Page 16 of Seduce & Destroy

I turned back to Father to catch a glean to his eyes.

He’s enjoying this. “Kill him, Sunshine.”

The knife fell into his chest and clattered to the floor as I rushed out the room. A loud bang sounded. Certain death.

?

Only one person was on my mind as I ran from the dungeon. I threaded red stained hands through the knotted ends of my hair, tugging and pulling the fingers through it. My scalp flamed at the strain, but it was no match for the pain that leaked out my heart, like vital blood that left the man’s chest before he could take his final breath. No, I took it from him.

Luckily, Neenan wasn’t hard to find.

“Can we talk?” I said, wringing my hands together.

“Uhh, Laney, now is not a great time; we have a cadet missing and–”

“I know. I know. Please.” I gave him my most enormous Bambi eyes.

If he was confused, he didn’t show it, just guided me to take a seat. He sat across from me on the long tables of the mess hall, eyes intensely trained on me and my fidgeting hands, expectant. But I wasn’t going to divulge anything unless he asked. I just needed his presence.

His shoulders fell. “What did you do?”

“What did I do? Why do you think I did something?”

“Because you’ve been evading me like the fucking plague for the last couple weeks, and now you just ran up to me frazzled and with a desperate look on your face. What happened?”

Tilly’s murderer came from within our ranks. Who knows which other cadets he tainted. What seeds he sowed? I looked around all the guards and soldiers and cadets that milled around the place, having their own thoughts, their conversations, conspiracies. They could all be infected.

The concern must be written across my face because Neenan grabbed my shaking hands, capturing them in his warmth. “Laney…”

I closed my eyes.

“What’s wrong?” Neenan pleaded.

My knee began bouncing causing the table to shake. I couldn’t think.

He stood, suddenly dropping my hands onto the table. It forced my eyes open to see Neenan round the table in record time. Grabbing my elbow, he took me to a backroom just inside the main house. It looked like it was once a utility room, now it held collapsed cardboard boxes, save for a rickety chair in the corner. That’s where Neenan forced my shoulder down to sit.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I replied too fast, avoiding his eyes as he knelt in front of me. “Everything. It’s been a long week.”

“It’s been bloody chaos, I agree.” Neenan was the son of Forrester Waite, best friend to my grandfather, and we grew up beside each other. He was promoted to my personal security after my engagement fell through, not that I went out a lot. He was probably the only man that I trusted. I hoped he knew that.

I whispered, biting my cuticles, “I stabbed someone.”

“Stabbed?!” He all but shouted.

I shut my eyes and shoved his hands from my knees as I anticipated a dreaded knock at the door. “Shut the fuck up,” I whisper-yelled, “What if someone heard?”

He cocked his head. “You do remember that you’re a Ravencroft, right?”

“Yes, and?”

“Who? Who did you kill?”

“I said ‘stabbed’, not ‘killed’.”

“Is this ‘someone’ still breathing?”