Page 171 of Priest and his Anarchist

He laughs, his eyes rolling to the back of his head. “It seems, lover, that we have a rat in the tunnel.”

I wait for him to continue, but he doesn’t, and when a heavy door opens behind me, I don’t get enough time to ask him what he means before he’s dragging me through it until we’re down yet another pathway.

I almost trip over a track as he spins me around and pushes me through another. Lost in the maze of doors, I wouldn’t know my way back out. Darkness envelops me, and my skin prickles. With no light, all I hear is our panting breaths.

“Corbin, what’s happening?”

He doesn’t answer, and in the darkness is not where I want to be locked with someone I’m sure is a notch far below the average psychopath. A finger touches my lips and I feel the dust of a capsule.

“You said you’d dance for me, and the crowd won’t wait.”

“It’s giving Midnight Mayhem,” I grumble, only when I open my mouth, he slips the pill straight down my throat.

Crap.

He chuckles, but it’s light and snarky. “You dare insult me. You know we’re nothing like them.”

I didn’t, since he is a Kiznitch after all. But he’s right. They’re not directly linked. It makes sense now why Corbin would hang around in Spain. He never spoke of his parents, but I knew he was a Brother of Kiznitch, one of the more important ones.

“True,” I tease, blindly searching the wall for a light switch. Who the fuck sits behind this screwed up Ministry? Now I wish Priest didn’t kill Darling. Maybe she could have told us, but I’m thinking maybe she didn’t know. Or care.

“We’ll wait here now. I’m sure he’ll be here any minute.”

“Who will be here?” I ask, annoyance waning.

“What do you mean, who?” I didn’t realize he was so close until his lips brush over my own. “Dance for me.”

I swallow gently. I’m not as good at acting as I thought I could be. His hand falls on my hip as he directs me over the bulge in his pants.

“Dance for me.”

His mouth is on mine and without hesitation, I open it wide, allowing his tongue to slip inside. My stomach twists and drops the longer the kiss carries on, and I grow more and more agitated. I don’t want to be here, playing nice with the boy who makes my insides crawl every time I think of that one night in Aspen being him all along.

Strobe lights flicker above us. Encased by glass shaped as a hexagon, I look back at my reflection at every angle, with Corbin’s body pressed against mine. Every angle the same, only a different view.

He stumbles backward, grasping the cane from beneath his leather coat. His arms spread, the smile on his mouth wide. “Dance for us, Darling. The way you always have….”

Is this all a show? The screams, the murder, the rush to get here—is all part of his show. Music plays in the background, and suddenly I feel exposed, like an animal in a circus. Casting a quick glance over my shoulder, every wall in this place is closed in by glass.

“Full house, Darling. Dance, dance, dance….”

“Welcome to the Circus” by Five Finger Death Punch fills the air. I never danced in Midnight Mayhem. I rode bikes and stuck to myself. It was merely a distraction for Priest, so he didn’t know what I was doing beneath. I see it now, how hard the Fathers fought to ensure he never knew what I was doing.

I pause.

A door opens and the lights above us strobe as naked people dance throughout the space. I feel the first surge of whatever he slipped me, the warmth as it moves through my blood, intoxicating.

Because their face is disguised behind eyeless hoods, I don’t notice right away that their wounds are painted on.

Blood sprays through the room as they repeat the same dance to the tune. Spinning around, swinging to the beat.

The girl on the end falls first, blood pooling around her body, marking her place of death. They continue the dance as if it didn’t happen, and one by one, they slowly fall until there’s only one left. Her stomach wound is deep and brutally done, with a heavier hand than the rest of them. The song had only just finished when her body shakes, until trembling to the ground with the rest of them.

Silence. With nothing but the deep intakes of my breath.

My hair whips across my face and sticks there when the door opens again.

I see his boots first. Heavy, leather, well worn. As if they’ve stomped through hell itself. As my eyes travel up past the ripped markings of his jeans, landing on the ripple of abs that tense every time he takes a step, the screech of metal scraping across concrete draws my attention to the machete in his hand.

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