by Laken Cane
They saw her looking at them and Leon shrugged. “I like to fight, Rune. I like to fuck things up. But this…” He gestured at the clearing below, at the crew, at the mountain in general. “This don’t make me happy.”
“It’s the torture,” Luc said. “The waiting, the helplessness…I can’t do this, either. It’s horrifying.”
Rune nodded, a little sorry for them. Not many people—even those as tough as Luc and Leon—could handle the life Shiv Crew lived.
“You can go if you like,” she told them. “We won’t try to stop you.”
But they shook their heads. “We’ll see this through,” Luciana said. “Then we’ll go.”
Rune nodded. She could always hire them as floaters when she needed extra muscle.
Then she forgot about Luc and Leon and jogged to the edge of the hill to peer down at the clearing.
Roma was upright in her chair, but her chin rested on her chest and she didn’t move. Maybe she was beyond moving.
“Are they drugging her?” she murmured.
“I think so,” Jack answered. “But maybe it’ll wear off, because I haven’t seen them give her anything since you left.”
“Not even water?”
“No.”
“Bastards,” she whispered.
Sylvia looked up and saw her. Her face brightened and she strode to the edge of the clearing. The wall prevented her from going farther. “My mother?” she called.
Rune blew out a quiet breath. “Sylvia. I was too late. Eugene…”
“No,” Sylvia howled. She stamped the ground with one booted foot, then raised her fists. “No!”
The two men watched her as she sank to her knees, sobbing. She began to beat the ground with her fists, and in seconds blood decorated her torn skin and broken knuckles.
She continued to scream, her voice full of genuine pain. But then, the pain began to change to rage.
“Dramatic little thing, isn’t she?” Angel said, grinning up at Rune.
Rune stepped away from the edge and grabbed Raze’s arm. “Call Eugene,” she murmured. “Tell him to send a shooter in a news helicopter. And to hurry.”
Maybe it wouldn’t do any good. Maybe the demon’s wall was a dome. But even as she strode back to the edge to watch, Sylvia climbed to her feet, wiped her nose on her sleeve, and started toward Roma.
“Sylvia, wait,” Rune said. She held up the black urn. “I brought her ashes.”
It would only delay the woman, but that was exactly what Rune wanted. Sylvia squinted up at the jar. “Ashes,” she sneered, her voice wobbling. “You brought me her fucking ashes. There’s not even a body I can hold.”
“I’m sorry, Sylvia.”
“Don’t say my name,” Sylvia screamed. “Don’t say my name like you know me.” She pointed at Rune. “This is your fault. You captured her. You gave her to her enemy. You killed her.”
“Yes,” Rune agreed. “And tying me to that chair would give you more satisfaction than torturing a girl who had nothing to do with your mother. Give her up, Sylvia. I’ll take her place.”
And Sylvia surprised her by nodding. “This girl is no use to me. She’s nearly dead. I will trade her for you.” She put her hands on her hips, her tears, for the moment, forgotten. “Come down here.”
“Rune,” Raze said. “She will have both of you if you go.”
“That’s okay,” Rune muttered. “All I need is to get inside that fucking demon’s wall.”
Strad took her arm. “If you can damage the demon, his hold on the wall will weaken.”
“Oh I plan on damaging that demon. Watch for your chance to break it down and get inside. One of you get Roma the fuck out of there.”
She could barely contain her hope, her excitement. Finally, there was a chance.
“Nah, now,” Angel called. “I can’t be allowing this nonsense to happen.” He laughed, and Rune’s heart sank. Hadn’t she known, really?
“Look,” he said, into the sudden silence, “I’m willing to play. But not for Alexander, there. I like my women a little less…troubled.” He shrugged. “Besides, I’m not into long fingernails.”
“Rip them out,” Sylvia yelled. “Who cares about fingernails? This isn’t up to you. It’s up to me, and I want to hurt the woman who killed my mother.” Then she buried her face in her hands and began crying once again.
“No, you don’t,” Angel said. “You don’t want to hurt anybody, do you, Syl?”
Rune closed her eyes.
“Rune is mine to torture,” Ben yelled, and Rune opened her eyes to watch as the three of them fought over who was going to get which person to torture.
It was almost funny.
While they talked, Rune walked down the hill and stood before the wall—she wouldn’t have known where it started if not for the splatters of blood and…thicker things decorating it. They looked like they were hanging in thin air, and for a second, the trauma of that crash overwhelmed her.
It’s okay. I’m fine, Nikolai is fine.
Thanks to Grim.
Grim, the savior of dead Skyllians.
She barely breathed, considering that idea. Could Grim save Roma, if the bastards killed her? She was Skyllian.
Perhaps she was way off track, but it was something to cling to.
“You’re pathetic,” she said, not loudly, but with so much contempt that all three of them stopped arguing to look at her.
A flash of shame flared in the demon’s eyes. For one millisecond, his insecurities were brought to the surface, and in that instant, he changed.
Because she’d shamed him.
He wasn’t stupid enough—or angry enough—to let down the wall and allow her inside, but he had to take out his rage on someone.
His smile froze the blood in her veins.
“I think it’s time I paid some attention to our guest,” he said, his voice so silky and soft she could have petted it. “I’ve been so neglectful of her.”
Ben laughed. “Take all the time you need, Angel. But first, let’s welcome Rune inside.” He ran his hand over Angel’s chest. “Yes? Please?”
Angel turned his head to look at Ben, and the other man paled and took a quick step back.
“Are you really that stupid?” Angel asked. “Do you think that monster—” He jabbed his finger at Rune and she felt it in her heart like a needle of ice, stabbing her every time he moved his finger. “—won’t come in here and kill you, and Sylvia, and even do some damage to me? This game will be over, my friend, if we allow her inside.”
“Angel…”
The demon leaned down and put his face close to Ben’s, and he changed abruptly from a good ol’ boy to a vicious, sinister Other. “You stupid, ugly, demented motherfucker. Get the fuck away from me before I rip your eyes out with my teeth.”
Ben was scrambling away even before Angel had finished speaking.
“That’s what I like to see,” Angel said, his voice loud and boisterous. “Respect! Respect, Rune Alexander. That’s what you will feel for me before this day is over.”
She placed her palms against the invisible wall. “Let me in.”
He looked up when a second helicopter approached. He narrowed his eyes, glanced at Rune, then put his stare back on the helicopter. “Rune, Rune,” he chided. “Well, it had to happen, didn’t it?”
As he spoke, the air around him rippled, and smoke drifted from between his lips.
Rune clenched her fist and hit the wall, as hard as she could. She felt it give, but only a tiny bit. “Wait,” she cried. “Wait, Angel.”
She’d made a mistake. Angel French was not going to be fooled by a second news copter, and he was going to blast it out of the sky.
“Wait,” she cried.
But he was done waiting. “Time to play,” he murmured.
Rune stepped back and waved her arms at the helicopter. “Go back,” she screamed. “Go back!”
But the sunlight flashed off the barrel of a rifle, and the shooter she’d sent for began
shooting at the demon.
The wall seemed to groan as it was pelted—but nothing could penetrate its ceiling.
“No,” Rune whispered.
She expected the helicopter to explode, or the whirring blades to fly off, or the two machines to collide.
But maybe the demon, with his power concentrated on holding the wall, could not fling such large vehicles around with his terrible mind.
He grabbed the gun instead, and with it, the shooter. He flung the man with such enormous power into the wall that the shooter splatted like a bug against a windshield.
“The wall is weak,” Will shouted. “Rune, the wall.”
She gasped as his words sank into her dazed mind, and flew to the wall with all the speed she had. She drew back her fist and smashed it against the wall at the exact same instant the demon dropped his concentration from the helicopter and put it on her.
The wall cracked.
She hit it again, even harder, for one brief second believing she would break through. Instead, as the demon gathered his power and once again strengthened his living wall, she broke all the bones in her hand and her arm, dislocated her shoulder, and fractured her ribcage.
She howled and reeled away from the wall, and the demon howled with her.
Perhaps he felt her agony.
Or maybe he was simply celebrating.
The helicopters—both of them—flew away as fast as they could fly.
And as she lay on the ground mending her bones, her crew surrounding her, she knew she’d never be able to breach the wall.
It was too strong. Angel was too strong.
The only way she’d get inside would be if he let her inside, and that just wasn’t going to happen.
Rune Alexander had finally met her match.
Chapter Twenty-Three
She leaned forward to allow Denim better access as he rubbed the soreness from her shoulders, then remembered the urn. “Somebody find the jar with Lee’s ashes.”
“I’ll get it,” Levi said, and jogged away.
“One of you go with him,” she said. “I dropped it by the wall and I don’t want any of you alone down there.”
But when Jack started to follow Levi, she called him back. “Raze, you go.”
Jack sighed and shook his head, but he must have figured she’d been through enough. He didn’t argue.
“Thanks,” she told Denim, then stood and walked to the edge of the hill to look down at the clearing. Levi and Raze were already on their way back up, and Levi held the black jar.
When they’d almost reached the top, Levi stumbled. The jar flew out of his grip, and a second later, Rune heard it crack as it hit a rock.
“Fuck, Levi,” she muttered. “Did we lose the ashes?” If so, Sylvia would have lost her mother, her mother’s body, and now, her mother’s ashes.
Levi dropped to his knees beside the jar, picked it up, then looked at Rune. “Uh…”
“What?” she asked, walking toward him. “We lost the ashes?”
Raze and Levi looked at each other, then Raze hefted the jar. “Rune, there were no ashes in this jar.”
“The fuck?” she whispered. “What was in there, then?”
“Looks like sand,” he said. “Just a little bit of sand.”
She squatted beside them. “Sand. Why…”
Strad put his hand on her shoulder. “He didn’t cremate her.”
“They’re stirring below,” Denim told her.
Rune stood and walked to the edge of the hill.
“I’m growing bored, Rune,” Angel said. “And when I get bored, I get mean.” He looked past her. “Ask Will.”
She said nothing.
“Let me take Rune,” Ben said, still not willing to get too close to Angel. “With obsidian in her heart, she’s helpless. Even you’d enjoy that, Angel.”
Angel shook his head. “I don’t trust it—and I don’t want Rune. You know what I want, don’t you, Rune? Give him to me and this is over. I want to see that face again.”
Sylvia sat against a tree, her hand on her stomach. “I don’t feel well,” she said.
No one even acknowledged that she’d spoken.
But Roma moved her leg and looked up, groggy and dazed. Unaware.
“Roma,” Rune whispered.
“Ben,” Angel said. “Go fuck up the girl.”
“Leave her alone,” Jack roared.
“Time is up,” Angel said. “I’m tired of playing. I want to take Will and go home. The girl’s torture will stop when I have Will.”
Rune closed her eyes for a few seconds, then looked at her crew, helplessly. “They won’t give her the mercy of a quick death,” she murmured. “They’ll torture her until her body gives out.”
“You take Will and leave,” Ben told Angel. “I’m keeping this one alive until I have Rune.”
He jogged to the house and emerged seconds later with a small black case. He put it on the ground beside Roma’s chair, and after he’d opened it, spent a few moments looking it over.
Choosing just the right instrument.
Roma’s screams began, and abruptly, there was a sharp, bitter tang of blood hanging in the air.
The demon’s dogs had disappeared, but they slinked around the corner and crept toward Roma, attracted either by the scent of blood or the sounds of pain.
And just as suddenly, Grim reappeared. He paced back and forth in front of the wall, sniffing it, licking it, trying to find an opening. He wanted to get at those dogs.
“Rune,” Jack yelled. “You’re Rune fucking Alexander. Do what you have to do. Help her.”
She grabbed Denim and bit his neck without even stopping to ask his permission, and drank until she was full of the blood that made her stronger, the blood that freed her monster. The blood that should have been able to help her break a fucking demon’s wall.
The berserker roared and followed her down the hill, blasting the wall with the shotgun even as Rune crashed into the barrier and then lay on the ground in a seizing, oozing mess that had once been her body.
She did it again, and again, and again.
The wall got stronger even as she grew weaker.
Finally, she understood a terrible truth. It was absorbing parts of her. Each time she hit the wall, it took something from her and gave it to the demon.
Because the wall was the demon.
And he was slowly devouring her.
After the third time, there was no one left to give her blood, anyway.
Ben had finally left Roma alone, likely from fear he’d kill her and all would be lost. Sylvia gave her water, and once, the woman glanced up the hill at the silent watchers gathered there, guilt flashing in her eyes.
Rune would send Will to the demon. It was the only thing left to do. And then Angel would disappear.
He’d live on and continue to torment and torture and play, and she’d never see him again. And she really, really didn’t want to let him go.
She wanted to kill him. But they’d spent too much time on the mountain, waiting for…for what?
She’d have to give him the assassin, and she’d have to let him go.
Her cell rang. She pulled it from her pocket automatically, then stared at it uncomprehendingly until finally, Strad took it from her and answered.
“It’s Ellis,” he said.
She nodded and took the phone back, then held it to her ear. “Ellie,” she whispered.
“Rune, what’s wrong?” His voice was sharp with fear. “Levi?”
“No. But Roma…and I can’t do anything. I have to…” She looked at Will, who stood with his back to all of them, staring over the hill into the clearing below. “I have to,” she whispered. Then, “Kader?”
“It’s not important. It can wait.”
“Tell me, Ellie. I need something to…just tell me.”
“She boomed the back door,” he said, carefully, lightly. “And destroyed most of the back of the house. There’s a lot of damage.”
She squeez
ed the bridge of her nose. Her kid was destroying her house. Then she widened her eyes and almost dropped the phone. “Fuck me.”
And while her mind was swirling and darkening with the possibilities, Will the Assassin stared down the hill at one of his biggest fears.
Angel waited at the wall, his lips parted, his eyes bright with need as he and Will watched each other. “Will,” he cried, and in his voice was a need and obsession bigger than any Rune had ever heard.
Rune shoved the assassin back, out of the demon’s line of sight. “Never, asshole! He’s mine now.”
The demon screamed his frustration. “I will kill the girl,” he roared, beating his chest with his massive fists. “I will twist her head off and hand it to you, Rune Alexander. That’s a promise!”
“Rune,” Will murmured. “I can end this.”
She grabbed his arms and whispered into his ear. “I can end this. I have a plan.”
His eyes, dull and blank as he’d contemplated a future in hell, brightened. “Tell me.”
She shook her head. “I will show you.” She looked around at her crew. “I’ll be back in twenty minutes. Be ready. I know how to get inside.”
“How?” Strad asked.
She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t admit it aloud.
“Be ready,” she whispered, at once vicious and terrified, gleeful and ashamed.
And then she turned and raced to her car. She drove too fast, much too fast. She cried all the way to the Moor.
She was about to use her daughter to fix everything, and though she knew Kader was born to fight, to heal, to save, it broke her.
Ellie screamed when she burst through the front door. “Rune, what? Oh my God, what?”
“No time,” she said. She grabbed Kader and ran back toward the door. “Come with me, Ellis.”
He didn’t hesitate.
He wasn’t about to let the two people he loved most in the world leave without him.
The trip back to the mountain seemed to take an eternity, but in reality it was one of the quickest drives of her life.
Ellis held the child in a white-knuckled grip, his eyes wide, lips thin. He didn’t speak until they reached the mountain.
