They were so cold. Nothing more than skin and bones. Just like Sapphira . . .
Worse, they were stained with crimson, the spilled blood of her ordeal. Whatever that was. The blood dripped from her body, leaving a trail in her wake, a dark red path leading from the place of her earthly hell.
I closed my eyes. I wanted to run to Sapphira and free her. I wanted us to run away and start somewhere new. Go to some heavenly place where there was no pain, no blood. Where there was kindness, not cruelty.
But I knew of no such place.
The door closed; Meister and I were alone. I heard every breath we each took—his calm and smooth, mine fast and scared. I scanned the room, allowing my reddened eyes to drink in the scene. Strange tools hung on the walls; apparatus that I could not understand sat upon tables.
And then there was the chair.
I felt his eyes watching me, burning a hole into me where I stood. He moved beside me, a needle in his hand. Like it did every time, my skin reacted to the call of its master—the nameless potion that soothed my fiery blood.
An involuntary moan slipped from my lips as my body swayed in the direction of the needle. But Meister pulled it back from my reach and gripped my cheeks with one hand. “You disobeyed me,” he said darkly, his blue eyes filled with ire.
He approached, and for every step he took toward me, I took a step back. He was the hunter and I was the prey as he backed me farther into the room, his large body looming over mine.
My legs hit something, and I lost my balance, tumbling downward. Something hard broke my fall, and I slipped on something wet. Before I could react, I was sitting on a chair, reclining back. I tried to move, but Meister pinned my wrists and strapped them tightly to the chair. My hands throbbed as the blood fought to push through from my bound wrists.
My ankles were next. I glanced down, and I realized where I was. And what was wet beneath me. I chased vomit from my mouth as I watched my white dress become sodden with red blood.
Rachel’s still-fresh blood.
“No! Please!” I begged. Meister finished tying my ankles, ensuring I could not move. I struggled against my restraints, but it was hopeless. I was trapped.
“Meister.” I felt a teardrop leave the corner of my left eye and crash to the soiled leather beneath my body. He moved beside me, stroking my hair from my face. My eyes closed under his touch, but not in comfort.
It was in trepidation.
I did not know what was to come, but I knew it would stop me from getting to Sapphira. She needed me, and I would not be able to help her. I would not be able to help any of them.
Meister bent down and smiled at me softly.
“This place, as you so called it, is for the cause, the race war that is about to come.” My eyebrows pulled down in confusion. I had no idea what a race war even was. “I have spared you the truth, because I was trying to protect you.” He smiled, as though he were feeling something sweetly in his heart. “Because I love you, I have kept you from what happens in this town.” Meister’s face fell, and anger marred his features. “But you just had to disobey me, didn’t you, Liebchen? Because you’re a whore, and that’s what whores do. You cannot be trusted. And now, I must teach you to behave.” He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “I must eradicate what you have seen today from your weak mind. Take all of these new memories away.” He smiled. “I have a new serum I’ve been testing. Real potent shit. Makes all of these memories fade to nothing, never to be recalled again.” He stroked my face so gently. “I’m gonna give it to you, and it’ll work. Soon you’ll remember nothing of this night. It will be as if it never happened. A clean slate.”
“No!” I shouted. I did not want to forget. I needed to remember she was here. That she was not safe. That I needed to save her from this hell. I could not be thrust into darkness, my memories stolen, never to be recalled. She would perish. The pain, the fear she would endure . . .
He ignored me. Taking a knife from his pocket, he ran the sharp blade down the front of my dress, severing it in two. He pushed the material aside, exposing my body to his eyes.
Then in a flash, his hand was at my throat, his tight fingers starving me of breath. His face encroached on mine. “If you want to be treated like the rest of the sluts in this town, then you fucking will be. Only you’ll be my slut. And I will school you to our ways here. I will break you like I have broken them. Own your pussy like I own theirs.” He loosened his grip as he reached into his pocket with his other hand and pulled out the needle my veins so heavily craved.
Meister injected the vial of potion into my arm, then another, then another. I floated away. I watched, detached, as he crawled above me, released his manhood from his pants and slammed himself inside me. I watched from my perch on the ceiling as he gagged me and sliced his blade across the flesh of my stomach, letting my blood fall to the already-soiled ground.
And I closed my eyes as the potion took me to the forest I longed for most, the one where my Rebekah and Grace waited. The one where Sapphira walked out of some overgrowth, covered in blood. I cried out at her too-thin body and lifeless eyes.
“Sapphira.” I tried to get to her. But I was tied to a tree, my hands behind my back. Sapphira saw me, and tears fell down her face. “Save me,” she begged as she began to fade away.
As the potion engulfed my veins, I watched her fade from the forest, then begin to disappear from my head, shape by shape, image by image. I tried to remember her face. I tried to hold on to the fact that she was here. But the potion mixed with this new mystery serum grew stronger than ever before, robbing me of Sapphira’s cries, her tears, her face.
I rocked against the tree, back and forth, trying to recall what I had begged my mind to remember. But the forest was barren and dark, and my head was too full of fog. I was alone in this forest. Alone and afraid.
I wanted to remember.
I needed to remember.
But as my arm tingled and I became motionless against the tree, everything was just . . . gone.
Chapter Three
AK
“I’ve created a background on y’all,” Tanner said as we read the files he’d given us. “I placed your information on the Klan’s intranet and shared files. There’re millions of people on there, so you’ll be lost among the names. I made you mid-level members—you should be let in, but not cause too much intrigue.”
I read my file again. Tanner had us as originally part of the Louisiana brotherhood. Cowboy’s Cajun accent would help with that. We were nomadic Klansmen, apparently. I hadn’t even known there was such a thing. Meant we drifted from state to state, helping the Klan “cause” wherever we were needed. Mobile soldiers.
&n
bsp; “And this Beau Ayers, our supposed reference?” I asked. “Take it he’s a relative of yours?”
Tanner tensed. “My brother,” he eventually said, casually, as if the relationship meant nothing to him. But the way veins corded slightly in his neck told me otherwise.
“Let me guess, y’all ain’t too close now you’ve left the great white cause?” Cowboy drawled, as Hush watched the ex-Nazi with suspicious eyes. He ain’t ever trusted him fully. Couldn’t really blame the guy.
“Don’t speak no more,” Tanner said stiffly. “He was next in line to me. So now he’s the heir. He has top authority in the Klan circles along with my father and uncle. But he keeps to himself, ain’t too talkative. Signs off on orders through emails and shit. Perfect person to have given you the green light to head down here to Texas.”
Tanner leaned on the table, all business, emotion gone. “You show them your names on entrance. They’ll check them in the system, verify the memberships. You say you just got into town and need to unwind. And you want pussy. I’d go as far as to say you want pussy in all the fucked-up ways.”
I ground my hands together as I tried to imagine what kind of shit was going down in this so-called town. Tanner’s eyes shifted to each of us in turn. “Y’all got fake names. Remember them. Don’t use your road names—if all this goes down right and you get the bitch the fuck out, we want no traces.” Tanner’s assessing eyes flicked to Flame beside me. He was staring at the name on the file on front of him: Earl Brown.
I could read what was going through Tanner’s mind; it was going through mine too. We weren’t sure the brother was cut out for all this undercover shit.
“Carson Abney,” Tanner said to me. “Same background. Ex-Marine scout sniper, Special Ops. Same tours as you did. Means they can’t get your real records, so it works as our cover. Vike is Wade Bray, and Cowboy, Bryar Groves.”
Tanner looked at Hush. Hush stared back, one cocky eyebrow raised. “What? No white-trash redneck pseudonym for me, mon frère?”