Page 70 of Eight of Swords, Part Two

‘Someone did.’

‘I did it because I love Iron Star, and I loved my brother, and that’s more than I can fucking say about you!’ Seth screams at Riley. ‘You underestimate how dangerous these freaks really are! I’m not the only one who thinks that, either. Far from it. They’re unnatural and insidious and evil! You don’t see it because you’re blind to everything outside the Tower!’

‘Now that,’ Riley says after several beats, ‘you believe wholeheartedly.’

Lachlan makes an impatient noise. ‘Gimme thirty seconds with him.’

‘No.’

‘Harker—’

‘You don’t touch my people.’ Riley kneels in front of Seth. Riley never kneels. ‘I’m sorry for what happened,’ he tells him. ‘And I’m sorry for what has to happen now.’

‘Go ahead and kill me! I don’t fucking care.’

‘You do. You care. You loved Gage, and he’s gone now. His life was cut short. He doesn’t get to eat breakfast or make you laugh or see new things with you. You care. Death is so unbearable that we numb ourselves to the concept, or we run headfirst towards it just so we don’t have to be the one left behind. You knew you’d be found out,’ Riley says with total confidence. ‘You knew you’d be killed. You want to die, but that doesn’t mean you don’t care.’

Seth’s bottom lip trembles, tears in his eyes. ‘Fuck you.’

‘Who helped you?’

The next few seconds of silence are so tense, Kade can hear his own heartbeat in his ears. When Seth refuses to answer, Riley rises to stand, giving Seth’s shoulder a brief, friendly squeeze.

‘I’m going to slit your throat,’ he tells him, ‘and leave you in here to be eaten by Lachlan Tanner.’

‘No.’

‘You can choose to be dead when it starts, if you’d like.’

Tears spill down Seth’s bloodless face. ‘What?’

‘It’s the most mercy you’ll get from me.’

‘What the fuck,’ Seth utters, barely able to breathe, ‘is wrong with you?’

Riley slides his fingertips through the small river of Seth’s red, making a mess of the traitor’s neck as he grips it, his fingers digging in.

‘I make the choices no one else can.’

‘Let go of me!’

‘I see things the way no one else does. I can weigh value versus vengeance and make a clean decision that benefits the people I care about. That’s why I’m the boss, Seth. Do you understand?’

‘That thing killed our people!’

‘Lachlan Tanner is useful.’

‘He’s not even human!’

‘Do you think everyone in Iron Star is human?’

‘I…’ Seth blinks, his mouth closing and opening. ‘Of course they are.’

‘Now who’s blind?’

‘I won’t die like that.’

‘You’ll die however I decide. Tanner,’ Riley says, beckoning him with his middle two fingers.