20. Chapter twenty
Chapter twenty
Max
H e’s standing in the godsdamned Pit in nothing but his shorts and flip-flops. I swear, if he doesn’t die at the hands, or the teeth, of the Walkers, I’ll fucking stab him myself.
Fair enough, we didn’t get time to grab proper clothes, let alone shoes. But that boy is going to be the death of me, assuming the Walkers don’t finish the job.
If it wasn’t terrifying enough that we’re about to be fed to the damn biters, it gets worse: we’re not getting ten of them, no.
She’s sending more than thirty if my count is right.
And fuck me, I know my limits. I’m a cocky bastard, arrogant when it counts, confident because I know I own it.
But thirty Walkers, even with Kieran at my side?
I don’t know if I can. If we can.
I don’t even know where she found that many zombies.
Sure, we round them up on patrol; if we don’t kill them, they get hauled to the Pit for the convictions, for “justice.” But this many?
Besides building her so-called army of Watchers, she’s been doing something else up north. I just fucking know it.
All I can do is hope Roe gets here in time to put this bitch down.
It’s still the same fucking day. It’s only this morning we got ripped out of our apartment, hauled from whatever mess was left of our lives, and now we’re standing in the center of the stone hole with a pile of Walkers waiting to eat us alive.
It’s the monthly Pit night, and she timed it perfectly. Can’t stop smirking at us from her throne in the center of the Nine. Or well, Seven now.
I can only glare at her as I unsheathe Whisper in my right hand and the cleaver in my left, the promise of her demise burning in my gaze.
Because I will get out of here alive and will be the one to end her.
Our weapons weren’t exactly handed to us like a courtesy. Minutes ago, when they dragged us from the prison and escorted us to the Pit, one of the foursome that brought us gave me a curt nod.
I recognized him immediately. One of Roe’s men.
When they uncuffed me and shoved us onto the bench behind the gate, he leaned close and whispered, “Under the bench. Roe says hi. Take them at the last minute. I’ll distract them.”
He did. Coming up with some bullshit excuse about Walkers escaping when the gate to the Pit opened for us.
My heart nearly exploded when my fingers found them taped under the bench. Whisper. The cleaver. Kee’s stupid little daggers, tucked like a secret beneath the planks. I yanked them free, each blade a promise I intended to keep.
At least now I know Roe’s still alive and kicking. And the way that bitch glares at my weapons tells me she knows it too.
“Get behind me,” I say, snapping my head toward Kieran, voice hard as steel.
Of course he doesn’t listen. He never fucking listens.
“We’re in this together, Max,” he says, stepping up beside me like he was made to. Those wicked little daggers already glint in his hands. “I will not cower behind you. That’s not who I am. Not who I want to be anymore.”
A low growl rumbles in my chest. My eyes stay locked on that little bitch. She’s smug and venomous, like she already knows we’re not getting out of this.
Please, Roe. Please be alive, please have something up your sleeve, some crazy, brutal plan to pull us out of this.
But even if he’s still out there, even if he has something, he won’t make it in time. The rattling of the gate confirms that. The brutal smile twitching at the edge of Noura’s mouth? That’s the second warning.
My eyes drop as the gate groans, a sound like tearing metal and splintering bone. It’s not staying up. It’s about to give. There are so fucking many Walkers in there, more than I’ve seen grouped together in years, maybe in my whole life.
“I need you behind me, Kee,” I mutter, my voice lower than it’s ever been. It’s near pleading, raw, desperate in a way that burns my fucking throat.
He brushes the back of his hand over my forearm. Just a breath of a touch, trailing over the outline of my tattoo. My dead fucking heart skips, stutters, nearly stops.
Safe . I need him safe. That’s all that matters.
“ Please ,” I whisper. A word I’ve never said before and might never say again.
He freezes; his touch stills. “Max…” he breathes. “I can’t. It’s no use. I will not let you protect me. You can’t protect me. I got infected by the fucking red rain. I’m already Touched. I’m already lost.”
My jaw clenches so tight it might crack. Touched. That fucking word is a death sentence. Tass… in my dreams I replay the exact moment those warm green eyes turned cold and soulless, that sick shimmer stealing the life out of them. The moment they went dull, lifeless. It’s burned into me.
“Sergeant Maximos Skarlatos and Kieran Freyr!” Noura’s voice snaps across the Pit, cutting through the roar and silencing the crowd. “You stand accused of the murder of Joyeus von Richter, representative of the Culture and Recreation division and a respected member of the Nine.”
“Really? We’re doing this?” I roar, stepping forward, my voice rolling over the stone like thunder. I raise Whisper, defiance raw in every line of me. “You were the one who ordered her death!”
“That is not what the witnesses say,” Noura replies, smooth and cold as winter. Detached. “You can still step aside, Maximos. The offer still stands. You can still walk away.”
“It’s his first time in the Pit!” I snap, pointing my sword toward the gate, which is shaking under the weight of the Walkers behind it.
“It’s my tenth. There’s supposed to be only one Walker for him, ten for me.
One Walker extra for every time you enter the Pit.
That’s the rule. That’s the fucking law. The law you all pretend to follow.”
“I am the law. The death of one of the Nine demands a different approach,” she says. Too calm. Too smug.
Fuck her. I can’t believe I ever had my dick in that rotten cunt. It’s a miracle it didn’t snap right off from fucking frostbite, she’s that fucking icy.
“And you all agreed to that?” My voice climbs, thick with fury as I glare up at them—at the Nine, or Seven, at the cowards cloaked in power and sitting on plastic chairs like it makes them holier. I scan their faces one by one, daring someone to flinch, to give me a single inch of hesitation.
They stay silent.
Then my eyes snag on a shadow in the row behind the council. One face I would recognize in my sleep, half-hidden under a cloak.
Halcyn fucking Roe, my commander, my… surrogate father. The man who raised me, at least the one who tried. Who calls himself my family. The only family I have left.
He’s here.
My heart vaults. My fingers fucking tremble, but I keep my face hard. She hasn’t noticed him yet; the small pinch Kieran gives my thigh tells me he saw him too.
Roe gives the slightest shake. A motion that’s almost nothing, a tiny nod of steel. Imperceptible for everyone but us.
Just a little while longer, that shake says, keep up the show.
And then he moves. Just a hand. Slowly, over his chest. Fingers curling with subtle precision.
Signing. That stupid thing he taught us when me and Tass started training for the Watchers. “Gives us a way to communicate without the others knowing. It’s quiet, quick, and private,” he’d said.
My breath catches.
This man, this unshakable, brutal man, has tears in his fucking eyes.
I swallow down the ache crawling up my throat as I read his silent words.
Survive , he signs. Survive… And then: I love you.
My breath stutters.
It shouldn’t hit me like that. I’m not built for this shit, for feelings, for sentiment. For love . But it knocks the air from my lungs, anyway.
I never thought I could care. Never thought I wanted to. But I do. Somewhere along the way, I let it happen. Slipped and fell into something messy and real. I have people now. Somehow, some-fucked-up-how… I have people.
Roe. Sami. Kieran .
Tass . She’ll always be there in this fucked-up heart of mine.
I have something to fight for.
Something to survive for.
Something to lose.
“Do you wish to defend yourself, Sergeant Maximos Skarlatos and Kieran Freyr?” Noura asks, voice carrying across the Pit.
Kieran shifts. His throat bobs. His fingers twitching around the hilts of his daggers. “You’re lying,” he says, barely more than a whisper. “She’s fucking lying.”
But Noura doesn’t even glance at him. Her gaze slices straight to me. Cold. Calculated. Cruel.
I shake my head at her. Once. Twice. Desperate now. “Don’t,” I mouth.
And godsdamn, I know my eyes are pleading, like some fucking rookie who doesn’t know better. But I know better. I know her. I knew her.
Noura’s stare doesn’t waver. It only hardens, freezing over like the death sentence it is.
“There are witnesses,” Noura repeats, raising her voice, turning back to the crowd like she’s delivering some divine fucking revelation.
“The word of a Watcher holds weight. And the sentence, as such, is carried out.” She raises both arms, her red cloak billowing like spilled blood across the platform. “So it shall be.”
The crowd erupts. A thunderous roar of rage and euphoria and bloodlust. They scream. They cheer. They fucking welcome it, this travesty. This mockery of justice.
And then the gate groans. A deep, grinding shriek of rust and weight. It starts to rise. Slowly, always so fucking slowly. Deliberately. Like it knows it’s opening hell itself.
And I can’t even blame the audience for the hollers, the excited screams. They crave this. They live for it. Because for them, this is all there is. The only break in the monotony. The only thrill in the drudge of survival.
Violence is their theater. Blood, their only godsdamned reprieve.
“Max.”
I snap my gaze to Kieran, to my everything. When his eyes lock onto mine, I see it. The same thing I’ve tried to swallow down. The same thing I thought I’d buried beneath blade and blood and bravado.
It’s there. Right fucking there.
Longing.
Heartbreak.
Love .