Chapter 18 #2
Pride filled me with a buzzing sensation, and for the first time since we had left the catacombs, I felt like I was myself again.
I squeezed Hazard’s hand, then walked forward.
Hazard and I pushed the sex machine forward until I could position the dildo right at my father’s ass.
The dildo was firm and unforgiving, with a sharp, tapered head, almost like a thick silicone knife.
Hazard spread my father’s hairy, red ass apart, and I beamed down at his dark hole.
I couldn’t count the times he had raped me there.
All I had was this one moment, and it wasn’t even me, but a machine.
Revenge was a bitch, wasn’t it?
I shoved the tip inside of his sphincter and my father wheezed, tears running down his face. The phallus hadn’t even gone past his rings of muscles, and he was already crying like a baby.
Then again, it was thick.
I grabbed the remote from the guillotine, then kneeled down in front of my father. Finally, he hushed, trying so hard to stop his tears. The little wimp.
“You have a choice,” I said. I put the remote in his palm, then curled his fingers around it.
“You can let the machine penetrate you until it impales you, or you can let the guillotine chop off your head. Not sure if you changed the settings for tonight.” I winked.
My father’s face hung down low, whimpers coming from his chest. “Maybe you wanted to play this game with me for Hazard’s sacrifice.
Is that it? You changed the settings so that I’d die on the first click of the remote. ”
I picked up my father’s chin, forcing him to meet my eyes. I had never had the chance at another life. I only had this violence. That was how he chose to nurture me.
But that didn’t mean that I wanted to change the violence; I simply wanted my own part in it. And right then, I wanted my father’s death more than I wanted the Marked Blooms Syndicate.
Hazard took my hand, pulling me up to my feet. A dreaminess swelled in my chest. Family didn’t mean blood, and Hazard had finally helped me understand that.
“Please don’t do this to me,” my father whimpered.
There was a sweetness to his words, not because I had any sympathy for him, but because of the irony of it all. He had treated me like dirt since the day I was born, and all I wanted was for him to experience how I felt for so many years: powerless.
But it was time that those feelings finally ended.
I clicked the black and red button on the back of the sex machine. “Let’s go, my king,” I said to Hazard. He smacked my ass, and we both headed toward the door.
“Don’t leave me here,” my father cried.
I locked the door from the inside, then closed it behind us.
“What do you think he’ll do?” Hazard asked.
My father was crying far more than I thought he would. I had expected more anger. More passion.
“The remote,” I said calmly. Hazard nodded, and I held his hand, weathered and calloused, just like him.
A member waiting in the corridor stared at us, about to call someone else for help, but Hazard knocked the back of his gun into the member’s face, letting him fall to the ground.
We took the side exit, and Hazard never let go of his grip on my fingers.
“I’m guessing you planted the explosives all over the building?” Hazard asked.
“You saw them?”
“Everyone did. They think it’s part of some ritualistic sacrifice.”
I laughed. Of course they did. Even with plenty of board members and regular members dead, they still thought they were invincible.
“I had a feeling it was you, though,” Hazard said. “Even hid some of my own. Wanted to make sure everything was ready for you, love.”
I squeezed his hand. “Then why did you stay in that building? You should have killed my father and gotten the hell out!”
“Change of heart, I guess,” he said, and I knew it had to do with me, making sure I got to kill my father. “If I have one, that is.”
We automatically headed to the top of the supplies shed, and Hazard marveled at my setup. My father’s handgun, and a sniper rifle similar to Hazard’s, were posted next to a small black device that would ignite the explosives.
“You could’ve shot us both if you wanted,” Hazard said.
“Could have. Didn’t. Don’t know. Something stopped me,” I said.
“What was it?”
“You. I couldn’t kill you.” I nodded toward his pocket. “Do you have that phone that my father gave you?”
He pulled it out, and I coached him on how to walk through the apps and find the intercom.
“What do I say?” he asked.
“Tell the sacrifices and staff members to come to the supplies shed to get ready for the ritual performance.”
He cocked his head to the side. “You’re saving them?”
I lifted my shoulders. “I must have a heart too.”
Hazard spoke through the phone, and his voice echoed, slightly delayed, through the building. A quiet procession of women made their way to the supplies shed. As the last woman left the doors of the banquet hall, I directed Hazard through some more apps, until we finally got to the right one.
“That button locks the building,” I said.
He clicked it, then silently, every door and window locked into place, leaving the members trapped inside for the next twelve hours. As the last sacrifice made her way to the supplies building, I grabbed the small black device that would detonate my explosives.
“Do you want to do the honors?” I asked Hazard.
He shook his head. “This is yours, not mine, my queen.” He kissed my neck, letting his teeth graze my skin. “Let’s enjoy the show.”
I clicked the button, then confirmed the action, and the explosions ignited. One by one. The small ones in the ballroom, to the ones traveling through the corridors, each boom louder than the last. Some men ran toward the windows, but the explosives ripped apart their bodies first.
Their best bet was hiding for now, then waiting for the fire to crack through the windows, but by then, it would be too late.
One of the sacrifices ran toward the building. She grabbed the door, trying to pull it open, but the heat burned her hand and she leaped back.
“Think she’s worried about her fortune?” Hazard asked.
There was a chance that her husband, or brother, or father—whomever was sacrificing her—was a good man.
That she wanted to save him because he deserved to live.
But one good person in a sea of horrible humans wasn’t enough for me.
If he had to burn alive to make things right, I didn’t care. As long as it wasn’t Hazard.
Hazard was right. I was selfish to my core. But as long as I had him by my side, and he had me, then I didn’t care about anyone else.
“No,” I said. “It’s probably more personal than that.”
“What’s going on?” one of the sacrifices shouted. “What’s happening?”
The fire tore through my father’s final resting place, blazing until it built like an orchestra, the flames taking the building apart, crawling through the broken windows.
One member, completely engulfed in flames, managed to get through the window, rolling on the grass, but before I could aim the sniper rifle, a naked sacrifice grabbed a gun from a staff member and shot him in the head.
The poetic beauty of it made me undeniably giddy. I leaned into Hazard, and he wrapped an arm around me.
The fire danced on the inside of the building, licking over the roof, crashing through the glass. Everyone inside burned alive, and it was mesmerizing.
“How many of them weren’t attending tonight’s Masquerade?” Hazard asked.
“Four members,” I said. “But two of those men—Callen and Carter? You remember them, yes?” Hazard nodded. “They’re on my side.”
“I can take care of the other two.”
Hundreds of depraved sadists could come together to torture each other’s sacrifices, but when it came to their own torture, they were such pathetic wimps.
Through the flickers of fire, I imagined them running and screaming, though I knew they were all passed out or dead.
There was only the cackling fire and the oohs and ahhs of the women below, guarding each other.
Their frightened, unknowing tears mixed with their laughter.
It was a lot for those women to process.
This wasn’t what they had signed up for tonight. I understood that.
But I didn’t feel sorry for what I had done. I didn’t feel anything, really.
Except when I looked at Hazard, I felt hope.
Hazard winked at me like he could read my mind. His jaw clicked, and my mouth dropped open. I had to say it. I couldn’t stop myself anymore.
“I love you,” I said.
He furrowed his brows, a smirk on his lips. “You have a funny way of showing it.”
“I’m a funny girl. Haven’t you heard?” I said.
He pulled me closer into his arms. “If this is love, then fuck me, am I one lucky bastard.” He kissed my forehead. “I love you too, my queen.”
It was almost like the world was burning before us, but in truth, it wasn’t the world at all.
It was a large building with hundreds of corpses, nothing compared to the catacombs below it.
All of those charred bodies were members and initiates, men selfish enough to put their own desires for power over other people’s lives.
In truth, it was like looking in a mirror; I put my own desires before their lives.
But I knew that this was different. Like burning a field to ready the soil for the next harvest—our time of rule would be different. New. Fresh.
“Why are you all just standing there?” one of the women shouted. “This is crazy.”
Staff members stood on the edges of the property, some of them stealing furtive glances at the two of us sitting on the roof—our throne set above everyone else.
I expected the staff members to pull out their guns to attack us like my father had taught them, but they stood back, watching. Waiting for my command.
My personal estate manager went over to the group of women, calming them down, a handful of blankets in his arm. Behind him, his golf cart was stuffed full of robes, water bottles, and snacks. I hadn’t told him anything, but it was like he knew exactly what was going to happen.
Maybe other people were ready for new leadership too.
“What’s next, my queen?” Hazard asked, licking my ear.
I grinned. “Let’s rule the world.”