The Belly of the Beast

Ch. 74, The Admiral

The Admiral.

The Admiral was here.

No, the devil himself was here. This was hell and we'd finally arrived.

Then I turned to Dagger, to see the coldness in his eyes. The Admiral and Dagger were staring at each other... like they knew each other.

I was frozen, a mouse pinned beneath the talons of a hawk.

"Well, Dagger," the Admiral said the name like an insult, "Against all odds, I'm impressed. The people love you almost more than me. Even Aliyah would have been proud." His voice was different in person. Softer. Deeper. Even more terrifying.

Too late I realized where I'd seen those dark eyes before. . . and suddenly wondered how I had never put the resemblance together. No. Please, don't be what I think.

"Don't say her name," Dagger whispered.

They stared at each other. My heart rebelled against what I saw, but my mind betrayed me, drawing the comparisons, each one a stone of truth crushing me. Dag was taller, but with the same wide shoulders, the same shadowed yet deep eyes, the same sharp cut of the jaw....

Dagger was the Admiral's son.

Dagger was an A.

I'd been wrong the entire time. Dagger wasn't a disgraced guard, or some high letter who felt guilty for killing someone he loved— he was the man in line to become the next Admiral, literally the second most powerful person on the Beast.

Which meant whatever he'd done to be where he was now...

My mind ran into a dead end.

There was nothing he couldn't do. There was no rule he couldn't break.

The silence stretched out, until finally the Admiral gestured to the chairs beside him.

"Would you care to sit?"

"You didn't have to bring her here ," Dagger said, his mouth a thin white line. "This is between us."

A faint smile crimped the Admiral's lips. "I'm not the one who brought her into this. You are."

The Admiral took a few steps toward us, and I resisted the urge to run, gripping my knife in white knuckles. But then he settled in a leather chair, looking at the two of us with appraising eyes. "They said you'd teamed up with a Belly rat. I couldn't believe it. But then I started watching." His eyes flicked back to me and I resisted the urge to shrink back. "It's a shame Ali wasn't more like her. You might have finally had a real partner. Actually been the team the Beast needed. Then again—" He glanced at me and smiled, "— maybe there's still hope."

The following silence was the coldest I had ever felt, and Dag's voice, when he finally spoke, choked. "Don't talk about Ali."

The Admiral lifted a glass, staring at the amber colored liquid inside, then sighed. "I haven't come to lecture you. I've come to stop this silly charade. Come back to be my second. We will find another male and female team." I didn't know what he was talking about. All I wanted to do was take Dagger and leave.

But Dagger didn't seem to have any desire to leave. Instead, he stared at his father and said the damning words. "What happened to Level N?"

For the first time, the Admiral's eyes flickered. The accompanying silence was like the moment the machines stopped; a silence so absolute my bones ached.

Dagger broke it. "You killed them, didn't you? And you covered it up. Were you ever going to tell me?"

The teasing light disappeared from The Admiral's eyes, leaving only the chilling man I recognized from his rare projected announcements. Would he deny it? He twisted the cup in his hands, and then set it down, and looked Dagger dead in the eye. "I didn't want you to find out this way. But Ali— "

"Don't say her name!" Dagger screamed and I flinched away from him. He stared at his father, eyes growing wide, his lips twisting in rage. "She figured it out, that's what happened isn't it? She figured out the truth and you killed her. Here I thought it was my fault she was dead. That she tried to ascend without me. But it was you."

The Admiral's mouth twisted with disgust. "All those years of training we wasted on you both. When your mother had twins, I remembered thinking we'd been blessed by God. A male and female to compete together. The pair that might finally win and save us all." He shook his head. "Yet here we are. If you can't understand why Level N had to die, then you're an even bigger disappointment than your sister. You will never be worthy."

Dagger recoiled as if he'd been struck. I wanted to take Dagger's arm, to pull him away, but then the Admiral turned to me. "She might be though."

It was all I could do to keep my back straight. I don't want to be worthy of anything in your eyes.

Dagger's voice sounded cold and distant. "If there's nothing else, Admiral, we'll be going. We have the Top Letter Trial to prepare for. And luckily for us, you're not the one who chooses the worthy there."

The Admiral laughed, cold as a snake, cold as my heart. "You can't win. Not even with her. You might think you've become a new man, a dagger, but I know you're weak."

Dagger took my elbow, pulling me around and back to the door. The Admiral's voice rose, calling after us, "Before this is over, you'll understand what it is to be like me."

"I will never be like you," Dagger spun and spat out.

"Aren't you already? You both did whatever it took to survive."

Dagger swallowed, staring at him with pure hatred, and it was suddenly easier to see all the similarities between them. Physical only, I reminded myself. Dagger isn't his father. But Dagger's next words didn't help: "You're right. Maybe I am like you. But not Z. She's better than all of us."

"Then why does she wear Aliyah's necklace around her neck?"

Silence.

Dagger turned to look at me, the first look of surprise on his face, as I tried to process the Admiral's words. Aliyah, the name on the necklace. How did he know that? I pulled the necklace out slowly, watching as Dagger's eyes flickered to it, widening.

How did the Admiral know I had the necklace? I tried to think back to the past few days, to the guards and the women in my room, but it all blurred together. Had someone told him I had it? Why did it matter to Dagger? The Admiral watched me with something like triumph in his eyes. So instead I turned to Dagger, voice soft. "I found a woman in the Chute, and she gave me the necklace. She didn't tell me her name, but Aliyah was written on the side—"

Dagger interrupted me. "You found her?"

And now the Admiral stepped forward, talking over me. "You were right about one thing: Aliyah found out the truth about Level N. She went down to the Belly, to try and tell them. But they didn't want to hear what she had to say." The Admiral stepped forward, ripping the necklace from my neck, so violent and swift I recoiled as if he'd struck me. "Your little friend saw the chance to make some money, take her revenge— "

"No, that's not—"

He talked over me, drowning me out, speaking to Dagger. "She was raised to kill Androcles. Same as she did in the Tuv Pit, same as she'll do again. She won't hesitate to betray you again. She used you to survive, but you don't really know her."

Androcles. He just called Dagger Androcles.

And finally, with the force of a black star folding into itself and then exploding, I understood.

Dagger and his twin sister. Androcles and Aliyah.