Page 1 of The Vixen

CHAPTER 1

SAWYER

My mother used to say the greatest gift she ever gave me was a father born with blond hair, blue eyes, and skin made for the summer. Few qualities are guaranteed by the upbringing of a child—neither intelligence nor grit nor aptitude—but if one is lucky enough to glimmer in the sun, he has no need for sweat.

Shallow, maybe. But for a woman born and raised in LA, it was the truest thing she’d ever known.

Not a day has passed that I haven’t felt the pang of her death, but on occasion—when I catch my mangled reflection, or the eyes of a curious stranger—I’m grateful she never had to see the aftermath of the fire. Patches of mottled flesh marring my chest, my hands, my arms—pockets of pink leathery skin chronically inflamed from an itch impossible to scratch. A disfigurement harder to swallow than the nerve damage in my hands, where dull and sharp sensation clash at the edge of scar tissue.

Vanity is a sin I’ll admit I’ve leaned on my entire life. But today, with my palms bloody, my face caked, and my hair slicked back with weeks’ worth of sweat, grease, and grime, I’m grateful for my scars. I wish the flames that ate my mansion had licked my body whole, dulling every fucking nerve on my exposed flesh until there was nothing left to damage. No pain left to feel.

Dramatic.

Untrue.

But the thought is a nice distraction.

As an electrichumdraws close, my mind whips to the present, the pickaxe in my grasp growing heavier. I swing harder at the mine’s wall and dislodge a fat rock with a grunt as dust rains from the ceiling. Pain lights up my shoulder as I swing again, and again—each time harder than the last until I prove myself to the Keeper waiting behind me. Only when he passes, do I allow myself to breathe. Calm. Preserve my energy for the next watchful hound.

Two stations down from me, a whip crackles over the back of a Dreg I’ve yet to hear speak. The slicing of flesh mixes with the rhythmic echo of tools on rock. He gasps but doesn’t scream—one of the tell-tale signs of a Dreg who’s been here long enough for the nerves on their backs to dull. Most of us don’t last more than a couple of months. Wilcox only made it a few weeks.

As the Keeper moves farther down the tunnel, I rest the pickaxe on my shoulder. Dust filters into my lungs as I heave a breath through my mouth, my nostrils too caked for more than a whistle of air. At least it blocks the smell.

I wipe grime from my nose and look down at my palm—a mistake I’ve managed to go two days without making. Lanterns light the tunnel with a low glow that flicks shadows on the mess of blisters and raw flesh, the once-hardened skin now vulnerable and oozing. Three blisters have morphed together to make one sickly, liquid-filled sac atop marred tissue.

Disgusting.

“Back to work,” the Dreg on my right growls—no favor to me. Instead of meeting his glare, I search for the Keeper he’s no doubt trying to avoid. Five work stations away with his back turned.

Still…

Facing forward, I swing the ax with a rhythm satisfying to my workmate.

Workmate. Enemy. Competitor.

With the common pain inflicted upon us, there should be camaraderie, some natural bond formed from mutual suffering. But there isn’t. The Ice Queen has found a way to edit that out of her design—manipulating every interaction without showing her face.

It’s grotesquely cruel. And absurdly simple.

Dominance is punished. Meekness is rewarded.

Those who inform the guards of transgressions receive food. Occasional clothing.

Those who disobey are humiliated and shunned. Sometimes forced to work naked, sometimes castrated—but never with their manhood intact. Because inhersystem, there can be no alpha males, no leaders, no inkling of bravery. Any who dare puff their chest to a Keeper end up curled on the floor wailing. Whatever spirits they lifted are thoroughly and predictably squashed.

Simple.

Outstandingly effective.

A whistle slices through the air, the pitch like needles in my eardrums. All at once, thirty men drop their axes and turn toward the source of the piercing noise—a little metal pipe in the mouth of an ear-muffed, all too eager Keeper.

She probably designed that too.

“Water,” another ear-muffed Keeper announces, his baritone voice echoing through the tunnel.

A collective gasp swells the tunnel as weakened bodies barrel toward the exit. They shove into one another like dogs nipping the heels of cattle. I untie my shirt-sleeves from my waist, but before I can put it on, a shoulder slams my back. The frayed cloth drops to the ground as I fall into the wall, my hand barely stopping my face from smashing rock. A red hand-print clings to the dark surface as I pull away.

“Move,” a Keeper growls with a shove. I stumble forward and leave the shirt behind.