Page 61 of Dead By Dusk

Realization dawns on me as I understand what he means. The more he’s betrayed or lied to, the harsher our punishments will be.

“He won’t die until after his wife does. Poor Iris, she’s already there. The place that you’ll go. Fighting much harder than I thought she would. I presume that may have to do with the fact that her memories weren’t stolen from her. I do wonder what she’ll do when the lot of you arrive. I wonder if she’ll even be alive by then. I’ve given careful orders to make sure he doesn’t die before seeing her lifeless body, though. Only then will she be brought back to serve a different purpose. She’ll die, he won’t remember who she was to him, then he’ll die and I’ll have enough organs to sell to last me long enough to rebuild my agency. Everyone will get their punishments in due time, Silene, and I’ll get some wonderful entertainment for the time being.”

“What is wrong with you? You know how insane you sound, right?” I question, though it’s hardly anymore than a disbelieving whisper.

“Youare the one that set out to kill me. You did nothing but bring this on yourself. You didn’t really think you would get away with it, did you?” he inquires, tilting his head down at me.

“Wait!” I yell, but it sounds more like a whisper as it leaves my lips.

“Sleep now, child. You’ll need the rest,” he says, and as darkness invades every one of my senses, I watch him leave me alone in the cell.

31

Vengeance: Silene

Coughs wrack my body as a steady heartbeat pounds in every crevice of my mind, and I just wish it would go away. If only for a moment of peace, I pray for the coughs to disappear or my head to stop hurting, or just anything that would feel better than this currently does. But as I gain more awareness, I realize my body is sat up against a wall, arms tied tightly behind my back.

I struggle for another minute before looking around the room and seeing Nathaniel sitting back in a chair, and for the first time, I see the similarities. Though Ronan may have dark hair with cool watercolor eyes, and Nathaniel is all warm tones, the freckles that dot their noses and cheekbones should have been a sign. Their watchful eyes over the ones they care over mirror one another. And they were close in a way that was different from Ronan’s bond with anyone else. I didn’tunderstand it then, but I do now. I see it so clearly even in the confusion.

“My friends call me Nate,”and yet not a single person here referred to him as such with the exception of Ronan.

“I promised him my blessing. That they both live,”Mr. Delgado admitted to me, and suddenly every time Nathaniel stepped towards Carmen in a way that showed protectiveness came to mind. The way he had tried to make a decision for her as if he had some ownership over what she was and was not allowed to do.

He doesn’t see me move at all, doesn’t hear the way my body shifts uncomfortably as he’s far too focused on something across the room from us, but the quiet is suffocating me. I almost speak but when he stands and walks over to a large box that sits tall enough to be at his waist, I clamp my mouth shut. His sad eyes rove over whatever contents lie inside before he runs a loving hand over something.

I take this moment to try and stand, but the second I’m able to get my feet under me, his attention focuses entirely on me. I still, not daring to move a muscle as our eyes meet and I see resentment replace all the softness that had just been in its place.

“You said you would be able to protect her.” His voice is so low as he turns back to the box in front of him.

“I tried. I really did, Nathaniel. Trust me, there’s nothing you can say to me that I haven’t already said to myself,” I reason, moving to stand, but when he pulls a gun out from his waistband, I stop completely. He aims the weapon at me with a practiced ease, a surety of what is to come.

“You failed, you should have just let her come with me, you should have—”

“She still would have been dead,” I say carefully, dragging my body back to the ground in hopes he’ll lower the weapon andjust talk to me, but he’s reckless, waving the gun around as he speaks.

“No—no she would have been fine. She would have been here,” he insists, pointing the barrel to the ground. His hair is messy, sticking up all over the place, and his wide frantic eyes are wild.

“You killed her, Nathaniel. No one else,” I say, voice deceptively calm, when I want nothing more than his blood on my hands.

Because it is his fault.

We would have gotten away—nobody would have had to die if he had some courage. He could have come with us if he truly wanted and gotten to know her as she was and not as her father’s pawn.

“No. No no no,” he starts, banging his fist against his forehead as if his own thoughts are as damaging as the words that I’m speaking. Quickly aiming the barrel at me again he finishes, “You’re the one that failed.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Adonis enter the room. He puts a finger to his lips in signal for me to not say a word, before tilting his head towards Nathaniel.

Distract him, he seems to be saying, and I immediately look down, feigning fear and shame. “Maybe,” I start, thinking about what to say next, but there is only one option. The truth. “But you’re the one that told her father what you knew. You sent your brother to his death for validation from a man who was never going to let any of us live. You—” He storms toward me, but stops a foot away. As he aims the gun toward my head, I notice the shakiness of his hands, the white knuckled grip on the weapon, his finger already on the trigger as he threatens to end my life here and now.

“Shut up,” he forces out through clenched teeth.

“How stupid could you have been to think a man who was okay with killing and selling innocents wouldn’tlietoyou? That he wouldn’t—”

“Stop fucking talking, you don’t know anything!” he exclaims, but his voice wavers, and I see the grief beneath his surface, the stutter in his breathing. I know that even with misguided intentions, he just wanted her safety. He just wanted her love. But his obsession overpowered all logical reasoning.

“You sent us all to our deaths when you decided her worth was only what her father made it,” I continue, keeping his attention on me, no matter how damning it may be for me.

“I said to stop fucking talking!” he yells, pressing the cold metal against my forehead, and not for a second do I look away from him. Green and brown clash in a battle of truths and secrets that still have yet to be surfaced. And then his finger moves to the trigger, and I embrace the death that approaches me.

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