by Laken Cane
Spots of dark red decorated their shirts, patterns of obvious and almost identical violence, as though everything done to one was immediately repeated on the other.
Hoods covered their heads.
But they were alive.
They were alive.
The men in charge of them weren’t overly large. Their movements were jerky and nervous. They looked from side to side, yanking the silent twins along with them.
“They’re not professionals,” Rune noted. “And they’re scared.”
“They should be,” Raze said, and there was death in his voice. Death and promise.
“The boys are drugged,” Strad murmured.
One of the twins slumped and was dragged along impatiently by his guards, their hands under his arms keeping him semi-upright. His feet cut a path through the dead leaves as they hauled him into the yard and toward one of the cars parked there.
“They’re taking them away,” Rune said. “Maybe they got word that their cop lackeys were unable to stop us.”
“I don’t think they wanted us stopped,” Strad said. “Only delayed.”
“We can’t let them go. Let’s move.” Rune led them across the side yard, running in a zigzag pattern until they finally stopped against the side of the house.
She leaned against the house, hoping the guys didn’t notice she was trying to catch her breath. Fucking blast had kicked her ass.
Sweat covered her face, though the day wasn’t going to get warmer than forty degrees. It was the sweat of a weak, sick person.
“Rune?”
She took a deep breath and nodded at Strad. “I’m good. Ready?”
“Ready,” he said.
They blasted from the side of the house like raging torpedoes, Raze and Rune charging toward the twins while Strad covered them.
She heard shots behind her but didn’t stop to look. Strad was taking care of business.
The two men holding the twins released them, trampling them as the boys fell to the ground in boneless heaps and the guards took on the threat of Rune and Raze.
They didn’t try to jerk their rifles free but grabbed instead for the handguns holstered at their sides.
Rune shot three of them almost before she realized she’d fired. Raze took out the last one.
A bullet had skimmed her upper left bicep, leaving a trail of burning pain, but it was a scratch compared with the other wounds she’d sustained.
She glanced at Raze, who appeared unhurt. They turned back to help Strad.
Everything happened in seconds. Adrenaline hit her like a bus, but still, it wasn’t her monster. She needed her fucking monster.
Two men on the porch fell, one tumbling over the side and landing on the ground below. Glass shattered as the third floor windows she’d pointed out earlier were broken.
She didn’t have to warn her men—they noticed the threat when she did and all three dove behind whatever cover they could find—she and Raze behind a truck. She lost sight of Strad but because he was closer to the house, she figured he’d taken shelter against it.
Two men ran from the other side of the house, but not toward the crew. They ran to a large building sitting a short distance from the house. A shed with high windows.
They were trying to surround the crew, and it occurred to her that COS wanted her and her men alive.
Bastards would love that—not just this branch, not just Horner, but Karin Love. They would have been ordered, these men who were haters and torturers, to try to take Shiv Crew alive. But she also knew they’d rather kill the crew than let them escape.
Bullets rained down on the truck, keeping her and Raze pinned. She pushed her back against the vehicle and ground her teeth. Fucking COS. “The twins are exposed. We have to get them out of the yard before they’re shot.”
“I’m going to get the twins. Cover me.”
“No. You try to get inside the house. I’ll get the twins. If I’m hit, it won’t kill me.”
“Can you drag two unconscious men to safety before you’re hit? Before they are?” His eyes were dark, dark and cold. That coldness wasn’t directed at her. Raze was simply in the zone.
Could she? Her strength had melted away with her speed. Going for the twins might only get them killed.
“Cover me, and then get to Strad,” he told her.
And before she could order him to stay the hell put, he was gone.
Chapter Fifty-Two
When Raze ran for the twins, drawing gunfire away from her and onto him, she leaped up and started shooting. She heard a scream with grim satisfaction but didn’t stop shooting.
Seeing his chance, Strad snaked his way to her. They both covered Raze, who grabbed the boys and began to drag them across the yard.
Let them be okay.
Occupied with Rune and Strad, the two men in the shed ignored Raze as he rescued the twins.
It was a full thirty seconds before Rune realized there were no shots coming from inside the house.
She hoped it was because Jack and Owen had killed the bastards inside.
“Something’s off,” Strad said. “Horner knew we’d be coming.”
Rune nodded. “Why doesn’t he have more men? Why didn’t he take Lex and the twins and run for it?”
“Maybe he’s just that arrogant.”
But neither of them believed it.
“The house is—”
Quiet, she’d started to say, but before she could finish her words, gunfire broke out once more. And shouts, screams, thumps.
“Jack and Owen are in there,” she said instead.
“I’m going for the shed,” Strad said. “I’ll shut down the shooters inside.”
“I’ll cover you.”
He nodded once, then shot to his feet and ran full out toward the shed. Rune started shooting as soon as he took off, keeping the men away from the windows. She had no idea how many were in the building, but was pretty sure at least one of them had been hit. Maybe more.
It was a little too easy. Sure, they’d been shot at. But Horner should have fortified the place. He should have had it crawling with armed men, and he should have made the crew work a little harder.
So until she had the twins and Lex heading back down the highway and out of Hawthorne, she wasn’t going to relax.
Something wasn’t right.
And she didn’t want to think about what that something might be.
As soon as the berserker hit the shed door, she ran to the house. No one shot at her.
She jumped onto the porch and threw herself against the wall, guns up and ready. But no one was there.
Raze strode across the yard toward the porch, his head swiveling from side to side.
“Rune,” he called. “Wait.”
“Twins?” she asked, as he climbed the steps.
The look in his eyes let her know he had bad news. Very bad news.
Strad left the shed and jogged toward them, and Raze waited until the berserker had joined them before he continued speaking.
“That wasn’t the twins,” he said.
“What?” She shook her head, as though by denying it, she could make it untrue.
“The men I hauled from the yard. I took off their hoods. Two strangers.” He ran a hand over his face. “They’d been drugged and cut up a little. They couldn’t answer my questions.”
“Maybe the twins are inside,” she said.
More screams, loud and long, came from somewhere deep inside the house. Strad kicked open the door and they strode cautiously but quickly through the living room, furnished only with a couch, a coffee table, a large desk, and a pile of sleeping bags.
A dead man lay sprawled and bloody before one of the shattered windows.
The hoarse screams stuttered to a stop.
Rune’s stomach was a tight, roiling mess, and there was a single phrase repeating over and over inside her mind. Don’t let it be one of mine.
They found Jack and Owen in the large kitchen. Jack was kneeling besid
e a COS member who was either dead or dying, and Owen stood above them. He motioned them inside.
“Place is secure,” he said. “But Lex and the twins aren’t here.”
Jack cleaned his blade on the stranger’s clothes before standing and sliding it back into its sheath. “Bad fucking news.”
Rune let out a breath. “Tell me.”
“Otherfights.”
“Son of a bitch. They’re fighting Lex and the twins.”
Jack nudged the prone man with his boot. “Only Lex, according to this piece of shit. The fights are one way they fund the church. Lex will be a big fucking draw.”
Raze turned his back and punched the wall, his fury enough to rival the berserker’s.
“Do we know where they have her?” Rune shuddered as gooseflesh erupted on her newly healed skin. She didn’t object when Strad wrapped his fingers around her arm and squeezed gently, trying to comfort her, to ground her. To calm her.
“Rock County,” Jack said, his voice dull.
“Shit.” Her body shook with reaction as she realized Jack believed Lex was already dead. “What else?”
“He told me they’d forced sharp silver plugs into her ears so not only is she blind, but deaf, as well. They’re making her fight that way because when they trialed her, she killed everyone in the fucking room.”
For a long moment, no one could speak.
“There’s more?” Strad asked, finally.
He nodded, but wouldn’t look at her. Not a good sign.
“She’s in deep withdrawal from her addiction to you. She’s not…well.” He stared, instead of at her, at the man on the floor. “He said she’d lost her mind.”
The slayer had begun to stir. He was bloody and broken from Jack’s torture, but when he opened his eyes, they were still full of hate.
When he spotted Rune, his swollen lips curled in disgust. “Animal,” he said.
“He laughed,” Jack said, his voice quiet, almost reflective. “When I forced him to talk about little Lex, he laughed.” Finally he lifted his gaze to her. “There was joy in his eyes and so much conviction. I knew COS was full of some bad fucking people, but…” He shook his head. “What kind of people are they?”
Raze pulled a long, sharp shiv and knelt beside the man. He didn’t say a word, just cut the slayer’s throat. Then he cleaned the blade on the slayer’s pants, got to his feet, and looked at Rune.
“Rock County is too far,” Rune whispered. “We’ll never make it in time to save them.”
Raze grabbed her arm and pulled her to face him. “You can get there fast if you fucking run.”
“I can’t. My monster is gone. I’m just like you.”
He shook her. “You can.”
“Easy, buddy,” Jack said.
“I can’t,” she said, her eyes overflowing. “Fuck you. I can’t!”
“So you want Lex to die,” Raze said, and released her. “You’re just going to leave her and the twins there to die.”
She shuddered, wanting to hit him, to scream at him, but she couldn’t. “You know that’s not true.”
He curled his lip, his stare flat, accusing. “Look at you,” he said. “Who the fuck are you?”
Strad stepped toward Raze. “That’s enough.”
“This is not Rune,” Raze roared, and shoved the berserker.
Oh fuck. Fuck me.
They’d kill each other.
The berserker and Raze, right then, went a little fucking crazy. Not using weapons, but fists, and surrounded in a swirling, almost visible aura of rage, they began to fight.
“Fuck you,” she screamed, and finally, finally, she got mad.
And she went after her monster.
Chapter Fifty-Three
The world was bleak and terrible, chaotic and scary, but nothing compared with the black world inside her mind.
That was where she had to go.
She found her monster, found him lying upon a bloody floor, bound and gagged, with the ghost of Jeremy slicing into him with savage glee.
Jeremy sneered when he saw her, his eyes gleaming with madness. “You think you can take him from me?” He straightened, his hands holding blades, his arms scarlet to the shoulders.
Her monster struggled against his bonds, and when he looked at her, his eyes were red and tormented. “Why did you leave me here so long?” he seemed to say.
“This is who you are,” Jeremy screamed. “This is what you want!” And just as abruptly, his smile became crafty and his voice softened. “Come here, baby. Let me make it all better.”
Then Jeremy became Llodra. “Daddy loves you,” the vampire said. “Daddy loves his little girl.”
She flinched away from him, and realized right then she was more hurt by Llodra than she’d ever been by Jeremy.
“You’re nothing to me,” she said, and strode toward her monster.
Her adoptive mother appeared, her smile sad, her eyes sadder. “You should hide, honey. The monster will get you.”
“I’m the monster,” Rune replied, and reached down to grab her monster by the throat. “Don’t you understand? It’s always been me. I’m the monster.”
Her monster smiled.
“Ready?” he asked. “Are you really ready for me?”
“Fuck yeah,” she said. “Don’t leave me again, you bastard.”
“What will you do,” he whispered. “Hurt me?”
It didn’t matter. She was fucked. She might have been mad, might have carried her father’s genes like pieces of broken glass that stabbed into her heart, over and over and fucking over, but she needed her monster, and she meant to have him. No matter what.
“I thought I’d accepted you,” she murmured. And maybe she had. Maybe hiding him had simply been a subconscious, last ditch effort to be normal. To be human.
Then it was a mere second later and she was back inside the COS kitchen, the sounds of flesh upon flesh beating at her brain as her men tried to kill each other.
She shook off Owen’s hand when he cautioned her to be careful. She wasn’t worried. She waded into the fight.
Strad hit Raze in the face, sending him reeling into her—if he’d have hit the wall as hard as he hit her, there would have been a Raze-shaped hole in the side of the house.
The force of it caused her to move back a step as she caught him against her. That was all. She caught him, shoved him away, gently, and stepped between the two men.
“Enough.” Her voice was low, guttural, and full of command. She figured her eyes would be glowing with the soft red of her monster. She’d seen his eyes once, on the torturous recording Jeremy had shown her.
Her fangs cut into her lip, and with a nearly orgasmic release, she sent out her claws.
Then she grinned at them.
“You’re back,” Raze said, wiping his bloody nose. His eyes sparkled, and that was as close to returning her smile as he was going to get. “About time.”
“It’s only been a few hours.”
“Seemed like an eternity,” Strad said. He leaned against the wall, then straightened and walked to Raze. He clapped him on the shoulder and the two of them clutched each other in a brief, manly hug.
“Men are crazy,” Rune said, then added, “You two did that on purpose.”
Strad shrugged, but there was a gleam of pride in his eyes.
Jack stepped over the dead slayer and walked toward them. “Rune. Go.”
She was gone before he’d finished speaking.
Running toward Rock County, to Lex and the twins, unable to breathe but not really needing to as the wind snatched the air from her lungs and propelled her ever onward.
Fast, faster.
Maybe her monster had needed the fucking rest, because he was faster than ever.
She didn’t even try to remind herself that she was her monster. She thought of him as him, as separate, and that was okay.
She did what she needed to do to make it right.
And in time, who knew?
Lex’
s scent was there in the air—the closer she got to the city the stronger the scent. She and the Other had a bond, through blood or more she didn’t know and didn’t care. It was there, and it was strong.
“I’m coming, baby,” she whispered, and knew that somehow, Lex heard her. Lex was not dead. “I’m coming.”
Chapter Fifty-Four
She didn’t need directions to the fight. She found it by following the link stretching between her and the blind Other.
But if she hadn’t had that link, she could simply have followed the voices.
She took everything in with a glance. Humans crowded into the Camp, which was still surrounded by a silver-laced fence, razor wire curling on the top.
Rune realized immediately this fight was no secret to law enforcement. There were too many people attending.
Games this size would have been impossible to keep hidden for long.
Bastards.
The fence appeared to have been repaired. She spotted no damaged parts that might allow Others to slip inside and try to help the ones forced to fight, if they’d been so inclined.
She hoped she’d made it in time to save Lex. It was too late for the others who had been fought that day, but Lex…
Let her be okay.
The crowd screamed and cheered, frenzied and crazed by pain not their own, the horrible, horrible pain. The air was thick and hazy with spilled blood.
And despair.
Maybe they couldn’t feel it, but it was there. Despair and desolation.
And something else.
It was as though Damascus lingered—as though her essence still colored the area and maybe, maybe, that was why the humans were so…eager. Because of the witch’s wicked influence.
She needed to believe that.
She pushed past the throngs of people, looking for what held their attention.
And then, she saw it.
The huge cage she’d spotted after she fought the witch was once again occupied—by Lex.
The little Other stood silent and somehow resigned, her head cocked and her hands open at her sides—trying, perhaps, to absorb through her palms information she could no longer hear.
