Their Vicious Games(47)

“A towel,” Saint says softly. She’s not nearly as soaked as I am. Her face is dry, but her hair is still in a wet ponytail at the nape of her neck and she is wrapped in a robe. She holds a matching one over one arm for me.

“Thanks,” I rasp, voice sore from the screaming and rough waters that I swallowed on my way across the river. I wipe the towel over my face, hoping that the remaining dregs from the river covered my tears. I take a deep breath, inhaling the scent of fresh laundry, before I finally let the towel fall into my lap and see who else made it.

Penthesilea is here, of course, standing next to Third, a bottle of water in hand like she’s just finished a gentle warm-up. Saint is with me. Esme and Hawthorne are huddled farther down the grass. Esme can’t even hide her disappointment to see me alive. Leighton is watching, approval in every line of her body, and then there’s Graham. Graham, who stares at me with relief, and the urge to cry, Thank you, thank you, catches in my throat.

Saint holds out her hand to me and she pulls me up. She doesn’t bother to ask me if I’m okay. She knows I’m not. She’s not. I can see that for once she’s almost shaken, and I wonder what it must have been like, caught in the thick of riders like Esme and Penthesilea.

I avoid having to say anything to her because the sound of hooves grows louder, confirming I didn’t finish last, though the ranking barely seems to matter at the moment. I clench my hands into fists to stop the violent flinch that rockets up my spine. I turn on the defensive and watch as a waterlogged Hannah G enters. She looks satisfied for someone who’s come in sixth, and I don’t have to wonder why. She’s the only Hannah now.

And then comes Jacqueline, lying flat on her horse’s back, her face flushed bright red with exertion.

I take an unsteady step backward and then another, stumbling, my shoulder crashing into Saint’s as Jacqueline slides from her horse, and she has the gun and it’s pointed right at me. Her eyes are so wide that they’re nearly bugging out of her face, and her bottom lip is split, the pink aftermath of blood staining her chin like cherries.

“YOU TRIED TO DROWN ME, I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU, WALKER,” Jacqueline screeches, her voice distorting into something demonic.

Someone blurs past me, soft blue linen and perfectly curled blond hair, and Leighton grabs Jacqueline by the wrist and twists so hard that Jacqueline screams in pain, dropping the gun. Leighton releases her, just as quick, and Jacqueline stumbles back, cradling her wrist to her chest and whimpering.

“Miss Moriarty, you are embarrassing yourself,” Leighton says coldly. “The Ride has finished.”

Jacqueline lets out a cracked sob, eyes welling with tears. She looks around, first at Leighton and then at the other Remingtons, willing them to understand her rage, all this rage. Graham is still watching me, but Pierce looks at her, his upper lip curled, his nose wrinkled. It’s an easy look to read—disgust.

“But she tried to drown me. She wanted to kill me,” Jacqueline accuses, which is ironic given the gun she was brandishing. But Leighton lifts her chin, looks at me, and deliberately says, “Good girl.”

I squeeze my eyes shut. I don’t want to hear that. I don’t want to look at her. I don’t want to be called good for doing something so fucking awful that I never wanted to do.

After that, we wait in silence for the rest. Reagan Mikaelson comes across only five minutes later.

We wait twenty more minutes. No one else comes.

And I know what that means.



* * *



The bruises along my side look like a bouquet of flowers, blooming roses and deep moon-purple carnations rippling along my skin. I never thought skin as deep brown as mine could bruise like this. My bruises have always been dark, violent things, but these bruises are almost beautiful. Like the smell of the Ride, floral and gore.

I hide them beneath satin, and suddenly, it’s like they were never there in the first place. Except, with each ginger step, the pain zips over my skin, stinging and sending flashes in front of my eyes, and the aching exhaustion burns in the arches of my feet, stretched thinner by the heels I’m wearing.

Saint looks over at me, grim faced. All her good humor from before has drained away as she shifts back to stare into her vanity. She pops open a fluorescent bottle of painkillers, takes one dry, and flexes her hand again.

“How bad is it?” I ask, my voice a little too accusatory.

Saint doesn’t look at me, focusing a little too hard on securing the brace on her wrist. “It’s a sprain. Or something. This is just for the next day or so. Then it’s Advil for me,” Saint says. “We were getting close to the end. Hawthorne and Esme blocked me in. Spooked my horse. Esme swung a branch at my head. Knocked me straight off but over the finish line. I don’t think she foresaw that.”

I can’t say anything to make this better. To make her feel better. But I have to try.

“We just have to make it through dinner. And then we can pass out. We can sleep,” I say, just as much for my benefit as for Saint’s.

“Yeah. But sleep isn’t going to fix…” Saint trails off, looking at her wrist, but then she shakes herself hard, as if she’s trying to wake herself from a nightmare. “This was a calculated risk. A good risk. I knew what I was getting into, wading out front. I needed top three. I need face time with the family.”