says again, slowing his step to look at me. “But sadly, he had morals. That will never do in this job. So he had to die.”
I ball my fists and grit my teeth. “You killed him.”
Very slowly, he reaches into his pocket and pulls something out, lifting it close to my face so I can see what he’s holding.
“No, Mackenzie. You did. Remember?” The necklace dangles from his fingertips, and my eyes immediately find the gold M with fourteen diamond chips.
I can’t breathe. I can’t move. “How did you—”
“Oh, child, that was an easy accident to arrange. You merely helped us by setting up the situation. Jarvis would have gotten your brother in the basement of that pharmacy. He was right there the whole time, shopping and watching you.”
Hate and resentment and the unyielding need to destroy him bubble up in me and make me quiver. He laughs.
“Here, take it. You can wear it when you die.” He shakes the necklace and I reach for it, closing my fingers over what has been the symbol of my brother’s death for two years.
He steps back as a noise on the floor pulls my attention. Very slowly, the stone beneath us begins to disappear, rolling away like some kind of conveyor belt, leaving a huge, gaping hole.
Deftly, Rex presses against the wall and I do the same next to him, gagging as a disgusting smell rises up.
“Odor mortis, as you linguists would say.”
The smell of death.
He waves the gun toward the hole. “As I mentioned, sometimes we have to do things the old-fashioned way. So, down you’ll go, where some others have gone before you. I’d love to have you be Josh’s first true test, but we simply don’t have the time to arrange that. So … go.”
There’s nothing down there but blackness. Endless blackness.
“It’s a long drop with a lot of jutting stones,” he says as calmly as if he’s describing a walk on the beach. “Your bones will be broken by the time you hit bottom. You’ll be dead before long, I assure you.”
All the air is whooshing from my lungs and my whole body starts to shake. I don’t want to die this way. I don’t want to die any way, but definitely not this horrible, horrible way.
“We got this from the ancient Romans, too. No one knew about this form of killing until archeologists found the broken bones and, trust me, no one will know about this under my house for two thousand years, either. Now it’s your turn, Kenzie.”
The ancient Romans. For the first time, I remember the quadrant. I slip the necklace into my pocket and my knuckles brush the weapon.
“No!” I flatten against the wall. “I won’t.”
He lifts the gun. “You prefer to die first? I suppose I could grant you that, though I pride myself on never having to use a gun.”
My fingers squeeze the quadrant, meant to make a man’s knees buckle. If his knees buckled …
How can I do it? I have to get down, low enough to get to his knees … almost in that hole. I close my eyes, visualizing the video clip I’d seen of the gladiator using the quadrant and how it had to fit just under a victim’s knee.
“Don’t shoot me,” I say quietly. “I’ll just … go.”
He lifts a brow. “Think you can outsmart the system, Mackenzie? Drop down slowly, maybe not break a bone, escape somehow?”
The foul smell roils my stomach. “Yes,” I say.
“Fine.” He waves the gun. “Go.”
I consider jumping him, going for the gun, trying to push him in, but he’s a trained assassin. I’m a sixteen-year-old Latin nerd. And only a Latin nerd would know how to use this quadrant.
Very slowly, I crouch down. There’s not quite a foot of space around the hole, and the smell makes me dizzy. He doesn’t seem to mind. Of course not: this killer loves odor mortis.
I get on my haunches.
“Down, Mackenzie.”
I bend over like I’m going to jump, inching a little closer to his legs. Then I turn so he can’t see my hand, very slowly inching out the metal quadrant.
“Jump!”
“I will.” My hands are shaking, the palms wet with sweat. I have to do this. I have to hit him directly below the kneecap, in the soft tissue. The right spot, and he collapses. The wrong spot, and I’m dead. After I lie with broken bones in an underground graveyard.
“Now.”
“Right …” I inch my hand back. “After …” I suck in a breath. “You!”