Page 80 of Drop His Mask

The Host had to contain his disgust. It was exactly as he had guessed.

How long has she been forced to suffer through this? How long has Harold had this connection to Nightingale?

“That’s a good dear.” Harold spanked her as she turned to The Host.

From this angle, only The Host could see the anger, the distress, theshamethat washed across Nightingale’s features.

For one singular moment, The Host empathized with the woman. On what she must have endured.

But then he remembered what she had done to Raven.

“Come on,” Nightingale whispered as she took hold of his arm, dragging him out of the room.

“Where have you—”

Nightingale cut him off. “Not here. Wait until we get to your room. I see they collared you now.”

The Host didn’t speak again until they had taken the halls and the stairs to his home. He had graduated from a Game Warden’s apartment to a Host’s luxury penthouse. It was the one shining positive in all the fuckery that had occurred since he took this position. He was no longer underground, and when they made it inside his newest home, his attention went immediately towards the windows. To the stars that twinkled in the sky. To the full moon that shone across the tumultuous ocean.

Nightingale slammed the door shut and turned towards him. “It’s time. This will be the last game. There are too many variables to control, we need to place someone inside the game this year.”

The Host’s heart rattled around his rib cage as he twisted to the woman. She looked…better in some ways and worse in others. She was no longer bandaged, but now her eyes were sunken in, listless.

He calmed his emotions, forcing them deep down into the recesses of himself. Burying them as forcefully as he could manage. If his anxiety spiked, he would be drugged. He didn’t have time for that.

“So you say.” The Host strode to the leather chair in the center of the room, settling onto it as he perused the first file lackadaisically. It was his job to know everything about each of the contestants.

“What have they done to you?” Nightingale stomped further into the room, standing right before him. “Where is your heart? Your anger? Your pure unfiltered hatred of me?” she demanded. “I leave you a man and comeback to a doll!”

The Host dropped the top folder onto the table next to him, not looking up. “No, you left me as a Game Warden and you came back to The Host. Just as you requested.” Flipping through the new file, his eyebrows raised. “Triplets?”

“Not any longer.” Nightingale continued boring holes into him, but he ignored it. “The bottom file might knock some emotion into you.”

She ripped the rest of them from his hands, leaving only one.

Jayce.

For a split second, his feelings spiked, but he swallowed them down, loosening his grip on the folder.

“He’s sponsoring his own adoptive son? Won’t they think that’s unfair? Surely the other Sponsors will riot.” The Host flipped it open, reading through the information.

Does Jayce even know he’s a father? Or that Raven’s alive?

“It seems you’re still just as scheming as ever. Is there anything else you need from me?” The Host didn’t look up. He was exhausted. A bone deep, painfully unfixable exhaustion. He had been for years, but it was catchingup to him fast and quick.

“What about Sparrow? Is she okay?” Nightingale questioned gently.

The Host jumped to his feet, his hand raised up on its own and he wrapped his fingers around Nightingale’s neck. “She nearly died. You could have warned me. She’s a child, an innocent.” Even with his physical show of anger, his voice remained level, calm.

“There’s the Julian I remember. Always concerned about the weak, those that can’t fight back.”

The Host dropped his hold on the woman, twisting away from her. “Leave. I don’t have the energy to deal with you right now. The next game is coming sooner than the last. Only three months for me to prepare. I can’t be around Sparrow right now, I don’t have the ability to go into the role as her uncle.”

“There are going to be 250 players and 5 winners this year,” Nightingale apprised him.

The Host froze. “Understood, I imagine I will be getting quite a few of their files nearer to the game.”

“You will. There are going to be a few more that you…recognize. When you see them, I think you will understand what I am trying to tell you. But Julian, this is going to be the last year of this game.”

---