Page 43 of Taking Jenny (Planet Orhon #4)

Tiger

N ight had begun to fall when Discord whispered behind me, “Do not scream.”

Every muscle in my body went rigid. “What?” I hissed back, barely audible.

She slid her hand around my head until she covered my mouth, then pointed just off the trail. In the dim light, I saw what had startled her.

Blood. Lots of blood. And someone who didn’t wear one of our bodysuits. It was either Jenny or a hunter.

I jerked forward, but she held firm. “Don’t. Not yet. Could be a trap.”

She slipped past me, moving like a shadow until she reached the body. After a moment, she waved me over. “It’s not her.”

Quickly, I joined Discord, my relief profound. Now that I could see the figure clearly, the body was definitely a man. Part of his head had been crushed. The sight of him turned my stomach, but somehow, I managed to keep from retching.

Discord crouched by the mashed skull and poked at it with a stick, which made me feel sicker. “This was Jenny’s work,” she declared.

I swallowed hard. “How do you know that?”

“I know what it looks like when my friends beat someone to death,” she said, glancing up at me. “This isn’t it.”

I grimaced. “You have a frame of reference for that?”

An amused smile kicked up the corner of her mouth. “I could tell you exactly how I know, but your Orne skin has gone from gray to green.”

I swallowed harder. “Uh, good. Okay.”

“Very good, actually,” Discord said, going back to studying the man. “Now we know this is how she kills. This is what we need to imitate.”

“I can do that.” Oh, I really couldn’t fucking do that. The thought of bashing someone’s skull until their brains leaked out made me want to never eat again. But for Jenny, I would try anything.

“It’s also bad,” Discord said, her expression now grim. “Once blood has been spilled during Illiapol, the hunters tend to be much more vicious. They take it personally when one of their own dies.”

“Oh hell,” I muttered.

“Which means we need to hunt them,” she said with a gleam in her eye. “This just got a lot more fun.”

“You and I have very different ideas of what constitutes fun.”

She straightened. “Come on. Let’s keep going.”

I followed her through the trees, parallel to the path. We walked along in silence for a bit, and the forest darkened even more. Discord’s shoulders receded and her steps were more graceful. She moved between the branches, rather than moving them out of her way like she had before.

“What’s different?” I whispered.

She glanced over her shoulder at me. “What do you mean?”

“The way you’re moving,” I pointed out. “It’s like you’re dancing with the trees.”

“We’re hunting now.”

“So?”

She sighed and stood straight once more.

“When you’re hunting, it’s different from hiding.

Hiding means you’re trying to be invisible.

Hunting, on the other hand, means you want everything around you to fear you, in case you’re not invisible.

Move like a predator, animals think you’re a predator.

If I can scare some of the beasts in here and they run, it will spook our hunters. ”

I wasn’t following her logic. “What’s the point of scaring the hunters, when we can just kill them?”

Her grin flashed. “Why not do both?”

I shrugged. “Seems fair.”

“So, watch what I do, and do what I do. Okay?”

I nodded and mimicked her movements, at first. But I didn’t move like her. I couldn’t. I didn’t have Discord’s years of dance training or whatever else she knew. I was big and bulky, and it was awkward and in no way felt like a method of intimidation.

“Tiger, I have been curious about something that is none of my business,” she said after a short while had passed. “Would you mind if I were to pry?”

“We’ve been talking about killing people together,” I said in a derisive tone. “I think we’re well beyond propriety.”

“Good point.” She glanced back at me again. “Why were you and Jenny asking about Justice before you were arrested?”

I hesitated, unsure if I should tell her, but considering we might not make it through the night, did it really matter? Besides, I’d grown to trust Discord, and it was clear she had no loyalty to Justice whatsoever.

So, I gave her a small portion of the truth. “We needed to know if Justice was looking into my bosses.”

“The Ladrangs?” A small frown furrowed her brow. “But Valor is dead.”

“Valor’s son, Deacon, is not.”

She sighed. “It feels like a betrayal of Malice to say this, but Valor’s execution was one of the worst I’ve ever seen.”

Okay, so he is the executioner. Guess I’ll have to think about that later .

“He botched it?” I asked, wondering what made it the “worst” she’d ever seen.

Discord shook her head. “He…the regular executioner wasn’t there for the death sentence. Personal reasons. So, it was someone else who did it, and they were not as…efficient. All that aside, watching Valor’s whole family turn their backs on him—”

“Except for Deacon,” I interrupted her.

She nodded. “Over one hundred members of the Ladrang family, all turned their backs on him. All but his eldest son. Deacon’s scream as his father was beheaded was…” Discord shuddered. “I’ll never forget it.”

I didn’t want to think about it. “Why would it be a betrayal to Malice that the execution was so awful?”

“I should have thought of Valor Ladrang as the enemy,” she said as we continued moving through the group of trees and bushes. “Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do for your friends? Their enemies are your enemies.”

“Sometimes. But not always.”

She sighed heavily. “Seeing his execution…I couldn’t think of him as the enemy anymore. Even with what he did to Malice.”

I frowned. “What do you mean, with what he did to Malice?”

“Valor stole Silence from him.”

My heart felt as though it had stopped beating in my chest. “What?” I said, louder than I’d intended.

“Quieter,” she hissed. “You didn’t know?”

I was thoroughly confused, because this was not the story I knew. “Wait, I thought Silence was supposed to unite with Deacon.”

“Justice…he used Silence as a pawn.” Discord’s voice was low and bitter.

“Whoever pleased him, he dangled his own daughter in front of them like a reward. One of the people he dangled her to was Malice. He had no idea about her betrothal to Deacon, nor did he know about her and Valor. Not until it was all made public.”

What a mess. “Well anyway, that’s why we asked about Justice,” I said, which wasn’t the whole truth, but close enough. “No one wants Justice Bateen for an enemy.”

“Why would Justice target Deacon?” Discord asked. “Valor’s allies know better than to cross Justice now, if for no other reason than to avoid following Valor to Halla…wait, does this have anything to do with Valor? Is that why Deacon hasn’t been around much lately? He’s there?”

“I’ll just say my bosses have been doing things Justice would not approve of—”

She held up a hand to silence me, then pointed behind me.

I turned slowly, and in the distance, a hunter came up the path. He tried and, like me, failed at being stealthy. I almost felt sorry for him—we had so much in common.

Discord gave me a rock. “How’s your aim?” she whispered.

I shook my head in answer.

She gave me a sly grin and threw her rock at the man’s head but missed.

The clatter drew his attention. He turned toward the sound, right as another rock flew from the other side of the path, surprising us both.

It nailed him in the head, and he screamed, the impact and pain disorienting him for a moment.

We rushed in. Blood streamed from his forehead, blinding him.

He swung his staff wildly, but he couldn’t see.

Discord tackled him from behind, knocking him down to his hands and knees in the dirt.

She kicked out, aiming for his groin, but he kicked backward at her, his foot slamming into her pelvis. She staggered but stayed upright.

The hunter pushed to his feet, turned, and lunged at her.

I saw red, and I cracked the rock I’d picked up into the back of his skull with a loud, sickening crunch.

He crumbled to the ground right in front of me.

I kept hitting his head until I reached something softer and my hand was wet and slick with blood.

Until Discord grabbed me from behind and yanked me off him.

I spun on instinct, still blind with rage. The next thing I knew, I was on my back. When the haze cleared, Discord stood over me, panting. She reached out her hand and I took it, staggering back to my feet.

Then I saw what I had done.

I vomited on the path.

My whole body revolted. My skin, my stomach, my bones…they all wanted to eject themselves from me. To get away from whatever thing I’d become. I didn’t feel like myself anymore. I wasn’t tethered to this body. I was a beast.

“I understand,” Discord said gently, looking into my eyes. “But we have to go, Tiger. Now.”

I blinked at Discord, unsure what her words meant.

She hooked her arm through mine and yanked me into the trees again. As she pulled me down behind a fallen log, another hunter came into view. They stopped at the body. The one I’d mutilated.

The hunter laughed and nudged the body with the toe of his boot. “Coil, buddy, she got you even better than Pleon, didn’t she? Between you, Pleon, and Boxer, my odds are even better this year. The avatar is mine.”

He chuckled to himself and strolled up the path, like he had nothing to fear.

After he vanished up the way, Discord patted my back. “It gets easier.”

My jaw clenched. “That is not a comfort.”

“I have no talent for comfort,” Discord said. “I have a talent for honesty.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, but all I could see was the man’s crushed skull and brain matter. “I don’t want killing to get easier, Discord. I…I can’t handle this.”

She half-smiled. “Thank you for doing it, though. That could have gone sideways for me, and you stepped up. I won’t forget that.”

I swallowed hard. “Yeah. I…of course. I mean, I don’t want to do it, but I’m not going to let them hurt you, either.”

“That’s it exactly. We’re not doing this because we want to.

We’re doing this to survive.” She paused then said, “Okay, I do revel in it a bit, and so does Malice…Longshot, too. Surge, not so much.” She shook her head at herself to get back on track.

“But my point is, this is a matter of survival, and you are a survivor, right?”

I nodded.

“Good. Let’s go get the next hunter.”

I couldn’t seem to make myself move.

She sighed, then gave me a push. “You can do this, Tiger.”

“Right. Yeah. Okay.” I took a step forward. Then another.

“For Jenny,” Discord said.

I took a breath. It helped. A little.

“For Jenny,” I echoed, and the steps gradually became easier.