by Laken Cane
“Now Allie,” the sheriff said, “you don’t think they’re more dangerous or sneaky than me, do you?”
“Of course not, Erin. I didn’t mean it that way.”
“I know you didn’t.”
Two men hauled Rune to her feet, but none of them dared touch Strad or Jack. Rune was the most likely to go crazy and kill them all, but they didn’t seem to know that.
The berserker wasn’t very far from his own freak out. After all, he wouldn’t have cared overly much if Owen died while the crew did what it had to do. Their jobs were risky and they all went to work each morning with the understanding they might not make it out alive.
She caught his eye and gave a quick shake of her head. Stay calm, Berserker. Now is not the time.
“What about this one?” one of the men asked, prodding Owen with the toe of his shoe.
“Put him in the back with her,” the sheriff said. “They can console each other.”
And with light laughter all around, they shoved Shiv Crew into the backseats of beat-up cruisers and followed their sheriff to the county jail.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The jail was old and smelled of Lysol and bleach, but that didn’t mask the more malevolent scents that had been worn into the walls and floors.
Wallace marched them down a surprisingly well-lit hall to the cells, standing back to watch as her deputies locked the interlopers into small barred cells.
They put the berserker into a cell first, and Rune watched uneasily as the sheriff’s sharp gaze stayed planted firmly on Strad.
The sheriff looked away once, following Strad’s narrowed stare from Rune to Owen and back again.
She smiled. “Let’s put our wounded man into a cozy cell with Alexander here.”
Strad squeezed the bars but said nothing.
“We have one upgraded cell in our little town,” Wallace said. “We don’t get a lot of monsters over here.” She nodded for one of the men to put Rune in the cell with silver bars.
“Nuh-uh,” Allie said. “Won’t work.”
Rune ground her teeth. Allie needed to shut her fucking mouth.
“What do you mean, won’t work?” Wallace asked. “Silver. Monster. I don’t see a problem.”
“Rune Alexander isn’t affected by silver.” Allie’s voice rang with a self-important pride, gleeful that she knew something her sheriff didn’t. Then the girl clasped her hands and looked at Rune. “I studied up on you.” Her smile was soft, shy. “I’m writing a—”
“Studied up on her. On a fucking monster.” Wallace crossed her meaty arms, stretching the shiny suit jacket across her shoulders.
Allie had made the sheriff jealous. Rune would have laughed, but she wasn’t getting a funny sort of vibe from Wallace.
Erin Wallace wanted to keep all the girl’s hero worship for herself. And her ego was going to make things a little harder for the crew.
“Sorry, Erin,” Allie mumbled.
“Well this does present a problem,” Wallace said. “Since you know so much about her, Allie, why don’t you go ahead and fix this for me.”
Allie threw a quick look at Rune. The others stood quietly, waiting to see how the events would play out. “Well, the only thing I can see for you to do is put a gun on one of her men. The threat will control her, just like when you brought them in, Erin.”
Allie stared at Wallace with big, innocent eyes, but Rune wasn’t buying it. The girl was shrewder than she was letting on.
“What happened to your eye?” Wallace asked Jack. Without waiting for his answer she motioned to two of her deputies. “Both of you, guns trained on the big one there at all times. If Alexander moves, blow his brains all over my nice shiny walls.”
They did as she commanded, eagerness in their every movement.
For once in my life, let the enemy not be sadistic sons of bitches.
But really, was there any other kind of enemy? If so, she had yet to be exposed to one.
“What’s the plan, Wallace?” Rune called, as the sheriff started to leave the cells. “What’s the fucking plan?”
Wallace didn’t look back. “I’m not willing to share that yet.”
But if the sheriff were involved with Johnson and the lab, Rune had a good idea the plan involved Erin holding the crew until the real bad guys showed up.
She didn’t want to break out before that happened. When the baddies arrived, they’d surely take her straight to Johnson. Or maybe, if she were very lucky, to the lab.
Allie followed the sheriff and the rest of the men out, leaving the crew with the two deputies who paced the floor between the cells, guns ready.
Rune and Owen were in the cell across from the berserker, and Jack was in the cell next to Strad.
She walked Owen to the bunks, watching as he lowered himself gingerly to the bare, stained mattress.
“You okay?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
But he wasn’t. He’d been recovering from Rune’s attack when he’d gone after Cruikshank. Then he’d been beaten all to hell by the fucking sheriff’s deputies. No, he wasn’t okay.
But he was alive, and she was going to do her best to make sure he stayed that way.
She went back to the bars and wrapped her hands around them, staring across the way at the berserker. She could have broken the bars like skinny, dry bones. Strad would have hit the floor the minute she moved.
He, unlike Owen, wasn’t injured. The deputies wouldn’t have a chance to do anything but get off a couple of wild shots before Rune deprived them of their heads.
She shot a smile at the two deputies. They cleared their throats, at the exact same time, and stepped back.
They slid closer to the berserker, their guns up and ready. “Alexander,” the one on the left said. “Where’s your monster?” He didn’t say it in a contemptuous way—merely a curious one.
“I am my monster, baby,” she told him. “And my monster is me.” She grinned and winked at him. “So you’re looking at it.”
“You’re not that scary,” he muttered, but when she stared at him, her monster peeking from her eyes, he looked away in a hurry.
“Fucking cold,” Owen said. “I’m freezing in here.”
She went to him and sat on the edge of his bunk, then put her hand to his forehead. “You’ve got a fever.”
He shook with chills, and sported a flush high on his bruised cheeks. She pushed his hands gently away from his ribs and pushed his shirt up.
New bruises covered his midsection, and the bandage covering the injury she’d given him was hanging loose and stained with blood.
She lifted it away, grimacing at the angry, red stab wounds. “It’s infected.”
“How is he?” Jack called.
“Not good.” She stood and walked to the bars. “Ask Wallace to send in a doctor,” she said to the deputies.
“She won’t do that.”
She narrowed her eyes. “What’s your name, deputy?”
He shifted from one foot to the other. “Lawson.”
“Listen to me, Lawson. This is not going to end well for you and your people. But if you help me now, I’m not going to forget it.”
He glanced at the door.
“Andy,” the other cop said. “Don’t even think about it.”
“I’ll just pass on the message,” Lawson said. “It’ll be up to Erin what to do about it.”
“Good,” Rune said. “That’s good, Andy.”
“Shut up,” the other cop said, his voice hard, but beneath that hardness was a fear he couldn’t hide.
“Andy,” the berserker said. “You’ll want to come out of this alive.”
Andy’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed, and he backed toward the door. “I’m going to tell the sheriff,” he said to his buddy.
“The fuck you are,” the other one said. “She said keep your gun on this one, and you’re not doing shit.”
“Calm the fuck down, Joe,” Andy said. He stood for a moment, indecisive, the
n turned and sprinted for the door.
But Joe wasn’t having it. He tackled Andy, forgetting that he, too, was supposed to keep his gun trained on the berserker.
Rune shook her head, sighing. Fucking idiots.
She couldn’t wait around, much as she wanted to. They ended up in jail in the first place because she wasn’t willing to take a chance with Owen’s life, and that hadn’t changed.
As the two deputies struggled, panting and landing angry punches, she kicked the bars of her cell.
They splintered, flying outward and hitting the bars of the cells opposite her with a sound that brought the two cops out of their scuffle.
Before they could so much as untangle themselves, she’d freed Jack and the berserker, and her monster was flexing his muscles with joy.
The two cops stumbled over each other, fumbling for guns the one had holstered and the other had dropped.
“Fuck,” Joe screamed.
Rune didn’t want to kill either of them. “Run,” she said, her fangs cutting into her bottom lip. “Or die. Your choice.”
Strad grabbed Joe by the throat and stole his gun, and Andy didn’t wait for Jack to do the same to him. He threw his gun, then put his hands in the air and ran the fuck out of there.
And as soon as the berserker released him, Joe followed.
“Get Owen,” Rune said, and without waiting, shot out her claws and strode through the doorway.
She heard a door slam somewhere deep in the building but other than that, all was silent. Too silent.
With her men at her back, she burst through the exit doors, not really surprised to see the line of rifles aimed at her and her men.
She was shocked, somehow, that it was nighttime. Streetlights lit up the area, casting a surreal yellow light over the pavement.
“Back inside,” she had time to say, before the line of men began firing.
“No,” she screamed, and went for the men, their guns, and their hatred. The only thought in her mind was saving her crew.
Saving the berserker.
Then she didn’t think of anything but killing the enemy.
Blood sprayed and the pain of being shot was a mere sting on the edge of her subconscious. Even those she was attempting to protect faded into the dark mist of her mind.
Her monster wanted to kill.
That was why it had been created, and it craved everything it had been born for.
Blood and violence.
And pain.
Chapter Twenty-Six
There was the one she sought—Johnson—and he waited with a whole hell of a lot of backup. They’d come to take the monster in.
Finally, logical thought broke through the haze of red in her mind. If she had a chance in hell at saving her men, she’d have to give herself to Johnson and the strangers who ruled him.
That was what she wanted anyway—to be taken to the root of the evil.
She stopped killing with a suddenness that shocked the shooters. The crowd had thinned as some of them tossed their weapons and ran, but the new arrivals stood their ground with a calmness characteristic of professionals.
She put her hands in the air. “Leave my men alone and I’ll give myself over to you right now,” she said, realizing that the berserker and Jack had tossed Owen into the building and had been fighting beside her.
Both of them were wounded, but she couldn’t tell how badly. She couldn’t tell how much of the vivid splatters of blood on their bodies had come from the enemy, and how much of it was theirs.
But they stood there, still breathing. And that was good enough.
Johnson stepped forward, and he was not alone.
Her assassin stood beside him.
Sheriff Wallace stood on his other side.
“We don’t care about your crew,” Johnson said. His heavy cheeks were crimson, standing out vividly against the paleness. He sported an erection she wouldn’t have noticed had he not continuously pressed his hand against it.
He swayed on his feet, and the assassin turned his head slowly to stare at him.
And even though he wore a mask, Rune understood that his look was full of contempt.
Spread out behind the doctor were several slayers—she knew they were COS not because she recognized their faces, but because every single one of them wore scarlet shirts with COS printed in giant black letters across their chests.
Fucking slayers.
“Rune—” the berserker said.
“You know what you have to do,” she said. “Get the fuck out of here.” The she glanced at him, smiling slightly. “You get doctored up and come find me, Berserker. I’ll be waiting.”
Without another word, she walked away.
But he was the berserker, and he wasn’t letting her walk into danger alone.
And neither was Jack.
She stopped when she heard their roars, battle cries as familiar to her as breathing. The berserker was without his spear. Both he and Jack fought only with the blades they’d managed to steal from their fallen opponents, their borrowed guns having long since emptied of ammunition.
They had two blades against a crowd of guns.
And that was nowhere near enough, even if they were Shiv Crew.
It just wasn’t.
They would die there. Die trying to protect her.
Her, one of the most powerful monsters in the world.
But to her people, she was…she was Rune.
And they would die for her.
“God, no,” she screamed, and shot out her claws, slashing anything near her. She was fast, freakishly fast, and she was scared out of her mind. That gave her something she sometimes lacked, added fuel to the already extreme fire that was her monster.
Johnson fell, even as the assassin ran. She lost track of him, but Johnson’s decapitated body was trampled beneath the feet of a dozen stampeding cops and the heavy boots of trained fighters.
Fear choked her.
She couldn’t save a crew that was unwilling to let her protect them.
Some of the crowd panicked, sending bullets into the heads and bodies of their friends.
Berserker, she called, silently, desperately.
And then she heard him, heard him scream his fury as he battled his way through the crowd.
She wanted to seek him out, wanted to turn and watch him loose the rage he was famous for, but there was no time for soft love things.
She had men to kill.
And she had men to save.
Really, if she’d gone willingly with the doctor, would they have let her men live?
No.
Likely, they would not have.
So she fought, fought alongside her men, and wished for the others.
Once, she caught sight of the cowboy, a long blade in one hand, his thin hair flying out behind him as he swirled and dropkicked a man who was using the butt of his rifle as a weapon.
That was the good thing about blades. They didn’t require reloading and they didn’t run of out of shit in the first place.
But Owen was not healthy. He should not have been fighting. He was too injured, too compromised.
She fought her way toward him, her sharp claws sending men into death’s arms with one swipe, and still more people came.
She kept an eye on Owen, taking note of his slowed reaction, his near falls, his flushed face.
Shit. Shit.
The townspeople, law enforcement, and the hired guns should have overwhelmed the crew with sheer numbers, something they hadn’t yet done.
But they would.
Owen staggered beneath the blow of a heavy man in a sleeveless blue-jean vest, and behind him, a tall woman with a bandana wrapped around her yellow hair drew back her gun and hit him between his shoulder blades.
She hit him hard.
He went down, dropping to his knees, and for one long, heartbreaking second his slender body reminded her of Z.
“Ah,” she whispered. “Fuck, no.”
Two men turned their w
eapons toward her, desperately pulling triggers on empty guns, their eyes rolling as they caught sight of death.
Someone thrust a blade into her side and there it stayed as she slashed her way through the men who remained between her and the kneeling Owen.
They couldn’t have him. They couldn’t have any of her crew.
But he was done. The fight had left him along with his breath when the woman with the bandana had hit him.
The woman dropped her gun. She grabbed his hair, jerked his head back, and drew a blade from the sheath at her side.
Rune would have a millisecond to reach him before the bitch cut his throat.
The woman’s screams as Rune broke her arm turned to moans of shock right before Rune tossed her, dead, into the piles of bodies littering the ground.
The people of Reverence…it was as though they’d been training their entire lives to kill.
They were not simply a trigger happy bunch of small town people. They were a fucking killing mob.
Some of them had either arrived late to the party or managed to find a hiding place in which to reload, because even as Rune decided the crowd was quieting and the crew might make it out alive, she heard the berserker give an anguished cry she’d never before heard from him, and then she was blasted from behind by what felt like a dozen machineguns.
They cut her down.
And even the monster could be hurt.
She flew forward, landing with a force that immediately numbed her face. She spat out one of her teeth, maybe two.
“Stay down,” someone shouted. She thought it might have been Jack. Or maybe it was her imagination.
“Fuck you.” She almost made it to her knees before her traitorous body shifted to the side and crashed once more to the pavement.
“Stay down,” someone pleaded, his voice thin and hurt. “Stay down.”
She wasn’t sure what the hell was going on. Her body wanted to repair itself, and she wanted to let it.
But there was something else she had to do.
What the fuck had happened? They had been winning. They’d been destroying a town. Winning…
She frowned, the edges of her vision too dark and hazy to allow her to see more than a few feet straight in front of her.
For a second, they probably thought she’d stay down.
