Chapter 5
Merrilee
The guards came for me as the last light bled from the sky.
Two of them—a big purple guy with scars running down his face and something reptilian I didn't have a name for.
They didn't speak, just grabbed my arms and hauled me up three flights of stairs that smelled like rust and old blood.
My legs shook with every step, exhaustion and terror making my muscles weak.
They took me to the throne room first.
The massive doors swung open, and they dragged me before Persico's grotesque throne. He sat there like some bloated king, surrounded by his court of monsters. The harsh lights made everything worse—the gleam of too many eyes watching me, the glint of weapons, the shine of scales and chitin.
Persico leaned forward, studying me with an intensity that made my skin crawl. He reached out with one thick finger and tilted my chin up, turning my head left and right, examining the bruises Declan had left. The swelling around my eye. The split in my lip.
"It's healing," he said, and to my surprise appeared genuinely pleased. "Good. I want you pretty for the pit."
He waved a dismissive hand, and the guards yanked me backward.
But they didn't take me back to the cell.
They took me higher instead. Up more stairs, through corridors that grew narrower and more oppressive with each turn.
That should've been a relief.
It wasn't.
The room they shoved me into was barely bigger than a closet.
A cot with a thin mattress that had seen better decades.
Blankets that might have been gray once, now stained with things I didn't want to identify.
A bucket in the corner that reeked of piss and worse.
A sink bolted to the wall, the metal corroded, the water dripping from the faucet the color of old pennies.
The door slammed shut behind me.
The sound of the lock—metal sliding into metal with brutal finality—punched the air from my lungs.
I wanted to scream. Wanted to throw myself at the door and claw at it until my fingers bled, until someone heard me, until they let me out or killed me or did anything except leave me in this box to suffocate.
But I didn't scream.
I pressed my fist against my mouth and bit down on my knuckles until I tasted blood, using the pain to anchor myself, to keep the panic from exploding out of me in a sound that might bring the guards back.
Because if they came back, they might decide I was more trouble than I was worth.
Might decide Persico's plans didn't matter as much as their entertainment.
My legs gave out. I sank onto the cot.
The blankets stank—sweat and fear and something sour that made bile rise in my throat. I pulled them around me anyway because the room was cold and I was shaking so hard my teeth chattered. I needed something to hold onto. Something to keep me from flying apart.
This was real. This was happening. I was going to die here.
No. No, I wasn't going to think like that. I was going to survive. I was going to kill Declan and get out and see Ana and Sebastian again and—
The thought of my siblings cracked something open inside my chest.
What if I never saw them again? What if the last thing they knew about me was that I'd betrayed everyone who'd ever helped me? What if I died in this shithole and they spent the rest of their lives thinking I was a traitor and a coward who'd sold them out to save herself?
What if they thought I hadn't loved them enough to fight harder?
The sob tore out of me before I could stop it—raw and ugly and broken. I pressed my face into the filthy blanket and wept, my whole body shaking with the force of it, grief and terror and shame pouring out in waves I couldn't control.
Food came just after full dark.
A tray shoved through a slot in the door—greasy meat that glistened in the dim light like something diseased, bread so hard I could have used it as a weapon, and a cup of something that smelled like my grandfather's horse barn on a hot summer day.
My stomach turned over, threatening to empty itself.
I stared at the tray for a long moment, my throat working, saliva flooding my mouth in that pre-vomit way that meant I had about ten seconds before I lost it completely.
But I couldn't afford to be squeamish. Not here. Not now.
I forced myself to breathe through my mouth, shallow and quick, trying to bypass my sense of smell entirely. My hands trembled as I reached for the meat, and for a second I just held it there, feeling the cold grease coat my fingers, my body screaming at me to drop it and back away.
Whatever they had planned for me—and I had no illusions it would be anything good—I'd need strength. Energy. Every calorie I could force down my throat might be the difference between surviving and becoming another corpse.
I thought of Ana. Of Sebastian. Of getting back to them.
That thought was enough to make me lift the meat to my mouth.
It was cold and slick with congealed fat, and when I bit into it, the taste was worse than the smell—rancid and chemical and wrong in ways I didn't have words for.
I chewed anyway. Forced myself to swallow even as my body screamed at me to spit it out.
Every bite made my stomach rebel, but I forced it down because I needed the calories. Needed the strength. Whatever was coming, I'd need every ounce of energy I could scrape together.
The liquid went down like regret, burning my throat and sitting heavy in my gut.
When the tray was empty, I lay back on the cot and tried to sleep.
Outside, in the night, Fange City came alive.
Screams echoed through the walls—raw, animal sounds of pain and rage that made my skin crawl. Fighting. Always fighting. The clash of metal on metal, the wet thud of fists hitting flesh, the moans of the dying or the broken or the ones who wished they were dead.
I pressed my hands over my ears, but it didn't help.
The sounds seeped in anyway, crawling under my skin, burrowing into my brain where they played on repeat. Each scream conjured an image I didn't want to see—bodies torn apart, bones breaking, blood pooling on dirty floors.
How the hell did the Prime expect me to function in this place? How did she think I'd get close to Declan, earn his trust, find a way to kill him when I could barely keep myself from falling apart?
But I knew the answer.
She didn't care if I fell apart. She cared that Declan died. Everything else was just collateral damage.
I was collateral damage. Expendable. Replaceable.
The rage hit me then—hot and sudden and so intense it made my vision blur.
Not the cold, calculated anger I'd felt when considering ways to complete the mission.
This was something primal. Volcanic. It burned through my chest and down my arms until my hands curled into fists and my nails bit into my palms hard enough to draw blood.
Rage at the Prime for sending me here. Rage at Declan for making me into this. Rage at myself for being stupid enough to trust him in the first place, for thinking I could save my siblings by selling out everyone else, for every choice that had led me to this cell, this city, this nightmare.
I wanted to scream. Wanted to tear this room apart with my bare hands. Wanted to hurt someone the way I was hurting—wanted to make them bleed and beg and break until they understood what it felt like to be powerless.
But all I could do was lie there in the dark and listen to the sounds of people dying while I waited for my turn.
Sleep came in snatches—minutes stolen between screams, between the sounds of violence that never seemed to stop.
I'd drift off and jerk awake, my heart racing, my body drenched in sweat that hadn't to do with the temperature.
Each time I woke, there was a moment—just a split second—where I didn't remember where I was.
Then it all came crashing back.
Morning arrived with another tray shoved through the slot.
Same greasy meat. Same rock-hard bread. Same horse-piss ale.
I stared at it, something hollow opening up in my chest. This was my life now. This cycle. This dehumanizing routine designed to break me down piece by piece until there wasn't left but an animal that ate and slept and waited to die.
I ate it mechanically, my mind numb, my body moving on autopilot. The taste didn't even register anymore. It was just fuel going into a machine.
The afternoon brought a different kind of horror.
The door opened and two females stood there, flanked by guards.
One was Vaktaire, her pale gold pelt marred by bruises that had faded to sickly yellow-green.
The other was something I didn't recognize—scaled skin, eyes that didn't quite focus, movements that were too slow, too careful, like she'd learned that sudden gestures brought pain.
They didn't speak. Just gestured for me to follow.
We walked through corridors that smelled less like rot, climbed stairs that were actually clean. The room they brought me to was a shock after the cell—larger, with a sunken tub that didn't reek of decay, walls that had been scrubbed recently enough that I could still smell the cleaning solution.
The females moved around me, silent and efficient, stripping off my filthy prison uniform, guiding me into the tub.
I wanted to fight them. Wanted to scream at them to stop touching me, to leave me alone, to let me keep some shred of dignity. But their hands were gentle—impersonal but not cruel—and fighting would only bring the guards.
The water was warm. Clean. It should have felt like heaven.
Instead, it felt like preparation for slaughter. Like washing a pig before the butcher's knife.
They bathed me in silence, their hands moving over my skin with the efficiency of long practice, and I tried to ask them questions. Where were they from? How long had they been here? Were they okay?
They didn't answer. Didn't even look at me.