The Vixen (Puppets & Property #2)

1. Sawyer

SAWYER

My mother used to say the greatest gift she ever gave me was a father born with blond hair, blue eyes, and skin made for the summer.

Few qualities are guaranteed by the upbringing of a child—neither intelligence nor grit nor aptitude—but if one is lucky enough to glimmer in the sun, he has no need for sweat.

Shallow, maybe. But for a woman born and raised in LA, it was the truest thing she’d ever known.

Not a day has passed that I haven’t felt the pang of her death, but on occasion—when I catch my mangled reflection, or the eyes of a curious stranger—I’m grateful she never had to see the aftermath of the fire.

Patches of mottled flesh marring my chest, my hands, my arms—pockets of pink leathery skin chronically inflamed from an itch impossible to scratch.

A disfigurement harder to swallow than the nerve damage in my hands, where dull and sharp sensation clash at the edge of scar tissue.

Vanity is a sin I’ll admit I’ve leaned on my entire life.

But today, with my palms bloody, my face caked, and my hair slicked back with weeks’ worth of sweat, grease, and grime, I’m grateful for my scars.

I wish the flames that ate my mansion had licked my body whole, dulling every fucking nerve on my exposed flesh until there was nothing left to damage. No pain left to feel.

Dramatic.

Untrue.

But the thought is a nice distraction.

As an electric hum draws close, my mind whips to the present, the pickaxe in my grasp growing heavier.

I swing harder at the mine’s wall and dislodge a fat rock with a grunt as dust rains from the ceiling.

Pain lights up my shoulder as I swing again, and again—each time harder than the last until I prove myself to the Keeper waiting behind me.

Only when he passes, do I allow myself to breathe.

Calm. Preserve my energy for the next watchful hound.

Two stations down from me, a whip crackles over the back of a Dreg I’ve yet to hear speak.

The slicing of flesh mixes with the rhythmic echo of tools on rock.

He gasps but doesn’t scream—one of the tell-tale signs of a Dreg who’s been here long enough for the nerves on their backs to dull.

Most of us don’t last more than a couple of months. Wilcox only made it a few weeks.

As the Keeper moves farther down the tunnel, I rest the pickaxe on my shoulder. Dust filters into my lungs as I heave a breath through my mouth, my nostrils too caked for more than a whistle of air. At least it blocks the smell.

I wipe grime from my nose and look down at my palm—a mistake I’ve managed to go two days without making.

Lanterns light the tunnel with a low glow that flicks shadows on the mess of blisters and raw flesh, the once-hardened skin now vulnerable and oozing.

Three blisters have morphed together to make one sickly, liquid-filled sac atop marred tissue.

Disgusting.

“Back to work,” the Dreg on my right growls—no favor to me. Instead of meeting his glare, I search for the Keeper he’s no doubt trying to avoid. Five work stations away with his back turned.

Still…

Facing forward, I swing the ax with a rhythm satisfying to my workmate.

Workmate. Enemy. Competitor.

With the common pain inflicted upon us, there should be camaraderie, some natural bond formed from mutual suffering. But there isn’t. The Ice Queen has found a way to edit that out of her design—manipulating every interaction without showing her face.

It’s grotesquely cruel. And absurdly simple.

Dominance is punished. Meekness is rewarded.

Those who inform the guards of transgressions receive food. Occasional clothing.

Those who disobey are humiliated and shunned.

Sometimes forced to work naked, sometimes castrated—but never with their manhood intact.

Because in her system, there can be no alpha males, no leaders, no inkling of bravery.

Any who dare puff their chest to a Keeper end up curled on the floor wailing.

Whatever spirits they lifted are thoroughly and predictably squashed.

Simple.

Outstandingly effective.

A whistle slices through the air, the pitch like needles in my eardrums. All at once, thirty men drop their axes and turn toward the source of the piercing noise—a little metal pipe in the mouth of an ear-muffed, all too eager Keeper.

She probably designed that too.

“Water,” another ear-muffed Keeper announces, his baritone voice echoing through the tunnel.

A collective gasp swells the tunnel as weakened bodies barrel toward the exit.

They shove into one another like dogs nipping the heels of cattle.

I untie my shirt-sleeves from my waist, but before I can put it on, a shoulder slams my back.

The frayed cloth drops to the ground as I fall into the wall, my hand barely stopping my face from smashing rock.

A red hand-print clings to the dark surface as I pull away.

“Move,” a Keeper growls with a shove. I stumble forward and leave the shirt behind.

My work station was center-tunnel, but I’m still one of the last to step into the frosted air. I squint against the sunlight even as it hides behind wintry clouds that pelt my face with snowflakes.

I cup my hands over my mouth and take slow exhales while curling my toes in my tattered socks. Snow bites the soles of my exposed feet where two giant holes have formed.

My parched throat nearly brings me to my knees, but I just watch the others at the water troughs as they fight to lap at the two solid bricks of ice like desperate pigs. The weak are thrown to the ground by the strong only to clamber their way back. Some give up and shovel snow into their mouths.

The four Keepers on duty watch with disinterest, canteens slung over their shoulders.

Cruel.

Intentional.

Potent.

Her.

Tipping my head back, I open my mouth and let snow collect on my tongue. My arms shake with stage five Parkinson’s, and for the first time since the first time—my first winter at Cambridge—I’m grateful for the icy flecks.

My bunkmate, Angel, and I were in the courtyard arguing over the origin of toast when the first flake kissed my nose.

A childish laugh rocked my chest as I’d held my hand up and marveled at the wintry miracle. Amazing. Magical. Until four hours later when my car wouldn’t start, and Angel and I had to trek three miles back to the dorm in a snowstorm.

I spent four winters at Cambridge bitching about the cold. Since university, I’ve mostly avoided it.

Until now.

Until her.

The sharp pitch of the whistle startles me from my thoughts. My hands slap over my ears while my brow furrows.

Breaks last exactly fifteen minutes. It hasn’t been more than five.

Dregs abandon the icy trough, but instead of going inside, I watch as one drops to the ground. Then another. Then four more, until all the dirty bodies are falling to the snow.

My lungs pause as I dart my eyes to the troughs: poison?

Closer look… No.

They’re not dying. They’re bowing, knees sunk into snow as their arms stretch wide, all facing the same direction. Her direction, as the Ice Queen herself struts her black boots, black sweater, black heart toward the mine. As if the snow has summoned her—or she the snow.

Collective fear as icy as the sky laces through the air like crystals latching to Dregs’ throats—blocking airways, chilling bones. All except the Keepers. All except me.

I breathe like a bull and stand stock still while my blood heats, face flushing with sudden warmth.

My trembling hands lower to my sides and ball into fists while she walks toward me like the ghost in the Dregs’ stories—an urban legend, a campfire tale.

Daemonium, they sometimes call her. For the Keepers who mention her, it’s Her Grace or Head Keeper.

Her Grace commands this.

Head Keeper demands that.

Not a soul has spoken the name Luna. In moments where my memory of our last kiss burns like a vicious taunt, I sometimes pretend Her Grace is someone else entirely. Like the girl I risked my life for is still a captive of the compound and waits in the Keep for me to save her.

But the pale-faced creature walking toward me is no doubt the same one I pitied less than a month ago.

No hard feelings, she’d said to me the night I tried to escape with her, her cold, needy kiss still fresh on my lips.

Tell that to the lashes across my back, you fucking bitch.

I hear the buzz too late. A strip of searing pain whips between my shoulder blades, sharp as the glowing end of a fire poker pressed into my skin. The jolt steals my breath, muscles locking tight, and for a moment, all I hear is the crackle of electricity and the echo of my own strangled gasp.

I fall to my knees, and my blistered palms find relief in the snow.

The Keeper doesn’t waste a second before shoving his boot against the fresh burn, forcing my cheek to numb against the frozen earth.

I stretch my arms out with the silent command and take in hoarse, violent breaths while my body convulses.

Luna’s black boots pause inches from my face. My jaw clenches to stop my chattering teeth, though my lip still trembles. Either with cold or with rage.

Strange. For all the pain I’ve endured in the mines, this is the first time I’ve felt truly angry.

“You’re still alive,” Luna says, emotionless. I shake uncontrollably while staring at snow collecting on a rock.

I shouldn’t say anything.

A smart person wouldn’t say anything.

“Isn’t that why you gave me the knife?”

I wish I would’ve beaten the shit out of you when I had the chance.

“I wasn’t sure you’d know how to use it.”

I close my eyes at the lack of feeling in her tone, so opposite the character she played for me. Her voice. Her expression. Even her breathing is silent where it once was a predictable melody of short bursts of fear—fake, everything fake.

Bone-chilling.

Amazing.

She crouches and takes a fistful of my hair. Her long nails claw my scalp as she yanks my head back. Puffs of fogged air blow out my nostrils, my neck cramping at the odd angle.

If she’s pissed about me mentioning the knife she slipped into my waistband on our last night together, she doesn’t show it. Though, I don’t think she meant for the Keepers to know. They weren’t aware of it when they put me in the cell with Wilcox.

I wince at the memory that flashes—Wilcox startling me awake in the middle of the night. His hands around my neck. The weak grip I pried with too much ease, his muscles already turned to mush from weeks spent in hell.

Rolling on top of him. Rearing back the knife. Plunging it into his chest.

Tears in his eyes before he died. Relieved, not angry.

The desperate savagely fighting over the knife while the hungry called to the Keepers, hoping to be the first to inform of the contraband.

The numbness I felt while the Keepers searched me. The necklace Annie gave me ripped from my neck.

Shock. Foolishness. Fear.

Sorrow.

For a moment, I feel it all as if it’s happening for the first time. My anger slips while Luna inspects me. Her prized pig.

Or just her pig.

Or pig shit.

When her grip releases, my head falls and my nose stops an inch from snow. Nails rake my hair as she sighs. “You’re filthy.”

Her fingers leave my hair as she stands and gestures to a Keeper who hauls me to my feet. With a glance at my curled toes, she frowns. Turns her head toward the other Dregs.

Her hands clasped behind her back, she wanders to one and kicks his shoes. They aren’t mine, but they’re not his either. Shoes are a commodity meant for the strongest and most violent among us.

Or the ones who kiss ass.

“Give him these… It’s a long walk to the Keep. I’d hate for Mr. Hansley to lose his toes.”

I press my forehead to the ground as a long, deep sigh billows out of me in a cloud of white—relief settling like a weight so heavy, I’m ashamed of it. Relief that’s quickly swallowed whole.

Good news. Maybe.

The Keep means less security.

Less security means more opportunity.

Opportunity equals freedom.

But as I’m shoved forward so hard I fall at Luna’s feet, the tunnel has never had more appeal. The predictability of pain and death have never felt so tolerable.

Things I know about “Luna”:

She’s disturbingly cunning.

Repulsively cruel.

And whatever she has planned is not for my benefit.