Page 716 of One More Kiss

Chapter5

I’d always plannedto celebrate this day. Embrace it with everything I had.

But they’d changed that.

This ceremony was no longer me becoming a part of something bigger and powerful. This was about controlling me, silencing me, maintaining a tight fist of power over me instead.

Someone feared me.

It’s the only thing that made sense. They feared me enough they had to tether me to them through their sinister betrayal of The Scorpio Society.

Maybe they wanted me for my brain, my beauty, my proximity to my parents, or maybe, just maybe, they wanted to make me the fall guy when they’re stinging betrayal was finally laid bare for the entire society to see.

How convenient that if I fell, my parents would surely fall with me paving the way for a new epicenter to The Scorpio Society. A new beating heart. They’d never know what hit them as they slowly sunk into the dregs of corruption, shifting from their enjoyed positions rubbing elbows with elite worldwide leaders to nothing more than sewer rats only coming out at night.

A stunning fall from grace into a grotesque new reality.

They’d turned the start of my new life into nothing more to me than a means to an end. A way to gain power and tear traitors from our world from the inside out.

As children, we’d always focused on the sting, worried about the pain with a sense of excitement and wonder. Like freefalling. Pushing boundaries, taking the ultimate risk to become someone new.

The pain couldn’t begin to measure against the way my very bones quaked with rage inside me. I focused on surviving…and what I’d do if I did.

A silk bag slid over my eyes, tickling along the tip of my nose, the edges finally landing along my collarbone.

Standing in the dark facing the student center, I knew they’d come for me from behind. They said nothing, only tugged at my arm and hauled me along with them along the concrete, then onto the grass, the moisture from the blades soaking into my shoes.

Stumbling up a set of wide concrete steps, they led me into a building with wax tiled floors judging by the sounds of my sneakers squeaking. In a matter of seconds, darkness swallowed me whole. The air, musty and damp, seeped through the silk as we scraped along a rough set of stone stairs into a warm room with dim flickering candles along the walls flashing through the silk.

“Mia,” a deep, unfamiliar voice said, taking my hand and squeezing my fingers while bringing me to a stop before him.

“If you go forward, your fate will be left to the scorpion. You can walk away now, or put your fate in The Scorpio Society.”

Marissa’s laughing face flashed in my head, blending with the echo of screams from my abductor as the knife I’d used all those years ago carved into him like a hot knife sinking into soft butter.

There’d be more. I’d slice through an endless body count to protect my parents and make the puppet masters pay for what they’d tricked me into doing. For how they’d so callously stolen the last vestiges of childhood before the single most significant rite of passage I’d ever face.

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said.

The subtle surprised intake of breath reaching my ears made me smile. It was my answer, my declaration, a promise I’d uphold with my life.

The hand that held mine flipped over my forearm, exposing my veins. A quick pinch followed by a burning rush filling my veins elicited a hiss of satisfaction and pain.

Live or die. In minutes, I’d know for sure.

I passed their initial test, but I had betrayed their trust and put my confidence in my crew. If The Scorpio Society had reach into the underground of the hive, I’d be dead in minutes.

Another fictional tale in Margot Ballinger’s library.

“Now put your hand in the box.”

Pain lived there. In the sting of the most venomous scorpion in the world, but no match for the pain I hadn’t been able to escape in the days since every ugly truth had come to light. Since the day River revealed I was just as bad as the people who used me.

Who’d turned me into a killer.

Steady and sure, I shoved my hand in the box and the venomous bastard inside seemed to know just what I needed. With a quick punch, he broke through the thin skin between my knuckles, plunging his venom into me.

This wasn’t a part of the nightmare I’d been trapped in. This was the door to freedom. I’d move forward, no longer immobilized by the demands of others.

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