The Gender War (The Gender Game #4)(101)

“I’ve decided I’m going to give you a warrior’s death, Violet,” she announced. “It’s the least I can do. You earned it.”

I watched blankly as she handed the egg off to a guard, exchanging it for a smaller black object. A pistol, my mind provided, as Tabitha leveled it at me. “Any last words?” she asked.

My gaze drifted back to the warden holding the silver egg, moving away down the stairs. The niggling itch in my mind burned, and I focused, pouring every last bit of energy into remembering. Trying to remember.

When it hit me, I felt an insane laughter bubbling up in me, bursting from my mouth so hard that I almost doubled over from the force of it. It was a terrible, dark thing, rolling out loudly onto the landing.

I looked up to see Tabitha’s alarmed expression as she took a prudent step back—bringing back a sudden memory of when I had kicked this woman in the face in the queen’s library. It only made me laugh harder, my hand going to my chest and fumbling with the edge of my pocket.

“Why are you laughing?” Tabitha asked, a nervous edge in her voice.

I met her gaze, and her eyes went wide as she surely saw the madness swirling in mine. Very softly, into the silence, I said, “You forgot to take the explosives off.”

A flood of unbelievable pleasure poured through me at the sight of Tabitha’s alarm morphing into panic as she turned, her mouth opening, presumably to order the guard to throw the egg away.

Then I clicked the detonator—the correct one—that I had slipped out of my shirt pocket, and the world went black.





38





Viggo





The stairs were a blur as I climbed them, following my instincts and the sound of voices on the top level. I was nearing the top, frantic to find Violet, when I was caught in a blast that threw me off my feet and knocked my head against the wall.

When I came to I was lying on the stairs, on my side, with my head pointed down and my arm folded under me. Black smoke filled the air, and I could dimly hear the desperate, agonized screams of people in terrible pain.

Dammit. I pulled myself up, ignoring the angry protest of my muscles. It took a phenomenal amount of effort, but somehow I managed to stagger to my feet. Just like any moment in the fighting ring, I reminded myself—but this time, if I failed, it was more than just one fight at stake.

Then I moved forward, putting one foot in front of the other. Debris was strewn across the steps, and the broken bits of concrete and dust crunched under my shoes. As I climbed, bigger obstacles cluttered my path, and I clambered over broken pillars and slipped on slanted tile.

Before me, my eyes took in a scene of carnage, smoking fires and rubble dispersed across the landing. The bannisters up here had been completely ripped away, and a few of the columns had been blown out of position. Some had fallen in massive, broken pieces to the floor, while others clung tenuously to the ceiling, bereft of their lower halves. The stairs seemed to have retained the integrity of a metal structure beneath the cracked tiles, but they wobbled alarmingly at times.

I took in a sharp breath, then regretted it as I realized there were bits of human bodies everywhere, too charred to fully recognize whom they belonged to. I stepped over the blackened husk of a body, searching, my eyes seeing everything except the one person I was looking for—Violet.

There was no sign of her here, and there were a thousand other places she could be. I looked back at the scorched body and then away again, not willing to acknowledge the possibility that it could be her. I redoubled my effort, moving bits of debris where I could and peering behind other massive ones when I couldn’t.

I found her lying behind a toppled column, on her stomach, her left arm reached out, her right folded under her in an awkward manner. Heart in my throat, I gently turned her over, wincing when I saw her condition.

Her face was covered in grime, and bright red blood trickled from her nose and her ears, as well as from a jagged gash running down her face. Chunks of her hair were gone, the charred ends indicating the heat of the blast was responsible. I could see blisters starting to form on her neck and leading down the left side of her chest, disappearing under the charred remains of her shirt. Her right wrist hung at an incredibly improbable angle, and the bandage around the same hand was filthy. Her left hand was coated in blood as well, though it looked like only from a slight cut.

My fingers found their way to her throat, pressing against the blistered flesh there. I tried to calm my breathing enough to feel a pulse beyond the pounding in my own veins, but there was nothing under my fingertips. Not even a weak bump for me to interpret. I moved my fingers and tried again, but Violet remained eerily still, her body unmoving.

No. I moved my hand over her chest, over her heart, and waited for something, anything, that would tell me she was still alive. Warm skin over empty stillness—nothing was beating in her chest. My eyes burned as I stared at her, unable to process the lack of a heartbeat. Despite the grime and blood on her face, she looked as though she could be sleeping, her face perfectly relaxed and still.

When it hit me, I screamed, my fury bellowing out across the landing. “Violet!” I shouted, shaking her limp form, unwilling to accept the truth. Her head lolled back and forth with a sickening resemblance to a rag doll, and I felt tears burning behind my eyes as I held her still form.

Not again, not again, not again, I thought as I clutched her to me, rocking her back and forth. The old, deep guilt got ahold of me, one that twisted in my gut as Miriam’s face flashed in my mind. I crushed Violet’s limp form to my chest, my head bowed, breathing in tight spasms, as if I could somehow pass my life force on to her. If I could, I would. I would do anything to stop this feeling, this aching hollowness growing larger again, swallowing Violet into the void that said my life had always been destined for this… that there was nothing, nothing I could do to save them. To save her.