“You can do this—you can keep going.”

He made no comment to that or acknowledgment of it—and stupidly, she felt as though he’d rejected a gift she’d tried to give him. And how arrogant was that?

“So this is it, huh,” she said—mostly to herself.

Again he said nothing, but she didn’t think he’d actually passed out.

And then, just as he had before, he spoke up when she didn’t expect it. “It’s time for you to decide who you are. It happens in moments like this. Are you someone who quits—or who keeps going?”

But I’d always stop to help you, she thought to herself. And helping another person isn’t quitting.

“Don’t you want to find out who else you are—other than a receptionist?”

She frowned. “There is honor in all work.”

“And maybe there is greatness waiting for you—if you only get back up on your feet and keep going.”

God, she didn’t know … pretty much anything at this point.

With the heat of her anger dissipating, she was left with a weariness that threatened to collapse her bones in her skin.

Who am I, she wondered.

Good question.

And she had no idea what the answer was. What she was clear on? Paradise, blooded daughter of Abalone, First Adviser to Wrath, the Blind King, was not the kind of person who was going to sit next to some stranger who didn’t want her around and wasn’t asking to be saved while there was even a possibility she could go one more foot, one more yard, one more mile in this challenge.

She glanced down at Craeg. Like her, his clothes were ruined by blood, sweat, and dirt, his hair stiff from having dried without being brushed, his body a limp rag of bad angles.

“Take care,” she said as she struggled to get up.

He didn’t reply. Maybe he had finally passed out? Or perhaps he was simply relieved she was going. Either way … not her concern.

When she went to move her right leg forward, she found that everything about her corporeal form—from her neck to her spine to her calves and all the joints and straightaways in between—was one hot mess of pain. But she got her foot in front of herself. And she did it again. And again. And …

She had no idea what made her keep going. She didn’t care about winning. She wasn’t doing it to prove anyone was wrong or that females mattered. She wasn’t even aware of having any conscious thoughts.

Paradise just kept on walking … because that was what she did.

Burning.

Sometime later, all she could feel was burning: in her legs and her feet … in her gut and her lungs … down her throat—God, her throat was on fire … in her skull … on her face.

Fire all around her, in her, through her, as if her veins had lit gasoline in them and her muscles were charring from the inside out.

Brilliant light in her eyes, too.

Light so bright.

Too bright.

Except it wasn’t dawn. The sky was still dark—at least … she thought it was …

Dimly, a thought sprouted above all the agony. Was this the Fade? she wondered. This illumination, this pain? The heat?

Had she died somehow?

She didn’t recall dying—wouldn’t you know that you had? But what else could explain this incendiary agony?

Walking … she was still walking. Or maybe the world was moving under her feet and she was standing motionless? It was hard to tell. She was seeing double, the trees thickening up on either side of the electrified fence, the trail she was following bifurcating off into the distance so she kept feeling like she had to choose a left or a right—except when she looked down there was only one path again.

Fire … the Fade.

No! she thought in a scramble. God, her father! Oh, this was terrible—Abalone was going to be all alone now, no one in that huge Tudor mansion, both of his females gone …

Paradise stopped.

The path ahead was no longer clear.

As she focused on the tall, solid barrier before her, her double vision coalesced into what was a more accurate representation of reality … and she saw that it was a lineup of males.

There were … a dozen, maybe more.

And they were all dressed in black with hoods over their faces and guns on their bodies.

The Brotherhood was welcoming her unto the Fade?

This made no sense.

As she weaved on her feet, she realized they were coming to her now, walking in a thick group of impossibly huge bodies.

Run! an inner voice commanded. Run! This is another test!

Except there was no energy to do that. No energy even to sustain that panic longer than one single burst of action-oriented thought.

Weaving in thin air, on fire inside and out, she thought, Fuck it. She’d violated the time limit, failed the module, flaked out of whatever part of the training this was—and it was gameover for her. There was no reboot, no motivation available to her, either internally or externally. If they shot her, carved her up into bite-sized pieces, pushed her down to mow her over? She had no fight left to offer them.

So this was her end, huh. Man, her father was going to be so pissed when they killed her.

On a coordinated halt, as if they were functioning out of one brain, the Brotherhood halted in front of her and lifted their hands. Bracing herself for something else that hurt, she—

They started to clap.

One by one, they brought their broad palms together, clapping while they stared at her. And as the round of applause continued, they took their masks off, revealing themselves to her.

“What?” she mumbled. “I don’t understand.”

Or rather, that was what she’d meant to say. She had no voice left, nothing to carry forth the words her mind wanted her to utter.

Butch, the one with the Boston accent, came forward. “Congratulations,” he said grimly. “You are the Primus.”

Paradise had no idea what that meant. And there was no chance to ask him for a repeat.

Like someone unplugging a computer … everything went dark on her between one heartbeat and the next.

Chapter Twelve

As Butch waited outside of Doc Jane’s exam room, he put his ass against the concrete wall of the training center’s hallway and let his head drop forward on his spine. From time to time, he rubbed his eyes.

Which didn’t help much.

It didn’t help at all, actually: With every blink of his lids, he saw Paradise weaving down the middle of that track they’d made through the forest for the trainees, looking as if she had been through a war, her hair all matted, dirt on her face, clothes a mess, blood on her hands. And when she finally focused on the Brothers, her stare had been hollow as an empty skull, her body a jangly mess of floppy, loose limbs, her spirit broken.

Goddamn it, he couldn’t help picturing her from the night before, when she’d been wrapping things up for her father at Wrath’s audience house. Neat as a pin, then. Awake, alert, happy, although nervous that her application was going to be revoked by her father, the Brotherhood, the King.

Fucking hell, maybe they should have locked her out.

But that wouldn’t have been fair.

The good news, he supposed, was that the program that he and Vishous had devised had worked. Their goal had been to crush the class from sixty applicants to under ten students.

They had seven to work with.

Everyone who had made it out to that track was in.

He couldn’t say he felt tight about it, though. Maybe if the last one standing had been one of those strapping males. Like that kid Craeg who was a natural-born leader, the kind of guy who was perfect for the life of a soldier—if he’d lasted them all out, Butch was pretty sure he wouldn’t be having an attack of conscience right now.

It wasn’t that he didn’t believe females could handle shit. He just—

The door to the clinic opened and V emerged. As the brother immediately lit up a hand-rolled, Butch wondered if he wasn’t also struggling with what they’d done. Not that the hard-ass would ever admit it.