Page 17 of Kept to Kill
‘Bound?’
Maeve waved a hand. ‘You don’t need to worry about that,’ she said. ‘Boring Army nonsense. So you were Vineri’s what? Slave? Pet?’
Lily looked down. ‘I’m not sure what I was, but it doesn’t matter now. He’s dead.’
‘You’ve killed a few people since you came to the camp,’ Maeve observed.
Lily glanced up, wondering if the woman was going to turn on her. Perhaps she’d killed one of the woman’s friends.
‘Oh, don’t worry. I didn’t know any of them, if that’s what you’re afraid of, and I certainly didn’t owe any of them enough loyalty to get on Quin’s bad side.’ She chuckled. ‘He’d flay me alive if I killed you.’
‘But,’ she shifted, making sure the blanket covered her still, ‘aren’t you friends?’
Maeve pursed her lips. ‘As good a friend as you can have here outside your unit. He and I grew up in the camp. We knew each other when we were just children running around, doing whatever we could to stay alive here.’ Then she frowned, hesitating before she spoke. When she did, it was barely above a whisper. ‘I don’t know what Quin is planning, but if there is anything that you must remember about him, it’s that growing up in the camp makes you hard and strong and very good at surviving. Becoming a Brother takes cunning, skill, and duplicity. Assuming command of the Dark Army takes a man who is stone cold and dark as fuck.’
Lily canted her head. ‘What is it that you’re trying to tell me?’ she asked, just as softly.
‘I suppose,’ she shook her head, ‘I just – don’t turn your back on him, Lily, even if you think he cares for you. He doesn’t. I doubt he even has the ability to, no matter what he pretends.’ She looked behind her as if she expected him to appear. ‘I don’t know much about his life before he came here, but I do know that he was brought. Many of us were taken in raids or were simply born in the camp. But Quin’s mother wanted him to be a Brother. She raised him for it and that’s all he’s ever worked for. In fact, all three of the Brothers in his unit appeared here of their own volition, drawn to the camp, to the death and the violence of this place.’
‘If you hate it so much, why don’t you leave?’
Maeve smiled. ‘I did, but the fucking place dragged me back. There’s one of my Brothers now,’ she said, turning as a man Lily hadn’t seen before entered the tent.
He was large like they all seemed to be, with long blond hair that was partly up in a knot on his head.
‘I’ve been looking for you,’ he said, grabbing her around the waist and pulling her to him.
Maeve smiled at him, taking his face in her hands and kissing him soundly as Lily watched, wide-eyed. She looked away, feeling very much an interloper as her cheeks heated with embarrassment. They finally pulled away from each other and Maeve gestured at her.
‘This is Lily, Quin’s new …’
‘Weapon,’ Lily finished for her.
‘This is Callan, the leader of my unit.’
The man looked her up and down. ‘I’ve heard the talk. So this is the girl with death’s touch.’ He raised his brows as he noticed she was wrapped only in a blanket, but he said nothing. ‘Quin will be pleased if you can do half of what the rumors say.’
Maeve gave him a quelling look and he shrugged.
‘Rumors?’ Lily asked, not sure if she wanted to know the talk that followed her. She knew that even in Vineri’s home, people must have told stories about her, but so few ever spoke to her that she’d never heard anything that was said behind her back until she was taken down to the square when Vineri was dead. In fact, the woman from the kitchens had spoken so nastily to her that she wondered how many of her meals had been gobbed in. Her nose wrinkled at the thought.
‘Rumors follow everyone here,’ Maeve said airily. ‘Well, anyone interesting, that is.’ She winked. ‘Remember what I said. I’m sure you’ll see me again.’ And with that, she and Callan were gone.
For the first time, Lily was alone. She didn’t tarry, bouncing up and grabbing a small knife, one of many that were strewn about. Watching the entrance of the tent, she unwound the blanket as she sat, baring her thighs, blemished with many thin, slightly shiny scars. Forty-one of them, to be exact, long and precise.
She let out a breath, feeling like she was going to burst from the feelings inside, emotions she knew not to examine too closely because if she did, she’d start to cry and wouldn’t be able to stop. She found a space halfway down her right thigh and drew the knife over her flesh, cutting deep enough to bleed and to mark. She hissed, the pain bringing with it a sudden, palpable relief of the awful sensations that threatened to burst out of her. She cut herself again. Four deaths. Four lines.
Lily let her leg bleed, watching the blood run down and drip to the floor, almost mesmerized by the sudden release until she remembered that she was not in her tower now. Someone would notice the mess. She doubted they’d care, but it would raise questions she didn’t want to answer. Ever.
Using strips of her ruined chemise, which was on the floor, she bandaged her leg and wiped up the blood, washing it away with the jug of water from the table. She studied the finished result. It looked as if she’d spilled some wine. Nothing amiss.
She picked up her book again, the welcome throbbing of her leg helping her to relax in a way that she hadn’t been able to since she’d killed that first man in the tower. The price had been paid.
She was left alone for a long time. Two women came to replenish the table with food, taking the old away. Neither of them spoke to her, but they kept their suspicious eyes on her all the time. Camp rumors, Lily supposed.
The night came and still Quin didn’t return. She lay in her bed in the dark, as no one had come to relight the braziers when they went out, and soon she began to shiver as the outside cold seeped in. The thin blanket wasn’t enough, so she pilfered one from Quin’s bed, as she couldn’t find anything else.
Sometime later, she heard whispers and she was wide awake in an instant, frozen in fear until a candle was lit, flooding the tent with enough dim light to see by. Quin had returned and his two Brothers were with him. Quin cursed the cold, his eyes turning accusingly to her.
