Chapter 34 Snake Pit
Snake Pit
Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.
— EDWARD BERNAYS
“Open up, Sophia!” a voice yelled, banging on the door to Zara’s quarters.
Her wide eyes darted to mine. She’d just arrived back from Theo’s announcement and hadn’t even had a chance to ask questions. I’d beaten her here by only a minute or two.
“Sophia, it’s me!” the voice said. “It’s Dev.”
My tense shoulders dropped an inch, and I cracked the door. Devon stood outside with Isaac, and I widened the opening to let them in. Crossing my arms, I prepared to be chastised. Instead, Dev caught me in a soft hug.
“Are you okay?” he asked. “I was so worried.”
Sudden tears clogged the back of my throat, so I had to force the words out with a wobbly voice. “I’m—I’m fine.”
Another knock, softer this time, pulled our attention to the door. “Soph?”
Zara opened the door for Adam. He slid inside, filling the room to the brim.
“Aren’t you supposed to be guarding the stockade?” I asked.
“I switched shifts so I could come tell you congratulations,” he said with a sly smile. “You’ve officially been outed as a Hunter lover.”
My very soul sagged to the floor. “Not all of them. Just…him.”
“Lucas Scott,” Adam said with a small laugh. “No wonder you wouldn’t tell me who it was.”
Isaac, who’d remained quiet in the corner, eyed me with barely disguised revulsion. “I’ve seen him kill people for an audience.”
I sank to the bed. “He isn’t what you think he is.”
Isaac puffed out a breath of disbelief.
Devon shushed him, then turned back to me. “How long have you been his contact?”
“I’ve been meeting him weekly since March.”
“Ah.” Zara took a seat beside me. “That makes a lot of sense.”
I bumped her shoulder with mine. “I knew you were curious. I couldn’t tell anyone. It made everything hard. But every week I expected him to be a cold-blooded Hunter, and every week, he just…wasn’t.”
“Where have you been, Soph?” Adam asked, more serious now. “You’ve been gone for a week. The quarantine house… We thought you’d been captured.”
I stared at my fidgeting hands in my lap and shoved the words through my mouth. “I was. Jack Miller tied me to his bed.”
Silence fell, and one by one, they averted their pained gazes, all except Adam, whose compassion shone through those brown eyes. He opened his mouth.
“I don’t want to discuss it,” I said before he could speak. “Ever. Not ever. Do you all understand me?”
Each of them nodded.
“And Scott,” Devon said. “He…saved you?”
“Yes. He came, and he killed them all.” I paused, remembering a crucial detail. “Except Paul Kingston. I killed him. I killed him because I found out he killed Tekqua.”
Adam’s mouth went slack. “Tekqua’s dead? I thought she was in the House.”
I shook my head. “Lucas told me they killed her before he could get her there.”
Hand to his chest, Adam fell back against the wall, his gaze distant. The others closed their eyes, grief washing over us all, but none of them had been as close to Tekqua as me and Adam.
“I wanted to tell you sooner,” I said. “I’m sorry.”
He shook his head, eyes bright. A long moment of silence passed before Zara asked, “Will you tell us about him? Help us understand.”
Her face was earnest and open, and I glanced at the rest of them, each with similar expressions, even Isaac, skeptical as he was.
So I told them.
I started with our first meeting in March and glossed over all that had happened since then.
It was such a relief to finally say it out loud, to unburden myself of these secrets I’d held so close.
They remained quiet, though at times, one or another of them opened their mouth as if to ask a question, then closed it again.
By the end, my gaze was frozen on my knees. “I’d appreciate if none of you repeated that story.”
Slowly, they nodded.
“So, it’s…real?” Devon asked.
“Very real. And now he’s imprisoned for saving me.”
“You know saving you is not why he’s in the stockade,” Isaac said. Dev smacked his arm.
“We have a plan,” Adam said. “Right, Johnson?”
Isaac cleared his throat. “Right. Ambrose and I are assigned the early morning shift to guard the stockade. We may be able to sneak you in to see the prisoner.”
I gaped at him. “Really? Why would you do that for me?”
Isaac made a face like I don’t know, but Adam laughed as if I were silly. “That’s what friends do, Sophia.”
“Are we friends?” I asked. “If so, I haven’t been a good one.”
Face a mask of sympathy, Devon dropped to his knees in front of me. “You lost your entire squad and both your parents, and you still found it in you to hold my hand every time this one—” he hooked a thumb at Isaac “—was sent on a mission.”
“And you shared my cleaning detail even though you could have thrown me under the bus every time I tried to get out of it,” Adam said with a laugh.
“And you saved my life,” Isaac said, referring to the gunshot wound I’d treated months ago.
“That wouldn’t have killed you,” I argued.
“You’ve been grieving,” Adam said. “We understand. That’s all we’re saying.”
I couldn’t hold his gaze. “We’ve all lost people. There’s no place for grief in war.”
“War is nothing but grief, Sophia,” Zara said, covering my hand with hers.
My throat grew thick, but I looked her in the eye when I said, “I can’t lose him too.”
Her expression fractured.
“We can get you a few minutes with him,” Adam said. “That will have to be enough for now.”
I nodded, unable to speak, hoping my gratefulness was clear when I mouthed Thank you.
According to Adam’s plan, I was to sneak away from the sleeping wing at four the next morning, but that was a more arduous task than I originally imagined. The night guards patrolled the hallways every few minutes, and unlike Lucas, I’d never been a quiet walker.
Dressed in head-to-toe black, I smiled at Zara as she sleepily wished me luck, then slipped from the room just as one guard turned the corner.
I hugged the wall, tiptoeing as silently as possible.
Another guard’s flashlight bounced along the marble floor around the next corner, so I ducked into an alcove, hiding behind the statue of a naked woman.
When he passed, I hurried to the next alcove, heart thudding.
One by one, I bypassed the guards with strategic sprints and stops, but when I reached the last stretch before the main stairs, I ran into two guards chatting in low voices.
I squeezed into a small space behind a column and waited for them to disband.
“Do you believe this shit about the Blood Colonel?” one of them asked. “Why aren’t we just chopping the fucker’s head off?”
“Right? We could send it to Haynes in a gift box.”
The first guy laughed, then sobered. “Do you really think he helped rescue those prisoners?”
“I don’t know, man.”
“My mom was freed in that mission. She would have died.”
His friend hissed. “She’s lucky. He killed the ones we didn’t save, you know.”
“True. Fucking bastard.”
Annoyed, I pulled my switchblade from my bra and hurled it down the opposite hallway. It landed with a bouncing series of clicks on the marble, and the soldiers leapt to attention.
“What was that?”
Both of them hurried to check it out, and I darted for the stairs, grateful they were carpeted to cushion my steps.
When I finally reached Adam standing guard at the stockade door, he tapped his imaginary watch. “You’re late.”
“I got held up. Can we still get in?”
Adam nodded. “Johnson’s guarding his cell. You can have five minutes at most.” He pulled out a ring of keys and slid one away from the rest. The door opened with an eerie squeak, and he motioned me inside. “Go straight to the end, then turn left. You’ll see it.”
My feet were moving before he’d even finished speaking.
Every nerve ending sparked with anticipation, and I tripped over the worn carpet beneath my feet.
The ghost of the offices this space used to be still existed—desks and unused computer equipment—but portions had been gutted, doors and walls replaced with prison bars.
Crude track lighting had been installed at the edge of the walkway.
The resultant blue gloom lent the place a spooky vibe, but at least none of the holding cells were occupied.
I ignored the bleakness, the memories of being thrown into a jail cell myself, and hurried down the corridor.
At the end, I turned left, pausing to take in the officer standing guard outside a lone cell, the furthest one from the entrance.
Isaac rapped his knuckles on the bars. “Scott. You’ve got company.”
I stumbled toward the cell, the shadows obscuring the black shape moving within. I fell against the bars at the same time Lucas wrapped his hands around them.
“Sophia,” he hissed. “What the fuck are you doing down here?”
The dim light gleamed over his face, underscoring the new bruise beneath his eye, the split in his lip, the blood dried under his nose. I reached through the bars, careful as I trailed my fingers over the damage. “What did they do?”
His head tilted just slightly into my touch, but when he spoke, he addressed Isaac. “Why did you let her in here?”
“I don’t fucking know,” Isaac muttered.
Lucas pressed my hand into his cheek, and days of stubble scraped my palm. “You’re painting a target on your back being down here.”
Rolling my eyes, I turned toward Isaac. “Open the door.”
His eyes widened incredulously. “Absolutely not.”
“Isaac!”
“It’s Lieutenant Johnson, Reeves,” he said, all exasperated, as if he knew I’d never call him that.
“Open the door, or lock me in there with him.”
“Fuck, no. You’re lucky I agreed to this at all. If my captain knew—”
I spun away from him, disregarding the rest of his diatribe. “Are you okay?” I whispered to Lucas.
“I’m more concerned about you at the moment.”
“I’m fine.” Pressing right against the bars, I sighed in relief when he dropped his forehead to mine. “Who did this to you?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Doesn’t matter.”
“Was it Theo?”
“No. But his visit hurt more than the black eye.”