Brood of Vipers by Maggie Claire (good books for high schoolers .txt) 📕

leather cord around the sturdy center pole of his tent. Oh, so carefully, he’d looped the other end around his neck and walked away from the pole. He choked himself hard enough to leave faint bruises; the headache had been an unwanted necessity to pull off the ruse. Finally, as the sun began to peek over the horizon, he collapsed on his bed, waiting for this moment.

Soon enough, they will notice my absence. Wren replays his plan while he waits, leaving no detail uninspected. The voices outside fade as the stragglers finally make their way to the grisly scene in the barn. Only a few more minutes now. Wren breathes deeply, turning onto his side, so he doesn’t face the tent opening. He maintains his slow, full breaths, feigning sleep as he hears footsteps approaching.

“Wren! Wake up, you fool!” Wolf snarls as he barges into the tent. His eyes dart wildly around the tent, noting every bloodstain and haphazardly tossed belonging. “Wren?” Wolf races forward to check and see if the man is even breathing.

“Hmph,” Wren groans, shielding his eyes against the bright light of day. I almost did too good a job, Wren thinks to himself as he struggles to speak clearly, his voice coming out rough and garbled on the first few attempts. “What happened?”

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” Wolf explains as he raises Wren’s eyelids to check for a concussion. Ignoring Wren’s grumbling, he continues his examination, prodding the cuts on Wren’s face. “Looks like you and Lynx had an epic fight.”

“Oh.” Wren sits up, a wave of nausea hitting him hard in the stomach. “I remember. I found her rummaging through my stuff.” He puts his hands on his head to try and stop the spinning sensation. “She was muttering something about getting out of here. ‘Running back to Mynah,’ or something like that. I tried to stop her, and we had words. She fought back, then something got tangled around my neck. I must have blacked out.”

Wolf leans his head down to observe the bruises on Wren’s neck. “Looks like someone choked you. Probably Jackal. It seems he and Lynx have disappeared.”

“Jackal? What do you mean? Was he working with her?” Wren feigns surprise, picking at the dried blood on his hands to give his eyes somewhere to focus.

“He…he must have been,” Wolf declares, wiping his hand over his face. “I can’t understand it, but Jackal’s absence suggests that they helped each other escape.”

“I thought he was tied up in the barn,” Wren questions, rubbing his temples to shield his face. Cutting his eyes, Wren peeks to see if Wolf is buying into the lie.

Despite the early hour, Wolf’s bloodshot eyes and pale, hollowed out cheeks make it seem like he hasn’t slept for weeks. He shifts from side to side, clutching his middle as though it pains him. “The best I can tell, Lynx went into the barn and untied him. She or Jackal killed all of the other men tied up with him in the barn, probably to keep them from talking,” Wolf mumbles under his breath, his brow clenching as he struggles to solve the mystery. “I thought he was loyal to me. Hell, I thought they all were. What a fool I have been, it seems.”

All in all, Wolf looks deranged, Wren declares, satisfied that his work has been successful. “Show me what he’s done, Wolf,” Wren exclaims, putting on a show in dressing hastily and rushing to the barn to inspect the crime scene for clues.

In reality, Wren’s feet feel like lead weights. Icy sweat breaks out on his clammy skin with each hurried step toward the barn. The prospect of seeing his own handiwork in daylight has his stomach churning. Bile and gorge rise in his throat in expectation of the sight that lies just behind the barn doors. Taking a few steadying breaths, he forces the doors open and steps inside.

It shouldn’t surprise me, Wren reminds himself as he wanders through the lifeless bodies strewn on the moldy straw. I did this; all this blood is on my hands. Now, I must face it without showing signs of guilt. Emotionless, expressionless, cold. Wren takes a few steadying breaths, trying not to linger too long.

However, when Wren stops in front of Hyena’s body, he is unable to look away from his sightless, graying eyes. You did this, Hyena’s open mouth seems to scream. You are a liar. Betrayer. Murderer. The horrendous scent of offal and posthumously expelled body fluids assaults Wren’s nose. Around Hyena’s neck lies a deep crimson stain. It would almost resemble a choker necklace if it weren’t for the gnats and flies. They gather and stalk up to the bloody gash in search of a comfortable place to burrow and lay eggs. Able to stand no more, Wren rushes out of the barn, coughing out his disgust into the grass.

“I think I’m just going to burn the whole thing down,” Wolf announces, standing a few paces away from Wren. “But I just can’t believe it, Wren. I trusted Jackal; I thought of him as my second in command. He knew everything about my plans, and never once did he give me any reason to doubt his loyalty.”

It takes a great effort for Wren to stand up and keep his knees from giving way. He closes his eyes, thinking back to all the words he’d rehearsed for this moment. This is why you over plan everything, Wren reminds himself, letting his mouth follow the script in his head while he regains control over his emotions. “But you have evidence that Jackal was plotting against you, remember?” Wren lies smoothly, wiping his chin and striding away from the barn without looking back. “Maybe the others wouldn’t go along with Jackal’s plan, and that’s why he slit their throats. Maybe he didn’t want to run the risk that they would raise an alarm before he and Lynx could get away. Or maybe those poor devils