Chapter 3 #3
The hope guttered out, drowned by the ice-cold flood of recognition. That expression—I knew that expression. Had seen it turned on subordinates who'd failed him, on rivals who'd crossed him, on people who'd made the fatal mistake of thinking they were smarter than Declan Hewes.
Rage. Pure, calculated, murderous rage.
My body remembered even if my mind had tried to forget—the particular tension in his jaw that meant someone was about to bleed, the way his hands flexed before they struck, the cold precision of his cruelty.
Could I kill him here?
The thought flashed through my panic like lightning. He was ten feet away. If I moved fast, if I was willing to die doing it—
No.
Persico was watching, massive and interested.
Guards flanked the room, weapons ready. I hadn't—no blade, no gun, no leverage and I doubted I could do much damage with a water bottle, despite it being metal.
I'd get three steps before they cut me down, and Hewes would watch me die with that same cold satisfaction I'd seen him wear a hundred times before.
I'd come to Palaydium to execute this man.
Instead, he was about to execute me.
He looked exactly the same. Same cold eyes, same cruel mouth.
He was dressed well—too well for a prison planet, in clothes that probably cost more than most people would see in a lifetime.
His hair was perfectly styled, his face clean-shaven, and he looked at me with an expression that made my blood run cold.
"You," he said, and each word was a condemnation. "You stupid, worthless bitch."
I didn't have time to react before he was on me, his hand cracking across my face with enough force to send me sprawling. Pain exploded through my skull, bright and sharp, and I tasted blood.
"Do you have any idea what you've cost me?" He grabbed my hair, hauling me up, and slapped me again. "I had everything set up perfectly. Everything. And you got caught like some amateur, some pathetic little spy playing at espionage."
Another hit. My vision blurred, my ears ringing. I tried to raise my hands to protect myself, but he was too fast, too strong, too practiced at this kind of violence.
My forearm caught the next blow—barely—and the impact sent a shock of pain radiating to my elbow. He wasn't asking questions. Wasn't demanding answers about what I'd told the Alliance, what intelligence I'd compromised. This wasn't interrogation.
This was punishment. Pure and simple.
His knuckles connected with my cheekbone, and the world went white.
The taste of blood flooded my mouth—copper and salt and the metallic tang of a split lip.
My ears rang with a high-pitched whine that drowned out everything except the sound of my own ragged breathing and his voice, still spitting venom I could barely process.
My body tried to curl inward, instinct overriding thought. Protect the soft parts. Make yourself smaller. Survive.
Another blow. My head snapped to the side.
The Prime's voice rang in my memory. "When the moment is right, you'll kill him."
When? When I was broken and bleeding on the floor of a Kerzak crime lord's throne room? When I was beaten so badly I could barely move?
Some distant part of my brain knew this would happen. Had always known. From the moment I'd agreed to the Prime's plan, from the moment I'd stepped onto that transport to Palaydium, I'd been walking toward this exact moment.
This wasn't a chance at redemption. It was just death wrapped in another form.
The only question had been whether it would come quickly or slowly, whether I'd die with a blade between my ribs or beaten to a pulp on cold stone. Whether Hewes would kill me himself or let Persico's people do it for entertainment.
I stopped trying to raise my hands. Let them fall. Let my body go slack in his grip.
The mission required me to be destroyed first.
I just hadn't understood how completely.
"You've ruined everything," he snarled, his face inches from mine.
"Enough."
The word cut through the chamber like a blade, and Hewes froze, his hand still tangled in my hair.
Persico had risen from his throne, and the sheer size of him made even Hewes hesitate. "I understand your frustration, Declan," the Kerzak said, his voice carrying that rumble of barely contained violence. "But human females are a prime commodity. Damaged goods are worth considerably less."
Hewes's grip tightened in my hair, making me gasp with pain.
For a moment I thought he'd keep going, that Persico's command meant nothing to him.
But then his hand trembled—not from weakness, but from the certain knowledge that if he didn't obey, Persico could end him without effort.
Predator recognizing a larger predator. Hewes might act like he owned the planet, but here Persico was the true power.
"She's worthless to me now," he said, releasing me. "Completely worthless. The Alliance knows she was working for me. She can't gather intelligence, can't access their systems, can't do anything except rot."
"Then why waste energy beating her?" Persico moved closer, each step making the floor vibrate. "If she's worthless to you, perhaps she has value to me."
"Keep her," Declan said, issuing a kick against my leg hard enough that I slid, my palms scraping against the rough metal floor. "Use her as you see fit. Sell her. I don't care. She's nothing to me now."
Persico looked down at me, and I saw something in his eyes that made my stomach turn. Interest. The kind of interest that hadn't a thing to do with mercy and everything to do with possession.
"A plaything," he mused, reaching down with one massive hand. His claws—because of course he had claws—brushed against my cheek, and I flinched. "I've been curious about human females. The rumors about their fragility are quite intriguing."
This wasn't the plan. The plan was to get close to Hewes, to find an opportunity, kill him. Not this. Not being handed over to a Kerzak crime lord who was looking at me like I was something eat on toast.
But then Persico's expression shifted, calculation replacing hunger. "However," he said, straightening, "I'm a businessman first. This asset can serve me much better in another capacity."
"What capacity?" The words came out before I could stop them, my voice hoarse, slurring because of my split lip.
Persico smiled, showing all those terrible fangs. "The pits, of course."
I stared at him, not understanding. "The pits?"
"My fighting pits," he said, and there was pride in his voice.
"It's how I maintain control of Fange City.
The worst of the worst, the most violent, the most dangerous—they all end up in my pits.
It gives them an outlet for their rage, gives the population entertainment, makes me credits, and gives me leverage. "
He walked back to his throne, settling into it with casual confidence. "And you, little human, will be the prize for the champion. Something to fight for. Something to win."
The horror of it crashed over me. I'd be given to whoever won in the fighting pits. To the most violent, most dangerous beings in this hellhole of a city. To someone who'd earned their victory by being willing to kill for it.
"No," I whispered, but the word had no power here.
Persico laughed. "Take her to the holding cells," he said to the guards. "Send a healer to see to her. Make sure she's presentable for the fights. I want the competitors to see exactly what they're fighting for."
Hands grabbed me—rough, uncaring. Thick fingers digging into my upper arms, claws pricking through my uniform, the heat of alien bodies pressing too close.
My heart hammered so hard I felt it in my throat, my temples, behind my eyes.
Each beat felt like it might be the one that finally broke through my ribs.
The guards hauled me to my feet, and my legs nearly gave out.
Only their grip kept me from collapsing into a heap of terror.
I could smell blood—my own blood, copper-sharp and wrong—mixing with the stench of unwashed bodies and chemical smoke and something else, something that might have been my own fear, acrid and animal.
"Goodbye, Merrilee."
Hewes's voice cut through the roaring in my ears, and I jerked my head up, my vision swimming. He was already turning away, dismissing me like I was nothing.
The man I'd come here to kill was walking away, and I was being dragged in the opposite direction, and the plan was disintegrating like ash in my hands.
No. No, no, no—
My mind fractured, thoughts splintering into panic-sharp fragments. He's leaving. I can't reach him. The plan is gone. I'm trapped. I'm alone. I'm going to die here.
The guards pulled me toward a doorway, and I tried to dig in my heels, tried to resist, but my body wasn't responding. My muscles were locked with adrenaline, trembling so hard I heard my teeth chattering.
Breathe. Just breathe.
But I couldn't. My lungs were stuttering, shallow gasps that pulled in insufficient oxygen, that made my vision go gray at the edges. The corridor tilted, or maybe I was tilting, and the guards' grip tightened, their claws pressing deeper.
Ana's face flashed through my mind—not the terrified girl in Hewes's videos, but Ana at seventeen, laughing on the beach, her dark hair whipping in the salt wind, the Pacific crashing behind her.
The smell of sunscreen and seaweed. The warmth of the sun on my shoulders.
The sound of Sebastian's voice calling us back to the blanket, complaining we'd left him alone with the cooler.
Gone. All of it gone.
My throat was closing. I tried to pull in air and got nothing—a thin wheeze that barely reached my lungs, that left me gasping like a fish drowning in oxygen it couldn't process.
Mom's kitchen. The smell of her pozole simmering on the stove. The weight of her hand on my shoulder when I'd gotten my acceptance letter to college. "Mija, you're going to do amazing things." Grandpa's laugh—deep and warm and safe—echoing through the house on Sunday mornings.