Page 1 of Broken Discipline
CHAPTER 1
Finn
The walls flickered with shadows like the inside of a furnace. At the far end of the room, a man dressed in white cranked a lever, and a giant wheel spun on its side. A woman was chained to the spokes. Her screams filled the air like they could break every shard of glass. Still, the members in black didn’t stop. They took turns with her. Knives. Mallets. Nail guns. Fingers. My father stood beside me in a red suit, a torch in a sea of charcoal and ash. This was the Masquerade, put on by a secret society where initiates were supposed to sacrifice someone they loved in order to obtain membership. The only person I truly had left was my father.
I was doing this to get inside. Membership was the only way to gain access to their private community. But I still had the urge to find a way out.
“You’ve already completed the first two initiation tasks,” my father said, checking off an imaginary list in the air. He was right; I had killed an enemy for the secret society and provided my own services to the members. The sacrifice was my last barrier. “This is it, son. Do or die.”
I took a deep breath, my chest weighted with dread.Do or fucking die.A tingling sensation rippled through me. Emotion was never supposed to impede your next step. You had to be in control. Restrained.Disciplined.Everything rode on your ability to stay in power.
But this was so fucked up.
My father patted my shoulder, his red jacket sleeve contrasting against my white suit. I was an initiate, which meant I wore white. The members wore black. Every initiate and member wore masks, but my father, since he was a sacrifice, was not permitted that luxury.
A cough shattered through my father’s body, his whole body twisting into a ball. The members and the initiate at the wheel turned toward us, gazing past the woman in pain. My father signaled that he was okay, and the men returned to their torture.
I enjoyed torture, especially when it came to women. But with my father, knowing that he would die by the end of the night? It made my head spin. My stomach churned. My fingers twitch with anxiety.
This is what it meant to do anything for what you wanted.
“I stopped taking my medication,” my father said in a low voice. Anger grew inside me, my hands curling into fists. I narrowed my eyes, infuriated that he wouldchoosethat fate. As if the guarantee of the Masquerade wasn’t enough. But his eyes were glossy, implying that he preferred this Masquerade to anything the disease would do to his body. “Tonight or in the next few weeks. It’s my choice, Finn.”
“It’s bullshit,” I muttered.
“They won’t have another Masquerade for a few months. And by then, I’ll be dead,” he said, his voice softening. “You need to do this now.”
My father’s hand fell from my shoulder. His chest dipped into itself, a shadow of the strong man who had raised me. A twinge of sorrow haunted his demeanor, as if he was recalling what he had lost. He hadn’t joined the secret society himself. His wife—my mother—had accepted an arranged marriage to a member of this same secret society right after I was born. My father had powerful enemies back then; she did it, hoping she could gain protection for the two of us. She didn’t live long after that.
That was decades ago now. It was up to me to control the future of our legacy. I motioned around the room. The members in black jeering. The man in white, risking his wife’s life and mental well-being for membership in a secret society that could give him immense power.
“I don’t trust them,” I said.
“You don’t have to,” my father said. “You just have to claim what’s yours.”
My chest heated at those words. I had lost everything through my own mistakes, andthis?This was another nail in the coffin.
But if I gained membership, I could be closer to the community. It was better than nothing.
But I still wasn’t sure that killing my father was worth that proximity. My heart pounded, my throat dry.
“They’ll kill you,” I said.
“And that’s the point,” my father said, smacking me on the back. He gritted his teeth, his eyes stewing with intensity. “Get yourself together, Finn. Give me the decency of a good exit. Don’t waste it on this disease.”
“Carter. You’re up next,” one member shouted.
The man in white removed the chains from his sacrifice’s limbs. With the help of a member, they eased her off of the wheel until she was able to hold the man in white’s neck. A ruby and diamond necklace in the shape of a daisy dripped between her collarbones. I fingered the matching necklace in my pocket.
“Finn Carter?” one member asked. I glanced at my father, my throat tightening. My father nodded slowly like he knew that this was the last way he could guide me.
“Don’t think. Don’t feel. Justdo,” he said calmly. He reached out for me. “You can do this.”
Callouses bridged his palm like strong tree roots gripping the earth. He was offering his hand, knowing that he was about to die. Like none of this mattered.
I shook his hand, my throat scratchy and full. He patted the back of my arm, then removed his jacket and began unbuttoning his shirt. Suddenly, my jacket was like a snake coiling around me. I removed mine too. Scars tattered my father’s body like flames licking a log, and without his clothes, he was small compared to the rest of the men. My chest weighed down, hating that this was how he would appear in his last moments. Open. Weak. Vulnerable. Not like the man who had raised me.
I handed him the ruby and diamond necklace. He bound it around his neck.
