The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook (Dungeon Crawler Carl, #3)

by Matt Dinniman

At that moment, I had to confront something that had been at the back of my mind since the moment Odette had cautioned me about Hekla. Why hadn’t you warned Donut about what Hekla really wants? Why hadn’t you told Mordecai? I knew the answer, I always knew the answer, but I hadn’t admitted it to myself. You think she would be better off with Hekla’s team. You think Mordecai would think so, too. That’s why you never told them. It had been nagging me for a while, but I’d kept pushing it to the back of my mind. Stupid. Self-destructive. It was also par for the course. I thought of what the late Frank had said to me, about being responsible for someone else. You don’t understand what that responsibility means, what a weight that is on your shoulders. And when you fail, it’s like being crushed, constantly crushed, only you don’t die. And the pain never stops. It just keeps coming and coming. But seeing that woman, Eva, with all the skulls over her head, any thoughts I had of Donut being better off fled. For all I knew, each and every one of those skulls was someone who had deserved it. Or maybe it had been a mercy kill like with Imani. But my instincts told me, no. No, no, no. I could see both Hekla’s and Eva’s eyes flash, and I knew they were talking, plotting.