15. ~Asher~

15

~Asher~

I used the guard’s running momentum against him, grabbing hold of his shirt as he hit, and using it as leverage to toss him through the open front door.

He careened out onto the porch, smacking his back against the wooden railing, the harsh impact winding him enough to rattle his bones.

It bought me the time I needed to deal with the second huge motherfucker coming at me.

He made the mistake of thinking his mass was a given and, as he thew his fist, I dodged the blow, ducking, then coming up with a brutal uppercut to his chin that had him stumbling back.

I felt movement behind me from the guy out on the porch.

I drew two blades.

Tossing one at the stumbling guy, I watched as it drove deep into his thigh, right on target for his femoral artery. His leg buckled instantly and he went down hard. He’d be dead within moments. Nothing more to do there.

I felt the porch guy running at me again. He hadn’t learned his lesson earlier.

I spun and lobbed the second blade and it sliced into his throat, blood spurting and jolting him to a sudden stop as he slapped his hand to the fatal wound, choking and flailing.

Done and done.

As I took in the sight of the two of them bleeding out and dying right before me, along with the three other guards I’d already felled earlier, commotion from upstairs caught my attention.

Specifically, animalistic roars from Aurora.

Not again.

She’d lost herself during the last takedown a few days ago as well. It had just been brief then with her about to deliver a fatal wound to one of the trainers instead of leaving it for me as we’d agreed. I’d stopped her just in time.

I bolted up the stairs, tapping my earpiece as I went and linking with Caleb, “Move in. The way is clear.”

I didn’t want Aurora in this place any longer than was needed.

She’d already taken down two guards who’d been stationed outside earlier. There’d been only one trainer upstairs in the single bedroom of this smaller dollhouse for her to deal with. I’d expected her to be done in moments and leading the girls downstairs.

As I made it to the landing, I bolted toward the one bedroom up here, just a small bathroom the only other room.

I threw open the door and pulled up short at the scene I’d just burst in on.

Ten hostages were watching with wide eyes, all gathered around in the mess of a moldy and dirty room, just old mattresses and thin sheets for beds around the edge of the space.

And they were all staring at one thing.

Aurora had the trainer—a middle aged fit guy with spiky platinum blond hair—pinned beneath her on the ground, screaming at him in a state of absolute rage as she tugged on a leash she’d obviously found somewhere. I peered closer and realized it was one of those choke chains they used on dogs. The guy was bright red and struggling to draw in a breath as she yanked on it over and over, slamming his head onto the carpet in the process. She’d stuffed a spider gag into his mouth too and she snatched up a big neon-blue dildo then stuffed it down his throat, making him sputter and his body buck beneath her.

I noted that it wasn’t just good positioning on her part that was keeping him done and unable to fight back. There was a knife buried in either palm, crucifying his hands and pinning him to the floor.

“How does it feel to be used like a piece of trash!” she screamed at him. “To be forced to endure mind-breaking pain, not knowing when or if it’s gonna actually end? To be degraded like you’re nothing!” She ripped the dildo out of his mouth, then threw it across the room. “You’re a sick piece of shit! Hurting these people! That’s right, they’re people, actual human beings, you depraved, sadistic fuck!” She ripped the blade from one of his hands, making him shriek.

She spun it expertly in her hand, then brought it down, hovering just shy of his chest.

“Judgment Day is here, asshole,” she snarled.

I was there in the next moment, just before she brought the blade down and ended his miserable life, snatching her wrist and holding it steady just an inch before its target.

She swung her head toward me.

Her eyes were black.

Lost to the darkness.

“You kill him in cold blood and you become him.”

She stilled for a moment.

But it was just a moment, before she was pushing at my grip, her hand shaking with determination to smash through my strength and give into the bloodlust that all this shit had clearly awakened in her.

More than I’d even realized, because she’d hid it well after that first time.

I held steady.

She needed more.

With me wearing the accursed contacts, combined with the balaclava, she couldn’t make the connection to me that was needed.

With my free hand, I pulled the balaclava off.

The moment I did, I saw the trainer recognize me, his eyes widening in disbelief.

I ignored it and focused on Aurora. “Sweetheart, you do this and you become me.”

She faltered, but still fought it, telling me, “That doesn’t seem so bad.”

“It’s worse. So much worse. There’s no coming back from what I am. I don’t want that for you. Jonah and Killian don’t want it for you. You do this and when your father is finally back with you, he won’t be able to recognize his daughter.”

She grimaced, emotion bleeding from her.

And then her grip went slack and she relinquished the knife to me.

Movement in my peripheral vision caught my eye and I looked to see the trainer about to go for Aurora with his free bloodied hand that she’d pulled the knife out of.

I burst forward, leaning over her and breaking two of his fingers in a flash.

He screamed and Aurora jolted back against me in shock.

I pulled her off him fully, then took aim at the trainer with her knife.

Keeping my eyes on him, I stroked her arm, then told her calmly, “Lead the hostages downstairs. Caleb will be here any moment to help them and get them the hell out of here.”

“Yeah,” she murmured. “Yeah, okay.”

I waited as she ushered the women past me and the trainer sprawled out on the ground still pinned by one knife.

When they were finally out and I heard them all clambering down the stairs, then Aurora shutting the door, I holstered the knife, then ripped the other one out, holstering it too.

As the trainer went to sit up, I pulled my gun and took aim.

He pulled the spider gag free with trembling, bloodied hands that weren’t working well at all after the damage Aurora had inflicted.

“This… what you’re doing here… it’s treason. To your own father. You won’t survive it.”

“I wouldn’t be worrying about my survival if I were you.”

“You think you scare me? I’ve been in your father’s employ for over a decade. Nobody inspires true terror like he does. You’ll never come close.”

“I do relish the shock that comes with my enemies underestimating me. It makes it all the more satisfying to prove them wrong. Faulty assumptions are the root of all failure.”

He started at my words, at the chilling calm to them, and I registered the moment he saw my father in me.

“This is a coup? Taking this house?”

“Not just this one.”

“Fuck. It’s all you? Do you know how much damage you’ve caused?”

“Not yet enough.”

“You think you can take his seat of power?”

“Not the goal.”

“This is bad enough. You’re crippling his empire. He won’t stand for this. Even being his son, his heir… now you’ve done this, he’ll end you, kid. And he won’t make it quick and painless either. I’ve seen him when things turn personal… he’ll… he’ll break you.”

I tightened my grip on my gun, swallowing down his words. “Not possible.”

“You’re wrong. He can break anyone.”

I stepped closer, the trainer shrinking back at the menacing air coming off me.

I crouched down and took aim at his skull. “I’m already broken.”

I pulled the trigger, blowing his brains all over the floor.

I stood for a few moments, taking in the macabre sight, breathing it in and letting it roll over me.

And then I turned and walked out.

I glareddown at the messages that had come in while I’d had my phone on silent during the raid.

Scourge had finally responded back to me.

Private Number: The Heretics aren’t a new enemy.

Private Number: Didn’t need to do research, I’m already familiar with them. Delayed getting back to you because I don’t want you doing this, crossing them. But then I remembered how you are. Better you’re armed with intel that could help than going in with whispers and rumors, which is all you’re gonna get out of anybody else, because this thing is so hush-hush. Here it is: Heretics have been building in the shadows and operating real covertly for years. The name is so similar to the Infidels for a reason, son. They aim to replace them. To take everything they have and perform the ultimate coup d’état. When they act, they don’t use their name to keep their movements covert and off the Infidels’ radar. The fact you know it tells me they revealed it to you. Not good. Not good at all. It means they’re gearing up for that power grab, shit’s gonna come to a head. You need to step out of the way.

While Aurora had been talking with Caleb and the liberated hostages, I’d taken some time to absorb his revelations.

Once I’d gotten it sorted in my head, I responded.

Asher: I want the empire gone, not replaced by an equally malicious force.

It took another few minutes before he texted again.

Private Number: Take what you can. Carson will be gone. You’ll be free of him.

Asher: Only to be subjugated by the next to take the seat of power.

Private Number: Not if you get out. Come to me. I’ll show you how to live a life in the shadows. It’s not too bad actually.

Asher: Appreciate it, but you know me better than that.

Private Number: I do. I just hoped, is all.

Asher: Who’s at the head of this new monster?

Private Number: Unknown. At least to me. Carson knows. Lan, too.

I stilled at that last part.

Asher: Lance is aware? You’re certain?

Private Number: Yeah, but it won’t do you any good. He’ll never give it up. He didn’t tell Carson shit under severe torture and degradation, he’s not gonna offer intel up freely to you unless it serves his purposes.

Asher: All right. Thanks for the intel.

Private Number: Please tread carefully, son.

Asher: Will do.

I growled low in my throat as I stowed my phone away.

Adrenaline was thrumming through my veins, and not just the residual effects of the takedown, but because this situation with the Heretics was worse than I’d imagined.

All this work, all this planning, and now when I finally managed to decimate the Infidels, these fuckers were waiting in the wings to simply take their place?

Lance had said that he was dealing with it, but now the trust between us was fractured, I couldn’t take that as a given.

Plus, what if he failed?

He was skilled and accomplished, no doubt, but he was still only human. Things didn’t always go to plan.

I wanted to reach out to him, make him fucking well give me more, make him tell me exactly where things stood with his mission to take care of them.

But I fucking well couldn’t.

He’d disabled that former burner.

I’d reached out through his former protocol, but he’d ignored all my attempts.

He’d cut contact, basically disappearing into the shadows again.

There was another way, but it was too risky while we were still in the process of taking down the dollhouse network.

Drawing them out.

They’d wanted me and Aurora weeks ago.

I could get word out and offer myself and obtain intel from within the belly of the beast.

We had the big dollhouse takedown coming up and then I’d see to it if Lance didn’t contact me by then. I couldn’t stomach the notion of the Infidels falling after all this time only to be replaced.

Fuck.

“Hey.”

I swung my head to see Aurora approaching, walking up the hill a few feet from the house and all the activity taking place below.

I took her in.

She’d stuffed her balaclava into her tactical vest and her white-blonde hair was swinging back and forth in a high ponytail as she walked toward me. Her tactical gear was stained with dirt and blood. And her hands… her hands were completely stained with the blood of our enemies.

That blackness in her eyes had faded, but the blue pools were a little glazed, like she was coming down from a high.

Shit.

“You know, Ash, you fucking well know that there’s no going back once you succumb to it, once you give yourself over to that darkness all the way.”

Fucking Killian and his warning words slammed into me, refusing to leave until they were certain I’d taken heed.

It wasn’t just that either. It was what Lance had said that had stuck with me ever since and kept rising to the surface no matter how much I tried to shove its proverbial head back under water and drown the fucking thing.

All those accusations of us supposedly corrupting her.

We hadn’t, I knew that rationally.

We had brought out something in her, yes. A harsher and darker edge. But it hadn’t come from nowhere. We hadn’t created it, it had already been within her, a part of her. Being in our orbit, being with us, had just nurtured it.

“How are you feeling?” I asked as she stopped in front of me.

“All good,” she said, brightly.

Too brightly.

“You almost murdered someone. I really don’t think all good applies at all.”

She flinched and snapped back, defensively, “An enemy target, Asher. That’s what he was. It wasn’t like I strolled up to a random innocent on the street and went there.”

She was really reaching with that one.

I’d intended to approach this gently. Well, as close to gently as I could really get.

But her reaction was making it clear that wouldn’t do.

She needed a jolt, a little harshness.

“You lost control.”

She scoffed. “Seriously? I saw a guard in there stone-cold dead with a fucking poker through his eye, courtesy of your handiwork.”

“That’s not the same.”

“Why? Because it’s you?”

“No. Because I was in control. That was a tactical move to put the hostile down swiftly and efficiently. You were drawing it out and taking your sweet time, relishing the pain and suffering and indignity you were perpetrating on that trainer.”

“He deserved it!” she yelled, catching the attention of the group gathered down by the house.

She sucked in a breath and shifted her weight and told me more calmly, “When I walked into that bedroom, that piece of shit was humiliating and degrading two of those hostages, while trying to condition them to be grateful for it and like it. That’s how sick and twisted it was. He got what he deserved.”

I grasped her arm, tugging her to me. “It’s not about him. It’s not about any of them, any of this. It’s about you.”

“I’m fine. I was just dealing out justice.”

“Vengeance.”

“No.”

“Absolutely. You know it too. Denying it will just worsen it, Aurora. You need to recognize the dangerous path you’re venturing down. It’s the only way you’ll be able to turn back around in time.”

“I’m fine as is.”

I tightened my grip on her arm in my urgency. “You’re not.”

She glared at me, then stared at my hand on her, restraining her.

“I can handle the dark just as well as you can. Little beast, right? You wanted me to be like you.”

“You need to walk the line, not do as I do. You can delve into it, but that’s it. You can’t live there entirely.”

“Or what?”

“Or you’ll become a shadow. Like me.”

Caleb jogging up the hill toward us brought our conversation to an impromptu halt.

He looked between us, clearly picking up on the tension.

“Sorry,” he told me. “I need to head out, get them situated. But we need to go over the specifics for taking the last dollhouse. I can’t risk stepping into Hexwood House, considering it’s still technically considered Infidels territory, so it’s gotta be now to go over the plans.”

“It’s fine by me,” Aurora said. She glared at me. “We were done here anyway.”

In the next beat, she spun on her heel and took off back to the house.

I watched her go, gritting my teeth.

This didn’t bode well.

Not at all.