unified States possessed the most expensive and heavily armed military in existence. Who could win against that, even if it was divided? A ragtag army against a world superpower?
Maybe I was just cynical. I’d never been an optimist.
Still, when it was my turn to sign my name, I laid it on the page, girly loops and scrawls to seal my fate. Standing in that church, uncertain and afraid, I signed away my life.
Sophia Elena Reeves.
Of course thedream would surface the day I had to meet Lucas Scott. I forced down a sickening roll of my stomach as I left headquarters for the meeting house on Evanston Avenue.
Theo gave no words of encouragement before I slipped away. He tried to smile, but it emerged as a grimace. If the Blood Colonel wanted to kill me on the spot, I would have no self-defense. Theo knew this, but we’d both learned long ago it wasbetter not to say goodbye. There were simply too many to say, with too little time to spare.
My feet dragged as the sun sank low into the late March sky. The chill in the air prickled my skin, but it was nothing compared to the fierce pang of longing that stabbed through me as I reminded myself why I was doing this—for Tekqua. I’d lost many people, but she was the most recent, and perhaps the most painful. When she was captured on patrol a couple months ago, she’d taken with her all the interest I had in outlasting this war. If she hadn’t survived, then I didn’t deserve to. She’d been more dedicated. Stronger. A soldier to her core.
So what did it matter if I died today?
I marched toward my inevitable demise in a neighborhood that should’ve had people walking their dogs, children playing in the street. Instead, the lifeless shells of houses served as a reminder of how things used to be. When I arrived, I studied the home. The porch spoke of happier times, with a swing and a couple chairs by the door. Large windows across the front warmed the entire facade. Diaphanous white curtains veiled the interior.
I crept up the stairs, counting as I went. The warped boards of the porch creaked with each step. A brass knocker hung on the crimson door, the shape of a lion, but I didn’t use it. The entry had been left open, cracked wide enough to fit my body through. I stood at the threshold—deep breath—then slipped inside.
A combined entryway and living room greeted me. Two blue couches bracketed a coffee table with a burning candle in the middle. A wide doorway led to a dining room on one side and the kitchen beyond it.
The space was empty.
So… where was he?
A smooth, deep voice cut through the darkness. “Are you the war whore?”
Nearly choking on my gasp, I spun to face him. He stood in the doorway of a shadowed bedroom on my left, leaning a shoulder on the jamb. The dim light obscured his features. Dark wavy hair softened a sly, angled face, one brow lifted as he gazed at me.
My insides contracted at the sight of him, and every inch of my skin turned clammy as the realization occurred that he wasyoung. So much younger than he looked on TV. He couldn’t be but a handful of years older than me, and yet a deadly air of danger and ruthlessness practically dripped from his pores. Long, thin fingers curled around his biceps the same way I imagined they twined around throats. Scars across his skin demonstrated his familiarity with violence, his will to survive. Mouth turned down into a frown, expression wintry and closed, Lucas Scott radiated don’t-fuck-with-me vibes in a steady, petrifying rhythm.
The TV screen didn’t do him justice. This man wasn’t human. The cold, almost robotic calculation on his face proved it. He was nothing but a killer.
Terror snaked its way through me, razor sharp. My heart sped, and instinct compelled me to search his body for easily accessible weapons.
He had none.
No holsters, no knives. But I wasn’t safe. He needed no weapon to take my life. He was a weapon in the form of a man.
I forced my suddenly dry mouth to open. “I’m not a whore.”
Seriously? Why wasthatthe thing that came out of my mouth?
His attention slipped down my body before returning to my eyes.
Ew.
Did he just check me out? Perusing the goods, or something? What a monster.
“They sold you to me for information,” he said. “Would you prefer the termslave?”
Oh, fuck you, Lucas Scott.
