Page 120 of Pretty Savage: Defy

Laurel disappears around the corner, her arms wrapped around herself as though she’s already preparing for the freezing cold of the Vault.

My world splits in two.

Laurel through one door. My duty through the other.

“Choose,” my father says.

I look toward the empty hallway.

Then I raise the gun and run into the ballroom, blood dripping from the dagger clenched in my fist.

Chapter twenty-nine

?? Day Until Bonding

Laurel

The instant we turn the corner and the kitchen disappears, Jack’s hand closes around my upper arm. His fingers dig into the muscle as he drags me toward the wine cellar stairs.

“You’re not supposed to touch me.”

“Who’s going to know?”

His eyes are the same blue as Jackson’s. The resemblance makes my skin crawl.

“You’ll leave bruises.”

“Good.” His grip turns brutal. “Something for you to remember the dead by.”

Gunfire follows us into the cellar, dulled by stone but close enough that every burst reaches me. I count. Two. Three. A pause long enough for hope to form, then another cluster that destroys it.

Jack pulls a brass key from his pocket. The same key Rebecca used when she brought me here to bathe.

The lock clanks as he works it open. The dank smell of the Vault wafts up. Mold, metal, and blood.

Jack releases me long enough to pull a lighter from his pocket. He ignites one of the torches mounted inside, and smoke immediately gathers in the narrow stairwell.

“Down we go,” he says, almost cheerfully.

The steps coil around the stone shaft until the constant turning makes me dizzy. Smoke scratches my throat. Dirty water, tinged a greenish-brown with rust and mold, streams over the lower stairs, and my shoe slides before I catch myself against the wall.

Jack doesn’t slow down.

By the time we reach the bottom, I can no longer hear individual gunshots. Only faint vibrations.

Jack fits the torch into a bracket high on the wall. The unsteady light moves over symbols carved into the floor, bending their serpentine lines.

I look away.

“Don’t know how long it’ll take us to get back to you.” Jack pulls two bottles of water from inside his jacket and places them on the altar.

The stone lid has been returned to its place, concealing the bathing chamber under it.

“You’d better hope we win,” he continues. “That might last a day or two. If no one comes back, dying slowly would be a fitting end for a traitorous outsider like you.”

I barely hear him.

Carrson is fighting somewhere above me.