37. Chapter 37
Maddox
My knuckles go white against the map’s edge. Another red pin joins the cluster devouring Lower Gluttony. “They hit the refinery last night. Took six more.”
Valentine doesn’t look up from her datapad. “You’re pacing again.”
“They’re taking citizens now. Not just supplies. People.” My thumb traces the ragged border where our territory bleeds into his. Arwen’s voice ghosts through my mind, dry and resigned: “Guess I really am one of you after all.”
“You need to stop responding to every provocation personally; stop playing their game,” Valentine says, tone flat. “Every time you rush in, you hand them another victory.”
The map blurs. I can still smell the fuel and ash from yesterday’s bombing. “Easy to preach strategy when it’s not your streets burning.”
“They want you angry.”
“They succeeded.” I throw my glass of whiskey against the wall and it shatters into pieces.
No one speaks for a bit.
“What’s going on, Maddox? This isn’t like you. You’ve always had a temper like the rest of us, but your steely resolve rivaled my own. We need to be strategic, not emotional.”
Valentine’s right. I am barely keeping it together. My control has been slipping since Arwen came into my life. Just the thought of if they got their hands on her…
It’s been over a week since she went back to the academy, and my entire life feels off-center without her in it. The room feels colder when I sleep. Food tastes bland. Every time my phone vibrates, my chest tightens before I even realize what I’m doing.
Pathetic.
Valentine watches me carefully when I don’t respond. “You also look terrible,” she says.
“Thanks, Val.”
“You should sleep.”
“I’ll sleep when this is over and Arw-, …I mean all of my people are safe.”
She gives me a look that says exactly what she thinks of that answer. A knock interrupts us before she can argue further, and one of my gang steps inside.
“Riven agreed to the meeting.”
The room stills. Even Valentine looks surprised.
That makes two of us.
***
The meeting takes place in the limited neutral territory we have.
An old underground lounge buried beneath the ruins of a casino.
The air tastes of stale smoke and damp concrete.
Flickering fluorescents cast long, nervous shadows across water-stained walls and a floor sticky with spilled liquor.
The only exit is a single staircase at the far end, swallowed by darkness.
The kind of place where bodies get left and never found.
But the important thing is no civilians.
Riven doesn’t stand when I walk in. He’s settled into one of the leather chairs with his ankle crossed over his knee, silver rings catching the dim light, suit without a single crease in it. Performed confidence.
His expression gives away nothing, but the scar bisecting his face catches the low light.
I’ve always considered Riven my biggest competition, probably because we are almost exactly alike in every way, except the one that counts. We both want power, but he doesn’t care how many bodies he has to stand on to get it.
Duval stands beside me like a mountain carved from stone, while Valentine lingers near the back wall.
“You came,” Riven says.
“I was curious,” I reply. “Is Amaya annoying you so much already that you're considering jumping ship to my side?”
One corner of his mouth lifts.
“You’ve always been so arrogant. Haven’t you learned that arrogance blinds you?”
“And what’s blinded you, Riven? Kidnapping? I never thought you’d mistake brute cruelty for strategy. That’s usually a trait reserved for the less intelligent branches of our father’s bloodline.”
Riven’s expression barely shifts, but something colder settles behind his eyes.
“Careful, brother. You’re starting to sound emotional.”
“Careful,” I reply. “You’re starting to sound desperate.”
Riven folds his hands. “This war is becoming expensive.”
“Well, you drew first blood.”
“No,” he says mildly. “You destabilized the balance.”
My jaw tightens.
Riven watches me. “You’re distracted lately,” he notes.
“Get to the point.”
He tilts his head. “Withdraw from the southern districts. Stop recruiting allies. Publicly renounce any claim to succession.” His eyes sharpen. “And this ends. Your bonded will be safe.”
I stare at him. I could almost laugh at the audacity.
“Is this a joke? You came all the way here to ask me to kneel?”
Before Riven can answer, slow clapping echoes through the room, and every muscle in my body locks. Of course, he wouldn’t come alone.
Vex strolls into the lounge with his cocky smile full of silver, and I immediately want to put a bullet into his skull.
“Well, this is tense,” he drawls. “Did I interrupt family bonding?”
“You weren’t invited,” Valentine snaps.
Vex ignores her. His predatory gaze lands on me instead.
“You look tired, brother.”
“This doesn’t concern you, Vex,” I reply. “Get out.”
He hums thoughtfully, circling the table, spinning his gun around his finger like a child’s toy.
“Oh, I think it concerns me a fair bit,” he replies. “But how are you? Now that your little Wrath Queen went back to SinVail. She’s in…” he pauses, checking his watch, “her Faction Resource Statistics class now, right?”
The room goes still. I work hard at keeping a straight face even though my pulse spikes.
“Second row, third chair from the right to be exact. She looks so pretty in that short uniform skirt. Especially when she does her hair up in that messy bun, like she has today? My…that distance must be difficult,” he continues. “Especially with such a fresh bond.”
“Careful,” Duval rumbles beside me. “Any action against Arwen and the neutral status of this meeting disappears real quick.”
Vex smiles wider but keeps his eyes on mine.
“I’m just concerned. She’s so vulnerable. Emotional too, I hear. Being all on her own. I hear Atticus has barely said two words to the poor girl. Guess he dropped her like a sack of potatoes, just like you, Maddox.”
My hand curls into a fist.
“You know,” he says, putting his focus back on spinning his pistol around his finger. “I always wondered something about bonded pairs.”
He leans against the table. “When one is hurting… does the other feel it too?”
The air in the room changes to violence. Valentine straightens and Duval shifts beside me.
Vex looks delighted.
“You touch her,” I say, voice low, “and I’ll peel your skin off inch by inch.”
He laughs. “There he is.”
The door slams open upstairs, and heavy footsteps thunder down the stairwell. One of Duval’s men burst into the lounge, breathing hard.
“Sir—”
He stops short, seeing everyone gathered. Then forces the words out. “There’s been an attack.”
Every instinct in my body sharpens. “Where?”
The man swallows.
“Lower District Twelve.”
My stomach drops. That’s not a strategic attack. Mostly poor families live there. It’s a sea of factories, some crumbled down apartments and an… orphanage.
My voice comes out deadly calm. “Report.”
The man looks pale. “Dozens of children were taken.”
“Taken where?” Duval asks sharply.
“They—” The man shakes. “Witnesses said they saw white transport vans with a skewered snake symbol on the side.”
Wicka.
The realization slams into me so hard my vision flashes white. Not children…
For one horrible second I’m ten years old again, being dragged screaming away from my mother. Something inside me snaps.
Riven rises from his chair. “I didn’t authorize—”
I grab him before he finishes. The table crashes sideways as I slam him against the concrete wall hard enough to crack it. My gun presses beneath his jaw.
“You think I won’t kill you here?” I hiss.
Riven’s composure fractures.
“Maddox,” Valentine says in warning.
Vex watches like this is the greatest entertainment of his life.
“You’re getting emotional again,” he says. “That’s dangerous in war.”
I want to shoot him first. Then Vex. Then burn every one of their territories to ash.
Instead, I step back. Breathing hard. Arwen’s beautiful eyes flashing through my mind.
If I stay here, I’ll become this. That’s what she had said.
I realize it’s too late for me. I’m already the West she thinks I am. No more playing nice.
But if I kill them both now, my father will only execute me for such a cowardly strike. Unprovoked in neutral territory.
I look at Riven one last time, unleashing my monster.
“If you are going to play war, control your allies.” I say. “If Wicka harms even one hair on those children’s heads, I will wipe you and all your allies off the board. Even if I have to take the easy way out. Even if I go with it.”
Then I turn toward my men. “Mobilize everyone.”
Valentine closes her eyes.
“Maddox—”
“No more diplomacy. No more meetings. This is war.”