Page 123 of Heart of Thorns

I go down and pause under a window. It’s partially boarded up, but I can reach it by climbing onto the dumpster. The metal bows—and makes a rather loud noise—under my weight, but it holds long enough for me to peek inside.

Itisan old boxing gym. The lights are on. The raised ring in the center is missing a few ropes, and it seems like time just stopped for the place.

In the ring, though, is Ben.

I put my hands on the pane, my eyes wide. He lies on his side, curled slightly into himself, and I wait, but he doesn’t so much as twitch.

There’s no sign of the other person.

Helping Ben Patterson wasn’t on my agenda, but I can’t just walk away. It could’ve been a mugging gone bad, a crime of opportunity…

Either way, leaving him feels wrong.

I hop down from the dumpster and start for the front door, but movement flashes out of the corner of my eye.

Then blinding pain ricochets through my head—and darkness descends.

“You with us, Thorne?”

Something sharp stings my cheek. Then the other one.

I force my eyes open, my head lifting.

Stephen crouches in front of me. His gaze burns. “There you are. Thought you were going to sleep forever.”

My mouth is dry. I try to rub my face, but my arms are stuck.

Stephen tsks, but he doesn’t say anything else. He just watches me figure out that I’m tied to one of the corner posts of the ring. Rope chafes against my wrists, locked around the postbehind my back. My legs are stretched out in front of me, my ankles also wrapped with rope.

Beyond Stephen, Ben’s legs are visible.

“What’s going on?” I force out.

Stephen chuckles. “What’s goingon, Thorne, is that you interrupted my plan. You already suspected Ben of setting that fire, didn’t you? I was just going to make it easier to accept. And, perhaps, even ease your girl’s conscience. Ben would no longer be around to make things difficult for her.”

I yank my arms, but the ropes hold fast. The effort sends a wave of pain through my skull.He hit me. Knocked me out. Now, though, I feel it.

“You were going to make it easier to accept, how?”

Stephen rises and spreads his arm. “Look at this place. It’s the perfect building. It would just be poor Ben’s inexperience with setting fires that trapped him in one he set.”

A chill sweeps down my spine.

“Is that fear?” He suddenly comes right back to me, kneeling at my side and grabbing my hair. He yanks my head back. “I know why. You see the end of this, don’t you?”

I swallow hard. “You wouldn’t tell me all of this if I was going to walk out of here.”

His laugh echoes in my brain. He’s not sad about it—not turned off in the slightest at the idea of killing another person. One was already in the cards, what’s one more?

My stomach twists. Fear takes hold, just like he already saw in my expression, and coldness radiates through me.

I’m going to die here.

My mouth waters like it does before I puke—which generally happens on conditioning days at practice—and Stephen barely has time to get out of the way before I lean over and throw up on his shoes.

“Fucking asshole.” Stephen paces away from me, then comes back on the other side.

He kicks my thigh. Pain, then numbness, sweeps down my leg, deadening it for a moment. Then two.

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