Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 107652 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107652 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
“Stop it. Let me go.”
He sucked in a breath, and with both hands, manipulated me until the dagger drew a dangerous line down his front. His gaze never left mine as he angled the tip of the dagger right above his heart.
The room shrank until it was just the two of us. I couldn’t look away from him, stop him. Everything about this was absurd. The ridiculous intimacy of being taught to kill by a man I helped bleed every week. The rawness of our connection even while both of us denied it.
“Stabbing someone in the heart is another appropriate place, but me? The vitalsync core will get in the way.” Digging his thumb into the delicate bones of my wrist, he forced my hand back up.
I couldn’t breathe as he pressed the knife directly over his larynx. “It’s up to you if you want to slash or stab...either will work.”
I felt sick and sweaty and shivery. My headache came back in full force. “Why are you teaching me this? I have absolutely zero intention of hurting you.”
He stared at me for the longest heartbeat, the chandelier painting the planes of his face with dancing shadows. His fingers tightened, delivering pain even as he trembled, but then he released me and stepped back.
I dropped the knife.
My pulse drummed in my throat.
Stalking toward a side table with carved blossom flowers weaving around its legs, he wrenched open a drawer and pulled out another knife. Coming back toward me, he held it out. “I added this to my collection the other night. Take it.”
I backed up. “And if I refuse?”
“Then I’ll kill you.”
“How does that even make sense?”
“Take it.”
I locked my knees and glowered at him. The air between us turned electric once again, echoing in my teeth and fingertips, prickling down the back of my neck. “Are you teaching me how to kill to protect myself from the girls out there?”
Was this his version of a confession that he did like me?
“I’m teaching you this because it will be useful in the future.”
“Useful how?” I narrowed my eyes.
“If you stay alive, you’ll find out one day.” Stepping forward with a blast of black, he snatched my hand and slapped the dagger into it. The hilt was some sort of stone or bone—cold and slippery compared to the wooden one. “If you throw this away, I’ll kill you. If you don’t practice how to use it, I’ll kill you. If you’re late to work tomorrow, I’ll—”
“Kill me. Yeah, I know.”
His lips pursed as if he wanted to curse but he gave a curt nod and let me go. “Leave.”
I held his eyes, wondering if I should rebel against such an order.
After everything that’d happened today.
After all the things we’d said and felt—
But in the end, I accepted defeat and left.
I also took that awful knife with me...just because he told me to.
Chapter Thirty-Three
I STOOD ON THE ROOF OF the highest tower.
Rain soaked into my clothes as I held my face to the sky. Below me, the braziers and torches of Cinderkeep burned in perpetuity, thanks to Brimstone Industries’ patented volcanic energy.
I’d feared I would live here until they either broke me, cloned me, or I died of natural old age.
But...I finally had hope.
That delicious, sickening emotion I’d completely forgotten about now burned right alongside the pain of the vitalsync core.
Except...hope somehow had her name.
She was meant to be nothing more than a tool. A blessing I hadn’t expected to find that could somehow quiet the static in my head, ease the fire in my blood, and give me just enough strength to get the fuck out of here.
But she kept confusing me, choosing me...
Was she telling the truth that she wouldn’t trade my secrets for money? Was it real when she got angry on my behalf?
Or was it fake?
Because having her defend me? Hearing her confess that she wouldn’t betray me...
Fuck, that did something to me.
If she was real—if she truly was on my side—she was quite possibly the most terrifying thing to ever happen to me because what if I began to believe it?
Only for it all to be a lie?
I could already feel my sanity threatening to crack.
The despair she delivered each time she did something nice for me made me beg for Marcus to have given her to me sooner—to never have known how awful life could be all by myself.
But it also paralysed me because if I got used to her—if I started to feel...and it all turned out to be nothing more than another game...
Fuck.
I should get rid of her myself.
I should kill her, so she never had the opportunity to hurt me.
Out of everyone who’d ever abused, tortured, and controlled me, she could be the worst.
I couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Couldn’t stop wanting things, needing things, craving things—