by Aral Bereux
Doug nodded.
Caden mouthed an order of angry words, with his finger pointing for her retreat to his side. She shook her head, and he pointed to her again.
By the moonlight, his eyes were black, and she knew if they got away, she’d contend with his rage later.
Does one kiss count?
She thought not.
Does he understand the bond between Taris and me?
She was starting to think he’d missed it. He pointed again and she turned away. No, he just wants me to obey his orders.
Taris twisted his neck in her direction. She saw his face through the thick branches she hid behind, and he smiled at her shadowy outline.
‘Well, hello there, little girl. You by yourself now, or with company?’
Julianna edged around the bushes.
Doug watched her, and the other men stopped their search by the river. Another few feet, and they’d be on top of Caden. Their torches shone in her face, forcing her to shield her eyes.
‘By myself,’ she said.
‘So am I,’ Taris mocked. He took a step. ‘You look like death. We’ll see to it you get medical attention back at my camp if you cooperate.’
‘Holster your weapon and I’ll play nicely,’ she said, her hand behind her back and the blade tipping her fingers.
Taris rocked on his feet. His gun went into its holster as it had earlier, still cocked and ready for action. We doing this dance again? He outstretched his hands and beckoned for her with a finger.
‘A lot of fuss for one girl, don’t you think, Uncle?’ she asked.
‘Heard you were hurt, so we came looking,’ Doug said. ‘Family first.’
Headlights bounced through the trees, her hand tightened around the blade handle and she waited for the taunting to stop. The mind invasion from Taris, of what she hadn’t locked down, made the corners of his eyes crease under his blonde hair; he extended his reach with the hand signaling for her obedience. The knife left her grasp, sliding away from her curled fingers and rebounding into his. He twirled it once and raised it high.
‘I’ve missed this, baby.’ He spun it again and extended his reach that held it. She felt the same pull that had stolen the knife and she moved into his embrace as the weapon had. The blade pressed into the soft skin of her throat, threatening to cut. ‘Now,’ he whispered, ‘alone, or not? Let’s find out.’
The driver of the Jeep left his lights on. ‘There’s no sign of the prisoner, Commander, he’s gone and we found Lieutenant Peters shot. He’s dead.’
‘Is he?’ Taris raised his brow. ‘Daniel’s responsible. Find him. I want him dead or alive, it doesn’t matter now, but I do want him. You two go help. This is a private matter for Senator Cathan and I. We’ll handle it ourselves.’
The patrol officers boarded the Jeep. The headlights disappeared toward the grounds where the trees were at their thickest. Taris tightened his grasp around her shoulders; when she turned her gaze to the front, Caden was easing forward with his hands out and his gun held to them in surrender.
‘Thought so,’ Taris muttered.
‘The Council imparted their wisdom upon you, cousin? Last time we spoke, your abilities were limited.’
Taris lowered the knife, but her senses chilled. His fingers caressed the lump of thread in her side and he peered over her shoulder to the reddened wound.
‘My, my, Julianna. You have a fever. I wonder what on earth caused that.’
The blade lowered more in his grasp. The cool steel pressed above the lesion and he nuzzled her neck.
‘Nice and still, darlin’. No moves, okay?’ he said quietly, nicking the blade at her skin.
‘Please don’t,’ she whispered.
Caden relented. The gun fell on the ground inches from Doug’s feet.
‘On your knees,’ Doug ordered.
Caden was thin-lipped and dark-eyed, but he did as they asked. He raised his arms behind his head, threading his fingers before resting them in his hair, and watched from his knees, as the gun holstered into the back of Cathan’s pants. It dawned on Julianna they were well and truly screwed. Could he reach out to Bas and the camp with his power to whisper? Caden raised his gaze and shook his head subtly. They were alone; he was keeping the camp out of harm’s way on this one.
She shrunk a little in the grip that held her. She smelled the cologne Taris wore, and shied from the breath down her neck. The confidence reeked from him.
‘I’m disappointed,’ Taris said. ‘Very, very disappointed in you both.’
Caden’s obedience made no difference.
At first, the shock didn’t register. Caden’s eyes widening in terror made her look down. Then the cold, hard pain arrived in her side. The thread in her side was loose, hanging over a fresh hole gapping open. Taris twisted the knife, cutting a larger tear into her flesh.
He pulled the knife and raised it again, driving it deeper with a second attack, stabbing callously into her stomach, disregarding her hands flailing hopelessly around the blood-stained handle. Her body pinned against his. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t feel enough past the pain, to breathe, but she tasted the first rise of blood in her throat.
‘I want your new camp location,’ Taris said.
She raised her head. Caden knelt hopelessly before them, his hands still on his head, fixated on the knife and the blood pooling on ground.
Don’t you dare tell them, Caden Madison. They met eyes. Don’t you dare!
The whisper was all she could do; she had nothing in her to make a noise, not even a whimper.
‘Don’t know,’ Caden said, and lowered his glance to the boots in front of him. A drop of blood splashed across its polish. More reached the ground
‘Wrong answer.’
A second flood of blood gushed around the blade and she gasped, sobbing in small, squeaking noises. Taris pushed her floundering hand away again and took the knife inch by slow painful inch, out from her side.
‘Commander, enough!’ Doug ordered. ‘She’s had enough.’
‘You don’t like it, walk away, Dougie. I’m done being nice.’ He returned to Caden. ‘Can do this all night, Cade, I really don’t care.’
The blade edged again. He lowered his lips to her ear. ‘Shush now, Jillie.’
‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No...no-no.’
‘And this one’s for biting me’
‘Stop!’ Caden raised his hands to the blade in midair, propping for another attack. ‘Taz, just stop it! You’ve got us. Let’s just go, okay. I’ll talk at the camp, whatever you want.’
‘Yeah,’ he screwed his nose. ‘Don’t believe you.’ The knife drove in again.
The shock stopped her senses. She lost all sight and sound; nothing made sense. Their mouths moved, but their arguments didn’t reach her ears. All she could do was feel. Julianna dropped to the ground with the blade jutting from her side. Blood poured from the wounds not plugged; more squeaks left her lips, more pain. Her hands circled the handle sticking out, slippery from her own blood and impossible to grasp in her weakness. Her eyes rolled to the side; her uncle looked elsewhere.
‘I’ll bring a car around,’ Doug said.
Julianna heard a sarcastic ‘You do that,’ from Taris and she raised her head. The blade glinted where the silver was untainted, and it moved with her move on every sharp breath. More blood soaked her singlet and muddied the ground where it pooled.
Taris wiped his fingers against the side of his pants. He sucked the leftover blood between his lips. He lingered over the taste of her, slurping the warmth into his inner core. The long time between feeds made his appetite insatiable.
‘I have a large squad west of here looking for your comrades. They have their orders, or...’ He gave his fingers a final suck before wiping them against each other. ‘Damn fine wine there. You tasted her yet, cousin?’
Caden sat on his haunches. Julianna met his small nod; he was apologizing. Buying her time, too, so she could grab at the handle to release the still useful we
apon. Her right hand pulled as her left edged it up. He nodded again, subtly.
‘Or what?’ Caden glared at his cousin.
‘Show us your locations and everyone surrenders. Your choice: blood bath or everyone lives to see another shining day of our New World Order?’
Caden watched her hands slide around the blade. She pulled again. The knife stuck between a fracture of bone.
Taris licked the last finger. ‘You should really try some bloodletting, or don’t you do that anymore? I find it releases the tension a bit.’
‘I feed on the Militia when the call arises,’ Caden teased. His dark eyes focused on hers.
Almost there, sweetheart.
Taris unclipped the portable radio from his belt and raised it to his lips. ‘What order do I give?’
Julianna tried to dampen the noise leaving her lips. She tried to stay quiet as she edged the blade against the sliver of bone, using one hand to help the other fillet through its claw. The wet thickness made her fingers fumble. The blade was stuck.
‘Urgh!’ she sobbed.
Taris snapped his head down. His sharp kick pinned her wrist down. His heavy boot splayed her fingers into the dirt.
‘She’s dying, Caden. Time’s a-ticking.’
‘She’s suffered enough,’ Caden said.
Taris raised the radio. ‘Meet at the RV. Two prisoners for transport.’ He clipped it onto its keeper and crouched down. ‘Not looking so good now, Jillie.’
‘Not so good to begin with.’ Caden’s voice was low; so were his eyes. ‘She’s bleeding out.’
‘Not yet, she isn’t,’ Taris snatched the blade. She screamed as the metal released another hot flow of liquid.
The Jeep’s engine approached with a loud revving over each bump in the ground; when it slid up in the dirt, a whiff of dust pushed into her lungs. Her coughing forced more blood to muck the earth beneath her and the headlights made her squint. Taris cocked his head and moved her hair from her eyes. She was grey under the blood covering her body and her hands.
‘When you return with my request, maybe I’ll heal her.’
Taris lifted her into the Jeep’s tray. Doug sat behind the wheel with a two-man security escort, watching as she was carelessly thrown in. She didn’t move. She couldn’t. All she could do was refocus her blurry gaze between heavy blinking and hold the slippery gashes in her stomach. The security peered with their curious eyes at the mess beneath them. The tray she rested in was open and so she moved her glance past them, to the stars.
Yes, focus. Count the stars. The pretty stars.
A second Jeep arrived. Caden was pulled to his feet.
Don’t leave the stars.
‘Quick, Cade,’ Taris teased, as he took his place in the passenger side. The heavy door swung closed under his weight. ‘Hurry back now.’ He signaled for the car to move forward.
Hold on, Julianna.
Caden’s whisper was soft. She left the stars to see his fleeting glance before they grabbed his shoulders and marched him forward. Her transport lunged forward on its first release of gas and Caden faded into the distance.
You hold on tight, J Rae.
She returned to the stars and a smile that puzzled the officers spread across her face.
He does care.
The second squad of soldiers emptied the Jeep and surrounded Caden. He offered his hands to the front. They’d take the easy way without their leader to instruct otherwise; when the cuffs slapped around his wrists to the front of him and not his back, he smiled. Julianna’s Jeep taillights disappeared through the trees. Resistance, for the moment, was futile. His knees buckled to their first kick, and the second one dropped him into the ground. He let their kicks drive into him again, unrelenting until he groaned.
Resistance was futile, but he’d play the game all the same. He’d play it the way he knew best – he’d cheat.
Chapter 14
0120 HOURS.
5 MILES EAST OF CAMP 2.2.1.
He had his aviators on and her reflection in the lens showed how bad she looked. Grey shadows circled her eyes, and her skin under the light of the moon and their torches, was a shade of white that made the winter snow look brown. Her lips slipped from their normal dark pink to an ashen color. If she could see all this in his glasses, how’d she really look?
Taris waved the knife he held. ‘You scratched her up some.’
The night was cold and the breeze stung her bare arms in the open tray. She shivered, wishing for sunglasses too so she could cover her expression and block the wind. The Jeep hit a fast bump and everyone jolted with it. She cringed. More blood spilt over her splayed fingers as she lay on the steel tray, at the mercy of the four booted feet surrounding her, on guard for any movement at all. The closest patrol raised his gun when she raised her head. She spat some blood and it hit his boot.
‘They’re the ones I killed. You wanna be next?’
‘Now, now.’ Taris smiled back at her. The wind was ruffling one side of his hair. ‘I should order the firing squad on your ass just for that comment alone.’
Julianna laughed. It’s already over. She laughed again, but her belly spilt more blood and the laugh turned into a pained silence. He watched her playfully and held the blade delicately between his fingertips, flipping it to catch the moonlight, to bounce into her eyes. He flipped it again when he notcied her squint. He played with the annoyance until it bored him.
‘How do you do it, Jillie?’
She hadn’t been called Jillie since their breakup. It was his pet name for her, and she hated it. She closed her eyes against the glint again. The Jeep hit another bump and her hand slipped in the pool of blood it tried to contain.
A few more hours...take the bow, final curtain call. No more. So tired now.
Another bump made her open her eyes. ‘Do what?’
He was relishing in her distress. ‘You attract all the heartless pricks,’ he said. ‘You know, a year ago, Caden would’ve cut your heart and thrown it to the fires of hell just for your conviction alone.’
‘Really?’She smiled. ‘Surprising. A year ago I was saving his ass from a certain Commander.’
He still admired the knife. She hoped the next bump might take a finger against the blade. It didn’t.
‘Far worse than I’ve ever been, right, Dougie?’
Doug nodded silently.
‘Head of the Council once.’
‘Maybe it’s the Madison blood,’ she joked. The Jeep took a tight curve and her head rolled with it, bumping on one of the escort’s boots. It kicked her away. ‘I like the bad boys.’
‘Quite the contrary, my dear...they like you,’ he said.
He finally put the knife away and she relaxed her eyes again, but for the breeze biting at her gaze. Taris lowered his sunglasses down to the edge of his nose, and he peered over them arrogantly.
‘Though I doubt he’ll sacrifice his camp for one girl, even if it is you.’
‘I hope he doesn’t,’ she said quietly. She moved away from his leering. The stars were thick again. The cloud cover edged away. What a nice way to go, looking at the stars. She closed her eyes and rested.
‘Kill me now, Taz,’ she moaned. ‘I’m done with the waiting and chasing. He’s not coming and I’m not giving you anything.’
Taris laughed this time, a fake belly laugh with a fake hand gesture to match. ‘So much you don’t know, Jillie darling; your uncle kept so much from you. Has it not occurred to you I am hunting you for a reason?’
‘I thought it was vengeance,’ she said. ‘You took our break-up really hard as I remember it.’
He laughed again. ‘Though I don’t begrudge the next person for wanting vengeance, you do underestimate me.’ His tone turned cold. ‘You always did.’
‘Fuck.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Not this again. I’m bleeding to death and you’re bitching about my inability as a girlfriend to understand your needs. Fuck off.’
Taris pushed his aviators back to the bridge of his nose with
a single finger and smiled again. It was forced. He kept his words to himself, though she sensed he had more to say. Not in company, though. He’d never speak those thoughts deep in his mind unless it was the two of them alone.
The feet moved again as the Jeep tilted. Her hands slipped to her sides with the motion. They were going along the rise Daniel and she had stopped on. The one where he’d said his name before he’d sacrificed himself. She wondered about him. His body missing intrigued her. Her eyes moved down; her singlet was soaked.
The Jeep raised more. Her blood rolled down to the end of the tray and pooled, sloshing on itself until it reached a gap where the tray gate met with the floor at an uneven angle. It drizzled out beneath the slight crack. The boots moved again, avoiding the puddles her body made.
The Jeep lowered on the incline. The camp lights cast a hazy yellow glow in the mist ahead that reached across the valley. She quietly commended Taris for the location he had picked for his new base. Without an air wing to attack, ambushing the camp would be impossible. The surrounding mountains closely guarded it, and she wondered what wild prets he had lurking up there. He left nothing to chance, learning from his mistake with her. Towers scattered over the fields. No trees, just grass, towers and walls. No blind spots.
Camp 4.5.2 would not be repeated.
‘Taz?’ she called. He looked back again with his brow furrowed.
Taz, Jillie, the pleasantries not so pleasant.
‘If it’s not vengeance?’
‘Come on, you know what I mean. All the fights over initiation, refusing any notion of an appointed watcher, you knew what you were doing. You knew what it was about. The Guild, the Seer, everyone knows your connections.’
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard rumors about the Seer. Who is the lucky prick anyway? Don’t they have a say in the war or something?’
Doug glanced away from his driving. She wouldn’t press it any further. Whatever it was, she was supposed to know, but it didn’t matter now. In a few hours, nothing would – if she had that long, if she was lucky. Tonight, she welcomed death, and called to it with open arms.
‘You heard anything from the RV point?’ Doug was being careful to keep his voice low.
