Chapter 34
KATE
Iknow Wolf is testing me. He wants me to fail.
Clothes, food, computer access—it’s all a game to him.
He wants me refusing to wear the scraps of lace Nilsson stows away in the dresser.
Wolf wants me pushing away my plate, rejecting food I can’t identify.
He wants me breaking through the firewalls he puts up, or better yet, storming into his office and complaining.
Every morning, I vow to accept his rules without protest. I work on NightSaber, on StarCoin, on Mask’s idiot bookie, who turns out to have a ridiculously strong firewall of his own.
My concentration is shot, and my code looks like something created by a five-year-old.
Nothing works, but I try and try and try again.
Every afternoon, my patience shreds to rags. Waiting for Nilsson to take me to and from the carriage house stings like lemon juice on a cut. I hate that I’m so restricted, so unable to control my life.
Every evening, I find some new way to tell Wolf he’s an arrogant shitehawk arsehole with more money than brains and I hate him.
And then he takes me to the basement.
I don’t want to break for him. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of watching me tremble, of hearing me howl his name. I don’t want to taste my own arousal on his fingers, on his lips.
But I’m powerless. I crave the dungeon the way a daredevil craves adrenaline, the way an Olympic athlete craves gold, the way a rock star craves a screaming crowd.
I’ve never needed anyone or anything in my life. Even when the Bad Men had Breagha and me locked in a dark, stinking room, I always knew I would find the way out. I would set us free. And I did.
But I need Wolf. I need him to unlace my body. I need him to feed the hungry furnace burning just beneath my skin. My sudden dependence on his cruel touch terrifies me more than anything he could ever do to my body.
Trying to escape, I phone my sister every couple of days.
Breagha chatters about the new shoes Mam has loaded into the closet that used to be my room.
She tells me about Da’s tantrum when the bratva lifts one of his containers from the docks.
She stammers about suitors who are starting to stake their claims, coming round the Canton house for drinks, for dinner, for walks around the block.
Her life sounds like something I read about in a book long ago or maybe watched in a black-and-white film. I feel more lonely every time I end one of our calls.
I turn to Winter Reckoning, a place where I’ve always belonged. I spend long hours searching for MaskedMarauder and the others, planning campaigns, preparing to obliterate the colony of frostdemons living on the far side of the DarkWood. But my Raiders are nowhere to be found inside the game.
After almost a week, I rig an alert to tell me the instant any of them logs in. Shaddow’s the first eejit to trip the wire.
CyberGhost: Hey mofo! Where u been?
Shaddow: I
He disappears from the boards so quickly I’d think I imagined his logging in, if not for the aborted chat displayed in the corner of my screen. I search for him throughout the game, without success.
Enough of this shite.
I text MaskedMarauder outside of Winter Reckoning.
CyberGhost
WTF is going on?
Triple dots float on my screen, a sign that Mask has read my message and is writing a reply. They float some more. And still more.
When they fade from my screen, I shriek in frustration.
Yo, asshole. Why aren’t you in the game?
This time, I only have to wait a minute.
MaskedMarauder
I’m there
Where?
Ice Knight Castle
WTF is IKC?
Back to the floating dots. They bubble up for so long I’m convinced Mask won’t reply. But then he types:
Private corner of the game
Private where?
Check ur profile
U should have an invite
I log back into the game and navigate to the administrative panel, the place we receive messages about changes to the system, about fees and avatars and everything else that makes Winter Reckoning run smoothly. There’s nothing new. No invitation. Nothing about Ice Knights anywhere.
I go back to my conversation with Mask.
Nothing there
Must be a mistake
The team’s there
The whole leaderboard
Well, fuck the team. And fuck the leaderboard. And fuck Winter Reckoning, too.
I fire off a request to the game’s admin, saying there’s some mistake in their coding. I ask to be admitted into Ice Knight Castle—whatever the fuck it actually is—and I attach a screenshot of the leaderboard, with my points outpacing every other player in the game.
I think about writing back to Mask, asking him for more details, but I’m afraid he’ll ask about my progress on NightSaber and StarCoin and that feckin’ bookie. I can’t bear to admit I’m stumped.
When I glance at the clock in the corner of my screen, I see it’s 6:17. I’m late to dinner. I’m sure Wolf is already working out how he’ll punish me in the basement.
I’m ashamed that I need the release Wolf offers downstairs. I’m frustrated he hasn’t let me reciprocate, not even once—not with my hands or my mouth or the aching hollow between my thighs. He just laughs when I try, pinning me down or moving out of reach.
Every night, before I fall asleep in our huge blue bed, I tell myself tomorrow will be different. Every night, as the nightstand light glows red through my eyelids, I remind myself I don’t need Wolf’s clothes, I don’t need his food, I don’t need his touch.
But in the morning, I’m ready to do battle, all over again.