41. Uncontrollable New Mask
41
UNCONTROLLABLE NEW MASK
RIOT
Pulling on the energy from the parade, the Moros Cemetery is thrumming with adrenaline and unity. The Death for Life Cult mingles with The Misfits, and the business owners celebrate with low-level gangs. Everyone is out for a good time—a deadly good time. Because this is Moros’ version of court, and Yates is the one on trial. The locals play judge and jury, and Lock will play executioner. The Moros PD sit back, admire the show, and feel no guilt about not stepping in.
To blend in with the locals, we’re all here as ourselves. All except Ransom, who is clad in black and wearing his haunting red Vile House mask, standing next to Lock to show allyship. And since we’re being all ‘just in case’ and answering yes to tough questions, I’ve got my arms around Soren’s neck to stake my claim on him publicly. I revel in the whispers about us being together when our brothers are together because I’m sick-minded and can get on board with the family ties taboo aspect of it.
“Get off,” Soren snips at me, trying to remove my arms. “It’s like you’re pissing all over me when we both know I’m the alpha.”
“Do we both know that?” I ask, pulling his back to my chest. “Because from where I’m sitting, you’re the bitch in heat and I’m the top dog in this dynamic.”
He snaps his teeth together, half-ass attempting to shrug me off again. “You’re just jealous I can top from the bottom. If the roles were reversed, you’d be submissive as fuck.”
Maybe. Not sure we’ll ever find out. Submission is hard for me, but he’s never asked and I’m too selfish to offer. “You want that, sweetheart?”
Soren grabs my arm and switches our positions. Behind me, his lips press to the phrase he carved into my nape, and his voice vibrates against my skin. “Do you?” He reaches down, cupping my cock. I groan, rocking into it. “Because, top or bottom, I’m the one fucking you, baby.”
I smile, looking at the cemetery but feeling only Soren. “You know, Willow Olenna told me something else the night we hunted Yates.”
“What’s that?” His lips dip to the side of my neck, and his cock firms up behind my ass, grinding forward.
“That you and Menace tag-teamed Richelle Ulrich at a Misfits party a few years ago.”
He keeps humping me, rubbing my cock, and nipping at my neck. “So?”
“A party I was at.”
He stiffens, pulling his mouth away from my neck. “So? What of it?”
Oh, but he knows. His rapid heartbeat—that I can feel in my chest again—tells me he knows exactly what I’m going to call him out on. Because that party was around the same time our competitive games started, and I was on Soren’s mind one hundred percent of the time. “You fucked her while her and Menace spouted off fantasies, didn’t you?”
He shoves me, but I spin, grabbing him by the hair. His eyes flare bright blue, and his cheek muscles tense.
“Fantasies about me. While you watched me at the party and got off on it from the balcony above. You came because of me.”
He shakes his head, denying it. “She’s wrong.”
“She’s never wrong.” I smile wide. “Should I ask Menace?” I look over his shoulder. “Mason!” I shout since he’s unmasked.
Soren grabs my jaw. “Don’t.”
“Embarrassed, sweetheart? It’s okay if you had a best friend’s brother thing going on.”
He squeezes my jaw, making my newly healed teeth ache. “Killian.”
“Shit, you two are explosive,” Menace says as he walks up, draping his arms around both of our shoulders. “Can I get in on this?”
“No,” we both snarl.
“But you can tell me about that night you two fucked Richelle?—”
“Menace, shut your fucking mouth,” Soren warns him before I can get the full demand out.
I laugh, but Menace laughs harder. Soren pushes us both away, cheeks flaming. “Goddamn, that night was hot. You were the inspo,” Menace says to me with a sexy wink. “I got off to you, bud. Scouts honour.”
“Menace, fuck off.” Soren glares at him, seething quietly enough that no one overhears. “You might have, but I didn’t.”
“Like fuck, Sauder. You were so into it you couldn’t look away from him.” Menace snorts. “Guess you got what you dreamed about, yeah?”
I lick my lips and watch my man contend the urge to either fight Menace, fight me, or disappear into the crowd like the ghost he is. He squares off with me, making the right choice.
“So fucking what? It was a fantasy about ruining you. Guess dreams really do come true.”
If he thinks I’m ruined, he’s more delusional than I thought. But that’s okay because Soren is a narcissist, and narcissists love lying to themselves. “Guess so,” I agree with a chuckle. “You’re welcome.”
Soren scoffs and Menace laughs right as the crowd starts shouting their votes for Yates’ punishment.
Kill him!
Toss him in the asylum!
Make him your bitch, Lockan!
Ransom and Lock listen to the locals, letting them make this call. They wait for everyone to finish shouting, so we turn to pay attention. If Yates is gonna die right here and now, I’d like to watch. And jerk Soren off while he dies.
Yates is a mess. Half-eaten by crows, only partially alive, and barely recognizable. He’s tethered to the lamp post near one of the biggest mausoleums, but he doesn’t look scared. That pisses me off.
“What’s wrong with him?” Soren asks.
“Too dead to feel fear anymore,” Menace says.
“Or… up to something.” I study him. His eyes are open, and I recognize chaos when I see it. He’s about to do something, cause a riot, set the town on edge, but I don’t know how. I grab Soren’s wrist… just in case. Yates isn’t an intelligent man, but something smart is rolling inside his head right now.
As everyone shouts, his face breaks into a clandestine grin, and my skin prickles with unease. I pull Soren closer, latching onto his wrist to steady myself. Yates keeps laughing, louder and louder as the townsfolk quiet, startled by his sinister hysterics. He laughs so loudly that the cemetery grows hushed while the crows and ravens stop their flapping. The fog settles into something thick and ominous, filtering Yates’ laugh and warping it into an omen of something to come.
Lock smacks him across the face, blood flying to the stone platform. “Something to say, old man? Get on with it.” He pulls two short daggers from his belt.
“Moros!” Yates shouts.
Everyone boos, throwing shit at him and calling him a traitor. Menace closes in on my other side, and Monster and Kyd weave through the crowd to join us. Kyd’s unmasked, not typically allowed out in public without his mask, but he’s blending in enough as Monster’s friend. His smile is gone tonight, no joy emanating from him at all.
“You think I don’t know you, Moros!” Yates shouts, shushing the crowd. “Kill me if you want, but I know.”
“Know what?” Agatha of Death For Life shouts. “The fuck do you know about anything, you bastard?”
Yates' smile splits his bloody lips. “I know every traitor. Every Reaper Corp plant. Every person in this town who is your enemy. Every spy! You can’t trust anyone!”
Whispers and chatter break out through the crowd as family members look at one another skeptically and friends take steps back. Soren bristles, but he masks it, slipping into a silent form of energy that can disappear into the shadows to tame this beast of a crowd if he needs to. Tonight, I don’t want to let him go.
“You’re the traitor!” Lock shouts at him. “You’re the enemy.”
“I am,” Yates agrees. “But so are they.” He nods into the crowd, and every person believes he’s nodding at someone different. A different family, group, cult, or gang. They see what they want to see, buying into Yates’ bullshit. I sense it in my bones: mass hysteria is about to break out.
“Soren,” I warn him, my voice quiet but deadly. “We’re unmasked.”
His fingers link with mine. “I know.”
“Ransom isn’t. He can call us in for backup.” Menace looks at the crowd, gauging what’s about to happen.
“You can’t just disappear or people will notice,” Kyd says. “I can, but you can’t.”
Because him and Monster aren’t that well known around town, but the rest of us are. I scan the crowd, seeing Krypt, Remi, Seven, and Facts closer to the platform where Yates is. Glitch is by himself, off to one side with his parents, moving himself in front of them in a way they won’t notice. We’re all on edge, unsure which way this thing is going to crack.
“He’s a liar!” Seven shouts, trying to calm the crowd. “He brought Reaper Corp into Moros.”
“So he really does know who they all are!” someone else shouts. “Let him talk before you kill him. Pull names from his traitor lips!”
“Think about it,” Yates says, quieting everyone again. “Think of the people who have played roles and no longer keep them.”
“Fuck,” Menace seethes, bouncing on the balls of his feet. “He’s getting to them.”
“There are traitors in this crowd!” Yates shouts right before Lock punches him in the face and knocks him out.
“Don’t let him poison your minds!” Lock yells.
But the people are already spooked. An incoming war, one attack and a bombing, the threat of retaliation from what I did to Reaper City, and the downfall of an established gang all have everyone on edge.
“Like Soren Sauder!” a guy in the crowd shouts, making my fingers grip Soren’s harder. “He was in The Misfits, and as soon as Yates got overthrown, he disappeared! He’s not even in the gang anymore!”
“He’s a traitor!”
“He’s working for Reaper Corp.”
“You’re covering for Sauder!” someone else shouts at Lock. “That’s why you knocked Yates out.” The crowd chants agreement, and Lock can’t muzzle them this time.
My vision spots, black invading the edges of everything I see. Every mask I’ve ever worn flits over my personality, passing by because I don’t fucking need them. I create a new mask, one I’m building right here, right now. It’s a protective, lethal mask that paints me as a ruthless killer with no mercy. There’s no charm, no manipulation, no understanding, and definitely no empathy. It isn’t subtle or vague in tone, and as I don it, I feel it take hold of my body—my soul. I become the man who defends and protects Soren. At any and all costs. There isn’t a price I won’t pay.
As all eyes turn towards us, I hear fucking Fabrizio roar in the distance. Kyd’s lion startles the town, but my roar of absolute rage startles them more. Their eyes snap back to me, the threat they’ve now triggered and the consequence of their actions. My fists tighten, Soren’s fingers bending in mine.
“He’s not even in The Misfits anymore!” a guy I went to high school with snarls, coming towards us. “Sauder is a spy!”
“Fucking say that again,” I snarl at him, nothing human left in me.
“Killian,” Soren says, voice trembling with a mix of rage and fear. His shame breaks me most.
“Sauder sold us out!”
My new facade settles into place, wrapping me in a fury born of protectiveness. When that asshole opens his mouth to spew more accusations, I slam my fist through it and make him choke on his teeth. My knuckles swell, bleeding down my fingers, but my fist is already flying at the next guy coming for Soren. His eye socket shatters alongside my knuckles, but the pain only fuels me to dip deeper into my spiral.
“Killian!” Soren shouts from behind.
I can’t place the tone of his voice, and when I turn back to check on him, I get hit in the side of the head with a tree branch. My world tilts, and all I see is Soren reaching for me. He knocks someone out, catching me before I tumble all the way to the grass.
“Fuck, we gotta get outta here.” He hauls me upright, holding me steady.
I shake the disorientation away, flexing my fingers to keep them from stiffening. “Fuck that. We need to kill every one of these cunts for turning on you.” I spin, shoving a chick away from approaching. Her ass hits the grass, and I step over her, joining Menace, Kyd, and Monster in a fight.
I keep Soren at my back, sinking deeper and deeper into my new persona the more shit I hear about him. How fucking dare they turn on him? He saved this goddamn town from Reaper Corp the night they attacked Misfit Hall, and he saved them again when we went to their city down south.
“Why isn’t he in the gang anymore then?” Sadie, Cain’s girlfriend screams, a blade clutched in her hand.
“Watch your mouth, woman,” Menace snarls at her. “Or I’ll rip your jaw open and?—”
Monster touches Menace’s shoulder, shutting him up.
“Get him!”
A surge of hysterical idiots head our way. They’re our people, but they’re turning on us like we’re nothing. Like Yates holds all the power.
“Stay the fuck away from him or you won’t see sunrise,” I warn, and there must be something in my voice because everyone stops advancing. “Want him? Get through me.”
“Stop.” Krypt rushes up, getting in my face. “Fucking stop.”
“They’re turning on him.”
“They’re scared, and Yates is winning. Fucking stop.”
I look past my brother, who is never the level-headed one. Yates is still hanging from the lamp post, Ransom standing guard next to him with Remi nearby, not obvious enough to be considered together. Lock is in the crowd, fighting alongside Glitch and Seven. Fuck! Fuck this whole situation. After everything we did to bring this town together, Yates blew it up with a few words, and now I don’t know what to do.
I always know what to do! I am the master manipulator, for fuck’s sake.
All I need to do is fight. Stop anyone and everyone from getting to my sweetheart . He’s all I give a shit about, and the angry mob glaring at him from behind the wall of unmasked Vile Boys is setting my teeth to chattering in a rage so strong it’s about to burst out of me.
“Soren,” Krypt says, and then Soren’s hands grip me around the middle. “Get him out of here before he kills our own people.”
Soren starts to pull me away, and I get a second’s reprieve because I let him. But then a rock flies, hitting Soren in the side of the head, and it’s all over from there.
I black out. Give in. Lose myself to my new mask. I’ve created riots before, but this is one for the record books because I’m attacking the very people I set out to protect. I am the fucking Riot of Moros. My fists fly, my shoulders barrel through, and my forehead clacks off noses. My knuckles are close to breaking, and my heart is seconds from beating out of my chest. There’s blood all over me—I don’t know whose it is. I don’t care, as long as it isn’t Soren’s.
“Moros!” Ransom’s authoritative, modulated voice distracts the crowd. “We will find the traitors, I promise you that. But I know for a fact it isn’t Soren Sauder. This is not the time to turn on one another!”
I’m yanked backwards, my fist rising. Soren grabs it to stop my hit, dropping it just as fast to press his hands to the sides of my head, forcing me to look at him and only him.
“Killian.” He swallows, blue eyes on mine, blond hair all sweaty and blood-soaked. “I need the ninety seconds.”
That shocks me, and I stumble back a step.
“With you. I need ninety seconds with you .”
Oh. I look straight into his eyes, trying to understand. The ninety seconds have always been a safe reprieve… from each other. A way for us to settle so we don’t kill each other. But now… am I his safe reprieve?
My chest thumps and my lungs heave, but I grab Soren’s hand and let him lead me out of the cemetery. Ransom has the crowd somewhat listening when we make it to the edge, but my nerves won’t settle and this new mask won’t fall away. I can’t shake it. I’ve wrapped myself in a hundred charming personas, worn even more murderous masks, and perfected the art of acting and morphing to twist my surroundings to meet my needs. But this one is different. I don’t have any control over it, and it’s the strongest one I’ve ever worn.
“Look at me.” Soren stops us on the edge of the woods, hand on my chest to settle my heartbeat. “I’m fine.”
I breathe.
“I’m right here.”
I exhale.
“They’re our people.”
I vibrate.
“They’re wrong, but they have a point. Yates got in their already messed up heads and made everyone doubt each other. I took the brunt of it, but they’re still our people.”
I try to blink. I can’t.
“Killian, look at me. Look at me standing right fucking here. You’re the one who’s hurt.” He touches my bloody knuckles. My eyes shift to the blood dripping down from his temple. He touches it, and I bristle, jittering worse than Facts does. Soren smirks at me, and I don’t understand why. Pressing his blood to my lips with his fingers, he says, “Oh, please. You’ve brought me way closer to death than any of them ever have, baby.”
Baby.
A crack in my character. Enough of one that I can rip the persona away and see something more than encroaching blackness. I suck in a quick breath, my throat spasming around it.
“Ninety seconds, Kill. I need it with you.” He leans in, wrapping his arms around my neck and holding me there until I settle enough to hold him back. I pull on his lower back, pressing us flush together so I can feel his heart in my chest, physical proof that he’s here, alive, okay.
Still mine.
I lean my temple against his bloody one and breathe.