Pawn (The Pawn Duet #2) - T.M. Frazier Page 0,10

out his phone. “Don’t worry, boys. I’ve got this one covered.” He steps out into the hall with his phone to his ear. He closes the door, but we can still hear his muffled voice on the other side along with a loud meow.

“Oh, hey kitty-kat. Do you want to join my Quidditch team? Hey, it’s Prep,” he says to the person on the other line. “Well, hello to you, too, you fucking ray of black sunshine. No, wait! Don’t hang up. I need your help. Well, I might need your help. Fuck you, I don’t fucking like you either. Was kind of hoping you wouldn’t answer on the account of accidentally blowing yourself up or some shit. Regardless of what others might say, I don’t find you the least bit attractive. As a matter of fact, I think you’re pretty gross. Okay, no wait. I’m sorry. I do think you’re mildly pretty, but only when you’re not around me. No, fuck, listen! I got a possible job for you, and I promise we can throw knives at each other when it’s all done, and everyone is dead. No, you don’t get to choose the knives. Okay. Of course, I’ll sanitize them beforehand. What kind of fucking monster do you take me for?” His footsteps and voice fade as he makes his way down the stairs.

Nine looks at the door, shaking his head. He frowns. “If Mickey really turns out to be one of them?” He doesn’t need to elaborate. He’s asking me if I’m willing to carry out the plan and do what needs to be done when the time comes. He’s asking me if it comes down to it, will I be able to kill Mickey.

The thought makes me fucking sick, but the reasons why I’d have to kill her make me feel even sicker.

I look my oldest friend in the eye and tell him the painful fucking truth.

“If she’s one of them…she will die like one of them.”

3

Mickey

Our activities in the Fourth Reich weren’t real. That’s what I grew up believing anyway. Sure, we were there every summer, but our presence and participation were thought to be merely a joke between both scholars and family.

A shared understanding that our membership was for the greater good. For education. To better the world through the information my father was gathering.

To better understand hate.

But what my sisters and I viewed as outsiders trespassing into a dark world for the sake of knowledge, wasn’t a lie after all. The only lies were the ones my father told in order to get my family to participate. He was a founder. Nine showed me the picture of him and Darius. Together. Smiling. Proud of what they created together. To my father it was all real. To the members of the Reich––to Darius, Percy and my father––it is all real.

I was just too far removed to see it before, but now, glaring at the Fourth Reich brand on my shoulder in the mirror, and thinking about all of the other symbols of hate lining the walls of the compound. Percy’s tattoos. The hateful chants. My sister in a cage.

My stomach rolls.

Leaning over the toilet, I pull my hair out of the way just in time. I aggressively purge the contents of my stomach over and over again. If only it was this easy to purge the contents of my soul, sending the dark parts away forever with a simple flush.

Papa was living his truth while the rest of us were caught up in his hateful life of lies. I know why he lied. My mother, who opted to stay at home rather than use her Harvard law degree, would have never participated in this kind of hatred, but she would never back down from an experiment, especially when it could possibly mean a better and less racist world in the end.

The person I looked up to most in the world was a fucking hateful monster.

Just when I think my stomach is empty, it rolls again. I throw up until I taste bile.

I can’t just kill Darius and Percy. Not now. Not while my sister is here somewhere. It’s too risky. I won’t risk her life like Papa risked ours.

I flush the toilet and wipe my mouth with a towel. When I come out of the bathroom, the image of my father is standing at the foot of my bed, waiting for me.

“You lied to me,” I accuse.

Papa looks to the ground and then to