I shake my head. He’ll just punish her for it. Or worse, make me kill Rei to prove a point.
My finger squeezes the trigger, and I flinch as it lands straight between Kaia’s big brown eyes. Silence echoes around us.
“Excellently done,” Ender commends.
His praise makes my skin burn. Rage pours down my throat like scalding water, burning my insides. For a moment, my gun remains upright, pointed in his general vicinity.
A palm slides on top of mine, and Rei lowers my hand.
“Come on,” she says softly. “Let’s leave.”
Rei drags me away, Flint limping behind us. It takes everything in me not to look back at him. To not show him just how much I despise him. Because IhateEnder Vale more than I ever thought possible. He is no better than the Supreme Director. His fingers may not have molded the regime, but his cruelty fuels it.
I know now with striking clarity that we are no longer being taught to survive.
I’m almost certain that we’re being taught tokill.
chapter
twenty-eight
Haven
It is the night of the engagement party.
The car ride to Ender’s house is chillingly silent. I refuse to engage with him after what he put me through yesterday. It’s a wonder he can look so fresh-eyed and normal after forcing me to kill someone.
“You can’t ignore me forever,” Ender says.
He clearly doesn’t know how spiteful I can be.
He sighs, a deep, exaggerated sound when I don’t respond.
“You are a soldier, Warrick,” he says flatly. “And soldierskill.”
“Not unnecessarily,” I say sharply. “Not needlessly.”
“You are far older than I was when I made my first kill,” he says, between clenched teeth. “You should consider yourself lucky.”
“Lucky?” I ask bitterly. “You want me to thank you for turning us into unfeeling, callous weapons?”
His gloved fingers curl around the steering wheel. And a vein thumps rapidly on his jaw.
“What did you expect?” Ender asks. “A fairytale?”
“You’re going to make an excellent Supreme Director one day,” I say, sarcasm dripping from my words. “Just like your father.”
His eyes flit towards me, cold and angry. He doesn’t like that I’ve compared him to his father.
“The words you speak are treason,” he says. “If I shoved my gun down your throat and shot you right now, it would be within my rights.”
“What’s stopping you?” I ask, staring boredly out my window. “Either do it or shut up.”
“Believe me, I want to,” Ender growls.
The car pulls into the driveway, tires screeching against the asphalt. Ender barely waits for the engine to settle before he steps out of the vehicle and shuts the door behind him. He vanishes down the side path, avoiding the entrance as usual.
I escort myself to the front, glad to see my sister, but annoyed by the circumstances. I’m going to have to be near Ender all night and pretend that I am nothing more than his dutiful wife. It will eat away at me like poison to keep up the façade.
