Chapter 14
CAT
Pretend to be a normal student, pretend everything was ordinary as we attended classes, and they’d give Tor back to us. My mouth was dry when I rasped, “We’ll do it.”
“I knew you wouldn’t let me down, Kitty,” Cruelty preened, beaming from ear to ear. Because she’d won and she knew it. Tor’s life was on the line; we couldn’t say no if we wanted to. And fuck did I want to.
I wanted to turn around, summon Fuzzball, and ride far, far away from this cursed place. But Tor was here, and as long as they held that over us, I would never walk away. Neither would any of my men.
“That’s all you want?” Pain clarified, shadows wrapped around his knuckles as his hands formed fists. “If we play along with this charade, you’ll give Tor back.”
It was Violence who replied, his voice like claws slashing through my skin “One term, and we’ll give you the mirror.”
“Not a fucking chance,” Miz snapped, teeth bared. “That’s too long.”
“A month, then,” Cruelty said with a shrug that told me she’d expected pushback. She never relented this easily; I eyed her suspiciously. Why did she want us here so badly? What did she get out of us pretending to be good little med students?
“A week,” Miz bartered, his entire body tight with rage. A powder keg one false move away from detonation.
“Two,” Cruelty chirped, bouncing on her heels.
She might look like Honey and sound like her, but every mannerism was Cruelty, through and through.
Insanity, grace, and ruthless mind games all rolled into one fucked-up person.
I’d recognise her anywhere. “Two weeks, and we’ll give Torment back to you, safe and sound. ”
“Well,” Violence disagreed, with a laugh like rocks colliding, like thunder itself.
“More or less safe and sound,” his sister corrected with a tinkling laugh that made me want to throat-punch her.
“You touch him,” I seethed, starting forward a step—all I dared with her brother beside her and an army of compelled students at their backs, “and I will skin you alive.”
“And the scooping,” Madde stage-whispered.
“And scoop out all your fucking organs to make a soup to feed to my new best friend,” I added in a snarl. When she reeled back with a gasp of horror, I added, “Or maybe I’ll just let her rip you apart with her bare teeth.”
“That’s my girl,” Madde said, wiping away a tear. “Hey, everyone, you hear that? This is my wife!” He pointed to me, a huge grin on his face. His shirt, I noticed now, had red sequined hearts that looked like a burlesque performer’s nipple covers.
Cruelty’s lip curled, and I caught Madde’s arm to pull him back when she gestured. Instead of her magic slamming into him, a crack went through the world. Then another. Only on the third did I realise it wasn’t gunshots or the beat of a war drum. Footsteps—a hundred synchronised footsteps.
And when they came into view, it wasn’t more students in red Ford blazers.
It took me a moment to realise that some of these people were familiar faces too, but they were huge.
No matter their gender, they were stacked with muscle and all over six foot tall.
Their eyes pointed forward, unwavering as they marched around the side of Milton Hall and lined up in neat formation.
An army of powerfully built threats, whose eyes reflected the watery light through the clouds like a cat’s, each one an eerie mirror that made me stiffen in Death’s arms. They didn’t wear armour, instead clad in long black coats, and they didn’t hold shields or swords, but they were so obviously an army.
“Shit,” Misery breathed, staring, counting I realised. “There are a hundred of them. How?”
I glanced at him when the warm rain of his bond turned to an icy deluge against my soul.
“How does she have a hundred Stalkers?”