Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
Joey
Alana moves first, sprinting toward the door with a bag in her hand. I don’t even remember standing, but I need to follow.
I’ve seen violence. I've lived in darkness. But nothing prepares me for what I find.
Two bodies lie sprawled on the floor. A woman gasps for air, her body writhing. The other is Markus—blood pouring from his chest as he clutches it in shock. Uri is on the ground beside him, trying to hold him down, trying to keep him here.
“No. No—dear God, not him,” Uri whispers, his eyes full of tears.
The woman wheezes, barely hanging on. Dimitri pulls the trigger, and her life is over.
Alana drops to her knees beside Markus. Her hand presses against the wound. “Check for an exit wound,” she says, voice distant.
Uri doesn’t move, clinging on to Markus, his prayers switching between English and Russian.
I rush over, roll Markus over slightly, run my hand over his back—and pull my hand away, soaked in blood.
“It went through clean,” Alana says, reaching into her bag.
She unzips a hard case and extracts a vial of something and a hypodermic needle. Cradling his head, she brushes her thumb against his cheek, but it only smears the blood, making it worse. “You’re going to live—but it will hurt.”
Markus understands. I see it in his eyes—panic, pleading.
“No. Please… don’t. No.” He reaches and grips her arms.
She soothes him with a look. Then—without hesitation—drives the needle straight through his shirt.
The scream that rips from his throat is inhuman. Primal. Raw. Shredding his vocal cords. It’s the scream that brands itself into your memory. One you can’t unhear.
Alana starts counting. “Ten seconds. Nine…”
Markus writhes. She continues to count down.
“You’re killing him!” Uri yells, but it’s drowned out by another inhuman howl.
“Five, four…”
Each second is like an endless loop of slow-motion pain.
Alana preps a second needle, but Markus’s body convulses, and he kicks the bag out of her hand.
“Two, one…”
Then—needle two. She plunges it into his neck and the screaming stops.
His eyes roll back, and he’s gone.
Uri’s face twists with hatred and betrayal. “What the hell did you do to him?”
Alana doesn’t answer. She slumps back against the wall, sliding down to the floor, chest heaving, her face hollowed by pain and exhaustion.
“The first shot,” she rasps, “heals with nano technology. But it needs adrenaline to course through the body. It needs pain. The second one… It knocks you out, shuts the brain down. He won’t remember. He won’t feel it.”
Uri’s lower lip quivers. “Will he be okay?”
“His heart wouldn’t be able to handle the pressure without the second shot. He still needs medical attention.”
Uri and Dimitri lift Markus, carefully carrying him toward the med bay—if that’s even what it is.
Lance is silent as he covers Mellisa with a blanket from the break room. The hall sounds too quiet after the screams still ring in my ear.
Izzy wraps her arms around Katya. Katya and Markus were teammates in Russia, now back in America and working for Mastodon. Katya’s not a warrior like Alana, and she accepts the hug and support.
Donny stands in the doorway watching everyone but turns away when he sees the stains on the floor. My hand is sticky from the drying blood between my fingers. Violence is nothing new, but we were attacked twice in our home. And the women saw it all. Fuck.
In the chaos, Jenny picks up the case Alana dropped. She stands frozen, staring. There’s fear on her face, a kind I don’t recognize. She kneels. “Alana,” she whispers. “How long ago did you take the first shot?”
Everyone goes still. The memory of Markus’s screams still echo in the air.
“Forty-five minutes,” Alana whispers.
That’s when I see it—her black shirt soaked darker around her midsection.
Jenny gently touches her shoulder. “Why didn’t you take the second?”
Alana blinks slowly. “I was in the back seat. Car on autopilot. I was trying to hold myself together. Took the first shot. Then the car hit a bump. I dropped the case. Before I could grab the second”—she exhales shakily—“my body went numb. I couldn’t move. It’s taken everything to get here.”
Jenny nods, lips pressed into a line. “How long have you been having a heart attack?”
“I don’t know,” Alana breathes.
“What the fuck?” Lance is by her side before I can even register what she’s saying.
Alana blinks and water leaks from the corners of her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she whispers to her best friend. “I wanted to say goodbye.”
Lance scoops her in one quick motion and holds her to his chest as he runs down toward the med bay.
Alana’s bloody handprint is on the wall, but whose blood is it? Hers or Markus’s.
My cousin is barking orders on a headset in full crisis mode, and Katya runs down the hall after Lance to provide any support she can.
Now the hall is filled with sounds, and I’d take the eerie silence over this.
Jenny. She wraps her arms around her waist, looking lost and staring down at the body. Mellisa’s body. Mellisa’s probably the one who wounded Alana, and now I’m wishing her death was longer.
“We need a tarp,” Jenny whispers.
“What?”
“Maybe our friend can incinerate another body.”
She takes my hand, and we go back into the break room. Kingston is hiding under a chair, his tail unfurled and his ears flat against his head. It takes a few minutes of coaxing, but he finally comes out.
Uri and Dimitri haven’t returned, but Katya sprints past the door. Shortly after, we hear the sound of a plastic tarp unwrapping. Donny isn’t in the room. I guess he got stuck with body duty again.
The whole night doesn’t feel real. It’s a hyper-realistic nightmare I can’t escape. A second stampede rushes past the door. Followed by screeches and sobs.
No.
I don’t want to move and witness it, but Jenny is already out the door. I never wanted her to be part of this world, to see the ugly side, the painful darkness.
Lance leans against the wall and slides to the ground, his knees pulled into his chest as he weeps. Big ugly sobs that make my stomach twist and turn. Donny cries when he’s having a panic attack. Dimitri cries when he’s watching a movie. Thiago cried when Maria was born. But Lance? Never.
Izzy rushes over to him and throws her arms around him, sitting awkwardly on the floor. Her face is red, her chest heaving as she tries to comfort the unconsolable.
It’s Alana. My heart squeezes and rips apart at the same time.
We lost the war.
The Deviant won.
The Four Families is over—a half century legacy gone in minutes.
Hopeless, I’ve got to get Jenny out of here. We need to run. Find someplace safe. Start over. It will be the three of us—me, Jenny, and Kingston—because they’re all I have left.
A woman with blazing eyes, a shiny green dress, and hair that has perfect wavy curls, steps into the hallway. She’s out of place here visually—bright and beautiful against the stark whiteness of the business and corporate hallways. Her face contorts as she wails and cries.
Her eyes lock with mine.
“I knew your fucking family would get her killed.” This tiny woman runs at me and there’s explosion of pain on my cheek.
Did she punch me, or slap me? Is this my fault, or am I the easiest target?
Donny grabs her, ripping her off me, and she kicks and twists in his arms. “I will never forgive you, any of you.”
She squirms and flails around, all emotion and energy, dangerous and reckless. Donny yelps as she digs her elbow into his ribs. She is a honey badger in human skin, and she’s livid at me. The woman’s face—wait, I recognize her from Jenny’s power point. “Holy shit, is that Lena Lovegood?”
Jenny steps forward, her gaze serious but with empathy pouring out of every move she makes. She places both hands on the cheeks of the furious woman. “Be logical.”
Yep, that’s not going to work.
The woman starts flailing again, but Jenny holds her grip. “Alana’s not going to Heaven.” What the fuck? But Jenny remains undeterred. “How long do you think it will take her to conquer Hell?”
Lena pauses, opens her mouth and closes it. “Not long, a few months maybe.”
Jenny wipes tears off the pop star's face. “How much demon smut does Alana read?”
Lena’s features soften as she regains control of her breathing and body. “It’s her second favorite genre.”
Jenny nods at Donny who releases his grip on Lena and clenches his chest as he creates distance. My girlfriend opens her arms to the pop star, “I don’t think the demons want her there. I don’t think the Devil himself could handle her.”
The out of place starlet embraces Jenny as we hear, “Clear!” from the med bay. The lights flicker and none of this is over.