Chapter 1 #2
I latched onto that word: Together. Even as he held me in his arms, it seemed so foreign.
Our marriage had been arranged when I was an infant and Logan was five years old.
There was something off about him, but I always held onto his sweet words, like a candy-coated poison.
For once, I wanted to hold on to someone who would actually fight with me.
I pulled out my blood-soaked gauze.
“To—” I stopped, the nerves in my mouth searing with tension. I closed my eyes slowly, then tried again. “Together, Logan?”
“Of course,” he said, the response flowing out of him with ease.
A woman’s scream hurled through the hallway, and I glanced behind us.
The tooth extraction had finished, so the audience had lost interest, and we were now alone.
The woman screamed again, and my body tightened and my throat closed up.
I hated when they screamed like that. It was like the pain was worse for me when it was other sacrifices. It always made me think of my mother.
“She doesn’t matter,” Logan said, stroking my hair. “Focus on yourself, babe.”
I pressed my lips together to keep the gauze in my mouth as I pushed myself up.
“Zira?” Logan asked.
I waved at him, silently telling him not to worry about me.
Then I followed the screams down the corridor.
Each room glowed in different shades of color, and that kaleidoscope shifted again, and again, like I was drifting deeper into madness.
In the pink room, a woman hung from her wrists as the members took turns beating her stomach like a pinata.
In the blue room, a woman was lying on a leather bench while a man took her dark hole and carved bloody designs into her back. But those women were silent.
Then the screams faded.
I ran forward, trying to find her. In the last room, my father stood with his back to the door, a sword in his hand, blood pooling on the floor.
A woman lay on the ground, a gash on the side of her neck, her eyelids fluttering.
I raced past my father, kneeling down and scooping her into my arms. Her blood was warm against my skin, and we were both bare and completely helpless, like most women at the Masquerades.
But she wasn’t supposed to die. The sacrifices were about testing limits.
I glared back at my father. He shrugged dismissively.
“I was having fun,” he said. “It’s not like I can take you here.”
Acid curled in my throat. You’d think that being a sacrifice would be enough, but once my mother died, there were other needs my father had to fill, and I clutched my mother’s words.
Act like you like it, she said, That’s how you make it stop. That’s how you survive, Zira.
I twisted my head, but there was no one else in the room, just my father, me, and this woman. Blood soaked her hair, light freckles painting her neck, a dullness to her brown eyes.
Whoever had sacrificed her wasn’t in the room.
“You must never tell anyone about this,” my father said. “Ernest cannot be my enemy.”
I blinked, and my father’s footsteps clicked away, wandering to the hallway, leaving us women alone. She was so fragile in my arms, like a small bird with a broken wing. But she didn’t have a chance.
My father had killed her.
My chest warmed as I considered exposing him, throwing him into the snake pit for once. But I had to show my father that I was trustworthy. That I could be a board member too, one day, like him. I might have been a woman, but I was still as capable as any man.
The cut on the woman’s neck was a third of the way into her, veins like tendrils of hair spilling over the edge, her tissue exposed. Almost like my father had tried to decapitate her and had changed his mind halfway there.
Had my father done this to somehow cope with how my mother—his wife—had died?
I shouldn’t have cared about this woman. And maybe I didn’t. Maybe I just pretended to feel things, so that I could feel human again. But whenever I saw a woman like this, I thought of my mother. Her head falling into a basket. How I had hoped, above all else, that it had been painless.
Footsteps crashed into the room. A man with inky black hair, cut short, adjusted the black mask over his face.
“Is she dead?” he gawked.
The blood pooled like a crimson gulf between my legs, as if I was a follower of Bacchus, bathing in wine.
The answer was obvious, but the man wanted confirmation.
Almost like he was hoping she was dead. He crouched to the side of me, the scent of cloves forcing its way through the metallic fragrance in the air.
“Who killed her?” he asked quietly, as if suddenly realizing his own lack of empathy. I lifted my shoulders, letting my body language speak for me.
I would never tell. I obeyed my father when it came to things like this to prove that he could trust me.
And I could use that information against him.
“She was stealing from me, you know,” he whispered. “That’s why I took her here. But I just wanted to teach her a lesson. I didn’t want her to die.”
I rolled my eyes. If the situation had been switched, and he was stealing from her, he would never be sacrificed. That’s not how the Marked Blooms Syndicate worked. The men were respected and favored; the women were objects to play with.
But the women weren’t supposed to die here.
He reached over, touching her knee. Perhaps he had some sort of ‘feeling’ for her. But as he raised his hand, he inched closer to me, resting his hand on my shoulder, almost like he wanted to pull me into his arms. I put up a hand, pushing him away from me. I let the gauze drop out of my mouth.
“I am done being a sacrifice tonight. You will not touch me.”
The words came out with force, even as they rasped through those new gaps in my teeth. The man jolted, taken aback by my words. His eyes narrowed at my bare chest, then traveled back up to my face.
“A haughty little bitch, aren’t we?” he said. “It’s a shame that Bloom couldn’t make a son.”
I scowled. “I am Zira Bloom, the—”
“No one will take you seriously no matter how hard you try.”
“I am Zira Bloom,” I said again, forcing myself to ignore him, “the heiress of—”
“You know you’ll never be the director, right?”
I wanted to scream. Of course, I’ll be the director. I’ve given up half of my adult teeth and will give up more. I’ve given myself to countless men just to make sure the secret society always stays ahead. I will be the queen, even if I need to kill you and every person in this goddamned building.
But there was a nagging truth to his words that bit inside of me, feasting on my insides like a grumble of maggots.
Maybe he was right. Maybe this was all I would ever be. Holding these women while they died. Wondering when I was going to have enough power to do something about it.
“Heiress or not,” the man chuckled, “it doesn’t take a genius to see that your father will never let you be a member.”
I clenched my jaw, every nerve inside of my mouth strained with rage and pain. But Logan appeared in the doorway, motioning for me to come with him. I gently laid the nameless woman on the floor. Then I stood up, wiping my bloody hands on my sides.
“Leave her alone,” I ordered the black-haired man.
“Or what?” the man asked.
Logan cleared his throat. “Obey the heiress or the director will find out.”
The man adjusted his black shirt, streaked with blood, then stood up too, facing us. “What will happen to my wife?”
“She’ll be added to the catacombs,” I said.
The black-haired man curtly bowed his head, then dashed forward, eager to get past us. But before he could, I put a hand on his shoulder, just like he had done to me. He stilled, tension brewing in his eyes.
“You may have shown your dedication tonight,” I said. My mouth throbbed, but I continued: “But we are watching you. The board. The other members. And me. The only reason my fiancé hasn’t killed you is because you’re obviously valuable to the Syndicate.”
Logan stiffened beside me. He wasn’t a sadist like his father, but perhaps one day, he would learn to like it, as I had. The black-haired man’s eyes glazed over, a flash of anger rumbling through his posture.
“All hail the heiress,” the black-haired man said.
Anger shot through me. At that moment, I made a promise to myself: one day, I was going to kill him. He would bleed out while I laughed.
But I had to wait until I had more power on my side. Revenge was sweetest when it was unexpected. I’d give this black-haired man time to forget me.
Before that, I wanted to indulge in a little fun.
“Say it again, but on your knees this time,” I ordered.
“Zira,” Logan warned, putting a hand on my shoulder.
I kept my eyes on the black-haired man and put up a hand, silencing Logan. “Get on your knees and say it again, or I will have you killed,” I said to the man. “On. Your. Knees.”
The man hesitated. He peeked over at Logan, then, realizing that Logan was truly on my side, he turned back to me. He bowed his head and knelt down.
“All hail the heiress,” he said.
My cheeks hurt, my whole mouth swollen and tender, but I smiled.
“Carry on now,” I said.
He walked past us, leaving his late wife on the floor.
I made a mental note to oversee her burial, but right then, I needed to clear my head.
Logan put an arm around me, his posture awkward, but soothing too.
He was so unlike his father; he must have been a replica of his mother. Soft and kind. Protective too.
“Disgusting prick,” Logan muttered. “She was his wife. Who does that?”
Warmth swelled inside of me. I leaned my head on Logan’s shoulder. I didn’t care what happened to other people—not really, anyway. But I wanted to cling to that small part inside of Logan that wanted to protect his future wife.
We were so disposable here. Easily discarded. And that imbalance dug itself deeper into my skin each time I was sacrificed, like a splinter I could never quite get out. I saw my mother in every powerless woman I passed.
And sometimes, I saw myself too.
“Let’s find you a real dentist,” Logan said. “The implants will be easier to manage.”
I glanced back at the dead woman, but Logan wrapped a blanket around my shoulders, using it to physically angle me away from the room.
“Don’t worry, babe,” he said, guiding me down the hallway. “Once we’re married, you’ll never have to be sacrificed again.”