Exported [Book 3 in the Expiring Series]

64 I've Found My Fate

Iris~~

Odette keeps killing.

And killing.

And killing.

I think she's become desperate now that the French and the Society haven't come down to her lair. It's just as easy for me to say that only a few days have passed since I was brought here as it is to say it's been weeks. Time has left me. It doesn't exist for me. Food is delivered irregularly now, and it's always the same meal, meaning none of it stands out. They blend together, and I've lost count of how many I've been served.

The only variable down here is the prisoners. Their faces. I will never forget their faces and the expressions they wear right before Odette drives her dagger into them.

Odette orders her next victim dragged out of his cell, and I turn away, facing the wall of mine.

I imagine Jonas sitting there, his legs crossed. He would be frowning.

I've taken to envisioning him, Colton, Erik, and Bently. I started to after the third murder I witnessed without Bently by my side. I haven't seen the real him since the night of the revel when we kissed, when I thought I was within the safety of a dream. Even when Odette isn't slaughtering, I still imagine them. They help to pass the time. A few of her prisoners have spoken English, but I struggle to speak with them knowing that I'm going to witness their deaths. But I try to. I really do. Because once upon a time, I was the girl no one wanted to get close with because my death was approaching.

"You could save him," Erik says from beside Bently who shakes his head at him. Colton sends Erik a glare.

"I can't," I murmur, not loud enough to draw attention.

Erik nods, emphatic. "You can."

"Do not hold yourself responsible for their deaths, Iris," Jonas warns. "Don't go there."

Behind me the man pleads.

Bently meets my gaze. "Keep your eyes on me."

My fingers curl over the floor, my nails pressing into the stone. They cracked long ago.

"Breathe," Colton orders.

The man screams, followed by a thud.

"Why haven't you come?" I ask them. I would have come for them. Hell, I have. Maybe they've finally decided I'm not worth it. But Bently? Their Digamma? He's their family. Why would they give up on him?

"Raggioet," Odette taunts from behind me. I ignore her. She is nothing. I've wondered if I should be offering to take their place. My life for theirs.

But I can't bring myself to do that.

I'm selfish.

Maybe I would have been a perfect fit in Jonas's father's Society, living among the reign of the Order who had my orphanage burnt to the ground, had the man and woman who raised me killed. I will never love the man who was to be my future father-in-law. Both he and Jonas know that. I've struggled to understand how Jonas could love his father, but I've never had one; I suppose I wouldn't understand what it's like to want—to need to love your father unconditionally. But Jonas wouldn't have ever asked me to love his father, just as I would never have asked him to stop.

Beside Jonas, the laurel wreath crown Odette made me wear mocks me. Somehow, I was supposed to be a queen. Me, the girl who is supposed to be dead. When I Expired, I expected to end up in the Society's dungeon.

With Jonas, I thought my fate had changed.

But no.

A dungeon and death were always waiting for me.