Chapter 39

Chapter 39

Red sitsin the corner of the cavern, poking a stick into the dirt, and I plop down beside her.

“Ain’t the same without Crank,” she says, tossing the stick away.

I wish his death was the only thing on my mind, but it isn’t. “It’s hard to survive a femoral shot. I knew the moment they laid him down he wouldn’t make it.”

Her brows pinch, and she nods. “I know. No sense in moping around over it. Too much work to be done.”

“Where’d Rhys go?” I ask, keeping my gaze locked on the tunnel across from us, where Ratchet half-heartedly stands guard, carving a stick with his blade.

“A sweep. One of the soldiers got loose last night. Took off. They think Ragers might’ve gotten him.”

“Lea? I’m not stupid. I saw what happened to him.” I turn and see her snap her gaze away from mine. “Where’s Damian? The other guard?”

“Still tied up.”

“Yeah. Do you think one of them would’ve taken off without the other? I’m guessing not.” I push to my feet, and she grabs hold of my arm.

“Where are you going?”

“To make a deal. One that I hope will end all of this.” I wrench my arm away from her and stride toward the entrance of the tunnel.

Abandoning his carving, Ratchet stands to block my passage, and I shoot a glance back at Red. At her nod, he steps aside, and I slip down the dark rabbit hole once again.

Whimpers bleed from the other side of the closed door, and I enter the room that must’ve served as a kitchen back in the hotel’s heyday. Across the room, Damian is tied naked to a large iron structure that looks like an old wood stove. The black Legion uniforms lay in a heap, well out of his reach, along with their guns, walkie-talkies, and masks. Pools of desiccating blood are scattered across the floor, seeping into the thick bed of dirt that covers the stone beneath. Damian’s face is hardly recognizable, bloodied and beaten.

“’The fuck?” He tips his head, as I approach, and when I crouch in front of him, he scrambles backward away from me. “Stay away! D-d-don’t touch me!”

“I’m not going to touch you, Damian. I’m here to talk.”

What little I can make out of his eyes is wary, shifting back and forth. “Just … kill me. Please.”

“No. I’m not killing you, and no one is going to touch you.”

“He will! He’s coming back! He … h-h-he fuckin’ … monster! A demon from hell!”

“Ivan’s done far worse, and you know it.”

Damian stares back with an incredulous look on his face, which turns grim. “He skinned him. In front of me. Please let me go. Just let me go. I won’t tell anyone you’re here. Just let me go.”

“I can’t. I’ll talk to him. He’ll spare you.”

“He fucking skinned him! And he made me eat his heart! Sick fuck!”

It feels as if I’m swallowing a rock, as I tamp down the guilt of having watched Rhys’s fist punch through Ivan’s chest, and that sickening crack of bone that will forever haunt me. “Damian, listen to me.”

“You’re all a bunch of sick fucks!”

“I’ll talk to him. No one will hurt you, I promise.”

“I hope every one of you bastards burn! I hope Legion finds you all and burns you alive! You twisted fucks!” A barky wet cough spurts a glob of blood onto his lip, and he throws himself forward in a violent, seizing fit that sends a torrent of red colored vomit splashing at my feet.

I rise up from my crouch, backing away from him and the urges calling to me, telling me to do the right thing.

“I hope you all burn! Burn!”

* * *

I followthe path to the tinaja, where Rhys sits kneeling at the edge, splashing water onto his face. His hand shoots to his holster as I approach, and when he catches a glimpse of me, he exhales and releases it.

“I saw everything.”

With his back to me, he rolls his shoulders, but doesn’t say a word in response, so I continue.

“I know why you did it. It was my fault. I did that to you. Just like I made you kill all those people whose skulls you sleep with now.”

His head kicks to the side. “He hurt you. So I hurt him.”

“And he deserved it. But that’s not you. That’s not the Six I remember.”

“I already told you I wasn’t the same boy you knew. You don’t let your enemies walk in this world unless you plan to face them twice.”

“I want you to let Damian go.”

“So he can go back to Legion and tell them what I’ve done? Tell them exactly where to find us?” He turns his attention back to the water and scoops a handful in his palm. “You’re crazy,” he says, splashing it onto his face.

“He called you a monster. He thinks you’re some kind of desert demon. They’ll just think he’s delirious. You don’t have to send him off with his walkie-talkie and a care package. Leave him at the mercy of the desert. He’ll never make it, anyway. He’s not a survivor.”

He’s shaking his head, but I can see the contemplation in his eyes, so I continue.

“We’ll make a deal with Szolen himself. Keep Ericsson out of it. Szolen can be the hero, the one who discovers the cure and saves the world.”

“And what do we get out of it?”

“We get to walk away. He agrees to let all the prisoners in Calico free. And we make our own wall to keep everyone safe. I just need to get inside. To get my hands on that antibody.”

“What makes you think it’s there? What would make you risk your fucking life and suffer the most brutal death, for something that may not even exist?”

I shrug and look out over the mountains. “Hope.” My gaze falls to his once more. “What kept you alive in that place, when you knew you should’ve been dead?”

His brows flicker with a frown. An argument, no doubt. “I’m not—”

“I can’t watch you do that again,” I interject. “I’ve spent an entire night trying to figure out why I haven’t run from you. I mean, killing is one thing, but …” The sting at the rim of my eyes threatens tears, and I cast my gaze toward the cracked limestone beneath my boots to keep from seeing the hurt in his eyes.

“What do you need to hear, Wren? That he put a bullet through the skull of a twelve-year-old girl last night? And Crank, too?”

“The torture, though. How are we any different than them?”

“We? You didn’t do anything. I did.”

“I could’ve stopped you, and I didn’t. I didn’t want to. And all I can come up with, is that we’re both fucked up and I can’t walk away from you. I won’t.”

“You know I wouldn’t stop you from leaving. If that’s what you truly wanted.”

“Please, Rhys. Let down your guard. Just a little.”

His shoulders sag in defeat, as if he’s about to hand over his soul to me. “Do you not have any idea what you mean to me, Wren?”

“I thought I did. I was certain I could pull you from that dark place inside your head. But I’m not strong enough. You and I seem to be of the same thread. Infected with the same evil that damaged us.”

“I knew exactly what I was doing last night. I didn’t do it for pleasure, or some morbid form of entertainment. I did it for you. Because he hurt you. And your pain is my pain.” Still wearing a frown, he rubs his hands together. “I spent years in that hell, battling voices inside my head that I couldn’t escape. Until I heard yours, and everything else silenced. When you found me all those years back? I don’t even know if I was considered human. Felt more animal than anything. I saw you, and I was certain God had it in for me. Sent his best angel to try and save my soul.” His eyes soften a bit, but he doesn’t smile. “I don’t even believe in all that religious shit, but I was convinced you were there for me. To walk me through death. And I couldn’t fucking wait.” He sniffs and glances away from me. “Turns out, I was wrong. To the rest of the world, you were just a girl. A lonely girl from the other side of that wall. But to me, you’ve always been more than that. The air when I couldn’t breathe. My voice when I couldn’t speak. When I couldn’t feel anything anymore, I felt you. Goddamn, Wren, you were my heart, pumping life into a body that was mostly dead. You were everything to me. You are everything.”

Tears fill my eyes, and I blink to keep them from falling.

His lips press to a hard line. “So, yeah, I killed him. I showed him how it feels to be at the mercy of the merciless. Whether that makes me a bad man, or a good man, don’t matter to me. I’m willing to be whatever I need to be for you.”

I want to believe him, but pain tells me not to trust love. “What’s to keep you from punching your fist into my chest and ripping out my heart?”

He shakes his head and rubs his thumb across his palm. “Because it isn’t your heart, anymore, Wren. It’s mine. You’re my life. If you die, I die.”

I run my fingers over the scar at my wrist, and the tears distorting the long white line slip down my cheek. In the past, my ties to those I’ve loved have been severed, or frayed, and I feel his words wrap around me, creating tight knots across my heart. I want to tug at them, to make sure it’s strong enough, but part of me doesn’t care how fragile this is.

The world isn’t what it was in the days when two people professed love with frivolous gifts and words. Now, it’s about living and surviving together. And to survive the predators who would eat us alive, humankind has to be stronger. Faster.

Willing to become more frightening than the monsters.

Like Rhys.

I sniff and wipe the tears from my cheek. “I felt nothing for Ivan. No pity. No mercy. I’m glad you punished him the way you did. And I’m glad he’s dead. I want to believe that we’re not like them. But maybe we are.” I shrug my shoulders, toying with the leather string of my shirt. “Maybe we have to be. I’m not afraid of you, Rhys. Not even after what you did. However fucked up that makes me, it’s the truth.”

He pushes to his feet, standing before me, and tucks the hair behind my ear. The corner of his lips kick up to a mirthless smile. “A match made in hell, yeah?”

A loud beep and a garbled voice interrupts him, and he lifts the walkie-talkie from where it lies in the crumpled shirt beside him.

“Prisoner’s gone. Hear me, Rhys? He’s gone! Son of a bitch took Lea!”

Rhys’s eyes shoot to mine, and the expression on his face turns my blood ice cold. “What have you done, Wren?”