The Lost & Damned 1

by Keira Michelle Telford

  It appears to be, and she turns back.

  Scrutinizing the interior face of the metal doors, she tries to guesstimate their thickness, mentally trying to determine what force it would take to annihilate them.

  Her feet leave tracks behind in the soft, powdery dirt floor, and hers are not the only tracks she finds. By the entrance to the sewer, where Alex dropped so delicately into the tunnel, Silver spots his shoe prints in the dirt.

  Busted.

  Back inside the theater, unawares, Alex casually hangs his jacket up on the rack. He believes he followed Silver unnoticed, but he should know better. Passing by the table, Silver surprises him from behind and forces him on his back against it, holding her hunting knife to his throat.

  “Why did you follow me tonight?”

  Shocked by her sudden insinuation of disloyalty, especially after so many years of unparalleled trust, Alex is affronted. “Overreaction much?”

  He wraps his hand around her wrist and moves the knife away from his throat, and she lets him. Giving him some space to straighten himself back up, she tucks the knife back into its holster and waits for him to explain himself.

  But he doesn’t.

  Instead, “It’s a little late in our relationship to start developing trust issues, isn’t it?”

  “That doesn’t answer my question.”

  “Do I really need to?”

  “You were spying on me.”

  “No, I wasn’t. That’s just one of your paranoid Fringer delusions talking.”

  Ouch.

  Alex expects what he gets, and Silver strikes him hard across the face. Not just an open-palm girlie slap, either. It’s a powerful right hook that could send a heavy weight to the floor.

  He reels and regains himself, and catches her fist before she can start the second round of her assault. As he manipulates the trajectory of her arm away from violence, her sleeve rides up an inch or two, revealing the hint of a scar beneath.

  Stronger than she is, Alex prevents her from jerking back her arm. Holding her tight—and against her will—he pulls up her sleeve. The most recent cut is still wrapped in a thin bandage, and her arm looks like a graphic timeline of desperation.

  Silver fears his pity. She shoves him in the chest and forces him to back away, releasing her arm.

  Tears in her eyes, she straightens her sleeve and banishes the shame back into hiding. “It’s not what you think.”

  “No? Then why does this feel so familiar?”

  “You’re making something out of nothing, I swear.”

  “Drunk, high or bleeding, it’s all the same for you. You’re just taking a different path down the same well-trodden road, and I’ve pulled you back from there before.”

  “I’m not asking for your help.”

  “For god’s sake, El, you don’t have to. I’ve always got your back, you know that.”

  With Olympian quality defiance, Silver stands to face him, still trying to be tough. “Yeah? Well, you’re not my guardian and that’s not your job,” she insists. “Not anymore.”

  “If the position’s still vacant, I’d like to reapply.”

  She backhands away tears and sniffs snot back up into her head. “Don’t try to be cute.”

  For the first time, Alex notices something around Silver’s neck: the dog tags. They’ve slipped out from beneath her shirt, and he takes them in his hand to read them.

  His and hers.

  The sentiment is deeply heart stirring.

  Overcome with that, and without warning, he leans into Silver and pulls her toward him, pushing his lips against hers. Before her brain has time to engage, Silver is swept up in instinct.

  Instant reciprocation.

  She kisses back, the taste of his lips so hungered for. The kiss lasts several moments, until Silver feels Alex’s groping hands reaching for her belt and she panics. Half pulling herself away, the kiss breaks and she holds him at arm’s length. Pressing her hand up against his chest, she can feel the rhythm of his heartbeat mimicking hers, urging her to surrender.

  Yet, she resists—though she doesn’t know why.

  “Ella …” he whispers.

  The inviting tone of his voice tugs at her heart strings, and she forces her body to do something—anything. Hooking her foot around the back of Alex’s heel, she pulls his foot forward and tips him off balance, making him fall back against the floor.

  Before he can catch his breath, she drops down over him and straddles him. Resting her hands on the floor beside his head, she leans in over him and he anticipates her. Slipping a hand around the back of her neck, he pulls her into him and steals another kiss, while his other hand reaches for her hips.

  He pushes her pelvis down against his, managing to elicit a small gasp from her lips at the sensation of his arousal. Her apparent receptiveness spurring him onward, he flips them both over and pins her to the floor beneath him.

  “Not like this,” she mumbles between kisses.

  He doesn’t listen.

  “Alex, not here,” she persists.

  His wandering hand makes its way beneath her shirt, and she struggles to regain control. Managing to get one leg underneath him, she pushes on his pelvis, exploiting an old injury to his right hip, broken almost two decades ago.

  He grits his teeth as she puts pressure on his femoral head, compressing it against his rebuilt pelvic structure, articular cartilage grinding against a titanium plate where his acetabulum and labral cartilage should be.

  In the midst of the distraction, she pushes him off her and windmills herself back into an upright position. “You’re crossing the line, Alex.”

  Alex heaves himself up off the floor, his hip giving a loud crack of resistance. “Since when is there a line?”

  Keeping her back to him, Silver lets him get close enough to wrap his arms around her waist.

  “Tell me you don’t want this and I’ll stop.” He kisses her neck softly. “If you can look me in the eye and tell me you’re not in love with me, I promise I’ll never touch you again.”

  Silver spins around to face him, and just for a split second, he fears that she might just be that obstinate. The queen of doing things just to spite herself, Silver’s always had trouble allowing herself to feel comfortable with the notion of happiness.

  Not this time, though.

  Tired of fighting it, she tentatively caresses his cheek against the palm of her left hand. He kisses her palm, admiring the scar that brought them together in the first place, when she was just fifteen and he was a twenty-two-year-old Hunter Division rookie.

  Silently, Alex lifts her arms around his neck and wraps his own around her waist again. Resting a hand on her lower back, he pulls her hips against him.

  He’s still ready, and this time, Silver doesn’t freak out. Smiling, she leans into him and releases six years of tension with another passionate kiss. She lets Alex disarm her, dropping her gun and knife to the floor—his lips never leaving hers.

  The taste of him is so familiar—so wanted—and the warmth of his touch is so breathtakingly exhilarating. She puts up no resistance when he pushes her up against the table. Her agile fingers swiftly unbutton his shirt, pressing her palms against his bare chest as he throws the shirt to the floor, his heart pounding against her fingertips.

  Another kiss, and she lets him pull off her shirt, hastily discarding it onto the growing pile beside them. He fumbles with her belt while she expertly removes his, and moments later both pairs of jeans are discarded on the floor.

  Lifting her up onto the edge of the table, he parts her legs and positions himself in between, muffling her gasp with his lips as he pushes himself inside her …

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The Lost

  Silver wakes up at the crack of dawn, naked in Alex’s bed.

  She’s alone.

  Her first thought is of Alex, and of the most satisfactory sleep she’s had in years. Her second thought is of Alice, and some of the satisfaction melts. Aware of the fact
that Alice will soon wake, she needs to return to her own bed before her absence is recognized.

  She peels herself free of the covers and quickly pulls on yesterday’s clothes. In her haste, she knocks a comic book off the bedside table, the picture of her and Alex falling to the floor with it.

  Those were happier times: creeping around behind Omega’s back, hooking up wherever and whenever they could.

  She leans it up against the wall.

  As she sneaks through the living room to the upstairs stairwell, trying not to make a sound, Alex appears from the kitchen and cuts her off, a mug of coffee in each hand.

  He passes her one, and breaks into a toothy smile. “Good morning.”

  “Indeed.” She accepts the mug.

  He leans on the door frame, smiling at her, making her blush.

  “Why do I feel like I’m a giddy teenager again?” She smiles.

  He bends forward and kisses her on the lips.

  She accepts him and kisses back, but breaks the kiss seconds later. “I have to go.”

  “Really? Are you sure?”

  He steals another quick kiss from her, but she pulls back from him.

  “Really.” She keeps him at arm’s length as noises down the hallway herald the awakening of the rest of the group. “And please,” she presses him, “let’s keep this between us. Just until this is all over.”

  Still smiling, she disappears up the stairwell. In the apartment, she looks around for Alice. The bed is empty, but the sheets are displaced and the shower’s running in the bathroom.

  Shit.

  Silver rolls through lies in her head, and settles on an early morning meeting with one of her business associates. That happens frequently, and shouldn’t seem out of place. Expecting a scowling, pouting Alice, she takes a deep breath and enters the bathroom …

  Nothing.

  She turns off the shower and looks around for clues, but all she finds is a small smear of blood on the rim of the basin.

  She calls Alice’s name a few times.

  No response.

  Anticipating the worst, and knowing precisely who to blame, she drops her coffee mug to the floor and rushes out of the room.

  Back in the living room, Alex is leaning in front of a blender, watching it do its thing with a mish-mash of Fringe leftovers, trying to turn it into food. Jax creates herself some disgusting concoction of stale cereals for her breakfast, while Oz chows down on some cardboard-colored mush that might be called oatmeal. Red’s already at the table, reading a book in Braille and sipping at her coffee.

  It’s serenely quiet.

  Until Silver erupts into the room, angry as hell, with her gun in her hand—and she’s aiming straight for Jax. “Where’s Alice?”

  Jax jumps up out of her chair and backs up when Silver gets close to her.

  Without waiting for an answer, Silver hits her across the face with the butt of her gun. The hit knocks Jax back against the tabletop. Silver grabs her by the shirt and throws her back down into the chair, the gun in her face.

  Again, “Where is she?”

  The rest of the room watches in a stunned silence, Red calmly closing her book and sliding it onto the table in front of her. Leisure time over.

  Jax is speechless, too busy trying to figure out what the hell’s happening to her.

  Silver locks a bullet into the breech of her gun. “You’re a dead woman.”

  “I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about!” Jax holds up her hands.

  Silver pushes her gun against Jax’s temple, but Alex shoves her away before she can pull the trigger. Like lightning, Silver draws a twin gun from her belt and aims it at him.

  Alex puts up his hands in surrender. “You’re really going to have to learn how to communicate.”

  Jax takes advantage of the distraction and slides out of the chair, moving a few feet further away from Silver. “What side of whose bed did you crawl out of this morning?”

  In reply, Silver redirects both guns to Jax.

  Another gun appears at Silver’s head from behind—Oz.

  “Put your shit down,” he snarls.

  Silver doesn’t flinch.

  “Step back,” she warns.

  Oz doesn’t move.

  “Step back,” she repeats, putting emphasis on the words.

  Red finally gets to her feet and joins in. “Where’s Alice?”

  Silver nods toward Jax. “Ask her.”

  Alex tries to stand between Silver and Jax, hoping to diffuse them. “Alice is missing? Since when?”

  Jax breaks into a smirk, pushing her luck with Silver. “You lost your pet?”

  Silver moves in toward Jax, but Jax anticipates her next play. She uses the tabletop and the back of the chair to support her weight and she lifts up, kicking the gun out of Silver’s right hand. Silver retaliates by kicking the chair out from underneath Jax, but she lands on her feet.

  Red catches the stray gun out of the air and aims it back at Jax. “Stop.”

  Jax backs off, her palms up.

  Oz lowers his gun.

  Red aims hers at Silver. “Your turn.”

  Silver hesitates, then lowers her gun.

  “On the table,” Red demands.

  Silver lays down her gun, and Oz confiscates it behind his back.

  Red lowers her weapon. “Now, what happened to Alice?”

  “She’s gone,” Silver answers without taking her eyes off Jax.

  Red turns to the prime suspect. “Anything you want to say?”

  “Sure, make me the bad guy.” Jax snorts.

  Alex points a disapproving finger at her. “What did you do?”

  She turns to him, defiant. “Nothing.” She turns to Silver. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  Silver looks unconvinced. “Sit the fuck down,” she growls.

  Jax pulls out a chair and begrudgingly sits back down at the table. “I never left my room last night.” She tilts her head up at Silver. “Which is more than can be said for some of us.”

  Silver accepts her challenge. “She was in bed when I left.”

  “Where did you go?” Red questions her.

  “Out.” Silver glares at Red, even though she’ll never see the emotion in her face. “Ask Alex. He was with me.”

  “I know,” Red matches her stern expression. “I’m blind, not deaf.”

  Jax raises an eyebrow, causing Silver to redirect the glare toward her instead.

  “Save it.”

  Jax leans back in her chair, calmly interweaving her fingers behind her head. “Maybe your little friend went out. Did you think of that?”

  “She doesn’t leave alone,” Silver dismisses the thought.

  Jax leans forward in her chair, baiting Silver. “Yeah? Well maybe that was before she caught you with your legs open?”

  This time, Silver doesn’t have to say anything. Alex steps in to her defense.

  “You’re really just begging for someone to shoot you this morning, aren’t you?” He stares her down. “One more comment like that and I’ll put you out of your misery. You understand?”

  Silence fills the room.

  Silver notices something missing, and looks around for an absent face. “Where’s Dylan?”

  Alex follows her thought train. “I’ll check his room.”

  He disappears, only to reappear moments later shaking his head. “His stuff’s gone.”

  Silver is quick to shoot unseen daggers at Red. “Loyal?!”

  Although Red can’t see her glare, she can certainly feel it. “He’s been my aide for three years, and you have no proof.”

  “His absence is my proof.” Silver turns to the rest of the group. “Get your guns. We’re going on a road trip.”

  She reaches a hand out to Oz, and he obliges by returning her gun.

  “We need to find the boy,” she says to Alex. “He’s our only link to Alice. You can run a trace on the GPS in his tag?”

  “I can.” He nods.

  Jax holds u
p a hand to speak, as if she’s in a classroom. “Not that I want to get a gun shoved in my face again or anything, but aren’t we allowing ourselves to get a little misdirected here?”

  No-one answers.

  “I mean, we were hired to catch a homicidal maniac, not to hunt down your ex-girlfriend like a hungry pack of weasels. Am I right?”

  Silver locks eyes with her. “Would I be right in assuming that if you were being held against your will by a power-hungry narcissist with an entire army of blood thirsty militants at his fingertips, you’d expect me to find you and return to you safety?”

  Jax drops her head and looks down at her feet. “That’s a fair point.”

  “I thought so.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  We Go ‘Boom-boom’

  Deep in the heart of Willowbrook woods, Silver stares distrustfully at the ruins of an Old World mental institution, now almost completely reclaimed by nature.

  Stone built, the walls are intact. Ivy creeps in through the gaping holes where panes of glass used to be, and spreads like living wallpaper throughout the interior. Every inch of the exterior is completely covered, and the roof collapsed under the weight of it a long time ago.

  A breeze whispers through the trees and Silver almost gags.

  The stench of rotting human flesh is pervasive, and the corpses are everywhere. Some have been dumped by the entrance to the building, while others have been left half-covered in the shrubbery and the weeds. Many more are rotting even deeper in the dense cover of the evergreens, never to see the light of day again.

  Ripper victims, mostly.

  The woods have been an illegal dumping ground for Ripper trash for decades. Aborted fetuses are also tossed here, if they’re too big to be flushed and not sold as a delicacy to the meat shops. Still born babies are frequently thrown from moving vehicles, tumbling down into the darkest parts of this wasteland. Likewise, hideously disfigured newborns—suffocated before they could even draw their first breath—are abandoned here without a care.

  And that’s not all.

  Murder victims are disposed of under the cover of nightfall, as are the bodies of the elderly. Their flesh is too bland and tasteless to be sold as food, and if they’re left in the city they attract vermin. Out here, they serve some purpose at least.