Page 2 of Daggermouth

“Do you understand?” he asked, his voice dropping a decibel.

The woman nodded, tongue darting between chapped lips, eyes not on Greyson but locked somewhere in the far distance.

The man spat onto the platform, barely missing Greyson’s boots. “Just get it over with, Veyra scum.”

Greyson admired him. Admired that even when there was no hope left, when most would begin to beg for their lives, he stayed true to what he believed, and accepted his fate. For a moment, Greyson wondered, if he were ever to be in the rebel’s position, would he show the same resolve?

He turned to the woman. “What would you prefer?”

Her voice was so quiet, it barely registered to his ears, but the drones caught it. With only a second delay, it echoed harsh and loud over the monitors. “Bullet.”

The Veyra captain standing to Greyson’s left, made note of her answer on a data-slate.

Greyson looked back to the man, waiting for his answer.

“Go fuck yourself,” he growled.

Greyson’s hand was already pulling his gun from the holster strapped over his shoulders, as the last syllable fell from the man’s lips. He didn’t look at the rebel man, instead he looked at the crowd. He found the mask of his mother, three rows back, perfectly composed. He saw the blur of his sister moving away from the platform, almost indiscernible behind the anonymity of her own mask.

He looked into the infinite eyes of the Veyra, the drone hovering in front of him at eye level as he aimed his gun at the base of the man’s skull, and watched as he tensed, jaw set.

Hedid not beg as he took his last breath.

“Noted,” Greyson said, and pulled the trigger.

The shot was dull in the open air, more a mechanical pop than a thunderclap, but the effect was immediate. The man’s head jerked forward, spattering the white marble platform and the woman with a fine red spray. For a moment the body knelt upright, still propped by the tension in the muscles. Then it collapsed sideways, corded hands pinioned behind the back like a trussed animal.

The crowd erupted in applause, like some primordial satisfaction had been delivered as the woman’s scream cut through the air with unbridled agony. She doubled over, head pressed to the marble, sobbing into her knees. She was begging now, begging to be spared, to be kept alive through a torrent of wails.

Begging for mercy that didn’t exist.

Greyson watched her for one beat, then two.

He felt a shallow sickness grow in his throat, and the tremor in his left hand as he aimed the gun at the back of her head.

His mask hid almost everything but not his breathing.

The captain inclined his helmet, a silent prompt for Greyson to finish her off. He nodded, swallowing as his finger tightened on the trigger, but hesitated,again.

A shot rang out beside Greyson in the next breath, and he blinked as the sound reverberated in his ears. The woman’s body slumped over beside her lover, blood pouring from the gaping hole in the back of her head. Slowly, Greyson turned toward the captain who was already holstering his own gun.

He’d hesitated, on live stream.

Greyson looked back into the crowd in search of his mother’s mask, but she was already gone, had slipped out through the revelry, the celebration of murder.

He’d be punished for this, he knew that.

The President’s son was not supposed to hesitate.

He pulled his eyes back to the woman’s lifeless body as he shoved his gun back into its holster, and squared his shoulders, waiting for the crowd to exhaust itself. As the applause finally died, Greyson stepped to the edge of the platform.

“Order has been preserved by the swift hand of justice,” he said, his voice cutting through the post-elation hush. “The Heart endures.”

He turned, not taking another look at the dead rebels, and descended the marble steps now dripping with crimson. The Veyra soldiers closed ranks behind him, a red ripple of authority as laborers began to remove the bodies and sterilize the plaza. Above, the drones continued to hover, recording every angle.

Greyson could feel it—the eyes on him, analyzing every step he took away from the platform. He should’ve felt something, should’ve felt guilt or shame. But in that deep pit of his stomach, Greyson only felt cold.

He rode the elevator to the seventy-eighth floor of the Serel Tower, alone.