16
TATE
Snarling, I stare Joseph down. None of us had noticed him before now, our attention immediately narrowing down to our Bonded trapped in a fucking indestructible enclosure, unable to tell if she’s even alive.
He must have been hiding in the shadows.
But now I see him, alright. He’s got my fucking attention, so he better be prepared for what that means.
“Joseph,” Cooper spits in disgust, coming to stand beside me as he eyes the man in front of us like the piece of shit he is.
Said piece of shit’s nostrils flare. “I do not know how my daughter has ended up with such disrespectful Evots. You are truly deplorable. You are no good for her.”
“And you are? You’re sick in the fucking head, you freak—”
Scotty’s firm grip latches onto Cooper’s shoulder before he can jump on Joseph when he calmly takes out a small controller-like object.
“W-what’s th-that?”
Joseph hardly spares a wrinkled-nose glance at Alby before he settles his gaze on Scotty, who he appears to respect the most, even if it’s still at the minimum level. “This is what controls my daughter’s enclosure. You see—”
I lunge.
Caught so off guard, the Game Master goes flying, and we crash to the ground to the backdrop of yells from the other men, my new brothers. The device in his hand zooms across the floor, and Joseph growls out a bellowed, “NO!”
Tiger races across the room to grab it, leaping over the two of us while my fist finally scratches the itch it’s had since I discovered how he treats my Havoc, slamming into the Game Master’s face.
He roars in pain and anger, and Cooper’s body language is overpowered by a calamitous fury as he pins down his flailing limbs before he can get a single hit in in return.
“Not so fucking powerful now, huh?” he seethes in his face.
“How can someone so weak, so fucking pathetic, have what you do? How the hell did you end up where you are, the person who deserves it all less than any other on the entire fucking planet?” The Game Master’s skin purples when Tiger calls out, “I got it!” and Cooper continues, “And how can you have a daughter so bloody beautiful, so ridiculously perfect, and treat her the way you do? How fucking dare you?!” Cooper’s fist earns a satisfying crack as it disfigures Joseph’s nose.
He cries out in agony. “Stop!”
His unfettered bellow does nothing to stop me and Cooper as more unrestrained hits land.
I let out all the wrath that’s been building and building inside me with every mention of this waste of space, and red splashes onto the taalk floor as I just keep going and going and going.
I vaguely hear my other three brothers talking with one another hurriedly in the background, but I don’t pause to see how they’re faring.
I won’t rest until the man beneath me’s skull is caved in.
In fact . . .
I’ve grabbed a savage fistful of Joseph’s hair, no longer immaculately neat as he likes it to be, Cooper shifting back to give me room, and I’m just about to smack his thick fucking head into the floor when he shouts loud enough to echo through the entire penthouse, “If you kill me, you will never see my daughter awake again!”
I turn to stone, freezing with my fingers digging into his scalp hard enough that I can only hope they dent his skull.
The silence that follows his claim is ear-splitting.
“Excuse me?” That’s Scotty, his boots coming into view in my peripheral. “Explain. Right now.”
“That is what I was trying to do before you let your dog run amok—”
“He’s not my fucking dog, he’s my brother.
” I blink once at that, at how certain Scotty sounds.
But the slight odd warmth that moves through my chest is gone sooner than it came with the man glowering at me in my grip.
“And we have the power here, Joseph. You’re clearly outnumbered and outskilled.
Explain what you meant when you said we’d never see our Bonded awake again. ”
“I mean,” he pants out, “that I am the only one who knows how to wake my daughter. She is not . . . here right now. She is an empty vessel, made this way so I can alter her to my liking.”
A fuzziness fills my ears.
“You . . . you what?” Scotty crouches down and snatches up his chin harshly. “Fix whatever you’ve done. Now.”
When the Game Master laughs like a lunatic, his bloodied teeth only add to the effect. “I cannot. She is renewed. A blank slate. I will wake her when I please, and you can do nothing about it.”
“Why?” Cooper demands, and his voice doesn’t sound like his own. Rising to his feet, he slams a boot into Joseph’s face with a bruising thump. “Why would you do that?!”
When he goes to kick him again, Scotty catches his leg, then leans right into Joseph’s ruined face. “Tell us why. We were behaving as you wanted.”
He barks out another bitter laugh, bordering on hysterical.
“Behaving as I wanted? All I truly want is you gone from my daughter’s life!
You have taken her from me, and now I am taking her back!
” Pausing to catch his breath, he continues, “I was going to kill you, you know? After I had seen the truth, that you and my daughter had been putting on a pretty little show for me, as I had begun to suspect, I decided I would kill you all. But then”—his tone darkens more than I knew was possible—“my daughter decided to link her life to all five of yours!”
Sharp breaths are sucked in around the room.
I find that I can’t twitch a single muscle.
Another laugh, almost like a motherfucking sob this time, he’s so far gone. “Yes, my daughter used your bonding cubes to connect your lives.” His head thumps against the floor as he tips it back, my fingers unresponsive as his salt-and-pepper strands fall through them. “If you die, she dies.”
If you die, she dies.
The force of the revelation almost knocks me off my feet.
“She did what?” Cooper breathes. I can’t tell if he’s horrified or wonderstruck, maybe both.
A clatter tells me Tiger’s dropped the small remote, and a quick look over my shoulder shows him and Alby staring at the Game Master with matching gobsmacked expressions. The latter then blinks rapidly as if his brain’s struggling to process what he’s hearing as the truth.
“And of course, they were commanded to never allow for alterations ever again!” Joseph’s laughing again, and I’m pretty sure he’s completely lost it at this point.
And people call me crazy.
“So, obviously, I had to kill the scientists who would dare do such a thing. Furthermore, no one can know of this.” That’s the first and only thing me and this monster will ever agree on.
“I could not risk such sensitive information getting out. I admit, Ezla is wonderfully intelligent, and I applaud her here, but this was also incredibly stupid—”
Cooper’s boot finds his neck this time, pressing down to produce a choked sound. “I don’t want to hear her name on your filthy tongue ever again.” Applying more pressure, he orders mercilessly, “Now tell us how to wake the woman we love up.”
“Only I can—”
Cooper kicks him right in the temple, and the Game Master falls perfectly still.
In the weighted silence that follows, we can only stare at the unconscious disease, chests heaving, eyes wide, stunned speechless. I can’t comprehend it . . . what he’s done to her . . . the uncertainty all around . . . the fact that Havoc has linked her life to all of ours.
“Jesus . . . Jesus Christ,” Cooper hisses, the first to find his voice box. “Fucking— Bloody hell. She—” His head whips Ezla’s way, and he gives up attempting to formulate a proper sentence, speedily striding over to her.
After gathering saliva and spitting on the bastard beneath me’s face, I jump up and follow him, seeing Alby’s trembling hand picking up the small remote that Tiger dropped before he straightens.
“Sh-should I just . . . I don’t know what one to press.
What if—what if I click the wrong button and it does something really bad? ”
After checking the Game Master’s pulse with a grimace, Scotty rises back up and heads over, eyes zeroing in on our girl the same as mine do as she lies far too fucking still. The fucking audacity of that monster . . .
Red crowds my vision, and I swing my head about to shake it off.
I want to kill him so. Fucking. Bad. But I refuse to not see my baby’s mismatched eyes ever again.
I refuse to take the risk that her sperm donor’s telling the truth and I’ll never be brutally floored by my vicious queen again, or have her notes of velvet and sin bless my ears, if I lose my head completely.
“Let me have a look.” Scotty holds out his hand, and Alby hands him the device. Clearly, Joseph must have memorised what each colour is, because all that’s on the black remote control is little coloured buttons in orderly rows.
“Do we really think he can remember all these? Wouldn’t he have a sheet or something somewhere?” Tiger whips his head around like said sheet is going to magically spawn in front of him.
“I don’t think he’s the type,” Scotty mutters, flipping the remote over to inspect the back.
“You think it could be like the doors? Maybe if we destroy the remote, it will—”
Cooper pauses at Scotty’s firm headshake. “I’m not risking that. No way.”
“Agreed.” I slit my eyes at the former.
He sighs. “Yeah. Fuck, yeah. Shitty suggestion.”
“S-so what do we do?” Alby’s lip trembles as he looks down at Ezla in the large tube. “Just . . . just guess?”
“Bad fucking idea. We have no idea what those buttons will do.” Cooper yanks at his hair, starting to pace. “We have no idea what’s been done to her already. What if one of these buttons releases some sort of gas or something and it warps her mind?”
Icy fingers of fear sink their claws into me, and I snatch the device from Scotty.
“Careful, Tate!”
His eyes have shot wide in alarm, and I shoot him a scathing glower. “This is my Havoc we’re talking about. Do you really think I’d be so careless?”
Exhaling heavily, he falls silent at that.
Inspecting the remote, which looks even smaller in my hand, I voice, “Wouldn’t it be the white or black one to open it? Aren’t on and off buttons and shit like that meant to stand out?”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Scotty says. “I just don’t know what would happen if we picked the wrong one. If one of them is to get her out, what would the other be . . . ?”
“He can’t— He wouldn’t have made it possible for her to be trapped in there forever, right?
I mean . . .” Alby trails off, because we don’t know that.
Joseph is insane, and although I’ve never seen an enclosure quite like this, they’re not unheard of.
I know they can keep people alive for a very long time, ensuring the person inside absorbs all the right nutrients, keeping them clean and healthy by adhering to every bodily need with Avri.
They’re rare in hospitals with the majority of treatments one hundred percent successful, but sometimes, if the energy alone isn’t enough to save them, if nurses and doctors can’t figure out the right commands fast enough to heal a patient, then they might just be able to keep them alive in one of these, taking that time that the individual is unconscious to figure out the right way to command their body back to vitality.
Scotty shakes his head again, at a loss, pain flashing clearly across his usually composed features as he rests his palms on the clear taalk and gazes down at our Bonded within.
“The black one?” Cooper suggests, clearly trying to keep things moving so he doesn’t go all Hulk-mode again, moving to my side to get a better look at the remote. “Joseph’s arrogant as fuck. I can’t imagine him associating white with anything good when it’s Neutral’s colour.”
“That’s not really helpful, though, is it?” I grunt. “He’s sadistic—our version of good is definitely not the same as his.”
“It might be in this case,” he counters.
“The one thing we can clearly count on now is that Joseph really doesn’t want Vengeance dead.
I know that doesn’t mean too much when he .
. . when he does what he does to her.” Jaw rigid, he stops for a moment to take a steadying breath before carrying on, “But would he really want to trap her in here forever? After he’s spent so long trying to get her?
I don’t think . . . I don’t think just looking at her could ever be enough for him.
” The sickened look on his face no doubt mirrors the one on mine.
Silence stretches out for a few beats before Scotty murmurs, “I think you might be right.” Never taking his eyes off Ezla, he remains hunched over the tube as he continues, “But that still doesn’t tell us what might happen if we press the wrong button.
I won’t . . . I can’t have anything happen to her.
She’s already fucking—” Cutting himself off, his eyes fall closed.
When they open back up, his voice firms. “The black one. Press the black one.”
“Are you sure?” Tiger asks worriedly, he and Alby moving to the other side of the tube and looking into it with matching agony written all over them.
He doesn’t respond for far too long. Finally he admits, “No. No, I’m not sure.
The colours could mean nothing. But what other choice do we have?
We have to get Ezla out of here. What if something’s happening to her right now?
Just because it doesn’t visibly seem like it, it doesn’t mean Joseph’s not left her in the process of being . . . changed.”
Cooper winces. “Shit, you’re right. Tate . . .” He hesitates. “Press the button.”
“What if it hurts her?” I grit out.
“Like Scotty just said, she might already be being hurt.”
Chest in pain from the force of my heartbeats, my fist clenches crushingly around the remote control.
“If—if it doesn’t open, we could press the other buttons straight away, right?
” Alby asks anxiously. “One of them must do something to help us . . . If something goes wrong, there must be a button to fix it . . . Maybe she won’t be .
. . stuck even if we press the wrong one?
” I know he’s grasping at straws, but I’m starting to think that’s the only option we have.
Biting down on his gloved thumb, Tiger nods haltingly. “Do it.”
I glance at Alby again, and he gives a hardly visible dip of his chin, sucking his trembling lip into his mouth as his glossed-over eyes flick back and forth between my hand and Havoc.
Straightening, I fortify myself, thumb shifting to hover over the little black button.
Stiffening my jaw, that thumb slams down.