Page 170 of Deviant

“Chris, what did the text say?” she asks again, this time more forcefully.

He shakes his head, not wanting to repeat whatever fucked up shit they ordered him to do.

“Just close your eyes. If you close your eyes, you can pretend you’re somewhere else. Just close your eyes, okay, Rowen? I promise I’ll be quick. I promise.”

I jump up from my seat and grab Big Mike by the lapel.

“What the fuck is he talking about?! What the fuck did they order him to do?!” I shout in his face.

“I’ll give you one guess,” Big Mike taunts just as Chris rips Rowen’s shirt off. “He has to fuck her. And you have to watch.”

“Chris! Don’t do this! Stop!” Rowen begs as she steps away from him.

“It’s just a game. It’s just a game,” he says, still sounding completely out of his mind.

“That’s right. It is just a game. And we don’t have to play if we don’t want to,” Rowen says, trying to bring Chris to the land of the mentally stable while holding her arms out to keep him a good distance away from her.

“But then we lose,” Chris replies, confused, taking another step toward her. “And if we lose… we die.”

“Not we. Just you,” I say from behind him before snapping his neck and killing him.

As Chris’s lifeless body thumps to the floor, the heavy silence in the room is shattered by Rowen’s sharp loud gasp and Big Mike’s threats.

“I’m going to fucking kill you!” Big Mike shouts, lunging at me only to be held back by Andy and David.

“Don’t do it, man,” David warns as Big Mike foams at the mouth to put his hands on me. “Don’t do it. The fucker will get his. LetThe Scourgedeal with him.”

My nostrils flare in contempt at them both, but it’s the disappointed glare in Andy’s eyes that fucking does me in. I turn my back to him, unwilling to meet that crestfallen look in his eyes, only to find Harper by Rowen’s side, clutching what remains of her torn shirt, giving me that same infuriating gaze. And when Rowen refuses to look at me, preferring to stare at the corpse at her feet, I lose my shit.

“What?!” I belt out, arms stretched as I spin around the room so everyone can get a good fucking look at me. “Look at me like I’m the villain all you want, but what I did was a mercy!”

“Mercy?” Harper cries incredulously. “How can you call what you just did mercy?”

“It was quick. It was painless. And he never saw me coming. If that isn’t mercy, I don’t know what is.”

Harper scowls at me, clearly prepared to challenge my reasoning, but holds back when she sees Rowen trying to speak.

“He… wasn’t well… his mind… playing tricks on him…. he didn’t… deserve this. He shouldn’t have died like this… not like this.”

And when she continues to look at Chris like she wishes she could change places with him, I eat up the distance between us, push Harper aside, and start shaking Rowen’s shoulders so she can snap the fuck out of her shock.

“Look at me! Look at me, goddamn it!” I shout, and it’s only when her pain-stricken hazel eyes meet mine that I lower my voice. “It had to be done. It had to be.” When she bows her head again, I give her a gentle shake. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but he was going to hurt you. He was going to fucking hurt you, Roe. I couldn’t stand by and watch that shit happen. No way. No how.”

“It wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t well. If you would have been more patient, I could have talked to him… stopped him… made him see reason.”

“He was dead already, Roe! His mind was so far gone, you wouldn’t have been able to say anything that would have made sense to him.”

“You don’t know that!” she rebukes, pushing me away from her. “You don’t know that! We found a loophole for Ruby. We found a loophole for me. If you had just been patient, we wouldhave found one for Chris as well. He would still be alive if you had just let me help him!”

“He was going to fucking rape you!” I shout, frustrated that she refuses to acknowledge the real danger she was just in. When she shudders at the horrid word, I walk over to her again and cup her face in my palms. “I know it’s painful to hear, but that’s what he was going to do to you. No matter how you paint it in your mind, that is the truth.” I caress her pale cheeks with my thumbs and stare deep into her eyes. “I’ll say it again, and maybe this time you’ll hear me. Killing Chris was a mercy. It was quick. Clean and painless. And most importantly, he never saw his death coming. Do you thinkThe Scourgewould have been as merciful?”

Her tear-filled eyes look straight into mine, understanding finally dawning on her.

“Twelve are chosen, but only one survives,” she mumbles to herself as if remembering that the real culprits at play here are the ones hidden behind their cameras.

Chris was dead the minute his name was called during the Harvest Festival. Either by my hand or by theirs, his life was already forfeited.

But before I can say anything else, we all feel our watches vibrate and then ring.

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