Chapter 13
CAT
Ileapt down from Fuzzball before my brain could catch up to my action, my hands shaking, arms vibrating with fury.
I barely noticed my beautiful shadow horse melting into the mist, only registering her teeth clacking together when she jerked her head forward in a threat, as if she’d rip out Cruelty’s throat.
“How dare you wear her face,” I snarled, and propelled myself at Cruelty.
The psychopath laughed, a trilling, high sound that would have been beautiful from anyone else. From her, it grated my temper until sheer wrath erupted.
“Cat,” Death breathed, catching me around the waist and pulling me back.
My legs kicked in the air, and I stretched out my arms, hands eager to strangle the goddess of cruelty until not even a scrap of her life remained.
“We have to be careful, little bride,” he murmured in my ear, and the words were like a bucket of ice water.
Because I’d thrown myself at Cruelty, but she didn’t stand alone.
Her brother, my torturer, was right beside her.
I exhaled a shuddery breath, the numbness creeping back in.
“I’m so happy you’re here, Kitty,” Cruelty said in a rush, as if she didn’t hand me off to her brother to cut and punch and whip, as if I didn’t try to end her tainted life. “I knew you’d come. Besties can never be separated.”
“I’ll separate your head from your neck,” I spat when another flash of wrath made it through the ocean of numbness.
I didn’t look at Violence, even if I knew he loomed there, a solid stack of muscle and threat driven by a hunger to inflict pain, to tear screams from his victims’ throats.
I had to lock my bones to suppress a flinch.
“I’ll help,” Madde said eagerly, pressing close on my left as my men surrounded me, Pain and Miz on my other side. “I’ve been waiting for a chance to crush all your bones until you’re just a skin bag.”
“Not particularly smart to threaten my sister.” Violence’s voice hit me like a punch to the solar plexus, and I recoiled into Death.
“I’ve got you,” he promised, both arms encircling my waist.
“Especially given we have your friend,” Violence sneered.
I went still, even as Misery lunged forward, a rattling hiss in his throat. “Where is he? What have you bastards done with him?”
“We’ll tell you,” Cruelty said sweetly, Honey’s voice carving through me like a knife. “If you play our game.”
“What game?” Pain demanded in a voice far colder than usual.
Cruelty swept her arm out in an elaborate gesture and a rush of ice went through every limb in my body when students, identical in Ford uniforms—but blood red, not green—emerged from the arched doorway to Milton Hall.
They separated into four lines and spilled down the pathway, walking with the synchronised precision of a dictator’s army.
The beat of their footsteps made my skin prickle.
My stomach compacted into a tight knot when they stopped all at once behind Cruelty and Violence, the faces among them familiar.
There were Wil, Duncan, and Justin. There were two people from a lecture I couldn’t even remember the name of, let alone the content of, and the guy who dressed as a vagina at the Halloween party.
But the way they moved… it wasn’t training, wasn’t natural.
This was them, the twisted magic of the death gods.
Every student at Ford was under their control.
“What game?” Cruelty laughed. “Well, school, silly.”