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a wicked caricature of a smile.
    “I—I don’t—”
    “Understand?” she asks, her voice soft and accommodating. She pats my shoulder. “I know.” She steps to the side of me, and gestures to the couch behind the Guards. “Maybe this will help.”
    They move and I see, sitting on the love seat, together, my parents. That wouldn’t be so bad—that’s where they normally sit together at night to relax before bed—if it weren’t for the growing dark red stain on their chests.
    And the smell. The one I didn’t really recognize when I’d entered the room hits me full force.
    Blood. I can smell their blood.
    And I feel like I’m the one who’s been shot. My chest physically hurts, seeing them like that.
    Because of me.
     

CHAPTER SEVEN
    My hand automatically goes to cover the gaping hole I’m sure is in my chest. I can’t breathe, no matter how much air I suck in.No matter how much I try to pull my gaze away from my parents, I can’t stop staring. They look as if they’re sleeping—aside from the blood. Their eyes are closed. Their hands clasped. As I watch, my mom’s head slumps so it’s lying on my dad’s shoulder.
    A lump forms in my throat and tears burn my eyes, remembering how often I’d seen them like that growing up and how I’ll never see them like that again.
    I blink them away quickly before refocusing on Mother.
    I glare at her. “How?”
    “I’m Mother.” She spreads her hands out as if to say, “Isn’t it obvious?”
    “So what?” It’s said bluntly, without any of the fear I’d normally have being faced with her like this. But I’m numb now. I just don’t care.
    She’s taken Evie from me. And my parents. What else do I have left to lose?
    She sighs. “I see everything. I know everything. Nothing escapes me here in my city.”
    “You’re not omnipotent. No matter how much your ego tricks you into thinking you are.”
    She laughs as if my comment has genuinely pleased her. “Look at you! All tough and steely-eyed. Not at all what I expected when I chose you to be a Suitor for Evelyn. It’s a pity I hadn’t known that before.” She clucks her tongue and glances at my parents. “Things might have been different had I known. You might have been of some use to me.” She shrugs. “Oh well. No use wallowing in the past.”
    She makes a gesture with her hands, and before I can think to defend myself, the two Guards are on me—one of them the Guard turned Suitor, I finally notice. One of them is on each arm and no matter how I struggle, I can’t pull away.
    Mother picks at something on her sleeve. “I’d stop struggling. The Enforcers don’t like it.”
    Confused, I cease my fight in time to see the Enforcer step from the shadows of the hallway, one gloved hand holding a silver pistol glinting in the light and pointed at me.
    I puff out my chest. “Go ahead. Shoot me. It won’t stop anything.”
    Mother chuckles. “I’m not going to kill you. I have much better plans for you.”
    “What?” I demand.
    “My daughter needs a lesson in subservience and obedience. And your Underground needs a reminder about my…omnipotence, did you say?”
    I glare at her. “So what? You’re just going to kill me in the Square? Go for it. Then everyone will see just how much of a monster you are.”
    She chuckles again. “Oh no, dear. I’m going to have much more fun than that.”
    Suddenly there’s a sharp pain in my neck, just below my ear, and I yank as far away from it as I can get.
    Or at least, that’s what I intended to do. Instead, I’m falling to my knees, the Guards still holding me between them. My whole body is on fire. It feels like the one time I went and worked the foundry with my dad and a vat of molten metal shot its contents out like a volcano and I got splattered with it. Liquefied metal cut and burned its way into my skin like acid-filled water droplets.
    I don’t know how long the pain goes on for, but I know I’m begging, pleading for it to stop,