Page 19 of Twisted Empire

6

Elias

2 days later

The gong sounded,ringing loudly in my ears, and the hunt began.

“Go, Tatum! Run as fast as you can, little girl!” shouted my father.

There was a flash of white and gold in the dim grove as tonight’s prey took off running. A roar went up from the men, but it quickly turned to low titters of confusion. She wasn’t running into the forest, away from the crowd. She was running toward us.

She reached up and ripped the mask off, then pulled the white gag out of her mouth. Her eyes were red-rimmed and puffy from crying. “Daddy!” she cried, kneeling in front of the masked men, throwing herself at their mercy. “Please don’t let them kill me! Please!”

Davenport removed his bull mask and stepped forward, thunderstruck. “Mellie? What the fuck?” He knelt down and slid his arms around her. “What happened?”

A sob jackknifed through Mellie’s chest. “I… I don’t know. All I remember is… someone drugged me. I don’t know who. Then I woke up, and I was tied up and gagged, and there was a mask on me. People were calling me Tatum and telling me it was time for me to be hunted. I thought I was going to die!”

A smirk curled up my lips. She’d always looked a lot like Tatum. Same height, similar figure, same hair color. Even the exact same eye color. If you looked at a photo of the two of them together, you might wonder if they were sisters or cousins.

Mellie’s facial features were sharper, her nose slightly bigger, and her eyes farther apart, but with the mask on, she could easily pass for Tatum without any of the society members suspecting a thing until it came off. They only saw what they wanted to see: a petite brunette with pale skin and blue eyes, shrieking and moaning, desperate to be freed.

“Who drugged you?” Davenport said sharply.

“I told you, I don’t remember!” Mellie cried.

She couldn’t speak after that, words disintegrating into wrenching sobs and screams as Davenport held her.

“Fuck!” my father shouted, ripping his mask off and throwing it to the leafy ground. He strode over to the guards who brought Mellie out. “What the hell is this?”

The one on the left trembled in his boots. “Sir, we had no idea. She was already masked and gagged when we went up to the mansion to collect her. We honestly thought it was Tatum.”

“For fuck’s sake, go and find the real Tatum! Now!”

The guards scurried out of the grove, and my father wiped his forehead. Beads of perspiration were dotting his skin already. He wasn’t used to looking foolish and disorganized in front of his subordinates.

“Everyone, shut up for a second!” he barked, waving his hand at the crowd of confused members. “It looks like Tatum Marris has pulled yet another vanishing act, but we’re not going to let her get away with it. As far as I’m concerned, the hunt is still on. We’re going to find her and give her exactly what she deserves!”

An excited roar went up from the members at the back. The ones at the front were quieter. “Where the hell could she have gotten to?” one of them asked. It was Matthew Towne, the member who helped the council with their trick knife scheme during my final trial.

“I don’t fucking know, but she’s obviously not here,” my father snapped, looking toward the thick trees surrounding us. He scraped a hand through his hair and let out a frustrated puff of air. Then he raised his brows and turned back to the other men, straightening his posture. “Actually, I know where she might’ve gone. The Catacombs. She knows they exist because I took her down there once. I bet she got out of her room somehow and found one of the hidden entrances.”

“Perhaps,” Davenport muttered. He dragged Mellie to her feet. “I’m going to get my daughter back to the mansion. Once she’s settled, I’ll rejoin the hunt.”

“I’ll round up all the other guards to help look for Tatum, and then I’ll review the security footage. She’ll be on there somewhere,” Chuck Van der Veer added, his face dark with fury.

“All right.” My father clapped his hands loudly and cleared his throat, getting everyone’s attention again. “Go back to the house and start searching. She might not actually be in the Catacombs; that’s just the most likely hiding place. I want every room checked. Every corner, every fucking cupboard.”

There was a dull roar of anticipation as the men milled around, splitting off into smaller search party groups. Others went off on their own, dashing out of the grove and up the path toward the Lodge without a word, obviously hoping to be the first to find Tatum so they could have all the glory.

Amongst all the confusion and excitement, I slipped away from the crowd and headed right into the forest—the one place none of them were looking yet.

It made sense for them to initially discount the woods as a hiding spot, because they would naturally presume that Tatum would head somewhere different to the place she was supposed to be hunted in. We’d counted on them following that exact path of logic when we came up with our plan, and so far, it seemed to be working perfectly.

The plan seemed quite simple on the surface—switch Tatum with Mellie to create a distraction long enough for us to slip away—but it was complicated as hell and fraught with danger.

What I really wished I could do in the first place was take Tatum out of her room and simply drive away. Unfortunately, that wasn’t possible. All cars were searched by the hard-nosed gate guards before leaving the property, just in case an errant member ever felt the urge to try and take his slave home with him. The food and liquor delivery vans were thoroughly searched as well, so sneaking her out in one of those wasn’t an option either.

We needed something more underhanded. Something they wouldn’t see coming; something that would cause enough of a commotion to give us time to run before we were noticed. And so our switch plan was formulated with Mellie in a starring role, unbeknownst to her.

---