Shadow of Nevermore

by Lilly Black

  "And I also know now that Ravi doesn't," she said, making Amina laugh. She smiled with her then turned away, heartbroken by the scene before her.

  "It doesn't matter how you do it," Amina said. "I only have time for the abridged version anyway." She laughed, and though it made Reid profoundly sad, he smiled at her as Alek began, doing the best he could to perform the brief wedding ceremony. Instead of sharing vows as there was no future, Reid and Amina shared how much they had meant to each other. They exchanged rings, kissed softly, and in the arms of her new husband, Amina slipped away.

  "Oh, God!" Reid breathed as he collapsed over her, and though the sight of her husband suffering like this broke Olivia's heart, she knew she couldn't let him stay with Amina. Alek needed to destroy her brain so she wouldn't come back, and Reid did not need to see that.

  "Baby, come on," she said, urging him to let go, and when he stood up, the red flesh behind his tears lit up like flames in the bright infirmary lights.

  "I'm going to kill every last one of the Sinner's people for this," he declared, his jaw set, his stare cold.

  "I already have a plan," Olivia assured him as she took his hand and led him back to the lodge where the rest of the community had gathered, waiting for guidance as Dani and Jax stood on the porch, trying to calm them. Liana and Aiden came out, and Olivia and Reid climbed the stairs. Then all was quiet as they anticipated their queen's decree. Though she hadn't planned to be giving a speech at this moment after what happened with Amina, when put on the spot, she did the right thing for the people.

  "Today was a dark day for the people of the Deadfall," she began. "They stole our friends from us. Some died. Some are hostages. Everything else they stole - the guns, the food, the medicine - those are just things, and we can replace them. We cannot replace the people, and for that, I promise you, Millard and his men will pay. We will survive. We will avenge our fallen. And we will destroy men like Millard everywhere we root them out!"

  Despite feeling utterly defeated, the people cheered her because Olivia gave them hope. And that hope was not false. She had a plan.

  Day 68 night

  As everyone filed into the war room under a cloud of gloom and powerlessness, they were all surprised by the smile on Olivia's face. They took their seats as she stood at the head of the table, her plan to put an end to the Sinner already successful in her mind because she had discovered something the rest had missed. Because the Sinner did not bother with in the day to day minutia of the running of his empire, he had exposed a beautiful chink in his armor when he announced that Tobias would be handling the weekly visits to the Deadfall. Earlier, as the Sinner wrote the list of supplies they would have to provide for him by next week, she had studied Tobias carefully, looking at his arms for needle tracks, getting close to smell for the scent of marijuana, honing in on his teeth when he spoke, and she found what she was looking for.

  "Meth," she said to the council in the war room with a satisfied grin. "It's Tobias's drug of choice, and it's hard to come by these days."

  "How do you know?" Aiden asked. He was still feeling weak and had a massive headache from hitting the ground so hard when he'd been fatally shot earlier, but instead of his newly confirmed immortality giving him the confidence he needed to feel like they could take on the Sinner and the whole damn world if they had to, it made him feel weaker. He could be tortured forever with no sweet release of death.

  "I know," Olivia said, "because I saw the telltale signs. The tiny scars on his face. The rot in his teeth. And as Millard finished the list of supplies Tobias expects to find when he returns next week, he whispered in his ear, and Millard added the last item - antihistamines. We're going to get those for him, but we're going to keep them for ourselves and give him seriously watered-down versions. Then we're going to make the best goddamned meth that anyone ever smoked or ate or whatever the fuck you do with it and give it to him and only him. He won't share it, and he won't tell a soul as long it keeps coming, and once he's dependent upon us body and soul, we're going to use him to capture Millard and make his compound a province of Nevermore. And then, of course, we'll kill him because we don't need to deal with some drug-addicted asshole who turned on his former master for meth."

  Smiles found their way to the faces of the founders as they nodded in agreement with her plan.

  "So," June said. "Who knows how to make meth?"

  "James," Aiden said. "It's where he worked at the solar farm. Bet you're glad you didn't kill him now." He winked at Olivia.

  "Go get him," she said, ignoring his dig. "He has work to do."

  "Wait a second," Jax interrupted as everyone was rising from the table. "Are we not going to address the elephant in the room? We heard about Alek taking an arrow to the head, but by the time anyone saw him, he just had a little dried blood on him, so it was easy to think that it was a matter of perception. We all just watched Aiden survive a fatal gunshot to the heart. What the fuck is going on?"

  Olivia, Dani, Liana, and June all looked down because none of them wanted to admit to what happened at Madam Levinia's in Pittsburgh, but the men deserved an explanation. Dani had told Jax a little about it, but none of the others had admitted anything. And not even Jax knew about the immortality. Finally, Olivia spoke.

  "I know this is going to sound ludicrous, but it's the only explanation I have," she began. "When we were in Pittsburgh, Dani dragged us to see a fortune teller who lit some candles, pulled out some tarot cards, and cast a spell. We didn't take it seriously, but now that certain events have come to pass, I think maybe there was something to it. One of the things we wished for was that the men we loved couldn't die."

  "We didn't say it quite like that," Dani added. "I was alone after my divorce, so the whole point of the joke, which is all we thought it was, was to find the man of my dreams, which I did. And when she was casting the spell, I said I didn't want any monkey paw bullshit like the man of my dreams dying right after we met. So I said, those we love can't die. I didn't mean to make them immortal or anything, but..."

  "None of it means shit," Reid said. "Forget that it's fucking ridiculous, even if it wasn't, it's not relevant because Amina is dead."

  "The way I said it wouldn't have covered her, Reid. I said we couldn't die. I said the men we love couldn't. Then someone said our children couldn't. I'm sorry. I never imagined..."

  "What are you apologizing for?" June asked. "It didn't work anyway. Jobe's dead. Jimbo's dead."

  "Did you love them?" Dani asked. "Because there was a reason I worded it the way I did. I didn't want it to include Jimbo. He was an ass, and we all hated how he treated you."

  June thought about it, and Dani had a point. She was falling in love with Ravi, and while she may have felt like that once about Jimbo, she hadn't for more than a decade. Then Alek added his opinion.

  "Look, this whole thing does sound like complete insanity, but you know what else is insane? A world full of corpses trying to eat us," he said. "I didn't want to say anything to anyone about this because I was trying to convince myself that I dreamed it, but a few weeks ago, I felt that arrow go through my head. I heard the sound of it breaking my skull. I felt the blood pouring out. If I think about it right now, I can remember every detail, and by all rights, I should be dead. But I'm not, so unless someone has a better explanation, we can believe it was Madam whoever in Pittsburgh. It doesn't matter anyway. I'm not going to fatally shoot any of you to prove the theory."

  "But it does matter," Liana said. "You don't have to be so afraid anymore. Think about it. You didn't cheat death, Alek. Death has no power over you. And Aiden, we all watched your body suck your blood back inside before you stood up as if that bullet to the heart never happened. We can't deny it, and it's huge. You're invincible."

  "I don't think we should approach it that way," Alek protested.

  "He's right," Olivia said. "We don't know for sure. We don't even know if Alek or Aiden would get a second do over."

  "But what if they do?" June
asked. "What if they do, and they get bit? Would it create a zombie that could never be stopped?"

  No one else had considered that yet, but now that someone had brought it up, it sucked the air out of the room. More than a minute passed before anyone spoke up, and when Reid added what was on his mind, it led them down an even darker path.

  "A spell can't resuscitate what no longer exists," he said.

  "What are you saying?" Olivia gasped.

  "Maybe we wire ourselves with explosives. If we get bitten, we blow ourselves up," he said.

  "Too much could go wrong," Liana protested, "but he's right. We can't have an immortal zombie wandering around."

  "Then what do you suggest?" Reid asked her.

  "I guess if one of us gets bitten, we have to let the dead... finish the job."

  "You mean let them eat us? Oh, fuck that!" Jax hissed.

  "No, I think she's right," Olivia said. "I've been talking to Rena about setting up a device that will allow us to inject enough narcotics to knock us out, but we'd still be alive, so they'd keep feeding."

  "Oh, that's fucking gross!" Dani shouted, wincing. She didn't worry about herself and Jax because she would be there to protect him, but she couldn't stand the idea of any of her friends in the belly of zombies.

  "I think we just need to be careful," Aiden said. "We need to wear more armor when we go out, cover up any spot where they could get a bite on us."

  "You're right, but we have to be able to move and see," Alek said, "and a large group could still overwhelm us. We have to be prepared to die horribly."

  "Or high," Olivia reminded him of her idea.

  "It might not even be necessary," June said. "You'll probably go into shock pretty quickly."

  What the fuck ever, Olivia thought. They could die horribly in shock, but if she was going out in the teeth of a rotting corpse, she was going to be high as a kite.

  "Well, it's up to you individually," she said. "But if you opt out of the drugs, you can't shoot yourself. You can't risk them losing interest. They have to eat enough to where you can't come back."

  "Oh, God, I don't want to be a part of this conversation anymore," Dani said.

  "Nobody has to because it's settled," Olivia assured her. "We may be immortal, but if we get bitten, we have to suffer until there isn't enough left to come back. Now for the upside. Being immortal is really going to make what we're going to do to Millard much, much easier."

  Jax and Dani went to get James as the others disbanded, leaving Olivia, Reid, and Alek in the war room, and despite that she had given them all hope, Reid was still reeling from the sudden loss of Amina.

  "I fully support your plan to take down Millard, Liv, and I only ask one thing," he said to Olivia. "When we capture him, I want to be the one to kill him. I need to do it for Amina."

  "You can put him in the bunker and torture him for a decade if it pleases you," she said, then she hugged him. "I am so sorry you lost her. I truly am."

  "I am, too, man," Alek said. "I cared about her, but I know how much you loved her. She didn't deserve this."

  "None of us do," Reid said, his tone flat, his expression despondent.

  "You shouldn't be alone tonight," Alek said. "Stay with Olivia. Stay as long as you need."

  "You don't have to..." Reid began, but Alek looked him in the eye, shaking his head.

  "No, I do," he said.

  "Thank you," Reid said, and it didn't even cross his mind in that moment that it was weird to thank the man who just told him he could sleep with his own wife. It was a kind gesture. "I want you to know that I'm not going to use this to try to cut you out. I will honor our arrangement."

  "I appreciate that. Just let me grab a few things," Alek said. He gave Olivia a quick kiss on the head, and before he made it out of the door, she caught his eyes and mouthed the words "I love you" in Swedish. He smiled. He didn't want to give her up tonight, but he felt like it was the right thing to do.

  He went to her room to grab some clothes and toiletries, assuming he would probably be away for at least a few days. Regardless of what Reid had said, he was nervous about it, afraid that the loss of Amina would mean he would end up losing Olivia as well, and when he noticed that she had left her latest journal laying out open to the unfinished entry she was working on when the Sinner attacked, he couldn't help himself. He knew it was wrong and had promised never to do it again, but he took it anyway. It was the last one she had started, the one that began shortly before Reid returned. He just needed to know that he wasn't going to lose her, and he hoped that he could read it and slip it back into the room before she knew it was gone.

  Later, as Reid lay in his wife's arms mourning the loss of his lover, Olivia's lover lay in Amina's bed skimming the diary until he came to the first entry about Reid. He read how she felt about his return, and how distraught she was because she loved Alek so deeply and could not let him go. He read about how happy she was that she didn't have to once they made the deal with Reid and Amina. Then he came to the entry of the first night Olivia and Reid were reunited in her bed. He knew he should have skipped the details, but his curiosity was too powerful.

  Olivia's Journal

  Day 54

  Saying goodbye to Alek this evening was excruciating. We both knew it was coming, but when we actually parted, it seemed surreal. Of course, I was excited to spend the night with Reid. He's my husband, and I've been through hell in these past months, thinking he was dead then not being able to be with him once he returned to me. But Alek never really knew me as Reid's wife. He thought of me as Reid's widow, and he didn't deserve this.

  With my husband still on a shift at the front gate, I kissed Alek in the lodge, hugged him, and turned away, hurrying down the hall before he could follow and see me going into the bedroom where he knew I would spend tonight with another man. He had moved what he would need to Amina's room earlier, and though I felt the occasional pang of jealousy that he would be sleeping with the young, beautiful movie star tonight, it was more of a comfort, taking away the guilt I was feeling for the plans I had with my own husband. Strangely, what I was going to do with Reid tonight felt more like cheating than sleeping with Alek ever did even after Reid came home.

  I took a long, hot bath to get my head straight, forcing all of the negativity out because I can't survive in this new world judging myself for every decision. Life is difficult and short now. We all need to grab as much joy as we can when we can, and by the time my husband knocked on our bedroom door, I had forced myself to banish thoughts of Alek from my mind. Waiting for Reid beneath the sheets in one of his favorite negligees, I invited him in, and he immediately dropped the duffle bag he was carrying, locked the door behind him, and hurried to the bed. Impatient, I stood up to meet him, and as our lips collided, we found ourselves swept away in a sudden flood of deep, enduring love and indomitable lust that left the surface of my skin covered in gooseflesh and my clit on fire. This wasn't the excitement of the first time with a new lover. It was the product of the knowledge that this man had full mastery of how to play my body, and I ached all over to feel that delicious familiarity pouring into my veins like a narcotic. Reid was my addiction, and even now after everything that had happened, he elicited a Pavlovian response in me.

  With my head in his hands, my husband's mouth devoured mine, famished for what we both feared we would never savor again, and slowly, he dragged his hands down my back until he could support me as he gently lowered me to the bed. He leaned over me, moving his lips to my ear, tracing the cartilage, nipping at the lobe, then thrusting his tongue inside. I could feel the sensation rolling up my spine as he swirled it about, and anxious to feel that tongue on my clit, I grabbed his shoulders, beginning to push him downward strictly from muscle memory before my brain even made the conscious decision to do so. But he resisted.

  "Patience, Olivia," he whispered. "I waited months to reunite with you, then I had to wait days to touch you. I think you can wait a few minutes to come."

  I
giggled. He was right, and he knows me so well. It has always been my assertion that foreplay takes up time that could be spent coming, but I realized in that moment that I wanted whatever he was willing to give me. Against all odds, he was here with me alive and well, and I suddenly wanted to experience every nuance of every sensation as he worked his way down my body at a glacial pace, making love to every inch of flesh in his path. When he finally knelt before me, my clit had become so desperate for his touch, the first gentle stroke of his tongue felt like an orgasm in itself. My entire body shuddered, the sheets were already fisted in my hands, and I heard a pleased laugh escape my husband just before I felt him pushing my inner thighs wide apart on both sides as he buried his face between them, his glorious mouth manipulating my clit as if my nerve endings were directly connected to his brain.

  He had me on the verge from the start, and while it was well within his power to keep me there as long as he pleased, he was merciful and knew what I needed. He all but skipped the teasing entirely, quickly working toward the rapid darting of his tongue that he knew would end me, and I felt the ecstasy radiating outward until it took over my whole being as a violent orgasm seized me. I cried out, arching my back, my legs scrambling to find footing they could not reach as he held them aloft, bearing into me, pushing me from one orgasm to the next. My eyes rolled back in my head, the noises coming out of my mouth no longer human as I writhed against his face until he instinctively knew he had finally taken from me all I had to give, and he relaxed his grip on my legs, softly teasing me with his tongue until I pulled away, giggling.

  "Oh, fuck, Reid," I breathed, staring at him with dreamy eyes as he rose to his feet.

  "Oh, I am not finished with you, baby," he said, then he grabbed my legs and pulled me upward and forward to meet his cock, sliding it into me effortlessly in my present, highly receptive condition. And as always, it fit like he was forged within me, the smooth skin, pulled taught over his throbbing, steely perfection, gliding against that sweet spot inside perfectly as he came in with deep thrusts and withdrew almost to the point of slipping out entirely. I wrapped my legs around him, my arms reaching for him, and as I pulled him to me, he pushed me back on the bed until he was lying atop me. His lips found mine, then suddenly, we both froze as the gravity of the moment hit us.