Chapter 6 #2
Swallowing, I lifted my head, my expression blank, my eyes not able to meet his. “I figured.”
“It’s his way.” Ash tugged on my chin, forcing me to look at him. “It doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. It’s how he handles emotional situations.”
I pinned a detached expression on my face. “He can do what he wants. He’s no longer tethered to me.”
“Brex.” Ash tipped his head, his tone sorrowful, showing off the deeply bruised and bitten skin along his neck.
“Holy shit.” My finger immediately went to the spots, my eyes widening in shock, realizing what they were.
“Yeah, it’s how I deal with emotional situations.” He pulled his jacket collar up, glancing away. “It was a rough day.”
“Someone here?” My mouth parted, glancing over his shoulder as if his bedmate would pop out. My mind reeled with prospects.
He shrugged with one shoulder, a strange blush dotting his cheeks.
“Oh, my gods.” My mouth dropped. “Kek? Lukas?”
Ash stared at me.
My eyes widened. “Both?”
“X, if you’re coming with us, hurry up,” Scorpion’s voice yelled down the stairs.
“Saved just in time.” Ash bumped my shoulder, strolling past me.
“You are not getting off so easy.” My voice trailed after him.
“Actually, I got off easy several times.” He grinned at me before twisting away and charging up the stairs.
The fog was thick as it advanced over the city, rolling and wrapping itself around buildings and the darkness. Bundling deeper into my coat, I shivered with cold. It was the kind of night you’d want to spend indoors by a fireplace, eating something rich and creamy.
Cries from livestock and howls from feral animals haunted the skies, prickling the back of my neck as we moved through the streets on foot.
Those not searching for trouble huddled close to their camps, the moist air strangling the bit of warmth they could get from the fires and dampening their thin blankets.
The weeping of hungry children cut across my heart.
I wanted so badly to help fill their bellies and find them a place to feel warm and safe.
I used to steal from Istvan to help Maja’s family, thinking I was doing some big, heroic thing. It wasn’t even a crumb. Our country was so broken, and what was worse was the hopelessness strewn across their faces, the awareness that this hell was all they’d know.
The five of us kept a tight formation. Scorpion and Birdie were on lead, Wesley and I in the middle, and Maddox watching our backs.
“Where are we going?” I whispered to Wesley.
“The old Lehel Market,” he murmured back.
My boots made a squeak on the cobbles when I stopped. “What?” I blinked at him. “Lehel?”
I knew that building. It was an old indoor marketplace located in what we now called the North Léopold district.
Istvan privatized it for the elite of Léopold and those in North Léopold who could afford to shop instead of work there.
It was an exclusive bazaar holding the best household items, produce, medicines, and meats, along with hard-to-get things and imports from the Unified Nations.
I knew it was guarded twenty-four seven, not that I ever went there.
The servants for the elite would most likely be seen shopping there.
Maja told me it was where she could sometimes meet up with her kids, visit, and give them the products I stole.
A neutral ground between the world she lived in and the one they did.
“It’s the only place that carries the items we really need.” Wesley’s attention was still out on the night, securing every alley and corner. “You gonna get a conscience on us?” He glanced back at me, my feet rushing to catch up to the moving party.
“Why would you ask that?”
“Need to know if it’s going to bother you that we’re stealing from your ex-daddy.”
“He’s not my dad.” I gritted my teeth. “And I’ve never had a problem stealing from him.” I had been since the age of seventeen.
“Good thing,” Wesley muttered in my ear as we rounded a corner. Scorpion’s arm went up, telling us to stop.
Yards ahead, the block-long, three-story marketplace came into view. It was a bizarre building, a mismatch of styles and juxtapositions. The now fading primary colors gave the construction a pre-school feel with a splash of an Eastern vibe.
The gates were rolled down, the glass doors long gone.
The market was locked up for the night. A dim streetlight, still working in this area, cast an eerie glow through the mist down on the pavement.
Four guards milled around under it, smoking, laughing, and chatting, not giving much care to watching it.
They were treating it like a shit job, probably because it wasn’t killing fae or being some hero to the human race.
HDF put heavy weight on your role, and this wouldn’t be considered heroic or pride-worthy.
Our group padded quietly the opposite way of the guards, passing a rundown park.
The street was darker here. The only other streetlamp working was at the opposite end of the building, lighting the two entrances and exits open to the public.
We huddled close to the structure in the shadows, right next to what used to be a parking garage.
The ramp from the street heading up to different parking levels was now lined with more vendor booths instead.
“There are four guards here and four at the other end.” Scorpion motioned down the block.
“Every hour or two, they make their way around the building to do an overall check. But it’s not consistent,” he whispered, explaining it to me.
The others all seemed like they had done this before.
“It’s why we need to hurry and be ready to run at a moment’s notice.
X?” He pointed to me. “You will be on watch. The rest of us will split up. We know this place and know exactly where to go to get what we need. Birdie, you are on medicine. Wesley, you are food. Maddox is on medical supplies, and I will get us a portable generator and gas. Grab what you can and get out. Got it?” All our heads bobbed in unison.
“The car entrance is gated, so we climb up.” He pointed up. “Okay, let’s go.”
Scorpion scurried to the fencing built up the side of the ramp area and used to keep people out. You could see a thin gap between the roof and fence. A sliver of space we could slip through.
One by one, we quietly climbed up slowly, trying not to clank the metal while we scaled the chain-link fence.
My throat knotted at the hum of the guards chatting around the corner.
They were so close on this end. At any moment, one could come around and see us. We were defenseless. Targets on a wall.
My heart thumped loudly in my ears, stopping dead when a pitched holler spiked the air, sounding like it was right below us, my head darting around to see if we had been caught.
Wesley shoved at my feet below, telling me to keep going. Sweat was dripping down my back.
I easily slipped through the slot, descending to the other side, waiting for our last person to join us.
Peering down the car ramp, I could see through the gate.
The guards were a few yards away, their cigarettes glowing like fireflies, the dim streetlamp shadowing their forms. One of them could look up and notice movement in the shadows. Every breath felt precarious.
If Istvan knew how careless they were with their job, how easy it was to slip in, he would probably shoot every one of them in the head for disloyalty and indolence. Nothing pissed him off more than laziness and incompetence.
Even as we slunk up the rest of the ramp, staying low and near the wall as we heading toward an entrance to the market, I felt the instinct to run to Istvan and tell him of this weakness.
To prove myself his faithful soldier. The best of them.
It had been ground into me for years to prove myself to him.
It would take a while to fully reprogram that, no matter how much I understood, he was my enemy now.
Scorpion waved everyone through the door, but his hand stopped me, rearing my attention to him. His brows furrowed with concentration before he shook his head.
“It’s really gone, isn’t it?” he muttered, frustration lining his forehead.
“Yeah.” I knew he was talking about our link.
The strange connection neither of us asked for nor wanted, but in a short time had grown accustomed to.
I missed my bond with him, but it was nothing compared to the gaping hole someone else left behind.
How had he dug such a fissure into me, marking me, carving my bones and muscles?
I bit down, shoving out thoughts of Warwick. He was probably elated it was cut. Finally, he could return to his life of fucking and killing.
“Would be very convenient to have right now,” Scorpion grunted.
“You stay on watch here and whistle or something if anyone starts heading this way.” He patted my shoulder, disappearing into the building along with the rest, making me realize how flimsy and dangerous this plan was.
Sarkis didn’t have the means as Povstat did to buy high-tech gadgets like ear comms. And now I didn’t even have the link to Scorpion.
This entire venture was dancing on a string.
Hunkering against the wall next to the door, I stayed on alert. Every sound. Every movement. The guards’ words were low and muffled, but I could make out some of their conversation.
“Tesó,” Bro. “I had the sweetest fuck the other night. The bitch had my eyes rolling back into my head.” A guard groaned, like he was recalling the moment of pure pleasure.
“There’s a reason that whorehouse is the best.” My head popped up.
There were plenty of whorehouses in Savage Lands, but only one was considered the “best”—Kitty’s.
“That kurva did things I didn’t even know were possible. Freaky shit.”
“Fuck man, you’re gonna come right here just thinking about her, aren’t you?” another laughed.
“I might. I’m telling you, she was unbelievable.”