The Belly of the Beast

Ch. 75, A killer

I killed the only person who ever loved me. Dagger thought that he was responsible for her sister's death, Aliyah, or Ali, the woman I'd found in the Chute. Aliyah sent me to find her brother. She must have believed that Dagger alone, the next in line and the Admiral's blood heir, had the power to sway the Admiral, and keep him from killing another level. She had died trying to bring him the truth. But Dagger had already entered the Letter Trials by then, believing himself at fault for her death.

The man I'd been looking for had been my partner this entire time.

I didn't even see the guards before they grabbed me.

"No! Dag! That's not— wait!" I thrashed and fought, but the sight of Dagger, unmoving before his father undid me. Like the beast I'd finally become, I buried my teeth into the guard's hand, and when he cried out, buried my knife in his shoulder and ripped it free, surging back to Dagger. Another guard caught me before I reached him.

"Dagger! Please, listen to me! He's lying to you!" I thrashed as I was forced to my knees, but I didn't stop speaking. "I found her in the Chute, and I tried to save her. She gave me the necklace, she told me to give it to you. She believed in you Dag— "

A fist to the stomach bent me double, but I clung to the knife, fighting like a wild thing until a single commanding word froze the room.

"Stop."

It wasn't the Admiral.

It was Dagger, his voice as cold and powerful and commanding as his father's. Suddenly I was back in the Tuv Pit, watching a dark-eyed warrior, an angel of death, pace forward.

For the second time, I wondered if he came to kill me.

"Dagger," I whispered. "It's not true. You know me." Did he though? Did I even know myself? Because even if I hadn't killed Aliyah, the Admiral was right: I was a killer.

Behind him, the Admiral stepped closer, a dark smile on his lips as Dagger tore the bloody knife free from my hands. I didn't have it in me to stop him, or fight him. I was at his mercy. Maybe I always was.

He lifted the bloody knife, staring down at me on my knees before him.

"Live in the Beast..." he whispered, hands trembling.

Dagger, please. . . But the words didn't come. All I could do was stare at him, at this man who'd fallen into darkness. A man who, too late, I realized I loved.

I loved that he fought to be a better man than the one he was born to be. I loved that he was proof that we could choose a different path than our letter demanded. I loved that he'd chosen me, a Z, when he could have had anyone else.

But love wasn't enough to save Yana.

It wasn't enough to save Nuka or Xyla.

And now, it wasn't enough to save me.

The Admiral stepped closer, smile widening, and I forced myself to see only Dagger, to remember the good in him, even in this last moment of darkness.

"Die in the Beast," he said, and then twisted and plunged the knife down.

Straight into the Admiral's neck.