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Mrs. wasn’t even mad when I told her I’d killed Scarlett. She was disappointed. So much fucking worse. And I can’t tell her the truth, because by the time Grandmother is dead, the truth will be that Scarlett’s dead, too.
I have my orders and I plan to carry them out. Not because I have to, like Scarlett was trying to insinuate earlier. But because?—
The elevator doors open on my floor, and Mrs. G walks out first without a glance back at me, shoulders slumped with a weariness I’ve rarely seen from the sturdy, no-nonsense woman. I squeeze my eyes shut, wrestling against the twin urges to come clean or run as far from this tangled mess as I possibly can.
My room is blessedly quiet and empty when I arrive. I strip off my clothes, leaving them in a careless heap as I head to the bathroom. Turning the shower on to scalding, I step under the brutal spray and let it pound my aching muscles.
I brace my hands on the tile, shoulders slumped just like Mrs. G’s as the water sluices over me. What the fuck is wrong with me? I’ve never let silly things like desire or sentimentality cloud my judgment before. Emotions are a liability, a mistake just waiting to be exploited in this world we live in.
So why can’t I seem to shake this…this connection or whatever the hell it is I feel towards Scarlett? Every time I picture cutting her down like I’m supposed to, something inside me twists in violent protest. It’s like my very instincts are refusing to comply, putting Scarlett off limits in a way no mark has ever been before.
But she’s no innocent. She’s a killer, just like me.
Maybe that’s why I’m training her so hard. I want her to have a warrior’s death. I don’t want to hurt her when I kill her, but…
I do want her to have a fighting chance.
I slam my fist against the wall hard enough to bruise my knuckles, frustration and self-loathing roaring through me. I need to get these thoughts out of my head. Why is this one infuriating, irresistible woman making me weak?
But underneath it all, I already know. I’m just not willing to think about it too hard. The truth is, Scarlett reached right into that hollow cavity I call a chest and wrapped her delicate little fingers around the withered thing that’s supposed to be my heart.
And like a fool, I keep letting her squeeze, let her grip on me wind tighter and tighter until it threatens to kill me.
Somewhere along the way, she’s become something important to me.
Something dangerous.
CHAPTER 3
Scarlett
I wake with a groan, muscles screaming in protest as I stretch out on the few blankets and sacks that I got together in the hay loft as a makeshift bed. After Lyssa’s brutal training sessions, feeling like a body-shaped bruise has become my permanent state of being.
But I’ll take the aches and pains if it means finally gaining an edge on that smug bitch, Ariadne. My teeth grit at the thought of her sneering face. She may have been Grandmother’s prize pupil once upon a time, but she doesn’t know what I’ve had to claw my way through just to stay breathing these last few weeks.
I’m stronger now in a way that has nothing to do with punches and kicks.
I ignore the rickety ladder and drop to the barn floor, where I go through my stretches, letting the familiar burn work the knots from my muscles. My mind drifts back to yesterday’s session, how Lyssa had me flat on my back in two moves, her thighs caged around my ribs as she pinned my wrists over my head. The way her brown eyes were intense as I tried to buck her off…
I flush hot at the memory of just how intimately we were pressed together, of the way she filled up my entire view.
And then my mind supplies more naked memories, the times we’ve rolled around not in training but in raging-hot need?—
“Stop it,” I mutter out loud, and I picture a goddamn stop sign, red and demanding, instead of Lyssa’s face in the middle of orgasm. Now is definitely not the time to entertain impure thoughts about the Wolf.
The woman who’s sworn to end me the second I’m no longer useful.
I grimace, trying to shake off the tangled mess of emotions roiling inside me at the thought of what’s to come. Of what she promised. Of never seeing my parents again.
It’s better that way, I tell myself firmly, concentrating on the curve of my spine as I bend into an arch. Better that my parents never learn what their daughter’s really become. What she’s capable of. Maybe then they can go on thinking she was someone who wanted to save lives, rather than take them.
There’s a bitterness to the thought, an ugly resignation that sits like a cold, hard lump in my chest. At this point, I’m not sure which would be crueler—preserving that deluded image of me in their minds forever, or letting them see the wretched, hate-fueled killer I’ve degenerated into.
But they’d be so disappointed if they knew the whole truth about me. It was bad enough when they witnessed me killing to save them, when Lyssa and I fought our way down the endless staircase of Grandmother’s high-rise.
So I shove it all down, down into that pit of vengeful darkness inside me that never stops screaming. I push myself into a final bend, let the searing stretch overwhelm everything else, before allowing my body to go loose and pliant again.
There. That’s better. I rise fluidly, rolling my shoulders as I cross to the barn doors. Lyssa didn’t keep the chain on my ankle for long. Once she knew I was in with her crazy plan—take down Grandmother together—she let me have the run of this whole abandoned farm pretty quick.
