Page 40 of The Labyrinth

“Yes, Rissa.” His voice was calmer now, quieter. He placed a large hand on my thigh, and I was so numb I allowed the touch. “I loved her. But not in the way you’re thinking. Iris and I…we were friends.”

A spark of hope lit up in my heart, and I hated myself for it. I didn’t want to be hopeful. I wanted to remain numb, to not care what he did one way or another. But I couldn’t stop myself from protecting the tiny flame blossoming inside me, demanding I listen to what he had to say. “Friends?” I whispered. “I…I don’t understand.”

He squatted in front of me so his eyes were directly in front of me again, a reflection of how we sat when he confessed his feelings about the wordmonster, the word my brain had so callously tossed back in his face. “I told you. The truth isn’t pretty. Are you sure you want to know? I don’t want to hurt you. Not this way, at least.”

I nodded, processing. “Please.” I wanted to understand. I wanted to keep this tiny flame of hope alive, burning so brightly inside my chest.

He sighed. “Very well. When I was younger, my father bought a young human girl. Her name was Iris. I couldn’t understand why he had bought her—my father had never before shown an interest in owning pets. But when she came home, I realized what had overcome him. Iris was beautiful, fair and golden.” His voice drifted off, lost in a memory I couldn’t see. “She was beautiful, and delicate, and a thousand things that made her not fit for a life inside the Labyrinth. But my father didn’t want to use her for fighting in the Cage. He had her do chores. And at night, he would bring her to his bedroom. My mother was already long gone at this point.”

I nodded, feeling for Iris, thrust into a world she knew nothing about. I knew that feeling all too well. But Ten still said helovedher.

Ten took a deep breath and continued. He twisted his ring on his finger, the one I had found that started this whole thing. “I wasn’t able to meet her until she had been at the house for quite some time. My father did his best to keep us apart. I think…I think deep down he knew what he was doing was wrong. Or at least I like to hope so. But I could hear her crying in her room at night, so I started to visit her. Believe me when I tell you, it was completely innocent. Yes, I loved her. But I loved her like a sister. I just wanted to give her a chance at a real life. A better life.”

“So you were going to help her escape,” I whispered, seeing the story fall into place.

He nodded. “I was going to go with her, too. I wasn’t sure where we would go. Maybe up to the mountains, where the Eternals live. I just knew I couldn’t live under my father’s roof anymore. Not with the way he treated me. And her…”

Ten had never spoken about his father before, and while I wanted to know more, I didn’t want to break the spell between us, or make him feel like he couldn’t speak freely. So I let his words flow.

“My father always hated me. He blamed me for my mother’s death, even though she died in labor with my brother, not me. He hated looking at me. So he ignored me most of the time, and beat me when he couldn’t ignore me. I grew up thinking that was what love was. Abuse, hatred, and isolation. Until Iris came along and showed me what love really was.” He fell silent again, his mouth opening and closing like he couldn’t bear to continue the story. I wanted to reach out, to touch him, to reassure him it would all be okay. But I wasn’t sure if he even really knew I was here, or if he was speaking his story for himself.

I had to try. “It’s okay, Ten. It’s just me, and I’m not going to hurt you. If you don’t want to continue this story, then we don’t.”

He shook his head. “No. It’s okay. It needs to be said. Like I was saying, we were both going to run away. But somehow my father found out. He sentenced us both to the Cage.”

My eyes were wide. Ten had mentioned the Cage before, but he hadn’t gone into detail. Whatever it was, I knew it wasn’t good, and it definitely wasn’t the kind of place a father should send his son to. So much of Ten made sense now. Why he was the way he was. Why he associated pain with pleasure, and love with darkness.

“You fight to the death in the Cage. Officials put their human pets in the ring, hardened creatures who lost their humanity long ago, and some have winning streaks years long. We…we also put convicted felons in there. It wasn’t a place for the son of a dignitary. It was basically a death sentence for both of us.” I reached out, stroking his horn like I had discovered he enjoyed, doing my best to soothe the aching beast inside. “But I was little more than a teenager, and my father ruled this city. There was nothing I could do for either of us. And Iris was so delicate…so fragile. They made me watch her fight first. I watched her die, alone, in the Cage, with nobody around her. And then they put me in there with her body. And they laughed. They laughed when they brought out a twice-convicted murderer, more than twice my size. They thought it wasfunny.”

I closed my eyes, picturing a younger Ten. One less hardened, less touched by the tragedies of life. I wondered what he was like then.

“What they didn’t realize was that I had been fighting with my father since I could stand. And I was angry. Angrier than anything they had ever seen. So I killed him, and I won my freedom. I went home, angry. I hated the world. I hated everything beautiful. I just wanted to hurt everyone who looked at me. I wanted to kill the people who crossed my path.” He nodded, remembering his cruel walk home. Oh, how I wished I could wipe the hurt away from him.

“I was going to return home, collect my things, and head for the Eternals. But I returned home to my father’s council sitting in my living room. My father had a heart attack while I was in the cage watching the one beautiful thing in my life die. I was the man of the house now. The man of thecity.” Ten looked up at me, beautifully broken. “I couldn’t leave the city the way my father had left it. So as much as I wanted to run, I stayed. I stayed, and I tried to make the Labyrinth a better place.”

“Oh, Ten,” I whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

He was coming back to himself now, looking more and more coherent as he gained speed. “So imagine my surprise when you of all people fell into my lap. The prettiest thing I had seen in years, looking like you wanted me to break you. It was just my luck you had stolen the only thing my mother had ever left me. But I think I would’ve taken you anyways. Because you were too beautiful and too strong for this world. I had to have you. I needed you. I…” Ten cut himself off, pressing his lips together.

I found myself unable to speak. I was happy he seemed more like himself, but what was he saying? That he had wanted me all along? So many thoughts were racing through my brain, and I wasn’t sure how to make sense of any of them. Poor Ten. Poor Iris. My heart ached, imagining them just trying to get by in a world that wanted to strike them down. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. I looked up at Ten, trying to read the truth that lay beneath his colorful skin. Mysteries still hid beneath his eyes, and I wanted to take my time discovering them all. I had a feeling that for every secret that lingered in his soul, an identical one was hiding within me. I reached out my hand, brushing it against his smooth skin, just needing to touch him.

Ten wrapped his hand around mine, and pulled me to my feet. “Let’s go.”

I wiped a stray tear away from my face. I was still mad at how easily I had crumbled in his hands, my heart still aching. “Where are you taking me?”

“You said you were jealous of Iris. I assumed you meant you wanted to clean for me. So, if cleaning will prove to you how much you mean to me, then I’m going to make you clean.”

Chapter18

Ten

Emotions swirled around in my brain, unable to stop or settle. I had never spoken those words aloud to anyone.Never. Not even to Griffin, who knew more than anyone. When I had come back from the Cage, and been told I was now in charge, I promptly fired my father’s council. Then, I called Griffin.

He knew I had been sentenced to the Cage, but was powerless to do anything about it. At the end of the day, there was nothing either of us could do. But he had come when I called, and though I could tell he wanted to ask questions, all he asked was, “What can I do?”

And so, we got to work. We were far from perfect, I knew that. But we were determined to be better than the generation before us. The breeding camps still ran, but the women inside them were treated like people instead of cattle—most of the time, anyway. The Cage was still open, but it was one of those things I couldn’t get rid of, no matter how badly I wanted to burn it to the ground. And how I wanted to watch it burn.

I wasn’t a good person. I knew this about myself and accepted it. I did things good people didn’t do. I enjoyed things normal people didn’t. I liked the darkness, thrived within the shadows. But I was better than my father, and for that, I was grateful.

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