26. Ice Cold Murder High
26
ICE COLD MURDER HIGH
GHOST
I don’t have time for this. Every minute we waste arguing is a minute Killian could die. I don’t give a fuck if I get caught so long as I get in there to see him alive.
“Think about it,” Ransom says, stepping between me and Krypt. “He’s got the mind for this. Let Krypt get caught to be thrown in with Riot. You’re the only one of us who can move around their compound undetected. We need you out here, Ghost.”
Logically, I know that, but I’m not a very logical guy right now. I’m trying to hide it because I don’t want them knowing there’s something going on, but I fucking suck at hiding it because I’m pissed off and scared about it.
“I’m going in there. I don’t give a fuck what you two do.” I shove Ransom and butt my chest up to Krypt’s. “He’s my responsibility.”
“He’s my brother.”
“I’m the one who left him in there, so I’m the one getting him out!”
“Yeah,” Krypt snorts. “Wouldn’t fucking be in there if it weren’t for you.”
“He blew his own cover!”
“Boys,” Ransom says again. “Shut up and listen.” He shoves us apart and points at the wall where the screen is being cast.
Glitch clears his throat through the speaker while I simmer in a mix of guilt, worry, and honest-to-god fear. I don’t even know which part is scaring me the most, but not knowing makes it more intense and I need to use it to my advantage. Killian has already been in there for twenty-four hours, and the longer we wait, the less our chances are of getting him out alive.
“He’ll be here.” A part of the map lights up.
“If they haven’t killed him already,” I snap.
“He’s alive,” Director says. “They’ll know he’s from Moros, and they’ll be interrogating him. Especially because they still don’t know what was taken from their labs. Riot can withstand torture.”
Yeah, but for how long? What if he took his suicide pill and really does plan to meet me in Hell?
“Hello,” Facts says through the line. “We have audio and video to these parts of the compound. Twenty-three hours ago, we watched him being dragged through these doors. We’ve been monitoring the compound ever since, and he hasn’t come back out. He’s in there.”
“Alive,” Krypt says.
“Right,” says Glitch. “So, our best bet is to create a diversion while Ghost goes in undetected. It means one of you has to get captured, and the other two need to carry out the rescue. Ghost, don’t cut me off,” Glitch stops me when I start to speak. I throw the lamp across the room, pacing. “You know you’re the only one who can do this, so stop fucking fighting it. You want him back? This is how.”
“Think about it,” I tell them. “It’s me on their security cameras, so they’re already looking for me. If they capture me and throw me in some cell, they’ll stop torturing Riot and stop the lockdown, making it easier for us to get out.”
“Ghost, you’re?—”
“Hello. Actually, that’s not a bad idea,” Facts cuts in. “If they think they have both of you, they’ll drop their guards, leaving more room for Ransom and Krypt to get in and out.”
I throw my arms wide. “Fucking thank you . Finally. Can we go now?”
“No. We have no masks and no power here. We need your stealth outside of a cell,” Ransom tells me. “If you get captured, we’re all fucked.”
To finally get my recognition at a time like this is torture in its own form. Finally, they realize how essential to the team I am, but it’s coming at a time when I don’t want my skills to be the deciding factor. I want in that fucking cell with Riot to kill his tormentor and get him the hell out of there so he can follow through on his deal to hold my hand. Like fuck I’m gonna let that bitchy little girl be the only one to experience the feeling of his hand in hers. Fuck her, fuck him, fuck Vile House, and fuck Reaper Corp. That asshole is mine, and if I don’t get him back, the goddamn world is gonna burn anyway, so fuck it all.
“I’m sick of arguing about this. Fuck it! Tell me where the hell to go and let’s fucking go. We’re wasting time.”
Ransom nods, but Facts speaks. “Statistically, torture victims are killed between forty-eight hours and seventy-two hours after capture, either by their tormentor or from sustained injuries. That gives us less than twenty-four hours to plan and complete our rescue.”
My teeth chatter and my jigsaw scatters even more. I try so hard to steady my breathing that I start hyperventilating. Krypt notices but doesn’t call me out on it while we develop a new plan. Yeah, I threatened to rape his brother, and here I am, panicking over the guy like he means something to me. I’m not a person who struggles with a guilty conscience, but if this is the way Riot goes out, sacrificing himself for me like some noble asshole, I’ll kill myself just so I don’t have to live with the shame of it.
* * *
Beneath the secure compound with Ransom and Krypt, I shake my limbs out, mentally and physically preparing to be silent and stealthy. To be the Ghost of Reaper City.
“What’s happening?” Krypt asks me while Ransom talks to Glitch and Facts. “Why do you suddenly give a fuck about him?”
“I don’t.” I pace. “Just don’t want the stain on my record.”
“What fucking record, Ghost?” Krypt grabs my wrist and hauls me forward. “Your conscience?”
“What conscience?” I rip my wrist free. “Fuck off and let me focus. If you shit the bed on this mission, Remi’ll go back to being suicidal.”
Krypt snarls under his breath. “And if Riot dies on this mission, so will you.”
I glare at him, unafraid of his monsters. “Fuck you.”
“Fuck you back. You care.”
“About the job!”
“About Kill.”
I shake my head, all the death games mingling with the last-chance kiss and the promise of a held hand. “He’s Riot. Not Kill. Not Killian. This is a Vile House job, and I’m not gonna fucking fail it. So piss off and let me focus.” Because he might already be dead, and I’m trying way too hard not to believe that. “And be fucking careful, Krypt. I can’t deal with Remi like you can.”
He grunts at me, and with that, I nod at Ransom and leave the utility room through yet another vent, this one a service shaft that runs alongside the elevator. It should take me eleven minutes to climb down to the floor Riot is being kept on, and from there, another seven to fifteen to get into position in the hallway we believe his room is attached to. That’s eighteen to twenty-six minutes of thinking I don’t want to endure.
The ’what if’ questions have never been my thing. I don’t care enough about anything to worry about multiple outcomes. Even when Remi was struggling with the curse, I never questioned what I was gonna do about it. I didn’t ask a million ‘what if’ questions then, so I hate that I am now.
Because what if Killian is dead? What if he’s damaged beyond repair? What if that kiss really was the last chance? And what if that little bitch is the only one who ever holds his hand?
The service shaft has a ladder, and as I descend, I try to decide if I have any regrets. Remi, I guess. If me and Krypt both die here, he’ll join us in death by choice. Selena is stronger, and she’ll work her way through the ranks of Vile House with my brothers at her side. But when it comes to Riot… Killian, fuck, I might have some regrets.
Like not pushing him as hard as he pushed me. For letting him tempt a curse with me instead of appreciating him for doing it. For loving the harshness so much that I forgot to ask for the softer side of things.
For wanting him to kiss me just like that again. For being too cowardly to admit it, too broken to know I wanted it, and too stubborn to see it as anything but weakness. Somewhere along the course of my life, I started viewing gentleness as a weakness. Moros is a ruthless place to live, but it isn’t unkind to me. No, my faults are entirely my own making because my mind doesn’t think like anyone else’s, and I started viewing power as invincibility. I mean, I chase a fucking curse just to prove my power, for fuck’s sake.
If— when —I get the chance again, I won’t let it go. We can chase a curse and taunt death, but in those moments in between, the ones that are more terrifying than the dangerous thrills we seek, I want something else. Something exposed and pure. Because Killian Hallows is the only person I know who can see me as powerful even while vulnerable.
“It’s two floors down, Ghost,” Glitch tells me, my earpiece coming to life. “Don’t leave the shaft until I signal.”
Two floors between us. The ‘what if’ questions swirling in my mind take a back seat, letting sheer determination and a thirst for blood lead the way. I’m loaded down with throwing knives, daggers, and even a gun that I hope not to use. Not a single fucking thing is going to get in my way, and if it tries, it’ll meet the coldest parts of me, a cursed man with a purpose.
Pausing outside the hatch to the floor I need to be on, I settle my breathing while I wait for Ransom and Krypt to get into position at the main security checkpoint. This is it, my defining moment. The one where I refuse to let anyone else be my hero and instead take the hero role for myself. The stakes are higher than ever before, and if that bastard isn’t alive when I get to his room, something inside me will break. I’m a well-crafted mirage, a master illusionist, and a perfectly presented puzzle, but I know something about my presentation is about to change.
Because I have what it takes to rescue him, but does he have what it takes to survive this long?
“Everyone in position. Hall is clear. Ghost, you are good to move. Signal your location when you find his room. All clear?”
“Clear,” I say, climbing through the hatch while Ransom and Krypt both call their status. If Krypt does his job right, he’ll get caught and thrown in with his brother as a bargaining chip, and Ransom and I will be the escape plan while they’re busy using Riot’s brother against him.
The underground bunker hallway is brightly lit but empty, lined with plexiglass windows that spotlight the rooms and the people inside them. Quickly and quietly, I peer into each window, finding men and women who aren’t Riot. Most of them are bloody or battered, some of them insane and snapped away from their minds, and all of them are awake and staring back at me. I don’t give a fuck about any of them. Barely even a spare glance, only long enough to confirm they aren’t Riot.
When I pass the second to last window, I look inside to see a man being tortured by a Reaper Corp member. A blow torch blazes, and the man screams so loud it rattles the plexiglass. I move on, hoping to fucking hell he’s in the last room. If some fucker has a blowtorch against Riot’s skin, I’ll break protocol and find a way in before Krypt gets a chance to get caught.
Before I get there, the door at the end of the hall beeps, and I only have a split second to duck behind a medical cart in the hallway. A lone woman walks through, weirdly professional looking considering we’re in a torture chamber. She’s on the phone, dressed in a lab coat, looking at a tablet as she walks past me. When she’s just past, I snatch her ID card, move around the cart, and duck on the other side. Hopefully Glitch is in control of the security cameras for now.
“He’s still in Moros. Reporting back every three days,” she says to whoever is on the phone. “Their gang is under new leadership.”
The Misfits? Does Lock have a mole in his midst?
“We’re keeping him in place. He had to kill Reaper members the night of the raid, but it gained him loyalty and respect, so it was a worthy?—”
Whatever else she’s about to say is halted when she tries to leave the hall, realizing she doesn’t have a keycard. Fuck. As she’s checking her pockets, I sneak up behind her, grab both sides of her head, and snap her neck. The blood rush starts as I drag her to the nearest door, using her card to open it. I shove her into the prisoner’s room, press end on her phone call, and close the door with a soft click. Because I’m me, I don’t spare a second thought for what that prisoner will do to her.
“Lockdown the hall,” I tell Glitch.
“I can’t yet. You have to confirm his location first or you’ll be trapped there.”
Slinking across the hall in a crouch, I peek into the last window. What I see shatters the remnants of my glass illusion and turns me to nothing but ice.
Because Riot is about to die.
Hanging from a chain in the middle of the room, his arms above his head, he smiles at his torturer, a toothless thing full of blood and anguish. I know that’s not a smile he’s perfected because it shows all his pain, and Riot never willingly shows pain. His one eye doesn’t open, and the other is barely a slit, his eyelashes crusted with dried blood and his nostrils freshly trickling. He’s naked, every part of him dirty and painted red, and if I’m not mistaken, either his fingertips or fingernails are missing.
The part that scares me the most is the device pressed to his temple. The kind of device that releases a metal bolt that kills instantly when it pierces the brain. The man’s finger is on the release, but Riot’s pathetic, unhinged smile and the gargling laugh he lets out makes him pause.
“Riot is about to die,” I say, eyes on Riot’s mouth. “I’m going to break this plan.” I tremble in restraint, hastily trying to make a split-second decision. If I use the card to open the door, will that force the man to release the bolt, or will it distract him enough to pause?
“Ghost,” Ransom warns, but there isn’t much heat behind it.
“Go,” Krypt demands. “Do not let him fucking die.”
“We’re almost there. Break the plan.”
When Riot says something that makes the man angry and panicked, I lose my common sense and act on instinct. An instinct to keep him alive.
I open the door.