by Amity Cross
There was a gunshot that echoed from someplace in the distance, and my head snapped up. “X, get out, it’s a trap.”
I moved down the hall, my heartbeat accelerating even faster, the empty building chilling. It had all been a ruse…a trap to capture me. Mercy wasn’t here at all.
“Vaughn?” I asked again, tracking my gun in front of me. “Vaughn.”
There was static, then came a rustling over the coms.
“You took your time,” said a husky voice. Deep, gravelly, like he’d drunk one too many bottles of straight up tequila. Definitely not Vaughn, which meant he was either dead or captured.
“Who are you?” I hissed.
“We’re waiting for you to come home, Xavier.”
I pressed my back flat against the wall, my head starting to spin. That voice… I didn’t pick it until he’d said my name.
Greggor.
If I could get to him, I could get to Mercy. Tightening my grip around my gun, I held it up and continued down the hall, tracking the barrel out in front of me. “What have you done with Vaughn?”
“Don’t worry about your friend,” Greggor replied. “Right now, I’d be more worried about you.”
Movement flickered in the corner of my eye, and I jerked backward just as the wall splintered in front of me, a bullet embedding into the plaster. Sliding back into the hall, I opened fire, clearing three shots before there was a cry of pain and a crash as I took out the shooter.
“You’ll have to do better than that, Greggor,” I growled.
Another man appeared in front of me and I fired but was pulled up short as a hood was yanked down over my head from behind. I struggled as a knee landed in the small of my back, and a hand curled around mine to try to pry the gun from my fingers. Pushing backward, I lifted my assailant up against my back and slammed into the wall as hard as I could, dislodging his grip from my hand.
Yanking the hood from over my head, I tossed it aside and fired point-blank at the man on the floor. It wasn’t until his head exploded in a shower of blood that I realized it was Charlie. He was a double…which meant there was a good chance they all were. We’d been set up. They didn’t just want me, they wanted to take out The Hangman and their pet monster all in one fell swoop.
With a roar of anger, I rounded the corner and lunged to the side as the other man at the end of the hall opened fire, spraying bullets. The wall cracked and splintered, showering shards of plaster all over me as I ducked low and raised my gun.
Fucking amateur asshole.
I fired once, shattering his knee, then fired a second time as he crumbled, the bullet lodging into his chest. Right in the fucking heart.
Silence instantly fell, and as I stared into the man’s glazed eyes, I found myself looking at Rhodes. Right next to him was Ludbrook.
Pressing my finger to the coms in my ear, I said, “Your pets are dead, Greggor. Fucking amateur. I’m disappointed in you.”
“On the contrary, Xavier,” came his gravelly voice. “I’m disappointed that you let yourself go for a woman. And what a woman she is…”
Rage pooled hot in my gut as I moved through the building, my focus on one thing and one thing only. Killing Greggor.
“Don’t worry, Xavier,” he said condescendingly. “You’ll see her again. When it’s time for her test of loyalty, we’ll send her for you.”
“No!” I roared to the empty building. The com cut off, static piercing my ear, and I tore it out, throwing it onto the ground.
It was then that I stopped caring about giving away my position. Everyone was accounted for, other than Hawkes. If he was still around, I had to rendezvous with him and get the fuck out of this hellhole. We needed to regroup and attack this from another angle. If my hunch was correct, we now had to mount an operation to save two people. Mercy and Vaughn.
I shoved open a door and found myself in the yard, the sound of a gun cocking drawing my attention to my right. Instantly, I raised my own, pressing the barrel against Hawkes’ forehead.
“Fuck,” he hissed.
“Fuck has nothing on it,” I retorted, lowering my weapon.
“The others?” he asked, his eyes scanning the yard.
“Doubles. They tried to take me, but I got them before they got me. Vaughn?”
Hawkes shook his head. “I saw them load him into a van and drive off two minutes ago. I couldn’t stop them.”
“Fuck!” I cursed, fisting my hands into my hair.
No Mercy, no Vaughn… No fucking revenge. They were never here, which meant they could be anywhere in the world by now. I didn’t want to admit it, but I might’ve just lost Mercy forever. I couldn’t comprehend that the next time I laid eyes on her, she might be an emotionless monster, come to kill me as her test. Greggor would control the one thing in this world I loved…the one thing I would die for…
Everything was darkness without her.
I was a broken man…and a broken man with everything to lose? Well, he was a fucking dangerous man to cross.
Royal Blood would burn, and I would start right at the top. I would tear Greggor’s heart out with my own bare hands.
The monster he created would be the last thing he ever saw.
Fifteen
Mercy
The Watchman sliced me open.
He bled me, letting me slip in and out of consciousness before zapping me with a bolt of electricity. It snapped me to attention, my heart thumping erratically. It fucking killed. The constant low then high was driving me further and further toward madness.
Still he asked questions and still I didn’t answer.
Where was X? What were his plans? What did he know? They were afraid of what his past would reveal, if the secrets they’d made him forget would come to light…if he had remembered. They must’ve done some pretty fucked-up shit. I mean, things were pretty fucked-up as it was, but there must be a whole other level if they were going to these lengths.
When the dunk tank and the scalpel stopped working, they sat me in the chair and began a new tactic…one that still hadn’t revealed itself.
“What are Xavier’s plans?” The Watchman asked. “Tell me, and this will all go away.”
“Liar,” I spat. “It won’t go away. It won’t go until you make me forget.”
“Dear Mercy, we haven’t even begun your training yet. This is merely the screening process.”
“If this is the job interview, then I decline,” I said with a sneer. If he was telling the truth, then X had been through far worse than I could ever have imagined.
He narrowed his eyes. “I assume since you fornicated with him, you saw his scars.”
I knew they’d been inflicted by The Watchman, even a fool could see that, but I’d never knew how they got there, what kind of torture they’d inflicted upon him.
“Fire,” he went on. “Hot metal melts flesh wonderfully. It is very…cleansing. I burned away all that he was and shaped him into something new.”
The phantom scent of burning flesh wafted up my nose, and I almost gagged. They’d branded him?
I watched The Watchman as he watched me in return, waiting for my weakness to surface. X was the button, but they’d never be able to push hard enough.
“You have very lovely teeth,” he murmured.
My gaze flickered to the tray beside the chair and fixed on a pair of nasty looking dental pliers.
“Tell me about Xavier Blood,” he said, reaching out for them.
Even knowing exactly what was coming for me, I squared my jaw in defiance. “Never.”
The Watchman held the pliers up as a man that had been watching the whole interrogation stepped forward. It must be his perverted apprentice, heir to the throne of Watchman. I guess this was going to be one of those moments where I thrashed. Fun.
“Do me a favor,” I said, eyeing my captor with as much resistance as I could muster. “Start at the back.”
Without blinking, The Watchman shoved a clamp into my mouth, spreading my jaw wide. The appre
ntice took hold of it and held my forehead with his other hand as my torturer tightened his grip on his carefully selected tool of pain. Without a word to acknowledge my request, he moved over me and placed the stainless steel into my open mouth, clamping down hard onto a molar toward the back.
I wasn’t stupid enough to think he was showing me any kindness. A tooth was a tooth, and the pain would be extraordinary. I’d asked him to start in the back, thinking about my looks like a vain prissy bitch, but molars? They would hurt the worst.
Good fucking job Mercy.
As I felt my tooth begin to move, I screamed.
It had been snowing again.
The sky was ablaze with stars and the green and purple veil of an aurora shimmering over the icy landscape.
Shivering, I pulled my coat around myself even tighter. I was sitting on the fallen tree out in the yard, the trunk hard and cold underneath my ass. If I looked over my shoulder, I knew I’d see the cottage someplace behind me.
“Start at the back?”
I glanced at X, who’d materialized beside me in that sneaky silent creeper way of his. He was exactly how I remembered him, strong, handsome, the emotion in his eyes constantly shifting as his state of mind fluxed beneath the surface. His haircut looked pretty good, even if I’d just made it up as I went along.
“I didn’t think you’d like a toothless hick of a girlfriend,” I retorted, watching the colors of the aurora play across his skin.
“I don’t care about a tooth,” he replied. “I care about your soul.”
I snorted at the irony. Trust me to finally hear it pass his lips in an hallucination.
“I didn’t plan on it ending up like this,” I murmured, glancing up at the stars.
“I didn’t either.”
“I didn’t plan on loving you.”
His eyes were sad, an emotion that I’d never seen in them before. “I didn’t plan on making you into a monster.”
Freeing my hand from underneath my coat, I found X’s and curled my fingers around his. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I was only trying to help you.”
He didn’t reply. I’d betrayed him by calling Mei, and I’d betrayed him by allowing my heart to rule my head. It was what led me to being captured by Royal Blood, after all. I’d lost count of the times he’d told me that emotions would see me killed or worse. Had I listened? No, because I thought I knew better.
I didn’t know shit.
“So, what happens if I can’t hold on?” I asked, glancing sidelong at him.
He pulled his gaze from the stars he seemed to love so much and focused his green eyes on mine. “You die.”
I stiffened, absorbing the notion that X would rather see me dead than be anything like him. He was right, but then again, he always was.
Nodding my understanding I whispered, “Then I die.”
I landed heavily onto the concrete floor of my prison, the door slamming closed behind me.
Groaning, I rolled onto my side, my mouth throbbing. At least they started in the back…if that was a kindness. I tasted blood, and the cold air burned through the open hole in my gum. Clamping a hand over my mouth, I breathed through my nose, trying to control the pain.
I had plenty of teeth left. I’m sure they made spectacular sets of false ones these days. I bet you couldn’t even tell the difference.
Curling up into a ball where I lay, I wondered what was next on the agenda. What horrors they’d throw at me to make me break. What would X do?
X would endure, and so would I.
I would endure until he found me or until I escaped and if he failed…if I failed…
Then, and only then, I’d do what my hallucination had bid me.
I’d die.
Sixteen
X
Hawkes and I went back to the distillery.
There was nowhere else to go.
The moment he pulled the car into a space out the front of the abandoned building, I shoved open the door and strode inside. Heading straight downstairs, I kicked in the door to Weiss’ prison and lunged for him. His eyes widened in surprise as I sucker punched him right in the face. He was thrown to the side and fell to the ground, the back of the wooden chair splintering as it hit.
“Where is she?” I roared.
Weiss groaned, freeing his arms that had been locked onto the back of the chair. The handcuffs that had bound him still locked his arms behind his back, but he scrambled to his knees, glaring up at me.
“For the love of fucking god…” I exclaimed, fisting my hands into my hair.
“Desperation doesn’t suit you, X,” my one-time handler declared, sitting back on his heels.
“Tell me what you know,” I snapped. “Who has her? Where have they taken her?”
Weiss narrowed his eyes. “You know who has her, X.”
The Watchman. Greggor had given her to The Watchman. Dread settled into my bones.
“Where is he?”
“Do you really think I know shit now?” he asked like I was fucking stupid. “I was captured. Everything I know is worthless. You of all people should know that. After all, he trained you.”
With a sickening smack, my fist connected with his face, and he fell backwards, hitting the ground hard.
“Let me go, kill me, what do I care?” he asked with a grimace, rolling onto his side. “I’m dead either way.”
I stood over him, my chest heaving. “If you ever loved her, Weiss…”
He began to laugh, the sound echoing through the concrete room. “Love? I would’ve liked to fuck her, have her suck my cock, but not love.”
With a cry, I kicked him in the stomach, and he grunted, curling into the fetal position. “Don’t you fucking dare talk about Mercy like that.”
“You started out the same way, X. Wanting to fuck her. Tell me, when did you realize she was the one who tried to kill Sykes?”
I turned away from him, burying my hands into my hair. He was just trying to fuck with me, push me over the edge I was already falling over. I was nothing without her.
“You said it yourself,” I said, facing him once more. “You’ve got nothing to lose. So, why not fuck up the people who abandoned you to this?” I gestured to the room around us. “I’m going to find them with or without Mercy, so what’s it to you?”
Weiss stared up at me and wiped his mouth against his shoulder, smearing blood across his face. “What’s the point?” he asked. “I still end up in the ground no matter what I do.”
“What you get is what everyone who’s ever been fucked over by those kind of men wants. Revenge,” I stated. “Tell me.”
“How far down the rabbit hole do you really want to go, X?”
“Tell me,” I urged.
He scrambled to his knees and glared up at me. “Before I give you anything, promise me one thing.”
I narrowed my eyes, waiting.
Weiss stared me straight in the face, determination set into his ugly features. “When you kill me, make it fast.”
I regarded him for a moment and decided he was telling the truth. He had nothing to gain from lying, but he had nothing to gain from giving me what I wanted, either. Maybe in his last minutes he wanted to repent. Worse men had turned in their last breaths, why not Weiss?
“Agreed,” I said
“The woman is an Intelligence agent, but I assume you already know. Her name is Mei Akiyama. She’s MI6 and has been looking for you.”
There could be hundreds of reasons she was after me. “Keep talking.”
Weiss rattled off a telephone number, his eyes drooping. Even if I didn’t kill him, he’d die from his injuries if I left him long enough.
“The number is for a medical center in Exeter. Ask if you can talk to Dr. Jonathan Hancock about some test results. They will tell you that he is currently with a patient and will ask if you would like to wait. Say yes, and the operator will place you on hold. Wait ten minutes, then hang up.”
Distrust began to wash over me. Weiss had just described
a standard call-in procedure for a British Intelligence agent. “What kind of game is this?” I asked.
“If you want to know the truth about your identity, you will follow the protocol. It may be the only thing that can help you save Mercy.”
I shook my head, more confused than ever. “I don’t understand.”
“Follow the protocol.”
I grimaced. I was alone. Not like I had been when I was working for Royal Blood. No, this was much worse. I was truly alone. A monster adrift with nothing to lose but the woman he loved. What choice did I have?
Clicking the safety off the gun, I leveled it with Weiss’ head. “What assurances do I have that you’re telling me the truth?”
He laughed, shaking his head. “Distrusting to the last, hey?” he scoffed. “Not everything about the past eight years was a lie, X. I’m fucked. I know I’m about to die, so let me give you this one last thing to destroy the monster and give you back the man.”
“Weiss has a heart?” I mused, cocking my head to the side.
He shrugged. “I guess it’s up to you to find out if that’s true or not.” He nodded to the gun in my hand. “See you on the other side, brother.”
I pulled the trigger.
Seventeen
X
I stared at the phone box that was the last suspected whereabouts of Mercy Reid.
I stared at the spots of blood on the glass and wondered why nobody had bothered to clean it. I didn’t know if it was hers or her kidnapper’s.
Glancing around the street, I wondered why she’d chosen this spot. Probably because it was one of the only phone boxes in the whole of Exeter. Or maybe because she just happened across it as she drove to clear her mind. It could mean anything.
I’d left Hawkes behind at the distillery. He’d been working all night, coordinating the rest of Vaughn’s contacts and men, trying to find a lead on where Royal Blood had taken him. As soon as it was light, he’d packed up what little was left behind in the office and drove away. I’d assumed he had forgotten all about Mercy in his determination to see his boss back safely.
