SIXTY-FOUR GIRLS WHO SLAY TOGETHER, STAY TOGETHER #2
“How many spots are available?” I call out.
Chittering starts up behind me like millions of cockroaches chasing and crawling over one another.
“You will have to find that out for yourselves. Dispose of a traitor, reseal the sanctity of our brotherhood, protect its secrecy from the open maw of a man not worthy to hold our faith, and earn your place among us.”
More blood.
More death.
More sins on my soul…
I think about the group’s power.
How they can make my sins disappear.
And I know that the only reason this monster is here, weeping on the floor, is because I snitched and told the Veronians I’d seen Dyers's branding. Otherwise, he’d probably have been punished behind closed doors.
I crouch low, snagging the knife in my hand. Wynter, her limbs wooden and her movements jerky, copies me.
Almost in sync, we approach Dyers.
With every step, it’s easier to see his heaving shoulders and to recognize that he’s only not weeping audibly because his mouth is sealed shut.
But the light’s so bright that I mistake what’s sealing it—
Wynter gasps first, whereas I freeze. Internally, externally, and everything in between. Large stitches, overlapping into X’s, seal his mouth and his eyes shut.
Forever.
Blood gurgles between the holes and his mumbling… God, did they cut out his tongue?
I think about my intentions. About the game plan Wynter and I cooked up. I think about Shay in the White House and him bringing down the Veronians from the outside. And I think that this is a fate that potentially awaits me.
If I’m not smart enough. If we’re not smart enough.
“Victoria?” Wynter flashes me a panicked look when I don’t answer and, inwardly, I curse, well aware that we need to do this.
That from this moment forth, we’re in this together. We have to be. We have to WIN.
In the back of my mind, I hear Maxim again.
Yesterday, when he hoarsely invoked, “Always get first blood, katyonok,” I felt the echoes of that in my soul.
Releasing a jittery breath, I discard my knife, letting it clatter to the sandy floor.
Dyers jolts in surprise, his bound hands flexing, revealing the—
“Fuck,” Wynter moans.
Where once there was a brand, there’s an openly weeping patch of skin.
“They cut it out.”
She gulps. “A pound of flesh.”
And as much as I instigated this, I shudder alongside her. It’s one thing that Maxim, a known criminal, commits these types of acts, but the members of the Veronians are supposed to be businessmen. Politicians. Our government.
Worst still, they’re supposed to be oath-sworn brothers.
The pound of flesh they extracted reinforces my purpose for these backstabbers. They need taking down. Dismantling from the ground up.
“We do this, Wynter, together.”
And we’re the women for the job.
Her eyes catch mine. “You sure?”
“Are you?”
“I want change, Victoria.”
“Me too. But are you willing to kill to make it happen?”
“If you asked me before… no.” She grits her teeth. “But now, yes.”
“Before?” I whisper.
Her lips part. “I didn’t tell you everything about the auction, Victoria.”
I glance at the crowd, sense the growing agitation at our stillness. “What about it?”
“They were selling…” She flinches. “…little girls.”
I suck in a sharp breath. Catch her eye. Watch her nod. Release the exhale.
Rather than answer because I mostly want to know why the fuck she kept that from me until now, I tip my chin at her and hold out my hand for hers. Our fingers slot together again. Then, I slip the knife’s pommel between our palms.
“Let’s put the dog down.”
Her mouth trembles at my growl.
Together, we lift the knife.
Together, we take a step.
She falters, just for a second, and I snatch the lead, clinging to her still so that the men watching us can’t misread her distress for cowardice.
It’s gross. I know. And Wynter’s soft moan only confirms it.
But I grab his hair with my free hand and drag his head back in a move that’s becoming my signature.
The stitches will haunt my nightmares for an eternity.
But that’s tonight’s problem.
Shoving those thoughts aside, I push the knife into his nostril, well aware that Maxim isn’t here to protect us, isn’t here to cover us up, that we can’t get any blood on us…
That we have to make this memorable.
That we have to do this.
I shove the blade higher.
Higher.
Meet resistance.
Wynter half-sobs.
Grasping at her fingers, I push on.
Until blood sputters down the blade and onto his lap and Dyers rocks forward.
Both of us yelp in surprise when momentum takes him down and the knife pierces the back of his skull.
A roar of approval races around the audience.
It’s the most fucked-up thing I’ve ever heard in my life and my husband’s love language is severed limbs.
I haul Wynter backward and away from the corpse, yanking on her arm when she sticks fast, almost frozen in place.
“You can do this, Wynter,” I hiss at her, needing her to get her shit together for whatever’s about to happen next.
She flicks me a terrified look, and I shoot her a grimace.
“We can have a meltdown later,” I urge.
Her bottom lip trembles. “You promise?”
“I swear.”
She nods. Short. Sharp. Then braces her shoulders.
Just in time, too.
A group of men suddenly appear at the edge of the sand pit.
This time, they’re not covered in hoods.
It’s my turn to tremble when I find two senators, the Secretaries of State and Defense, as well as other faces I see in the papers every day staring at me.
“Holy fuck,” Wynter rasps.
“Yeah.” It’s all I can say.
There’s only one guy whose face I don’t recognize. He’s the one who steps forward with his arms wide open, announcing, “Brothers, I introduce you to our new sisters—Brunhilda VI and Egilona II.”
The ugly ass names are roared in a chant that spins around the auditorium, making me dizzy as it seems to rage in time to my heartbeat.
“Come, sisters,” the man greets, his voice softer. “Collect the lifeblood of your kill. The proof of your devotion to our brotherhood.”
Devotion? Ha. More like complicity.
When he passes Wynter a chalice, one that looks like it belongs in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the city, I snatch it from her grasp. No way in fuck does she have the stomach for that task.
And I didn’t drag her through the ceremony for her to screw it up now.
With a calm that bewilders me, I step over to the corpse. The cadaver. A man who lived and breathed until I decided to write his final chapter.
The bite of the faceted gems against my fingertips stings, but it’s a grounding sensation. I rub them over the sharper edges, aware that these crudely cut gems must be ancient to have such a texture.
I grab Dyers's head, arch it back, and attempt to collect what wasn’t lost in the arterial spurt.
With a couple inches of the chalice’s base covered, I decide I’ve hit my ick factor and I straighten up.
Into the dearth of silence, a voice intones, “Collect his coin from his hand and his ring.”
Wynter, limbs shaking, grabs his hand and removes the coin from his clenched fist. I nearly gag when I realize they slotted the ring through a piece of string and stitched it to his ear.
When I yank on it, I almost retch.
“Come, sisters,” the Secretary of Defense croons. “It’s time to take your place among us.”
He steps around the corpse and then settles his arms behind us. Not touching, but close, as he wafts us forward.
The lights cut out again when we walk straight ahead, and then another section lights up.
I don’t know how it’s possible, but there’s an altar surrounded by a thousand candles that weren’t lit before.
I gape at the display, then cringe when I see the odd setup.
The altar sits above two steps with velvet cushions padding the stone floor.
On it, there’s what I can only describe as a fancy bucket. Made of a silvery metal and seemingly encrusted with jewels. It glows red hot, so I know it isn’t silver. Sticking out of it, there’s a long pole.
The brand.
My gaze sweeps down as I brace for the impact of what’s coming our way.
I was disappointed Jerry didn’t make it to this round, but now… not so much.
It’s not that I want to turn back time but—okay, maybe I do.
I knew the branding was coming, but now that it’s here… crap.
“Kneel, sisters. Embrace the brotherhood that will make your goals reality.”
The endless chanting of our names fucks with my senses.
Honestly, with the heat from the lights and that noise, a part of me thinks I could be sick. Especially when I throw in the scent of that metal heating up. God only knows what it’ll be like when we add the stench of burning flesh.
“We can forgive all sins, sisters. Eventually,” the man informs us as he picks up a glove and pushes his hand into it. “But our mark is sacred. To reveal it to anyone outside of these walls is to invite the stroke of the knife as it rives the honor from your very skin. Do you understand?”
“Dyers was a hockey player,” Wynter croaks out. “Surely—”
“We don’t care how you cover it. But cover it you must. Even from your loved ones and spouses…”
I tip up my chin just so I can nod. When Wynter does too, he smiles at us, and that is a trigger—the men from earlier crowd us and chant something in a language I don’t understand. It sounds like Latin. But not. There’s something… Germanic about it. Something butchered. As if it’s a dialect.
With a scorched pad in the man’s hand, one that reminds me of what I’ve seen Aunt Aela use when she blows glass, he retrieves the brand from the fire-pot.
“Sister Egilona,” he invites me.
I stick out my arm, accepting this fate. Embracing it.
Because to fight them, I’ve become one.
This way lies Shay in the White House.
This way lies real power, power that will prove women are just as strong as any man.
This way lies the end of these monsters.
And only knowing that will get me through.
“Nulla poena, nullum crimen.”
They chant the motto to the high heavens, faster, faster, faster until it runs in an endless loop, a timeless cycle that makes me think I’m dying.
It sure feels like I am.