12. RAVEN

12

RAVEN

The whole block before the building I intend to infiltrate is teeming with life. Bonfires are burning. Lights are lit up in buildings. Safari jeeps, trucks, and quads are scattered around—Butcher must’ve confiscated every vehicle in this town for his gang.

Men are everywhere. Drinking. Smoking. Fighting. Grilling food. Music is blasting from a speaker. They spit on the ground, smash bottles against the nearby buildings, shoot guns for fun like they own this town. Lowlifes—they are trashing and destroying what they own. It’s a sign of a broken society.

I still in the shadows, my back against the cold side of some house, gun in my hand as I take in the street and every man on it. I have a baseball hat on and a dark bandana over my mouth. I look like them. I will act like them, too. I could probably stroll past them without notice. But I won’t do that. There’s a better way. They are drunk. They are careless. And—that’s the universal truth for the under-the-influence pack mentality—they are always ready for a fight, one of those mindless, void-of-calculation brawls, the violent reflex that often spins out of control.

I pick up an empty beer bottle off the ground and flick my eyes to the second-floor balcony across the street. A guy is smoking there, a bottle in his hand. An AK hangs around his neck, resting on his beer belly. Always a toxic combo—booze, guns, violence.

Perfect.

I shouldn’t miss. Better not miss. I hold my breath, swing my arm, and toss the bottle at him.

One sure thing about humans is that their behavior is predictable.

The bottle hits the guy. What does he do? He is a thug, so naturally, he blurts, “Da fuck?” and fires a gun in the air.

His buddies downstairs jump off their trucks and benches and turn to him.

Radios start beeping. The thug on the balcony answers one of them, looks down over the railing, and shouts, “Knock it off before I smash your teeth in!”

The guys on the street below him laugh and relax.

But that’s not a childish trick I just pulled off. It’s a sign for Shepherd and his men.

A blast rocks the town several blocks away from me. A bright orange flash illuminates the air behind the buildings. The plan works as it’s supposed to—the stupid guards all haul into their vehicles and, hooting, take off in that direction.

I skip across the street unnoticed and walk between the buildings.

What I am about to do is a mass killing. But the men who chose to side with Butcher deserve it. They committed multiple crimes. They killed. They raped. Like my former foster parent, they created fucked up “demands.” I think of the little girls in Candy’s bunker, hiding from those men, and nothing—no fucking law in the world—can justify forgiving them.

So, I will get rid of as many of them as possible. Zion unlocked my capacity for violence. It’s not meaningless. It’s protection.

Roses are red. Violets are blue. So are bruises. So is the paralyzing agent in my bullet syringes.

A guy with a rifle across his back is taking a piss in the alley between the buildings. Silently, like a panther, I approach from behind, choke him out with my arm around his neck, and press one of the bullets to his neck vein. Several jerks and the guy’s limp body silently goes down onto the floor.

Another two guards are chatting at the corner. “Hey,” I say approaching. Face punch. The other guy gets an elbow cut and presses his hands to his face as he falls to his knees. I press the bullet to the other guy’s neck. Down. I do the same to the other. One more down.

My wound throbs sharply from the physical strain, but it feels good to be back in action.

There are several guys by the doors to the two-story mansion, the “headquarters.” They are more aware, not drinking but chatting quietly.

I crouch around the building. There must be a back door.

Sure enough, a group of three thugs lounges in the backyard. Two girls are with them. Young, maybe in their twenties-thirties.

Fuck.

The girls laugh as they sit on the men’s laps, and those might be Candy’s girls. I can’t afford collateral damage.

But Shepherd was smart. Gotta give credit to street mentality. I crouch behind the bushes to the far-end corner of the backyard and look for a straight shot between the trees on the opposite side of the yard. Firecrackers sure come handy. I light one and throw it as far as possible to the other side of the backyard, behind the trees. Then light another and do the same.

They go off with a loud crack.

“What the fuck?” comes a snap from one of the guys. The other two push the girls roughly off their laps, and all three jump off their seats and start walking to the back of the backyard, guns in their hands.

That gives me enough time to sneak through the back door into the house.

And face-to-face with another guard.

I punch his wide-eyed face before he has a chance to say a word. Another punch in his throat, and his breathing is cut off. A bullet-shot syringe goes into action. It’s dark in the back hall that leads to a long corridor with rooms on each side. So, I drag the body into the shadow in the corner and move on.

The house is lavish but old. There are weapons everywhere—a rifle leaning against the wall, a stack of guns on a bureau.

A door to one dim room is slightly ajar. The light inside comes from multiple computers, illuminating a young guy typing something.

He deserves a syringe just for being here. So, he gets a stab. When his body slumps in the chair, I check out the screens. There are dozens of small windows from camera surveillance in town. I pull the computer cords out, and the screens go black.

Fuck you.

I silently step back into the hallway.

Music comes from the next room. A female squeal comes from a slightly ajar door. I peek in. On a couch, a guy is fucking a girl from behind, his hand fisting her hair, pushing her face into the pillow. He yanks her head up, and she pleads for him to stop, crying, but he shoves her face down again, his hips viciously snapping into her. The sight of his bare ass is something I won’t be able to unsee for a while.

Motherfucker.

When we first started calling the Ashland dwellers Savages, some of the locals were pissed. We heard angry rumors. But what else do you call people who rob and rape and leave children for dead?

I take fast steps toward him and grab a spare pillow.

“Hey!” I draw his attention.

He turns, but before he can say anything, I press the pillow to his face, point the gun at it, and shoot. The gun silencer echoes with a dull bang. He starts falling down onto the girl.

She whimpers and starts pushing him away, shaking and thrashing in disgust.

“Shhh.” I press my forefinger to my mouth. “Quiet. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

She kicks the dead guy away, her leg smeared with his blood, and fumbles with her skirt, covering herself up. But her face is angry more than upset. Only then do I notice that she can’t be more than twenty, makeup running down her cheeks, arms bruised and cut up.

“Do you know a guy named Skiba?”

She stares at me with a hostile snarl and quickly wipes her cheek with the back of her hand.

“Guy named Skiba?” I repeat softly. She might be having post-traumatic shock.

But she nods.

“Yeah?” I ask. “Is he in the house?”

She nods then motions with her eyes somewhere deeper in the house.

“Do you know how many men are in the house?”

She swallows. “Maybe ten. Twenty? Many went to the port.” Her voice is super-young and snappy, her dark curly hair a mess.

“For what?”

“Shootout, what else?”

“You’ll stay quiet, yeah?”

She nods.

“I suggest you leave.”

Her eyes fall to my shirt and widen, then meet mine. “You are from Candy,” she whispers.

Fuck. How would she know?

Her eyes are on that embroidered neckline of my shirt. “My ex-s shirt. I left my stuff at Candy’s when they brought me here.”

She sniffles and raises her softening gaze to mine.

I press my forefinger to my mouth again to silence her. Then I leave the room.

I hear voices in other rooms. This mansion is like a fucked up fraternity of the worst scumbags in Port Mrei.

A guy walks out of one of the rooms and right into me. I stab him with the capsule and hold him to soften his fall so the motherfucker doesn’t wake up the entire house of snakes.

I pull another capsule out, ready for another guy rounding the corner.

Stab. Hold. Let go.

One more down.

I work my way from the back door to the front of the house. I’m good unless someone walks in through the back and sees the bodies. That is for another five minutes until the paralytic agent starts loosening the hold on the guys I left as a trail of bodies behind me. Bodies of different ages, as if everyone in this fucking town signed up for Butcher’s army.

The red curtains on my left hide another room. Cigarette smoke drifts from between the curtains. Music is blasting. Three guys are there. Booze, empty bottles, and overflowing ashtrays litter the table where they play cards. One guy does a fat line of blow from the table and looks over his shoulder.

“Hey, bitch!”

A woman seems to be sleeping on a mattress in the corner. Or not sleeping. No. Fuck. She’s cuddled in a fetal position, blood staining the dirty sheets.

“Get your ass over here!” that same thug barks.

She doesn’t get up, only raises her face, bloodied, lips busted.

Fuck.

I tuck the bullet-shot capsule away and take out my gun. I was trying to be quiet and avoided using my gun not to draw attention. I should keep walking. But I can’t. Because these fuckers will make that girl get up and… No. Not happening.

The second I step into the room—one, two, three shots—I put holes in their heads, and the thugs slump in their chairs, blood trickling down from their deadly wounds.

I came for Skiba. But this house is full of men like him. Using. Abusing. Killing.

Here’s the irony. I’d never done so much violence until I came to paradise. That goodness in my heart Maddy speaks of can fuck off right now. I’m out for revenge. It’s cold and calculated. I have to be careful. And I intend to hurt as many of those monsters as possible. This is called cleaning.

I don’t keep count as I go from room to room. Men in this house are a definition of dumb fucks getting rich and abusing their power. They rely on those outside to guard them. They rely on their guns. They think that guns can protect them. Not if they don’t have a chance to use them. They do too much drugs and booze to be sharp or quick. Violence—that’s what they are capable of. I can do violence and strategic calculations. And by the time I hear the familiar voice in the next room, I’ve cleared six rooms of scum and several guards in the hallways. Some are dead. Many will start waking up soon and attacking me like spiders.

The voice I hear in the next room down the hallway makes my blood boil. His. The traitor.

Skiba’s cackle is unmistakable. It used to amuse me. Now it makes me swallow the venom that gathers at the back of my throat.

The lampshade on the side of the hallway wall is too bright. I pull my sleeve over my fingers, reach out, and twist the lightbulb until it flickers off, sinking the hallway into darkness.

I stand behind a china cabinet, my back against the wall, my gun ready, and take a deep breath. I can’t let any emotion cloud my judgment.

Another breath in, then out.

I need to be calm. I need to stay cool. I can’t talk. No warnings. No insults. No meeting his eyes—I don’t want to have that urge to tell him how much I despise him.

I look from behind the china and scan the empty hall. I need to work fast. One warning from someone who walks into the mansion and sees the bodies and there will be an army here.

Quietly, I step toward the door and peek in through the crack.

I learned early in life that fists can solve a lot of problems. Where I came from, they ensured your reputation. The streets aren’t kind to you unless you make a home there. And you do that by breaking everything wrong and building your own vision. It might be dark, but it’s yours. If fists don’t work, you use teeth. If that fails, you resort to weapons. Violence is something that grows exponentially.

But there is senseless violence, and there is a deliberate brutal force. The difference is that the first is chaotic and often fails. The second is a control weapon and a winner.

Tonight, I have a purpose. When I see the familiar face inside the room, it’s not hate that spikes my adrenalin but determination.

It’s Skiba, his scowl unmistakable. He is shirtless, his arm in a sling, his shoulder bandaged up, and so is his nose. But the fucker looks happy, tilting the beer into his throat and burping in satisfaction.

I want to tell him that he doesn’t deserve to breathe. I want to smash all his teeth, shoot off his dick, cut off his fucking tongue so he can never speak obscenities or fuck another woman.

But he doesn’t deserve me speaking to him. I don’t want to waste another single minute on him. So, I push the door open and shoot him first.

Bang.

One shot. Between his eyes.

I don’t care that he never saw me coming, didn’t get a chance to know who was taking his useless life away. I would’ve enjoyed watching him plead for his life, but I don’t want to waste my time.

Without words, I shoot the guy next to him. Then another. Then the fourth one. All of them are guilty by association.

I turn around and walk into the hallway when the sound of the front door of the mansion bursting open echoes through the house.

Shit.

Suddenly, yells are coming from everywhere. The ceiling bangs with the stomping feet upstairs.

For a second, I think it might be Butcher. If I could get to him right now and shoot the fucker, this nightmare for Port Mrei could be over.

But that means jeopardizing my life. That means possible death.

And I can’t die. I have to get back to Maddy.

For the first time, I let go of the grudge, turn on my heel, and start backing away down the hall.

Men run into the front of the hallway. They shoot first. I duck.

Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.

Fuck.

They hide around the corner, but inevitably a shot comes at me. Then another. My bulletproof vest won’t save me if there is a bullet in my head.

Suddenly, the back door bursts open, and more men run in.

I’m forty feet away from the exit, but I drop to the floor by the wall. I’m way outnumbered. My game is to get minimum damage.

Whoever picked this house for the headquarters was a dumb fuck. It’s giant, but the ground floor is designed like those old-school shotgun houses. The corridor connects the front and back hallways in one straight shot, splitting the mansion into two wings.

So, when I shoot the random shot, and the thugs at the front peek around the corner and start shooting again, they shoot at their own men who come from the back door.

“Fuckers!”

“Drop the weapons!”

More shouts come. Men drop to the floor. It’s too dim for them to see who the attackers are as they are pitted against each other.

When the back entrance is cleared, I crawl toward it. I shoot the two injured guys on the floor before they have a chance to load their guns again, and I slip out the back door.

Bullets rain inside the house, because the men shoot at everyone who doesn’t look like their own. I trot toward the back gate. One last thing—I was supposed to blow a grenade inside the house. I wish I could. If Butcher is inside, I’d love to see his brain explode into a thousand pieces. But there are women inside, too. They will get hurt. So, instead, I throw the grenade in the air above the backyard, lunge behind the metal gates, and duck.

The loud explosion rocks the backyard, the windows of the house shattering. That will tell Shepherd and Ali that I’m done and out of the house.

My eardrums buzz. The backyard is lit up, on fire. I get back on my feet and dart across the road.

Someone yells in my direction. Gunshots follow me as I dive into the garden across the road. The street is coming alive. Radios are beeping. Spotlights on jeeps and trucks come on, turning the street as bright as daylight.

Suddenly, an explosion several streets away rocks the air—it’s Shepherd’s men, their diversion.

Chaos engulfs the nearby streets. Trucks, ATVs, honking, men howling, guns rattling, shots firing. Dust and fumes rise as more men arrive from all over town.

Fucking hell.

But it’s much easier to slip through unnoticed in this chaos. Two streets over, I meet Ali as planned.

“Done,” I say.

“You are crazy,” he responds. “Let’s get out of here.”

He radios Shepherd to back away, and we start moving toward Candy’s.

Now that I know how things work, I have an idea of how to escape this place. If Shepherd can get me a dozen of grenades and more ammo, Ali and I can make it back to Ayana unharmed in no time.

We are four or so streets away from the Venus Den when we hear a truck approaching.

“Get down,” Ali commands, and we duck into the shadow behind a stack of garbage cans.

A pickup truck speeds by, several guys in it, three standing in the truck bed with guns raised in the air. There’s a girl with them.

When it passes, I’m about to step from behind the garbage cans when Ali yanks me back.

“Shh,” he says. “Stay still.”

He is staring intently at something in the shadows only thirty feet away, behind an overturned boat trailer. There’s a movement there.

“Step out, or I’ll shoot,” Ali shouts out, pointing the gun at the moving dark shadow.

“It might be one of Shepherd’s,” I whisper. “Or a kid.” Or another woman, scavenging for food.

Ali shakes his head. “I said step outside so I can see you,” he says louder.

“Don’t shoot,” says a sharp male voice from that direction.

“Step out then,” Ali warns.

“I have a gun, too. But I won’t shoot. I have a message.”

Ali doesn’t answer.

“He’s bluffing,” I whisper, getting my gun ready.

“It’s a message from Tsariuk,” the guy says, and Ali turns his head to me. I can’t see his eyes in the dark, but I know he’s waiting for me to tell him how to handle this.

Except the guy speaks first.

“A message from Tsariuk for Mathew Levi. That’s one of you, yeah?”