Page 233 of Claim Me
Make Marcel feel good about himself, give him a taste of how it feels to be praised by someone better than him, make him believe they’re close in intelligence… which would blur the line between them? A subtle brotherhood of smart people?
Could that actually weaken Marcel’s conviction about our execution?
Marcel doesn’t smile, but something in his posture shifts, like a preening cock.
"Not bad for a student," Blue adds, almost idly, like the praise slipped out on its own.
"Give me more! Test me more!" Marcel suddenly shouts, an unhealthy gleam in his eyes. Fuck, it actually worked, he’s now hungry for wins, for the endorphin rush of being right.
But what’s Blue’s endgame here?
"I’m putting an end to this idiocy!" shouts Gunman, who’s clearly not having this anymore.
He pushes off and strides toward the table with the transmitter, and even though he’s wearing a mask over the lower half of his face, I can see his furrowed brows. His patience has been completely drained.
But he doesn’t get very far.
Marcel raises his hand with the gun and fires.
?, ?????![20] I didn’t see that coming.
Gunman drops straight to the ground, face first.
Shit, Marcel is a total nutjob. How did I miss it?
I instinctively curl in on myself. Oddly enough, Blue barely reacts at all, but Edgar jumps and swears.
"What the fuck are you doing, Marcel?! There are twelve NFH combatants outside the door!"
"I didn’t kill him," Marcel says coldly. "He did." He points almost theatrically at me.
Yeah. Should I be surprised? I’m his favorite scapegoat.
"Goddammit, this is a madhouse," I curse, because this is spiraling out of control.
Only Blue sits still, seemingly unbothered, eyelids slightly narrowed, all composed.
"Are you aware one side of your face moves a little slower, Marcel?" he asks in an almost soft voice.
Suddenly, a pounding sound echoes against the door.
Marcel walks over, puts his head an inch from it, and calls out, "Nothing’s happening, I fired a warning shot." He directs it at whoever is standing on the other side, and the pounding stops.
At the same time, Marcel double-checks the thick metal bolt, then returns to us with a satisfied look on his face.
"Gunman was right about one thing, maybe it’s time to change this game a bit, enrich it… bring in this poor idiot since he’s clearly bored," he says, stepping closer to me.
Edgar stares at Marcel in disbelief the entire time, his mouth hanging open in a stunned daze. His gaze drifts to Gunman’s motionless body, then snaps back to Marcel again. He meets my eyes for a moment, and I can see it clearly. Edgar thinks Marcel has gone too far.
Working with NFH must have been a serious strain for him. He is a proud alpha, and I am almost certain he never resolved his fertility issue the way Marcel did, which makes him a liability in NFH’s eyes. And would a declared exterminator really want to work side by side with a rat? That does not line up.
Edgar must have had a certain level of distrust toward any contact with a murderous organization from the start, but he followed Marcel anyway, and now… his leader turns out to be a nutjob.
But Marcel ignores Edgar’s stunned look. He pulls a folding knife from his pocket, something like a street butterfly knife. Now he has a firearm in one hand and a knife in the other.
He steps up to me and looks me straight in the eyes, then slowly leans in until his face is only a few inches from mine and says, slowly, "Any last wish, Gabriel?"
At the same time, the hand holding the still-folded butterfly knife slides down my chest and stops at my crotch, pressing the metal handle lightly against the bulge in my pants.
