toward me, his cloak billowing behind him, his monstrous eyes promising an even more painful death than usual.
I took it one step further and stood on the crate that they would kick from underneath me. My hands moved to my back, and I stared at the executioner as he walked toward me. “I know where I’m going, and we all know where you’re going when it’s your time, which means our paths won’t cross again.” I pulled the saliva from my throat then spat down at him, hitting him right on the metal plate.
The spit dripped down until it fell to the earth.
He grabbed a piece of rope and moved behind me, securing my wrists in place, tying the rope unnecessarily tight just to hurt me.
I didn’t make a sound.
My heart rate was slow…for the first time since I got here.
Then he came back around and put the noose over my neck.
Melanie cried out again, and her friends silenced her the best they could.
I stared straight ahead, putting on a brave front, hoping to inspire these women into defiance.
Then he kicked the crate.
My body fell, and the noose constricted around my throat. My air supply was taken from me, and I swung slightly left and right. But my body hung limply, and I didn’t try to resist, even though it was the most unnatural thing to do.
Not to fight.
At some point, my lungs would heave and I would automatically struggle, but I’d probably be dead from his knife before then.
He unsheathed his knife from his pocket.
I could feel my face already turning blue.
I wanted it to end already.
I wanted the pain to start so it could end.
My eyes became blurry, and I could make out his withdrawn arm as he prepared to stab me.
Melanie wailed.
Then I heard a voice I thought I’d never hear again.
“Stop!”
The executioner lowered the knife and turned to Magnus.
“What the fuck are you doing?” His voice was loud and scathing, full of a rage so fierce that it couldn’t be subdued. I could feel the energy of his power, feel the way the guards responded to his outburst. “She’s our best worker. Why are you hanging the strongest woman on the line?”
“Because she’s a fucking cunt,” my current guard said. “That’s why.”
This rescue was about to be pointless because I was slipping out of consciousness.
Then my feet touched the crate…and I could breathe.
I gasped for air, like I’d died and come back to life, like I’d crashed and the doctors put those paddles against my chest and shocked me until I returned.
“She’s weak,” my guard continued. “She dropped a whole box of cocaine. She’s the slowest one on the line—”
“Because you starved her.” Magnus pulled out a knife then cut at the rope.
I fell forward, landing on the snow and earth. I coughed hard as I collapsed on the ground. A knife cut the ropes from around my wrists. I reached for my already swollen neck and continued to heave, yanking that air into my lungs so my heart rate would slow once the oxygen had been replenished in my blood.
“You starved her like you’ve done to the others.” He sheathed his knife but didn’t lean down to comfort me. He stood next to me, addressing the guard who now got in his face. “She’s my prisoner, and I know that she busts her ass every goddamn day. You poisoned her like you did to the others. We’ve all looked away up until this point, but no more. I won’t let one of the strongest lifters on the line die just because you can’t get a woman to suck your dick.”
The coughs subsided, and I lay there, just breathing, feeling the flames from one of the nearby torches.
The guard stared down Magnus before he backed off. “Then we’ll pick someone else—”
“There’s no Red Snow this week.” Magnus came over to me, and like last time I fell in the snow, he extended his gloved hand. “They’ve seen it enough times. They know how it goes. They’ve already seen the show.”
I stared at his hand for a few seconds before I placed my palm in his.
He squeezed it before he pulled me up, squeezed me the way Bethany squeezed me, like he wanted me to know he was there…that he was my friend.
12
Hero to One, Villain to All
When I made it back to the cabin, I immediately collapsed on the bed. I was already so weak to begin with since I hadn’t eaten in five days, but