Page 127 of The Puppet Master
As I’m dragged to the mines, I’m only capable of one sluggish thought.
How the fuck did she do it?
CHAPTER 32
LUNA
Thorne stands silent as Sawyer Hansley is dragged to the cells. Murder sits unmistakable in his eyes.
“Walk with me, my love,” I say, reaching for him.
He rips his hand away from me. His head never turns my way. “Did you have to kiss him?”
I say nothing.
When he finally turns, pain is raw in his eyes—pain I try to pity. I wait for compassion. For shame.
It doesn’t come. I feel nothing.
Thorne waits for an answer that never comes, then turns his broken face away and heads toward the compound. Or the mines.
A fellow Keeper, Patrick, picks up the hiking bag.
I clear my throat. “Take the money, but leave the bag.”
He gives me a questioning look before thinking better of it and doing as I ask. Three weeks ago, there would’ve been no hesitation.
Before Sawyer, my people have only ever known me as inhuman, first as the Devil Child and then as the Keeper of the Night. How unsettling it must be to see their Head Keeper as a helpless woman, even in pretense.
It’s a reminder: the cost of vulnerability is respect.
Patrick stuffs stacks of hundreds into his pants as another brother comes to help. Once they’re finished, Patrick hands me the bag, his head lowered in submission.
I take the bag and dismiss the two of them. In seconds, I’m alone. Left with confliction, only the chirp of a cricket and the whistle of wind to distract me from what must be done.
I close my eyes and breathe in the scent of pine, crisp wintry air, and … Sawyer. He clings to the hood circling my neck, as relentless as his invasion of my mind.
Somehow, it makes my decision easier.
Zephyr’s lightis on when I reach her top-floor apartment in the Grove, her bloodline affording her the luxury. More resources, fewer restrictions, influence that never had to be earned.A gift, my Father might claim, if pressed. Atoken of his love.
But the only gift an entitled child truly receives is ignorance of their incompetence—in relationships, in society, in life. It is the most cancerous of flaws. It is fatal.
I lift my fist to the door but pause. Close my eyes.Breathe.
Knock. Only once.
She opens quickly, as if expecting someone—Sawyer.
When she sees me, she tenses. The knob rattles in her grasp.
“Luna.”
I gesture past her. “May I come in?”
Plastering on a smile, she releases the knob and steps to the side, hand sweeping me into her home. I track dirt onto her white carpet with my bare feet. It’s the only brown in the otherwise bright apartment—yellow-painted walls, pink pillows decorating the couch, rainbow spotted magnets on a contraband minifridge. A direct reflection of her one and only responsibility—the Grove.
Youthful,fun, cringeworthy.
