Chapter 17 Priest
Every time I set foot in another Sovereign Section, I’m reminded how fucking weak the South is.
Rotten from the top down.
Sterling’s made us a goddamn joke.
I spit out my gum and shove another piece between my teeth. My boots hit the floor harder with every step as I stalk the Vault halls. I’m supposed to be prepping for a mission—East Coast Section again. The only place that still knows how to bleed right.
Then Sterling got desperate. Called the High Chancellor of the East himself just to drag me back. That’s how far he had to go to reach me.
I’d turned off my phone. Disappeared off the fucking map. Didn’t want to hear his voice, this place, any of it.
I wasn’t coming back.
Not until he forced my hand and pulled rank.
And now I’m here—storming these weak-ass halls again. Chewing through fucking gum is the only thing keeping me from putting a bullet in my goddamn skull.
I’ve been stacking kill orders like I’m starving.
Because I am.
Starving for silence. For anything that keeps me from thinking about—
No.
Don’t fucking go there.
I round the corner and slam open the Command Center doors hard enough to make the walls shake. Every head turns. Stillness snaps through the room.
Dalton and Alistair are mid-sentence, their mouths still open as they see me. Raze shifts near the monitors. Sterling stands dead center, surrounded by Sovereigns.
I stop short.
The silence isn’t silence…something's wrong.
“What the fuck’s going on?” I bark.
No one answers. Not at first.
Sterling slowly turns. “I was hoping you could tell me.”
I narrow my eyes. “Tell you what?”
“Where is she, Priest?”
The words don’t register.
“What?”
“Arlo. She’s gone.”
My stomach drops. “What the fuck do you mean gone?”
“She escaped.”
The room tightens around me. A dozen pairs of eyes locked on mine. My spine goes rigid. Fury claws up my throat. That little fucking…How? How the fuck did she pull it off? Something else slithers under my skin, something sharper.
“Did you do this?” Sterling steps closer. “Did you help her?”
“No. Why the fuck would I help her?”
He doesn’t reply. Just gestures to the screen, and the main monitor flickers to life.
The moment I see her, something ruptures inside me.
Arlo’s strapped to a metal chair.
Naked.
Blood streaks her body. Her face is swollen. Her mouth cracked open in a silent scream. A Sovereign presses a gun to her temple, laughing.
I take one step forward.
Then another.
My jaw tightens. My hands curl into fists.
“I had nothing to do with her escape,” I mutter, trying to turn, to walk, to breathe.
“PRIEST! PLEASE!”
Her scream cuts through me like a serrated blade.
My name on her lips. Again. And again.
“HELP ME! PRIEST!”
Then the gunshot.
I jerk toward the screen as she thrashes against the restraints. Blood pours from her ears. He didn’t shoot her. He shot next to her.
And she’s still fucking screaming.
“Turn it off.”
Sterling doesn’t move. “Why would she call for you?”
I don’t answer. I can’t.
“She knows you’re the one who delivered her to us.”
I clench my teeth so hard my gums bleed.
“I said—turn it fucking off!”
The screen goes black.
But it’s too late.
The images stay.
Her screams echo.
My name. Her blood. That terror in her eyes. It claws at something deep in my chest. Deeper than anything has ever reached. It hurts. Fuck, it hurts—not pain, not rage, not anything I can fucking name.
It’s—
“Priest!” Sterling’s voice slices through my mind. “What did you do?”
“Nothing! I didn’t do fucking shit.”
He stalks toward me. “‘Nothing’ seems like a hell of a lot when a traitor’s daughter just vanishes out of the Depths.”
Before I can tell him to go fuck himself, hands grab me from behind.
“What the fuck are you doing!?” I explode, swinging an elbow back so hard I hear a nose break. Blood splatters my shoulder as the guy screams. Another one lunges—I pivot, slam his head into the table.
“Hold him!” Sterling shouts.
More Sovereigns pile in. Five. Six. Seven.
It takes all of them.
Someone grabs my neck—another clamps onto my arms. I land a solid kick to the side, and someone crumples with a guttural scream as bone cracks beneath my boot.
“I’ll fucking kill you!” I roar, blood in my mouth.
A pistol cracks across the back of my skull—my vision flashes white. I drop to a knee, dazed but not fucking done.
I surge again, spitting blood as I fight against them—trained killers or not, they’re not me.
Another Sovereign slams my face into the table. A second gun presses to the base of my skull.
“Stand. Down.”
“He said he didn’t do it!” Raze shouts from somewhere behind me. I catch a glimpse—he’s being restrained too, struggling against men holding him back. “Fucking let him go!”
“You’re both being detained.” Sterling steps over the blood and moaning bodies. “Someone helped her escape. And I won’t stop until I find out who.”
I bare my teeth as they yank my arms back and bind them, blood running down my temple.
He wants to lock me up?
He better fucking kill me instead.
“Arlo.” Arsen’s voice cuts through the low hum of the bunker. “I need to talk to you.”
His tone already has my stomach turning.
I ease the bedroom door open and step into the hallway. My ribs ache with every breath. My legs are weak. I haven’t felt steady on my feet since I woke up in this place—whenever that was. The days blur together under a haze of painkillers, sleeping pills, and half-remembered nightmares.
The bunker’s huge. Weapons line the walls behind locked cabinets. Cases of ammunition and medical supplies are stacked in every corner. I still don’t know where we are. Somewhere cold. Somewhere off-grid.
When I get closer to the kitchen, I freeze. There’s another voice.
A man’s.
My pulse kicks up, and I flatten my palm against the wall, steadying myself as I round the corner.
Silence.
Both of them look up the second I enter.
I see the stranger instantly—tall, solid, built like a freight train. Broad shoulders. Shaggy dark hair. His arms are crossed over his chest, and he doesn’t blink when our eyes meet.
I stop several feet short of the doorway.
“Relax, Arlo. This is Wolff. He’s with me,” Arsen says.
Wolff doesn’t say a damn word. Just turns and walks out of the room.
“Is he a Sovereign?” I ask.
Arsen nods, watching Wolff disappear into the living room. “Don’t worry about him. I need his help. He doesn’t talk much—won’t even notice he’s here.”
I doubt that.
I limp toward the table and ease into the chair across from Arsen. The movement sends fire through my hips and shoulders. Every inch of my skin still feels raw. Bruises and cuts pulse like they’re fresh. I wrap my arms around myself, trying not to show how bad it still is.
Arsen sighs and leans forward with a clenched jaw. He’s trying to say something he doesn’t want to say.
“What is it?”
“I need your help,” he finally says.
I blink. Of all the things he could’ve said, I wasn’t expecting that.
“You need…me?”
He nods once.
I stare at him in silence. My chest tightens.
Arsen doesn’t ask for help. He’s always been the man in control—the soldier, the weapon. He’s already risked everything to save me. I owe him more than I can ever repay…
“My team is not arriving in time. I only have Wolff. We can’t pull it off with just us.”
“Pull what off?” I ask, already knowing I’m going to hate the answer. His accent is getting thicker. This is bad.
“Extracting Priest.” Wolff’s voice cuts in from behind me.
I shoot up from the chair so fast it topples.
“Are you fucking serious, Arsen?” I yell, storming down the hallway.
“Arlo, listen to me!”
“You want me to help rescue the man who handed me over to be fucking tortured?!” I spin to face him, fists clenched at my sides. “You’re insane. You’re fucking insane.”
“Stop.” His voice sharpens. “Just stop and listen, da?”
“He’s the reason I’m like this!” I scream, shaking, my throat tearing open from the force of it. “I hate him, Arsen. I wish he’d fucking die.”
“It’s not so simple.”
“Then make it simple. What could possibly—”
“Priest is the next High Chancellor. Of the South.”
I bark out a bitter laugh. “So that’s what this is about? Protecting the heir to keep the Sovereign hierarchy intact? Fuck that.” I turn and stomp down the hallway.
“I’ll give you a million, cash. New passports. You can disappear anywhere in the fucking world, Arlo. Start over. However you want.”
I freeze with my back to him.
“The Sovereign killed my father, Arsen. They branded him a traitor. Smeared his name, and ripped him away from me. And you think for one second I’m going to help save the son of the man who murdered him?” My voice shatters, rage trembling through every bone. “For money?”
I spin back around, teeth clenched, vision swimming. “You’re out of your goddamn mind. I would rather eat a bullet myself than help that fucking monster.”
“Saving Priest could clear your father’s name.”
I stop breathing. “What?”
He exhales hard. “Sterling ordered the hit on Priest and the other heirs. If he succeeds in killing Priest. You will never clear your father’s name. You keep running. Forever.
“What the hell are you saying?”
“I don’t have all the answers, Arlo. But I know this—your father was no traitor. He was hiding something. Something big. And Sterling…Sterling made sure he died with it.”
My heart twists. A thousand memories slam through me. My father’s coded journals. His silence. The fear in his eyes.
“I think…” he steps closer. “I think he found out. About Sterling’s plan to kill heirs. Maybe he tried to warn someone. Maybe he had proof. But he never got a chance to finish.”
I swallow hard, eyes burning.
“And now it’s happening again,” he continues. “Sterling’s using you. Framing you. Framing Priest. And if he succeeds now? There’s no undoing it.”
Silence stretches between us.
“If I’m right…” His voice drops, “If we get to Priest before Sterling makes an example of him…before whatever is next...maybe we find what your father died for. Maybe we can clear his name. Once and for all.”
I squeeze my eyes shut, a fresh wave of grief rising so fast it threatens to drown me.
“You’d be free, Arlo,” he adds. “Really free. No more hiding. No more running. You’d give your father peace. Give yourself peace.”
My entire body feels like it’s splintering apart. I can’t breathe. I’ve been surviving so long I forgot what peace even looked like.
My voice comes out hoarse. “What do I have to do?”