Page 8 of Reckless
Will her grave be the next I dig?
CHAPTER 3Paedyn
I’m shocked he can’t hear my pounding heart, feel my burning gaze as it trails over him.
I shift, my stomach sliding across the rough roof as I peek over the edge. Pain sears down my leg, drawing my attention to the crudely bandaged slice on my thigh. I bite my tongue, holding in a cry along with a string of colorful curse words. The hastily torn hem of my spare shirt is already a revolting shade of crimson atop the wound, forcing me to turn my attention on the figure below, unable to stand the sight of it.
But I can’t stand the sight of him, either.
I already know what his remark would be if I’d told him that to his smirking face—You’re a terrible liar, Gray.
My eyes roll at the thought before they travel over him, taking in his messy black waves falling wherever they please across his brow. He’s crouching beside the Imperial I’d gifted with a knife to the chest, his profile grim, gray eyes skimming over the man’s face. Then he drops his head into his hands, looking equally frustrated and fatigued.
The sight the Enforcer fills me with rage, but I force myself to focus on him rather than the blood blooming across the Imperial’s white uniform.
I swallow, suddenly feeling sick at the thought. Tears stung my eyes when I let that knife fly into the man’s chest, blurring my vision as his body crumpled to the ground.
I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.
I don’t know if he heard my pleading apology, don’t know if he saw the sorrow in my eyes before I dragged myself onto the roof of a shop when the sound of footsteps echoed off the walls.
I blink away the memory, the tears, and instead choose to focus on the Enforcer mere feet away from me.
I could kill him. Right here, right now.
There’s suddenly another throwing knife clutched between my stained fingers, my trembling hand.
“Promise me you’ll stay alive long enough to stab me in the back?”
His words to me after that first ball echo in my mind.
I could make good on that promise.
With the way he’s positioned, his back is exactly where I would bury this blade. The hilt of the dagger grows sweaty in my palm, but I tighten my grip.
Do it.
There’s suddenly a lump in my throat that I furiously try to swallow. The boy beneath me killed my father, has killed dozens of Ordinaries in the name of the king. And I am his next target.
I hate how I’m hesitating.
Do. It.
I raise my arm, fingers trembling around the knife. The movement makes my brand burn, stretching the skin and the reminder engraved there.
Ofor Ordinary.
He suddenly shifts, lifting the Imperial’s mask and closing his unseeing eyes with a gentleness that doesn’t belong to the Enforcer—a gentleness I wish I hadn’t witnessed.
“She would have buried you if she weren’t so busy running from me, you know.”
My breath hitches; my heart hammers.
He’s right. I would have dragged this man to the nearest patch of dirt and dug him into the ground if I could have. As if that would right the wrong I’d done. As if that would make up for the fact that I never buried my best friend or father.
The symmetry in their deaths was sickening—both of them bleeding out in my arms before Iran.
“So the least I can do is bury you for her.”
