Page 52 of Capitol Matters

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he shouted. “You’re making jokes about this? Are you that broken?”

Faced with his anger, I got angry, too. If he swung on me again, I’d put him on his ass instead of moving out of the way.

“Better than getting all weepy about some Jack Frost wannabe you didn’t even know,” I snapped. “He was a nobody, Donnie.”

Donovan stayed tense, bristling, but he didn’t advance. “He was my responsibility, and Ididknow him. For weeks. It’s normal to be upset about it. What’s not normal is you being able to just turn off your emotions like a psychopath.”

I was sweating in the stuffy suit jacket and boiling internally through every verbal attack. If I had known I’d been summoned into a warzone, I would have stayed at the Capitol. Let Donovan manage his problems. I had enough of my own.

“You did a fine job turning off your emotions last night,” I said. “Seemed okay to me.”

“You mean after you made me a drink, then sent me home while you stayed behind to fuck your boyfriend?” Donovan’s expression soured. “Yeah, that was great.”

Of all the comebacks I had for his accusation, I voiced the lamest one. “Nash isn’t my boyfriend.”

Donovan threw up his hands. “No, because you’rebroken about that, too.” He paced a quick circle before rounding on me again. “Have you ever loved anybody, Fitch? Besides yourself?”

“Love yourself” was the kind of nonsense spouted by overpaid therapists or advertised on motivational posters. It was as idealistic as my brother who, despite knowing me his entire life, apparently believed there was something about me worth loving.

A blast of telekinetic power struck Donovan’s chest, driven by the finger I stabbed at him. It punched the air out of him in a grunt, bending him forward as he scowled at me.

“Listen up,” I said, closing in. “I’m only gonna explain this once. You called me here because you couldn’t handle this. Because you know I can. And you don’t get to shit talk me while I clean up your mess.”

I pointed at the wall several feet away. “Now, sit your ass down while your psychotic brother takes care of you, like I always have.”

Chest to chest with him, I could have moved him wherever I wanted. Or dragged him along behind as I went to investigate the scene that had left him so unnerved. But I didn’t have to do either of those things because my command alone was enough.

Donovan weakened. His shoulders slumped and his tense expression went soft. A shake of his head proved a final, pitiful resistance before he walked to the spot I’d designated and sat.

Sucking a steeling breath, I approached the unlocked unit. As I drew near, I saw fog wisping from under the cracked door. When I grasped the handle to raise it, themetal felt cold as ice.

With a rattling shove, the door rolled up, and chilled air rushed over me. Sunlight streamed into the unit, glinting off a blanket of snow. Glancing upward, I found the ceiling dotted with scores of dangling icicles. They hung to almost head height where they ended in sharp, glistening tips. Frosty white covered everything, and snow flurries swirled up as I trudged through. It would have been beautiful if not for the cloying stench of death in the air.

Shadows retreated from the invading light, relegated to the back corner of the unit. Through the curtain of icicles—more menacing than pretty as I ducked beneath them—I spotted Yankee Doodle. His body dangled limp, suspended by some kind of noose attached to a metal bar in the center of the roof. A folding chair, like the one I’d pinned Lover Boy to last night, lay toppled on the floor beneath him.

He used his belt. That was one of the first items they took from prisoners to prevent this exact thing. That, and so they didn’t strangle each other. Or the guards. Desperate people behaved accordingly, and this whole scene reeked of desperation. And shit.

I shivered. From the cold or the grisly sight, it made no difference. The rank smell invaded my nostrils again, and I swallowed a surge of bile. Nausea fought back, driving out a wet cough and gag that doubled me over. Hands on my knees, sunk in snow past my ankles, every breath clouded in the air as I tried not to lose my eggs and toast.

He didn’t want to be in here, Donovan said. Didn’twant to go to storage, he’d told me. Bawled about it while Donnie dragged him into the corrugated metal box that was the last thing he ever saw.

Stooping, I dipped my fingers into the powdery snow. The same stuff he’d nearly buried us both in on the ride here, claiming he couldn’t help it. Like the ice and frost was fueled by his fear.

Seeing the extent of it made my stomach wrench again. Had he been frightened the whole time? Helpless, and trapped, and filling this space with winter wonder because it was all he could do?

My gaze slid aside to the wall between this unit and the neighboring one. Four people so far—three if you only counted the living ones—and four to go. Two weeks left until the vote. The vote that was so goddamn important it made all this worthwhile.

No, it didn’t.

Kicking a path through the shin-high drifts, I exited the storage unit. Barely past the threshold, I threw a mental tether that caught the door and yanked it down with a rattling crash. Warmth and fresh air came as a welcome relief, but the image of Yankee Doodle’s corpse hanging like meat on a hook haunted my thoughts.

Donovan rose as I approached, his brow furrowed.

Before he could speak, I blurted, “Let them out.”

He swayed back, and the wrinkles in his forehead deepened. “What?”

“All of them.” My heart thundered as I swung an arm toward the row of closed doors. “Let them all go. I’m done with this.”

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