by Sam Ryder
I spun back toward the women, ready to cut their bonds and make tracks out of this place of death and violence.
The dark blankets were moving. Oh shit. I’d assumed the blankets were covering some kind of supplies or other inanimate object. I’d been dead wrong. They were covering the reinforcements, additional heavily armed men who shucked off the blankets and aimed their weapons at me, surrounding the tied up women.
Two men standing side by side stepped to the forefront, flanked by the other men.
One was Elias, of course. “Bravo,” he said, offering a smug, shit-eating grin that made me want to strangle him. The other was a short, stocky, balding man in a white robe.
“Bravo,” Elias said, providing a slow, sarcastic clap. “We knew you’d kill at least one, maybe two, of our guards. But all three? Impressive, even though they were only Thirds.”
I glanced at the women, trying to read their expressions, but they only looked pissed off, as angry as I was. How long had they had to sit on this hard terrain where the rest of their family had been murdered?
I didn’t rise to the bait. “What do you want, Elias?” I said. “You want to kill me? Then let’s rumble. Leave the others alone, they are not your concern.”
“Those aren’t the orders, Cutter,” he said. “I have to follow orders.” He looked toward the other man, his expression one of deference, a face I’d never seen him wear before.
“He’s on my payroll,” the other man confirmed.
Ahh, I thought. Now that makes sense. I mock-bowed. “You must be Atticus, the all-powerful ruler of the Ends. Nice fucking robe.”
“Charming,” he replied. “It’s nice to meet you, Cutter. I hate that it’s under these circumstances, but you know as well as anyone that all four of you must die.”
I didn’t know what the third woman had to do with any of this. At the moment, I didn’t much care. My concern was the other two, but if I was able to rescue her—she was the enemy of my enemy, so clearly a friend—I would.
“I know all about the prophecy, the Three,” I said. “They’re useless without me. The prophecy is about Three, not two. So if they hired me to be the third, then you can safely kill me and let them be, right? The prophecy dies and you can cut your big old slab of stone in pieces if you want.” I wouldn’t really let them kill me, but if I could offer myself up like a lamb to the slaughter in order to free the women, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Once they were safe, then all bets were off.
“Cutter, no,” Hannah said. I met her eyes. There was true fear in them now. Not for her, for me. It was utterly charming and made me want to go to her. It would have to wait, however.
Elias and Atticus looked at each other.
“Well, golly, he’s right,” Elias said, sarcasm thick in his tone.
“I guess we should let them go!” Atticus replied, laughing.
What assholes.
“Cutter, toss your weapons over, please,” Atticus said. Though he said please, his tone was heavy with command, the voice of someone who was used to being obeyed.
Fuck that. “I’m good, thanks.”
He gritted his teeth. “Throw down your guns. Now. That’s an order.”
Finally, his calm façade had broken. So he had a temper. That was a weakness I could exploit. Suddenly, I knew how to handle this. I didn’t need my guns at the moment. Pretending to obey his order, I tossed my shotgun down, then pulled Alpha from her holster and tossed her on the rocks, too.
I’d get them back in a minute.
“Thank you,” Atticus said. “Now drop to your knees and bow before me.”
Good Lord.
I dropped to my knees. “This is as good as you will get out of me,” I said. “If you want more than this, you’d better just kill me.”
“Oh, that’s coming, Cutter,” Atticus said. “I’ve already given orders to Elias here. He’s ready to go.”
Elias pulled out a long sword. “This will feel fantastic, Cutter,” he said. “I mean, for me. For you, it’ll be excruciatingly painful. But after all these years, I’m looking forward to finally ending this between you and me.”
“So what’s this all about, Atticus?” I said, trying to keep the conversation going. “Why are you so threatened by a few people wandering the Ends together?”
The man seemed amused by the question. “OK, fine, I’ll play ball. Delaying the inevitable won’t change the result. I maintain control over the Ends. Nobody does anything around here without my explicit permission. And when I see Three misfits joined at the hip that are reminiscent of a prophecy I’ve agonized over for year…I’m not just going to sit back and watch events unfold that are out of my control. Get it?”
Elias stepped forward, brandishing the sword.
Chuck, who’d stayed near at hand the entire time, growled a warning.
“Call your dog off,” Elias said.
“Chuck,” I said. “At ease, soldier.”
Chuck was so obedient, too obedient. I didn’t see the next part coming.
Even as my dog settled onto his haunches and let me scratch behind his ears, Elias stepped forward and shoved the sword through his mouth.
“Nooo!” I roared, my mouth gaping, bile rising in my throat. “You…you fucking sicko.” I’d been the one who’d made Chuck relax, not thinking Elias would go so far as to kill him like that. I should’ve known. I should have. I felt sick.
“Oops,” Elias said. “My hand slipped.”
“I will tear out your intestines,” I growled, tempted to stand up and make good on my promise right then and there. The loss of my best friend shook through me, and it took all of my military training not to act on the temptation, which would’ve been suicide.
“Enough,” Atticus said. “Here’s what will happen. Elias is going to slowly cut your head off and toss it on the rocks in front of these women. They will have to live with the fact that they are the ones who got you killed. They hired you, so it is their fault. We will let them live with that for a day or two, and when they’ve sufficiently suffered, then we will kill them too.”
Sadistic bastards. “I’ve never seen that woman in my life,” I said as I nodded to the third woman. I was avoiding looking at Chuck’s body. My only comfort was that I’d been scratching him—one of his favorite things—when he’d died. Still…
“Don’t be stupid,” he growled, “you know exactly who that is.”
“Wouldn’t that make us ‘the Four’ instead of ‘the Three’?” I asked.
“Goddammit!” Atticus screamed. “Enough! Elias, kill him now!”
Elias pressed the blade to the tip of my nose for added effect. I just stared at it, showing nothing. I refused to give him the satisfaction. “Sorry, Cutter, it’s been fun.”
“It has,” I said. “But I’m not done playing yet.”
With that, I yanked the knife out of the sheath on my leg and whipped it into Elias’s leg. Throwing knives was an art, one I’d practiced for hours and hours out of boredom while hanging around various outposts in the Ends. From such a close distance my throw couldn’t miss, and the blade entered his thigh all the way up all the way up to the handle which meant I’d hit bone. Good deal. Instinctively, he dropped the sword and crumpled, groaning in pain.
I jumped to my feet, adrenaline pumping through my system, claiming the sword.
At that point, all hell broke loose. Two of the guards fired on me, but I was already diving to the ground, making myself as difficult as possible to hit, scooping up a rock in the process. The landing was rough, stones biting into me, but I came out of the move in a roll, rising back to my feet as bullets pinged the hard ground around me. I threw one of the rocks at one of the shooters, hitting him square in the face. Ah, ten years of playing pitcher in baseball finally pays off, I thought, cutting hard to the right as the other guy continued to unload his clip.
I didn’t know how to use a sword. Good thing I didn’t have it anymore. Grabbing the sword had been nothing but a distraction from my true intent.
As I’d rolled and scooped up the rock, I’d reclaimed Alpha, dropping the sword in the process. Still moving, I fired from the hip, stinging the gunman’s hand and forcing him to drop his own weapon. The next shot punched into him center mass and he dropped.
I located Atticus next, determined to end this shit once and for all, but the man squirreled himself between a wall of his men. Oh well, I thought, I guess I’ll have to shoot my way through to him.
I fired in short succession. Either the bullets would be “through-and-throughs” and hit him behind his human wall or they’d drop the guards and give me a clear shot at their master. One dropped, then another. Behind them I expected to find Atticus.
I was wrong. All I saw was his back in the distance, the fucking coward making tracks for the city, retreating as things had gone south in a hurry. I would’ve loved to chase him down, but now the third and fourth men were lifting weapons of their own, which meant I needed to move again. I cut right again, but was met with a fist by the fifth guy, who was smarter than the others; instead of trying to hit a moving target in the dark, he’d moved swiftly to my flank, circling around in my blind spot, eventually moving in close and using my momentum against me.
Blood poured out of my nose on impact as stars danced across my vision. He followed up the hit with a knee to the midsection that left me double over. At least the other guys won’t shoot me with their buddy so close to me, I thought.
My vision blurred, but I still saw as the guy pulled his own gun.
Oh fuck. Without considering other options, I charged him, tackling him to the rocks. A sharp rock nailed him right in the back. His back cracked, and he dropped the gun as he screamed. I grabbed him by his shirt and hauled him back up, dragging him in front of me. Shots rang out as the other two men fired upon us, the man’s body twitching as he took the friendly fire. Damn, pretty ruthless, I thought. They didn’t give two shits if they killed their own guy, who was injured but still very much alive.
Well, he was alive. The hailstorm of bullets finished him off and he slumped in my arms, dead weight and heavy as hell. Which sucked because holding him up was too difficult now. I waited three seconds, straining, as several more bullets thudded into him, thankfully hitting bone, muscle, organs, sufficient innards to stop them from going straight through and hitting me.
When I believed my count was correct, I threw the corpse aside, revealing myself. The men continued to fire, but all I heard was click-click-click… Idiots, I thought.
Unfortunately, I was also out of ammo and reloading would take too long. Once more, I went for the sword, not knowing exactly what to do with it, except aim the tip forward. I charged the men, screaming at the top of my lungs, which made one of them fumble at his ammo as he tried to reload, dropping it on the stones. He tried to go after it, but I was already shoving the sword at him, piercing his throat. His body went rigid and his mouth gaped open. I slid the sword back out and he dropped.
It felt damn good. These bastards were the plague of the Ends, and all I wanted to do was eradicate them.
Unfortunately the other guy hadn’t panicked as I’d charged them. Now he had me in his crosshairs, a cocksure smile forming across his lips. “Game over,” he said. He had me, I had to admit. Luckily, I wasn’t alone, and the women I traveled with weren’t helpless like they’d been pretending to be. I’d noticed them up to something during the battle, but had avoided direct eye contact so as to not draw attention to them.
Somehow, their bonds had been broken, however, and in the melee, Gehn had circled around behind this douche bag. Just before he could pull the trigger, she attacked, biting into his neck from behind, ravaging his flesh vampire-style. Unintentionally, he pulled the trigger as his body flopped, but I was already diving and the shot went well high. With any luck it would come back down right on Atticus’s head.
Gehn continued to devour the man’s throat, lapping at his blood. Hannah came in from the side, touching her shoulder, but Gehn reacted violently, backhanding her across the face. Shit. But then the other woman appeared, red horns glowing. She grabbed Gehn and hauled her back, kicking and growling. She whispered something in Gehn’s ear and she finally calmed, blood dripping from her chin. Her eyes met mine and I saw the moment the real Gehn I knew came back. An expression of utter dismay crossed her face. I wanted to run to her, clean the blood from her face, tell her I wasn’t appalled at what she’d done, that it was no different than my own killings and that the man deserved his death one way or another.
But that would come later. I had unfinished business still.
I turned back toward Elias, the man’s sword still in my hand. He continued to writhe on the ground, clutching his leg. As I watched, he pulled the blade from his flesh, which was a dumbass move that allowed the blood to pump out rather than be held back by the steel.
“This is stupid, isn’t it, Cutter?” he said, wincing in pain as he attempted to apply pressure to his wound. “I hire all these assholes and none of them can take you out. Money down the toilet. Still, Atticus paid me to kill you personally, so I’ll have to finish the job.” It was a ballsy thing to say, I had to admit. He managed to tear off a portion of his pants and tie it around the wound before hobbling to his feet.
He wasn’t done yet. Though I’d done much of his dirty work for him, the man hadn’t risen to the leader of the Guild by being weak. Maybe there was still fun to be had.
“There’s hope for the Ends yet,” I said to him. “But not as long as you’re breathing.” Those last few words had felt important to say, but in hindsight, I shouldn’t have wasted them on this bastard. The mistake would cost me.
Just as I reached the end of that sentence, Elias drew a pistol that had been hidden inside his coat. He fired quickly, which affected his aim, but even as I tried to dodge, the bullet ripped through my knee, shattering my kneecap.
I collapsed in agony, hearing Elias’s laughter ringing in my ears.
Chapter 38
Endgame
The pain shooting through my knee was intense, so much so that it was all I could do to not pass out.
Still, I wouldn’t scream. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I would grit my teeth, hold my breath until my face turned purple, and clutch my leg—but I would not scream.
Elias stumbled close, standing over me with the gun aimed at my head.
“You got cocky, Cutter,” he said. “Don’t worry, though. I’ll put you out of your pain.”
I waited for the shot, but it never came. Before Elias pulled the trigger, he lowered the gun with a thoughtful look on his face.
“What are you doing?” I asked. “Why aren’t you killing me?”
A devilish smile spread across his face. “I have a better idea.”
He adjusted his aim, targeting Hannah, whose face was red from the blow Gehn had struck on her cheek. He spoke slowly. “Instead of making them watch me kill you, I’ll make you watch me kill them. You deserve the torture more than they do. Atticus doesn’t think so, but Atticus also has no history with you. Not like me, anyway.”
This asshole really holds a grudge. There has to be a way to use that against him, and fast.
“Wait!” I said. “What if I joined up with you again?”
Elias laughed. “The begging of a desperate man,” he scoffed. “Not only desperate, but a liar. You walked away, and you made it clear why. Nothing has changed, Cutter. You’re just trying to save them. You don’t want to work with me anymore.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I am just doing this to save them. And yeah, I’m desperate. But I mean it. Spare them, and I will join up with you again. I’ll kill whoever you want me to kill. Let’s get paid.”
Come on. Take the bait, you son of a bitch.
Elias lowered his gun to look at me. “Why the hell would I trust you again?” he asked. “You fucked me before. You’ll do it again. You’re just trying to delay me. I am not interested in being played for a fool again. Plus, I killed your dog, I know you won’t forgi
ve that.”
“He was just a dog.” The words burned my throat. Yeah, a dog who I loved like a son. I kept the tears out of my eyes.
“I don’t believe you,” Elias said.
Before he killed Hannah, I needed to change his mind.
“What’s the one thing you know about me, Elias?” I asked. “I’m a man of my word. You know that. When I say I will do something, you can bet your ass I do it, right?”
I tried to sit up, but the pain in my leg was too much to bear.
“I’ve never gone back on my word,” I said, which made him half-turn back to me. “That’s why you can trust me. Respect and honor are the only things I’ve got in the Ends. I wouldn’t sacrifice them now.”
Elias paused. He looked at the women, then back at me. I could see the wheels turning in his head. Though he’d long wanted me dead, I knew there was something he wanted more: me. On his side, his enforcer, his attack dog.
“I’m giving you my word,” I said as I looked him in the eye. “If you spare them, I will join you. I’ll kill for you. I’ll do all the dirty work until the day you die. I get a salary, but I work for you. Take it or leave it.”
“Cutter?” Hannah said. I ignored her, laser-focused on Elias.
He tilted his head, still skeptical. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll take the deal on one condition. You have to prove your loyalty, right here, right now. You said you’d kill for me, right?”
I didn’t hesitate, even though I knew exactly where he was going with this. “Right.”
He grabbed my hand and pulled me onto my feet. I didn’t bother trying to put weight on the blown-out knee. I didn’t know how I would deal with that, but I had bigger things on my mind. “Kill one,” he demanded. “You choose.”
He picked my knife off the ground and slipped it into my hand.
Again, I didn’t hesitate. I needed to make everything look real. “I’ll kill my Ender companion,” I said, limping toward Gehn. “She’s out of control. She can’t control her urges anyway.” I met her eyes and saw the pain in them, the self-loathing. I’m sorry, I thought, hating myself for having to do this.
