Page 69 of Ruinous Need

I learned how to stop my tears quickly.

Father didn’t reserve his torture for his enemies and traitors. He used it on his family too.

Then, when I turned fifteen, the day I dreaded arrived.

He decided I needed to prove myself as a worthy heir. It was an embarrassment, he said, to have a weak son with no reputation to speak of.

He placed a gun in my hand and gave me an assignment. I would help him hunt traitors, he said.

There was nothing my father loved more than hunting traitors.

I remember the house.

I walked through it with wonder. It felt like a home in a way my own house never really had. Papers and toys covered every surface. There was a full bowl of fruit in the kitchen. Stuck to the fridge was a drawing of the family as stick figures.

A family lived here. I don’t know why, but I hadn’t expected that the traitors would be a family.

That confused me. I barely knew what my father did. How could children be traitors?

It was nighttime, and they were asleep. My job was to kill all of them in their beds.

My father had called me before his council to give me the assignment. His allies on the Council leered at me as though I was a piece of livestock on display all sitting around their dark table.

“They don’t think you’ve got it in you, boy.” My father’s voice boomed with authority.

“I don’t have what in me?” I remember feeling embarrassed that my voice squeaked at the end. It had only just broken.

“The power to lead,” my father said. “They want you to prove yourself.” There was a dark gleam in his eye.

I puffed my chest out. That was something I could do. I was acing my weapons training.

“I’ll do it whatever you tell me.” I made the promise and wished I could take it back the second I saw the way my father‘s lips curled into a cruel, satisfied smile. He’d wanted me to make a promise.

He indicated the seat beside him. I had never sat at the Council table before.

The council told me what I would have to do.

“Do you swear?” they asked me. “Do you swear that you will complete the task?”

I felt sick to my stomach, but I agreed.

As I stole through that house, my first thought was: this will be easy. I felt relieved.

A house full of sleeping people. All I needed to do was move fast enough from room to room.

If we don’t kill the traitors, they’ll kill us. My father‘s voice echoed through my head. The fear pulsed in my veins that any second they could wake up and know who I was. If they were traitors, that meant they wanted me dead.

That was what my father said.

And, at fifteen, I still trusted him. His conspiracies weren’t crazy talk to me. They were real risks facing us.

Memory is merciful sometimes. I don’t remember anything until it was over, and I was leaving bloody footprints along the hallway. It was like I was in a trance. I was proud of myself for being so efficient. I couldn’t wait for my father to finally accept me.

Then something drew me out of the trance. A photo.

I stopped there for what felt like an hour.

Lev. He smiled back at me from the photos, his arms slung around his mother’s neck. His younger sister sat between her father and mother. They were all laughing, carefree.