Page 40 of Before Their After

To truly savor her despair, I’d need to get close, play the long game. There was one final assignment I needed to complete before I left this world. I’d be damned if I didn’t stop to smell the flowers while doing so.

“Whatever you’re leading me to, can’t be worse than anything I’ve gone through. Torture will not work on me.”

“What I’m leading you to,young man, is far worse than torture.” There was a dark humor in his words. Mocking almost. Like he had played that final move in a lengthy game of chess after toying with me long enough for me to relax, to feel victorious—then snatching it away.

The soldiers at our backs snickered, whispering to each other low enough that their words evaded me. There was something going on here. Something that they knew and I didn’t. Licking the corners of my mouth, I accepted my fate for what it was.

“What’s worse than torture?” I asked, curiosity getting the best of me.

This place tested people.Thathad been the whispered lore lost into the wind and shadows of other settlements. Where I came from, people hated Salem Territory—Monterey Compound specifically. If they didn’t hate it, they wanted to be here. More times than not, I found it to be a mix of both. Hated the fact that they couldn’t be herebecauseof the way it tested you. From what I knew, their gates were open to all. It’d made it easy to conclude that fear of the unknown had kept people rooted in place. Otherwise, why wouldn’t they make the trip themselves?

Before I’d arrived, I hadn’t known what the hell the words I’d heard in the corners of dark streets and mold-licked taverns meant. ‘Test’ could mean a lot of things these days. Now, it was clear to me and I’d walked myself right into what I was sure was the first of many tests.

Prescott’s eyes glimmered with amusement as he stepped behind me in a swift movement, his hand gripping the back of my neck. “You’re about to find out.”

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