Page 28 of Spark of Madness

Will I dietoday?

How will they do it? Burned at the stakelike my mother?

“What is this?” Arlo asks, closing the journal and holding it up. “Is this your mother’s?”

I hear him, but I struggle to respond. The very essence of my being is trapped behind a thick wall of ice inside my mind, frozen and paralyzed to thoughts of punishment and death.

“Forget it,” he says with exasperation. “Come with me.”

He holds out his palm, covered with a black leather glove, and I stare at it as if it’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen, as if it’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen…because it is.

If I take his hand, he’ll lead me away, only I don’t know where to and I don’t know what will happen then. I don’t know if I’ll be hurt or tortured, or if I’ll be killed immediately.

I lift my gaze from his hand to meet his stare. “Are you going to kill me?”

His eyes are blue—bright blue, like the clear sky above. They sparkle as he watches me, waiting for me to take his outstretched hand.

I think it’s the first time I’ve ever really looked at him. I’ve only known him by name and in passing before the other night in the forest. I knewofhim; I’d seen him and could identify him easily. But looking at him now, I know I’ve never trulyseenhim before.

“Not personally, and certainly not today,” he offers. “Come along now. We have things to discuss.”

“What things?”

He takes a step closer, and instinctively, I step back.

“Mercy.”

“What’s going to happen to me? Please. Can’t you just tell me now?”

“I’m not going to ask you again.” His offered palm twitches with threat. “We will drag you away if you insist on resisting.”

Part of me wants to resist. If my fate has already been decided—and I suspect it has—then resistance won’t change the outcome. Resisting might make me feel like I did something, that I at least tried. That part of me makes my knees bend with the urge to run.

Likewise, though, there’s no point in that fight if it changes nothing. Something tells me I should save my strength for a battle yet to come, though I don’t know what it is.

I take a step closer to Arlo, and slowly, I reach out to him, watching our hands come together in contrast beneath the bright shine of sunlight. The black leather looks menacing, held out above the colorful wildflowers and grass that sways in the gentle breeze. As I lay my pale hand atop his palm, his hand closes tightly around mine, caging it in his suffocating grasp.

My lips part with an abrupt inhale as he pulls me sharply, easily tugging me into his hold as his other arm—still grasping the journal—whips around my waist. I raise my head to look up at him, and he catches me again in his stare. The intensity of his blue gaze grabs hold of me and flashes through my memories, making my stomach flutter.

I remember the warmth of his bare hand as his fingers pressed inside me. Part of me wants to feel that warmth against my palm now held in his grip—but the leather grips me instead. His thick eyebrows furrow, drawing a line above his blue eyes. His expression is forever changing—it shifts and twists so quickly that my darting eyes can’t keep up as they flicker about his face. I see the curve of his throat bob as he swallows, his arm shifting along my back.

Why is his armstill around me?

Why does he still hold me thisway?

He blinks and his eyes shadow, like a shade slipping down and hiding the brightness. Still holding my palm in his, he releases his arm from my waist and turns before shifting into a fast walk, dragging me along beside him. “I’m taking you to the Homestead. You’ll be under my charge for an undefined period of time.”

“What does that mean?”

“Do you know how to be quiet?”

“I just want to know what’s going to happen to me.”

“You’ll learn soon enough. Patience is a virtue, Mercy. You should practice it.”

I huff out in stressful frustration as he pulls me toward the trees. The Control turns their attention to me as we charge toward the center of their gathering at the edge of the woods.

“Mercy Madness,” Killian Cole says. “About time you were brought to justice.”

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