Chapter 26 #2
Ezra grunted.
“Yeah. Thought so.”
Xan warned me Ezra was bad in the mornings. I giggled, poking his ribs. “Joe’s amazing at dirty talk, just like you.”
Ezra sat up and ran a hand through his short hair, then rubbed it as if it hurt. “Coffee, then a run. Clear your head; it’s the Griersons today.”
I wrinkled my nose. No one knew what the Griersons’ trial would be. And Everly had gone silent. Too silent.
Brit and Joe’s moans broke the moment, absurd and loud. Ezra and I shared a quiet laugh anyway, because what else could we do?
Like yesterday, I layered up, ready for anything. Once again, everything but the center ring drowned in murky darkness. This time the ring had four platforms on its rim, teeth of a massive gear. A person on each.
Ravana led me across the front and up the ramp. My nerves returned, though I shook a little less. I immediately recognized the four people on the platforms, and my heart sank as I studied each face.
Brody, my stalker.
Matt, my kidnapper’s accomplice.
Erick, my roommate and coup attempter.
Seth Silver, Xan’s cousin. A man in the wrong place at the wrong time one too many times.
I had no idea what this was, but it couldn’t be good.
Deirdre Grierson, dressed in a long dark-purple gown, glided into the ring. With her back ramrod straight and her head tilted slightly up, she looked down her nose at me.
“These men hurt you,” Deirdre said, her voice slicing through the cavernous dark. “And they did it under a mentalist’s gaze. More than once.”
My gaze trained on Matt and Brody. He’d given both of them a second chance.
“Doesn’t that prove he wasn’t mind-jacking me?” I asked.
Deirdre grinned, all teeth. “Or he let them hurt you, so you’d run straight into his family’s arms. He guided every step, and you played his moves.”
My jaw dropped at the absurdity before I snapped it shut. And then it hit me—this manipulative woman twisting everything was Everly’s mom. What kind of world had my friend grown up in? The answer didn’t matter. What mattered was making damn sure Everly never went back.
I focused on the four men again. “What’s your test?”
Deirdre Grierson inclined her head. “Their lives. Their futures. All in your hands.”
I blinked. “Come again?”
Deirdre patted my head as if I were a child.
“My family claimed these four. We own them. You will decide how we use them.”
“Easy. Free them. All of them. Slavery’s a no. And Erick’s an Adler Michelson; how do you ‘own’ that?”
Erick covered his face with his hand. A dirty, frilly sleeve dangled before him.
“We found him exiting The Mile, all on his own,” Deirdre said coolly. “Finders keepers.”
My stomach turned. If this was a game to her, I wanted to flip the board.
“And just ‘free them now’ doesn’t show us anything, Quinn.
” Deirdre gestured toward the men, her tone detached, like the lives of the people in front of us were of no consequence.
“I know what I would do. Everyone thinks they know what the Architect would do, so show us something different. If your mind is really your own.”
I bit my lips together.
Colors burst above me. Instead of the usual stat board with weight, age, fight styles, it listed the four men’s offenses.
“I never stalked you,” Brody said, looking down from the board. “I love you, Quinn. I just wanted to keep you safe.”
I couldn’t look at him. He had stalked me. He probably still was. Except he was sixteen with no resources and no way to reach me.
I looked up at the board and took in each of their lists.
Each one was bad and accurate enough that I didn’t wonder if Everly helped her family make them.
If Everly helped, then maybe… no. I stopped before I could start overthinking. The more I made decisions based on what others wanted, the less free will I had.
My heart raced.
I hadn’t looked at free will like that before. I liked it. I pulled my shoulders back as a layer of confidence filled my soul.
What did I, Quinn, want?
“I don’t know enough about this future,” I turned to the murky front.
“But, Brody’s sick. Something happened with his sister, and now he’s obsessed with me.
I’m not the right person to help him, but he clearly has a mental illness.
” I clenched my fist. “In my time.” I scowled.
“Well, in my time, I’d report him to the police, who would give him a restraining order, which he’d ignore, and after I kissed someone else, he’d murder me, and I’d end up in a Netflix documentary. ”
No one laughed. I suddenly wished Chancellor Morgen were here. She’d gotten my Harry Potter reference.
“I would never murder you, Quinn.” Brody put his hand over his heart. “But I will protect you, even from yourself. We can save each other.”
I thrust my arm toward Brody as if his words proved my point. “He needs help! I literally have not seen him or even thought about him in weeks, while he’s clearly done the opposite. He’s living in his fantasy instead of dealing with reality. Is there anyone in this world who can help him?”
No one responded.
“That’s my answer.” I turned to Deirdre. “Get the kid help.”
“Noted.” She gestured, and the floor vanished out from under Brody.
A scream ripped out of his throat. Between one heartbeat and the next, the sound suddenly cut off without a thump.
I rushed forward and threw myself toward the hole.
At the bottom, a mass of churning red magic, laced with coal black, made me dizzy.
I lurched back and stumbled, falling onto my ass. “What did you do? Where’s Brody?”
Deirdre Grierson put a hand up in the air. “He now waits in limbo until someone who can help him appears.”
I took two deep breaths. He hadn’t died. The kid was only sixteen. I meant what I said, though I had no idea how he could get the help he needed. Aware of every eye on me, I stood as gracefully as I could and smoothed my hoodie.
Deirdre Grierson reached forward and pointed at Matt. “Next, the bartender who aided in your kidnapping...” She turned to the front and spread her arms. “A kidnapping. The Architect hid from all of us.”
I cocked my head to the side. That last bit had nothing to do with me or free will. I studied Deirdre for an extra second before turning to Matt.
The thin, caramel-haired man looked worse for wear. He still wore Xan’s uniformed pants, though his rough wool shirt hung in filthy rags that left a rash raw around his neck. A fading bruise covered half his face, and his whole body slumped as if his ribs couldn’t hold him up.
Xan had banished Horax but spared Matt, desperate to believe the bartender had some good in him. He’d given him a second chance. My blood turned to ice. Instead of turning his life around, Matt had crawled back to Horax and tossed me into the Prophet’s hands.
“Why?” My voice cracked on the single word.
Matt’s eyes widened and darted between me, the crowd, and the glowing board above.
“Horax. It was Horax, all of it! He forced me, Quinn. You know what he was like.” His voice shook, rising higher with each word.
“I didn’t have a choice. I tried to go home, but my own mother slammed the door in my face!
Everyone turned their backs. What was I supposed to do?
Starve? I’m alone, just trying to survive! ”
He held out his hands like a beggar, voice cracking. “None of this is my fault. Not a single part of it. You have to believe me.”
So much blame. So many excuses.
“So, what’s the plan?” I asked.
“No plan!” Matt’s arms flailed before clutching his ribs as if the motion hurt.
He staggered a step closer; desperation etched on every line of his face.
“The Griersons dragged me in, threw me in a dungeon like an animal. I’ve been rotting there, waiting for this, for you to save me.
You’re the only one who can! Please, Quinn, I don’t want to die down there. ”
I didn’t believe a word of it. Matt was a coward. Even when he held power over me, he’d never had a backbone unless someone else stood behind him. If he didn’t want to admit his plan, that meant whatever it was would be the nail in his coffin.
I wasn’t the only person indentured under Horax, and if it weren’t for Lady Luck, I would have been one of the many whom Matt helped sell to the body snatchers.
My shoulders dropped. My response would not reflect well on my ‘free will,’ but it’s what I would do. “Xan spared you; you squandered it. Turn Matt over to the Architect, pull what he knows, and use it to break the body snatchers.”
Gasps rippled through the air. A few voices shouted denials.
“That proves it, all of it,” someone yelled. “Get her away from him.”
I stood strong.
Matt looked at me with hate-filled eyes, all his pleading and groveling gone.
When the doors under him opened, he didn’t scream but dropped straight down, still making eye contact.
Unlike Brody, he came to an anticlimactic stop with the top of his head still poking out of the hole.
The sound of metal clacking against metal rang through the still-shocked crowd, churning with conversation.
A minute later, two Grierson guards led Matt away with a shining collar around his throat.
Conflict clawed at my heart, but I let it fuel me.
Spinning the cord on my hoodie with confidence I didn’t feel, I turned to Erick. “And what to do with you, my old friend,” I said dramatically as if drunk on power. “You’re the biggest enigma of all. People died because of your actions.”
“Um, it was the Lawsons who started—” Erick tossed his coral mane.
“Your life is in my hands, and you’re going to stick to that lie?” I cut him off.
Erick puffed out his chest.