Chapter 21

Chapter Twenty-One

This was my first trading negotiation since the end of the world, and I was feeling a little—jittery? Excited? Even though I wouldn't be doing much in terms of negotiating myself, it was a fun distraction from the current bleakness of my situation.

"They're waiting for you there." Blondie pointed to the side room. She was all smiles and roasted coffee as she watched us walk down the stairs. She handed us both coffees. Kicks took his. I took mine but with no intention of drinking it. She was a little too happy today for my comfort. "Everyone else is gone at the moment, so you can negotiate in private. I'll introduce you."

She led the way into the side room, and there was no way her hips naturally swung that much. If she swayed any more, she'd go topside. Kicks' eyes were focused over her shoulder and not somewhere south. Mine should've been focused on the two men in the room as well. They both had lean, hard looks to them, but that was probably true of most of the people left today, or at least the ones thriving.

"This is Ed and Julie." Blondie waved a hand to the two men sitting at the table. "Rex and Trigger."

Rex, the one with the shaved head and black goatee, eyed me up and down the second Kicks turned his attention to Blondie. That look was enough to double the amount of bile I had already, just from looking at these two. They reminded me of what I'd left behind in the apartment complex back in New York, maybe worse. They might've been a few miles farther down the road toward damnation. Didn't really matter, as I'd probably never see them again.

The other thing I had to keep remembering was that I wasn't as vulnerable as people seemed to think, or I kept thinking myself. I killed with a touch. The people I didn't kill, Death killed for me. My biggest problem was keeping people alive. I was turning into some sort of accidental Jacklyn the Ripper. Talk about churning up the bile.

Kicks pulled out a chair for me to sit. It wasn't as if he'd never done something like that before, but this seemed more calculated. He was demonstrating some significance in our relationship, placing an unspoken value upon me.

I didn't mind, considering if either of these two stepped out of line, I might add a couple to my body count. I'd like to try to get through a week without killing anyone, if at all possible.

"Heard you want to make a deal?" Rex said, his gaze flickering to me on the last word. "We'd be interested, depending on what you have to trade."

This guy left a sour taste in my mouth. It didn't bode well for the week's target of zero deaths.

"I'm a rancher and I hunt. I also have a lot of connections. What were you in need of?" Kicks said.

Had he missed that signal of Rex's? He didn't miss much. He was happy Rancher Ed today—maybe he wanted to play stupid.

"We'd be willing to trade for some grains and meat," Rex said.

Really? Was I becoming so cynical that I'd read these people so wrong? I relaxed in my chair. I still got an off feeling about them, but maybe they weren't that bad.

"I'm sure we can come up with an amount that will work for both of us," Kicks said.

Rex nodded. "One other thing." He waved his hand toward me. "We want her."

I groaned. Why did people so often meet my low expectations? Just when I'd had a glimmer of hope for their souls, they had to prove themselves the lowest of the low.

I glanced around the room, hoping Death wasn't lurking nearby. There was no reason to kill them just yet, even though they were gross human beings.

"She's not available," Kicks said, his voice shifting lower, like when he was ready to kill someone. He wasn't moving at all, like he didn't trust what would happen if he even allowed himself to flinch. I wasn't sure if he was breathing as he stared them down.

If I could've, I'd have explained this was a dead end and put a stop to it all. Rex had no idea what he was getting into. He thought he was wading around in a baby pool, but it was shark-infested waters. Neither of us were showing our teeth, but he was no competition for the people he was sitting across from, especially me. My own personal bodyguard was even worse than Kicks. She didn't mess around when it came to threats.

"You can have her back. We just want to borrow her for a while." Rex smiled, and his friend laughed.

Six months ago, this would've terrified me. Not now. I couldn't quite even get upset enough to care. Unfortunately, Kicks wasn't feeling the same. He was going to explode where he sat, and these two idiots didn't realize they'd lit the fuse on an atomic bomb.

"She's. My. Wife." His words were coming out through a clenched jaw. I had to give it to Kicks—if you were with him, he protected you to the death. He wouldn't just wage war for you. He'd wage a grudge match that would go on for a thousand years.

"It's our gasoline that you and your settlement are going to need. Are you saying one woman is more valuable than gas?" Rex said.

"Yes." Kicks got to his feet and pulled me up with him, as if he thought I'd linger behind with these two.

Rex and Trigger got to their feet, too.

"We can either make a deal that will work for all of us or we can do it a different way," Rex said.

"If you're smart, you won't speak another word," Kicks said.

I put a hand on his arm. I wasn't looking to get traded for some gas, but I wasn't ready for him to show his true colors in this place. He could stand firm and yet not kill them.

"Can we talk outside for a second?" I asked.

Even though the rage wasn't directed at me, the look in Kicks' eyes was still a little overwhelming. How stupid were these men to assume they had the upper hand?

"Please?" I said.

I could see Kicks begin to bend, turning slightly toward the door. The tension was still high, but there was a slight chance of turning this around if I could manage to get him out the door and talk to him alone. Who cared how horrible these people were? What they said?

"That's right. Listen to the wifey. She obviously doesn't mind the idea." It was the first time Trigger had spoken, and I wished he hadn't.

Kicks froze. Dumbass Trigger just had to say something. He couldn't let me get out the door and save his sorry hide.

"It doesn't matter what they say," I said, stepping in front of Kicks, in between them and him.

"Now she's going to try to protect him from getting into a fight he can't finish. Knew she was the smarter one," Rex said, and the two of them laughed.

"Piper, you need to step out of the way," Kicks said.

"I think—"

He picked me up and placed me behind him.

"Look, we tried to do it nicely, but we're taking your woman whether you want us to or not," Rex said. "Now you won't get anything out of the deal. There's not enough women left. She's the most valuable thing you have. Did you really think you could keep her on your farm?"

Two more armed men appeared in the doorway to the sitting room. Blondie ducked back behind the door, but not before I saw her in the hall behind them, not even a little surprise on her face.

"Tell your men to back off before I have to kill you all," Kicks said.

There was no way we were getting out of here now without someone dying, and it wouldn't be us. So which was worse? Did I try to stay out of the fray and let Kicks shift and kill them? Could he kill four at one? Or would I have to step in, have them all drop and convulse while turning an ugly shade of gray? If I killed, would that horrible feeling of something other inside me grow? That was the scariest thing of it all.

"It's over," Rex declared. "Walk away nicely and we'll let you live. Otherwise we'll kill you in front of her."

"The only ones who're going to die are you and your friends," Kicks said. He sounded pretty confident. Maybe no gray men today?

He shifted, positioning me in the corner of the room behind him.

"Stay there," he said, his voice roughened to where I had to strain to understand. He was about to shift.

He was going to take on all these men alone. I'd seen the creatures he and his pack shifted into. They weren't like big, furry dogs. They were the stuff of horror movies. If someone had ever dreamt them up and put them on the big screen, it would be an instant R rating. He could handle this. And if he couldn't, I'd step in—or Death would. For now, I was going to let him take his shot. I'd do pretty much anything to avoid having that feeling inside me grow.

A low growl filled the room. I'd been up front at a concert once, near a speaker where the bass felt like it vibrated through you. You didn't so much hear the noise as feel it.

That's what this was like. They'd picked a fight they couldn't win.

There was a flash of fear on a couple of the faces, but Rex and Trigger didn't heed the warning, or think there was any way one man could fight them off. It was like they'd disregarded Death Day and what that meant altogether. This wasn't the good old days, where you could size up your opponent. There were things, creatures like Kicks and people like myself, who'd risen out of the shadows. Death Day had been a line of demarcation, from what the world had seemed to be and the reality of what really existed. It looked as if they hadn't learned that lesson, but they were about to in the most violent of ways.

It wasn't until I heard the booming steps that signaled Death's imminent arrival that I knew for sure I wasn't going to be the one to kill them, or at least not all of them. For some reason, my killings didn't happen that way, as if maybe they were unnatural and untimed.

There wasn't any time to ponder it now, as Trigger moved in first, swinging wildly. Kicks swung back. Before he even completed the motion, his clothes had been shredded off him, and he gained a foot and a half in height, another foot in width, and was all sinewy muscle, claws, and fangs.

I nearly fell on my ass. I would've if the wall hadn't popped up behind me.

Trigger hit the ground, blood spraying out of his neck. The other three were no longer taking chances but coming at Kicks all at once, Rex with a chair in his hand and the other two with guns out.

The bullets bounced off his skin, landing on the ground. Kicks was literally bulletproof?

The rest happened too quickly to track. It was a blur of motion, with thumps as bodies hit the floor until there was silence.

Kicks had said the way I killed was no worse than what he did. I'd thought he was trying to be kind. He wasn't. It might've been worse.

I had trouble breathing. All I could see was blood and guts and a savagery that was, in a way, worse than Death Day. I was surrounded by an utter bloodbath.

One had his gut ripped open. Another had the veins and tendons hanging out of his neck, like spaghetti splayed on the floor.

Kicks, still in beast form, groaned and then slowly shifted back into human form.

"Go get the bags upstairs," he said. He cracked his neck, turning it this way and that and looking stiff in his skin.

I nodded, heading toward the hall and happy to be away from the wreckage. The only positive right now was still being on track for zero kills myself. I'd have to take the wins where I could.

I caught sight of Blondie ducking into a room on my way upstairs. I shoved the door open, and she jumped back.

"You knew what they were going to do. That's why the place was empty for breakfast." I didn't expect her to admit it, but I wasn't leaving here letting her think she'd gotten one over on us. I was too pissed for that.

"I didn't," she said, quite predictably. She was cute enough that she could probably manipulate plenty of the men who came here. I wasn't looking to fuck her, so it wouldn't work out as well.

She backed as far away from me as she could, probably thinking I could shift and kill her at any moment. I didn't have to shift. If I wanted her dead, she'd get no warning.

I should kill her. Left here alive, she'd talk. She'd tell stories of the monster. There were more humans than shifters. To think they weren't a threat would be as foolish as what they'd done downstairs, and we'd seen how that turned out. I wouldn't kill her because I feared that piece of darkness within me worse, but she needed a scare so she didn't talk.

I closed in on her, not stopping until her back was pressed against the wall and she was breathing rapidly.

"You say anything of this to anyone, and we will hear. Then we will come back and kill you. Do you understand?"

She nodded, a few tears escaping.

"I don't like you, but I'm allowing you to live because I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you didn't mean for this to happen. You speak, and I'll know that assumption was wrong."

She began to cry, and I didn't care. She'd tried to kill me, and I was losing the capacity for empathy for my enemies. I wasn't sure if this was life wearing me down or that insidious darkness I could feel infringing on my psyche. What was more terrifying was I liked that I didn't care. Those might be the only things that were saving her today. Right or wrong, she'd continue to breathe because of my own sense of self-preservation.

I turned my back to her, making sure she knew she was no threat to me. I hadn't made it out the door when there was the sound of yet another body hitting the ground.

I stopped, sighing, refusing to turn around and see her dead. I went to the other bedroom and grabbed our bags.

Death was waiting for me there.

"Why didn't you kill her?" Death said, glaring at me.

"Because I didn't want her dead. Why did you?"

"She betrayed you and would've caused a threat to you and the pack. You don't leave people like that alive."

Now she was worried about the pack? She'd just killed two of them off. I wasn't discussing it, not right now. We had to get out of here before anyone returned and the death toll grew.

I grabbed our bags, trying to ignore her presence.

Kicks stood at the bottom of the stairs, shirtless but with pants that were only slightly torn and blood-splattered.

The blood didn't bother me. It was as if I were becoming numb to the remnants of death, especially if I hadn't caused it.

What I wasn't used to was being near Kicks after he'd shifted. There was an intrinsic feeling of unpredictability as the energy coursed off him and seemed to squeeze out all the air in the room until all you could sense, breathe, feel, was him.

He tilted his head toward the door, and I nodded. He walked out, not asking what had happened upstairs, even though he must have heard the thump of Blondie hitting the floor.

He headed toward the bike that was parked out front. I got on behind him, and for once, there was no fear that I'd take him out. Right now, it felt as if he were indestructible.

I wrapped my arms around him, taking the excuse to hold on a little tighter than needed. Was this what life would be now?