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My heart hammers against my chest. She’s here. She’s alive and she appears unhurt. Relief floods my system.
But this isn’t over. Not by a longshot.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Jericho tells me. “He has an army. We have to let this play out.”
I don’t answer because I can’t agree to that.
Both women are dressed in red gowns, Blue obviously wearing one of Ines’s. Ines’s eyeliner is smeared like she’s been crying and the red lipstick she applied is thick and crooked. She was elegant the first night we met her. There is no elegance now. Only truth. Blue isn’t wearing any makeup. The scar on her cheek is visible, a thing she detests but seems wholly unaware of at the moment.
She looks around, spots her father in the cage. She’s ushered inside before she can react.
“You look lovely, my dear,” Girard says, taking Ines’s hand. “I didn’t get to say so earlier.”
She smiles up at him and I look at them together, the strangeness of them. There is something off about both.
Blue sees me as soon as she’s inside. She gasps and Jericho sets a hand on my shoulder. As soon as she takes a step toward me, a soldier grabs hold of her arm and my brother’s hand presses tight to hold me in place.
“Blue, as promised,” Girard says, making a sweeping gesture toward her father in the cage. “Vengeance shall be yours.”
She shifts her gaze to her father then back to Girard and I see the furrow between her brows. She hates her father. She wanted to kill him. But wanting it, saying you want it, is very different to doing it. To witnessing such an act.
She shouldn’t be here. She shouldn’t see this.
“What are you going to do to him?” she asks.
Girard is about to take a step toward the patio. “Why what you wanted, of course. Now, come.”
I clear my throat. “She doesn’t need to witness what you’re going to do,” I say, knowing what’s coming.
Girard turns to me. “But she got all dressed up for the occasion,” he says, gesturing to Blue’s gown.
“You can’t…” Blue starts, glancing at the block, her voice higher pitched in her panic as the reality of what’s coming dawns on her. “You can’t cut off?—”
“She’ll cause a scene. She’ll ruin your live stream,” I say.
“Of course she won’t. She’ll behave herself. She understands now, don’t you Blue?”
“She’s not Society. She’ll spoil it and a hysterical woman, a stranger who isn’t one of us, will detract from your message. Look at her. Ines is Society royalty. Blue,” I shrug my shoulders and shake my head as I let my gaze sweep over her. “She’s nothing.”
I see the hurt on Blue’s face, but I don’t make eye contact with her. I can’t. I need Girard to change his mind. She can’t bear witness to the brutality coming. Even if she has some idea, she doesn’t understand what it’s like to see something like this. Better my words wound her briefly. Seeing her father executed will leave a permanent scar.
“It’ll only detract from your message. Take the spotlight off what Councilor Augustus has coming to him,” I double down.
Girard considers. Sighs. “You’re right. You only get one shot on the block, don’t you? Put her in one of the bedrooms.”
The Soldier nods and Blue struggles as he takes her out of the room. “No! Wait!”
“Shame,” Girard says as they disappear down a hall. I don’t follow their progress. I can’t take a chance he’ll change his mind.
Head held high, Girard walks with Ines toward the door that leads to the patio. Before they get outside though, Ines stops. I follow her line of vision and see she’s looking at Augustus’s men.
“What is it, my dear?” Girard asks her, his tone different with her. Gentler.
“That one. Maurice.” That’s all she needs to say. Her eyes water then narrow as she steels herself.
I recognize Maurice. He was the one holding Blue down when the Councilor was beating his wife.
Girard’s expression darkens and a moment later, Maurice is pulled to his feet and dragged a few feet from the stage, just out of the camera’s line of vision. There, he is pushed to his knees and, before my brain fully processes what is about to happen and without any ceremony at all, a soldier places the barrel of his gun to the back of his head and pulls the trigger.
