Emerge: The Captive: (Book 3)(68)

“You will pay for the life of my child.” Naeemah stalked her.

“I have an important job to do,” Sasha insisted. She reluctantly retrieved her weapons. She would rather die than be forced to kill her mother, but Sasha’s work wasn’t complete. She had a mission. She would not fail.

“You? You’re nothing. Nothing at all next to my powerful son. Is that why you killed him? Petty jealousy?”

“No, Mother,” Sasha said calmly. “I loved him like my own twin.” She gave herself over to the fight, letting her body perform the job her mind couldn’t fathom.

Naeemah’s body joined Aidan’s. The bodies continued to pile up as Sasha fought the people she loved most in this world. They kept coming for her and her sense of urgency to escape grew with each opponent she faced. Her brother, Darius. Her father. Uncles. Imogen. Allie. Chloe. Graham. Everyone she’d ever loved came for her, spouting the most terrible lies as they tried to kill her. So many times, Sasha wanted to give up and let them have her. But her body refused to fail the mission that had been set before her.

She stumbled in the darkness, her arms slick with the blood of her family. Her voice broken from the screams that tore her throat raw until it bled.

As the smoke began to clear, Sasha fell in a heap among the bodies she’d slain. The ground still warm with their blood.

She stared up at the moon, her energy spent. She watched the clouds scuttle across the sky. The cool breeze chased the scent of sulfur away, replacing it with the scent of flowers.

“The gardens are so pretty at night.”

“Shhh, angel.” Jayesh stood over her now. “You’re okay; it was just the wine. Come back to me, Sasha.” He pulled her to her feet, gently slapping her face, but she couldn’t see past the visions of her dead family.

“I killed them.” She swayed on her feet.

Jayesh swept her up in his arms. “It’s alright,” he whispered. “It’s over now.”

“I killed Quinn. I love him. I should have let him kill me and then none of this would have happened. They’d all be safe. Why did I do it, Jayesh? Why? Am I a monster?” Her voice cracked as she sobbed into his shoulder.

“No, angel, you’re not the monster here. I am for making you do this.”

~~~

Sasha’s head throbbed as the effects of the wine began to wear off in the hours just before dawn. She stared at the ceiling as Imogen lay beside her, stroking her hair, still damp with sweat and blood.

“It wasn’t real?” she whispered.

“No, sweetie. They were phantoms, conjured by one of the monks in residence here. The wine causes the confusion. It makes you forget everything except the need to fight for your life. To respond as you have been trained.”

“In my mind … they were all mortal and I really killed them. Our family.” Sasha sniffed back a fresh wave of tears. “I just don’t understand. Why? What was the point?”

“This is what it means to become an assassin, Sasha. You must experience this night again and again and again. You will face those phantoms, forgetting you’ve done it before. Forgetting your immortality. Forgetting theirs. You will fear death. Theirs as well as your own. Every single night until you can survive the experience without an emotional response. You will kill your family and those you love over and over and over until you learn to shut off your emotions and follow the instincts of your body, leaving the madness of your mind behind you. When you can walk out of the experience on your own two feet, you will have conquered ankathari and can move on to the final phase of verumkai.”

“How many times did you kill our mother?” Sasha whispered.

“I slayed our mother’s phantom more than one thousand times,” Imogen said sadly.

Sasha buried her head on her sister’s shoulder and sobbed.

~~~

“Sasha, you need to eat. You’re getting too thin,” Jayesh said.

“I’m not hungry.” She shoved the plate of fruit away. Even the sight of it made her sick.

“You need your strength for tonight.”

“Please don’t remind me.” Her eyes filled with tears. Perhaps some people were built for this kind of training, but Sasha wasn’t one of them. It was more than she could bear.

“Have you been sleeping at all?”

She shook her head. “Every time I close my eyes I see them. Dead or dying. Blood everywhere. I can’t do this, Jayesh.”

“We have to get through this. We’ve come this far.”

“We? What do you mean, we? I’m the one down there every night, killing my family.”

“And I’m the one watching you do it, Sasha. I’m the one forcing you to drink the wine every night. You don’t remember, but some nights I have to pour it down your throat.” His voice shook as he slammed his fist against the stone pillar. “And I’m the one who carries you out of there every night. I’m doing this to you. And if it were up to me, I’d end it now. But I am powerless against this. I’ll never be able to convince the Senate that just because your ability is attractive to them, it doesn’t make you a born assassin. They don’t care. I’m afraid we are stuck here until we can both get through the night without cracking. Do you even know how many times I’ve pulled you out of there simply because I couldn’t bear to watch you scream for another minute?”