The Grim (Ravens #3)

xxvi. their little game

A/n: 

WARNING: This chapter is extremely dark. There is worse language in this chapter than ever before, and the content too is not easy. Like this is hella dark, and that's coming from me. 

They were wild for a reason: reckless, impulsive, and loyal to a fault.

Her warnings didn't matter, for they were wild, and neither Sebastian nor Donovan were ready to let the girl who burned like a dying star while remaining as cold as space itself face her death. It took the other four in the motel almost an hour to convince Sebastian that his sister could handle herself, and that he was risking far too much be re-entering the public stage. Donny, however, could not be swayed, and no compromise was made until they agreed to let him go.

And so he went to the ring, the modern Colosseum, a menacing structure on the west side of the city that bled darkness and screamed of death. It was smaller than he'd imagined, hardly larger than his high school's gymnasium, but rounded at the edges so that it formed an ellipse. He couldn't help but notice how the short row of risers were pathetically empty, and how everyone that had come to watch the death match kept their head down and spoke to no one. In the center of the stands was a glass skybox, rising over the other seats. In it sat the royal couple, who Donny had not seen since their arrival in Monarchia. The stadium itself was lined with guards dressed in their black bulletproof vests, although Donny questioned who could be shooting them, since they seemed to be the only civilians with guns.

His eye was drawn to a set of servants near the eastern entrance, identifiable by their gray uniforms. There were four of them, whispering quietly as they completed whatever tasks they'd been assigned. He recognized one to be Ezra, the boy who had come by the motel earlier. But just as Donny noticed the visitor, he noticed him as well. The boy's bright blue eyes then moved to a few inches above the spectator, and he took a deep exhale.

"Go," Ezra mouthed, and quickly turned his attention back to the ground, which Donny recognized as a desperate attempt to hide their acquaintance. He wasn't moving, though. Not until he saw Emma win. Not until he knew she would survive.

He didn't have long to wait before the competitors were announced. Vanessa Doe. The words sounded foreign. While he knew that his best friend had used that pseudonym now for months, to hear it uttered aloud, to know that the people around him genuinely knew her as that, caused his heart to sink and a deep dread to settle.

The doors on the left side of the stadium were opened, and in walked a girl he hardly even recognized. It was her, yes, but broken. She resembled her brother: bruised and battered and cut, but was standing taller. Donny's breath got caught in his throat. At first, he wanted to lunge to her, to leap into the ring itself, until his smarter conscience told him not to, and he realized that what tainted Emma's outer appearance could not muffle the power that seeped out of every scar.

And then her opponent was thrown the doors on the opposite side, and the wicked tendencies that plagued the city were revealed. Thrown onto the hard dirt ground was a little boy, no older than seven years old. His eyes were wide with fear, and Donny watched as Emma closed hers, as she took a deep inhale, opened them, and glared at the king with such an intensity it might just have had the power to freeze him fully.

But the king could not be frozen, for his heart was already made of ice, but Donny suddenly felt that cold glare strike him too. Emma had seen him, but just like Ezra, her attention was drawn behind him. He turned around, but the only thing behind him was a boy in a dark sweatshirt with the hood pulled up. When he looked back, Emma was on her knees in front of the child. He couldn't hear a word she said, but he could see her mouth moving. He could see as the little boy began to cry, saw as the spectators all began to look down.