It would be over soon. He promised that it would. If I gave up, he promised I would be all right.
Just like the other Tess.
My namesake.
Except she wasn’t all right. Not ever again.
No.
No.
No.
NO!
I screamed again and began to twist and turn my body as violently as I could. I punched the side of his head with as much strength as I could muster. Terrance’s hands grabbed onto my wrists and pinned them to the ground. I lifted a knee into his groin, and he rolled over, holding onto himself and moaning.
With a grunt, I managed to get to my feet. Terrance was quick. He was already pulling himself up on his knees. I grabbed a vase from the mantle and, whipping it back, let it slash across his face. He cried out in pain.
I had to move. Now.
I didn’t know where I would go, but I started running through the hall in nothing but my cotton slip. I didn’t get very far. Terrance tackled me to the ground before I got ten feet, knocking me down face-first. He grabbed a clump of my hair and shoved my forehead into the marble floor. Then he flipped me around, his knees pinning my arms. “You are a pathetic excuse for a human being,” I howled, angry tears streaming down my cheeks.
Terrance leaned back and grinned. Sadistic. I turned my head to the side to escape his sloppy kiss. That was when I saw the lamp had fallen over from the hallway table during our scuffle. The second Terrance took the pressure off my arms so he could adjust himself, I snatched the lamp.
With a guttural roar, I hit him in the head. I hit him over and over and over again.
I didn’t stop. Not when his body went limp. Not when he fell to the floor. I kept hitting.
It was only when his blood splattered onto my cheek that I ceased. I looked down at Terrance’s face, shocked that it was no longer recognizable. I lay back and tried to catch my breath. I brought both hands to my face and sobbed.
“What did you do?” a girl’s small voice squeaked.
I managed to pull my hands away from my face long enough to see Regan standing above me. The sight of her caused me to start crying all over again. How long after he was done with me would he have waited before going after her? Did she even know it was wrong what he would take from her?
When had men been told this was all right?
When had this become acceptable?
“Is he dead?” she asked, slowly backing away from the body.
“Yes, he’s dead,” I replied, my voice hard, certain.
“Murderer!” Regan screamed at the top of her lungs.
I was doomed.
Chapter 29
Drawn by a combination of my screams and Regan’s cry, a slew of chosen ones broke down the door to the Harper living quarters. When they entered, the normally stoic chosen ones, creatures built to keep their emotions at bay, stared at me in shock.
I, a girl in nothing more than a tattered slip, had killed Terrance Harper—son of the head creator of the council itself. Grandson of Abrams. There would be no arguing my way out of it. No explaining that it was he who attacked me. The council never cared what I had to say anyway. I was a natural. Despite trying to decide every aspect of my life, they had never bothered to ask my opinion about anything. They had locked my people away, waiting for us to die, and in some cases, when their patience ran out, killed us themselves. I was surprised one of the guards didn’t snap my neck right then and there.
I held my head straight as I walked to my would-be jailers. I didn’t feel ashamed of wearing nothing but my torn slip. I didn’t glare at Regan, who sat simpering in the corner. I only felt pity for her. She had no idea what I had saved her from; she didn’t know she could be saved from such a fate. She didn’t have the people in her life that I had had. I had been blessed with people who told me it was okay to fight back.
When I had a daughter, I would make sure she knew.
That was the only time I hesitated on the long walk to the center of the council itself. A daughter. It was the first time I had ever realized that I might want a daughter one day. I might want a future that I could help make better.
But I would never see it.
There was no getting out of this.
As they shoved me into a small room with nothing but a wooden table and chair, I waited for the remorse. The guilt. But I didn’t feel any of it. I placed my hand against the chair, and I remembered the start of my story, the events that led me to this very moment.
When the door opened, I didn’t know who I expected, but it certainly wasn’t Mr. Harper himself. The leader of the council. The father of the boy I had killed. It was odd to see him in person. I had only ever glimpsed his face in the posters that covered the walls of the compound, propaganda meant to make us feel safe when all it did was keep us trapped.