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“Come, Blue.”
He walks to the sliding door and opens it, steps out onto the patio. He walks straight to the dais, and I follow a few steps behind.
“I paid an arm and a leg, pardon the expression, to borrow it. Not to mention shipping.” He whistles. “Everyone’s an extortionist these days. Insurance alone was over five grand. IVI does not want their property damaged,” he says, stepping up to it, taking hold of the long handle of what I thought was a garden tool and lifting it away, handing it to someone who is standing ready so he can remove the covering on what I assumed was a boulder.
My throat goes dry when I see what it truly is.
Antoine’s smile widens. “I haven’t seen this in over twenty-five years, yet it’s exactly as I dream it each night.” He looks down at the block of wood, the replica he mentioned, I guess. He touches it. Caresses it. The action sends a shiver down my spine. “My own blood infuses it.” He looks up at me. “I said come, Blue.”
I shake my head, take a step backward only to walk into one of his men who somehow got outside, got behind me and I didn’t notice.
Did I make a mistake coming to this man? Thinking him the lesser of two evils?
“I said come,” Antoine says, holding the giant ax and looking for all the world like the executioner himself, all he needs is a cloak.
“I don’t want to.”
“Don’t be a baby.”
“I—”
He gestures to the man behind me who grips my arm and marches me toward the dais, up onto it. I push against him but just like the Councilor’s man, I’m no match.
“Kneel,” Antoine says.
I look down at the block, then up at him and shake my head.
“Don’t make me make you. Kneel.”
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
He gestures to the man at my back who sets his hands on my shoulders. I struggle but he’s too strong. He forces me to my knees and keeps his hands on my shoulders as the other man reaches for my right arm, grips it and drags it across the block.
I scream. I scream as I feel the smooth wood, see the dark blotches that stain it. No heads, just hands, he’d said. It’s no comfort.
Antoine leans toward me. “Shh. Not yet. We don’t want the Councilor to come just yet. I want everything perfectly in place for my old friend.”
“I gave you what you wanted. I did what I said I’d do.”
He smiles a strange, almost unhinged sort of smile that makes me think of Ines’s laugh, how mad it had sounded.
“Do you feel what I felt? How fucking terrified I was. Do you understand now all that man stole from me?”
I look up at him, his eyes are narrowed, their shine not natural, not normal.
Unhinged.
There’s that word again. This man is unhinged. He’s barely keeping it together.
“Do you?” he barks.
I nod animatedly. I do. I understand his terror because right now, I am terrified. I’m terrified of him.
“We had an agreement. You promised.”
He leans toward me. “And you delivered. As such, you have nothing to fear from me.”
