Page 3 of The Vixen

Luna’s black boots pause inches from my face. My jaw clenches to stop my chattering teeth, though my lip still trembles. Either with cold or with rage.

Strange. For all the pain I’ve endured in the mines, this is the first time I’ve felt truly angry.

“You’re still alive,” Luna says, emotionless. I shake uncontrollably while staring at snow collecting on a rock.

I shouldn’t say anything.

A smart person wouldn’t say anything.

“Isn’t that why you gave me the knife?”

I wish I would’ve beaten the shit out of you when I had the chance.

“I wasn’t sure you’d know how to use it.”

I close my eyes at the lack of feeling in her tone, so opposite the character she played for me. Her voice. Her expression. Even her breathing is silent where it once was a predictable melody of short bursts of fear—fake, everything fake.

Bone-chilling.

Amazing.

She crouches and takes a fistful of my hair. Her long nails claw my scalp as she yanks my head back. Puffs of fogged air blow out my nostrils, my neck cramping at the odd angle.

If she’s pissed about me mentioning the knife she slipped into my waistband on our last night together, she doesn’t show it. Though, I don’t think she meant for the Keepers to know. They weren’t aware of it when they put me in the cell with Wilcox.

I wince at the memory that flashes—Wilcox startling me awake in the middle of the night. His hands around my neck. The weak grip I pried with too much ease, his muscles already turned to mush from weeks spent in hell.

Rolling on top of him. Rearing back the knife. Plunging it into his chest.

Tears in his eyes before he died.Relieved, not angry.

The desperate savagely fighting over the knife while the hungry called to the Keepers, hoping to be the first to inform of the contraband.

The numbness I felt while the Keepers searched me. The necklace Annie gave me ripped from my neck.

Shock. Foolishness. Fear.

Sorrow.

For a moment, I feel it all as if it’s happening for the first time. My anger slips while Luna inspects me. Herprized pig.

Or just her pig.

Or pig shit.

When her grip releases, my head falls and my nose stops an inch from snow. Nails rake my hair as she sighs. “You’re filthy.”

Her fingers leave my hair as she stands and gestures to a Keeper who hauls me to my feet. With a glance at my curled toes, she frowns. Turns her head toward the other Dregs.

Her hands clasped behind her back, she wanders to one and kicks his shoes. They aren’t mine, but they’re not his either. Shoes are a commodity meant for the strongest and most violent among us.

Or the ones who kiss ass.

“Give him these… It’s a long walk to the Keep. I’d hate for Mr. Hansley to lose his toes.”

I press my forehead to the ground as a long, deep sigh billows out of me in a cloud of white—relief settling like a weight so heavy, I’m ashamed of it. Relief that’s quickly swallowed whole.

Good news. Maybe.