Chapter 28 Kissing Death #2
Miller hopped off the bed. I tried not to weep as he left the room, but the tears fell anyway.
When he returned many minutes later, he was clean and dressed in the familiar uniform of a Blood Colonel, complete with the scarlet patch on his shoulder.
He fetched the bloody knife and cut my ankles free.
My wrist cuffs were unlocked, and I was finally loose.
“Stand up.”
I obeyed, wobbling next to the bed with his crimson blade at my throat.
“Put those on.” He pointed to a couple of clothing items.
Following me with the knife, Miller motioned me to hurry. Hot drips of blood rolled down my back and legs as I lifted the first item—the underwear I’d been wearing when he took me. Disgusted he still had them, I slid them onto my legs with a gag.
I shimmied the second piece of clothing—a slinky red slip—over my head. The silk hugged every curve, the back dipping low to display the wound on my spine.
After I dressed, he tied my wrists with rope, then bound my ankles so I could walk, but not run. “Now you look like what you are. All you need is a little correction.”
I met his eyes with all the hatred coursing through my body, but he only smiled. I gathered he was taking me somewhere, but couldn’t summon the energy to dread whatever came next.
He pointed at the door. “Walk.”
I hesitated, and he drove his knuckles into my bleeding back, forcing me forward. Crying and tripping, I tried and failed to detach from the fiery torture on my spine.
Bloody footprints followed me through the house to the garage.
He popped the trunk of his car and forced me into it.
I was locked in darkness as we took a drive, every jostle a hot poker against my skin.
When the car stopped, the trunk unlatched, and fresh sunlight in a clear winter sky startled my senses.
He grabbed me by my bound wrists and jerked me upright, banging my shins hard into the metal of the car.
Once I was standing, I swayed, my head swooping with hunger and blood loss.
We stood in a parking lot dotted with cars, and he marched me toward a building of red brick. The tiny rocks on the pavement stabbed into my feet. The cold bit into my bare skin. A few other men headed toward the main doors.
Inside, several glanced at us, chatting in small groups before a day of work. Some wore black Hunter fatigues; others dressier uniforms. They stood at attention as we passed, saluting Miller.
They disregarded me.
We descended to a colder, windowless level, and an armed soldier stood guard at a large metal door. He opened it for us, greeting Miller with a salute, and we passed through it.
This wasn’t an office building, I realized. It was a jail. Or at least it used to be. The Hunters had commandeered it for their own purposes.
The cell was filled with people, about fifty of them. Another guard unlocked the sliding bars and Miller shoved me inside.
“Was fun gettin’ to know you, sugar.” He gave me a calm smile while I cursed his existence. The bars clanked closed and locked. He left, and the guard returned to his watch, ignoring us.
I stared at the people around me, all bound.
“What’s going on?” I whispered to a woman slumped nearby.
“Registration,” she said without looking at me.
In a flash, sweat bloomed under my arms. Butterflies swirled to life in my stomach, kicking up a mixture of hope and dread. My body went slack, and I sat hard on the floor.
Registration.
Lucas was here.
What would he do? What would I do?
He might snap. He might give himself away. We might both die today.
And what if it wasn’t him? What if another colonel registered me?
I ignored everyone around me as the minutes stretched, imagining the horrors that awaited me. Panic rose from the very depths of my soul as I envisioned myself being marched with a line of prisoners before that bloodstained wall in Unity Square.
Just like Mahmoud.
When the camera panned over the condemned that day, and he stood at the end of the line, my heart stopped. I thought he’d died on our last mission, but no.
He’d been captured.
His head was high, his gaze straight ahead.
His ankles and wrists were tied like the rest of the prisoners.
His mouth moved, just barely, and tears had filled my eyes when I realized he was praying.
Before I’d accepted his fate, a Blood Colonel I hardly recognized stepped forward and read the executive order like always.
He left the podium. He accepted the weapon. He aimed the gun.
Bullets soared through the air, finding purchase in bodies that had been fully functional only seconds before, bodies that were born to grow and heal and flourish.
And then Mahmoud was hit, and he crumpled like the rest, wasted.
Grief and fear had risen like a tide, but next to them burned a budding flame of fury. It blazed brightly now, right beside my anguish. With my freedom gone, the NAO had taken everything from me, and the harrowing need for vengeance wrenched hard inside. I wanted them dismantled. Demolished. Dead.
I wanted to watch them suffer.
But instead, there I was, locked in their prison, suffering for them. I’d continue to lose, and they’d continue to win until I had nothing left, not even my life.
After a long time—long enough that the bleeding finally slowed—the large metal door opened, and several knife-wielding Hunters filtered in.
One of them shouted orders for us to arrange ourselves in a line.
I forced myself off the ground, little prints and puddles of red marking my position.
Blood had soaked through my dress and the ends of my hair, dyeing my legs, caking in the creases of my ankles.
It was disgusting, but more than that, it was horrific, and Lucas had never taken the sight of my spilled blood well.
The bars slid open, and we marched through the bleak facility into another large, windowless room. A single desk stood at one end, but it was otherwise empty. The men spread us into rows, then took their positions at the room’s periphery. Scarlet stained the ground at my bare feet.
I almost cried when Luke’s familiar voice echoed through the room. He sat at the desk, his gaze on the papers strewn across it.
“Welcome. In accordance with the Unity Protection Directive, you are hereby informed that your case has been reviewed, and your evaluation and sentencing today will be deemed lawful and final.” He took a sip from his mug and continued with his memorized speech in a droning voice.
“No appeals will be made. You have been granted the rights afforded to you under the National Stability Act. You will now receive your sentence, and any resistance will be interpreted as an admission of guilt and met with immediate force.”
A beat of silence passed. Not a single soul breathed.
Lucas set his mug down. “Take the men to the Stability bloc.”
A round of gasps and sniffles followed.
“None for execution?” a soldier asked.
“Not today.” Lucas stood from his seat behind the desk, eyes still scanning the paper in his hand. As he did, another door opened, and Jack Miller walked in, moving to stand at attention behind Lucas’s desk.
He winked at me.
My heart pounded, and shivers wracked my body. The male prisoners shuffled from the room, leaving twenty women. When Lucas finally lifted his eyes, he assessed the first row of prisoners.
He looked both terrible and terrifying. Like he hadn’t slept or eaten in days. Like he didn’t care one way or another what happened to the people in this room.
Inhuman. That was how he looked.
My empty stomach cramped, and my gaze fell to the floor, unable to watch.
His slow footsteps reverberated across the tiles, then paused. An awkward stretch of silence passed.
“Why is that one standing in blood?” he asked.
“That would be my doing,” Miller said, pride threading his voice.
“Ah. You brought her? Is that why you’re here today, Jackie?” Lucas asked, entirely calm. “Want to see what your prize fetches at auction?”
Miller grinned. “Curious where she ends up, that’s all. I have a preference.”
My eyes squeezed shut. Sickened by the images of what might happen to me, I wanted to scream. Would Lucas blow his cover? Get himself killed? Get us both killed?
The searing throb in my back ratcheted up as his footsteps drew near. When he stopped in front of me, the room stilled.
His voice caressed my skin. “Look at me, sweetheart.”
I lifted my head, and tears fell out of my control. His face was as cold as I’d expected, but a whirlwind came to life in his eyes as soon as my gaze met his. Disbelief and dread and shock warred within the blue-green.
He exhaled a slow breath. “There you are.”
The words were so innocuous, but they gouged deep crevices into my heart and left them bleeding.
He’d been looking for me.
I knew he’d been looking for me.
“She’s pretty,” Lucas said to the room.
Miller’s mouth stretched into a smile. “She’s prettier without her clothes on. Had a bit of fun with her before I brought her in.”
Lucas looked down at the blood pooling at my feet. “Was it the sort of fun she’s going to live through, or should I dispose of her?”
“Eh. She’s still good for a ride or two if you want a taste.”
Chuckles erupted among the soldiers at the room’s periphery.
“Mmm.” Lucas’s eyes returned to mine. “Sloppy seconds. How tempting.”
Miller barked a laugh. “She’s still tighter than a drum and wetter than water.”
A flare lit behind Luke’s eyes, the rapid calculations behind them making the aquamarine gleam. “How long you had her, Miller?”
“Few days.”
The fire in Lucas burned, lighting him like neon. Red scorched over the bridge of his nose. A plan was forming in his head, one I probably wouldn’t like.
“Why is she bleeding?” Lucas asked.
“Got a little carried away.” Miller answered. “Pissed about the raid last night. It’s a pretty piece of art, though. Take a look.”
Contempt blackened my gaze when I glared at him, and he grinned.