Page 27 of Born for Silk
Or that piece of me might float down the drain. I don’t know what I’m doing. I grab my forearm, displaying the tattoo, twist my head away, and close my eyes.
A cold blade presses in and slides under my skin, curling the flesh and fat from my muscles, burning a trail so intense it sends violent noises up my throat.
I try to keep quiet, but it hurts, and a real groan crawls along my tongue before I can stop it.
I quickly mutter, “I’m sorry.”
But it is too late.
“Wait. What the fuck?” One of the men is awake, but we are still hidden in the shadows of the large room. “Where is she, you damn fool!”
On a mission, I grab the slice of flesh, perfectly removed—a strip branded by The Trade—and move to the drain. I squat, shoving it between the grates. It disappears under the building and out of sight.
Fat is less dense than water… It might float. It has to float. Float all the way to the dam or irrigate yards that are managed by Trade men. They will see the sigil; they’ll alert someone. It is a wildly arbitrary plan, but it is all I have.
I look down at my wrist, a shiny strip missing, the raw, bloody flesh screaming in the exposed air. My head spins. I lose my fight against the nausea. It swoops in, my muscles loosen, knees buckle, and I drop straight to the floor.
“Your tongue can’t be trusted, little girl. Let’s take it off for you. It gets you in so much trouble.”
His threat rattles between my ears moments before a black silence swallows my world.
Chapter Five
Rome
Odio screeches above me.
Blood mists the air. On my right shoulder, orange first-light filters through the dark skies.
I stride across the dry range littered with twitching bodies, using my steel-capped boot to push them from my path.
My hood flaps in the wind.
Arid, hot air cuts across the sea from the north, carrying the scent of death, decay, and victory. Air that travelled The Strait, picking up the sharp notes of fish and boat oil. The invaders made it to the shore at Breaker Ledge, such a remarkable feat. They should be proud.
Only to be killed on the desert sand.
Holding my automatic rifle, I stride up the hill wanting the epic view of carnage. My thigh muscles burn, my lungs rattle. It’s been a long night.
“Spare me,” a weak voice says, and I stop halfway up the rock. The tip of my boot dusts the side of a Common man’s face. Eyes wide with terror, blood flowing like a fountain around a bullet in his throat, but still very much alive.
I hover, giving him a final breath before I step onto his head, popping his skull against the hard red crust of The Cradle. “Meaningful Purpose starts in the womb.”
I reach the top of the desert plateau, the wind threatening me, but I am too fucking big to be swept over. To be thrown backward. To be controlled.
I look out over the desert range, through the sand-mixed gale, and distinguish the grey shapes that represent bodies. Hundreds of them. And further in the distance, their cargo ship wedged on the shore, cutting the red sand open. Everything is red in the waste.
Moments ago, screams of pain, automatic rifles running and rattling, and wails for aid pierced the atmosphere. A continuous thunderstorm of chaotic noise.
Now, silence rides the wind.
Only the phantom of war stirs.
“You’re wounded, Sire.”
I touch my shoulder, feed my fingers through the leathers to a warm, wet spot and poke it. I barely feel the bullet hole, not above all the other senses sparking with action.
I smile coldly. Perhaps, I’ll leave it there. Like my father did, claiming all the silvery lead inside his body like trophies for his tissue.