The Book of Olivia by Paxton Summers

Author:Paxton Summers [Summers, Paxton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: After Glows Publishing

8

One set of boot steps, with purpose to the stride. Shouts of attention echoed down the corridor. Marcus approached. I didn’t have to see him to know. In the short time I’d known him, I’d learned a lot. Whatever he had to say, he wanted to say it alone. No others accompanied him. The thing I wasn’t certain of—had Marcus come to speak to me, or did he plan to visit his brother?

The spikes embedded in the soles of his boots clicked against the stone tile in the detention center corridor. They were the boots that kept him and his men on their feet in the muddy terrain of the forest. I’d seen them on dead soldiers and had eyed them with envy, never able to find a pair in my size, and when Marcus finally gave me a pair, they were confiscated by Axel before they ran me off. Now, they served as an ominous warning. I reached up and touched my lips, remembering the kisses we’d shared, and shivered at the thought of what it would be like on the wrong side of his temper.

I was exhausted and barely able to focus. I’d been up all night trying to block Pilot, who seemed to get off on tormenting me. “Olivia,” he’d sung out. “What are you doing?”

“None of your business.”

“Are you crying?”

“No.” I’d wiped the tears from my cheek, horrified he’d guessed right. “I never cry.”

Laughter. “Do you want to know a secret, Olivia?”

“Leave me alone.” I plugged my fingers in my ears, not wanting to hear what Pilot had to say, certain it wouldn’t be anything good.

“Marcus is using you to get to the clone. He doesn’t care about you. He’ll fuck you. Use you, but, eventually, when he gets what he wants, he’ll execute you.”

I bit my lip, not willing to believe it. He couldn’t, wouldn’t do that. I’d seen something in his eyes. Perhaps if I ignored Pilot, he’d shut up. “That’s not true.”

“Spy. You are a spy, and I will prove it.” He began to list traitors and incidents of treason, going so far as to tell me what happened when they were caught. Chopping off their heads, crushing them under a heel. He went through every manner of horrible death I could imagine and then some I hadn’t. All left ugly images in my head like a bad aftertaste. On and on he went, until I thought I’d go mad. “Do you know what a guillotine is?”

“No.”

Laughter. Creepy cackling that had me rubbing my arms. “You wouldn’t be the first wife to have her head removed.”

“Shut up!”

“Do you know what else you are, Olivia? Oh, I know a secret. Daddy’s deep dark secret he thought he’d kept hidden. Do you want to know what it is?” He chuckled.

“No,” I whispered. Whatever that man had to say would certainly be a lie. I’d heard enough through the night. “Leave me alone.”

The boot steps stopped outside the door to my cell. “Open it and leave us,” Marcus’s voice rang out from the other side, letting me know I’d run out of time.

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