Her back stays tense beneath my touch, but she drifts closer to me as we approach the Keepers—her internal sense of danger shifting from me to them. I love that.
Raven is the one to stand from the porch steps and walk to meet me. She looks more pleasant than when we met. Her hair is in that same too-tight ponytail, but there’s a slight, welcoming smile on her face instead of a self-righteous scowl. I’m not sure what to make of it.
“May I help you with something, Mr. Hans?—”
“I was wondering where my friend was,” I say before she can get the rest of my name out. Luna may not recognize me by my face, but she’s most certainly read about me in The Times.
Raven’s mouth hangs open on a delay, eyelids pinching like she isn’t sure who I’m talking about. She sucks in sharply when recognition flares, and her gaze bounces from Luna to me. “He’s in the arena.”
“Arena?” I blink hard, the word short-circuiting my brain for a moment. “LikeGladiatororHunger Games?”
She stares at me, vacant as the unplugged TV she’s never seen. Books, movies, culture—none of it lives here.
“Can I see him?”
She tugs the collar of her shirt as if the fresh air is suddenly hard to breathe. “I’m sorry, but … no. Mr. Wilcox is preparing for his initiation ceremony this evening.”
“Thisevening?”
Raven nods, licks her lips, sweeps a hand toward Luna. “You’re both required to attend… It’ll be in the square. Listen for the horn.”
Luna’s shoulder grazes my arm as she hovers close. It’s distracting. And annoying—a reminder of all the shit that’s keeping me from doing what I came here to do.
I’ve scouted most of the compound… Why don’t I know about an arena?
“We’ll be there…Thanks,” I say to Raven before heading back toward the path, the girl glued to my arm. Which is … a good thing. At least my work with the captive is going as planned.
“I won’t let them hurt you,” I tell her once we’re back on concrete.
She doesn’t reply—or I’m too distracted to hear it. Movement in the tree-line catches my eye.
Two Keepers emerge from the woods like shadows wearing skin, charcoal uniforms blending with the dark pines behind them. The coiled metal strapped to one’s hip catches the sun—tight spirals of steel built for pain. Not barbed that I can see, so… It’s electric, I think. The sight alone raises the hairs on my neck. It’s the first time I’ve seen a Keeper armed. And the first time I’ve seen either of these faces. Both blank. Black soot streaking one of their foreheads, not from the trees but from…
The mines.
“What does initiation mean?” Luna asks.
“It means becoming a member of the cult. Sorry, one sec…”
I pause on the sidewalk; turn; lower to one knee to put the Keepers in my line of sight. With quick hands, I yank my shoestrings loose and retie as thoroughly as a kindergartener.Two more blank-uniformed drones step from the Bastion. They exchange bottles of water for the coiled weapons and start toward the forest where the others came.
To the mines.
To guard them.
Because that’s where the money is.
One side of my mouth curves with a smile I don’t even smother as I glimpse Luna eyeing me. “Drives me crazy when my shoes are loose,” I say with way too much spunk.
After finishing the knot, I stand and wipe my hands together, trailing the men heading into the forest. Sniffing, I face Luna and immediately lose my breath. Red eyes, faint but demonic, glint off a ray of sunlight and peer straight into my soul. It startles me so much, I flinch; regret it; open my mouth to apologize; close it when her expression doesn’t change.
“WillIhave an ‘initiation ceremony?’” she asks, unperturbed by my rudeness. Not because she doesn’t see it, but because…? She’s used to it? She doesn’t give a shit what I think?
Staring square into her red eyes, I try not to let them unsettle me. Try not to let my composure break. More than once, I’ve found myself in an interrogation room while detectives screamed and prodded and filmed every lie I told. I’ve never found keeping an innocent expression as difficult as I do now.
“I’ve never done this before, so I don’t know the particulars of the Seraphs’ initiations. I’ll find out and let you know.”
She stares, never blinking. I count to five before she looks off, delicate hand smoothing up her arm, apparently content with that answer. Like a trance breaking, my breaths deepen, my heart rate slows. I didn’t even tell her a lie, not fully, so the effect her eyes have on me is baffling.
