61. Honey
Honey
Six Months Later
“We’ve been hunting him down for you.” Phoenix tugs on my hand, hurrying me along through the hallways.
“Hunting who?” I take bigger steps to keep up with him while looking over my shoulder to Zephyr.
“The prophet dude. The one you and Lazarus hate so much.” Phoenix chatters excitedly, drawing back my attention. “It’s taken forever, but we found him.”
“Apostle Clement?” I drag my feet and come to a stop despite Phoenix’s pulling.
“Yeah, him.” Zephyr stops short behind me, resting his hands on my shoulders.
“We found him, a bunch of his lackeys, and a dozen or so omegas.” Phoenix squeezes my hand. “Now Lazarus, Mayhem, and Fox are trying to get answers from him about where the others are.”
“Others?” It dawns on me slowly. “You didn’t find Iona. She wasn’t with him.”
“No. She wasn’t.” Zephyr runs his hands down my biceps to my waist. He wraps his arms around me, and they settle above and below my chest, holding me back to him.
I like being anchored to him like this. But I dislike how his words make me feel. Sadness like grief eats at me. They’ve all told me it’s not my fault, but part of me wonders if I hadn’t been there, would Iona be safe?
Phoenix steps closer to me and picks up my other hand so he can hold them both. “No one blames you. But everyone wants you to be able to get revenge on this asshole. If you want it.”
“Revenge?” The thought has never crossed my mind.
Sure, I thought a few times that someone should lock him up and see if he likes it. But it wasn’t out of revenge so much as it was a lesson in empathy.
“Yeah.” Phoenix nods excitedly as he smiles. “Lazarus says it’s not godly. But I think it’s because you don’t have the right God. We’ve got several Gods that are all about pain and revenge and the dead. You can borrow ours.”
“I’m positive that’s not how this works.” Zephyr squeezes me but lets me go. “Honey can’t just borrow our Gods because hers doesn’t do revenge.”
“Sure she can.” Phoenix glares at him before softening his eyes on me. “If you don’t like what you see, we can go back home. But I thought it would be nice to give you closure. He can’t hurt you or anyone else again.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to argue that no one will ever hurt me again.
They can’t hurt me because the three of them, Phoenix, Zephyr, and Lazarus, would never let it happen.
But I don’t. I just sigh and let them lead me through the hallways.
We go through the main garage to what looks like a place where trucks back up and unload.
A crowd of people, wearing Night Wraith’s MC vests, has gathered around. They’re standing in the lower part where the trucks pull in, watching, but some of the shop stools have been pulled out and are up on the flat part where cargo gets unloaded.
Phoenix leads me to a stool, making sure I’m seated before sitting down next to me. Zephyr stands rather than sits.
I shouldn’t be so distracted by what’s going on around the outer edge of the room. But it’s hard to look at what is in the center.
Above a central drain, from a chain coming all the way down from the high ceilings, Apostle Clement is suspended. His toes barely touch the metal drain cover. He’s not wearing a shirt, and the pants he was wearing are tattered into shreds.
Lazarus is resting his hands on a stainless steel table. It supports his weight, and he watches Apostle Clement with laser focus.
“You’re going to die today.” Mayhem’s voice is clear, but he’s not speaking loudly.
“How painful it is or isn’t is up to you.
Fox has been denied a lot of killing and a lot of torture for quite a while, so he’s really ready to make it hurt.
I’ll keep him away from you if you start talking.
But just so you know I’m serious, I’m going to let him have a little bit of fun. ”
Fox is smiling. I’ve never seen him smile other than when he’s with Evangeline.
This smile is scary. It transforms his face, and his eyes are hungry.
He picks up a small knife from the table and walks over to Apostle Clement.
And I’d swear time slows down because the moment seems to stretch.
Fox scrapes the knife down Apostle Clement’s side, and blood starts running down from the laceration.
I gasp just as Apostle Clement screams.
Lazarus jogs over to us, jumping up onto the raised part where we are. “What did you bring her here for? She shouldn’t see this.”
“She deserves to know he can’t hurt her again.” Phoenix defends their decision to bring me here.
“There are different ways to do that,” Lazarus growls as he steps between me and my view of Apostle Clement. He crouches down, cupping my jaw, and our gazes meet. “This isn’t the place for you.”
“I want to be here. I want to know what he did to the others.” I didn’t even realize that’s what I wanted. It’s scary watching Fox hurt Apostle Clement, but not so scary that I don’t think it’s important to bear witness.
Lazarus shakes his head. “I can tell you everything after. You don’t need to watch this. It will haunt you.”
“Maybe I need to be haunted by it to wash away some of the other memories. Maybe knowing he hurts fixes the parts of me that hurt.” I try to explain feelings as they come to me. But it is overwhelming, and I second-guess myself.
Lips set into a firm line, Lazarus draws a deep breath. Another scream comes from Apostle Clement. I try to look past Lazarus, but he’s a solid wall blocking me. “I don’t like this for you.”
“If it’s too much, we’ll take her back.” Zephyr stands up for me. “But let her try and see first. She deserves this.”
Lazarus’s eyes flick up to Zephyr. They have some sort of silent conversation that I can only see Lazarus’s half of in small head shakes and narrowing eyes.
Finally, Lazarus concedes. “Fine. But the second this is overwhelming, you feel sick, or you’re really afraid, you need to leave. I don’t want you here and hurting.”
“Stop,” Apostle Clement cries out. “I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Lazarus’s head jerks to the left like he’s surprised. But he refocuses on me. “Promise me.”
“I promise.” I nod and pick up one of Lazarus’s hands in mine. “I mean it.”
With a kiss to my forehead, Lazarus stands and then hops down from the raised part to the floor where Apostle Clement is.
“Where did he take the omega?” Mayhem’s voice is cold. It’s expressionless like his face.
“I don’t know. St. Pierre wanted her for himself.” Apostle Clement moans. His feet scramble for purchase against the drain. But it’s slick with blood.
“Do you know why he wants her?” Mayhem growls.
“He paid us good money to find her. Said she was special.” Apostle Clement spits up blood.
I watch, eyes squinty, as it sprays out of his mouth. Ew.
“I couldn’t understand it. She was a whore for that other motorcycle club, Hollow Coffins or whatever.
They had been keeping her locked up,” Apostle Clement sneers.
His voice is gravelly, and he adjusts in his chains.
“But not all alphas want godly women, do they, Asa? I bet you liked we kept Honey chaste for you. Now you and your deviants can tarnish her.”
“Keep her name out of your mouth,” Lazarus growls. It’s dark and dangerous. The threat hangs in the air.
Everyone knows I’m their omega. I wear the little vest they’ve given me. It’s my very own. My name and Pack Bellamy. I have somewhere to belong with people who love me. But Apostle Clement makes it sound like they don’t love me.
He’s wrong.
Zephyr squeezes my shoulders, and Phoenix picks up my hand and holds it.
I’m more loved than Apostle Clement can even comprehend.
Fox approaches Apostle Clement with a weird-shaped knife. I close my eyes before I can see what he does with it. But the screams and profanity from Apostle Clement are all I need to know that it hurts bad.
“Focus. You worthless sack of shit.” I open my eyes as Mayhem snaps his fingers in Apostle Clement’s face. “What do you know about St. Pierre? Is he trafficking other omegas?”
Apostle Clement has sagged in his chains again. He almost sounds like he’s crying. “When we had talked about the initiative, he said he could help us ensure there would be enough omegas. It was him who helped us source them. That’s when he told us that he wanted the one from Hollow Coffins.”
“We’ll just have to hunt down every last Hollow Coffin.” Lazarus looks at Mayhem, who nods in agreement.
“You’ve already slaughtered most of them, haven’t you?” Apostle Clement groans. “We barely got the omegas from them, and one of your little gangs was moving in on them.”
“The fucking warehouse,” Phoenix growls. “I bet it was these fuckers who left the one omega to die, not the Hollow Coffins like we thought all along.”
“We were so close,” Zephyr murmurs back.
They both give me three little squeezes like they always do. Love flows into the bond between us. Even though they’re both very angry as a presence in the bond, love is there under it all. It’s the foundation of our relationship. I feel it from Lazarus too.
“Where would St. Pierre go? Where would he take the omega?” Mayhem is addressing Apostle Clement. But he’s looking at Fox.
“How am I supposed to know?” Apostle Clement coughs. “He dropped me off in the middle of nowhere and took off again. I tried to warn him.”
“Warn him what?” Mayhem pushes Apostle Clement’s chest, and he swings a little bit, his feet dancing across the floor as he tries to not hang by his arms anymore.
“That the whore was defective. Hollow Coffins said they couldn’t get her into estrus. Said she was only valuable if she could be bred.”
Mayhem and Fox share a look.
I look up at Zephyr. “What’s wrong?”
Zephyr shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
Pulling up an image on his phone, Mayhem asks, “Is this the omega?”
“Yeah. That’s the one. The trouble-making harlot.” Apostle Clement tips his head back a little bit.
I can’t see his face, but I bet it’s pained.
“Salem,” Mayhem calls. “You want your pound of flesh?”
Salem, a beta I’ve gotten to know well, steps forward. He picks up a big metal stick off the steel table. “Gladly.”
I know, from helping him get better, that he was injured fighting Apostle Clement. His leg was hurt, and our pack helped him do things like laundry and housekeeping while he mended.
Zephyr hums quietly just for me to hear. “I’m not sure you want to see this.”
“Salem should get to hurt him too.” I use the logic of revenge they used earlier.
While I can’t say I feel any better seeing Apostle Clement hanging like this, it doesn’t mean it isn’t cathartic to everyone else.
Salem takes the metal rod and winds up like he’s playing stick ball before slamming it against Clement’s leg. Screams echo in the bay area, and Salem does it three more times, working his way down Apostle Clement’s leg.
When he’s done swinging, Salem is panting. He nods to Mayhem before walking away.
I cringe, my leg hurting just watching.
Apostle Clement starts shaking in his binds, his whole body flailing.
He is quickly lowered to the floor, and Fox rolls him onto his side, but after a few seconds, the shaking stops.
No one says anything, but it’s not needed. We all know he’s dead.
“Come on.” Phoenix tugs on my hand, and the two of them lead me out of the bay area. “Do you feel good knowing he can’t hurt you?”
“I knew he couldn’t hurt me before.” I nuzzle against his arm and then look at Zephyr. “Neither of you would ever let anyone hurt me.”
“That’s the gods’ honest truth.” Phoenix kisses the top of my head.
Lazarus catches up to us before we even make it to the hallway that leads to the staircase to our apartment.
“And I’m never alone either.” I look up at him with warmth swelling in my heart.
The feeling is just more intense than it normally is. They’re all entwined within me. Even if we’re apart. I’m never alone.