by Jaymin Eve
Even though I was trying not to focus on the girls I still saw the blood pooling under cut throats, not to mention the multitude of bruises and lacerations. I had to harden my heart, because I couldn’t help these girls any longer. But I silently promised each of them that if I found out who had done this, those humans would suffer.
For now, my half-Walker wasn’t in this room. It was time to follow the tether. Here’s hoping it led me not only to her, but also to the animals responsible for this mess.
I didn’t speak as I started to follow the cord, my boots squishing into grime and fluids as I stepped through the bodies. The floor was heavy with blood, the liquid now congealed and the bodies cold.
The girls had been dead for some time, but my half-Walker had only recently left the room. Had she been stuck in this room with all this death? Or was there some other reason that this was the place my tether had brought me? The golden cord was very strong now, with just a slight transparency. We were heading in the right direction.
Lucy’s wide blue eyes were shimmery and rimmed in red. A sprinkling of tears littered their multi-colored depths, and I could tell she was fighting to control her emotions.
Colton and Brace’s faces were hard to read as they followed behind me. Well, actually, if carved-from-stone and ready-to-kill-anything-that-moved was an expression, then that was the one they wore. I could imagine them tearing through the gangers without a second thought.
I wondered then what hardness was currently in my features. There was no denying that I had lost little pieces of my innocence over the course of the past year. I was almost nineteen, but it felt as if it was a hundred years since I had stepped through Quarn’s shimmery portal on Earth.
The cord led us to a gray and white brick wall. Like those thick, reinforced-style bricks. I reached forward to rest my hands against the solid structure. How were we supposed to get through here?
“Stand back.” Brace’s voice was a bite of steel. Cold and cutting.
Colton shuffled Lucy and me behind him, the three of us moving a few feet from the wall. I watched from beneath Colton’s arm. I expected Brace to throw an energy ball or something at the wall, but instead he simply cocked back his arm and, with the force of a sledgehammer, slammed his fist into the structure. Noise and dust exploded around us. When my vision finally cleared, and I saw what he’d done, my jaw pretty much fell to the floor. With one punch he’d leveled the entire wall, leaving a six-foot high and four-foot wide gap in it.
“Note to self – do not spar with Brace.” Lucy looked impressed as she followed my mate across the gap and into the other side.
Colton snorted. “I could have done that too, little pixie. He just beat me to it.”
Lucy patted his arm – which was as strong and nicely muscled as Brace’s. “I know, wolf, I know.”
Even after punching down a wall, my mate didn’t look any happier. And I totally got that. The images of those females continued pounding through my head, and the fact that we shared a bond and mental connections was not making it any easier to forget. We were bouncing our anger off each other, and this was not allowing any of it to leave our systems.
Bring on the gangers. Finding them would definitely help with releasing more of my pissed-offness.
The tether didn’t seem to care about walls or buildings which lay in its path, simply sending me along the shortest route to my girl. Luckily, though, the next time we hit a wall, there was doorway which led into a long hall.
Our footsteps were silent as we trekked in a single line formation along the narrow corridor. Yellow, fluorescent lights flickered above us. I wasn’t sure if they had electricity here, or if the hum in the air was from a massive generator. Blood droplets trailed the ground, and an eerie silence engulfed everything.
I really hoped Earth wasn’t messing with my tethering ability, because I needed to find my half and get out of this place like yesterday. This scene was straight out of a horror film. Weird flicking lights. Old abandoned building. Blood trails on the ground. Massacre in the previous room.
Something told me that my sense of apprehension was not misplaced.
Although, it didn’t hurt that I had my very own live-action GI Joe pressed close to my back. Brace’s warmth kept me from losing my mind, and it definitely kept some of the fear at bay.
I was distracted by my tethered cord. The gold suddenly flared to life, and the last of the transparency disappeared. Crap. She was close.
The hallway was ending, a door at the end signaling that we would have to move to another area. As we closed in on it, I could hear voices. Lots of them.
“Looks like someone is having a party and didn’t invite us.” Lucy’s voice was hard, not her usual trilling song. “You all know I hate to be a party crasher, but hey, you want to kill a dozen women in cold blood, seems you might need a little crashing in your life.”
None of us would be able to move past that scene until there was some form of punishment inflicted. Sure, two wrongs don’t make a right, but sometimes crimes need to be punished. That’s how the great cycle works. And I was a bit of a believer in ‘an eye for an eye’. I was going to be taking some eyes today, for sure.
Brace and Colton hesitated about three feet from the door which blocked the end of the hall. Lucy and I exchanged glances before turning back to our boys. What were they doing? After a few moments of them exchanging glares and furrowing brows, I finally tapped into the bond.
… last battle I killed eight more than you. It’s my turn to take point.
Gods … I’m your damn princeps.
Great, the morons were wasting time arguing over which one of them got to go first.
Men!
We so did not have time for this. I reached for more of the energy in my filing cabinet. It was fairly depleted now after I had traced all of us here, but there was enough left.
Forming an energy ball – mine were so pretty, all laced in gold – I flung it free and blasted the door out into the darkness beyond. Cold rushes of air slapped at my face, and I was happy to know we were finally venturing out of the warehouse of death. Lucy and I wasted no time. We were out of there in an instant.
Brace and Colton swung their heads around to see our backs as we strode out the door and into the unknown. I heard sighs, but there were also some chuckles. No surprises there. We often irritated and amused them at the same time. Score one for female awesomeness.
They caught up with us immediately. Once we were clear of the warehouse, a briny scent slapped me in the face. Even though I couldn’t see it, I knew we were close to water. My eyes adjusted to the darkness in seconds and, as we continued moving, the concrete below shifted into wooden slatted decking. We were on docks.
I scanned the expanse of timber-clad jetty around us, finally noticing that about a hundred yards in the distance a group of humans huddled. I wasn’t sure if they had noticed us, but they most probably had, since I’d been kind of noisy making my point with the door.
I didn’t hesitate. I stalked closer before breaking into a run. These asshats were going down.
“Red!” Brace’s exasperation followed me.
I heard Colton chuckle. “Now you know how I feel. Being mated to these females is like trying to keep a sacred animal in a cage. They look beautiful and innocent, so you forget they’re wild creatures, and you want to protect them. Right until the moment you get too close and they rip your arm off.”
I heard a thump; Lucy had totally whacked him in the side. She would refrain from ripping his arms off, though; she liked them too much. Even if he could grow them back.
I was still out in front of the others, and was closing the distance quickly. I knew Brace was right behind me, but I was going to get there first. I focused my furious attention on the scum scattered around the dock. There were gangers everywhere. At least twenty or thirty of them. And – what the heck? They were all from different gangs, tattoos of all kinds semi-visible in the half-light. I’d never seen them work together
before. What had we stumbled into?
I started to slow then, even though my anger was still tinting my sight in shades of red. I couldn’t just attack, not until I was sure if there were innocents with them. Since the golden cord was leading me straight into the center of the scumbuckets, I had to assume that either my female was a ganger, which was highly unlikely, or they held her captive.
Finally, as the distance lessened even more, and the gang members shifted around to stare my way, I noticed two slender forms right in the center of the scum. Females. And they were trapped in a sort of gate or cage.
I ground to a complete halt as a familiar face came into view. I knew the female with the tall muscular form and brown curls.
“Is that … Chrissie?” Lucy was right beside me.
Both of us focused on the two caged females. The pair stood back-to-back in fighter-protection mode, and there was no way I wouldn’t recognize that strong stance. I’d been on the receiving end of Chrissie’s fight-style too many times not to remember it well.
“Yes,” I said, a tinge of sorrow lacing my words.
I hadn’t forgotten our last meeting. Her friend had died, and Chrissie had laid the blame at my feet. She had good reasons to be mad with me. It had been because of me that Olden was at the Compound. That she’d been in a position to target the females and access Walker energy.
“She looks different,” Lucy said.
As the boys completed our foursome, the gangers started to advance toward us, grouping together to form a single line of defense.
Chrissie and the other female – who stood a little taller than my old friend – were forgotten for the moment.
As the men cleared the space and headed in our direction, I noticed more females huddled near the other side of the fenced area. Probably waiting for their turn to perform for the gangers. Was it like a sales yard or something? Did the girls have to fight and the winner would achieve the awesome goal of being worthy of the smugglers? Was this a sort of fight-ring? What the freaking heck?
My eyes were drawn to Chrissie again. Lucy was right: she did look different.
“Yes, she’s changed,” I said.
She looked older, harder around the edges. When I had left Earth, Chrissie had been close to sixteen, but with the way Earth’s time ran differently, she was probably the same age as us now.
“Do you think she’s my half-Walker?” It didn’t sit right with me, but there was no denying that the golden cord was leading right into that cage.
I suppose it could explain the reason she’d been in our compound. Like Lucy, she might have been placed there, or drawn to my energy. Still … it just didn’t seem right.
A flash of golden hair caught my attention and I shifted my gaze to the other chick, who was standing protectively at Chrissie’s back. She was in a clear line of sight now, and I could see she held a particularly lethal-looking sword in her right hand. The blade was large, the length of my arm at least, and even in the half-light I could see it was red. Was that blood coating the blade, or was its natural color red? Either way, this female looked utterly badass.
Chrissie was a really pretty girl, but the blonde was stunningly beautiful. Her golden hair was pulled off her face, and secured high on her head in a ponytail. My Walker sight was enough that I could see the way her eyes glowed as they locked in on me, golden with hints of brown and yellow threading them. She had full lips, which were pressed into an angry line. Defiance and rage glowed in every facet of her stance. She was captivating, and had the distinct beauty of a Walker. But then, so did Chrissie. One of these two was my half-Walker; the golden cord left me no doubt of that.
Brace shifted at my side, and the taller blonde’s golden-brown eyes flicked across. The moment she registered the sheer size and masculine potency of my mate, some of the hardness in her features softened. Uh, okay. Clearly she liked what she saw. Which was all good, as long as she didn’t touch.
Until this point Chrissie hadn’t noticed us. She’d been distracted by the gangers and then the girls slumped on the ground, but blondie must have said something, because Chrissie’s head whipped around. A myriad of emotions crawled across her face, and I didn’t have to wonder if she’d forgiven me; her features were hard, anger flaring to life in her narrowed eyes.
Okay, she hadn’t quite reached forgiveness in the seven-step program.
All of a sudden my attention was off the females and back on the gangers. Every single one of them had just pulled forth weapons and were advancing in our direction. I even saw a few guns. This was definitely a big deal. Those rare weapons were reserved for ganger leaders.
“They have guns,” I said, needing to warn my friends.
This has to be the leaders of the people-smuggling ring in this area, I said to Brace.
Sounds like the sort of humans who won’t be missed. His reply was flat.
“Who are you?” One of the males stepped forward. His features were Hispanic and he was well dressed, better than most gangers, and had no visible tattoos. Which was odd. “We have business to attend to here, so if you’d like to keep your lives, we’ll give you one chance to walk away.”
He was lying. They would never let us walk away. We had seen too much, and it was much easier just to kill us now and throw our bodies into the water.
I had slowly started to piece together how this entire operation worked. That initial room with the dead bodies was the observation deck. The humans – ones with too much money and not enough soul – who liked to buy people, would sit on the other side of the glass and pick out the females they wanted from the ones in the room. Any that did not find a buyer would be slaughtered. If they weren’t purchasable, then they were worthless.
Then the soulless humans would take their purchases out onto these docks and either leave with them, or battle them with other females. I would guess they placed bets, and lots of money or goods changed hands.
Then when they were done, they would leave on one of the many boats I had noticed glittering out in the distance. It was the perfect escape route.
Assholes.
These disgusting, vile creatures would simply use and kill the females before sailing off into the night. Back to whatever place they liked to call home. Well, I was pretty sure less of them would be sailing away this fine night.
The well-dressed male was still waiting for us to speak. He wasn’t ganger, but he was powerful. Powerful enough to be able to stand in front of that ragtag group and trust he wasn’t about to get a knife in the ribs. He must be one of the buyers, a very rich one, I would guess.
My anger was reaching epic levels, and words spilled from my mouth before I could stop them. “I don’t have time for this crap today. You know, places to go and ancient energy-suckers to kill. Let’s do this the easy way: if you all surrender, I’ll make sure your deaths are quick.”
A variety of expressions flitted across the weathered, mostly tattooed faces. Amusement and anger was prevalent. But there was some semblance of fear in the eyes of those who recognized us for the true threats we were.
“Hmm,” I said, “no takers today.”
Lucy chortled. “Gangers always have to do things the hard way.”
The well-dressed male lifted his hands and flipped his arms forward. I recognized the signal: he was giving the gangers free run.
The four of us hauled butt.
Moving targets were harder to hit with a bullet, even though history told me they’d save that weapon for last. Especially in this crush of people. More than likely they’d be wasting precious bullets on hitting their own kind.
I dropped the final tether in my mind. I knew one of the females was the half, and I needed all my concentration. Using my energy, I traced a sword from Josian’s weapons’ room on Angelisian. I’d done this type of trace before, on Crais, so it was much easier and faster this time. I did have to borrow from the dwindling filing-cabinet power again, but within seconds the large blade was in my hands. When I had more time later I’d find
a moment to be grateful for the fact that the energy inside that cabinet did not seem to be affected by Earth’s magic dead zone.
Two gangers came straight at me. One held a switchblade, which was nice and rusty. You know, just for the extra boost of tetanus. The other twirled a mallet of some type, one with a large square block on top, perfect for the crushing of hopes, dreams and kneecaps. I swung my moderately weighted blade around once, getting the feel for it, letting the weapon settle into my hand.
The two of them attacked as one, and – it was as if they were moving in slow motion. Holy shit! Once upon a time, when I ran these streets, I was vulnerable to these creeps. But the development of my Walker side had changed everything about me. Now I was a weapon. I was stronger than any of the humans here.
I side-stepped the first and, with a crisscrossing slice of my razor-sharp blade, he managed to lose not only his pants and dignity, but also the contents of his stomach. The blade bit into soft skin and, without any resistance, sliced him from belly button up to sternum. All that red stuff which was supposed to be on the inside was now on the out. The ganger did not look happy about it either. Actually, he looked a little dead.
I didn’t have time to dwell on the fact that I’d just taken a life, although it was unconfirmed at this stage if scumbags like these gangers could actually be counted as human.
The second attacked. Swinging the mallet with power and skill, aiming straight for the temple area on my skull. Had he connected, I’d have had a very large hole in the side of my face. I realized then that this weapon had probably been the one to take out a lot of the girls back in that glass-walled room. They had injuries just the shape of this heavy-topped mallet. Not to mention I could always tell the gangers who enjoyed killing. This Brutal ganger loved it. The spark of excitement was on his face, and black eyes glittered as he attacked.
