I kept my breathing steady. I concentrated on the acid in my veins. I clutched the pain to me and rode on the pulse of Jagger’s hate. I stayed there, keeping myself free of the hurricane raging in my locked room. It beat at the doors; it screamed, pounded, and ravaged, trying to burst free. I bolstered the door and locked it tight. I couldn’t let it out.
Jagger watched me, his hand on the knife, blood pooling around his gray fingers.
Finally, my eyes still on Jagger’s, I said, “Thanks for the come-out party. It’s been nice.”
Jagger’s rough laugh rumbled over me and through me, an uncomfortable scraping. It held a promise: Betray me, fight me, resist me, and this will happen to you. You’re mine to use. Mine to destroy.
“Oh, it’s not over. After the celebration, I’m sending you to destroy the Night Den. Burn it to the ground, Mari. Burn it to the ground.” He rose up like a vicious mountain, towering over us all, and shouted, “Let’s feast!”
Once he’d walked away, I looked down at Justice. Jagger had pulled the knife free, and blood sprouted from his wound. I didn’t react as Rou shoved me aside, but I wanted—oh, how I wanted—to smile.
The hurricane in the locked room of my heart fell silent and then subsided to a warm, relieved breeze. I wanted to weep with relief.
Jagger hadn’t stabbed Justice in the heart. He’d tricked me. He’d made it look like a death blow, when in fact, it’d been a graze. The knife had hit bone and left a shallow, bloody wound.
He’d made one final play to see if I was truly his. I know if I’d reacted at all, I would’ve been dead. I think if I’d reacted, Justice and I both would’ve been dead.
Jagger was a master of deceit, and I’d fallen for his lie. Thank goodness I was playing my own game.
I was still at Justice’s side. Rou pressed a cloth napkin to his chest. His heartbeat was pushing out blood in slow, painful gushes.
“How does it feel being a monster?” she asked, smiling. “You did good. You lived when I didn’t think you would.”
Griff stared at me as if snakes had sprouted from my head and frozen him to the spot. He looked at me as if I were all his nightmares birthed into one being.
“Don’t . . . don’t . . .” he whispered, shaking his head. “Please don’t say Mari’s a monster.”
“Not saying it doesn’t make it less true,” Rou said, glancing at Griff. “Besides, you’re a monster too.”
He looked down at himself. His hands were clenched in tight fists. His father’s form was fighting to break free. His nails were elongating, and his tendons were bulging in his forearms. His shoulders were widening in preparation for his leathery wings. His brown irises were deepening to black.
“Mari? You didn’t really want to kill Justice, right?” Griff begged me to agree. To tell him I was still me.
I couldn’t though. Griff couldn’t know. Even tapping out the code for Justice carried risks. If Jagger asked Justice if he thought I was truly a mine, Justice couldn’t lie to him. And Griff . . . he could never stand against Jagger’s rages.
I’d learned something tonight. I was a mine. Jagger had taken root and filled me with his will and his hate. But I was still me too. I was still there. So I was going to play a game.
A game of deception.
A game of misdirection.
A game where no one could trust anything I did or said.
The only thing you can trust is that in the end, everything I did, I did for the love of good. For you.
Could I keep from killing? Could I keep from violence and destruction? Could I play this game and keep my soul?
Jagger didn’t think so.
Judging by Rou’s placid expression as she soaked up Justice’s blood, and Griff’s horrified, betrayed gaze, they didn’t think so either.
I’m not going to lie to myself. There are times you put on a monster’s mask only to find the mask has become you. I know this is true.
I may lie to everyone else, but I won’t lie to myself. Why?
Because if I lie to myself, when everyone else has turned on me (and they will) and the only person I have left is myself, I want to be able to trust myself.
If I lie to myself, I won’t be able to trust myself, and then I’ll fail.
