Queen (The Blackcoat Rebellion #3)(46)

Minister Bradley was there as well, lingering to the side, but always a presence. I refused to acknowledge him, knowing what he must have been willing to do in order to remain one of Daxton’s trusted advisers, and thankfully he didn’t try to speak to me, either.

On a wider screen hung up in front of the Hart family portrait, Daxton, Greyson, and I watched as Blackcoat after Blackcoat was executed on live television in front of a crowd of onlookers in the middle of D.C. Some were mercifully shot in the back of the head. But the higher up the ranks they went, the less merciful they became.

“Ah, Lieutenant George Sampson. I believe you know him personally, Lila,” said Daxton as cameras panned on us, recording every flinch, every wince. I couldn’t hide my grief for those who had risked their lives to bring about abetter country. I wouldn’t. Those who had supported us and survived—they had to know that they weren’t alone. “Would you like to say a few words?”

Sampson stared directly into the camera, his chin raised defiantly. I shifted my gaze from the screen to the nearest lens. “Lieutenant Sampson is a brave man whose only crime was to be on the losing side of a war,” I said. “History may remember him as a traitor, but I will remember him as an ally and a friend. Thank you for your guidance and never-ending support, Lieutenant, and thank you for your sacrifice.”

I could feel Daxton glaring daggers into the side of my head, but what was he going to do? He’d already destroyed nearly everything I loved, and Greyson and I had done everything he’d told us to do. Now he would spend the restof his life parading us around as his pets. The war was over. He had declared victory over the Blackcoats. Any retaliation against us now would only lose him what little public support he still had. Daxton might have won through sheer brute force, but that didn’t mean it was what the public had wanted. We were now an ideal without an army. But we wouldn’t be forever.

Sampson nodded once, confirming he had heard me. The crowd was silent, and at last the ground beneath him disappeared, leaving him to hang. The rope was too short for him to break his neck in the fall, however, and he fought and twitched for several minutes before he finally stilled.

I watched every terrible second of it, my eyes watering, but I refused to break. Sampson had known the risks. We all had. Every single Blackcoat had been willing to die for the cause, and I had to comfort myself with that knowledge.

I was positive that had to be the last of the executions for the day. Sampson was the biggest fish they’d caught, and there would be no more executions until they captured Celia. If they captured her, I told myself again and again. Even with most of her army arrested or dead, she was more than capable of disappearing completely, and I hoped against hope that she wouldn’t try to rescue me. If I were Lila, that would be one thing, but I wasn’t. And Iwasn’t worth the risk.

Instead of fading to black while they cut Sampson’s body down, however, the hooded executioner escorted one more person onto the stage. He wore a black bag over his head, and his hands were handcuffed behind him, but I would have recognized him anywhere.

The edges of my vision darkened, and for one infinite, gut-wrenching moment, the world went silent.

No. Not him.

Not him.

“Benjamin Doe, coconspirator and assistant to Lennox Creed, leader of the Blackcoats,” announced Daxton. My insides seized, and I forced myself to breathe steadily. Lila wouldn’t care about Benjy, at least no more than she would have cared about the others who had died on that stage today. I wanted to scream and wrap my hands around Daxton’s neck until he was dead, but we were surrounded by armed guards standing off camera. If I so much as twitchedtoward him, I would be restrained.

For a second, I considered it anyway. I didn’t care that it would expose me. I didn’t care that I would likely be dead before I was able to leave so much as a bruise on his neck. It would be worth it for the slimmest chance that maybe, just maybe, I would succeed before he could murder my best friend and one of the few people left in this world that I loved more than my own life.

But while my mind whirled with the desire to kill, my body didn’t want to die. My feet remained frozen to the floor, my hands glued to my sides, and though everything inside me screamed to do something, to stop this before Benjy paid the price I should have—and would have—paid a thousand times over for him, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I could only stare at the screen and struggle not to scream.

The executioner pulled off Benjy’s hood. His scruff was days old, his face was pale, and there were deep purple bruises underneath his eyes. But he didn’t look defeated. Instead, there was a spark to him, and he looked out at the crowd. Maybe he didn’t know he was about to die. Or maybe he welcomed it, after whatever torture they had put him through. My insides lurched at the thought of what Daxton must have done to Benjy just to spite me. Just to win yet another battle against me, even from beyond the grave.

I searched for any sign of injury, but whatever the Shields had done to him, they had been careful. There were no marks, no bruises, no obvious sign of abuse. Just my knowledge that out of everyone who had stood on the platform that day, Daxton would have relished Benjy’s pain the most.

“You are charged with treason, conspiracy to commit treason, and war crimes too numerous to name,” said Daxton as Benjy looked up at the screen that must have displayed our faces. “How do you plead?”