Page 9

Jeffrith snarled unintelligibly. Either his words weren’t working or he saw no use for them.

He advanced toward me. I backed up.

A few more steps and I’d have my spine against the dead-end wall of the alley. Fear rose in my blood as I noticed the wicked glint in Jeffrith’s eyes for the first time once he stepped out of the shadow of the moon.

“Tired of this shit,” he muttered, maybe to himself.

My brow furrowed. “Jeffrith, what are you—”

He lurched toward me with a hand stretched out to grab at my tunic.

I gasped, backpedaling quicker, stumbling—

“Hoy!” called a voice from the end of the alley.

My heart soared, mixing with the fear of having a drunken Jeffrith so close to me, hand frozen in midair.

Baylen stepped in and shoved Taclo and Koylen aside, who tried to bar him entry. “The fuck is going on here?”

Baylen advanced on Jeffrith, stepping up to the taller, older boy. Now closer to manhood himself, Bay actually had the acumen and build to stand up to Jeffrith, when he didn’t as a child.

Yet he froze when his eyes landed over Jeffrith’s shoulder on me. His body went rigid, eyes widening.

Taclo said, “He’s tired of waiting, Bay.”

Koylen added, “You had your shot. Give him his. He’s grieving.”

I tightened my hands into fists at my sides.

Baylen’s mouth opened and closed without words. Maybe it was the way I had spurned him; his resentment he felt for me; his fear of Jeffrith’s retaliation.

Whatever it was, something changed in Baylen’s eyes. The courage he showed as a youth, the bravery, wilted. His shoulders sagged.

He truly doesn’t care for me anymore.

No. It was worse than that, I noticed. He wants to see me hurt because I’ve hurt him.

Baylen’s eyes met my fearful, dewy orbs over Jeffrith’s shoulder. I gave him a piteous headshake, begging for assistance.

He stammered. “I, erm—”

Jeffrith rounded on him before he could finish, arm going wide to swing the booze bottle at Baylen’s head.

The crash of glass breaking and shattering on Bay’s face sent him flying to the ground with a yelp.

“Fuck, Jeffro!” Taclo shouted.

My heart leapt to my throat.

Baylen screamed and writhed on the ground, his hands covering his face. Blood pooled beneath his head. “Shit! There’s glass in my fucking face —”

“You don’t make the rules ‘round here, Baylen. You had your shot with her, you fucked it. Now it’s my turn. And I don’t feel like asking .”

I ran forward, lunging out of the shadows while I was ignored and Jeffrith was turned around.

My hand whipped behind me fast as Jeffrith spun—

Too late—my dagger plunged into his back.

The same dagger Baylen had given me months back when we went vampire-hunting. His words rang out in my head from that night: “Stick someone with it if the job goes awry, Seph.”

I pushed past resistance, the sound agonizing and crunching. Jeffrith went rigid and toppled like a heavy coin-purse, crumpling to the ground on useless legs.

He didn’t move.

Taclo and Koylen yelled in alarm, backpedaling over broken glass shards and making bloody bootprints.

My dagger stayed stuck in Jeffrith’s side. I crouched, my hands shaking, and pulled it out. Blood pulsed from the wound in spurts, getting all over me.

“Fuck.” I heaved, rolling Jeffrith over.

His face was sweaty, his eyes wide. His lips didn’t move. He looked paralyzed . . . because he was. I had severed his spine. He was dying a slow, numb death.

“Truehearts save me,” I cursed, pounding a hand on the ground.

His lips kept moving so I leaned forward to try and listen . . . only to hear his breathing stop in my ear before he got his final words out.

Jeffrith was dead. The first boy from my list I’d started. No great comfort came from his passing, only sheer terror and rage.

I had killed my first man.

I was thirteen.

I hurried to my tent on wobbly legs, my head a blurry daze. My legs carried me past Baylen and I didn’t even stop to see if he was okay.

He had been ready to let Jeffrith do whatever he wanted to me. The same thing Baylen tried to do months ago. The same thing that got us in this fucking mess in the first place.

He didn’t deserve my sympathy. Not now.

My heart hammered and my hands trembled as I packed my sleeping roll and the only other tunic I had, plus four copper coins and a stash of hardtack I’d stolen from dinners when I hadn’t been hungry in the past.

Coming back to the tent to wrangle my things together was my first mistake, when I should have just ran off with nothing but my bloody dagger.

The House of the Broken taught me to live without material means. And now the material things I’ve come to cherish have damned me.

Because as I hurried out of my tent with the bundle in my arms, six Diplomats waited for me, stepping up onto the small hill of refuse where my dwelling lay.

Sweat poured down my face, despite the cold night. “G-Guys,” I croaked.

They advanced.

Taclo had a dour, severe look on his young face. “Master Dimmon wants to see you in his tent after what you just done, Sephania.”

“No,” I said.

The other five laughed.

Taclo said, “It wasn’t a request. Dimmon says if Jeffrith ain’t around to test your fervor, he’ll have to do the honors.”

They surrounded me and grabbed my arms. Hauled me along down the road, even as I kicked, bit, and clawed. The bastards saw it as some kind of game, chuckling the entire way.

And there, in the corner of an alley, watching from afar with a bleeding face—almost like he cried bloody tears—Baylen stood stoically, his lips firmed as he watched the boys drag me away.

For the first time since I could remember, I wept. Great, ragged sobs poured out of me, the emotion flooding out as I realized I wanted to live . The indifference and hollowness I’d shown the past few months cracked. I did care about my soul and who broke it.

The tent-flap to Dimmon Plank’s hovel was already open when they hauled me to the leader’s abode.

That night, in a life filled with so many horrid ones, was the worst of my young life.