The Gender Game by Bella Forrest (historical books to read txt) 📗

Passing over the wall of the palace compound, we flew to a circular landing pad on its roof and, with a shudder, touched down. My knees felt weak as I slipped off the seat, my bare soles touching the concrete. I still had my heels strung around my right arm. I shook them off, letting them fall to the floor.

"You don't have any spare shoes with you, do you?" I asked Lee. My shoulder bag was too small to hold much other than the tools.

Lee got off the motorbike and opened up the seat, pulling out a black backpack with a pair of shoes inside. "I did bring these, actually. In case anything went wrong and we had to do some extra running." They were my old shoes, the ones I'd arrived in Patrus with. I gave my handbag—which I had no further use for—to Lee, who dropped it into the underseat compartment before I slipped the shoes on and tied up the laces.

After snapping the seat shut, Lee turned his focus to a door fifteen feet away. I was about to start walking toward it, but he caught my hand and held me back.

"Wait here with the egg," he said. "I need a private word with them first."

I stayed put as Lee disappeared through the door. I breathed in deep, gazing around at the sparkling lights of Matrus City. It felt so strange to be back. I suspected it would take a few days to erase Patrus from my brain. To remember that I didn't legally require a man for anything anymore. That men were the ones who submitted to us.

But I didn't feel as liberated as I should have.

I was still feeling numb. I had several hours to wait until the Benuxupane wore off. I would see what emotions flooded back to me then.

Lee was longer than I had expected him to be. I wondered what he was talking about. Something about me?

Finally I heard footsteps returning up the stairwell. He emerged from the doorway, his bunched tuxedo jacket and bag over one shoulder, while stuffing black gloves into one pocket.

His expression was serious as he said, "Okay, you can go down now. First door on your right after leaving the staircase. I'll fetch the egg."

I ventured down the stairwell, which consisted of two flights of steps, through an open reinforced door, and into a long quiet hallway. It was lined with embroidered silk carpets, and the high walls were bedecked with portraits of Queen Rina's family and lineage. I paused to gaze at her seven daughters. They shared her features prominently: slanted brows and sharp cheeks. Their ages ranged from seven to twenty-six. All conceived via insemination—all female. Matrus' doctors had methods of maximizing the chances of conceiving a female, but they weren't always accurate. Abortion wasn't permitted in Matrus, however—not even of male children—so I supposed the queen must have gotten lucky. (To my knowledge, abortion wasn’t allowed in Patrus either.)

I continued and stopped outside the first door on my right. It was half open. I knocked briefly before stepping inside a warmly-lit library, bordered by towering cherrywood bookcases. My eyes fell on the round table in the center of the room, surrounded by high-backed chairs. I could make out the queen and Alastair sitting next to each other, backs toward me.

I approached the table and circled it to greet them… only to lay eyes on two corpses.

Their heads lolled over their chests, their backs slumped, their fronts drenched in blood. Etched across their throats were wide, still-oozing gashes.

I stood, paralyzed. I blinked hard and fast, wondering if it was a hallucination brought on by the drug. I touched Queen Rina's stiff shoulder.

It wasn't a hallucination.

It was real.

A bloodstained knife lay in front of the bodies, a few centimeters away from a message that had been scratched into the wooden table surface:

"FOR THE BOYS OF MATRUS."

My veins turned to ice.

"Lee," I choked. "Lee!" I staggered out of the room and rushed to the staircase as I continued to call for him. My voice gained volume as I ascended the steps… and caught the sound of whirring rotors.

"LEE!" I screamed, leaping the final steps and bursting out onto the roof.

Lee and his aircraft were already four feet in the air, and soaring toward the edge of the building.

"LEE! NO!"

His head tilted toward me, an almost apologetic expression on his face as he called down in a steady, steely voice, "I'm sorry, Violet. If we want truth in our world, some things must be done, and sacrifices must be made.”

His words barely registered in my brain. My mind couldn't make sense of what was happening.

I had just walked in on the queen and Alastair murdered. And now Lee was flying away. With the egg.

In a haze of panic, my throat clamped up. I could no longer even scream.

Adrenaline then took over. His aircraft still being within reach, I lunged forward and, with a jump I'd hardly thought I was capable of, I grabbed hold of one of the bars that lined the aircraft's undercarriage just three seconds before it crossed the roof's perimeter. Thrust over a sheer drop of over thirteen floors, I fought to maintain my grip on the bars as the aircraft dipped with my weight.

Pulling my legs upward, I hooked them over another bar on the other side of the carriage, gaining a better hold while the aircraft continued to speed away from the palace.

As I was on the verge of attempting to pull myself higher, Lee's heavy boot crashed down against my right hand. Bone cracked. Pain erupted from my middle finger and seared up my wrist. My right hand slipped.

Hanging now by only one hand and my legs, I thrust my right arm toward a bar near the center of the undercarriage and forced my throbbing hand to wrap around it.

As Lee moved to drive his boot down against my left hand, I could afford to