“To keep the world safe from rogue supernaturals,” I answered, throwing him the line I’d written on my Legion application form.
A hard, cruel smile twisted his lips. “You’re lying.”
I felt my arm twist back of its own accord. No, not on its own. Somehow Colonel Fireswift was controlling the movements. A sharp surge of pain trailed that unwelcome realization. My body bent at the waist, my shoulder popped out of its socket, I pressed my lips together and glared up at the sadistic angel.
“Why did you join the Legion of Angels?” he asked me again.
“I heard angels are hot. But it’s not true. Not about all of them,” I snarled viciously.
His eyes were as hard as blue diamonds. “Nero might have tolerated your insubordination, but as I said before, things are different now. And I don’t find your brazen remarks funny, nor do I consider your complete lack of class charming.”
My other arm moved, reaching for the knife at my thigh. Before I knew what was happening, I’d stabbed myself in the stomach.
Colonel Fireswift caught my face roughly in his hand, his fingers locking around my jaw. “I will find out what you’re hiding.”
He squeezed down on my jaw like he was crushing a tin can in his hand. The bone groaned under the pressure, and pain shot up my nerves. Then, just as I thought my jaw would break, he let go, moving away from me. I felt my control over my own body return—and along with it, more pain.
“Jace.” He waved his son forward. “What is Leda Pierce?”
“Me.”
Colonel Fireswift nodded. “Now fight your inner darkness, ensuring that this will never be your fate.”
Jace moved forward, slashing with his sword. I stepped out of the way, putting some distance between us. I popped my dislocated shoulder back into place.
“Move faster. Overwhelm her. Don’t give her time to recover,” Colonel Fireswift called out.
“I’m sorry,” Jace mouthed to me silently, his back to his father. “Go left.”
He swung his sword. I went left, avoiding the blade. He snapped his arm around, slamming the hilt of his sword against my temple. The next thing I knew, Colonel Fireswift was standing over me, that familiar sneer twisting his mouth.
“It would seem you’re not so special after all. Nyx has overestimated you. You aren’t strong. You’re weak. Weak and unworthy. Pathetic,” he spat with a dismissive flick of his wrist. “Go to the medical ward and get yourself cleaned up. I don’t want to see you, someone so unworthy of the gods’ gifts. You are a street urchin, a vagrant, a boor. Soldiers of the Legion represent the gods. You represent everything that is wrong with the world—the sin, the flaws, the rot.”
I got to my feet, not saying a word. There was no point to talking to someone like that. I’d thought I’d seen evil. I hadn’t seen anything at all until I’d met Colonel Fireswift. My head dizzy, blood dripping down my body, I stumbled down the halls, banging against the walls. Blackness pulsed in front of my eyes, my vision going in and out. I didn’t know how I made it to the medical ward in that state. Maybe it was muscle memory.
“Leda!” Ivy called out. She led me to a cot. “Drink this.”
I lifted the cold bottle to my mouth and drank. My vision slowly returned, and then I realized I wasn’t alone. The medical ward was overcrowded with patients.
“What is this all about?” I asked Ivy. “What happened to all of them. Missions?”
“No. We have our new leader to thank for this.”
“Colonel Fireswift?”
“He’s ordered the implementation of new methods for all training groups, effective immediately. And this is the result.” She waved her hands, indicating the blood and burns and limbs lost in training. “This is his so-called training. Torture is more like it, cruel and brutal torture. I hadn’t even imagined some of these injures until I saw them tonight. That man is a devil.”
“Don’t let him hear you say that,” I told her. “I don’t want him to put you through this.” I pulled out the knife still in my stomach.
Ivy pressed a bandage to the wound as I chugged back what felt like the hundredth healing potion in two days.
“Under Nero, training was tough and it brought us to the breaking point. But it was never about hurting people like this. It was never about destroying them totally. Or stripping us apart, unraveling us layer by layer, leaving nothing of ourselves,” I said. “This is what happens when someone who tortures enemy combatants is given power over the Legion’s own soldiers. He doesn’t care about them as people, about how much he has to hurt them to turn them into what he wants. They are tools to him, weapons.”
“Sooner or later, Colonel Fireswift’s training is going to kill someone,” Ivy declared, angry tears pooling in her eyes.
I wasn’t just angry. I was furious. “If I wasn’t sure I’d get my ass kicked, I would have marched up to Colonel Fireswift and given him a piece of my mind. But I have to do this carefully. I have to be smart.”
“How?”
“I need to talk to Nyx.”
“She’s already left,” Ivy told me.
Awesome. I didn’t have her number or any way to contact her. I did have Nero’s number. I wondered if he’d pass along a message for me, something along the lines of: ‘SOS, Colonel Fireswift is a sadistic son of a bitch. Please send a replacement, someone who doesn’t staple his own soldiers to the wall. Love, Leda’. Or something like that. I still had to iron out the exact wording.