Guillotine by Delilah S. Dawson

Author:Delilah S. Dawson [Dawson, Delilah S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Titan
Published: 2024-09-09T14:00:00+00:00

13

Four horses are still straining frantically, wildly, savagely in their own directions, perhaps not meaning to pull the rest of the body apart but doing it nevertheless in their haste to escape. What’s left of Grandmother looks like a prop, like a mannequin, like a prom dress stuffed with straw, except for all the blood.

Patrick has seen enough. He takes off down the long hallway at a full-on run, as if he’s forgotten Dez completely. Will follows him, but Genevieve stays where she is, hunched up out of sight, shaking, surrounded by green clumps of horse shit. The servants who aren’t tending the horses begin to walk toward the line of stalls, but not as if they’re hunting the Ruskins hiding here. Dez knows she can’t trust Patrick and his brother, knows that this is life or death and Patrick has chosen himself, but she also knows that he has knowledge of this island, this estate, that she doesn’t. He’ll know where to hide, and if there really are any weapons stashed away, he’ll find them and probably be better at using them.

She runs.

Now that she knows what the white shell path feels like on bare feet, she dreads the moment she’s out of the soft sawdust of the stables. Horses squeal and teeth snap from stall doors as she runs past, as if they are aroused by the blood in the air and can sense that she’s not supposed to be here, like they can smell her peasant lineage rising with the sweat of her fear.

Twilight is falling outside, but she sees Patrick and Will sprinting toward the garden, so she follows. They stick to the paths like programmed robots, but she is desperate and not trained to respect this place; she cuts through the softer dirt, leaping over the bigger bushes and trampling the flowers, avoiding the thorny roses. She wonders what will happen to Genevieve, if she’s too scared to move or has some other plan, but then she hears a scream from the stables, a high-pitched call of, “No! Please, no!” and decides she’s not going to turn around and find out.

Patrick and Will skid around a corner, changing direction, and Dez sees a man in pink walking toward them along the path, a long and jagged fish knife in his hand. The brothers are headed toward the pool now, and Dez angles to follow them. Something is different, something is wrong, her animal brain is clamoring for her attention, and then she understands why. She sees the smoke before she smells it, a single gray column rising lazily into the periwinkle sky. Patrick and his brother change course again; another man in pink is walking toward them from the house, holding a pair of gardening shears.

It’s almost as if…

They’re being herded?

Dez leaps over a row of flowers, wincing as her dress tears. For years, she’s longed to get her hands on a Versace, and now she has one, and it’s being destroyed by the simple act of surviving.

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