Page 14 of Rage
“No,” I say. “The Order gave you a system. You chose what to do with it.”
He fires.
The bullet grazes my shoulder and spins me half a step.
I don’t fall.
I look at the wound, then back at him.
“My turn.”
He tries to fire again, but I’m already there. I take the gun and crush his wrist around it until his mouth opens on a sound that fogs the eyes of my mask.
“You think money makes you a god?” My voice shakes with the effort of restraint.
“You’re meat, Sokolov. Meat with an expiration date.”
“Don’t kill him,” Valen says from the doorway. “Not yet. The ledger.”
I hold Sokolov’s gaze one final second.
I want him to feel it.
The thing behind my eyes.
The thing they locked in a room for years and still thought they could aim.
Then I drive my fist into his chest and throw him backward across the desk. The window shatters behind him. Glass rains down in bright, vicious pieces, and he lands hard among the broken tumbler, the scattered files, and all those stolen faces.
He screams.
I let him.
Valen crosses the room and collects the ledger.
I take the photographs. All of them. Including the one that belongs to Amy in my head. I tuck them inside my hoodie, away from the wound in my shoulder, where the blood can’t ruin the edges.
“Where are you going?” Valen asks.
“To wait.” I turn toward the broken window, toward the cold air cutting into the room. “We have a meeting to catch.”
I walk out, down the stairs, and step onto the gravel.
The moon is waiting above the warehouse, pale and indifferent. My mother used to stand under moonlight, as if it could cleanse what daylight exposed.
I know better now.
The Order is behind this.
There’s always a meeting after we finish.
Of course, I’m never invited.
Tonight, I will be.
Saint
The High Chamber of the Order smells like old money and the kind of recirculated air that only exists in places the sun isn’t permitted to reach.
