90 DEADLY DAYS (WEEKLY UPDATES RETURNING THIS DECEMBER)

Chapter 39

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Chapter 39

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I freeze. The look on his face is more powerful than Medusa's eyes.

"Murderer, am I?" He chuckles. I'm suddenly staring down the barrel of his machine pistol. "Repeat it, princess. What am I?"

I shudder. Gunmetal shines its threat.

"Butcher," I can only whisper. "Stop." 

I grab the gun's mouth, thinking to wrench it away. He's only trying to terrify me. He wouldn't kill me. After all the rifts between us, this can't be what finally sets him off. Sensing my intentions, Butcher pushes the black metal in deeper. My head throbs from the pressure.

"You called me a murderer. This is exactly what they do."

Privileges laugh on the field. My heart shifts fearfully. The world becomes a confusing mixture of pain and empty happiness.

Despite the bloody death that looks me in the eyes, defiance fills my next words.

"You are a murderer. It's true."

Butcher's ironic smirk appears. My skin crawls as he laughs. He tugs on the trigger.

"Just like an Entitled," he says through clenched teeth. "You'd be dead a thousand times without me, and you know it. But you still call me a murderer? You take advantage of the protection and rations I give you and still spit on me like everyone else?

I take a stunted breath.

"Is this how you keep your dirty conscious clean? You want to be high and mighty and pretend you've not been polluted by me? The truth is you're alive because of me. Remember? The shadows, the gas station, the cold... You can't admit the truth? Is that you why make all these sh*tty escape plans that 'never work,' because you know how long you'd last on your own."

My jaw tightens. 

"I have tried to leave you a thousand times over!"

"And somehow you never can."

"Because you always stop me!"

"That's what you say. But you're a very smart girl. You could've done it by now."

The fact that we're even having this conversation is chilling. Everything about it is unnatural.

"You want to be treated like everyone else? You really want that? To mean nothing to me?" He gestures vaguely to the scene of the airdrop.

"I have never wanted to mean anything to you. I dream of never seeing you again." Despite my resolve, my lower lip quivers.

Butcher takes me in slowly, from head to toe. His eyes pause on my lips and his jaw clenches.

"Fine, princess. Have it your way."

He motions with the gun for me to stand. When I'm only inches from his face he smiles. "Fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes is all I'll need to finish with the children of thieving bastards. Then I come for you. Run fast and don't look back."

It's as if the ceiling shatters. I try to catch my breath. He wouldn't do this to me. I reach for him, stopping when I realize my mistake. His eyes wander over my crestfallen expression. This is what he wants.

I'm sickened when I see how right he was. There was some sick kind of give and take between us. I never hallucinated it. I wasn't just another Graduate to him. Why or how, I will never know.