Page 75 of Pageant

A muscle in Elyah’s jaw tics. “Lilia and I need each other. She is not going anywhere.”

Konstantin laughs, looking at me as if we’re sharing an inside joke, and what’s funny is that Elyah is a fool. “Maybe she wants you, but she’s a long way from needing you. Lilia Aranova only needs herself. Don’t you, Lilia?”

A prickle runs down the nape of my neck as he talks like he can see right through me. I fight to keep a straight face and say nothing. Konstantin wants to fuck with me, but mostly Konstantin just doesn’t trust me.

I turn to Elyah and put my hand on his chest, gazing up at him and speaking softly. “YourPakhangave you an order, Elyah. I need to go back in that cage, but I’ll be waiting for you. I’m not going anywhere.”

Elyah’s expression melts from anger to love, and he brushes his knuckles over my cheek. I smile and lean into his touch.

“I hate the thought of you being locked up again.”

“It’s all right. I know there are rules.” Everything in this life is about rules, and they can’t be broken just because someone changes his mind. Nothing can be resolved until Konstantin and Elyah have talked in private. “When this pageant is over, we can be together.”

Konstantin is watching me like a hawk. His sharp gaze pierces the side of my neck. He doesn’t trust me, but he can’t take his eyes off me either.

Pain fills Elyah’s expression. “You are not angry with me, Lilia, that you are going back in that cage? I am angry with myself that this is happening to you.”

I shake my head and smile. “Goodbye, but only for now.”

“Just for now,” he repeats urgently, and covers my mouth with his. I press a hand over his heart, feeling it thunder against my palm.

“I have always loved this sound,” I whisper against his lips. “I will always love this sound.”

A rough hand lands on my shoulder. It’s one of Konstantin’s guards, and I’m ripped away from Elyah so fast that I stumble.

Elyah shoves the guard and snarls, “Do not fucking touch her. She is going.”

I take one last look behind me and his expression is stricken as if he’s terrified that he’s never going to lay eyes on me again. Then the door slams, cutting us off from each other.

I grasp the hem of my dress and fiddle with it instead of looking at any of the women, but I can feel their shock and confusion. I was marked for death, and now I’m a competitor again. A real opponent this time, though little do I want it.

Down in the cellar, the guards lock us into our cages and leave us alone. I huddle on my bed and wrap my arms around myself, freezing cold after Elyah’s scorching embrace.

“Is this all part of your big plan to help us, Number Eleven?” Marija calls. “What lies are you going to tell us next?”

“She didn’t even beg for our lives,” Madison says. “Only her own. Do you hear that, Olivia? She just fucked the blond one to try and get out of here, and it nearly worked. But she didn’t lift a finger to help us. Not even you. Some friend she is.”

“That’s not true!” Olivia cries. “Lilia wouldn’t leave us behind.”

“You’re so fucking naïve! Go on, Number Eleven. Tell her the truth. Tell her how you were going to skip off into the sunset with your boyfriend and leave us all behind.”

I lock my arms around my knees and grit my teeth. There’s nothing I can tell them, and my silence damns me more than anything I could have said.

In the next cell, Olivia starts to sob. “We’re all going to die because of these men, Lilia. Would you really have walked away and left us behind?”

I put my head in my hands and rock back and forth. I want to stuff my fingers in my ears to block out her despair, but I can’t.

“Lilia? Lilia, how could you do this to us?” Alejandra’s voice grows shrill and hysterical as she beats on the bars of her cage. “Lilia!Answer me.”

Over her screams, Marija shouts, “They trusted you, you treacherous bitch. Have you got nothing so say to them?”

Alejandra goes on crying and screaming, her broken sobs echoing around the cellar. The other women call out to her and tell her she needs to be quiet, afraid that she’s going to draw Konstantin’s wrath down on us.

Gradually, miserable silence falls in the cellar.

Madison whispers viciously in the darkness, “It doesn’t matter whether you sold out your husband or not, or what your precious Elyah believes. We see who you are for ourselves, Number Eleven. You really are a betraying whore.”

17

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