Page 6 of Violent Reign (Violent Kingdom)

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” I snap. Nathan smirks at me. “Wait. I guess you do.”

Nathan shrugs. “Youwerelistening, then.” It’s fucking uncanny, how casual he’s being in all of this. If it weren’t for the duct tape around my wrists and the blood on the doorframe I could almost believe that we were just having a regular conversation. That’s how normal he’s acting right now. It’s scaring the shit out of me. The other Nathan, the moody, pensive, thoughtful, delightful Nathan. The Nathan I fucking loved like a best friend, like a brother, with my entire corrupted heart. Did he ever exist? Was any of that ever really true? I don’t know anything anymore. It’s as if he has died, suddenly and violently, but I can’t even mourn him, because how can you mourn somebody who wasn’t real?

I swallow back a sob. Steady my raging thoughts. Bite my tongue to bring me back to a semi-calm. I want to scream, to claw his fucking face off, but I can’t do any of that. All I have is my voice. All I have are my words. Even if my voice trembles when I speak.

“Where is Jennifer?” I ask slowly. I want an answer to that question. “What have you done to her, Nathan?”

He considers me while my heart rages helplessly in my rib cage. I have the slow-rolling suspicion that it’s Jennifer in the bathroom, or what used to be Jennifer, and my bravado falters. I know I just survived weeks of torture and I should be stronger, but I don’t want to see her like that. I don’t know if I could bear it. I feel my chin wobble as I fight to keep from crying. It’s not my life flashing before my eyes right now, it’s Jennifer’s. My beautiful, kind, generous friend. A girl who lights up any room just by entering it. Her family didn’t have money, but you’d never know it. She was the odd one out in our little squad ever since we were children, but Jennifer has always carried herself with such grace, such poise, that you’d never know she was poor as shit for most of her life. It didn’t matter. She was smart, and successful, and by the time we were in our twenties she’d forged her own success from nothing.

And now she might be lying dead in the room next to the one I’m tied up in.

“Just tell me what you did to her,” I plead. It’s not a good look, the pleading. It’s not a normal look for a Capulet.

Nathan shrugs. “ I’ll do you one better, Aves. I’ll show you.”

My cousin, my horrifying Nathaniel, slips a knife from his pants pocket and flicks it open with a lowsnick. Beads of sweat burst out on the back of my neck. Oh, Christ. Oh, fuck. He’s going to cut me with it. The basement will never be enough for Nathan. Not now, not ever.

I brace for it, trying to breathe through the terror, while Nathan leans forward. The edge of the knife is cold against the skin of my wrists. It would be so easy for him to kill me this way. But he only works it underneath the duct tape there, concentrating with his tongue between his teeth. He makes a little flap for himself and yanks on it, cutting the tape, setting me free. He takes in my shocked expression as he slides the knife back into his pocket.

“Silly goose,” he says, smoothing my hair back with his blood-spattered fingers. “Did you think I was going to hurt you?”

Then he hops off the bed and waves me after him. “You coming?”

I immediately sit up, my head ringing from the sudden pressure change. As I swing my legs over the side of the bed, I have to pause for a second to stop myself from passing out. I blink several times, clearing my vision, my heart pounding faster and faster.I have to get out of here. I look around the room for a weapon, but my cousin hasn’t exactly left something out on the dresser for me to kill him with. Damn it.

“I already locked up all the sharp things,” Nathan says, as if reading my mind.Read me like a book.“Come on.” He’s so normal he could be showing me anything. A new car. A stupid meme on his phone.

But that’s not what he’s going to show me.

I follow Nathan into the second bathroom.

There is so much blood.

Nathan’s kept it mostly contained to the tub, but it’s still gotten everywhere. On the tiled wall in a spray that makes me think he stood over her with a knife. On the floor in front of the bath, drips coating the basin, the faucet, the mirror.

I make a low noise in my throat, a sob of anguish as I slowly sink to my knees. The tiles are cold and unforgiving against my skin, and there are drops of blood that touch my skin, too. I would be repulsed, but I’m too far gone. Numb legs, numb mind. I feel like I am truly going insane.

“Aves,” Nathantsks, gathering me up under my arms and hauling me to my feet. “Careful, the floor’s all dirty.”

He takes my arms and guides me gently to the side of the tub.

“There you go,” he says softly.

Jennifer.

She’s in the tub.

She’s there, facedown, naked except for a pink bra-and-panty set that didn’t used to be stained with her own blood. A knife sticks out from her back. There’s no water, but the bottom of the tub is half an inch thick with blood. It seeps from the wound and settles around her.

I’m going to be sick.

“Y’know, she stabbed me in the back first. It was an appropriate punishment.” Nathan gives an annoyed little sigh, like he’s been cut off in traffic. “She tried to warn you about what a bad boy I’ve been. Really, she’s got nobody to blame but herself.”

Jennifer shifts in the bathtub. One twitch of her hand, followed by a gurgling groan. I bite back a scream.Shit, shit.She’s alive.Her hand flails uselessly in the blood, reaching toward the middle of her back. Oh, god, she’s trying to get the knife out. Jennifer lifts her head, her hair soaked in blood, and turns it toward us. Her eyes are bright in the center of all the carnage. She locks them on mine.

I’ve never seen anyone so haunted in my life. Not even Rome.

“Why, Nate?” My throat has gone dry. Stabbing her was bad enough. But to leave her like this in the tub? To slowly bleed out, to drown in her own blood? He’s gone. He’s beyond. I can’t.

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