Page 31 of Princess Avenged

“Phil,” Crusher says stiffly. “You tell me what happened that night. And I mean every fucking detail.”

Blade stares at Crusher, and then turns back toward the screen.

I tip my head toward Zuben, still sitting like a fucking statue. I don’t particularly want to confess to vampircide, in front of someone from DEFTA.

Zuben raises his hands from the table and turns toward me. “Nothing I hear exchanged between you four today will ever be repeated or used against you. You have my word.”

I’m good with that. Zuben is an upright guy, and Crusher gives no indication he wants Zuben to leave either. Besides, Zuben already knows, or at least suspects, enough to have us put behind bars for the rest of our lives.

I pull a chair next to Zuben’s, drop into it and lean back. “That night, the mission had already gone to shit. We were badly outnumbered. Six of our guys had gone down, so The Master ordered us to scatter and regroup at The Institute. He told us our mission had failed, and that each of us had to save ourselves to protect the team.”

At the other end of the call, Flame and Blade both settle down on the sofa, but Crusher remains standing, arms stiffly crossed over his chest.

“Flame and Blade immediately followed the orders,” I say calmly, focussing on Crusher. “But you and I didn’t leave.”

Crusher remains still, but his forearm muscles twitch.

“Phil,” Flame says leaning forward. “I saw you leave. What the fuck are you talking about? The three of us left. Only Crusher was there to see The Master take the stake.”

I ignore Flame. The one who needs to hear the true account of what happened is the only one who already knows it—Crusher.

“I doubled back,” I say to Crusher, “and when I got there, The Master had you pinned in a corner of the warehouse, a crossbow aimed at your chest.”

“Bull shit,” Flame says.

Without turning his head, Crusher stretches one arm to the side, his palm facing Flame and Blade, signaling them to keep quiet.

“The Master blamed you for the mission’s failure.” I point toward Crusher. “He not only blamed you, he intended to punish you for it.” Crusher shows no indication he’s even heard me, never mind agrees with what I’ve said. But we both know what happened that night.

“I heard every cruel thing The Master said to you,” I tell Crusher. “He called you worthless garbage. Called you a coward, a failure. A bad leader. He blamed you for the deaths of our brothers who’d been staked. He claimed your intel said our target would be alone, even though I heard you warn him of the possible ambush.”

Crusher blinks, and for a second I see the same pain in his eyes that I saw that night. The hurt, the utter betrayal, but mostly the shame. Crusher was always The Master’s favorite, and to be chastised like that, to be blamed for something he couldn’t control and wasn’t his fault…

“The Master spewed insult after insult,” I continue. “And then the insults turned into threats. Threats and detailed descriptions of how he planned to teach you a lesson.”

A shudder runs through me, remembering the horrors he promised. “The Master always delivered on his threats. He planned to torture you, to ruin you, and to force the three of us to help him do it.”

I shake my head. “He said he needed to set an example of you. That he’d make sure the three of us hated you. That we’d see you as weak. That eventually we’d learn to enjoy hurting you. He claimed you’d be good practice for torture skills, especially for Blade and Flame who too often showed mercy.”

“What?” Flame’s voice cracks. He stares at the screen, as if I’m speaking a foreign language he can’t comprehend.

“You accepted the blame,” I continue, keeping my attention on Crusher. “You begged The Master to kill you, but he said he’d never show you the mercy of an honorable death.”

“That’s enough!” Crusher lunges toward the screen. Then he turns to face away from the camera, away from Flame and Blade too.

“I crossed the warehouse in a single leap,” I continue. “And I drove a stake through that fucker’s heart.”

Crusher’s gaze snaps back toward the screen.

Flame and Blade mutter something, but my focus remains on Crusher. I’m no longer worried about proving who I am, I’m more worried that I’m not there to deal with the fallout of Crusher remembering that night in vivid detail.

That night, Crusher flew into a rage and tried to kill me after I killed our master. I didn’t fight back. I bared my chest to him, and just as he had a stake poised to thrust between my ribs, Crusher snapped out of what seemed like a fugue state.

He crumpled to the floor, and we talked for hours. We agreed to never tell Blade or Flame the truth. That night, the two of us made a pact for the four of us to continue as The Master had taught us, but minus the cruelty and punishments. And without recruiting any new boys to train.

That night in the warehouse, Crusher and I set the guidelines for what’s been our brotherhood, our lives, for the past two centuries.

“So,” Flame says quietly, “when you guys came back to The Institute and told us The Master had been staked…”

---