23. ~Caleb~

She was in her element.

As I hauled my opponent into the bar, then fisted his hair and smashed his face into the bar top, knocking him out, I watched Skylar dodge a blow from one of the cheap suits running this shithole, then execute a roundhouse kick that sent him careening into one of the three stripper stage platforms. She was there in the next moment, driving her boot into the side of his head and putting him out of the fight.

She was clad in full Onyx gear. All hot-as-sin tight, black leather. The jacket had spikes all the way down the sleeves, giving way to a pair of studded gloves. Its hood overhung and shielded her face well, casting the rest in shadow. She usually went for one of three wigs—blue, red, or purple, and she was wearing the bright-red one tonight that was in a short, choppy style. She blended well with our Jackals get-up. Hell, she blended well with us in every way.

Another shithead came at me and I lunged over the bar, snatched up a bottle of vodka, then spun and slammed it across the side of his head. It exploded on impact, raining glass and booze down all over him, the shards of glass biting into the skin of his face making him scream. As he staggered, another big guy came at me. I took hold of the reeling guy and hauled him into the approaching one, the two of them crashing down on top of each other.

As the big motherfucker grunted and pushed the other off him, I kicked the bloodied one in the head, knocking him out cold, then jumped on the former before he could get up. I was wailing on him in the next moment, my fists a whirlwind of unadulterated violence and rage.

Most of all, fucking punishment.

"Pieces of shit!" I was roaring through my fists of fury. "Sick, demented motherfuckers!"

I'd trapped the guy's legs with my knees, but it proved to just be an unnecessary precaution within moments as his struggle ceased quickly under my onslaught. Blood was coating my fists, his face becoming a disfigured mess, and then he went limp, out cold.

Euphoria coursed through me at the brutal justice I'd just delivered, as I pushed off him, then caught another suit trying to escape. I wrenched him back by the back of his suit jacket, then hauled him into one of the cheap round tables with a roar.

As he floundered and tried to gain purchase to push off and defend himself, I snatched up one of the chairs, then swung it at him. It slammed into his back, making him grunt and smack back down on the table. Roaring, I did it again and again, until he was slumping down the table in an unconscious heap, tipping the table in the process, and the thing tumbling down right on top of him.

Movement near Skylar caught my eye and I looked to see two suits barreling out from the dressing room onto the stages.

She vaulted up there, then leapt up onto the pole and used it to spin and gather momentum and power to then drive her body, boots first, into the gut of one of them. It ripped him right off his feet and as he landed hard on his back, his buddy went for Skylar.

I was about to bolt over there when somebody jumped onto my back and drove me into the bar. I threw my elbow back with a grunt, hearing a crack, as I'd likely broken the guy's nose. Feeling the warm stickiness of his blood on my skin a moment later confirmed as much. As I kicked him back, I looked out at Skylar to see the guy she'd downed grabbing at her ankle. She managed to twist out of his grip, but then the other guy used the brief few moments of her extricating herself to his advantage and plunged his fist into her face. I winced as her head snapped to the side and she stumbled back a step. He roared and ran at her.

Something cut across my vision in the next second, moving rapid-fire, just before the guy stilled and lurched. I grinned as I looked to see a throwing knife buried in his gut.

Skylar swung her head just as I did and we looked to see Bastian there, his hand still in throwing position. He winked at her, then turned and gestured behind him. In the next moment, a line of women came out, with Cas bringing up the rear, the two of them escorting them out.

Skylar strode to the guy and ripped the knife out, making him scream. An elbow to the face knocked him out and he went down hard on the stage floor. Skylar grinned at Bastian, spun the knife in her hand, then slotted it into one of the spare sheath holsters wrapped around her thighs.

"Those two were the last ones," Bastian called to us.

"It's done," Cas confirmed, as the two of them led the women through, navigating around the dropped bodies on the bloodied battlefield.

Not enough blood for my liking. Or punishment and pain.

This had been tame by our standards.

But it worked well for our first mission after such a long break.

It had been quick and efficient, and having Skylar here had just added to that.

She'd been laser-focused, completely on-mission.

I hadn't even seen her succumb to all the darkness in her, not even once.

I reasoned that she was likely mustering all her control to prove to herself and us that she had it in the bag, and probably to impress us too given her hero worship thing she had with The Jackals.

As Bastian and Cas led the women past us, Skylar jumped down from the stage and made her way over.

I smiled and wrapped my arm around her as she reached me.

"How did you like our first joint mission?"

A beaming grin spread over her face. "It was everything I thought it would be."

"Yeah?"

She nodded. "It felt really good to be back, but even better to be doing it with you guys."

"The feeling's mutual, darling."

I eased from her, then pulled the can of red spray paint from the inside pocket of my leather coat. As I started shaking it, I said, "Time for the final touch."

She followed me out of the space and through the lobby where Cas was talking to the women and trying to comfort them.

Bastian looked out at us and in the better light of the lobby, he noticed the bruised forming across Skylar's cheek after she'd taken that hefty punch from one of those fuckers. He was rushing over in the next second and fawning over her.

"I'm fine. It's just superficial, nothing really," she assured him.

He traced his fingers over her cheek and she snatched his hand. "I'm really okay." She gave his hand a squeeze, then pulled him into her, lowering her voice to that sultry, sexy one as she told him, "That throw with the knife… that was sexy as hell."

"Yeah?" he said, pushing into her.

I smiled, then left them to it, wanting to complete the mission.

I made it to the outside door of Shakers, then started branding it with the red paint until I'd formed our recognizable ‘J'. Such a simple thing, but it served to strike fear into the hearts of these sorts of places, these kinds of sick motherfuckers.

We were back now and word would spread quickly.

There'd be nowhere for these fuckers to hide.

"Long live Jackals justice," I ground out.

I watchedas Caspian communicated with the drivers of the unmarked vans who would return the girls home safely. Some of them were shaking and most definitely not from the cold. Others were crying. And some were wide-eyed and basically unmoving just staring off into space.

The latter had been what Hayley had been like when she'd been brought back home.

Getting them out of this situation wasn't enough. Sending them home wasn't enough.

It lent more weight to the project I currently had in the works.

The necessity for it for these people who'd suffered this sort of trauma and horrific abuse.

They didn't always get help. Not to mention, the waitlists to even connect with a care professional like that sometimes. Some of them needed full-time and round-the-clock care, just like Hayley had but we hadn't realized at the time how badly. We'd been na?ve to it.

But I wasn't anymore.

Her death had made sure of that and I'd also seen a hell of a lot since.

I stared down at my phone for a moment, then sucked in a breath and pulled up the text that had come in earlier from the developer I had working on the commercial space I had my eye on as part of this project, and my overall goal of finding my path, which definitely wasn't remaining at Luxe and studying shit I already knew just to have it done the proper way.

I looked out at Cas as he interacted with the drivers—his people—and also coordinated with Luke right beside him.

I grimaced and hesitated like I had been for the last few days, holding out on responding to the developer.

Because of him.

Because of us.

All four of us.

This was his world here in the City of Rossun. And I stood apart from that now.

He'd made sure of that.

He'd been trying to protect me, I knew that in my bones.

But he'd also wanted me to find my own path, and this, what I was working on here, was me doing just that.

I sucked in a breath and finally responded.

Caleb: Make the offer.

I pocketed my phone, then turned back and peered through the door of Shakers to see Bastian holding Skylar close by the hips, while she fondled his mask. We'd discovered that she had a kind of fetish about the things. The urge to go on in there and join the flirting should've been right there. To turn it into a hell of a lot more than just flirting and escalate the shit out of it should've actually been more like it. I always got incredibly worked up after a takedown like this, leaving me ready and raring to go in a really intense way.

This time it wasn't happening that way.

I wanted to believe that it was just because it had been a while since we'd done this, that I was just reacclimating from all the normal of late.

It was more than that, though.

It was knowing that I had to get back to Luxe in the morning, to attend classes that I didn't care for and just couldn't get into, to get back on a life path that still didn't fit, even after so many weeks going on by and me hoping that something would just click.

Even though I was working on that secret project, a big part of me had hoped that I could still salvage something here too, with Luxe. That I could maybe do the project at a distance, that I wouldn't have to go as far as actually pulling myself from here.

That I wouldn't have to pull myself further from Caspian and what the four of us were now building here.

But these nights as The Jackals wouldn't be enough when everything else was wrong.

With the convention coming up, having to be with them again, my parents, it just served to highlight all that wrong even more so.

I blinked from my thoughts to see that Cas had finished up with the organizing and now Luke and the transports were heading out.

He turned from seeing them off, then came to me.

Right away, I realized that my turbulent thoughts were all over me, and I'd failed to hide it all from my face and the tenseness of every fucking muscle in time, before he'd picked up on it.

"Lovely?" Cas spoke softly as he reached out and cupped my face.

"I'm fine," I said, stroking his hands on my face. "You know how I get after one of these takedowns, once all the violence and adrenaline has worn off, and we're left with the gut-wrenching reason of why we're doing this."

It was the truth, but only part of it now.

There was so much more.

Too much.

"I know," Cas said, his hands falling from my face, then coming around me instead, pulling me to him. "I know, Caleb."

I sank into him and breathed him in.

Every part of him.

"It's all okay. Everything will be okay."

Usually his word and the conviction rolling through him was enough to comfort me. No matter what had happened, no matter what was slated to happen.

But now that power he usually had to make it so was muted.

And I just wasn't sure if everything really would be okay.