Chapter 12
Zira
My mind was racing like I was going mad.
I could hardly eat or sleep, because for the first time in my life, I had someone who was listening, who seemed to actually care.
Someone who was on my side. And I wasn’t sure what to do about it.
My insides were twisting with nerves, like worms wriggling to get out of the earth, because I knew that sooner or later, Hazard was going to show his true colors.
He couldn’t be on my side all the time. It never worked out that way.
Especially once he found out that I was keeping the truth about his sister’s killer a secret from him.
And yet, despite his new membership in the Marked Blooms Syndicate, Hazard kept on finishing the renovations for my father’s gym. My father’s head was so far up his own ass that he still didn’t notice that Hazard, the newest member, and Chris Cox, the contractor, were the same person.
Hazard was a member. I wasn’t even a member.
I tried not to let it get to me. I liked Hazard. A lot. He brought a side out of me that I might have kept tucked away forever, if it weren’t for him. And with him as a member, I could use him to help me get my own membership. I would do whatever it took.
And if I had to, I would kill him too.
Late the next night, around midnight, I stood outside of his new motel room.
After I spoke with the motel owner, Hazard had been moved to another room, ‘for renovation purposes,’ and some of our other contractors began cleaning up our murderous mess.
I knocked on his new door, holding my breath.
Hazard had told me he was going to stay inside tonight, and I wasn’t sure I believed him.
He was the kind of person who would lie or change his mind on a whim. So I had to check and keep him in line.
He opened the door, light beaming from the inside, steam swirling in the room like a cloud. His chest was bare with short curls of reddish hair on his chest. My eyes went down to the hair near his navel, a deeper red, almost brown, trailing down to his cock, kept hidden behind a towel.
“So the queen left her throne to see her favorite servant,” he winked.
I cocked my head to the side. “I don’t have a throne yet.”
“But you will.”
He waved me inside, and with a tremor running down my back with anticipation, I entered.
Inside, there was a thin desk. Generic sunset paintings hung against the textured wood wallpaper.
Orange floral furniture. A black exposed beam splitting the room in half, just like the other unit.
My mother had grown up working in places like this before she married my father, but it was so far out of my reality that it was like being in a time warp, peering into my mother’s past. The bed springs creaked as I sat down. Hazard leaned against the dresser.
“You want to talk about it?” he asked.
“Talk about what?” I asked.
“Why you’re here.”
I swallowed hard. There was a point to this, and yet, it seemed out of reach again. Like Hazard was closer than I was, and I had no choice but to ask him for help.
“Get me on the board,” I demanded.
Hazard laughed, throwing a dismissive hand in front of his face. “I don’t get it. You have power, with or without your father. Shit, you could make your own secret society if you wanted.”
“That’s not how a secret society works.”
“Walk me through it, then.” He lifted his shoulders. “Explain the secret society. What is this big fucking deal that you want so badly?”
I crossed my arms. I did not come here to be interrogated.
But the word held on my tongue like a broken record that wouldn’t go past its loop.
My mother, I thought. My mother. I wanted to tell Hazard everything, but I couldn’t.
It was too private. Too intimate. And yet, it seemed so stupid now.
Why not just tell him? Why not rip off the bandage and show him everything I had to bare?
My mother!
Instead, I changed the subject, focusing on him. “Have you always been a killer?”
He studied his hands hesitantly, like he could see the past marked in his fingertips. Then he cracked his thumb knuckles together.
“No,” he said. “I used to just think about it. Everyone does, right?” I licked my lips, a vacant expression on my face, and he angled his head.
“Come on. Think about it. That bastard who cut you off on the road. That dick who thinks he’s better than you.
Your sister’s ex. I mean, shit, Zira. If anyone thinks about killing, it’s you.
You were raped and tortured your whole life.
You had to think about it. Putting the gun in their faces.
Pulling the trigger. Watching their brains explode like fireworks. ”
A while ago, I had thought that I finally had power.
It was within my reach, and all I had to do was keep being the daughter my father wanted, who obeyed his rules and customs, who continued to put the Syndicate first again and again, despite my father’s lack of support for my unusual methods.
There was a chance that my father might award me a spot on the board simply for sharing his blood; some of the members theorized that.
But I also knew the long history of testosterone that walked through those halls, how they made it so that women were always powerless around them.
Signing marriage contracts. Giving up their futures. Throwing away their lives.
But even then, when I thought I had that power within my grasp, when the sun was hot and the wind blew across my skin just right, I would imagine those men who had raped and tortured me, what it would be like to see their heads on spikes, dotting my lawn like an omen for the future members to come: Do not fuck with me.
“What changed, then?” I asked, pushing those thoughts away. “Why did you start killing?”
“Got into a fight,” he said. “It was an accident, but it changed me forever.”
I steadied myself. That seemed accurate to me. Taking that first clutch at the Dentist’s life had changed me, and after that, there was no going back. I knew what it was like to get my hands dirty, and now I had to keep going. Had to take control. Even if that meant killing everyone in my path.
Hazard shifted his stance before me. “It felt good, you know? I could control something, even if it was only for those few seconds. Like even if the world was falling apart around me, I could create that destruction. I could show the world that it belonged to me.”
Those words settled in my chest. A few heartbeats passed.
It was like he had ripped a page out of my soul.
“You want me to shut up?” he asked. I didn’t say anything, but gave him a side-smile. “Talk about your reasons, love. I’m all ears. Curious about you. You’re always so perfect. What makes my perfect little bloom go off the righteous path? Besides, you know, the endless torture and abuse.”
Those words crawled up my throat again, burning like acid. My tongue was thick, but I had to say it. I was tired of holding back.
And maybe I thought Hazard would understand me.
“The Marked Blooms Syndicate has a long, long history of killing women,” I said.
“But at the Masquerades, they were boasting about—”
“I know what they say about the Masquerades,” I said sharply.
“They say that they only kill men at the Masquerades, but that’s just a cover to fit in with the ‘new world’ in case anyone ever finds out about them.
And besides, it’s only half true. At the Masquerades, the only ones who die these days are men.
The occasional woman.” I shook my head, thinking of his sister and my mother.
“But when it comes to any other time, like when the members are at home with their mistresses or their wives?” I wrapped my arms around myself. “It’s always women.”
He pressed his lips together in a thin line. “And that bothers you?”
“Of course, it bothers me,” I snapped. “If they actually want to adjust to the new world, then there should be as many powerful women in their group as men. Just as many men who should die humiliating deaths. Did you know my mother was killed, not because she did anything to disrespect my father, but because he wanted to prove to the Syndicate that the secret society mattered more to him than she did? He’s the director, for fuck’s sake.
He didn’t have to sacrifice anyone.” I bit my lip, blood seeping onto my tongue.
I imagined my father on his hands and knees, encased in orange flames, burning to death in front of me.
“And once she died, he moved on to sacrificing me. Until I married Logan.” I swallowed a gulp, my eyes falling to the floor.
“Logan had one thing going for him; he wasn’t sadistic like them.
He was too kind to enjoy torture. So I guess I was just luckier than my mother. ”
Silence spread over us, and the television mumbled about a traffic jam on the highway. The walls shuddered as a semi-truck passed on the road. Tension flooded my veins. I needed to do something. I needed to feel anything. I needed to shift everything until it finally made sense.
“If you were on the board, what would you do?” he asked.
“Have you been listening?” I shouted. “I would make sure that there were as many women in the Syndicate as I could, and I’d make sure that some goddamned men died for us too.”
A chill swept through me. I closed my eyes slowly, then looked up at the ceiling. This wasn’t Hazard’s fault, and yet I was acting like he was the main culprit.
“I didn’t mean to be rude to you,” I said, irritation still hanging in my voice. “It’s just hard for me to trust men.”
“I get it.”
I tapped my fingers on the fuzzy brown bedspread, then turned my head toward the door, wondering if I should leave.
“So you want mass murder, then?” he asked.
A whirlwind of hatred foamed in my mouth. He was missing the point.