10. Sawyer
SAWYER
I’ve been to the library twice before.
Once when I came to see Aurelius, and again when I came back to ‘save’ Luna. But as we walk through the double set of doors, it’s as if I’m seeing it for the first time. Seeing her for the first time.
Minimalist.
Obsessively organized.
Worn spines of classics line the rows of one shelf, each book a similar thickness to the one beneath it.
Together they make more than a dozen straight lines that extend to the floor, and I can just see Luna with a ruler measuring the width of every book.
Carefully cataloging each into lists—one for old literature, another for nonfiction, a small sliver of modern prose and…
My brow raises as I pause on a neat set of books with pastel spines and curly spirals meant to be letters.
Romance.
A girl pops up from behind a solid oak desk that looks both aged and recently delivered—no pencils, no paper, no knickknacks to ornament the surface. She slams the book she’s holding shut and hugs it to her chest.
Round, caramel cheeks redden. She hurries to put the book back on the shelf before cupping her wrist and facing us.
“H-hi.”
“May I help you?” Luna asks with a voice made of ice. Tension coils the air until I feel it poke the hollow behind my earlobe.
The girl lets go of her wrist so she can wave her hands as she talks. “Aurelius… I-I mean Chief Elder… He told me there might be a book in here I could borrow. He said you wouldn’t mind.”
“Mmm.”
“I’m very sorry, Your Grace.” The girl’s arms wrap around her stomach and pull her dress taut against her chest, revealing the outline of small breasts. I look away only to return my eyes to white ruffled cotton stopping an inch beneath her knees.
Not a dress. A nightgown.
“I should have asked you before entering—”
“Does the book have a title or did he tell you to browse my things?” Luna asks with so much condescension, my brow furrows at her. The kid can’t be older than twelve.
Odd choice for an enemy.
A squeak. “It has a title.”
Luna splays her palms in a let’s have it then gesture.
“I think it does, I mean,” the girl stammers. “It has alphabet letters on the cover.”
Luna’s hands slowly move to her sides as her face turns to stone. Her eyes widen the slightest bit. Just enough to see her contempt even if her clenched jaw didn’t show it.
“He’s teaching you to read?”
The girl bites her lip and nods.
Luna says nothing for several seconds while I try to process a twelve-year-old not yet knowing how to read.
Luna’s idea? Keep the members ignorant, easy to control.
No. She’s too young to have made that decision.
“In my bedroom,” Luna says at last. “Bottom shelf, seventh book from the left… Do not touch anything else.”
The girl’s eyes close as she lets out a sigh of relief that lasts only a second before she curtsies. “Thank you, Your Grace.”
She scurries from the room and the Ice Queen’s crystallizing gaze.
“What the fuck was that?” I ask.
Luna walks to the desk, sits, then carefully retrieves a laptop from the top drawer. She places it on the desk before opening it.
“Who was that girl?”
Keys clack as Luna types. Her eyes never meet mine as I walk around the desk to be next to her. “None of your concern.”
“Why was she wearing a nightgown? And why was it white?”
A sigh blows past Luna’s lips as she swivels in the chair to face me, her forearm resting on the desk. “Her name is Persephone. She’s wearing a nightgown because she slept in. It’s white because she’s a Seraph. Any other questions, or may we get started?”
A chill crawls from my temples to my ears as blood drains, my heart wobbling. I grip the edge of the desk as my stomach flips.
“She’s a Seraph… Currently? Or she’s a future Seraph, and therefore, wears white?” My voice shakes.
“In most cases, children are separated into their respective roles at age fourteen. Persephone’s potential has been discovered early. It’s an honor she’s rightfully grateful for… If you’re going to throw up, do it in the trash can.”
Luna pulls the can around to me, metal scraping wood. It clangs as she releases it and goes back to the computer.
Nothing wrong. Nothing out of the ordinary.
She clicks around while I stare at her and swallow back nausea.
At home, I vomited maybe once a month, always the morning after an especially chaotic party.
My breath would taste like bourbon or brandy, and Angel would show up with pancakes and swear by seltzer water.
You pace yourself like a fourteen-year-old.
Here, every day is like waking up after a bender.
“Are you saying your father…? She’s his…?”
“Companion,” Luna deadpans.
A clock on the romance bookshelf ticks the seconds passing.
When I blink, I see Zephyr. Kind and calm as horrors swirled around her—like an eye within a storm. So normal until she wasn’t.
I could see her growing up in this compound, isolated from the outside world. Not at fault for her ignorance. Blameless of her sins. With a father too controlling and manipulative to stand a chance at developing her own thoughts and feelings and opinions.
Never have I looked at Luna in the same way. But for a moment, I can’t help myself.
“You have no idea how wrong that is, do you?” My voice is barely above a whisper.
The clicking stops.
“Actually, I do.” Luna’s hands rest on the arms of her chair as she swivels toward me.
“Persephone is neither intelligent nor charming. She stumbles on her words, she’s forgetful, she’s clumsy, she’s…
” Luna pauses while she searches for a word.
When she finds it, her lip curls. “Breakable. And still, my father chooses to give her privileges she isn’t worthy to have.
He’s going to teach her to read. Next, he will teach her to fight.
And one day, I imagine he will try to replace me…
Yes, I see how wrong that is. It’s infuriating. It’s hurtful. It’s terribly unfair.”
I blink at her. When my mouth opens, she cuts me off.
“But you’re referring to the pedophilia.
” She points to her bookshelf. “Thirteenth book from the left, third shelf down is the DSM-5. I’m aware of the supposed condition and the outside world’s take on the appropriate age for sexual intercourse.
In The Shadow Sanctum, we do not discriminate on age, which is just as things were in your world a hundred years ago. ”
“Luna…”
“Saw-yer,” she sing-songs my name as she stands. Her face is so hard, she doesn’t seem human as she rattles the chair. “Sit.”
I look at the door where the girl left. Persephone.
“Sit, Dreg.”
Blinking, I sit in the chair. Try to focus on the screen.
See the girl in my mind—adult version, a second Luna.
“Good… How many women do you communicate with at a time?”
Is it even possible to groom the girl to take Luna’s place? You’d have to be inherently evil—
“Dreg.”
I clear my throat. “New women?”
When Luna doesn’t respond, I turn to her. “I thought you wanted to initiate—”
“You told my father that it takes you six months of daily communication to convince a woman to leave her life for you. The island women will be here to get us started, but they obviously aren’t enough. So…” She waves to the screen.
“How many breeders are you wanting?”
“I don’t know. How many slaves did you lure onto your island? How many was enough for you?”
I give it a moment before turning back to the screen. Hunching forward, I pull up a chat site and start a profile. “Six.”
Luna shifts her weight beside me. “What?”
“I can talk to six women simultaneously before their personalities jumble… Although, I don’t imagine you’re going to give me that much computer time.”
“You’ll have as much time as necessary. As a reminder, the computer is being monitored at all times.”
“As a reminder, I’m a wanted fugitive. I’m not contacting the police.”
“You’re a snake charmer. I’m sure you have friends you’ll alert at the first opportunity.”
Friends.
I scoff.
Try enemies.
The sound of my fingers drumming the keyboard drowns out the silence that follows.
“What are you saying?” Luna asks as she hunches toward the screen to study the chat pinging with replies.
“I haven’t typed anything yet.”
Her eyes dart around the screen with obvious confusion.
“It’s a community chat, Luna. They’re having their own conversation. I have to join in.”
“They’re saying hi to you.”
“Because they see that my username has joined. Just…” I guide her away from the screen with the back of my hand to her chest then scoot the chair up. She pounces forward to adjust the laptop so it’s perfectly straight—then assumes a standing position behind me.
It would be too easy to wreck her world.
Head half-turned, I push one corner of the base crooked. Then pull up Facebook and make an account.
“No social media.”
My fingers don’t stop typing.
“Dreg.”
“I thought I told you I didn’t like to be called that.”
When Luna’s slim fingers curve around my wrist, I flinch at the cold.
She doesn’t speak until I look up at her.
“I’ve chosen to forgive last night’s transgressions. I will not be forgiving any more.”
Her voice is so serious, I can’t help but believe her. Her eyes are as cold as her hand.
Jerking away from her touch, I nod at the screen. “With all due respect, you don’t seem to have a solid grasp on what I’m doing here or how this works… I use chat sites for fishing. I use social media for hunting. Both are necessary for me to do my job.”
Luna’s eyes flicker. She probably doesn’t even understand how Facebook works.
“You’re monitoring everything I’m doing… What is it you’re afraid of?”
By her blank stare, I’d say she isn’t sure. But she knows there’s something she should fear.
I count to five before she releases her inner lip. “You can’t go by Sawyer. Pick a different alias.”
“No.”
“No?”
“No.” I shake my head while clicking back to the chat site. It’s best not to look too eager. We can fight about social media tomorrow. “I only go by Sawyer.”
“Why?” Luna asks, almost perplexed. Perplexed but not disbelieving. I don’t realize how disconcerting that is until a shiver tickles the back of my neck.
She knows I’m telling the truth.
Can she also tell when I lie?
“Because it’s the name my mother gave me,” I say while typing up a greeting in a fresh thread.
Luna leans over my shoulder and watches as I go private with a woman who says she’s twenty-one next week. I’ve been catfished more times than I’m proud of, so I start with the usual fielding questions.
omg I LOVE Benson Boone!! literally been listening to him all week lol
yeah I’m in school rn but idk what I’m doing with my life yet tbh
lol yeah I’m on tiktok way too much my fyp is literally just dogs and gym vids rn
Age checks out.
Gender checks out.
But as soon as she starts talking about holiday plans, I exit and find a different site.
“What happened?” Luna asks.
“She’s too happy… And loved.” I start typing out a greeting in a different chat before pausing. “You know this is going to take a while, right?”
Crossing her arms over her chest, she looks at the screen and doesn’t respond.
We spend the next three days like this, me engrossed at the keyboard, Luna standing over my shoulder like a gargoyle. She doesn’t bring up what happened at the training house. I don’t bring up Persephone.
But neither of us has forgotten.