Box Set: Rune Alexander- Vol. 1-3 (Rune Alexander Box Set)

by Laken Cane

  “If I hadn’t caused RISC to become a slaughterhouse.”

  Ellis stood. “That was not your fault, Rune.”

  “Of course it was, Ellie. It was my fault. I insisted Llodra be released. For RISC’s safety. What a fucking laugh.” She clenched her fists, then forced herself to relax. “But you can’t let them muscle you out right now, Bill. I’m not going anywhere, no matter what they say. Let them take my badge. I’ll fight on. But you can’t let COS take over.”

  “COS is arming citizens,” Ellis said, his voice grim. “Arming them with silver and fear and hate.” There was a look in his eyes she’d never seen before. Not even when she’d forced him to bring her blood after allowing Jeremy to abuse her had she seen such a look of…

  Bitterness.

  Ellis was losing his hope, his belief. His fucking innocence.

  How much would he hate her when he found out that Llodra was her father? That he was one bite away from becoming a monster himself? Because of her.

  “Arming them with silver,” she echoed. She turned to Rice. “Bill. You have to force them out of this city.”

  “I wish I could.”

  “You can. Just fucking do it!”

  He stood, pushing his chair back so hard it fell over. “I can’t make them leave, Rune! It’s just me. I’m just me. A fucking Other.”

  As far as she knew, it was the first time Rice had admitted what he was. The first time he’d said the words aloud.

  He stared down at the table, his shoulders slumping. “COS is behind this,” he murmured. “And there is nothing I can do about it.” His face was lined and haggard. His suit hung on his gaunt body, which appeared to have been reduced by at least fifteen pounds since the RISC massacre. “Honestly, I expect to be arrested at any time.”

  Rune took a deep breath and rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Do they understand that if the zombies take over, they’ll die? The humans will be wiped out?” She glanced at Ellis. She didn’t want to add to his depression but it was the truth.

  Bill sighed. “They only think about destroying Others. That’s all they’ve ever wanted. COS believes they’re close to getting exactly what they’ve worked so hard for. They think they’ll eventually rule the world. An Otherless world.” He caught her stare. “Utopia.”

  For a moment they just looked at each other. Utopia, maybe. But it would be utopia for the Others, not the idiot humans.

  “It’s not just River County,” Ellis said. “They’re in every city in the US, and the humans are being seduced by their words, by their protection. It’s the perfect time. They’re so scared. The zombies…”

  “The media is making it worse,” Rice said. “Reporting constantly on Other crime. There has been a huge increase in Other violence. Murders, tortures, kidnappings. Others are committing more crimes against humans than ever before.”

  “And this sudden turn of events isn’t making the humans realize COS is behind it? They’ve done it before, Bill.” Suddenly she was tired. So tired. There was no end to the fighting. No end to fucking COS. And in the ongoing battle of the world against COS, COS was winning.

  She was tempted to go home and let the zombies wipe them out. It wasn’t like she could make a big difference anyway. Like Ellis had said, it wasn’t just River County.

  And honestly, if it hadn’t been for her crew, she just might have.

  But then her cell rang again, and even before she answered she had a bad feeling it wasn’t good news.

  Her gut had never failed her.

  “Ms. Alexander,” a man said. “My name is Bach Horner. We met at the diner.”

  Gray Suit. “COS,” she muttered, and clutched her stomach.

  “Yes, ma’am. COS.”

  “What the fuck do you want?”

  “This is just a courtesy call.”

  “What the fuck,” she said again, “do you want?”

  “I wanted to let you know that I have Karin Love’s daughter. I have Alexis.”

  Chapter Forty

  She couldn’t breathe. She grabbed on to the back of a chair, swaying, as Ellis and Rice stared at her in alarm.

  “I have our little princess,” he continued, “just as our leader has requested. Do you understand now, Ms. Alexander?”

  “Rune,” Ellis cried. “What has happened?”

  She shoved her phone into her pocket. “COS has Lex.” She ran from the room, leaving both Rice and Ellis behind.

  She stopped at the restroom first and charged into it. “Lex!”

  But the large room was empty.

  She ran back to the break room.

  The crew jumped up at her entrance, hands reaching for silver blades. “What?” Strad said, his voice hard.

  Raze came toward her, a blade in each hand, looking for a threat that wasn’t there.

  “God,” she cried. Lex wasn’t there. COS hadn’t lied. “COS has Lex. COS has Lex.”

  It seemed as though she could form no other words. COS. Lex.

  She’d just spoken to Lex. Just left her in the bathroom where COS had stolen her boldly and with no hesitation.

  Her cell rang. She ripped it from her pocket. “Where is Lex?” she screamed.

  “I wanted to give you time to search for her, to see we’re not lying. Lex is with us now.”

  “I will find you,” she said, “and I will get her back.”

  He didn’t sound afraid. “Be quiet and listen, Ms. Alexander.”

  He paused, then continued when she did as he demanded. “Good. Now. Turn on your TV. I’ll call you back.”

  She pointed at the small television high on the break room wall. “Turn it on,” she said to Jack.

  He clicked through the channels, and then they saw exactly what COS wanted them to see.

  A reporter stared out at them. The penitentiary in which Karin Love was confined loomed in the background. The reporter’s eyes were wide and bright as she spoke with excited glee into her microphone. “…of Judge Randolph Parker. Parker resided over her first trial, and due to new evidence and prosecutorial misconduct, believes the woman might not belong on death row. Might, in fact, belong back in the arms of her church…”

  The reporter kept talking. Her lips moved, but Rune had no idea what she was saying. White noise filled her head.

  Lex.

  She watched, frozen with disbelief, until Levi and Denim broke from the small, stunned group and ran for the door.

  “Wait,” she called. “Levi!”

  The twins stopped and turned back to face her, their eyes holding identical expressions of shock. Of horror. Of guilt. “What?” Levi asked. “What can you do?”

  She didn’t know. She opened her mouth to speak but Ellis and Rice hurried into the room. Ellis went immediately to Levi and wrapped his arms around him. “We’ll get her back,” he said. “The crew will get her back.”

  “Ellie,” Levi whispered. “They’re turning Karin loose. Karin is coming, and she’s taking us back.”

  Rune closed her eyes. God, the horror in his voice, the conviction in his words. The twins believed it was inevitable. Karin would once again get them all.

  Her cell rang. She held it to her ear, her heart beating so hard it hurt her chest. “I’m listening, you bastard.”

  “We want the twins,” he said. “Tell them to go home. They’ll be contacted. Keep your crew out of this. If we see you, if you interfere, Lex will be tortured. You believe me, don’t you, Alexander?”

  Oh yes, she believed. She nodded, numb, and turned to look at the twins. “He said for you to go home and wait to be contacted.”

  They were gone before she’d even finished speaking.

  “How did you do it? How did you take her?”

  “We have people everywhere. You passed three of them when you left Lex alone and hurried on to your meeting with Bill Rice.” His voice was full of something close to pride. And contempt.

  “She didn’t fight,” Rune said.

  “She is too afraid to fight us, Alexander. We know
how to handle Alexis Love. We’ve been doing it since she ripped her way from her mother’s body.” He hung up.

  She stared at Rice. “What can we do?”

  “They’ve done nothing illegal. Law enforcement won’t touch them.”

  She laughed, then cut it off when she heard a note of hysteria. “Nothing illegal? Since when is abduction not illegal?”

  He held his phone out to her. “I received a call, informing me to hang up and let it go to voicemail.”

  She hit speaker, and she and the crew listened to yet another horrific development.

  “This is Alexis Love,” Lex said. Her voice came out of the phone with a tinny desperation, a quiet knowledge, and a hurt so vast it left Rune breathless and ill. “I am with the Church of Slayers…” She stumbled, then continued. “I’m with them of my own free will. I want to be with…”

  She stopped speaking, but after a quickly indrawn breath, she went on. “With my mother.” Then she spoke in a monotone, and didn’t sound like Lex at all. “My mother will be freed, and my place is at her side. I am the leader’s child. I am Alexis Love, and I belong with my mother.”

  Lex hesitated, and when she spoke again, her voice was hard. “Take care of Levi and Denim. No matter what, do not let—” Then there was nothing. Nothing but dead air.

  The silence was heavy and oppressive. Lex was gone.

  Gone.

  “She’s gone,” Rune said. Her mind was barely working, paralyzed beneath the fear.

  “Not for long,” Raze said, his face pale. “We’ll get her back if I have to tear the world apart to find her.”

  “By the time you do, it’ll be too late,” Owen said. “The queen bitch is going to kill that little girl.”

  “Not right away. She’ll want to take her time. She enjoys punishing her daughter too much to kill her—even if she has to do it through her slayers.” Rune looked at Rice. “You can’t believe that phone call was anything but forced.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t. But everyone else…” He spread his hands helplessly. “They’ll believe because they want to. No one will go after the church. No one will go after Lex and those boys.”

  “Oh, someone will,” Rune said. “We will.”

  She’d thought Lex and the twins were safe with her and the crew.

  They hadn’t even been close.

  COS had them, and that meant they had the entire crew.

  And COS might not kill Lex, but they would kill the twins.

  “No,” Raze said, as though he knew exactly what she was thinking. “They won’t kill them. They want to use them. To reconvert them. The boys are valuable.”

  But she wasn’t convinced. The twins were dangerous to COS, so they were disposable. But COS could control Lex by using the twins. Maybe that would save them.

  She glanced at the TV. Someone had muted the sound, but a picture of Karin Love filled the screen, and no sound was necessary.

  The face of evil stared back at her. Her smooth, black skin was dotted with endearing freckles. Her lips were full and slightly tilted, as though she was always on the verge of sharing a secret joke.

  Rune could see bits of Lex in her face. The forehead, cheekbones, mouth.

  But Rune knew Karin Love, and to her, the evil was obvious. It was there in her bottomless, cold eyes.

  She knew suddenly and without question that Karin was going to be freed, and she was going to hurt Lex.

  Something Lex had known all along.

  “Let’s go,” Raze said.

  “Where, Raze? Go where?” Rune caressed the hilts of her shivs, tempted to plunge one of them into the healing stake wound on her chest.

  “Surround the house. Follow COS when they take the twins. Get Lex the fuck back.”

  “COS will hurt her if we do.”

  He curled his lip. “They’ll hurt her anyway, Rune.”

  But she’d made so many wrong decisions. “I’m afraid I’ll fuck up again,” she said, looking from one to the other. “I’m afraid I’ll get her killed.”

  That was an understatement.

  She was fucking terrified.

  “I can’t do this, guys. I can’t do this anymore.”

  “You’re the only one who can do this,” Jack said, his voice harsh. “You want to sit back and let COS have them? Or do you want to take them the fuck down?”

  “I want Lex and the twins to be okay. That’s what I want.”

  “Well, they’re not okay. We have to make them okay. You know that, Rune.”

  She did. She took a deep breath and clutched at Owen’s hand when he offered it to her. In the back of her mind she noted the berserker’s immediate reaction to the contact, but it was a niggling thought she barely comprehended. Not then.

  Rice’s phone rang. She stared at him, willing him to hang up and tell her that Lex and the twins had overpowered COS and were on their way back to the crew.

  But he didn’t tell her that. He clenched his phone, his face pale. “Zombies, Rune. And not just a few. They’re in Spiritgrove, and they’re attacking.”

  He held up his palm as she opened her mouth to speak. “Every available cop is on the scene, and they’re blowing the zombies’ heads off. But it’s not enough. They’re spreading out, and they have to be contained now.” He pointed at her. “Take the crew and do your job. Protect the city.”

  But he knew what she’d say. The knowledge was there in his eyes. And he didn’t blame her, not really. The city hadn’t been kind to her, or him, or to any of the Others.

  She smiled. “Fuck the city, Bill. I’m going after Lex and the twins.”

  With any luck, the zombies would make their way to those who held part of her crew. She’d urge them on as they munched on the malevolent brains of the wicked slayers who held Lex, and eventually, on fucking Karin Love.

  Chapter Forty-One

  But Rice shot out a hand as she started past him. “Rune. You can’t ignore the zombies. Especially not these. They’re the new zombies you were worried about. You have to help protect the city.”

  “No. I have to wipe out COS. I have to get to Lex.”

  He softened his voice. “Think of little Stefanie…of all the innocents of River County. They depend on us to protect them. I want Lex to be okay. But Lex and the twins are Shiv Crew. They will deal with it. Do your job, Rune.”

  Ellis had sat down after Levi left, his face in his hands. But now, he climbed to his feet and joined her. “He’s right.”

  “Ellie!”

  “It’s the right thing to do.” He said nothing more, and though stark terror was in his eyes, in the lines of his face, pale beneath the recent injuries dealt him by the mad master, he was sure. Ellis had always been one to do the right thing.

  “Take the crew and destroy the zombies,” Rice urged. “COS will still be here, playing their games.”

  Finally, she relented. Sort of. “Raze, take one of the guys and stake out the twins’ house. The rest of you, come with me. As soon as we get the zombies under control, we’ll deal with COS.”

  “Owen,” Raze said. “Come with me.”

  “Fuck you,” Owen replied.

  The insult was obvious. Raze wanted to take the person he thought had the least ability to help Rune.

  “I’ll go alone,” Raze told her. “I’m going to watch. You’re going to fight. You need them.” Without waiting for her approval, he strode from the room.

  “Be careful,” she said, but he wouldn’t have heard her.

  Four of them against a sudden horde of new zombies.

  “We’ll be in more danger from the cops and their guns than from the zombies,” Jack said.

  Rune nodded. “Grab some vests.” What he said was true. People facing down monsters tended to get itchy trigger fingers.

  Ten minutes later they were following Rune deeper into the city. The streets were eerily quiet and empty, the darkness chased back by the tall street lights.

  “I hear guns, but I don’t see—” Rune started, then sudden
ly she caught sight of pulsating lights from cop cars, lighting up the night. “There they are.” She dug out her cell and tossed it into the glove compartment.

  The police cars sat in the middle of the street, doors open with cops crouched behind them, guns aimed.

  Even as she stopped her own car and jumped out, the sound of gunfire filled the night. But the monsters were not discouraged.

  They came on in their unhurried, hungry way.

  When she ran forward, she released her claws and called out to the police. Some of them acknowledged her with a nod, but mostly they ignored her and watched the zombies.

  “There are so many of them,” a young cop said. She couldn’t remember his name. David, maybe, or Danny. “They keep coming. We blast out their brains and the others just walk over them. They want us.” His face was pale, his eyes a little too wide.

  An older cop joined her, a man named Tom Peyton. “Glad to see you, Alexander.” He scratched his head. “I can’t figure out where they’re coming from. But they keep coming.”

  She glanced around at her crew. “We’re going to take them out, but you guys have to stop shooting. We can’t be in the middle of that with guns blazing.”

  He nodded, and a gleam of relief lit his eyes. “Rice let us know you were coming. If you think you can destroy the motherfuckers, be my guest. We need more men, more guns. But right now I’ll be happy with you and the guys.” He nodded a hello to Strad, who came to stand at her back. “If you need us, get the hell out of that mess and we’ll start shooting again.”

  The zombies were taking over the city—at least that part of it. She nodded in the direction of the hospital. “You have some men stationed at the hospital?”

  “We do. We have men stationed all over. Got rid of a few stragglers over there. But these ones, they seem to be following a path straight into the city. That make any kind of sense to you?”

  She shook her head, but was afraid it did make sense. They were following an invisible trail left by Fie, and maybe, by Rune herself.

  “Flamethrower?” she asked the cop.

  “We had two. Used them up and started shooting. Barely slowed them down.”

  Rune looked around at her crew. “Do not get bitten.” If they’d have listened, she’d gladly have ordered them to stay the fuck away.