Page 61

Lucy

T he smoke burns my lungs. It’s thick and wraps around me like chains, suffocating in its embrace.

I stumble through the wreckage of the basement, my feet catching on broken concrete and twisted metal.

The cages stand empty now, but I can still see the blood splattered across their bars, still hear the echo of rotters pounding and stumbling to get away from the flames.

The fire crackles behind me, a monster devouring everything in its path.

Heat licks at my back, but I barely feel it.

Not over the ache in my chest that threatens to split me open.

The faces of the women flash through my mind. The ones I brought here with promises of safety and shelter. I told them it was safe. Promised them my brothers would help. Their hollow eyes stare at me from my memory, accusing and betrayed.

I press my hands to the wall and gasp for breath, trying to make sense of the screaming in my head. The pounding of my heart. The fire roaring louder than my thoughts.

How did I not know ?

How did I not see?

My brothers. My own blood. All this time, they were capable of horrific acts.

“Luce.” The voice snaps through the smoke like a whip.

I turn around and squint through the haze.

The heat prickles at my skin, raising beads of sweat that evaporate almost in an instant, but I ignore it.

There he is, his face twisted and half-lit by the flames, features I’ve known all my life now transforming into something monstrous as the mask he can no longer maintain peels away.

His knife glints at his side, reflecting the orange glow of the fire, but it’s the rage in his eyes that freezes me in place.

“Richy.” My voice breaks, raw from the smoke. My cough, my throat burning. “What did you do?”

His lip curls into something that might have once been a smile. “What I had to.”

“They were people, Richy. Human beings.” My voice rises, cracking with emotion I can no longer contain.

He strides toward me. Each step is deliberate and menacing. The fire casts long shadows behind him, making him seem larger, more threatening than I ever thought him capable of. “You think you’re better than us? You lived soft while we made sure you stayed that way.”

“I didn’t ask for that, for any of this. I didn’t ask you to hurt people for me.” My hands shake and I press my back against the wall to face him fully, with nowhere left to retreat.

His eyes narrow. “You didn’t have to.”

The unspoken accusation hangs between us, that my willful ignorance made me complicit.

Maybe he’s right. Maybe I chose not to see what was right in front of me, because I believed in my brothers so deeply.

But not anymore. “I’m going to tell people what you did.

There are people out there with broken families and missing friends because of you.

I’ll tell everyone I come across the truth. ”

Something shifts in his expression. It’s cold and calculating in a way that sends ice through my veins despite the heat surrounding us.

He closes the space between us in two quick strides until his hand snaps out and grabs my throat.

I gasp for air and claw at his wrist as he squeezes, but all I can do is leave bloody crescents in his skin with my nails.

He leans in, close enough that I can see the flecks of amber in his irises, the same ones I see in my reflection, because we’re family. Or, we were. “You won’t tell a single soul. I’ll make sure of that.”

The pressure builds fast, cutting off air, cutting off sound. My vision blurs and black creeps in around the edges like spilled ink. I try to speak, to scream, but nothing comes out, not even a strangled rasp. His grip tightens as he squeezes harder, crushing the fragile cords inside my throat.

The pain that flares is sharp and searing as it radiates outward.

I can’t speak.

I can’t breathe.

“You should’ve stayed blind, Luce,” he hisses out, his breath hot against my ear. “You don’t get to turn on us now. If you ever tell anyone what happened here, I’ll kill them in front of you, and only leave you alive so you can watch it happen over and over again.”

I barely hear him over the roar in my head. The blood pounding like a drum. My lungs screaming for air that won’t come. I dig my nails deeper into his flesh, but he doesn’t budge, his expression almost serene as he watches the life drain from my eyes in contrast to his threat.

The fire cracks louder in a warning before a beam above groans, splinters, then crashes down in a shower of sparks and burning wood.

Richy stumbles back, releasing me as the burning wood slams into the ground between us.

Embers spray into the air like fireflies, some landing on my skin and clothes, burning tiny holes before I can brush them away .

I collapse to my knees and gasp, drawing in a ragged breath that tears at my throat.

My fingers claw at my neck, exploring the damage, but no sound comes when I try to call out.

Only air wheezing through a broken passage.

It’s agony and relief all at once, but having air in my lungs never felt so good, despite the searing pain in my throat.

I push myself up onto shaking legs. My lungs burning with each breath. Richy still stands there on the other side of the flames, blocked by the burning beam, his voice warped by the heat, eyes reflecting the fire with an unholy light. I don’t wait to see what he’ll do next. I run.

When I make it up the stairs, stumbling into the night air that feels like ice compared to the inferno below, I see Autumn standing outside with her men, looking shaken and searching the flames.

I try to call out to her, to warn her, but my voice doesn’t work.

Nothing emerges other than a strangled wheeze that doesn’t carry in the night air.

Richy’s threat echoes in my mind, sharp and clear despite the chaos around us. I’ve already ruined so many lives with my blindness to the truth, I won’t risk hers, too. Not when she was brave enough to do what I couldn’t: face the truth and fight it.

So, I place a finger to my lips, hoping she’ll stay quiet about my survival, and then I run.

I sprint in another directions, away from her, away from the building that housed so many unknown horrors, away from the brother I no longer recognize.

My feet pound against the pavement, each step jarring through my body, tears streaming down my face and evaporating in the heat still radiating from the burning building.

I stumble into the smoke-choked night with my chest heaving and my throat silent. My shoes beat a desperate, panicked rhythm against the ground as I run, heading anywhere but here, anywhere my brothers won’t find me. Anywhere I can begin to atone for what I’ve done, and for what I failed to do.

My voice is gone, and so is everything I ever believed in.