Silence.
Somewhere in the building, a Chimera rumbles.
“Can we talk about this later?” Alex deflects. “I don’t want to risk losing my concentration again.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Suspicion
A day comes and goes.
Despite Ella’s persistence, Alex refuses to acknowledge his feelings for her to Maydevine. It’s now her third day in his company in the Hunter Division, and her mood is particularly frosty.
She takes her anger out on the Chimera, and obliterates three adult males to the point where there’s not even enough left of them to be saved for meat.
Alex appears behind her. “Are you going to save anything for the meat trucks today?”
“Are you still here?”
“Why the hell are you being like this?”
He tries to touch her shoulder, but she shakes it off.
“I’m working. Keep your hands to yourself.”
“Fine.”
Alex almost turns and walks away from her, but something holds him back. Something metal tinkles against a slab of concrete outside the window of the abandoned building they’re in.
He stops and listens. “Did you hear that?”
Ella doesn’t get to answer him.
The grenade detonates.
An explosion blows out the glass in all the windows, and sends Ella and Alex tumbling through the air. They’re hurled like debris across the small room and out through the glass window on the other side. They land roughly in the street, tumbling and falling over one another.
Picking themselves up out of the dirt, their lungs choking in dust and rubble, Alex notices Ella’s injury before she does. A large shard of glass is embedded in her upper right arm, and she’s lucky that it hasn’t severed her brachial nerve.
“Don’t move,” he instructs her, searching around his belt for his field medical kit.
“Mother fucker!” Ella glares ‘how dare you!’ at the disrespectful piece of glass.
Alex pulls out the kit and extracts the tools he needs to stitch her up.
Ella clues in.
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” She flinches away from him. “I know your hands are magic, but you can go fuck yourself on this one.”
“You’d rather bleed to death?”
“The glass is plugging the hole. It’s all good.”
Alex reaches over and yanks the shard of glass out of her arm. Blood pours profusely from the wound, and a shriek—quickly smothered by Alex’s hand—rings out from her lips.
“Do you want to be in the Hunter Division?” he growls at her.
She nods, unable to speak, completely stifled by his hand.
“Then shut the fuck up and let me do my job.”
He removes his hand and she bites her tongue, clutching at her gushing arm.
“You’re such a prick,” she barks at him. “It was perfectly fine before you touched it.”
“This is war, El. It’s not as simple as me just taking you back to the city to the hospital. You’re stuck out here with me until the end of our shift together, and you can’t spend the rest of the day with a piece of glass sticking out of your arm.”
Ella bites back tears and a cry of pain. “Get the fuck on with it, then.”
“Do you want something to bite down on?”
“Yeah. Get your dick out and let me have at that, you sadistic cunt.”
“Ouch, so rude.” He pierces her skin with the needle and makes the first stitch. “Maybe I should get my cock out. If I stuff something big in your mouth, maybe you’ll shut the fuck up.”
“You wish.” She winces. “Where the hell did that grenade come from anyway?”
Alex shrugs. “I don’t know. It must’ve been an accident.”
“Does that happen often?”
Alex’s silence speaks volumes.
If this were the first line, then maybe. The first line is less structured. Multiple units all cover the same turf, trying their best not to get caught in the crossfire. Here, though, units are assigned to their own sectors and are meant to stay put. She and Alex should be the only two Hunters this far east, and grenades don’t just fall out of nowhere.
“Who else is out here with us?” she presses him. “Who’s in the other units?”
He senses where she’s going with this, and he’s not in the mood for conspiracy. “Don’t even go there. Nobody did this on purpose, El.”
“Says who? It seems as though people have been gunning for me lately.”
“Jealous Cadets, that’s all. But you’re not in the Academy now—don’t forget that.”
Done with the stitches, Alex douses the wound with ethanol without giving her any warning. She cries out, clenching her fist with the intention of punching him out, but the pain subsides quickly and the anger slips away from her.
“Fuck my life,” she mumbles.
Alex bandages her arm and offers her a tiny white pill.
“We’re going on a trip?” she asks.
“It’s a painkiller. It’ll make your arm feel better.”
Ella shakes her head. “No, thanks. I’m practicing pain management, remember?”
“Fair enough.” He pockets the pill and helps her to her feet.
Keeping her hand in his for just a moment too long, losing track of their surroundings as he admires the determination in her eyes, he doesn’t notice the arrival of their company.
“Everything okay over here?”
Oz is standing fifty feet away, glaring suspiciously in their direction.
Alex drops Ella’s hand in an instant.
“We just obliterated a nest of Chimera.”
Oz knows that something’s going on, but he can’t quite put his finger on it. “I heard an explosion.”
“Where were you?” Ella fires back at him.
“Stop it,” Alex warns her under his breath. “He’s one of my best men.”
“I got separated from my partner, McKean,” Oz explains willingly. “I heard the ruckus and thought he might be in trouble.”
“Oh, yeah?” Ella raises her eyebrow. “Where is he?”
Becoming irritated by her tone, Oz ignores her and addresses Alex instead. “Is she accusing me of something?”
Ella opens her mouth to speak, but Alex cuts her off.
“No, we just had a close call is all. Did you lose a grenade around here somewhere?”
Oz shakes his head. “I don’t pack explosives, you know that. It’s not my bag.”
That’s not the answer Alex was hoping for, but, either way, there’s no time to linger on it. Nearby, a Chimera shrills.
The three of them rush into a building across the street, their weapons drawn. The main floor has been mostly destroyed. A long time ago, when the roof caved in, it collapsed a large chunk of the flooring and left a gaping hole into the basement below. Inside that hole, three Chimera are feeding on the corpse of one of their own.
Silently, Ella crouches down near the edge of the hole and prepares to take aim.
“I call the fat one.”
Oz wrinkles his brow at her. “You can’t call dibs on the enemy.”
“Too late, I just did.”
“We’re not playing pool here, kid. You can’t call out your shots like this is target practice.”
“Don’t call me kid.”
“Don’t act like one.”
Ella turns to Alex. “Tell your friend not to be such a jerk, would you?”
At that, Oz shoves her in the shoulder with his boot, pushing her over onto her back while he looms over her. “We’re your superior officers. Show some fucking respect.”
Alex pushes his way in between Oz and Ella, and forces Oz to back up.
“You won’t lay a hand on her. Do you hear me?”
“Since when do you give a shit about a Cadet? We’re supposed to toughen them up. It’s our job, remember?”
“Not this one. Trust me, she’s tough enough already.”
“Why
? Because she’s the Hunter General’s kid?”
“I made a promise to him that I’d protect her, all right? So please don’t do anything stupid with this one.”
“We’re not babysitters, dude. We’re being paid to break them in.”
“We’re being paid to exterminate the Chimeran threat, you moron.”
They fall into silence.
They were so caught up in their own exchange, they didn’t see Ella slip away.
“Wait, where’d she go?” Oz looks around, but there’s no sign of her.
Alex looks down inside the hole: the Chimera are gone.
“Shit … Ella!” he calls out. “Ella, where are you?”
Oz peers at him sideways. “You’re on first name terms with this one?”
No answer to that.
“You check upstairs,” Alex orders him. “I’ll check down.”
Oz confirms the order with a sharp nod and disappears up the stairwell, taking two steps at a time. Meanwhile, Alex—with no patience for stairs—jumps straight down into the empty hole, narrowly avoiding the half-eaten corpse.
“Ella?”
Nothing.
There’s no sound, except for the faint scratch and squeak of rats scampering about within the walls.
Treading carefully, Alex’s boot finds something sticky on the floor: it’s fresh blood. Gun in hand, he follows the trail through a back passageway and toward a beam of daylight at the far end. Emerging into sunlight at the rear of the building, he shields his eyes against the glare and waits for them to adjust, just in time to see Ella slit the throat of the third Chimera with her hunting knife.
She’s standing in a pool of blood with three dead Chimera at her feet. Her arm—that was so delicately bandaged by Alex—has been exposed, the stitches cut. Her own blood runs down her arm, covering her hand and the knife. Her clothes are drenched in the blood of her enemies. Her hair is damp, and matted with bodily fluids and torn scraps of flesh. Arterial spatter decorates her face and neck, making her skin glisten in the light of the autumn sun.
Alex—awash with an equal measure of relief and arousal—is at a loss for words. Oz, on the other hand, looking down upon her from an upstairs balcony, has all the words he needs.
“I want you to bear my children.”
Ella shows him her middle finger and spits out a mouthful of Chimeran blood. “Does anyone have any water?”
CHAPTER THIRTY
Celebration
Celebration, Hunter Division style.
Liquor flows freely in the back room of Kink Central, and the entire third line uses Ella’s victory as an excuse to become ludicrously inebriated. One tabletop is covered, end-to-end, with lines of cocaine. Another is a makeshift stage for a naked Jade to dance for tips.
On the other side of the room, Oz reenacts Ella’s triumph with a chair leg and three dead cats. Completely off his face, he happily performs the show to a group of stoned Jades, all eagerly lapping up his antics with giggles and flirtation.
Never letting her out of his sight, Alex watches Ella win some sort of drinking game. The rules—if any—seem pretty vague, but when her arm is hoisted in the air by the other Hunters, there’s no doubt she won.
Steadying herself against the table, she gets to her feet and—once the world has stopped spinning like a possessed washing machine—she attempts to make her way toward the washroom, almost tripping over Alex’s feet on the way.
“Hey, people are trying to walk here,” she slurs.
“Need a hand?”
“I’ve been peeing on my own since I was three.”
“Don’t forget to pull your pants down first.”
She gives him a thumbs up. “Thanks for the tip.”
Glancing to Alex’s left, she notices the whore for the first time. Half naked, she’s pawing on him like a desperate puppy.
Ella wags a finger in the Jade’s direction, addressing Alex. “Is she giving you any trouble?”
“I have no complaints so far.”
Ella scowls at him. “You’re awful.”
Several feet away, hanging upside down from a rafter, Oz observes their interaction carefully. Squinting through the smoky room, he watches as Ella stumbles and Alex gets to his feet to help her, letting her fall almost completely into his arms.
Even though his mind is frazzled by drugs and booze, Oz can still see how their contact lingers unnecessarily, and he prepares to test a theory.
As Ella falls against Alex’s chest, his arms wrap around her. He holds her there—albeit lightly and only briefly—before setting her upright and steadying her by the shoulders. Aiming her in the direction of the unisex washroom, he lets her go and shoos the Jade away before he sits back down.
Waiting patiently for Ella to re-emerge, he thinks nothing of it when Oz passes by him on his way to the washroom.
A second goes by.
Two.
Thirty.
A full minute.
He begins to feel uneasy, but hesitates to act upon it. Meanwhile, in the washroom, Ella attempts to wash her hands, but the faucets don’t work.
“This place is so unsanitary,” she mumbles to herself, unaware that she’s being watched.
“You like Hunters, is that it?” Oz finally speaks.
“Huh?”
“It’s okay. It’s a legitimate fetish.”
Ella hovers over the sink, thinking she might vomit. “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
“Is it a daddy thing?”
Ella winces, irritated by the confusing direction of this conversation. “Speak English.”
“It’s the uniform, right? All girls like the uniform.”
She begins to get the gist of what’s happening. “Oh, no. Are you really doing this?”
“I’m just saying, if that’s the case—”
“It’s not.”
“I’m your man.”
“Not even vaguely.”
Nevertheless, Oz steps up behind her and slides his hands over her hips …
Yup, that does it: she up-chucks in the sink. Repulsed, Oz instantly loses all sexual interest in her. Instead, he holds back her ponytail so that she can puke some more.
By the time Alex swings open the door to the washroom, all he sees is Oz pressed up against Ella’s rear, holding onto her ponytail while she’s bent over the sink.
It could hardly look worse.
He strides over to Oz and punches him in the face. “What did I tell you?!”
Oz—easily outweighing Alex by at least fifty pounds—hits the floor like a ton weight and almost passes out. Heavily intoxicated, he battles wooziness and nausea and tries to get back on his feet, but Alex keeps him down.
Getting her first real glimpse of Alex’s volatile, uncontrollable jealousy, Ella finds herself feeling slightly overwhelmed. She’d sensed it before, in the DDH when she’d disclosed her dinner plans with Luka, but he’d kept a lid on it then.
She wipes her mouth and reaches out for him, trying to calm him, but he ignores her feeble attempts to solicit his attention.
“Of all the girls in the city, you’re telling me you’ve gotta try and shove your dick in this one?!” He looms over Oz.
“I didn’t touch her.” Oz holds up both hands in surrender.
At last, Ella succeeds in regaining a little equilibrium and feels steady enough to step in between them. Pressing her palms against Alex’s chest, she leans her weight into him.
“Stop, please.” She rests her forehead on his shoulder. “Whatever you think you saw, you didn’t. He didn’t do anything.”
At her touch, Alex’s nuclear reactor instantly begins to cool.
“Are you okay?”
“Take me home. I stopped having fun about five minutes ago.”
*************************
Forty minutes later, Alex leans Ella up against the wall beside her bedroom window. She’s giddy and drunk and ready to pass out.
“You need to convince your old man to
invest in a tag reader.” Alex prevents her from collapsing onto the ground. “Are you sure you don’t have your key?”
Ella shakes her head. “I always use the window.”
Alex struggles to get his fingers through the small gap between the window and the ledge and he lifts it up, dislodging the wedged Chimera talon. It falls to the floor on the other side with a soft thud.
“There you go.” He invites her to clamber inside. “Try to get some sleep. You have classes in the morning.”
Attempting to comply, Ella tries to slide in through the window, but she’s less than graceful. She loses her balance and drops to the floor on the other side, landing on her back and smacking her head against the leg of a writing desk.
Alex hears the smack and peers in through the window. “Are you okay?”
Ella doesn’t respond.
Concerned, thinking that perhaps she passed out on the floor, he doesn’t hesitate to climb in through the open window and crouch beside her.
“El …”
Ella tries her best to keep up the pretence of unconsciousness, but she smiles when Alex begins to rub her forehead and tries to coax her into wakefulness.
She opens her eyes and giggles. “You’re in my bedroom.”
Realizing he’s been duped, Alex rolls his eyes and drags Ella up from the floor. “I thought you were hurt.” He keeps his voice low, so as not to alert Maydevine.
Ella’s not so careful, though. She tears off her Kevlar vest and throws it down onto the writing desk, knocking over a tub of pens and pencils.
In the quiet apartment, the sound echoes like thunder.
Alex tries desperately to collect the rolling implements and restore the silence. Finding this amusing, Ella giggles again and shoves him in the chest, pushing him back against her bed.
“Stay.” She begins to unbuckle her belt. “Spend the night with me.”
“You’re drunk.”
Inamorato Page 18
