6. Ruby
six
“Rubes?” Rowan’s voice echoes in the attic.
My eyes meet hers.
“Did that…” I start.
“Yeah,” she mutters. “It did.”
“Did he know that we could see him?”
“I think so.”
“It’s like he sees me,” I admit more to myself than to Rowan.
Rowan gives me a pointed look and I stand from the chair, knocking it over in the process. It’s not like me to get flustered. It’s not like me to let things get out of hand like that. Ruby does not act this way. Ruby does not allow herself to be treated like this. Ruby is a ruthless killer. Ruby is emotionless. I am Ruby and therefore I am numb. I do not feel. Feelings make you weak, and Rubys are not weak.
I am Ruby.
I am numb.
I do not feel.
I am not weak.
I’m Amelia, and I’m twelve-years-old, playing a part while Ruby tells me I am to be her successor. She doesn’t smile when she says it. She doesn’t offer congratulations. Instead, she attacks my mind. Abusing it, day after day, until I learn to be like her—void of life. She tells me it makes it easier to take others. That it’s for my own good. Ruby is merciless in my training; it’s far worse than any other recruit’s. The other girls are allowed to smile and cry in their therapy sessions. Not me. I’m supposed to talk about my parents’ neglect without emotion, like a robot.
At night in the dormitory, the other girls talk about falling in love when they retire from the Reds. They dream of their futures, of the women they will be, of the person they will spend forever with. But not me. I’m not allowed. The only relationships I will ever have are with the recruits I share a room with. I don’t know what it means to be loved. My parents didn’t love me. Ruby doesn’t love me. Nobody will ever love me because Rubys are queens and queens don’t retire.
They die.
Rowan sees the single tear that slides down my face before I can wipe it away. She offers me a forced smile but doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing she can say, sometimes life just happens to you. And when it does, you can either let it mow you down or you can transform yourself. I did the latter.
“I need more Row,” I tell her.
She looks at me, her eyebrows pinched, as if she is not sure what I am talking about.
“More skeletons,” I explain. “Cassius has not reacted like any other mark thus far. In fact, it seems that the more I try to get from him, the harder I push him, the more infuriating he gets. I need dirt so that I can put a rush on his timeline.”
Cassius is cracking my foundation with every interaction, exploiting the weak spot Rowan unearthed last night. And if he can crack my foundation over the airwaves, what could he accomplish in person?
“I need to go,” I start.
“Change your panties?” Rowan asks, her eyes glinting with devious thoughts.
“Kill a mark. And Row? This did not happen, okay?”
She nods her head and repeats, “It did not happen.”
My face narrows. Shooting her a glare, I leave the attic. Fuck Cassius Cross. Irritation bubbles beneath my skin. Killing this man is going to be one of the greatest pleasures of my life. The arrogant prick will meet my blade soon. I will not wait to find the girl. My trust in Rowan runs deeper than my loyalty to my name. She will find her. We will bring her home.
Seven-two-four-six. My gloved fingers press the numbers on the keypad and the deadbolt slides out of place. The knob turns easily and without a sound. I open the door and cross the threshold. Years of training keep my steps light. Silent. Moonlight filters through the kitchen windows, offering a small sliver of light in the dark house. I follow the hallway with the moon at my back. Counting each step like I have in the weeks prior; I get to fourteen and rotate ninety degrees to my left. Practice makes perfect. Tonight, the moon is my friend, but we don’t rely on friends or lights. Lights draw attention, but people tend to ignore the things that go bump in the night. They blame it on animals or say it’s the house settling. Darkness is our home. It’s where the Reds thrive and grow.
The door is open, like it has been every night I’ve visited. Routines can be dangerous. My heart does a little flip inside my chest as I enter the room. My pulse quickens with each step. Six, seven. I retrieve my blade from its sheath in my boot. I leave the rope at my waist, intent on a fight and climb into the bed. The mark stirs at the shift in the mattress but doesn’t wake. I rest my head on the pillow beside hers. Do all divorced women still sleep on one side of the bed, or is she an anomaly? Does her bed feel empty without another body to keep it warm?
Does mine? Surely not, but I’ve never known otherwise.
The air has changed, absent of shallow breath. I turn to face my mark.
If fear had a taste, it would be sweet like candy. Lucky for me, I have a sweet tooth.
“Shh,” I coo into the darkness.
“P-please,” she stutters.
The mattress shifts beneath me as the mark retreats to the edge of the bed. I let her. She climbs out of the bed quickly, but I’m quicker. The alarm clock on the nightstand offers enough light that I can see her outline. I grab her by the hair. Wrapping it around my hand, I drag her back onto the bed. She claws at me, drawing blood.
Fucking bitch.
I stab one of her hands with my free one. A scream of agony escapes her, and it’s a concerto to my ears, only accompanied by the fast beating of her heart. I stab at her other hand. Whimpers fill the darkness, joining the orchestra. Straddling her, I press my knees into her injured hands and release her hair.
I lean in close, my face inches from hers. “Did they beg too, Ms. Whitelock? Did they say please? Did they cry out in pain when you hit them? When you starved them? When you let them sit in their own excrement? Did you enjoy playing God? Did you enjoy the pain suffered from your hands? Was it worth it?”
“It wasn’t me,” she whispers.
“I enjoy the pain I cause,” I answer. “But devils do not play God.” I use the blade of my knife to caress her cheek. “You are going to die, Ms. Whitelock, but I am curious why you did it?”
“To…to,” she stammers. “Fill the silence.”
I’m swift with my blade. It slices across the tender flesh of her throat. Blood sprays back at me while her heart continues to pump. Showered in her blood, Cassius plagues my thoughts like a virus that can’t be contained. Cassius knows what I do, he knows his death is imminent, and yet he called out my name. In the throes of his own pleasure, no less.
This game we’re playing. It’s not cat and mouse. It’s not predator vs. prey. I know this game, and I know that the queen is the most powerful. She does not live by rules. She hunts and kills without remorse. This is a game of strategy, and I have a lifetime of experience.
Chess is the first thing recruits are taught when they come to us. We use it to teach how to focus on more than one thing at once, and to think multiple steps ahead before we make our move. I bombed that lesson at first, but before I trained to be Ruby, Rowan and I were paired together on most tasks even though she was two years older than me. And Rowan, she was incredibly intelligent, even as a child she was smarter than most of the adult Reds, although they would never have admitted it. She helped me understand the game, and I helped her survive blade training. Together we were unstoppable, but like chess, time eventually runs out and when it does, someone has to lose. For a long time, I thought it was Rowan, but I’m starting to think it was me. That becoming Ruby wasn’t the prize I thought it was.
Blood and water blend together as they swirl down the drain at my feet. Scrubbing my skin, I finish washing away Ms. Whitelock. Her blood and her memory. When I leave this shower, I will not think of her again. We all do what we must to forget, make amends and lock the memories away. In my shower, I wash away the sins of my legacy.
But her last words eat at me because I cannot make sense of them. To fill the silence? What the hell does that mean? Was it their screams? Their cries for help? Or did she mean the emptiness? The one that creeps up on me between jobs. Where my thoughts and feelings bounce around in a deep cavern with nothing to brace their impact because that’s what my training required. And when I kill, it feels as though the cavern is suddenly full of every thought and feeling, and they hold on to each other, leaving no space for air. Maybe it’s the same thing, silence and emptiness, and maybe me and Mrs. Whitelock are more alike than I thought.
I’m toweling off when a video call comes through on my tablet.
“What did you find?” I answer, not bothering with hello.
“Okay, so Mr. Cross,” Rowan starts. “He one hundred percent committed a hit-and-run on the girl’s brother. The teen is paralyzed from the waist down. Honestly, he’s lucky to be alive.”
“How do we know for sure?”
“Incoming video.”
I press play and watch as Cassius’ Impala slams into a teenage boy crossing the street. The driver climbs out—his build instantly recognizable as Cassius. He walks toward the boy, leans in to check his pulse, then climbs back in the car and speeds off.
“And the girl?”
“We have a transaction report from his credit card company. He purchased clothing from a women’s boutique downtown and heavy chains and locks from the hardware store. And Rubes?”
“What else Rowan?”
“Incoming video.”
Fucking Christ. I knew it was true. My sources are never wrong, but I really wanted…to be honest, I don’t know what I really wanted. For it to be lies? For him to be a better person than me?
I tap my finger on the play button and hold my breath.
Cassius walks down the street, dragging Isabella Diaz at his side until he pushes her into the trunk of the Impala. The video is not the best quality, but as someone who can taste fear, I feel like I have a cavity. The young girl is terrified. I freeze the frame. She looks a lot smaller than the photo we have.
My improper thoughts of Cassius should be forgotten after seeing this. He’s a monster. But so am I. And what is it that people say? Like attracts like? The realization hits like an earthquake to my cracked foundation. Bricks of the walls that hold me together, that make me who I am, begin to fall.
Forcing the queen to make her move.