Page 32 of The Phantom's Vice

“I learned from the best, after all.”

26 years ago…

I gaze around the circle at the ruddy, anxious faces of my brothers. Master stands at the center of us all, the sunshine glinting menacingly off his sleek obsidian mask.

“Most people think the easiest way to slit a man’s throat is here.” His voice carries out across the clearing, interrupted only by a few hushed gasps as he holds the blade of his dagger against his carotid artery. “We went over that earlier this week. Most of you impressed me with your technique,” he says, nodding in the direction of Matt and Parker, two of the most ruthless boys in our class. “However, this next method is just as effective. If you excel, it just may save your life when we start our live sparring matches in a few months.”

He turns slowly in a circle, looking each of the Rooks in the eye. “Who wants to be my volunteer today?”

Hushed whispers break out around the circle, and I clench my hand at my side, lowering my eyes. I don’t want to attract the attention of the larger, stronger boys—and I certainly don’t want the attention of the master. I thought my mother could be cruel, but he takes it to a whole other level. Who’s tosay he won’t just kill the volunteer because he feels like it? It’s clear our lives mean less than cockroaches to him.

“P-1313. Why the sour expression?”

I jerk my head up, unable to hide my glare as I face that soulless black mask. “Just my face, sir.”

“Ah. I see.” His chuckle echoes across the clearing, and I watch as several birds take flight in fear. “How about you help me out today?”

I look around at the faces of the Rooks. Half of them look relieved, while the other side looks practically murderous. They’re the ones who confuse me the most—they genuinely want to be singled out by this man. They crave violence and will jump at any chance to exact it.

They are the beasts this man wants—not me. All I’ve ever wanted was to be good. It’s what I still want, though that dream seems further from reality with each passing day in this hell.

“I wouldn’t dare take that opportunity from my brothers,” I say, holding my chin high even though I feel like melting into a puddle beneath his gaze. “Sir.”

“Hmm.” Master tilts his head, his chest shaking with a repressed chuckle. “Disobeying an order. Gutsy, P-1313.”

I bow my head, taking a step toward the edge of the forest for good measure. “I meant no offense, sir.”

“Yes. Yet here you are, offending me.” His hand splays at his side, and I swallow hard at the menacing nature of the motion. “Into the circle. Now.”

I nod, my breath picking up speed as I shuffle toward the center, stopping a few feet away from him. Master looks me up and down, a disgusted noise sounding at the back of his throat as he takes in the mangled flesh covering my extremities, at the blood and pus pooling from various open sores from the past few months of training. I’ve been expected to use my body in unfamiliar ways, handling equipment that could hurt me even if I wasn’t paying extreme attention. And because I can’t feel it, I’m constantly reopening the freshly scabbed wounds, which results in most of them becoming severely infected, like now.

“Christ, Boy. You look…” He shakes his head, steeling his shoulders. “You should take better care of your body. At this point, you are a disgrace to the Sanctum.”

I nod, sliding my hands behind my back to coverthe worst of the offense. “I apologize, sir. I will do better.”

He nods. “Good.” Clearing his throat, he raises his head to address the rest of the Rooks. “P-1313 will now help me demonstrate this killing blow. Once I am done, you will pair up and practice.” He crosses his arms, his voice taking on a dead-serious tone. “If you let your partner get the best of you, I will not intervene.”

A few of the boys in line cringe, no doubt remembering the Rook we lost earlier this week during his lesson. Jimmy was his name, and he had the unfortunate experience of being paired with Matt on the day we learned the carotid slash. One minute, he was pinned beneath Matt, and the next…

I shake my head, taking a defensive stance as Master begins circling me with his knife held out. I know there’s no way in sweet hell I can stop what’s about to happen, but I can at least show some sort of self-preservation. If I just stand and let him come at me, the other Rooks will sense weakness—and though this is the last thing I want to do, I don’t have a death wish either.

The Phantom lunges at me, much too fast for me to do anything about it. Before I know what’s happening,my arms are pinned at my sides, and his leg is sweeping my feet out from under me. The back of my head slams into the dirt with a dull thunk, and stars swim in my vision as the master crawls on top of me, pinning my chest to the ground, my arms at my sides with his legs.

In a flash, the tip of the dagger is poised above my sternum, angled down and inward.

“You want to keep the blade at a twenty-three-degree angle—just shallow enough to hit the heart, but not so shallow that it hits the rib bones.”

The dagger tip is pressing into my skin, and a bead of blood pours from the small cut. My head swims from the sight of the awful, horrible red, and a wave of nausea pours over me.

Just when I think it’s all over—that he’s going to plunge that dagger into me and end it all in the name of a demonstration—he jumps up, pushing the dagger back into the holster at his waist.

“Now that you’ve all seen it, I want you to practice the technique as I demonstrated. And that means exactly how I demonstrated,” he snarls, crossing his arms. “Absolutely no killing blows today. We won’t have a Disposer until the weekend, and I don’t want to deal with the smell of a dead fucking body all week. Got it?”

“Yes, sir,” the Rooks parrot, the smaller boys ofthe group heaving sighs of relief. Today, they will be spared. I heave a breath of annoyance as I leap to my feet. No one here seems to care about what happens tomorrow, and it really irritates me.

Master gestures for me to stay in the circle. “Since P-1313 experienced the technique firsthand, he can be the first to spar. P-1314! Enter the circle.”

A boy with flaming-red hair stumbles forward, the whites of his eyes showing all the way around his bright blue irises. He’s slightly chubby, with a streak of large brown freckles across the bridge of his nose. Brenden—I think—is his name, and he looks ready to shit his pants. Most of the other Rooks are scared of me, either because of the way I look or because they’ve heard about my unique ability. But Brenden looks genuinely terrified.

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