Kane directs me up the hall with a wave of his taser, and a hand cracks into my back, shoving me forward.
Fine. I’ll go in chains.
I’ll wrap these chains around his neck and strangle him with them.
The smell of freshly cut flowers turns sour on the air. The coolness feels like the breath of a gaping grave. It’s all horror, all this wealth and beauty, sickening.
I hate this place. I hate that man.
He doesn’t make me wait. None of the pathetic showmanship I’m used to. I’m brought straight into his office, where he sits behind his big desk, fully dressed and awake at an hour I know he’s always asleep.
They shove me to my knees, the chains rattling against the stone floor, and I raise my eyes to him.
The Emperor.
The man who stole me from my home, who terrorized me for years. Who’s trying to take the one precious thing in my life away from me.
“I won’t fight him.”
“Then you’ll die.” Happy words from his lips, light and goading.
“You promised!” I yell at him, spit from grit teeth landing on the floor. “You promised. I fought and I won. This is my time!”
“Oh, Marco.” He laughs, climbing to his feet. He rounds the table, the swish of thick silk grating on my every nerve as he leans back against his desk. “Of course I’ll make you free. That’s what the people want, you said it yourself.” His eyes narrow. “Only I’ll do it on my terms.”
Every promise, every hour spent with him, everything on the verge of collapse. The crowd chanting for me, Julius’s words. It all shrinks into one red-hot ball of fury, and I lunge for him.
Electricity bursts through my chest. Chains catch me at the neck. The floor slams into my shoulder, my arm screaming from the blow. “You fucking bastard!”
He tsks his filthy tongue. “Now, now, Marco. I’d have thought all this would be a lesson in why you should be more polite.”
I lunge again. It’s stupid, but it’s all I can do. Some kind of fight. Like a lion in a cage, striking out. I can’t do nothing. I can’t stand here and…
My knees crack down on the floor, the shock of the taser ripping through me again. I slam a hand down to steady myself. “You cannot make me fight him.”
“Fine. Go there and die, if that’s what you really want.” His fingers curl around the edge of his desk. “But I have a feeling Shore will fight.”
It almost makes me laugh. Even now, so jealous of the two of us that he’d kill Harlan, orchestrate this cruel game, he has no idea what we mean to each other.
Robin, precious, beautiful Robin, would never raise a hand to me.
Not in a million years.
But that’s when my promise to Robin comes back on me tenfold.
My promise to kill him. My promise to take Esme home. To set her free. Even now she waits outside the city walls. Robin cannot get to her. She can’t even get back in. Come nightfall, she’s at the mercy of the wastelanders, the infected, unless I’m there to protect her.
The sickening realization claws at me. My oath to him. This devastation I thought we’d escaped. A thick, cloying nausea drowns me, from my chest, up my throat, bodily, so my hands begin to shake.
“He’s really not worth the trouble, Marco.” His voice seems to come from far away. Some night noise, some insect buzzing, until one word cuts through me like a knife. “Even if he is from Atrea, like you.”
My head snaps up, in spite of myself.
“Did you think I didn’t know?” He laughs, good and hard. “Oh, no, I’ve known for some time. Haven’t I, Bishop?”
Kane Bishop puffs his chest out with a half chuckle, nods his head like this is some grand joke the two of them share.
“You see, Bishop is the man who brought Robin in.”
