32. Luna
LUNA
Thorne stands silent as Sawyer Hansley is dragged to the cells. Murder sits unmistakable in his eyes.
“Walk with me, my love,” I say, reaching for him.
He rips his hand away from me. His head never turns my way. “Did you have to kiss him?”
I say nothing.
When he finally turns, pain is raw in his eyes—pain I try to pity. I wait for compassion. For shame.
It doesn’t come. I feel nothing.
Thorne waits for an answer that never comes, then turns his broken face away and heads toward the compound. Or the mines.
A fellow Keeper, Patrick, picks up the hiking bag.
I clear my throat. “Take the money, but leave the bag.”
He gives me a questioning look before thinking better of it and doing as I ask. Three weeks ago, there would’ve been no hesitation.
Before Sawyer, my people have only ever known me as inhuman, first as the Devil Child and then as the Keeper of the Night. How unsettling it must be to see their Head Keeper as a helpless woman, even in pretense.
It’s a reminder: the cost of vulnerability is respect.
Patrick stuffs stacks of hundreds into his pants as another brother comes to help. Once they’re finished, Patrick hands me the bag, his head lowered in submission.
I take the bag and dismiss the two of them. In seconds, I’m alone. Left with confliction, only the chirp of a cricket and the whistle of wind to distract me from what must be done.
I close my eyes and breathe in the scent of pine, crisp wintry air, and … Sawyer. He clings to the hood circling my neck, as relentless as his invasion of my mind.
Somehow, it makes my decision easier.
Zephyr’s light is on when I reach her top-floor apartment in the Grove, her bloodline affording her the luxury. More resources, fewer restrictions, influence that never had to be earned. A gift, my Father might claim, if pressed. A token of his love.
But the only gift an entitled child truly receives is ignorance of their incompetence—in relationships, in society, in life. It is the most cancerous of flaws. It is fatal.
I lift my fist to the door but pause. Close my eyes. Breathe.
Knock. Only once.
She opens quickly, as if expecting someone—Sawyer.
When she sees me, she tenses. The knob rattles in her grasp.
“Luna.”
I gesture past her. “May I come in?”
Plastering on a smile, she releases the knob and steps to the side, hand sweeping me into her home.
I track dirt onto her white carpet with my bare feet.
It’s the only brown in the otherwise bright apartment—yellow-painted walls, pink pillows decorating the couch, rainbow spotted magnets on a contraband minifridge.
A direct reflection of her one and only responsibility—the Grove.
Youthful, fun, cringeworthy.
It’ll be painted white by morning.
“So if you’re here… I guess that means it’s over?” she asks, tone hitching.
I slowly pull the hiking bag off my shoulder and perch on the edge of her couch. My bottom sinks into an overly plush cushion. An image flashes—intrusive, unwelcome—of Sawyer here, his naked thighs damp with sweat while my sister fucks him.
“It’s over,” I confirm, eyes drawing to my hands as they fidget. I flatten my palms on my thigh and straighten my spine. “Mr. Hansley has been taken to the mines.”
“Mmm.” Zephyr nods as she sits across from me, the white leather of her chair creaking as she crosses one slender leg over the other. Her fingers interlace over her knee without the softest hint of a tremor. “You must be relieved.”
“This was my mission. I could’ve stopped it at any time.”
Her lips crease with an upward pull that may be an attempted smile. “Right. Well... Are you satisfied? Have you learned all there is to know about your new pet?”
“I think you know the answer to that.”
She raises a brow, but it’s her chest that I watch. It’s stopped moving. “Oh?”
“It’s interesting.” My fingers drum against my thigh. “He was given one task, yet spent no more than a few hours a day with me… I’d venture to guess you could say more than I could about the man.”
“Me?”
“You.”
Her eyes pop with a laugh and she shifts in her chair. “I mean, I met him. We talked a few times. I believe you directed us to do everything in our power to make him feel at home?”
“I didn’t tell you to fuck him, Zephyr.”
“Fuck him?” She scrunches up her nose. “Did he say we…?” She blinks, shakes her head.
“Luna, that’s disgusting. He’s like fifteen years older than me.
I showed him the compound. Once or twice, I brought him food that was technically contraband, so if you want to accuse me of that, fine.
But you’re the only person here obsessed with the trafficker. ”
A second of silence passes while I stare, the fingers drumming my thigh curling into a loose fist. Zephyr squirms as two more seconds pass, each longer than the last.
“I mean, forgive me, Your Grace, but I’ve seen your wall of horrors. You’re consumed by this. He probably picked up on your little—or not so little—crush and told you … whatever he told you, just to make you crazy. Please don’t let it work. Please don’t let him win.”
I reach into the front pocket of the hiking bag to retrieve the bracelet I took off Sawyer. Zephyr’s expression falls as I lay it on the table between us.
“You were taunting me.”
She scoffs. “I make those for everyone.”
I raise my wrists. “Where’s mine?”
“You?” She laughs. “You don’t wear jewelry.”
“Stop.”
Her eyes roll. “Luna, come on. You cannot—”
“Stop,” I repeat, my voice more forceful. “Please, just stop.”
Resting her hands on her thighs, she turns her head. No guilt crosses her expression, though I look for it. I look for any sign of loyalty, of love for me.
There’s none.
“You know you’re a minute and a half older than me,” Zephyr says, the words sharp with resentment. “That means I’ve spent the entirety of my life in your shadow.” She turns to me, lips pinched. “You have always been Father’s favorite. It must kill you to believe someone wants me more.”
I laugh. Though not a single word is funny.
“You betrayed me for the favor of an old, irrelevant man. Is that what you want me to believe?”
“Do you deny it?”
“Do I deny what?”
She leans forward with her forearms on her knees, eyes wide and serious.
The ridiculousness of a foolish girl deadset on competing in a rigged game.
“Father favors you. He gives you power, freedom. He lets you bend the rules, make the rules. He gives you everything, and you’re here …
for what, Luna? What rules have I broken that Father wouldn’t excuse for you? ”
When I hesitate, she goes on. “Am I not his blood as well?”
His blood…
As if his blood is to be used as a shield.
“You are useless.” The sneer comes out so vicious something deep inside me recoils. “There is a price for the useless, and a price for the useful. We each made our choice.”
“Choices? What choices?” She gestures around, as if I’ll find bars on the windows, handcuffs on the chair.
“You force your will—on me, on the people. On everyone. For weeks, we’ve danced around your little game, acting as you command, smiling as you command, existing as you command.
You call yourself a guardian, but you’re nothing but a puppet master. ”
“And you are nothing but a puppet. Father’s. Thorne’s. Sawyer’s. You bend at the first sign of affection because you are weak. And spoiled. And foolish. I could cut my foot off with an ax, and you would whine that Father gave me a cane.”
“At least I bend, Luna.” She shoves from her chair, fists clenched at her side, eyes glassy with tears—angry not sad. “You know why I took to Sawyer?”
“Because you wanted to sabotage my mission.”
She huffs, runs her hands down her face. “Because I felt badly for him. He’s a liar and a thief, but he’s kind, and he doesn’t deserve whatever you’re going to do to him. You are disgustingly heartless, and I pity the men who catch your attention.”
“You pity them.” I stand, my lips tilting into a bitter smile. “That’s why you invited Thorne between your legs. Because you pity him.”
“Yes. I do. But let’s not pretend it’s Thorne you care about. He’s told me how you are in bed—cold and lifeless. Thorne says you stare at the ceiling like you’re not even there. He feels like he’s screwing a corpse.”
“Stop.”
“But those videos of you with Sawyer…” Her head tips to the side. “Am I mistaken, or did I sense a bit of passion?”
“Stop!” My shin knocks the table and drags my eyes down as I pant. I don’t raise them. I stare at the bracelet lying lax on the table. The taunt woven just for me.
I wish I had never seen it.
“I’m sorry,” Zephyr says, though her voice is stiff. She crosses her arms over her chest while my fists unclench, hands trembling. “That was too far.”
I open my mouth, but the words tucked on the edge of my tongue don’t release. My eyes draw to the hiking bag, to my purpose here. Somehow, I’m able to ignore it.
“Is it true?”
No answer.
“Does Thorne… Did he say those things?”
Silence.
I close my eyes, take a steadying breath. “Did Sawyer mention his … experience with me? Is there information that could help me moving forward?”
“Help you what?”
Help me what…
I have no answer.
Zephyr sighs as she sits back. I don’t follow suit. Don’t even look at her.
“He was vague about pretty much everything, all the time. Including you… I learned more from Raven’s report and the videos than I ever did speaking with him.”
I nod and raise my head. A sour taste collects on the tip of my tongue, words I don’t intend to speak. More hate. More bitterness. Though all I truly have for my sister is love.
My eyes draw to the hiking bag.
“I’m sorry,” Zephyr says, more convincing than before. “I know Father is expecting blood to be shed for Sawyer leaving the compound, but Luna, you know… He had no intention of escaping until he got the money.”
“So you admit that you helped him leave.”
“I made a judgment call in your absence. The same one you would’ve made… I saw the trafficker’s face when he found one of the rejected infants. If I hadn’t helped him rectify the situation, our chance of earning his trust would be fruitless.”
The scenario plays through my mind as I take my place on the couch, my fingertips tugging a loose thread in the seam of Sawyer’s hoodie. No matter what angle I look from, I come to the same conclusion as Zephyr. In a way, I already did—when I chose not to punish him for his infractions.
And yet…
It changes nothing.
“How did you know about the weak spot in the fence?”
A pause—short, only the briefest of moments.
But enough.
“I didn’t.”
She didn’t.
“Sawyer showed it to me.”
“How did he get a shovel to dig the hole?”
Zephyr pauses a second time, longer than the first. Too long. I watch as her mind spasms, searching through each scenario for the right answer. There is only one. She’s already lost it.
“I told him where to find it.” Her chin lifts as though it could distract me from her whitening complexion.
I nod. But I’m so far from satisfied, my eyelids feel heavy, my jaw weighted with cold steel.
How many people did my sister allow to crawl through that hole before Sawyer Hansley? How many times has she promoted crime just to smite me?
I don’t wish to know.
“I know I should’ve told you about all of this.” Her voice fills with innocence—with girlish charm that’s ruined too many men. “I was just scared. You know Father’s temper…”
“I do.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I believe you.”
She chews on her lip, her face solemn. Regretful. Fake, probably.
“Can you forgive me?” she asks.
A sigh drags from the depths of my lungs, my chest dipping low. “Of course, Zephyr… You’re my sister. I love you more than almost anything.”
“Almost,” she chuckles, wiping beneath her dry eyes.
I give her a sad smile and don’t elaborate.
My blood means much to me. But nothing could ever come before my people.
“Here.” I toss the hiking bag in front of Zephyr. “Sawyer left this for you.”
Her face scrunches as she leans forward and picks up the bag. “What is it?”
I don’t respond. She doesn’t wait.
The moment she unclasps the front and looks inside, the snake’s fangs find her neck. It happens in a flash, too fast to fully register.
She peers up at me with wide eyes, dropping the bag, letting the snake slither off in search of shelter.
She can’t speak. If it had attacked another part of her body, she might have longer to live, but as it stands, her throat is swelling fast. Her airway is closing.
She touches her neck, tears gliding down her blue-tinged cheeks.
She collapses onto the ground, grasping her throat, desperate for breath.
I stand and go to her. Towering over her writhing body with true remorse lowering my lips.
“I’ll tell Father that your death was an accident. He’ll mourn you as a beloved daughter, and our people will never know of your betrayal… That’s as far as my compassion goes.”
I crouch; wipe a tear from her cheek. She peers into my eyes with fear I’ll see in my dreams, but I don’t allow myself to look away. I wait with her, my hand cupping her cheek until the last sliver of life leaves her eyes.
With a gentle hand, I caress her eyelids shut, her perfume enveloping me for the last time. “Sleep well, Sister…”
“All is as it’s supposed to be.”
Thank you for wandering into the Shadow Sanctum with me!