Instead, she sighs and I tell her what I need from her, surprised that she doesn’t argue. I push past her and she takes the dress and disappears into the bathroom.
I wait, arms folded, letting the finality of it all bleed into me. My mind wanders to the clearing, to the posts, to the faces of the men who thought they were above the game. I imagine Amara at my side, her hair tangled, her eyes full of hunger.
Will she kill her own father?My heart races at the thought of seeing her drive a knife into his heart, freeing herself of obligations to a dictator who never gave a shit about her.
She returns five minutes later, dress pulled over the hoodie, sneakers still on. The effect is messy, but that’s the point. She looks like a bride at her own execution.
"You know what happens next?" I ask.
"No," she says. "And I don’t care."
I chuckle. "That’s my girl. We’ve got a surprise for you."
She rolls her eyes pulling on her runners and steps into the hall, closing the door behind her. We walk in silence, the echo of our steps loud in the emptiness. Outside, mist spreads slowly over the quad.
At the tree line, she stops.
"You sure about this?" her eyes are wide as she sees trucks lining the path, as if she suddenly realizes what is going on.
I take her hand, fingers cold, and squeeze.
"It’s the only way it ever ends."
Chapter 15: Amara
Wecutthroughthebrush, shoes squelching in mud, moonlight glinting off the metal in Julian’s jacket as he walks ahead. Every few steps, he glances at me. I should be freezing in this ridiculous dress, but I feel nothing, not the chill or the scrape of branches, just the empty hum of adrenaline and the thump of my heart.
Julian’s hand is clamped around mine. His knuckles are split from whatever he was doing earlier this evening. I can’t stop staring at them, how the blood has seeped into the creases. It looks like war paint.
At the tree line, the world drops away.
We step into a clearing that’s all wrong, a gouge in the woods where the grass is flattened and the ground turns slick and dark. In the center is a massive boulder, flat-topped and stained, lit up by lanterns perched on stakes. Every shadow is doubled and tripled. I see shapes that don’t move and shapes that do.
A row of knives lies atop the stone—long, slender, gleaming, arranged in a line so perfect it looks measured by machine. Each blade is different. Some are curved, some straight, all of them honed to a shine so bright it burns in my eyes. In the center is a box with an old insignia burned into it.
Around the boulder, someone has planted a ring of thick wooden posts into the earth. Eight in total. Tied to each post is a man, their bodies forced upright by layers of zip ties and ropes. Their heads are bagged with coarse burlap sacks, tied with twine at the neck. Under the sacks, I see movement—shivering, lolling, a slow rotation that’s worse than if they were still.
Some of the men are slumped, knees buckling, the slack held by the tape cutting into their wrists and biceps. Others thrash in small, frantic motions, feet scraping furrows into the mud. A few are in suits, but most are in silk pajamas. One of them has shat himself. It’s obvious by the runny stain down the inner thigh of his pale slacks. Another has vomit seeping out the bottom of his sack, the splatter pooling at his shoes. The smell is sharp—ammonia, bile, the stink of humiliation and terror.
One of the men doesn’t move at all. His body is limp, head hanging at an unnatural angle, like a marionette with the strings cut. The rest are conscious, or nearly so. They make little mewling sounds behind the burlap, soft and pathetic.
I stop dead, all the breath sucked out of me. I can’t move, can’t think. Every nightmare I’ve ever had is alive in this place, wearing flesh and expensive shoes.
Julian doesn’t hesitate. He tugs my hand, and I stumble forward, feet dragging through the churned mud. He’s smiling, not with joy, but with the grim certainty of a man who’s already made his peace with violence.
He leads me past the first post. The man tied there is huge, shoulders straining the seams of his suit, arms flecked with blood where the tape has cut through skin. His head jerks as we pass, the sack twisting to follow us. A grunt pushes through the burlap, wet and hoarse. I don’t know his name, but he’s one of them. One of the men who signed my life away with a ballpoint pen.
We pass another. This one is older, hunched, his head cocked sideways as if trying to hear better. His sack is splattered with something dark—wine, maybe, or blood. His hands flex against the bindings, useless.
I want to look away, but my eyes keep bouncing to the knives. There are so many. I picture them being used, picture whose hands will hold them. The idea is both alien and familiar, like a dream I’ve had a thousand times but never remembered until now.
Julian’s grip tightens. My fingers go numb. He brings us to a halt near the boulder, right at the edge of the lantern-light.
For a second, there’s silence, the kind that presses on your eardrums until you think your head might burst.
And then, from behind the posts, a laugh breaks the stillness. It’s high and wild, too loud, like a hyena at a carcass.
Dahlia. She’s pacing behind the second post, a knife in each hand, the white dress she’s wearing smeared with mud up to the knees. Her hair is wild, eyes glittering in the torchlight. She’s watching the man tied to the post, trailing the tip of a blade up his arm, not cutting but close enough that he flinches at every pass.
