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CIRCE

T his is the part of the story where the highlight reel unfolds, where the sinister plot of the villain takes shape. Then the heroine is supposed to overcome all odds, save the day.

Only Ananke didn’t outline her devious plot. She tore my heart out and left me in a freezing cell.

And I’m not the heroine. I’m just the villain’s accomplice.

Worse, I’m just her henchwoman. An expendable plaything.

I stare blankly at the cold concrete wall.

Curtains open, the projector shudders, and pictures shuffle into focus.

Her head is shaved close to her skull, a jagged, angry scar mars her scalp from forehead to crown along one side. The stitches match the movement of her feet, back and forth across the lintel stones along the edge of a rooftop.

The huntress reaches the corner, overlooking a stunning vista. Classic architecture.

Her eyes do not see the beauty. She only sees her target, far below.

Ice hardens her focus.

Why is she here? To kill a man. To take a life. No reason was given.

All she knows is that something terrible is going to happen if she doesn’t act. Lives hang in the balance.

The woman who saved the huntress’s life told her so.

And the huntress trusts her savior. Her mentor. She’s the only person left who cares.

“Do not fail me.”

A man in his thirties stalks through the crowd, following a couple. His face seems familiar, the way all monsters’ faces are familiar in a nightmare.

The monster bleeds red. He never reaches the far end of the alley. The couple is safe. The world is a better place.

Shock fades from his eyes as the huntress reveals herself. The shock of recognition.

He must have known what he had coming.

That’s what she tells herself.

A woman in her late forties, her silver coif of hair as sharp as her smile. She would slaughter a group of refugees and a crew of migrant workers, men simply trying to make a living.

Certainly not trafficking women and children. That’s only a lie to avoid punishment.

The silver-haired woman cries bitter tears before she dies.

Tears for the huntress. No. She only wanted to save herself.

Untameable frizz covers the scar on the huntress’s head. She’s forgotten it’s even there. The pain is only a ghost of what it was.

In the dark she strides forward, firing once, then again. One shot to disarm, the next to incapacitate.

A terrorist looks up at her from the rain-slicked street.

His lips peel back in a sneer. “How could you do this to us? Ci?—”

He’s not allowed to spew more deceit. Or say the name he shouldn’t know. Her name. He’s never permitted to announce his role as her godfather.

On and on, scene after scene.

Frame after frame.

Red the only color in the yellowed monochrome of the reel flickering before me. Red splattered from the veins of my own family. Splattered across the walls of my mind, rushing into the gutters of my damaged soul.

Arms encircle my knees, curling in for succor. For warmth.

Only now, in the empty night of my prison cell, do the puzzle pieces fit. Words scattered across years, sentences broken by gaps in my memory and consciousness find cohesion.

Dom. Ananke.

The Diamantes.

Ero and his brothers’ crime syndicate were our rivals. Our enemies for two centuries. Until a new don stepped up and brokered a truce with my grandfather, the ruling Zeus at the time.

Still, hostilities remained.

Until an ally overthrew the Diamantes.

Too many Lyras still held the old grudges against our former nemesis. They were too eager to join Dom and break the Lyra code, siding with a singular force as weapons.

Ananke orchestrated our undoing.

Removed the only neutral party that would stand against her consolidation of underworld power. Her infiltration of governments across the globe. The web spins out, and I clearly see it now, stretching across the horizon, blocking out the sun.

Ananke holds the detonator. She could unleash the world’s most vile demons on the populace with a word. Or she could turn those devil’s against each other and single handedly wipe out gang leadership worldwide.

Or unite them. Use them to…

Fucking hell. I can’t believe I’m about to think it:

…rule the world.

If I could feel anything, I would laugh. Laugh at the absurdity of it all.

So I cling to a single hope. The result of a well-placed bullet.

Ero either survived and cannot act to rescue me, putting himself in danger. Or he bled out. Either way, he’s free.

I hone that singular victory into a needle point, anchoring the last of my resistance. Like one fingertip hanging from a ledge.

And if I can hold onto that thin barb…

I can drive it straight through Ananke’s eye.