11. Riley
RILEY
Aron’s last visit was brief and jarringly uneventful.
He barely looked at me, barely said a word to me, and didn’t linger around for longer than necessary.
His silent hostility, as opposed to the usual vocal kind, should have been a relief to me.
But it wasn’t. I caught myself wishing that he would stay longer. That we could talk more.
My thoughts are so tangled. My chest tightens anytime I think about what Aron’s gone through, and guilt washes over me when I consider the part I played in it.
He lost everyone and everything. Even though his story is far from unique, hearing it changed how I see him.
Before, I thought he was just a deranged psychopath, acting out of whatever sick, dark compulsion.
But now I’ve glimpsed his pain and desperation through the cracks.
And realised that maybe what drives him is what drives all of us, except he feels it a lot stronger.
A deafening bang echoes down the cave, the light comes on, and the familiar stomp of heavy boots draws near.
This is strange. He’s only just been here a few hours ago, I’m sure of that. I’m not even hungry yet.
I get up, then back away quickly when he appears behind the bars, his mask on and the look in his eyes lethal.
“What—”
Something rubbery and a little wet hits me in the chest. He threw it at me so fast I barely registered the movement.
“I won’t kill you today either.” His voice could cut through steel, rage oozing off every syllable. “But I will make you wish that I would unless you talk. And no lying.”
Unease coiling in my belly, I peek at the thing he threw at me.
A scream tears from my lips.
An ear. A bloodied, chopped-off ear.
I scuffle away from it, pebbles rattling underneath my feet.
“Corrado ... No!”
Trying not to look at the ear, I press my hands over my mouth to stifle the panicked sobs racking my body. Tears roll between my fingers.
“Corrado is a liar.” Aron steps inside the cell, his voice deep and low, his posture threatening. “He said he would tell me everything, but he fucking lied to me.”
In his mask, he’s lung-crushingly terrifying.
“What did you do?”
“Wrong question, Hotshot.” I can hear the sneer in his tone. “The right one isn’t what I’ve done, but what I could do.”
“You mutilated him! You sick, fucking monster!” I let my hands fall away from my contorted face.
“Like you’re not!” The retort is so sharp and full of hatred that it steals my breath.
He moves closer. I pick up a rock and throw it at him.
He catches it. With a reflex so honed it’s almost unnatural, he actually fucking catches it. Fury flares in his eyes.
He pounces.
I scream.
He’s on me in a heartbeat. He grabs both my wrists and twists my arms behind my back. Then he yanks them upward to force me to bend over, howling in pain.
“Lying bitch.” Holding me in place with one hand, he traces the tip of his knife down my spine.
“I d-didn’t lie t-to you about anything!” I’m sobbing uncontrollably, instinctive terror taking over as the blade slips between my ass cheeks.
“Are you sure about that?” he croons maliciously, the sharp steel inching towards my exposed pussy.
“I didn’t! Please!”
He traces my entrance, and I freeze on the inside, nearly fainting with dread.
“Give me one fucking reason why I shouldn’t just gut you through the cunt and be done with you.”
“No, please, please, please ...” I’m crying so hard I can’t breathe, panic shutting my body down.
Very abruptly, he withdraws the knife and lets go of my wrists. He jerks me upright by my hair, whipping me around to face him.
“Please isn’t a reason, is it? Tell me your secret, Hotshot,” he snarls, his dark glare searing. “The data plate. Speak.”
Oh no. No, no, no ...
“Fucking speak before I find a better use for your mouth.”
What do I tell him? How do I even put that into words?
“Talk!” he roars, his masked face inches from mine. “What. Does. It. Mean?”
I detect a different note creeping into his voice. Confusion, despair, almost like he’s pleading with me to tell him it’s not true, that it’s all just some elaborate hoax. Hearing it, fear dissipates. Bone-melting fatigue replaces it.
“What do you think?” I ask him with resigned regret. “They carved up the world and split it between themselves.”
His grip on my hair relents, his whole body slacking.
“No way,” he gasps, shaking his head, and even though he’s easily six foot four and wearing that mask of death, he’s suddenly almost like a young boy, willing something not to be true.
“I didn’t lie, but I didn’t tell you the full truth either,” I admit in a small voice. “I told you we were sending photos to Synechord. That wasn’t completely accurate. We were sending them to an opposition group within Synechord.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Old friends of Corrado’s. Vouched for. Trustworthy. Opposed to the technocracy from the start. They told us that Synechord reports anyone trying to make contact.”
“Reports how? To whom?”
“To the Continuum. They’ve been in cahoots with the Consuls this whole time.”
“No. There’s been no contact since Rift Day.”
“Sure. That’s what they say.” I chance a small smirk, encouraged when he doesn’t lunge at me.
“It makes sense if you think about it. Whenever I’m in any one of the three capitals, half the public sentencings are people who tried to contact Synechord.
Continuum tech isn’t nearly as good at detecting anything else. It doesn’t add up.”
I let him process this before I go on. “We’ve been trying to find proof along the border of the Rift for over a year, in between our official tasks. We finally succeeded the day you captured us.”
“Were you poisoned?”
His interruption is jarring. It distracts me from finding a way to mention Phoenix’s involvement without revealing more than I should.
“I don’t think so.” I shake my head. “The data plate likely got torn and propelled away from the missile within milliseconds. It’s been five years, and I didn’t touch it.”
He nods with a choked, guttural sound. “Riley.” His tone of voice tugs at something tender inside me. “Why didn’t you tell me?” His words are accusing, but his demeanour is not. It’s almost ... hurt.
“Have you given me any reason to trust you with this kind of intel?”
My question hangs heavy in the air between us, his silence the only reply that’s needed.
“Fuck,” he swears breathlessly, a jagged edge in his voice.
Then he walks out without another word, clicking the cell door shut.
ARON
I’m stomping away towards the exit. My mind is reeling. I have a million questions and no way to get answers. I don’t know what this means. I only know that if it’s true, then it changes absolutely everything.
It’s like I’m in free fall, reaching for something, but there’s fuck all to grab. Just empty air and darkness.
I’ve developed a decent sense for bullshit over the years. When you torture people for information on a regular basis, you learn to recognise when they’re still trying to keep the truth away from you and when they’ve stopped lying.
And what Riley told me? How she told me? Her tone of voice, her body language, the look in her eyes? I’m not sensing bullshit. Not anymore.
And the sheer fucking burden of it! It’s like an iron weight has dropped onto my shoulders. I can’t stand straight. Already, I’m trying to figure out who to share this information with—who can be depended on to handle it responsibly—and I can’t come up with a single name.
Fuck! I can almost understand why she wouldn’t tell me.
I do have a reputation for being a bit ...
unpredictable. A reputation I have more than lived up to, as far as she’s concerned.
In her place, I probably wouldn’t tell me either.
So why does it bother me so much that she didn’t trust me with this?
She’s a traitor. I do not care about traitors. I don’t care what they think, how they feel; I certainly don’t give a shit about their opinion of me. I view them as nothing but vermin that need to be eliminated.
So how the fuck did I let this happen? How the hell have I allowed her to get under my skin? It’s like some twisted addiction—like a book I can’t put down. Like opening a box within a box within a box—a compulsion to know what’s inside.
I’m breaking my own rules. I’m losing my fucking mind.
I reach the door, but I freeze with my fingers wrapped around the handle. I don’t want to go out there. I need time to process, to calm myself down. But out there feels like a lion’s den, people clamouring constantly, wanting directions from me, wanting a solid plan. A plan I don’t have.
If I go out there, all that’s going to happen is I’m going to think about being back down here. With her.
It’s like an itch. An itch I have to scratch because I can’t afford to be this distracted. Not with this new intel and the offensive drawing near, not with everything that’s going down.
My gut clenches with shame because I already know I’m going to do something bad. But I need to get whatever this is out of my system right the fuck now.
Before it becomes dangerous.
“Fuck it.”
I turn around and march back to Riley’s cell, anticipation boiling in my veins.