2 Justice Wears A Blade (Evelyn Roda)

"Do you really think a pathetic nobody like her deserves to speak in this court?" Jayson Ashford leans toward the microphone, his voice dripping with a casual, devastating cruelty that makes the entire stadium bow in collective approval.

I try to lift my head, but the effort is too much. My neck is a roadmap of purple bruising from the interrogators who spent three days trying to make me confess to a murder I didn't commit. The air in the stadium is thick with the scent of expensive cologne and blood. I look up at the three heirs. Jayson is adjusting his cufflinks, looking bored, as if he is waiting for a tedious lecture to end. Simon Ricafort stands slightly behind him, his massive frame blocking the light, his fingers twitching against the hilt of his ceremonial sword. Rafael Blackvale remains in the shadows, his eyes unreadable, watching me with that same clinical detachment he uses to analyze old, dusty manuscripts.

"She does not deserve a voice," the Headmaster snaps, his face turning a blotchy red as he gestures for the guards to drag me higher onto the dais. "She is the stain on our history, the anomaly that threatens the sanctity of our pack laws."

I feel the rough rope bite into my skin as they haul me upward. My dress is torn, hanging off my shoulder, exposing the mark of the Omega that the students love to mock. I look toward the front row where Clara sits. She has her hand resting on the arm of the chair next to her, her manicure perfect, her expression serene. She catches my gaze and leans in, her lips barely moving as she whispers something meant only for me.

"Nobody cares about your innocence, Evelyn, they only care about who gets to hold the knife when you finally drop," she says, her tone as light and airy as if she were talking about the weather.

I want to scream, to rip the microphone from the stand and tell the world about the secret files in the Headmaster’s office, about the way Clara slipped out of our dorm the night the King was poisoned, about the three Alpha heirs who spent the entire evening drunk and unreachable. But my throat feels like it is lined with glass. I open my mouth, and a wet, hacking sound comes out instead of words. The crowd laughs. It is a sharp, jagged sound that cuts through the chilly mountain air.

"The verdict is unanimous," Jayson announces, his voice ringing out across the rows of seats. "By the authority vested in the Alpha bloodline, we sentence the accused to immediate termination."

Simon steps forward, his boots heavy on the stone. He does not look at me with hate. He looks at me with the same blank vacancy he might give to an insect he is about to crush under his heel. He draws his sword. The blade is silver, forged in the fires of the deep earth, and it catches the red glow of the moon. It is the most beautiful and terrifying thing I have ever seen.

"Any final words, girl?" Simon asks, his voice surprisingly devoid of malice, just pure, cold indifference.

I look at them. I look at Jayson, whose arrogance has defined my entire existence. I look at Simon, whose strength has been used to keep the world under his thumb. I look at Rafael, who knows exactly how this lie was constructed but refuses to break his silence. I realize then that I was never just a victim. I was a distraction. I was the person they picked to burn so they could keep their own hands clean of the revolution brewing under their feet.

"You are all cowards," I manage to rasp, the words feeling like shards of ice in my mouth. "You think killing me fixes your mistakes, but the truth is already buried where you cannot find it."

Rafael shifts. His eyes widen just a fraction. For the first time, there is movement in his face, a flicker of something that looks like recognition. He steps forward, perhaps to speak, but Jayson cuts him off with a sharp look. The hierarchy is absolute. The Alpha leads, the rest follow, even if they know the path leads to a cliff.

"Silence the trash," Jayson commands, his gaze sliding away from me as if I have already ceased to exist.

The executioner grabs my hair, pulling my head back until my spine screams in protest. I see the moon, that massive, bleeding orb hanging in the sky, reflecting the absolute failure of my life. I close my eyes. I am not thinking about my family. I am not thinking about the prayers I wasted on a God who clearly does not care about Omegas. I am thinking about the cold. I am thinking about the way the stone felt against my cheek when I was left alone in the dark. I am thinking about how much I wish I had fought harder, sooner, and faster.

"I will never be weak again," I whisper into the night, the vow settling into my marrow like iron.

The blade swings in a blurring arc. I don't feel the sting at first. I feel a sudden, violent release. The chains fall away. The weight of the world vanishes. The sound of the crowd dies out, replaced by a roaring, rushing wind that feels like freedom. I am falling, but there is no ground. I am floating in a sea of red, my senses fraying at the edges. I reach out, trying to grab onto the memory of my own name, but it is slipping away like water through fingers.

"The job is done," I hear the Headmaster say, his voice echoing as if he is at the bottom of a deep, dark well.

I try to speak again, to warn them about the shadow that is going to swallow this academy, about the rot that is eating the foundations from the inside, but my lungs have stopped working. I am nothing now. I am a memory of a girl who dared to exist in a world that demanded her nonexistence. I am the silence that follows a gunshot. I am the end.

"Did she look scared at the very end?" I hear a voice, maybe Clara, asking with a curiosity that makes my blood run cold even in death.