In Silence She Screams (Midnight Mayhem 3)

My fingers flex around the poles in the cell, my eyes still closed from trying to block out that memory. The last time I was down here in my pen because I tried to make sure to never do anything to make them second-guess me again.

“Lilith!” That voice snapped my eyes right open.

“Cartier?” I clench the poles tightly. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“They took me!” She waves her arms around the place, before pausing her pacing and running her fingers through her teal hair to move it out of her face. “Why would they take me?”

I spin around and start checking the other pens.

“Lilith! Don’t you fucking dare leave me here!” she calls out loudly from The Pen, but I ignore her until I know we are alone. I worked hard to gain the kind of trust that is needed to be able to walk freely around Patience. Now this little shit is going to ruin it.

Or would she…

I pause, slowly making my way back to her cell. I could just kill her and throw her into the ocean. No one would even know I did it. Wait. I squeeze my eyes closed, backing up until I hit the opposite cell. Why the fuck would it matter if people knew I killed her?

People. I say people, but am I meaning Kyrin? And Eli?

Fuck. No, no, I do not. This is a normal side effect from not being here for so long.

“Perse said you were a fucking psychopath, just didn’t realize how bad…”

I open my eyes slowly, tightening the robe around my waist so I don’t slip a tit to her in the midst of this craziness. “First of all, puppet, I’m not a fucking psychopath. Don’t insult those who do suffer with the mental health condition. I am created, not born this way.” I glare at her. “Which is much worse because I’m not this way through hereditary, I’m this way by choice.” Tilting my head, I think over all the different ways I could kill her. I don’t particularly like killing women, though I was tested with Persephone, but women are different for me. We are the same species, and one has never wronged me—ever. Ironic, since I ended up in bed with not one, but two men.

“Then you’d be more perfect for my brother than you know.”

I chuckle at this, crossing my leg over the other. “That’s where you’re wrong. I’m worse.”

Cartier slides closer to the cell door until I see her peek through what little light we get down here. “No, he’s your match. If you think he’s not going to come here to save me and kill you and every single person in this fucked-up world, then let me give you a hint of the kind of man my brother is.”

Cartier turns, raising one knee and resting her elbow on it while reaching for a packet of cigarettes that has been discarded across the ground. She lights the end. I didn’t know she smoked. She coughs through the cloud, banging on her chest. I roll my eyes. Because she fucking doesn’t. In three seconds flat from meeting Cartier you would be able to figure out that she has been sheltered all her life. She’s beautiful, sure, but she has a kind of wildness in her eyes that can only come from safety. People who have been through what I have know that we don’t have the pleasure of being free. “When I was twelve years old, he killed a man. It was his first kill, and the first time I ever saw a body. He had always been protective over me, but that was the first time I saw the extent of it. I mean, don’t get me wrong, The Brothers aren’t known to be soft. In fact, their body count is pretty high now, but this time was different.”

“How so?” She has my attention.

“There was a man…”

“There always is,” I growl, shuffling into a more comfortable position.

Cartier gives me a small smile. It was fleeting, as if she forgot who I was and why she’s here. “No, this one was bad. Older. He tried to kidnap me. We didn’t know why, just that he was desperate to do it. He didn’t get far. Kyrin found me gagged and tied in a foreclosed mansion in the suburbs by hacking into some weird database. He didn’t even wait for the rest of The Brothers to come for backup. He just jumped on his bike and kicked the door down, an AK in one hand and a machete in the other.” She takes a deep breath. “He sliced into that man like he was butter, and he didn’t flinch once. I didn’t stop screaming until Keaton took me home to shower and tucked me into bed that night. We never spoke about it again, but Lilith, he dismembered a man for simply taking me and I was unharmed. What do you think he’s going to do when he finds me here, on enemy grounds, caged by you and this fucked-up organization?”