Page 48 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

All fine.

It’s a lie.

He hates lying to Jules, hates it even more because Jules knows it, but there’s nothing he can do.

Jules only seems sad that he lied, but he taps to say, I love you.

Lachlan says it back, wishes he could kiss him.

But he can’t.

‘Let’s go.’

Lachlan escorts him to see Penhalyx, and the whole way there, he hears Troy fucking Harker’s voice in his head saying that shit about shiny medals on broken men.

CHAPTER SIX

Lachlan’s never seen Danya drink before.

In the kitchen, he quietly explains what Penhalyx said, and Danya listens, mostly neutral until the end.

‘Why both?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘What do you think?’

Lachlan can’t say what he thinks, can’t force the words out because his body has locked them up. He remembers the beach that night, the sands of Sable Key. Fuck his mouth until he gags, Mikki. I want to watch.

He’d rather be whipped bloody, stabbed over and over.

Lachlan feels stupid for not anticipating it.

To protect Jules and Mimi, he would willingly get on his knees and do whatever Penhalyx wants, but Danya… that hurts so badly he can’t even quantify it. Danya wasn’t trained for this shit in Resolution Branch, and even if he was, it’s Danya.

He’s Lachlan’s best friend.

The only one he ever had.

Danya asks, ‘Is punishment for Carrigan?’

‘That, and punishment for me not listening to him about Jules.’

Lachlan pours himself a glass of neat vodka that Danya whipped out from a cupboard in the kitchens. He downs it in one.

Just to steady his nerves.

‘OK, is fine. Will be fine,’ Danya tells him bracingly, his hand on Lachlan’s back, giving a few rough claps.

It’s not going to be fine.

Not at all.

Lachlan checks his watch.

Almost ten.

‘I think it’s gonna be bad,’ he forces himself to say because not warning Danya is a crime unto itself. He’s never had to deal with Penhalyx’s punishments, and Lachlan would have done whatever he could to keep it that way, but he’s really fucked up now.