Page 23 of Ramshackle
Her cries hit me in the gut, twisting until I’m sick to my stomach.
“Get up,” he barks at me.
I do what he asks. If it was me, I could refuse. But I can’t risk her life.
Once I’m on my feet, he reaches over with his free hand to use the ring on one finger that releases the lock on my collar. Then he yanks it off. “Now, go kill them.”
I would think that Gordon couldn’t shock me anymore, but once again, I’m reminded of what a monster he is. “But you said—”
“What did I say about talking back?” he snaps. “You lost your chance at just working on your gift. Now, you’re going to prove to me that you can follow orders and kill all three of them simply because I am telling you to.”
I start to shake my head, and then a gunshot fires, and my heart leaps from my chest. “No!” I look over to Mallory, where she’s collapsed on the ground, and run to her. “Mallory!” I lift her in my lap, searching her body for the bullet to see where she was hit. My hands keep checking for any sign of blood, but when there is none, I glance up and see Holt smirking at me.
“What’s the matter with you?!” I scream up at him.
“She fainted,” he answers, his annoying lips still curled like this is all an entertaining show for him to watch.
I give Mallory another once-over to be sure that he isn’t lying before Gordon decides I’ve had enough time to learn that he must have purposefully missed to scare the shit out of me.
“That was a warning shot. You now have”—he thumbs a button on the stopwatch—“one minute to kill all three of them before I kill the girl.”
A minute?!
Is it fair to kill three people for the loss of one?
But it’s a little girl. She still has her whole life ahead of her. Iknowher. Her hopes. Her dreams. About her parents and her pet dog. How she hates math and history, but loves science.
“Fifty. Forty-nine,” Gordon calls out when I’m still frozen in my spot. He walks up to us, aiming the gun at her head while still counting down.
Fuck.
I have no idea who these people are or why Gordon has them, but I can’t let Mallory die because of me. Because she took the chance to be my friend when everyone else was too scared to even look my way. She’s the final piece of my sanity, keeping me from giving in. If I lose her, I’ll have no one to keep me grounded and remind me of who I am.
I’m sure Gordon knows this. Maybe he’s hoping I’ll fail so he can kill that last part of me with her death.
I almost forgot that I was never meant to be a hero. I’ve always been a villain.
“Thirty-two. Thirty-one.”
I set her down gently and then run over to the others. Turning on my gift is barely a second’s thought now as its invisible flames burn and lick down my arms at the ready. I grab two at a time. I do it from the front so I can see them. So I can remember what I did and try to etch their faces into my memory if I can ever find out who they were one day.
They scream in my grasp, but all I can hear is Gordon’s countdown continuing behind me and telling me that I’m running out of time. I push my gift deeper into the person in the middle, shoving it beyond them and into the floor until it climbs up the chair of the third person and starts eating away at them from their feet and legs. My gift works its way all the way up before I bring it to full power.
I step back when I know they’re all gone. “Well done,” Gordon commends from behind me. “But…”
I turn frantically. Did I not make it in time? Gordon’s lip curls when he sees the tears on my face, but I look past him to Mallory on the floor.
There’s another gunshot, and then a scream tears from my throat at the blinding, white-hot pain in my knee. I crumple to the floor in an instant as the pain ricochets throughout my body.
Holt comes up from behind me, and my collar is snapped back in place.
“That’s for your insolence. We’ll end training here for today. Holt, take her back to her room. If she behaves, we’ll have a healer look at her knee.”
I’m faintly aware of being lifted into the brute’s arms before the pain becomes too much, and I lose consciousness.
Chapter seven
Dane
