Page 37 of Inside the Wicked

I’ve read the last text message he sent me just before Rhett’s accident many times:Meet me at Twilight.

He’s been missing for more than three months since, and no one has been able to find him. I’ve been tormented that I didn’t see the text to go to him, not even knowing where he wanted to meet me. There’s a warrant out for his arrest now, and for that I’m glad he’s not here. Maybe they’ll find him innocent of his father’s crimes, but I’m too afraid there’s something that will land him in prison to rot with Gregory. I wouldn’t be able to live with that. I believe he’s in hiding. I just wish he would have told me, trusted me, before he left.

“So,” Adam says, pushing up and wandering over to me. He looks at my earring and his mouth curls. “When do I get my serpent?”

CHAPTER 14

Rhett

Ana is performing tonight, and Alistair is making me watch. She’s an absolute spectacle without having to do a thing. Her full-length black dress exposes one glorious leg with every movement, and I’m hypnotized the moment she comes on screen.

I stand from my lax position on the mattress, compelled to her as if she’s within reach. Her red hair is curled and braided away from her face to show off her perfect sculpture. Those hazel eyes bore right into the camera that closes in on her, and it’s as if I could just reach out ... just touch her once ...

The static hum of the TV against my fingers is a worse lashing than the leather that scored my flesh last week.

She begins to play, and I’m slammed, utterly broken, to hear the song she played on Christmas Eve last year. Is it a coincidence? No—it can’t be. She could have chosen any song. In my misery I choose to grapple with the small dose of warmth that she’s playing this song for us. For me. Even if she’s moving on, she hasn’t forgotten.

I know this is why she never wears color anymore. At first I thought that a coincidence too, but now I’m certain it’s deliberate. She believes I’m dead, and she’s still mourning.

Oh, little bird, don’t cage yourself for me.

She was so free and light, and I never should have infiltrated her life and let her care for me so much that it’s affecting her even after this much time.

When her song finishes she looks around, so sad and lost, only for a second before she fixes on a mask for the crowd. I’m torn to fucking shreds.

The TV starts glitching, and I assume they’re about to cut the feed, leave me here in silence and solitude as my mental torture. I start to turn away, but a flicker in the corner catches my attention. It skips my pulse.

What the fuck?

A serpent head snakes across the screen. I’ve seen this animation before. I blink hard several times, believing wholeheartedly this is some delusion I’m conjuring in my delirium.

He’s truly breaking me. I’m losing it.

I watch as the serpent crosses into the infinity symbol. Xoid’s symbol.

The picture is still changing between this and Ana. This and Ana. When she smiles, it’s as if my whole world erupts, and I know it’s not a trick. Not an illusion.

What I haven’t seen before is the addition of a little bird that stops at the serpent’s head.

What are you up to, Anastasia?

Have Xoid found her? But why the message, unless they know ...

They know I’m alive. Or at least they believe it enough to hope I’ll see this. I stumble back as the screen turns fully black, and nothing comes back on.

I brace my hands on the back wall, replaying her performance. The sign. Every small flicker. I’m shaking with dread and terror and euphoria. I don’t want Ana involved anymore than she already is. If Alistair finds out she had anything to do with that display ... I can’t fathom what he’ll do to her, and I want to explode with the rage in me.

It’s been too long. They’ve won for too long, and I have to get the fuck out of here. There may be little of me left by the time I do, but I want to lay those last pieces of me at Ana’s feet, or use them to destroy every last evil who ever set their sights on my little bird.

The door groaning open doesn’t evoke anything in me anymore. I don’t anticipate what they’ll try to do to me. I just become hollow and brace for the worst.

“My favorite time of the week,” Micah sings chillingly.

I’ve met his kind before—the truly sick in the head kind—but this is the longest I’ve had to tolerate one at their mercy.

I’m led down the same path as the last, so I know what’s coming. After Alistair’s visit, I know he’s pivoting on what he’s conditioning me for. Trying to break me for.

Sure enough, when we enter the same room Jack was in last, there’s another kid in his place. The same age, around seventeen, and my fear is that they’ll keep getting younger. Forthson’s brother is only twelve.

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