My mouth went dry, and my breathing picked up the pace as the blood drained from my face.
Judge Braxton gave no emotional response whatsoever. “That is the ruling of the council, hereby decreed by myself.” He gave us all another long look. “I suggest you prepare yourselves for the end.”
He turned and walked out, the gang of enforcers following him out until the last laser disappeared. Our cell door closed behind them, slamming shut any hope that had been left.
We were going to die in twenty hours.
Stiles couldn’t get to us that soon, even if he managed to be successful. This was happening. We were an abomination to the public, and they wanted us dead.
Even if we regenerated, we would never be found. We’d be lost at sea, forever trapped, with all hope gone.
I buried my face against my mates, and I cried.
Chapter 35
Our execution day was fucking sunny.
Mother Nature probably liked being ironic.
Beams of light beat down on our shackled bodies as we looked around. There was a pleasant breeze, carrying the scent of spring flowers and hope. It was bright—too bright. I wanted rain clouds and storms. I craved an icy chill to match the desolation in my soul. I wanted to hear thunder and lightning. I wanted the air to crack with the sound of my breaking heart.
Just like all the other hybrid executions, it was very public. We were standing in the middle of an outdoor arena that was usually used for vampire professional sports games. The entire place was packed. I guess the three of us had become celebrities in the supe world. Just not the kind of celebrity you wanted to be.
I heard one of the guards bragging that he bought his entire family tickets to the spectacle. Young children with eager eyes stared at us from their seats in the crowd. Grandmothers. Kids skipping school. Public figures. Collector would have loved to see everyone gathered for his creations.
My spider could smell the bloodlust in the air. Everyone was getting off on our impending suffering. Lusty venom dripped from the vampires’ fangs. Shifters could barely control their rabid animals. Elementals were tossing fire into the air, littering the sky with magic fireworks in celebration of their conquering.
The boos and hisses and hate were palpable throughout the arena. Our faces were shown on the massive screens and broadcasted to every other supe in the world who wanted to watch. They branded us as the enemy, marketing our deaths to hide the fact that most of the council wanted our gifts. I guess if they couldn’t have the unlimited power of our demons, no one could.
I was put in a black dress that wasn’t mine and didn’t fit right, while my mates stood at my sides, also dressed in black clothes that swallowed them. My red hair had been braided back by some mute shifter woman before we were herded outside, because I guess they didn’t want it in the way when they chopped my head off my body.
The three of us stood on a wooden stage that looked like it had just been built for this purpose alone. Our hands were shackled with steel chains. Sweat dripped down my spine from the anxiety and heat. I knew that this would be painful. I prayed that what the council did stayed, because I couldn’t imagine an eternity of suffering for my mates.
Judge Braxton was droning on into the microphone, listing our crimes. We’d been standing there for a while listening to them because there were a lot. Murder. Misuse of power. Conspiracy. Demon ritual involvement.
But when he got to the part about me using my lure to purposely make Oz aroused so that I could stop doing the rope climb in the training room, I don’t know what came over me. I just started laughing. Laughing so hard I couldn’t stop. I knew I was hysterical. I was terrified out of my mind. I was shaking harder than a leaf in autumn. I hadn’t slept, and I’d cried so much that my eyes were swollen nearly twice their normal size.
And now? I was finally snapping.
Everyone looked at me with wide eyes. I felt like a self-fulfilling prophecy, cackling on stage as tears of disappointment streamed down my blotted cheeks. They wanted a terrifying, manic hybrid, and I’d become that. I was at the point where I wasn’t sure who the fuck I was angry at anymore. Spector. The guards. The council. Myself. I was just angry.
There was so much going on in my mind. The loss of Risk, knowing my mates would be tortured, Aunt Marie... I was just devastated. I’d finally gotten to the point where the list of injustices was piled so high that it blocked the sun. All I could see was darkness.
All I could feel was the soul-crushing realization that it was always meant to lead to this. I was always meant to die. I was always meant to lose the people I cared about. I was always meant to be alone.
I drank in the look of my mates and reached out for my spider. I wanted to fight, I wanted to pull her from my chest and burn the world down with her protective fury. She couldn’t take on an arena of supes, but I wanted to go down fighting. I wanted to make them bleed.
But she had been noticeably complacent throughout the entire ordeal. Webs didn’t spill from my fingers, anger didn’t burn across the mark on my throat. I’d expected her to take over like she’d always done. I wanted to become the thing of nightmares, but she was nothing but a whisper in my soul. Waiting. Waiting. Maybe she had
