Page 21 of Seduce & Destroy

It hadn’t been a dream. I found her face in the background of a class photo when the Great Tenor Animal Sanctuary charity visited the school in the archived photo gallery on the next town’s newspaper website.

Fuck her for making me doubt. She was no different than the rest.

Sometimes, I hated the ways of the brain. The way I clung and clutched to that minor detail—barely a minute of interaction—for years believing that someone could comfort me and be there for me.

The moment I stepped into the training room today, I felt her stare. Giving her the cold shoulder has been difficult the last few days. This morning, I caught her coming out the bathroom in just a towel. It took a lot of effort to look away from her bare legs, but really, I was stuck on her chest. A long pinkish scar ran below her collarbone. I’ve been returning her gaze to get a glimpse of it again. What did she go through to get that? A question I needed to get an answer to.

I ignored her knock at my door last night.

“It’s always the hot ones that piss you off the most,” Grant said beside me.

I returned a blank nod until he lifted his chin in Kenna’s direction. “What did she do?”

“Lied.”

“Damn, I knew there was something off with her.” He shook his head. “Anyway, will you be helping our session today? Waite assigned intensive bootcamp to the new foot soldiers and a refresher course for existing members.”

“I’ll be in the security office. Father wants me to run thorough background checks on all the people on the estate again after Dylan’s betrayal.”

It was a tough pill to swallow. Cracks were showing in our ranks, and it was the last thing we needed as we prepared for a conflict fast approaching. “You knew him?”

I broke eye contact, the wound still fresh. “Briefly. You?”

“Trained him,” He said, pain rife in his voice, “He’d been here for months, I should’ve known.” His eyes drifted to Kenna, and I followed his gaze. “But you never do know when someone will disappoint you.”

“Yeah.” I looked at Kenna before I cleared my throat. “Did he…did he act suspicious? The days before.”

“Not really. I mean, he disappeared on occasion but that’s not uncommon. I just thought he went to get pissed on cheap beer in the forest with some of the lads, not that he was planning a murder on an innocent girl.”

The shadow I saw the night Granddaddy died. “Oh,” I responded. The guardsmen preferred the firepit to the woods. “…uhh, what were his skills?”

“He was an excellent marksman, and we didn’t teach him that, he came in with those skills. Never really took to blades. Guess it makes sense now.”

“What do you mean? Tilly was murdered with a knife.”

He turned to me. “You didn’t hear? It was a bullet that took her life.”

“What? No! The cameras have sound recording. That’s too risky, the noise–”

“They found a silencer under his pillow in the barracks.” He said, giving me an apologetic, yet cold smile. These. These are the details I needed to hear, but Father told me nothing. My cheeks heated in shame as I realised that I’m still that sheltered little girl. Alone. Unaware. Innocent but with blood on her hands. It filled me with anger. “Kenna was right.”

“Kenna?”

“She found him and turned him in.”

Why didn’t she tell me?

Grant placed a comforting hand on my shoulder. “I won’t let it happen again.”

“No, it won’t,” I looked up at him, straightening my back. “I’ll be in my office until after dark. Have a good day, Grant.”

I left in a hurry without a glance behind me. Still, I could feel the weight of eyes trace my way to the door.

?

When I met my father at breakfast the next morning, I was burning with questions. A long table divided us in the quiet of our family dining room. Considering that there were just us two left, the feeling of dead space was overwhelming. Grandad often stayed up North, but his absence was felt in moments like these as if something were missing. God, I wished his voice filled this room.

We stayed silent for a long moment. Father’s newspaper was folded at his side to show the London nightlife section. Money was never far out of his mind. When I clicked my teacup loudly against the saucer, I yearned for his eyes to turn to mine. He hadn’t looked at up at me this entire time.

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