Chapter 6 Not Dead #3
“I could not. I anticipate a group of maybe…twenty-five?”
Twenty-five. I committed that to memory.
“I’ll warn you though—if his daughter is taken, the general will order attacks.”
A bitter laugh bubbled to the surface. “He’s okay with her being screwed by you, but not okay with her being in the company of Defiants?”
Lucas shrugged. “I’m not sure why you’d expect him to be sane.”
Fair enough. Resting my elbows on the table, I hid my face in my hands. This is the world I live in.
“I have something for you,” he said.
Something for me? Was that some sort of innuendo?
He tossed me a plastic square I barely caught.
“A pager?” I asked.
He nodded toward it. “It still works.”
Right. But what was I supposed to do with it?
“Do you know how they work?” he asked.
“No.”
His gaze darted over me again, studying. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-four,” I snapped. “What’s with the judgy tone? How old are you?”
He rubbed his face like talking to me tried every strand of patience inside him. “It’s set to vibrate. If I need you, it’ll vibrate and a message will display telling you when to meet me.”
“What if I’m busy?”
“You’re never too busy for me.”
Rolling my eyes, I asked, “What if I need you?” I tried to imagine a situation in which I would need this man. No such scenario presented itself.
He stood. “Follow me.”
For one puzzling moment, I thought he might offer his hand to help me, but then he merely turned and left. I trailed him through the house until he reached the master bedroom. My eyes fell on the bed, and I froze.
Wait. He said he wasn’t interested.
Fear crashed through me in a tidal wave.
I knew… I had known this would happen. So why couldn’t I breathe?
He glanced back at me and followed my gaze to the bed. Heaving a sigh, he grabbed my elbow with enough force to jerk me forward and drag me through the closet door. “If I want to fuck you, I’ll make it obvious.”
I shot him a distrustful scowl. “How obvious?”
If he answered, I didn’t hear it. I was distracted by the wonders behind the door.
He’d converted a walk-in closet into a communications room.
Monitors sat on the shelves, screens displaying live feeds of various locations.
Radio devices and books littered the shelves, and every spare surface was covered in wires, circuit boards, and parts I didn’t even recognize.
My gaze darted everywhere as I entered. Communication was such a difficult dilemma for the Defiance. Many cell towers had been destroyed, and satellite phones were hard to find. Overhead telephone lines were razed at an increasing rate. The internet was nonexistent.
The NAO didn’t struggle like we did, so Lucas likely had no idea how magical this room seemed to me.
He directed my attention to a square lamp in one corner, glowing with a soft white light.
I approached it, and he pointed to a set of buttons at the base.
“It has a sister at my house. If you change the color on this one, it’ll change the color on mine. I’ve made a color key.”
He pointed to a piece of paper pinned to the wall above the lamp. Blue for Non-urgent message. Yellow for Urgent message. Green for I couldn’t stay. Purple for I’m waiting. Orange for On my way. And red for Emergency. I need you now.
“I suggest not using red unless you’re dying,” he said.
“Can you change the color from yours?”
“Yes.”
I exhaled a slow breath, bracing myself against a sudden wave of vertigo. This was real. We were doing this, weren’t we? I was his now, at his beck and call, for better or worse.
“Is that it for tonight?” I asked, my voice weak and breathy.
“No.” He disappeared into the bedroom.
The closet door swung to close me inside.
Fabric rustled outside the door. “Take off those clothes.”
What? Now?
My stomach filled with lead. Was this what he meant by obvious?
My shaking, hesitant hands moved to the waist of my leggings, pushing them down my legs. I left them in a pile on the carpeted floor. Same with my shirt. I paused at my underwear.
The closet door swung open again to allow his hand entry. He threw some black fabric onto the ground. “Wear that.”
The door clicked shut.
I stared at the clothes he’d given me. Men’s clothes. His clothes, judging by that weird incense smell.
Not the clothes he’d been wearing. No, these were…sweats?
I seized the pants and pulled them on, then grabbed the shirt.
It was a hoodie.
A fucking hoodie!
Engulfed by the infuriating sense of being managed, I tamped down the impulse to rage-scream. When I opened the door again, his eyes scanned my outfit. “Now that is a beautiful sight. I can barely tell you’re human under all that.”
Was that sarcasm?
“You seriously want me to wear this?”
“I want you to avoid attention. Hide yourself, Sophia. It’s the only way to survive.”
Was that what he was doing? Hiding? Surviving?
Either way, the grave glint in his eye twisted inside me. We both knew too well the horror that would become of me if I were captured. All at once, my head filled with the memory of Daniela’s screams.
Panic clawed up my throat. An iron band tightened around my chest.
No! I couldn’t have an attack here. Not now.
Breathe!
My ribs expanded, yet my body screamed at me for more oxygen. My chest hitched. I turned from him as my vision darkened. I tried to shove it away, but the memory stabbed at me with all the subtlety of a combat knife.
Her scream splits the air.
Alarmed, I try to stand, but my injured leg protests. Mahmoud darts to the window, using one finger to slide a curtain to the side. He swears under his breath.
“What is it?” I whisper, cursing the throb in my leg. We were raiding an abandoned neighborhood for supplies when the rotten stairs in this old home gave way beneath me. Daniela had been trying to get help. She was out there for me.
Because I am fucking clumsy.
“Hunters caught her a few houses down,” Mahmoud says.
“No, go help her!”
His tortured eyes meet mine. “I can’t.”
“What the fuck, Mahmoud? Go help her!”
“I can’t,” he insists.
“Why the hell not?” I lurch off the chair he found for me and hop to the window, ignoring the waves of agony in my leg.
“No, Sophia. Stop! You don’t need to see this—”
My heart rips clean from my body when my gaze lands on the horror outside.
Six of them.
One has Daniela bent over a car’s hood, his hand tangled in her hair, wrenching her head back while he—
“Oh my god.” My breakfast rises into my throat. It takes everything in me not to vomit all over the window.
Two other men hold her down, while the rest laugh from the sidelines. A knife handle juts from her side.
Rape as a weapon of war. The Hunters use it the same way one would use a gun or a grenade. Efficient and brutal.
My good leg gives out, and I hit the floor. The pain is a distant thing, like waves on some faraway beach.
Another of Daniela’s screams fills my ears.
I returned to myself gradually, and only when I realized I was sitting on the floor in his closet, my knees drawn to my chest, did I dare look at him.
He stood like a soldier, hands behind his back, regarding me with an inquisitive stare, not a trace of pity in his eyes. “Do you have panic attacks often?”
I cleared my throat, thankful he was so callous that he hadn’t tried to help—or worse, comfort. “Often enough.”
“Who’s Daniela?”
Annoyed that I’d let her name slip in my panic, I forced myself to stand even though my legs weren’t quite ready. “No one.”
He took a step closer, his gaze penetrating me in a way that made me think he could see far more than what I showed him. “It seems you have firsthand experience with what happens to women who don’t hide from Hunters.”
I gave him a faint nod, unable to meet his eyes.
“Then take my advice instead of fighting with me about it.”
I scowled, but he ignored me in favor of ushering me to the front door.
“I have something else for you,” he said, taking my hand.
A set of metal knuckles slid over my fingers.
Not the typical metal hoops. Each circle came to a sharp point.
The four shark-tooth daggers would puncture skin with very little pressure.
I’d seen the weapon wielded by other Hunters. I’d treated injuries dealt by it.
These were Hunter knuckles, and if anyone saw me with them, there would be questions.
“Are you right-handed?” he asked.
I nodded.
“If you ever need to use this, you go for the throat.” He held the blades parallel to his trachea, then dragged them toward his chest. God, that maneuver would kill a man in seconds.
“If the throat isn’t accessible, then the stomach.
And for godsake don’t let them get you on your back.
” He paused. “And don’t cut yourself with it. You seem…clumsy.”
For once, I couldn’t take offense. It was true.
He opened the door and pushed me into the gathering darkness. “Protect yourself. I need you alive.”
The door slammed in my face.