Page 30 of Devil May Lie

No, he couldn’t allow that.

Berga blinked, vision still foggy at best, but when he glanced down at himself, it was there, the familiar stains, fresh and red. He started scrubbing, the panic rising once more, until it felt like he was drowning.

Someone tried to stop him, strong hands on his wrists that he fought off. He swung, pain exploding in his left hand, barely noticeable as he went back to cleaning.

“Not there,” that voice came again, giving Berga pause even though it made absolutely no logical sense why it should. “There isn’t any blood there, Butcher. Can’t you tell? Use your eyes.”

His eyes? He was, damn it. He was looking at it right—

Berga stared down at his chest, at the rapid rise and fall as he breathed as if having just run a marathon. When he risked smoothing a palm down his center, it was to find the speaker was right. There wasn’t any blood on him there.

But his knuckles were bruised.

He frowned at it, turning his hand back and forth. It hurt, but he didn’t think he’d broken anything. Slowly, his surroundings seeped back into reality, the room forming from the outer corners in.

Berga was in the nurse’s room, and there were several bodies.

Five, he counted. All alive, though broken in various ways.

“Did you touch me?” he asked hoarsely, staring down at the nearest man who was clutching his arm protectively against his chest. The way he looked up at Berga was nothing short of horrified. It almost dragged him back to that abyss, but someone spoke up for him, dashing that darkness away.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here,” the voice said, and it took Berga far longer than it should have to register it was Madden’s, “and say you probably did most of the touching.”

Berga tipped his head. Had he? If the cadets currently groaning on the ground were any indication, that was most likely true. At least he hadn’t killed anyone this time. That was a plus. Though he was a bit concerned about how his grade for the day would be affected now that he’d gone and done the opposite of what he’d been sent here to do.

They’d have a good doctor, in any case, with Zane here. They were going to need it. Berga was positive he’d broken more than a few bones, all clean breaks that left the skin mostly intact to avoid any actual bloodshed.

At some point, he must have slipped up, however, because the statement made to pull him out of that abyss hadn’t been false.

There was blood on his shoe.

A single, affronting drop.

Berga wasn’t sure if he wanted to laugh, cry, or inject someone with bowel-eating parasites.

Chapter 8:

The room was a mess.

The whole day was, apparently.

The female cadet who’d taken the tumble down the stairs had been collected by an ambulance ten or so minutes ago. Madden had waited there with the rest, mostly so he could act as a mediator if the cadet’s family opted to try suing the school. It wasn’t completely unheard of. Parents of injured trainees frequently tried cashing in on their kid's misfortune. Weren’t they all like that?

Though the Retinue didn’t personally deal with legal issues within the Academy, they were expected to keep an eye out on their peers and protect the school accordingly. It was paramount for the planet to be able to boast that it was home to not only the most prestigious university but also one of the very few that housed an Academy. Their reputation could not be slandered.

He’d been raised thinking that way, brought up understanding his obligations to the throne and the planet as a whole. Even before he’d been named as Kelevra’s official second-hand, he’d acted the part. It was second nature by this point.

Which was why he’d been distracted enough not to realize that Berga was no longer there with him. The shouting was what alerted him to that fact, cries for help that quickly escalated into screams of pain.

Unsurprising, considering the state he’d found the room upon entering.

Jones, a sophomore, was nearest the door, his left leg bent at an odd angle. He’d passed out, so he was quiet, but it had to have hurt. Next to him, two other cadets Madden didn’t know the names of were also unconscious, their injuries not as noticeable from a glance. A female cadet was huddled in the corner, covering a nasty bruise beneath one eye, and one final male cadet had been in the process of being strangled by Berga in the middle of the room.

Madden had struggled to get the cadet away from the Butcher before it was too late, only just managing it. It was obvious they’d ganged up on him, but the reasoning behind it was murky. No one in their right mind would attack a member of the Brumal, let alone one as high profile as Berga Obsidian. Unlike the rest of the Satellite though, Berga wasn’t known for picking fights.

Typically, he sat on the sidelines running his experiments and patching up the other members of his group. This was actually the first Madden had even seen him in action—the guy never even stepped into the ring at Friction, the exclusive fight club co-owned by the Retinue and the Satellite. For a fraction of a second, it’d even been tempting to stand by and watch, but…

There was something off about the Butcher. His gaze never seemed to fully focus on anything, and his movements were frantic, like a cornered animal fighting for survival. Except, even a dozen sophomore cadets wouldn’t be a threat to someone like Berga, and he’d only been up against five.

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