Lucia
The game had begun.
It was a terrifying thought, one that played out at the knife’s edge, just as she’d resolved.
The world had shrunk into a two-person chessboard, played in the suffocating darkness of the Wilds. Her opponent was a monster of muscle and fanaticism.
Her only piece on the board was herself.
The initial shock of the kidnapping had cooled into a hard, sharp resolve. She watched him now, not as a victim, but as a strategist. Every time he yanked her forward, she noted the way his gloved fingers avoided her bare arm. Every time he snarled an order, she listened to the rough, agitated edge in his voice.
He was trying to keep his distance. He was failing.
He calls me an abomination, she thought, the memory of her discovery a cold ember of power in her gut, but his
