Chapter 26
“You promised me!” Asha’s voice was a howl of misery.
She’d awoken hours later in Leo’s clinic and sought out Cade, only to find him in Angel’s Wing…
but it didn’t look much like the rooms Angel had lived in anymore.
The place had been trashed. The art had been torn from the walls and destroyed, anything remotely fragile shattered on the floor, and the bed was ripped to shreds.
He did this, Asha realized when she walked in, wide-eyed. He was that angry.
One look at Cade’s face was enough to tell her why. What he’d done.
“You promised you’d end this. That’s what the whole stupid assassination plot was for!”
Cade was unnaturally quiet, his eyes sharp and focused on her.
“I know,” he said. He seemed outwardly calm, but there was a storm in his eyes. “But the game has changed. There are new players we didn’t bank on. The goal is the same, though: survival. And right now, to survive, this is the price we pay.”
“The price we pay?” she shot back furiously. “You mean the price that those young girls pay, for the rest of whatever’s left of their lives. Meanwhile, we live here, in relative comfort at their expense.”
He folded his arms. “That was always our position, long before now. You and I lived inside safe, fortified compounds with food and water and electricity, while the Wastelanders lived in poverty and ruin. This is no different, and this would be happening to those girls whether we were involved or not.”
“That’s a fucking copout and you know it,” Asha snarled, and to her horror, hot, desperate tears formed at the corners of her eyes.
How could he not understand what this meant to her?
“Just because something evil is going to happen, it doesn’t mean we actively participate in it.
It doesn’t mean we help it along, for God’s sake. What the fuck is wrong with you?”
That, she noted with satisfaction, seemed to pierce the facade of calm he’d been maintaining. A crease appeared between his heavy brows.
“What’s wrong with me?” Cade replied, with a shade of contempt she’d never heard from him before. “I’m sorry I’m not a stupid idealist pretending that there’s a choice other than the one in front of me. I’m sorry I’m not willing to sacrifice you and me, and everyone else here, for a bunch of—”
“Of what?” Asha cut in sharply. “A bunch of whores? Slaves? I was one of those whores. Any one of those women could’ve been me.”
His frown deepened. “You’re not one of them, Asha.”
She choked on something between a laugh and a sob.
“Not like the other girls, Cade?” she croaked. “Really? That’s funny, because I seem to remember being sold at a slave market, and the only thing that kept me from being sold off to people like that was you. Had you not been there—or had you decided I wasn’t worth saving—”
“You are worth saving,” Cade interjected furiously. “That’s why I’m doing this. Why I have to do this. Why can’t you wrap your head around that?”
Asha recoiled as though he’d struck her.
“Don’t you dare,” she said, low and furious, “don’t you fucking dare say that you’re doing this for me. This is the opposite of everything I ever wanted, Cade!”
“What the fuck other choice do I have?” he growled.
“They almost killed you, Asha! What was I supposed to do, say thanks, but no thanks and let you fucking die? You had a fucking seizure and you expect me to negotiate with these people, who’d kill my woman right in front of me?
They have weapons that you can’t imagine, but I can.
We don’t stand a chance if they decide to attack. ”
He threw another clay dish at the wall, shattering it into a million pieces.
“I’m not committing suicide on behalf of all of us just so I can say I was better than them in the end,” Cade bellowed. “That doesn’t fucking matter if we’re dead!”
Asha paused, her stomach churning painfully. She swallowed back a wave of nausea.
“We could leave,” she said quietly. “Together.”
“That’s your solution?” His disgust was palpable. “Run away? To where, exactly? Have you ever tried to survive in the wilderness alone? Oh wait, the last time you did, you ended up abandoning your friend to be eaten by cannibals and then captured.”
His words twisted an invisible knife in her gut. He was using her past, her guilt, against her. Every bit of trust she’d so painstakingly built with him was crumbling faster than she’d ever thought possible.
“You know I’m fucking right. Leaving is suicide, and I’ve worked too hard for too long to throw our lives away on something so monumentally stupid.”
Asha shook her head, over and over. “I can’t do this. I can’t be part of this.”
“The price of freedom is death, darling, and it’s us or them. That’s what it always comes down to.”
She laughed bitterly. “You know, soldier, I would’ve thought you’d understand that some things are worth dying for. I guess that was too much to hope for from a man who’d willingly associate with someone like Angel.”
“Don’t you dare compare me to that monster,” he shouted, smashing another cup against the wall.
“I’ve protected you as best I could, every step of the way.
I’ve been patient and understanding with your many fucking issues.
I’ve been better to you than I had any obligation to be, and this is how you fucking repay me? ”
Every word hit her like a physical blow.
“I’m not a good man, darling,” Cade continued. “You knew that from the start, and you fell in love with me. I’m never gonna sacrifice us on the altar of goodness. I refuse.”
Fell in love. Because he seemed to always read her mind, he knew she loved him. And he was telling her, in no uncertain terms, that it didn’t matter, didn’t change his answer to their problem. If anything, he was weaponizing that love against her by implying she loved him for his darkness.
And, Asha had to admit, she did. But he was so much more than that, and she loved him more for being the man who’d held her, comforted her, made her feel safe and given her agency in a relationship that’d been stacked against her from the start.
“I’m not staying in this,” she said in a low voice, with a shake of her head. “So, I guess you’ll be happy to know that I don’t intend to be an obligation to you anymore.”
She turned to leave the room. She had no idea where she was going or what she would do when she got there. All she knew was that she needed to get away from the horrific betrayal that seared everything scarred and vulnerable inside her.
“We’re not done, Asha,” Cade commanded, in the same tone he gave military orders in. “Get back here.”
She ignored him, didn’t even look back. If she did, she thought she might be sick.
His footsteps followed her. He caught her wrist and spun her to face him again, fury etched into his features. His grip was just shy of painful, and the fire in his eyes was frightening.
“Don’t fucking walk away from me,” he gritted out, right in her face, his huge body looming over her. He looked like he could kill her. His eyes were glazed in a way she’d never seen before: unseeing except for blind rage.
It was the first time she’d ever been truly afraid of him.
“Let me—”
“Hear me now,” Cade spat out. “There is nowhere on fucking earth you could go that I would not find you. I won’t let you kill yourself and take away the one good thing I’ve ever had. I. Will. Not. Allow. It.”
She struggled against his hold, but he tightened his grip on her wrist and crowded her against the wall. Terror struck her heart. Every breath between them felt like a small earthquake.
“You’re made for me, Asha. Your darkness matches mine, and you know it.”
She found her voice again. “Let me go, Cade. I mean it.”
He didn’t move, and that was when her own anger resurfaced, and her need to protect herself became greater than her desire to placate him.
“How fitting,” Asha snarled back in his face. “Like father, like son.”
And in perfect imitation of the moment he’d most admired her for, she spat in his face. The saliva hit his cheek and slid down, and for a second, she thought he might snap and commit physical violence.
But the second passed, and the fury went out of Cade’s face like a candle being abruptly blown out.
He blinked a couple times, as though waking from a strange dream, and stared at her like he’d never seen her before.
Then he prickled with sudden awareness, and horror broke over his features like a wave.
He dropped her wrist as though it had burned him and wiped his cheek, backing away from her immediately.
“I’m sorry,” he croaked, staring at his wet hand. “Fuck, I—”
Asha just looked at him with contempt, her rage and despair dwarfing her.
“Thanks for proving my point,” she spat. “I’m one of those girls, Cade. And you are definitely one of those fucking men. Enjoy whatever that brings you, but you’ll do it without me.”
She turned on her heel and left him there, along with the last shreds of her humanity and any hope for her future.
Nihilism descended like a dark curtain over everything as Asha threw things into her backpack.
She didn’t know where she was going. All she knew was that she couldn’t stay here.
The only person she’d ever trusted in her whole life lived here, and she could no longer stomach looking at his face and knowing what she’d lost.
In a way, Cade’s betrayal was nothing. He was simply fulfilling the expectations she usually had of everyone.
But for one precious moment in her life, she’d thought he would be better.
He listened to her; he cared about what she had to say.
He cared about her, and he didn’t mind that she didn’t really know how to be affectionate, or how to be in a real relationship.
He liked her for the things that other people saw as flaws.
Now, she had nothing left—no hope for the future, no reason to keep going. She’d never be brave enough to put a gun in her mouth, but wandering into the wilderness alone seemed like it’d do the job anyway. Either she’d find somewhere else to be, or she’d die out there.
It was remarkable how little she cared, given all she’d done to survive.
She finished packing what little provisions she had, then holstered her sidearm at her hip.
She took Cade’s jacket, figuring that the least he could do would be to give it to her.
His dog tags jingled together as she put it on, and she fingered them through her shirt.
She considered leaving them behind, but in the end, she couldn’t do it.
Instead, she clasped them tighter to her, like a talisman of strength.
It was dark now, and Cade hadn’t returned to the house, so he was likely still at the party. Silently, Asha made her way to the Nest’s gate, where two bored guards waved her off without even asking any questions.
I guess when you’re the chief pimp’s whore, you can do what you want.
And just like that, she was gone.