Reaper

by Lena North

  “You have mountain blood,” I stated.

  There was no mark at all from the bee, and he should have been at least a little swollen. I remembered the night Olly's ma had died. The bees had been furious, and they had buzzed through every corner of the building, flushing out the men who tried to hide. Cameron had been nowhere, and we'd thought he'd left, but if he wasn't impacted by bee stings, he could well have hidden somewhere and watched the team. The thought made me shudder, but also curse myself. If I hadn't left when Olly did, I might have seen him.

  “Clever,” he conceded. “I do indeed. Grandfather told me the stories, over and over. He hated the mountains because they treated him like shit here, but I knew. I was the one who would claim that legacy.”

  My mind searched for the pattern, and it was ridiculously easy to find.

  “Your grandmother was from Norton.”

  He smiled casually and tilted his head slightly to the side.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “The high and mighty Gilmore Johns’ youngest sister.”

  I’d heard that two of Gilmore’s sisters had left. One to go abroad, and another to marry a man whom everyone seemed to think ill of. He’d been from the plains. I couldn't believe I hadn't found that link out, but the horrible professor had been dead, and I had not wanted to spend any energy on him.

  Then it hit me. This meant Cameron’s father had been Hawker’s cousin.

  “What legacy is it you think you inherited?” I asked slowly.

  “I read old documents. Caught snippets of conversations on the net and heard things when I was hiding in the woods, talking to the stupid girl. There’s a prophecy which predicts that I shall rule the world.”

  He would what? Was he crazy?

  When that thought rolled through my mind, I almost laughed because of course – he was way beyond insane.

  “A prophecy?” I asked, to keep him talking.

  “Predicting a confirmation of prosperous times. Telling how the one made up from three will rule the mountains with a girl who has flaming red hair. It took me a while, but then I saw it clearly. It’s about me, and it is about you, Annie. We can rule the mountains, you and I.”

  “Are you serious?” I asked.

  My hair wasn’t flaming red, it was closer to a soft strawberry blonde. And what did he mean, made up from three? God, he was nuts, I thought.

  “I own the three cups, you have the red hair. Yes. I’m serious.”

  A soft scratching sound came from the barn, and I moved a little, making sure my eyes were anywhere but on the wide, open doors even though my whole being screamed with the need to see what was going on.

  “I don’t want that,” I said.

  I should have played along, but I couldn’t. The ugliness in his eyes sent shivers down my spine and made me nauseous, so I just couldn’t.

  “You’re a fool,” he said, although not unfriendly. “I’ll just find another red-haired girl.”

  What? Did he really think a prophecy worked like that, giving him an abundance of options to do whatever he wanted?

  “What did you promise Paolo Fratinelli?” I asked, mostly to have something to say.

  “Stupid man,” he muttered. “He thought he would be king. Kept talking about how he was a descendant of kings and went on and on about how he would restore their glory.”

  “What about Jamie?”

  He chuckled then, and my brows went up of their own accord.

  “Gullible idiot. I would have given him the Islands, but he wanted nothing but petty cash and a promise I’d spare Jinx Sweetwater. He didn’t know much, so I’ll kill her too, just for the fun of it. I plan for her to be the last, though, as payment to James.”

  He thought he’d have that kind of power?

  “Why do you hate us so? Me, Jamie, Nick. Jinx. We were in the program with you, Cameron.”

  His face hardened, and I knew that I'd yet again asked the wrong question.

  “Weak. All of you are weak. You celebrated when it was shut down. Couldn’t take the pressure. Only I could. Only I was strong enough, and we were rebuilding, the Professor and I. Searched for others to aid us.”

  Oh, God. They had tried to start up the research program again. If the professor hadn’t been shot, then they would probably have succeeded. With the money from Cam’s illegal activities and the Professor’s contacts, it could have been done.

  “Then it was a good thing someone shot him right where normal people have a heart,” I said before I could stop myself.

  Cameron swung the gun straight at me, and I took a step back.

  “I’ll kill you,” he hissed. “Enough talking.”

  I saw in his eyes that he meant it, and braced. He'd always been a bad shot, but we were just a few steps apart so it would be impossible for him to miss me. Someone shouted something but Cam's eyes didn't leave mine, and then he fired the gun.

  The owl came from nowhere and flew straight into his arm, just as he pulled the trigger. The bullet went to the side, and Cam stumbled backward, but he managed to grab a wing as it swept by his face. The gun fell to the ground, and he held on to the bird with both hands.

  I moved but he stopped me with a loud, “I’ll kill it.”

  I froze and stared at him. He held one arm around the body of the bird, and around its wings. The other hand hovered over its head, and I knew whose bird this was.

  Bee Harper’s.

  The white feathers were magnificent, and my eyes burned when I looked into the deep yellow, unblinking stare.

  “Don’t,” I whispered.

  “It’s one of your friends, isn’t it? One of the birds those men use to stay in power. I don’t need any birds to be powerful, so I’m stronger than them. I don’t need anyone.”

  “Please don’t,” I said, slightly louder.

  Tears were running down my cheeks, and I watched his grip tighten.

  “Don’t cry,” a soft voice murmured. “I go to my woman now. She says thank you. Says, take care of her boys.”

  The crunching sound when Cameron twisted the bird’s head in an unnatural angle vibrated through my soul, and I think a cry pushed its way up my throat, but I was too stunned to move.

  He smiled an awful, satisfied smile and threw the bird to the side. I should have moved away but I couldn’t because of that ugly smile.

  “Cameron Strachlan!” a deep, angry voice called out. “Step away from her.”

  Hawker Johns walked out from the barn and stopped. He held no weapons, and Cam didn’t have his gun anymore.

  “Back away, Annie,” Hawk said, and I took a step back, but I was too slow.

  Cam was on me immediately, twisting me around to put one arm in a weird grip around my head. He wasn't much taller than me, but he had filled out since the days in the research center, and he was strong. I tried to move, but he didn't let go. Dragonflies and bees started swirling around us and I heard a bird screech loudly.

  “I’ll twist your neck too, Bree,” he whispered.

  His breath slid over me, and I felt bile rise up my throat, but I refused to show him any weakness and stood straight as a lance in his disgusting embrace.

  “Is Olly okay? Sven?” I asked the bird.

  “Alive. Old man, not good. My man, getting up. Angry. They’re holding him back.”

  I relaxed a little in spite of the dangerous situation I was in. I’d succeeded. They were alive, and Olly on his feet.

  When I glanced around, I saw people all around us. Several birds were in the air. I saw both Dante and Nick, and Wilder was standing to the side. I knew Mac would be hiding somewhere with his gun. If they could just tell me how to move, he'd shoot Cam.

  “Where is Mac?” I asked. “Where is the sniper?”

  “Behind you.”

  I tilted my head forward into Cam's arm and clenched my jaws, anticipating the pain I knew would come. Then I threw my head backward, slamming it into his face. He cried out at the same time as
I relaxed all muscles in my body, and he lost his hold on me. I rolled to the side and scrambled away from him.

  “Stay down, Annie!” Mac shouted, and I rolled away from Cameron, waiting for the shot to come.

  “No!”

  A big, muscular man walked around the corner of the house with his eyes firmly fixed on Cameron. He didn't seem to notice the people around him, and I heard several voices shout at him to stop, but he kept walking.

  Byron.

  “No. No. No,” he kept mumbling with every step he took.

  “Stop right there, Boon,” Cam shouted.

  “I am Byron,” By retorted and kept walking. “Byron,” he repeated angrily.

  “Stop,” Cameron shouted again.

  “Killed our parents. Not good,” Byron murmured. “Hurt Mary. Not good.”

  Byron's eyes turned to me, and his face tightened, deepening the groves around his scars until his whole demeanor was a hard mask of anger. Cameron stared at his older brother and the absolute fury that kept coming toward him until they were standing so close Byron towered over Cam.

  “Hurt Bree. Want to kill Bree. NOT. GOOD,” he roared in Cameron’s face. “NOT. GOOD,” he repeated, picked Cameron off the ground as if he weighed nothing, and threw him.

  Cam flew backward and landed on his back with a thump. I tried to hold By back, but he pushed me to the side with hands that were strangely gentle in the middle of his rage and kept walking.

  A shot rang out, and it took a few seconds to understand that it hadn't been Mac who fired his rifle. Cameron had landed next to his gun, and it was he who had made the shot.

  Byron grunted something as he kept walking, and two more shots echoed, but they didn't stop him either. When he reached his brother, he went down on his knees and pushed Cam down with a big hand over his throat. Cameron seemed stunned, and then Byron pulled the gun out of his hand. I heard someone shout loudly, but By didn't pause. Calmly, he turned the gun around and shot his brother in the forehead.

  Cam's body twitched, and he fell back.

  “Not. Good,” Byron said hoarsely.

  A strange rattle came from his chest as he got up and started to walk back to me. It had all happened so fast, and I stood there, just staring. I heard voices and feet moving around us, but all I could focus on was Byron, and the horrible red stain spreading on his chest. He stumbled, righted himself, and I ran the few steps to him.

  He went down immediately and took me with him.

  It was like that awful night when I lost him. He was on his back, and I tried to pull his clothes away so I could find his wounds, and stop the bleeding. His gray tee was soaked, and when I ripped it open, I saw three bullet holes, and how blood flowed out of him. Too much, and too fast. I’d lost him once, but I’d found him again. As I stared at his chest, I knew there wasn't anything I could do.

  I would lose him once again.

  “Byron,” I screamed. Someone tried to pull me away, and I slapped at the hands. “Get away from us.”

  “Bree,” Byron said. “No more hurt.”

  There was an awful, rattling sound in his chest and I stilled. His face was suddenly relaxed, and there was a small smile on his lips.

  “Please don’t leave me,” I sobbed.

  “I’ll never leave,” he said.

  I could tell that he struggled to breathe, and forced myself to calm down. I had to let go of him again, and this time I'd not run away and leave him to face it alone.

  “You’ll always be with me,” I promised. “I love you more than anything.”

  His eyes suddenly changed, and there he was. My sharp-eyed, brilliant Byron. The young man I had spent so many hours with, solving complex problems and laughing about anything and everything.

  “More than the air that I breathe,” he said softly.

  For a few long seconds, we just looked at each other, and then it was over. His eyes dimmed, and I felt how his whole being relaxed as he exhaled one last time. It sounded almost like a sigh of relief.

  “No,” I whispered. I squeezed my eyes shut but it didn't stop the tears, and they ran down my cheeks as I fell forward, taking his scarred, wounded body into my arms. “No,” I whispered again and held on tight.

  Someone kneeled behind me, pulled my arms gently away from Byron, and took me into his arms.

  “Annie,” Olly murmured.

  “I’m not leaving him,” I sobbed. “I left him once, and he wasn’t dead. I’m not leaving until I’m sure.”

  “He’s gone, baby,” Olly murmured.

  “I have to be sure,” I repeated.

  “Okay.”

  He moved us until he was on the cold ground and I sat in his lap, holding Byron’s hand in mine, trying desperately to focus, to keep breathing and find some way to make sense of everything that was happening. I was rocking a little back and forth and crying silently. People were moving around us, but I couldn't look at them. All I could see was the man lying on the ground in front of me, and all I could feel was the warmth from the arms that held me.

  “Olly, we need to get you to the hospital,” Wilder murmured.

  “Later,” Olly said.

  “You have God knows how many fractured ribs and two bullet wounds that are bleeding still,” Wilder gently reminded him.

  “I’ll live.”

  I turned my head a little to look at Olly. His face was set, and there was pain in his eyes.

  “Olly,” I whispered.

  “Not leaving you,” he said calmly.

  I closed my eyes and prepared to close my mind off from the pain, but he shook me gently.

  “No. Don’t close down, Annie. We deal with this together, right now.”

  “You need a doctor.”

  “I can deal with my pain, Annie. You can’t deal with yours, so I’m not leaving you.”

  I started crying again, and he reached for me.

  “Hold on to me,” he murmured. “We’ll get through this together.”

  I shifted a little so I could press my face into his chest. It must have hurt his ribs, but he didn't say a word, and just held me as I cried. Then dragonflies came from everywhere to swirl in the air around us, and murmur words of comfort until it felt like I was in a cocoon of warmth. I wept for the life that was lost, all those years ago and then again right in front of me, but the tears came easier, and the worst pain slowly faded away. Olly shifted me gently around, so I sat on the ground between his legs, leaning my back on his chest. There was blood on his left thigh, and I cried for that too.

  “Tell me about him,” he murmured.

  I sat on the cold ground with my dead friend’s hand in mine and talked about who he’d been. I shared stupid jokes we’d made, the work we’d done and how we skied together. Olly sighed softly when he heard how Byron had struggled with headaches and strange hallucinations, and his arms tightened around me when I told him about that last year when we both lived with Gramps, and how we’d brought blankets outside, falling asleep together, counting the stars.

  “What was his name?” he asked softly.

  My breath hitched. He’d remembered what I told him about his mother.

  “Byron Andreas Strachlan,” I said.

  “Byron Andreas Johns,” Hawker said loudly and sat down on Byron’s other side.

  Of course. If Cameron had been related to Hawk, then Byron had been too.

  Wilder sat down next to her father, leaned into his side and murmured, “Byron Andreas Johns.”

  She reached forward to touch Byron’s shoulder gently with her fingertips and sighed in a way that sounded mostly like a sob. Hawker put an arm around her and rested his chin on the top of her head as they watched a dead relative they hadn’t even known existed.

  “You heard what Cam told me,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Hawker said. “I had a relative living forty-five minutes from home and didn’t even know it.” He bent his head down and sighed. “Wish I had.”

&nbs
p; “Two relatives,” I reminded him.

  “No. One,” he corrected me. “I claim Byron, but the other one was nothing. We'll put Byron to rest with the family. The other one we'll cremate and throw in the river.”

  I stared at his suddenly angry face and tried to process what he’s said.

  “You’ll throw Cameron in the river.”

  “Yeah.”

  “He had a wife and a son,” I said quietly.

  “Shit,” Hawker replied. “We’ll deal with that later. This will be hard on Da, and even harder on Mary.”

  “Yes,” I agreed.

  “Fuck,” he murmured, and for once, the crude word seemed oddly fitting. “Get something over here to cover him with, honey,” he said to Wilder and squeezed her shoulder.

  She nodded and left.

  “You okay?” Hawker asked me.

  No, I was not okay. Not at all, but I had to be. I'd had my time to break down, and I knew there would be more tears, but Olly needed to go to the hospital. Sven was hopefully already there. Everyone around me needed answers. So, I had to be okay for a little while.

  “It’s all good,” I said and tried to smile through the pain when I remembered how Byron had said precisely that to me when he told me to leave Miller and Mary's house.

  “It will be,” Hawk said and stretched a hand out to touch my cheek.

  “It will be,” I confirmed. “Right now, I need to get Olly to the hospital. Will you tell –”

  I had to swallow again when I remembered the young, curly-haired girl and the boy with his curious eyes. The old man. Mary.

  “Dante is on his way over to Mill’s house. Miller knows what’s gone down, and the two of them will deal with the people there. I’ll take care of things here, and then go to Da. Sloane is there, she already knows too.”

  “Sven?”

  “Critical but stable. They’re taking him to Twin City. Snow and Nick are with him.”

  “Toby?”

  “Mac has him. Critical too, but he has a chance and Mac’s not gonna give up on him.”

  “Jamie?”

  “Gone. We all turned back toward Norton. Fratinelli threw Jamieson in a boat and went down the river toward open sea. My bird lost them.”

  I sighed and looked down at Byron again. Someone handed me a blanket from the house and slowly, I spread it out on top of him.