Rich Kids Don't Die | Featured

Chapter Thirty Four

There was a long silence as Maddie's breath dug like glass into her battered lungs. 

She should have exhaled. Instead, she forced her lips shut until every nerve in her body screamed for relief, and the air in her chest slammed against her ribs, demanding freedom.

It wasn't clear to her how long she could go on, but she knew her one, strangled breath would shatter the silence in the room, and the attention of her friends would sharpen, snap back to her so she could bleed out like a wounded animal under their watchful, sickened gaze. Bleed with shame, and burn with a wild indignity.

But she couldn't hold it back anymore, and when a breath tore out of her lips, she cursed herself. When the mist in their eyes cleared as their gazes zeroed in on her, she felt it. The attention, ruining her with each passing second. 

Why were they all looking at her? Annika should have been the centre of it all. She should have been huddled in the arms of her friends, her entire body inspected for injury, her wellbeing the primary concern. They should have grabbed her and vanished to the comfort of their five-star hotel room, or back to the headquarters of the MIC, under Sonia's stern care. 

Instead, everyone was staring at Maddie. And Lucian. Not him, exactly - his corpse, and Maddie's hands, still illuminated by slashes of glowing blue, her powers bleeding out from the cuts on her hands. The same powers she just used to drown him from his insides. 

Alex was stood closer than the rest, and could see the light dimmed to a void in her eyes. He was holding her shoulders, taking a moment to look over her before he felt the blood that had spread onto his hands, letting out a low hiss of realization. The cut lining her arm was wide open.

Slowly, he let go of her, turning his attention to her wound. The warmth from where he had held her dissipated, and Maddie's shoulders tensed at the sudden cold. He looked up to see her face twisted in pain, and he slipped her hands on her shoulders again, his fingers lighter and making a show of to wiping away her blood.

Asher spoke quietly, but the sound bit into Maddie all the same, who felt the urge to melt under Alex's warmth. "Knowing the Golden Sniper, the knife he used was enchanted. That won't heal on its own."

"None of your wounds will heal on their own," Katya said flippantly, scraping at the blood under her fingernails with a decorated black knife. "Those weapons are used on beasts twice our size."

Behind her, Leah scoffed. "Like the one your using for your manicure?"

A coy grin spread on Katya's features, and she threw the knife in the air, its embossed golden symbol shimmering in a ray of sunlight before pummeling straight into the chest of a man splayed out behind her.

Maddie resisted the urge to flinch at the sound of the knife entering his heart. A flare of anger burned in her, the act feeling too cruel. "He's already dead."

Katya scowled back at her, and Maddie couldn't help noting how well the blood dripping down her forehead blended in with her crimson hair. "He deserved to be marked with his own weapon."

Her tone was so seething that Maddie might have felt consoled knowing she wasn't the only monster in the room. At any other instance, she might have told herself the men could very well still be alive. This time, she didn't bother lying to herself.

There was no need to look across the room and see for herself. The heavy silence in the room was damning enough. If they hadn't died at her hand, they'd choked to death on the water she'd drowned them in.

Water. It had surrounded her only moments ago, and now it was almost gone. Alex's shoulder touched hers from where he stood beside her, but his eyes were glazed, out of focus. Maddie looked down, wondering if he was wounded as well, to find his fist tightly coiled.