Chapter 34 Elle #2
She gestures toward me, the prize at the end of her corrupt game. Without a hint of warning, she slaps her hand on my mouth. The crowd gasps, then goes silent, hushed in witnessing her easy cruelty—presenting me while tied to a chair and muted to her will.
I study her while my mind works through the remnants of haze left in me. My thoughts grasp to remember Damon’s words. To the plan ingrained in my mind. I have to find a way to return to it.
Clo turns to her guests. “Sadly, some familiar faces could not join us,” Clo continues. “Lukas and Naomi Knight. Kai Song-Smith…”
She lets the names hang in the air. Her teeth flash in a smile too bright to be human.
“Such a pity. I’m sure they’re otherwise occupied with one another in Darkhaven, rebuilding things over there in that sad excuse of a city.” She laughs, and some hesitantly join her. “Though, I’m sure they would have loved to see what we have in store for tonight.”
Clo’s smile stretches as the crowd hushes into a tense silence. She holds out her other hand and, on cue, a masked waiter steps forward, offering her a glass of dark wine that gleams under the light like swirling blood.
She lifts the glass high, tilting it toward the floor below with a flourish. “I would be remiss,” she says with mock affection, “if I didn’t introduce you all to my latest love affair.”
Polite laughter ripples through the crowd.
“This wine,” Clo continues, “is the result of years of devotion. Painstaking attention. Every note balanced perfectly. Every drop, a testament to patience.”
There’s a teary sheen in her eye that makes my skin crawl.
Below, waiters in masks glide through the crowd, their trays glinting with overfilled glasses of wine, dripping and spilling.
They appear like ghosts with poisoned gifts.
Guests reach out eagerly, plucking glasses from the trays, chatting and laughing with a bit of relief among themselves, clinking crystals together.
I watch them, my pulse dragging slow and heavy under my skin. Each sip is another chain tightening around their throats. The same it did with me for years. Yet, Clo’s voice rolls smoothly across the vast space, completely unaffected by the insidious chaos she’s causing.
“I thank you all for your cooperation tonight,” she says. “Your willingness to surrender your weapons at the door shows a great deal of trust. And civilization, of course.”
More polite laughter. More raised glasses. More and more lies and manipulation.
“After all,” Clo continues, “tonight is about celebration, not collapse.”
She lets the words linger. The crowd murmurs, sounding uneasy by the second.
“And what a guest list we’ve assembled,” she hisses. “The Adels from Africa…” She raises her glass again. “The Tamms and the Vlasovs from Europe. And so many others who traveled so far to be part of this night. To witness history.”
The guests listen, their poisoned drink sliding deeper with every uncertain sip. I don’t know how to stop this or how to save them yet. The marble trembles slightly under my feet, or maybe that’s me, wavering between the pull of the drug and the iron weight of everything I refuse to lose.
“And now, a toast,” Clo’s voice rings out. “To the future. To loyalty.”
Hundreds of hands lift their glasses to mirror her. The wine catches the chandelier light like blood catching fire. The guests start to drink all of it down. My eyes go wide as I’m helpless to watch it.
Words of warning gather at the back of my throat, frantic and clawing, but Clo’s cold palm presses further onto my muffled mouth. She’s silencing me like I’m nothing more than a thought she can snuff out. I can taste the salt of her skin, the perfume cloying in the air…
Below us, the crowd glows like spilled jewels, oblivious to the poison down their throats.
“I lost everything once,” Clo says, holding her glass aloft. “All of it. The networks. The trust. Kys.”
She laughs, low and knowing, and the chandeliers sway gently, casting the marble floors into swimming shadows.
“I heard the whispers,” Clo continues. “That I was finished. That I couldn’t rebuild what was burned to ash.”
The crowd shifts, more unease threading between masked faces. The music swirls away into silence as though it was strangled.
“But you see,” Clo says, “it was never about rebuilding. It was about evolving.”
Her full glass tilts, the wine inside spilling down.
“And all of you,” Clo croons, “will make up my next masterpiece.”
Then the first glass falls, shattering. The sound echoes through the ballroom below like a gunshot. Someone stumbles sideways, mask slipping off, eyes wide and glazed. Another guest sways, then folds to the ground like a marionette whose strings were suddenly cut.
Closer to the walls, by the velvet-curtained vents, more bodies crumple, their hands clawing weakly at the air. The scent of wine, wax, and sickened sweat thickens.
A horrified scream cuts through the heavy air, high and haunting, and then another, rising like sirens under the glittering lights. The ballroom becomes the complete chaos Clo clearly envisioned.
She watches from the railing, grinning wildly. Distracted by her victory, she loosens her hand over my mouth. I won’t let her win.
Fueled by vengeful fury—and despite my drugged body—I sink my teeth into her hand, tasting blood and feeling the brittle snap of her fingernail as she wrenches back with a hiss.
I gasp, dragging in a breath and scream. “Run!” My voice tears from my throat, raw and ragged. “It’s in the air! It’s in the wine!”
The gala erupts into further chaos. Masks slide off frantic faces.
Gowns rip as they trip guests. Suits tear open at the seams. People claw at each other in blind panic, the scent of terror rising heavier than any perfume.
The chandeliers sway wildly above from the thunderous stampede of desperate people outrunning death, throwing shattered light across the floors slick with spilled wine and broken glass.
Clo stays standing at the top of the spiraling staircase, blood on her hand, and her mouth twisted with what I’ve come to know as her pride and rage.
And somewhere in all of this unsettling catastrophe, I feel a pull. That steady burning thrum beneath my chest. A growl cuts through the noise. I turn to the source of the sound, a voice I know all too well. I hear it like he’s my own heartbeat. Because he is my heartbeat.
Sterling breaks through from the room of mirrors, maskless and looking unstoppable. A broken lantern swings from his hand, the oil sloshing thick and dark.
He slips between shadows with ease, the way he always does. The dying flames from the cracked lantern in his hand flicker up the glass as though they want out.
Time bends around him. My lungs forget how to move. Our eyes find each other. Smoke blurs the edges, but the center holds. One look. And I remember how to breathe.
He sees me. Not the blood on my lips, not the ropes around me. Me. He doesn’t speak, and he doesn’t need to. He sees me bound but not broken. His eyes flutter, hesitation briefly flashing. But I nod, trusting him. His jaw tightens. That’s all he needs.
He rips the cap from the lantern and hurls it at the velvet curtains that line the far wall.
The small flames die as soon as the oil splashes across the curtains.
In a blink of an eye, he strikes a match against his belt, the flame catching fast. The match leaves his hand, landing onto the velvet wall.
The curtains explode into flame, bright and unforgiving. Heat slams through the air in a roaring blaze.
Sterling stands framed in the inferno, silver hair glowing, skin painted red by the firelight. His mouth curls into a snarl. He is rage, ruin, and salvation. And I love him so fiercely I feel it everywhere as if it were the fire growing furiously around us.
Screams rise as the fire devours the curtains, then climbs across the walls, racing through velvet and wood. Clo yells, but I can barely hear her over the roar of the fire.
Sterling doesn’t even glance her way. He yanks a second lantern from its hook and smashes it against the marble.
Oil spills down the carpeted steps in dark ribbons.
He strikes another match, drops it into the stream, and the fire answers in a rush.
It swallows each step as it creeps down.
The crowd must see the growing flames as they flee faster in all directions.
Gunfire cracks through the smoke and the screams. I glance down. Lix strides swiftly, gun in hand, angled up toward the chandeliers. He’s clearing the room, herding them away from the sound of his barreling bullets. More glass rains down on us.
Kaye surges through the smoke, her long hair whipping through the air as she grabs Stan’s arm. They start pulling people toward the open doors. Stan shouts, face lit with manic joy. Kaye shoves him forward, her eyes locked on the guests, her mouth moving fast, commanding order in the panic.
At a far corner, Damon appears, cold-eyed and controlled. His laptop’s tucked under one arm as he barks out commands to the few staff still upright. His voice cuts cleanly through the noise.
The crowd thins as the guests pour through the exits, some coughing from the Kys, others breathless with fear.
And through it all, the mansion burns. Every chandelier, every velvet-draped column, every polished floorboard—it all goes up in flame. Sterling stands at its center, watching each flicker of fire. And now, I’m watching him.
Until I try to reach him, realizing there are still ropes on my wrists, and the heat’s drawing sweat out of my trembling Kys-laced body.
Fire climbs higher, tracing its path toward me.
I eye the flames creeping across. I drag the ropes against the edge of the nearest burning curtain.
The fibers catch. The pain floods hot and hissing.
The smoke stings my eyes. My fingers shake, but I keep going.
The ropes smolder and break. They fall away in scorched ribbons.