“Still…”
“There is no danger of my tactics reaching the public eye. The Sons’ abilities to propagate their message has been neutered,” the Jackal says. “I control the message now, Aja. The people know this war is already lost. They’ll never see a picture of the bodies. Never glimpse a liquidated mine. What they will continue to see is Red attacks on civilian targets. MidColor and highColor children dead in schools. The public is with us….”
“And if they do see what you’re doing?” Cassius asks.
The Jackal does not immediately reply. Instead, he signals a barely dressed Pink over from the couches in the adjacent sitting room. The girl, hardly older than Eo was, comes to his side and stares meekly at the ground. Her eyes are rose quartz, her hair a silvery lilac that hangs in braids down to her bare lower back. She was raised to pleasure these monsters, and I fear knowing what those soft eyes of hers have seen. My pain seems suddenly so tiny. The madness in my mind so quiet. The Jackal strokes the girl’s face and, still looking at me, shoves his fingers into her mouth, prying her teeth apart. He moves the girl’s head with his stump so I can see, then so Aja and Cassius might.
She has no tongue.
“I did this myself after we took her eight months ago. She attempted to assassinate one of my Boneriders at an Agea Pearl club. She hates me. Wants nothing more in this world than to see me rotting in the ground.” Letting go of her face, he pops his sidearm out of his holster and thrusts it into the girl’s hands. “Shoot me in the head, Calliope. For all the indignities I have heaped upon you and your kind. Go on. I took your tongue. You remember what I did to you in the library. It will happen again and again and again.” He returns his hand to her face, squeezing her fragile jaw. “And again.
Pull the trigger, you little tart. Pull it!” The Pink shakes in fear and throws the gun on the floor, falling to her knees to clutch his feet. He stands benevolent and loving above her, touching her head with his hand.
“There, there, Calliope. You did well. You did well.” The Jackal turns to Aja. “For the public, honey is always better than vinegar. But for those who war with wrenches, with poison, with sabotage in the sewers and terror in the streets, and nibble at us like cockroaches in the night, fear is the only method.” His eyes find mine. “Fear and extermination.”
Blood beads where buzzing metal pinches my scalp. Dirty blond hair puddles onto the concrete as the Gray finishes scalping me with an electric razor. His compatriots call him Danto. He rolls my head around to make sure he’s got it all before clapping me hard on the top of it. “How ’bout a bath, dominus?” he asks. “Grimmus likes her prisoners to smell nice ’n civil, hear?” He taps the muzzle they strapped to my face after I tried to bite one of them. They moved me with an electric collar around my neck, arms bound still behind my back, a squad of twelve hardcore lurchers dragging me through the halls like a bag of trash.
Another Gray jerks me from my chair by my collar as Danto goes to pull a power hose from the
wall. They’re more than a head shorter than I am, but compact and rugged. The lives they live are hard—chasing Outriders in the belt, stalking Syndicate killers through the depths of Luna, hunting Sons of Ares in the mines…
I hate them touching me. All the sights and sounds they make. It’s too much. Too gruff. Too hard.
Everything they do hurts. Jerking me around. Slapping me casually. I try my best to keep the tears away, but I don’t know how to compartmentalize it all.
The line of twelve soldiers crowds together, watching me as Danto aims the hose. They’ve got three Obsidian men with them. Most lurcher squads do. The water hits me like a horse kick in the chest. Tearing skin. I spin on the concrete floor, sliding across the room till I’m pinned in the corner.
My skull slams against the wall. Stars swarm my sight. I swallow water. Choking, hunching to protect my face because my hands are still pinned behind my back.
When they’ve finished, I’m still gasping and coughing around the muzzle, trying to suck in air.
They uncuff me and slip my arms and legs into a black prisoner ’s jumpsuit before binding me again.
There’s a hood too that they’ll soon jerk over my head to rob me of what little humanity I have left.
I’m thrown back into the chair. They click my restraints into the chair ’s receptacle so I’m locked down. Everything’s redundant. Every move watched. They guard me like what I was, not what I am. I squint at them, vision bleary and nearsighted. Water drips from my eyelashes. I try to sniff, but my nose is clogged tight with congealed blood from nostril to nasal cavity. They broke it when they put the muzzle on.