33. Hellena

33

HELLENA

“ H ang on!”

The seat belt snaps tight, pinning me to the seat as we crash through the bushes and trees along the sloping hillside. Thankfully, Tell turned into the fall, keeping us from flipping.

That’s as far as the advantages go.

We’re tossed about like ragdolls all the way down.

When the front tires hit the road at the bottom of the hill, we fly off our seats, slamming back down.

“Fuck!” Tell yells over my scream of surprise.

Swerving with the momentum, he guides us back onto the pavement, heading down the actual road, but still at a wild tilt, slamming the brakes to keep us from losing control at the next turn. The zigzagging street actually saves us as he scrapes into the wall of the cliff face at the end, slowing us to a stop.

“Hella, you alright?” Tell groans, tugging at his seat belt and reaching for me.

“I think so. Check and see if my ribcage is outside.”

He starts to laugh nervously before grunting in pain. Instantly, I’m focused on his wellbeing, checking the gash along the side of his head as he grips his right side tenderly.

“Definitely cracked a rib. How bad’s the cut?”

“Shallow. You must have banged your head on the door.”

“How’s the door?”

“Gone.”

Tell falls for it, glancing to his left before sighing with a wince, trying not to laugh again. Several seconds pass in stunned silence.

“We can’t stay here.”

“Agreed.”

The fact that the black SUV hasn't made another appearance is a good sign that something awful happened to them. If we’re lucky.

But we still have to find Gavin and Evan. As soon as we’ve both calmed, Tell shifts the car back into gear, the truck shuddering as he turns back around to head back up the hill. Something’s off about the accelerator, but we make it as far as the base of the steep rise.

Where we see the other SUV, the bottom of the car facing us from the top of the hill. Smoke billows out of the engine, obscuring any other view.

Tell starts to rev the engine when another blast shakes the mountainside, wobbling the whole cab and deafening both of us.

“NO!” I scream, bolting from the car and sprinting up the hill.

“Hellena!” Tell’s hot on my heels, but slower, his gasps falling farther behind me as I run.

Avoiding the wreckage of the SUV, I vaguely make out the silhouettes of two bodies inside, not moving. Serves them right, the bastards.

Scraping and scuffing my way through the brush at the roadside, I skid to a stop as I see the devastation ahead of me. The water level is dropping away visibly before my eyes, the shore a hundred yards from our vantage off to my left.

The river alongside the road is dwindling as the water recedes on this side, funneled into two channels along what used to be the reservoir’s dam wall. Past that, all I can see is darkness, but I can hear the sound of roaring water, rushing away, echoing through the canyons.

“Holy fuck…” Tell exclaims, finally reaching me.

“Ev. Gav.”

“I’m sure they weren’t anywhere near that when it went off. Gavin wouldn’t…”

But his voice falters because we both know that he would.

If he thought for one second that he could stop it, that he could save a life by putting himself in harm’s way.

I’m scrambling back down the hill this time with Tell in tow, his arm around my shoulders. Veering toward the passenger door, I make to set him down.

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“I’m driving. You’re hurt.”

“So are you—oh!” He coughs in agony as he says it, doubling over.

Sliding him into the seat, I bite my tongue to keep from making a snarky remark about male bravado, rushing to get the truck moving. If we hurry, we might make it back around to the other road that leads to the far side of the dam.

I need to know.

“Get on the radio. See what’s going on out there.”

“Aye-aye, skipper.”

“Smartass.”

“It’s a close second to my smart mouth.”

“And still smarter than your actual brain!’

“Oh!” Tell frowns, pretending to be offended.

As always, he can read me like a fucking book. I need the jokes, the back and forth banter to keep me from going into a spiral, falling apart.

“Come on, baby girl, just get me to Gavin and you can have a rest,” I mutter as the truck sputters back to life, puttering down the incline.

I have to hope we don’t get stranded or encounter much water in our path.

Every one of those hopes is dashed to pieces the minute we reach the three-way fork. The road is washed out ahead, forcing us to turn back toward the other side of town, back the way we came. Another few turns and a mile later, we’re blocked again, rerouted toward Tell’s family’s place.

And dangerously close to where Marco’s holed up.

“Just kill the lights when we get close and go slow. Maybe we can slip by in the chaos.”

“Or maybe the whole place will be underwater and Marco’s floating face down.” My voice only shakes a little as I say it.

News from the shortwave is only slightly better. Ora and Alaya are safe, still coordinating rescues from the worst areas where people were still in their homes when the water hit. We’ll have to deal with a severe refugee problem come daylight, but for now, they have food, blankets. Rescue efforts will continue throughout the night.

I couldn’t be more grateful for those badass bikers right about now.

But even as Tell signs off after a teary farewell between Ora and me, there’s no word about Gavin or Tell. Other reports filter in as we double back again, heading around the back roads of the Vanderbergs’ property. The scouts are still out, spreading word to anyone who needs to move, asking anyone in safe zones to take in those in need.

Tell’s spy network is really remarkable.

And the people of Sanctum are filling me with pride, helping one another.

Banding together.

I only wish it were under better circumstances. Most of the town is under water, according to Clarence and his cohorts.

“It’ll take time, but most of it will wash out to sea.”

“Great. After destroying everything in the meantime.”

Tell can only nod as my control wavers, my positive attitude crumbling in the face of the odds. I press on, gripping the steering wheel.

Adding to the problems, Ora told me that we’re basically cut off, splitting our forces in half, cutting off most escape routes from town. Problems for another time, if we can make it through the night.

With no other way to go, Tell and I decide to head back to my dad’s fortress. Maybe Evan and Gavin will make their way there. And it’s our only option. We need sleep.

And I realize I’m shivering, detaching slowly from the events of the night.

Shock. I’ve felt it before.

Doesn’t make it easier to navigate.

So much so that I almost run right into the massive tree lying across the road.

Slamming my foot down, the truck screeches to a stop.

Tell reaches over, tugging my locked grip on the wheel, pulling me toward him. “Shh. Breathe, Hella.”

But I can’t. And I can’t pull my eyes away from the horror on the other side of the trunk ahead of us, emerging from the darkness in the glow of the headlights.

His shark eyes, his gleaming white smile.

Marco Vice is death incarnate, manifesting out of hell right before my eyes.

“Hella?” Tell shakes me, still oblivious to the threat outside.

“R–run, Tell.” It’s the best I can manage as shapes materialize from the shadows, all of them in black, carrying assault weapons, wearing goggles and helmets painted in a crimson skull, cracked down the middle.

Both of our doors squeal open at the same time, before I can even shout.

And I’m torn out of his grasp, the world slowing to a crawl, my vision narrowing to a pinprick that only sees Tyler being dragged away from me.

Everything goes numb.

Everything goes silent.

And as I’m turned to face the man I hate the most, the man I fear more than anything in this world, I slip away, letting the hyperventilating pattern of my breathing take me into unconsciousness.

“Wake her up.”

I’m drifting closer to the misery of wakefulness when I hear the statement. It’s followed by a stinging slap, right across my cheek. It’s hard enough to make my jaw hurt, to send stars popping in spots behind my closed eyelids.

“F–Fuck…”

“What was that, Elena?” Marco sings my name the way he always said it, with a hint of his Latin ancestry adding a tawdry inflection. Or maybe it’s just because it’s him saying it.

Marco leans into my space, close enough to give me a whiff of his acrid cologne. The expensive scent is toxic to me, unlocking every disgusting memory I have of him growing up, his anger. His abuse of my mother. His vicious words.

“Fuck. You.”

This time, the slap is brutal, the back of his ringed hand tearing a gash in the side of my face and knocking me to the ground. I hear the chair I was sitting in clatter to the cement as my face meets the cool, gritty floor. It’s almost a relief to get away from the smell, to press my aching cheek against the cold.

“You certainly have grown up. Not just that fantastic ass you got from your mother, but your intolerable mouth. Who’d have thought such supple lips could spout such filth?”

“If anything out of my mouth is filthy, it’s because even just your name on my tongue tastes like shit!” I spit toward him, a spray of blood and saliva.

“Up. Get her up.”

I’m dragged back to my feet, slammed down in the chair again. This time, two hands clamp down on my shoulders, holding me fast.

“You know, I wanted you in pristine condition. That’s how I prefer my prizes. But then you show up, looking bruised, battered, and like you just got fucked by an entire football team. Not that I’m surprised. You’re tainted. Sullied.”

His accusations are ludicrous. Still, they cut deep.

“If I’m dirty because of what Davi did to me, then it’s just as much your fault for giving me over to him.” I wish my words sounded as bold and acidic as the bile in my throat. But I falter, my lip quivering with a sob.

Flashes of my trauma threaten to cripple me, to drag me back into that hole I fell into when I was seventeen. A hole I almost didn’t make it out of alive.

Like he can read my mind, Marco turns back to me, a disgusted smile splitting his weathered face. He stalks toward me again, making me cower away from his touch.

“You really should have ended it back then. Even if your soul would burn forever for the sin. It would have saved all of these people you know from their fates.”

“You want to talk about sins? You’re a monster, Marco.”

“I am what I must be. You are the real monster, Elena. You are the harbinger of the sinister cloud that looms over this whole city now. You are the reason all of this is happening. Your selfishness, your manipulation of your mother to flee from your home, from me.”

Any argument I try to come up with falls flat. He really believes his own words.

That I was his property. That my mother was.

And that I took from him when I left.

Just as my mother withheld this place from him for so long, secrets he could have used to gain power and money.

“You can’t hurt her anymore, at least,” I bluster, trying to laugh in his face.

“I inflicted enough pain on her to last ten lifetimes. Until I was bored with it. Good try, though.”

I want to puke.

Even as I try to justify the fact that he’s only trying to get under my skin, only trying to break me, I know there has to be some truth to what he’s saying.

My mother died a gruesome, unthinkable death.

For me.

I won’t let him hurt anyone else. I can’t

Rage bubbles up, overtaking every other sense. Snatching it up, I use it, driving away the queasiness, the despair.

“Do whatever you will. I won’t give you shit.”

“Thank you, hija . I was hoping you’d say that.” He waves, signaling someone behind me.

The door clacks open, and for the first time, I realize where we might be. Boxes line the walls, the shelves. It’s a basement. Someone’s house basement. Marker shows on most of the old cardboard, labeling the contents.

Vanderberg Family Photo Albums.

Oh. Oh, no.

But it’s not the location that suddenly has me shaking. It’s the painful cry of anguish that announces Tell stumbling into the room, bloody and beaten, driven forward by one of the soldiers, forced down onto his knees with a sickening thud.

“Tell!” I sob, regretting my loss of control immediately.

“H–Hella…” His lips are so swollen he can barely speak, blood dribbling down his chin. Sliding down against the wall, he falls to his side.

“No, no, no,” I sob, sagging under the pressure of the fingers locked onto my shoulders.

The hands go slack, just as I do, collapsing to the floor and trying to crawl toward Tell’s broken body. He’s still breathing, still watching me through slits of bruised eyelids, one of them almost swollen shut.

“Baby, please, no,” I whimper, hesitating to touch his battered face. His hand grazes my knee, one of his fingers bent at an odd angle.

“He put up a fight. I’ll give him that,” Marco announces, sitting down in the chair I just left behind. “Not much once we told him that I was going to start chopping off pieces of you if he didn’t settle down, though. Then we beat the fuck right out of him, didn’t we?”

A couple of his men chuckle, elbowing each other.

“Why? Why do this? Any of it?”

“Because that’s what conquerors do, Elena. The Conquistadors of old could have lived, let live. To a degree. But they had the divine on their side. Just like I do, a mission that I cannot abandon, that I will not abandon. At any cost.”

He sounds sullen, resolved. Like it’s out of his hands.

Not like a zealot. Not ravenous to destroy.

Just given over to his baser nature, cynical in his acceptance of his violent world and his place in it.

Rising, Marco circles around, snatching a handful of Tell’s hair before I can react. Jerking his head back, he holds out his hand, waiting for the knife one of the men places there.

“No! Get your fucking hands off him!”

“I’m going to ask you a question, Elena. And I need you to answer me. I want honesty, so I need insurance.” He presses the point to Tell’s aorta, a drop of blood pooling there.

“I hate you.”

“Oh, good. It’s working,” he sneers.

“Ask your fucking questions.”

“Say please.”

“Please.”

“Do you know who is in charge? These Sinful? Who are they?”

“They’re heads of rich families. Business leaders. People of status, but unassuming, working from the shadows.”

“Like him?” Marco growls, shaking Tell’s head viciously. “He’s the late mayor’s boy, isn’t he? Is he one of them?”

“No! Stop!”

“Tell me the truth, Elena!” He jabs Tell’s neck harder, making him yelp against the pain. His whole body is wrecked, flinching back from Marco’s presence.

“Fine! They’re all dead. Every one of them.”

“You’re lying!”

“I’m not!”

“Your father is still out there, isn't he? Where is Damon, Helena? Hiding while his daughter is being tortured and beaten?” He lashes out again with the back of his hand, taking me under the chin, flinging me back.

The impact stuns me, the sting in my jaw fading as I sit back up. “Damon is dead.”

Marco looks more pleased than ever, dropping Tell to the floor in a heap. “See? That wasn’t so hard. Now. Tell me one. Last. Truth.”

His face inches closer to mine, his cigar soured breath choking me.

“Who is the last Sinful?”

I stare into those black pools of hopelessness for what feels like an eternity before I can speak. To say the words I know he wants to hear most.

“I–I am.”

“There. There she is.” He smiles, seeing the resolve settle over me. “Come. Get up. We’re leaving.”

With forced assistance, I’m dragged to my feet.

“I won’t. You should kill me now.”

“I won’t kill my ticket to success. But I will kill him if you resist.”

And just like that, every ounce of fight goes out of me, watching Tell’s labored breathing, the twitch of his hand as he reaches for me. I can’t bear it.

The thought of him not existing.

Even as I fight off the sinking dread that Gavin and Evan might be gone. If they are, Tell is all that’s left of my soul.

So I crouch, kissing his cheek softly. Kissing him goodbye.

“H–Hell. No?—”

“Shh. It’ll be okay. I love you.”

Next thing I know, I’m in the back of a car, speeding through the mountains, vaguely aware that we’re leaving town through a back route. Something inside me tries to rise up, tries to force me to acknowledge this horror.

But I won't break. I won't cry. Not yet.

I doze off on the drive, waking as the sun is rising over much flatter horizons, arid, desert looking landscape. The car slows, pulling into a massive walled estate. Everywhere I look, vibrant plant life graces the inside of the compound.

All of it falls on blind eyes, fading to black and white.

The air tastes like ash in my mouth.

“Welcome home, Elena. My dear, it's so good to see you back where you belong.”

I glare at Marco, gritting my teeth. I won't give him the satisfaction of seeing me squirm. Or of seeing me break ever again.

But I can’t speak. There's too many years of hurt and sorrow and pain between us. And the promise of more nightmares to come.

Leading me inside, into the cool confines of the foyer, he looks back like he’s my host, graciously touring me through his home.

“You’ll come to like it here, I am certain. You can have anything you desire. Just like the people of your home. When the people of your town are offered assistance, food, shelter, they’ll come around to my way of leading. Especially when the help comes alongside one of their own. A woman they trust. And they’ll be even more grateful when you explain to them where the helping hand came from. That this has all been a misunderstanding. The Sinful let them suffer, betrayed them. And we only fought to set them free, you and I.”

The excuse is hollow, unbelievable.

And completely digestible when fed to desperate victims just trying to survive.

“We’ll offer them a return to normalcy. Things can go back to the way they were. Once I get what I want, they can live their miserable lives again.”

“And what do you want?” But I already know.

“The wealth beneath the city, Elena. And the labor of the people to mine it for me.”

“No one will willingly become your slaves. People will fight back.”

“I don’t think they will. You see, most of the rabble simply want to be given a purpose. Given a wage. Sustenance. And if there is fear and respect linked to those privileges, it’s a relationship that borders on unshakable.

“You’ll see. You will come to feel that same way about me.”

“I came with you to spare my friends. My family. But I will never want this. I will never love you as my father, you vile tyrant.”

“No. I wouldn’t ask that of you. That possibility fled years ago with a foolish girl on a bus. Now, I see a woman. A woman who makes hard choices, who can choose to do anything she must.”

A little voice deep inside me screams, driven to madness by what I think he’s leading up to.

“Everything in life can be forced into perspective, Elena. We define our perception. Our reality. Your mother could never see through to the end result, the bigger picture. She was weak. If she could have risen above her mewling and begging for me to stop being who I am, to show mercy, she might have become my queen, the matron monarch of the empire I’m building.”

“You’re mad.”

“I am a visionary, so yes. I am driven. Unstoppable. The sooner you accept that, accept me, the happier you’ll be.”

But I know I’ll never be happy again.

“Give it time, Elena. And then, when you are ready, join me and be the wife your mother could never be.”

Every spark inside me gutters. Sputters. And winks out.

This is the way it will end. The only satisfaction I’ll ever feel again is the day that I slide a knife across this man’s throat. The day I take his life.

And I will kill Marco Vice.

If it’s the last thing I do.