Chapter Twenty-Eight
Tomás
“I think you may have taken a wrong turn,” Micah whispered against my cheek as we came upon a group of Ashton acolytes.
A miserable group of four, including Ashton, turned to us, surprised. The only girl in the group, Annika, jumped to her feet and clapped, following that burst of energy with laughter. She was a fourth year who was rumored to be the bastard of a Russian female assassin who’d been murdered while on assignment in the US, leaving her stranded in the states. Excuse my manners for not finding whatever the fuck she was laughing about funny. Kennedy, a third-year student who played ball, stood next to her. Big, muscle arms folded in front of him. And next to Ashton, stood Beck. Zarek’s bookend. He looked angrier than the other three. He quickly caught Micah’s injuries and scowled, stepping closer. “What the fuck did you do to Zarek?”
I bit my lip. Whenever outnumbered, best to act stupid. “Who’s Zarek?”
That didn’t work out well. A flash of pain ignited my right cheek as Beck punched the side of my head. Micah and I fell in a heap. I didn’t bother to fight back. I lifted my hand to stop him. “He’s okay. Alive. Back that way,” I pointed over my shoulder.
The guy looked ready to pound on me some more. I wasn’t above begging. Fuck pride. Pride got people killed. All the fucking time. “Ashton, come on. You know me. We’re friends. Micah is our friend and he’s hurt. I’m just trying to get him medical attention.”
Ashton lowered his eyes to Micah who didn’t look well and vomited all over himself as if calling out how unwell he really was. A slight expression of worry flashed through his expression when Annika, the crazy bitch spoke up. “The weak must die,” she shouted.
Ashton scowled at her. Kennedy rolled his eyes as if she were an annoying sister, and Beck kept glaring at me. “Annika, leave him alone and stop with the movie quotes. You’re giving me a headache.”
She hissed at Ashton who paid her no real attention. She was all talk. Pouting, she wrapped her arms in front of herself, looking like a spoiled brat ready to stomp her feet and whine. She didn’t.
“Please, just take Micah to the castle. He can’t get hit again.”
Micah made a sound at the back of his throat calling out my stupid. Ashton crouched in front of me, pressing his finger to the open wound on my temple. I bit back a wince. “You are too trusting,” he said, wiping my blood on his pants. “Never give away your weakness, moron.”
I opened and closed my mouth.
“It’s me you want. Send one of them with Micah. He can give Kieran a message that you have me. That’ll throw him off. He may even come for me.” I showed him my brand. “Honor and all that shit.”
I heard Micah’s eyeroll beside me.
Ashton grabbed my wrist. I started to yank it back but Beck placed my bokken under my chin. A threat. “How about,” Ashton said, removing a blade from somewhere behind him. A real blade. “You cheater,” I said like an idiot. With an evil gleam in his eye, he placed the blade over my thumb, the tip against my skin at the edge of my brand. “I send him a piece of your flesh with Micah.”
My heart thudded in my chest. “Ashton, come on. This is just a fucking game.” Maybe I was na?ve. Maybe I didn’t belong in this crowd of killers. But fuck, Ashton and I had brought down the Ark Boys during the flag wars. I’d been scapegoated for him, for them. “Ashton.” My voice broke. Not entirely out of fear, but out of pity. For him. “We’re friends.”
His eyes narrowed as he pressed the blade deep. Blood pooled at the tip, and I flinched but didn’t move. “I thought so too until I found out you were fucking the enemy.”
I was dead. These homophobic pricks were going to kill me.
Beck moved the bokken to the back of my head.
“Ashton,” Micah said. “Please.”
The bokken lifted from my head. I felt the draft and I knew the fucker’s intent. They were going to send Micah back a vegetable. I pushed back just as Beck swung down toward Micah’s head. The bokken landed on my shoulder. Pain roared through me.
“Run!” I ordered Micah. If he didn’t run, he was dead.
I kicked out hard, hitting Ashton’s nose. I felt it give and heard him scream. I didn’t wait to enjoy the sight of blood on his face. Beck was the immediate threat. Annika ran after Micah. I prayed he’d make it, but I had to worry about Beck.
I jumped to my feet as he swung again, the bokken longer and clumsier in his hand. I grabbed his wrist, spun into the swing, and elbowed his ribs hard. He sucked in a breath and released the bokken. I used the momentum, spun with the bokken leading and cracked him in the face just as Kennedy slammed into me. Fuck it. My blood wouldn’t be the only blood spilled tonight. Just as I faceplanted, he was suddenly ripped away from my body. I spun onto my back, ready to kick, but Kennedy was gone. Just gone.
Darkness had already spread under the canopy of trees. Light struggled to pass between the branches, but it wasn’t enough to get a clear view of anything. I heard Kennedy’s scream and then nothing.
Beck had a gash on his cheek, blood pouring down his face, eyes wide in terror. He ran.
Annika hadn’t returned.
Something was in the woods.
Ashton yanked me to my feet, pulling me against him, his knife against my throat. “Tell him I have a knife to your throat. A real knife. Tell him!”
“Who?”
The sting against my throat made me realize this wasn’t a fucking joke. Either Ashton killed me on purpose or on accident. “He has a knife!” I cried out.
Ashton shuddered, his knife hand shaking, his grip on my shirt strong. With every movement he heard, he swung me in front of it. Using me as a shield against the threat as if he believed whoever was out there actually cared about me.
River? Fox? Wren? They were the only three that would probably care if Micah and I survived. But they wouldn’t play with their target. And the way Ashton was trembling, he had seen something to spook him.
“Ashton,” I whispered. “Let’s just run.”
Too late.
Ashton stiffened behind me. His knife hand dropped from my throat. A slight inhalation brushed the back of my neck before I was pushed away from his body by strong arms. I heard Ashton fall to the ground, and then the gasping sound I recognized when Kieran had stabbed Jack’s throat.
A solid hard body wrapped an arm around my waist. “Don’t look back. You don’t want to see,” Luca whispered against my neck. I smelled the musky oily scent attributed to the make-up he wore. “Little angry boys shouldn’t play killer with killers.”
“You killed him?”
“Yes. Maybe. He looks like he’ll soon be dead.”
“We should help him.”
“Why?”
“So he doesn’t die.”
“But he tried to kill you.”
“I know, but he might not have. You don’t really know.”
“He had a knife to your throat, threatened to kill you. I don’t understand your logic.”
Because I was an idiot. “Luca, please.”
With a growl, he released his hold on me. I grabbed my bag and dropped on my knees beside Ashton. A fucking kid. That’s what Ashton looked like clutching his bleeding neck. So much fucking blood. I felt sick.
“Stupid, asshole,” I whispered.
Not that I exactly knew what the fuck I was doing. I pulled out the first aid kit, snapped on gloves, rummaged through the pack searching for something and finding nothing.
Luca plucked a package from inside the bag and handed it to me.
A clotting sponge. I ripped it open. “Do you know how to save him?” I asked, pressing the sponge against the wound.
“I am medically trained. It is necessary—”
“Can you help him then?” I cut him off. My hand shaking.
Ashton’s face had turned dangerously pale. His hand slipped from his throat and his eyes closed.
“No,” Luca said.
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
Fucker.
Blood oozed but wasn’t spurting. Luca had sliced, not stabbed. The clotting sponge worked to ease the flow. “It’s okay,” I lied to Ashton. It wasn’t okay. None of this was okay. “We’re going to get you help. Okay?”
At the sound of my voice, Ashton opened his eyes. But he freaked when he saw Luca beside me. “It’s okay, he’s not going to hurt you.” I secured the sponge again against Ashton’s neck and wrapped it as best I could. “We have to get him to the castle.”
“Not happening. He could get there himself.”
“He lost a lot of blood.”
“And he’ll lose more if he doesn’t find his legs and move .”
Ashton managed to get to his feet. Holding his throat. I handed him a flashlight. Hunched over, he disappeared into the woods like a ghost.
Luca seemed comfortable in the quiet dark while all my insides were screaming to run. To do something to survive this maniac. I got nothing. If he wanted me dead, running would do nothing but speed up the process. “Do it,” I egged on.
“Do what?”
I swallowed. “Kill me. Hell, you can hide my body in the catacombs. No one will ever find me.”
“Too much trouble.”
“To kill me or to hide my body?”
“Both.”
He was fucking with me. Not making any sense. “So what now? Why wait? You could’ve killed me a dozen times over.”
I couldn’t see his expression under the darkening sky. The paint on his face almost glowed. It made him look like death. “You were not the only loose end.”
“What?”
“Your father. Dead. Daniel. Dead.”
My knees trembled but I managed to remain on my feet.
“Driver dead. Your mother…” he let the word hang. Dead.
“My mother what?”
“Dead,” he answered dryly.
My mother dead. I processed that information through pain, and I didn’t know how to feel. She was dead. “How?”
“OD’d.”
That was always her fate. Like Jack’s mother. “Did you do it?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes! It matters to me. Did you?”
“No. I was here.”
I didn’t know why it mattered that it hadn’t been Luca. He’d been here this whole time, watching me, torturing me. But I found that better than him being the one to kill my mother.
“You’ve erased me.”
“Not all of you.”
Nick. My brother Nick was still alive. Still the best out of all of us.
Everything I’d ever held back, every racking pain I’d felt throughout the years. Anger and shame rushed through me in a dark wave of hatred. Something inside of me snapped. I slammed into Luca. I wanted to kill him. To see his blood. My shoulder landed perfectly under his sternum as I lifted with all the strength I had and slammed him into the ground. The knife still in his hand. He lifted it, but I had the advantage being over him. I used my body to push the tip down into his thick vest. His hands trembled, keeping me from becoming a murderer.
I wanted to dig the knife through his cold, black heart. Everyone I’d ever loved had hurt me. Mom sold me. Daniel and Dad knew. They fucking knew. Dad had bought protection with my heart, my body. Tears ran down my face. My mother was dead.
Luca grunted. Lips peeled back. My eyes cleared. The top of the knife had disappeared into his flesh, blood pooled around the tip, darkening his shirt. A sharp realization seized me, clamped around my chest. Luca’s wide eyes the only thing I saw as I killed him. I unclamped my fingers from the hilt of the blade and scrambled back, sucking in a sob. Panic crawled under my skin. I hit the ground hard, and crawled back as far as I could go as Luca sat up breathing hard. His expression a mixture of anger and pain. He pulled out the tip of the knife from his shoulder.
“You are going to pay for that,” he growled out with murder in his eyes.
I jumped to my feet and ran. With no other direction I could go, I headed into the one place Kieran warned us not to go through.
The catacombs.