Chapter 30
My knuckles split against his chest. I don’t feel it.
Not the skin tearing. Not the blood. All I feel is the rage burning through my veins.
I’m screaming, but the sound doesn’t sound like me.
Arsen’s arms close around my waist, dragging me back.
I thrash wildly, kicking, clawing, doing anything I can to break free. To get to him. To tear him apart.
“Let me go! I’m going to kill him! Let me go!”
“Arlo, stop,” Arsen pleads, against my ear. “Please.”
“Don’t you fucking—” I spin in his hold and land a punch to his jaw. He stumbles, but he doesn’t let go. “You lied to me! You knew! You all knew he was alive, and you left me here!”
My knees give out. I collapse in Arsen’s hold, still screaming, still trying to get free—but my body’s quitting on me. My voice breaks. My soul shatters.
A shout cuts through the fog.
“How the fuck was this missed?!” Raze’s voice explodes across the room.
I blink through my tears, just in time to see him holding something up near my father’s body, a small metal implant. My brain can’t make sense of it. Not until the world tilts and the bunker shakes beneath us.
An explosion rocks the walls. Dust rains from the ceiling. The lights sputter and die.
Shouts and gunfire rip through the darkness.
“No! Dad!” I wrench out of Arsen’s grip and crawl toward the bed, toward the cooling body that used to be my father. I need to hold him. I need to tell him goodbye.
“Dad, please!”
Gunfire pounds through the bunker halls.
I’m crawling, blind with grief, when Priest yanks me back—slinging me over his shoulder.
“Put me down, you fucking bastard!” I slam my fists into his back. “Let me go!”
Another explosion rocks us. The blast steals the air from my lungs. My ears ring and the taste of ash floods my mouth. I hit the floor hard, coughing on dust, scrambling toward my dad again. I don’t make it far.
His fucking arms wrap around me again, crushing me to his chest, and then we’re moving. I hear the shots. The crack of his gun. The bodies dropping. But all I care about is getting away from him. From this.
From fucking everything.
“Let me go!” I scream, punching, kicking, feeling the blood slide into my eyes from a cut on my forehead. “Let me go!”
He kicks open a door and throws us inside, slamming it shut. Then I’m shoved hard against the wall, his body a cage, a fucking prison.
“Stay fucking put!” he roars, slamming his fist into the concrete beside my head.
I react without thinking. My hand closes around the blade tucked in his waistband. I rip it free and drive it into his side. A grunt leaves his lips as he stumbles back, blood already soaking through his shirt.
“Fucking die!” I lunge, shoving him hard enough to send him off balance and bolt.
I don’t care where I end up.
I don’t care if I die.
As long as I’m away from him.
As long as I never have to see his face again.
“ARLO!”
I’m already out the door. Bare feet pounding across cold concrete, lungs tearing open with every breath. The bunker’s a blur of smoke, gunfire, strobing emergency lights that make the blood look black.
I sprint past bodies—faces half-gone. Blood soaking the walls. Shrapnel whips past my face, slicing my cheek open.
I keep running.
A rifle catches my eye, half-buried under a body. I yank it free mid-stride, don’t bother checking the mag. I’ll take my chances.
The main doors are wide open—blown apart—but the exit’s a death trap. Gunfire is pouring from all angles. A voice outside blares from a loudspeaker, demanding surrender.
Fuck that.
I skid to a stop. Steadying as my legs threaten to give. I pivot, backtrack, and shove past a body still twitching as blood pools beneath it.
Fuck.
Fuck.
FUCK.
I taste metal and smoke, blood flooding the back of my throat. I wipe my eyes, smear more blood across my face. My hands are shaking. Everything inside me is screaming—get out, get out, get out.
A vent shaft. Small, high, but just big enough.
I drag over a crate, the metal scraping so loudly it drowns out the gunfire for half a second. I clamber up, my hands fumbling with the screws, vision tunneling. The vent blurs in front of me. My fingers slip.
Move, Arlo. MOVE.
Boots thunder down the hall and a shot rings out—so close the air around my face hisses. Sparks explode. Something grazes my scalp. My balance breaks. I fall hard, the back of my skull slamming into concrete. The floor shudders beneath me, pain blooming across the back of my head in waves.
I blink. Once. Twice. The ceiling swims.
I roll over, crawling blindly toward my rifle. My shoulder burns. My palms sting from cuts I don’t remember getting. I reach out—
And freeze.
A shadow swallows the light. A man drops on top of me, crushing me beneath his weight.
“Pretty little payday for your head,” he grunts in my ear. “Boss’ll be thrilled.”
I thrash. Kick. Scream. My nails rake his face, but he just laughs and slams me harder into the ground. His grip tightens—
Crack.
A sickening sound splits the air. Blood and brains spray across my face. I stare, stunned, as the man slumps off me—half his skull caved in.
Priest towers over us, blood dripping from his knuckles. One hand grips his gun. The other is pressed to the side where I stabbed him. His eyes aren’t human—just raw heat and ice, flickering between fury and something darker.
He grabs my arm and yanks me to my feet, ripping a scream from me. My shoulder lights up in agony. I twist, fight, but it’s useless.
“No—!”
His bloody hand wraps around my throat and he slams me back against the wall. He cages me in, body to body, never looking away as he tightens the straps on his vest. His gun lifts. Fires down the hall. Again. Again.
His other hand clamps around my arm—so tight I feel something pull, crack, or maybe just give out entirely.
“We have to move!” Raze’s voice cuts through the chaos. “They’re swarming—fucking move!”
Priest throws me over his shoulder and the world lurches.
My head spins, blood loss turning everything to static. His shoulder digs into my gut, forcing the air from my lungs. I can’t breathe. I can’t scream. I can’t fucking think.
Gunfire lights up the corridor. Bodies drop. I see shadows in the corners. Red dots through smoke. Flashes of Sovereign black.
“Get to the trucks!” Priest roars over the carnage.
We burst into the night. Smoke thickens the air as he throws me into the back of a truck like dead weight. I hit the floor hard. Blood—mine, his, someone else’s—slicks under my hands as I try to crawl away.
But I don’t get far.
His hand fists in the back of my shirt and yanks me back, slamming me onto the bench.
“Fuck! Get us the fuck out of here!” someone yells. Tires squeal. Bullets hammer the sides of the vehicle.
I press my forehead to the freezing wall of the truck, gasping, trying not to choke on everything inside me.
My dad is gone.
My dad is dead.
And he—he—killed him.
“Have you been shot?” Priest grabs me again, shoving my shoulders back against the bench.
I don’t answer.
His hand moves to my face, fingers twisting in my hair, forcing my head to the side.
“Have you been fucking shot, Arlo?”
“Christ, Priest—you’re bleeding out,” someone behind him says.
I try to shove him off me, but the truck jolts and I slam into his chest. His hand presses against my ribs, forcing a scream.
“Bruised,” he mutters, eyes flicking to the blood slicking through my hair. “And a bullet graze to the head.”
Before I can move, his blood-wet hand wraps around my throat and yanks me closer. The strength in it is terrifying.
“Why didn’t you fucking stay with me? I told you to stay put!”
“You killed him!” The words rip out of me. “You killed my father—you killed everything!” I slam my fists into his chest, ignoring the fire ripping through my ribs. “I hope your father finds you. I hope he throws you in the same hell mine rotted in. I hope you die there, screaming.”
“Enough!”
He grabs my face, fingers digging into my cheeks until I wince. “He already fucking did that, Arlo. So shut your goddamn mouth before you make me remember what I am.”
I spit in his face, blood and saliva streak his jaw. He wipes it away with the back of his hand then slams me back into the bench, leaning over me.
“You fucking stabbed me! I’m trying to keep you alive, and you fucking stabbed me!”
“I’d do it again,” I hiss. “And next time, I won’t miss your heart.”
“Priest!” Arsen’s shout from the front of the truck barely cuts through. Priest’s hand curls into the seat beside my head, knuckles going white.
“Priest!” Arsen shouts again. “Get up here. Now!”
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t blink. Just stares at me with soulless black voids for eyes.
“Get off her!” Arsen’s voice is closer now. “We need you up front. We’re not going to make it if you don’t get your shit together.”
Still no movement. Priest’s breath is heavy. His shirt is soaked with blood from my knife wound.
“Goddamnit, Priest.”
Suddenly, Raze grabs his vest from behind and slams a fist into his shoulder.
“You’re bleeding the fuck out,” Raze barks. “And we’re going to fucking die unless you get your ass up front. Get it the fuck together.” He shoves a pack of gum hard into Priest’s chest. “Now.”
For a moment, Priest just stares down at it. Then, slowly, with a snarl in his throat, he rips it open with blood-slick fingers and tosses a stick into his mouth. His jaw starts to move.
He doesn’t look at me again. Doesn’t say another word. Just pushes past Arsen and Raze toward the front of the truck. Arsen exhales hard, then crouches in front of me.
“Chill the fuck out, Arlo. You’re going to get yourself killed acting like this.”
I shove his hand away. “Good.” And I sit here, ribs aching, head bleeding, hate gnawing through my lungs.