The debts she’d lived through were nothing to what was ahead. I had to kill my father before that happened. Before he took her away from me. Nila hadn’t been told how many debts she had to pay and to be honest, I’d read paperwork where more were added and less were taken, depending on how bored or cruel my ancestors were.

The Fourth Debt was coming. But the Fifth Debt…

I shuddered.

That won’t happen. I would never let it happen.

Sighing, I forced happier thoughts and typed a message.

Unknown Number: Answer me. Tell me you’re okay. I’m okay. We’re both okay. I need to hear from you. I need to know you’re still mine.

I pressed send.

I STOPPED COUNTING time by hours.

One day.

Two days.

Three days.

Four.

Nothing had meaning anymore.

I thought the Hawks couldn’t hurt me once I’d sunk to their level and played their games. I thought I’d be safe to plot my revenge and hold on until Jethro came for me.

I was such a stupid, stupid girl.

Bonnie proved that over and over again. Breaking me into pieces, scattering my courage, burning my hatred until there was nothing left but dust. Dust and cinders and hopelessness.

Five days or was it six…

I no longer knew how long I’d existed in this hell.

It no longer mattered as they slowly broke my will, ruining my conviction that I could win. However, Jethro never left me. His voice lived in my ears, my heart, my soul. Forcing me to stay strong, even when I couldn’t see an end.

If it wasn’t for the passing of autumn into winter, I might’ve thought time stood still. The ticking of clocks was only punctured by pain. The passing of night and day only pierced by Bonnie’s whims and wishes.

I’m dying.

On my lowest moments, I thought I was dead. On my highest moments, I still fantasised about killing them. It was the only thing that got me through the hellish week they subjected me to.

My hate evolved into a living, breathing thing. There was nothing left but loathing.

What else was there to feel when I lived with monsters?

My mind often tortured me with thoughts of happier times…Vaughn and me laughing, of my father being so proud, of the sweet satisfaction I got from sewing.

I wanted this to be over. I wanted to go home.

Every time my thoughts turned to Jethro, I shut down. The pain was insurmountable. Every day, I stopped believing he’d survive and worried about the worst instead. In my rapidly unthreading mind, he was dead and I believed a lie.

Jasmine tried her best to keep me from the worst.

The Rack she’d denied.

The Judas Cradle she’d flat-out refused.

But there were others she couldn’t reject—she couldn’t disobey her grandmother, no matter that her eyes screamed apologies and our unspoken bond knitted tighter.

Jethro was no longer there. But Jasmine was.

And I learned to love and hate her for helping me.

Her help wasn’t love and kisses and tender stolen moments. No. Her help was selecting the punishment I was strong enough to survive, carving my soul out dream by dream, keeping me alive as long as possible to find some way out of lunacy.

The worst part of my punishment was Vaughn saw it all.

He witnessed what the Hawks did.

He knew now what I was subjected to.

His screams were what undid me; not Bonnie’s laughter or Cut’s smug chuckles—not even Daniel’s demented cackles.

Love was what ruined me the most.

Love was the ultimate destroyer.

But no matter how much I tried to let go…I couldn’t.

“Do you repent, Nila? Do you agree to pay the Final Debt?”

I squirmed in my bindings, choking on terror as Daniel marched me toward the guillotine. All around me stood ethereal figments of my exterminated family, their detached heads hovering above their corpses.

A wail howled over the moor. Was it death? Was it hope?

I would soon find out.

“No, I do not repent!”

Cut came toward me. His face was covered by an executioner’s black mask. In his hands rested a heavy gleaming axe, polished and sharpened and waiting to sever my neck.

Bending toward me, he kissed my cheek. “Too late. You’re already dead.”

“No!”

“Oh, yes.” Daniel chuckled. Shoving me forward, the guillotine grew from simple bascule and basket into something horrendous. “Kneel.”

I crashed to my knees, sobs suffocating me. “Don’t. Please, don’t. Don’t!”

No one listened.

Bonnie pressed my shoulders, forcing me to lean over the lunette and stare at the woven basket below. The same basket into which my head would roll.

“No! No! Stop! Don’t do this!”

“Goodbye, Nila Weaver.”

The axe swung up. The sun kissed its blade.

It came slicing down.

A bell woke me.

A tiny tinkle in the heavy swaddling of darkness. My heartbeat clashed with cymbals, and my hands swept up my throat. “No…” The diamonds still imprisoned me. My neck was still intact.

“Oh, thank God.”

I’m still alive.

Only a dream…

Or was it a premonition?

I coughed, chasing that question away.

My fever had brought many hallucinations over the past day or two: images of Jethro walking into my room. Laughter from Kestrel as he taught me how to jump on Moth. Impossible things. Desperately wanted things.

And also dread and dismay. The torturing didn’t stop when Cut had had his fun…my mind continued to crucify me when I was alone.