He bends over along the table, holding onto the edge as his coughing intensifies.
I only raise my eyebrows, watching him patiently.
“W-What…”Cough. “What the fuck did you do?”
The men behind him give each other looks as they stare at the bottle they took from the server, now depleted by their own thirst. It’s only a matter of time before they start coughing, too.
“The First Lady sends her regards,” I say, tilting the glass forward and spilling the poisoned whiskey on the wooden floor.
It’s why I stopped by the White House earlier. Not to meet with Maddox, but to get what I needed from Cam. She used to prepare this exact poison when working for The Hive. It’s fucking brutal on the human body. It kills you slowly over time, while your skin decomposes and you can’t move anything from the neck down. She also gave me the antidote, which I drank before getting out of the car. After that, all it took was to bribe the server to pour it in the whiskey, which Hawke did as soon as we all sat down.
“You motherfu—” Mason coughs blood on the floor, and I scrunch my nose at the sight.
“Now, now,” I say, eyeing the goons he brought with him. They make a move toward me, but they’re already weakening. Hawke steps in and knocks the first one down. “No need to be so upset. I brought the antidote, you see.” I take the half-empty vial from my chest pocket, flaunting it in front of him. “You might not get your vice president in the White House, but you can win back your life. Fair trade, don’t you think? A life for a life.”
I stand up and go around the table between us. Mason struggles to get up, but I kick him with my boot in the back, and he falls on his trembling arms.
“Where is she? Where the fuck did you take her?!” I shout, fisting his hair and pulling his head back while my boot still presses his body down onto the floor. “You think Salister gives a fuck about any of you? All he’s ever cared about is pushing his plans—his father’s plans, and his grandfather’s plans. Your loyalty means nothing to him. He sent his own daughter—hisonly child—to The Hive for training. Do you have any idea what the Matron puts those girls through? Or what happened to Gale Traveski? The man worshiped Salister like a god, only to end up demoted and buried in a box like a dead animal the moment he outlived his usefulness.”
He listens, no longer coughing but wheezing. The smell of burned flesh enters my nostrils.
“You’re a proud and hungry man, Mason. You’ve worked your ass off to get to where you are. If you die, all that hard work dies with you. But if you live, you might still be able to salvage it.”
I take my boot off him and let go of his head. I go around him, crouching, then uncap the vial.
“Open up. You only need a bit of this to stop your organs from failing.” He parts his lips, albeit slowly, and I pour some of the liquid in his mouth. I don’t actually intend to let him live, but I also won’t let him die from this poison. Hawke has already arranged for a special ops truck to come and pick him up. I’ll have him chained in my basement, where I get to torture him for as long as I fucking want.
“Already feeling better, aren’t you? Cam said you’ll need the whole bottle to recover. Will you take it, Mason, or will I have to dig a hole in the ground for you tonight?”
“W-West,” he wheezes out. “Westh-haven.”
Think. Think. Fucking think.
“Westhaven… in Montana… or in Maine?Where?”
He chokes on the words, but I make out the soundMontana.
I stand up, noticing the rest of our crew come in to clear the room. I reach for my phone, making a call that’s been long overdue. It gets answered after two beeps, and I exit the old bar while I speak.
“President Delaney,” I drawl. “You owe me a favor. And I’m coming to collect.”
nine
Dove
Ilie on my side, cocooned under the warm blankets of a small bed. They moved me into a room—I’m no longer down in the basement—and I even have a window now. But the thought of seeing the light of day makes me want to die.
The slick feeling of blood lingers on my hands. I’ve washed them in cold water and rubbed them raw. My skin is burning, but the pain doesn’t come close to what I’m feeling inside. If I was hanging on to any hope of Rowan finding me and getting out of here, all of that is now gone. My body begins to sing the song of death, and my mind is finally coming to terms with it.
The same memory plays in my head like a broken record that I can’t seem to stop. It screeches against everything good left in me, bringing me down, down, down into a bottomless pit of despair.
“I c-can’t. Please don’t make—don’t make me do it.”
Magnus, the man they want dead, is chained to the wall in the basement, bruised, and bleeding, and barely conscious.
“I’m not making you do anything, darling,” the guard tells me. “You chose this when you asked us… no,beggedus not to touch you. Remember?”
I shake my head, sobbing. My body isn’t worth more than the life of this man. I don’t know him, and I don’t know the things he’s done, but I can’t be the one who brings him his punishment. I’m just a girl. I’m just—
