Chapter 17
Quill
Fuck.
I’m sweating and my heart is racing, but it’s not for me. I don’t give a shit about dying. I can’t die, though, I just fucking can’t, before I’ve saved Piper, and avenged her by murdering every single fucking soldier.
And yet, I’m outnumbered twenty-to-one, and the man I had previously felt was the closest thing I had to an actual, real father, is currently pointing a gun at me.
This is clearly not one of those situations where I can use force. And force is the one thing that comes easily to me.
If I have even the slightest chance of getting out of this, I’m going to have to… talk. Which feels impossible.
But nothing is impossible if it means saving Piper.
The first thing I think of is Josh. His tiny, freaked-out sobs reach my ears, and I realize that no matter how much I wish I could keep Piper all to myself, there is one other person who seems to care about her in this world.
That person is Josh, and while I don’t think he’s capable of much, he would at least try. He clearly didn’t let fear get in the way of climbing through my window and asking for help.
“How about letting the village idiot go,” I say through my clenched jaw. “He didn’t do a thing. This is between you and me.”
Tragen’s eyebrow shoots up. I guess he thinks he knows me, but he apparently wasn’t expecting this.
“Let him go,” I insist, a little more forcefully.
I guess neither Tragen nor I know each other all that well. Because unexpectedly, he shrugs.
“Let the idiot go.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” grumbles one of the soldiers, whose name is Kevin. I take a threatening step in his direction, even though I know I’d be dead before I could do a thing.
Before I can reach him, though, Tragen turns the gun on him and… shoots.
“Fuck!” cries out Josh as Kevin topples over, a bullet lodged firmly in his brain.
I train my eyes back to Tragen, confusion beating at me. But I try to keep a neutral expression.
“You have some nerve, fucking up my life and then fucking up my living room,” I growl.
If Kevin got killed over an are you fucking kidding me, I really can’t understand why the hell I’m still breathing. I also don’t understand why Tragen felt the need to show up with two dozen soldiers. Surely he’s strong enough to shoot me himself?
I suddenly wonder if he’s got something other than death on his mind.
“Tragen said you can leave,” I snap at Josh, turning my head just slightly while keeping my eyes fixed on the officer. “So get the fuck out.”
In my periphery, I see him hesitating. “I don’t… Quill… I don’t want to leave you like this…”
He’s actually sobbing, but for some inexplicable reason, I don’t feel the urge to punch him in the nose. Instead, I feel a weird urge to… reassure him.
“It’s okay, Josh. Everything’s okay. Go.”
“But, but…” he sniffles loudly. “They’re going to kill you.”
“They’re not going to do a thing that I don’t deserve. Fucking go.”
“Piper will be heartbroken…”
I swallow all of my bitterness. Would she really?
I don’t deserve to have someone as special as Piper get heartbroken over me.
“She won’t be anything if you don’t get to her, so go.”
At last, he nods his head, edging back in reverse, as if he’s scared someone will shoot him in the back if he turns.
I huff out a breath of relief when I at last hear the door open then click shut, and the sound of Josh’s footsteps pad away until they’re drowned out by distance.
I turn my full attention back to Tragen. “Alright, now go ahead. Kill me.”
My head hurts, the postdrome still crippling me, and I’ve never been more aware of basic biology. Because it really feels like Liam and Dane and eighteen other little shits are breathing in my oxygen and expelling poison.
“You know what happens to soldiers who don’t carry out contracts,” begins Tragen.
“Yeah, I do. Knock yourselves out.”
A snicker runs through the group, the kind of snickering sound that victors make when they allow themselves to be harmlessly amused by the people they know they’ve beaten.
I know most of those assholes have hated me from day one. The psychopath pet of their commanding officer.
“I’m not going to kill you,” says Tragen, and at that, nineteen sets of eyeballs—minus Kevin—glue themselves first to him, and then to me.
Meanwhile, I take a step back in shock. Out of all the things I was expecting would happen, that wasn’t one of them.
Not being killed by Tragen.
It’s crazy how six words have the ability to turn a whole situation around. The victorious smirks have been wiped clean off the Devil soldiers’ faces. They’re probably back to realizing just how much of a murderous psychopath I am, and trying hard not to shit themselves right now.
No one is freaking out harder than Dane and Liam. In fact, Liam literally looks green in the face.
“You’re not going to kill me,” I echo. “So who is?”
I’m back to scanning the other soldiers’ faces, wondering which of them is about to die.
Because if Tragen was the one to put the bullet in my head, there would be no way out.
If anyone else tried to do it—well, just watch the fuck out.
I’d whip my gun out from my back pocket so fast my would-be executioner wouldn’t have time to blink, and he’d die before he had time to think.
“No one is going to kill you,” answers Tragen. “At least, not today.”
I stare at him in complete confusion. “Then why the hell are you here?”
Tragen settles himself back on my couch. “Just for a little chat.”
Okay. What the fuck? One, Tragen doesn’t chat. Two, why would he bring twenty of his best soldiers with him if he really wanted just to talk?
Death, I can handle. Getting beaten up, I can handle. But not understanding something makes me feel unsettled. Very unsettled.
“What kind of a chat?”
“A chat about Piper Day.”
Fuck. I grit my teeth, my entire body tense, as I face him angrily. “What do you want with her?” I growl.
“Nothing, so rest easy, soldier.”
Confusion is messing with my brain. Anxiety has sunk its claws into my chest. If he wants to torture me before killing me…
this is the way to do it. I lift my hand and wipe a bead of sweat from my temple.
He doesn’t budge, clearly not the slightest bit worried about me moving while his gun is still trained right at my head.
“Before you accepted my contract, I showed you two pictures,” he continues.
I didn’t think it was possible to tense more than before, but I’m doing just that. I don’t bother to answer his question, which was rhetorical, but instead shoot a murderous glance at Liam and Dane, who are both looking more dead than alive right now.
“Did you come over just to torture me some more over that?” I hiss.
“No. I came over to inform you that I had not watched the surveillance tape the second picture was taken from. The screengrab that showed exactly who was in the bed that night. The screengrab that painted a very false picture of that night.”
It’s a wonder Liam and Dane are still alive and alert with how ash-grey their faces have grown. I guess it’s news to them that I found out what they did.
“What are you doing?” I ask, my voice breaking. “Have you come here to torture me?”
“No,” says Tragen softly. “I’ve come to make things right.”
He finally puts his gun down, but right now, the fear strangling my throat has nothing to do with the end of his barrel. It has everything to do with the emotional pain I’m convinced he still somehow plans on inflicting me.
“If you didn’t watch that tape… then how did you take those screengrabs?” I ask at last, breaking the heavy silence that has been oppressing the room.
“You’re asking the wrong question, soldier.”
I wait, my heart beating madly in my chest, feeling as close to passing out as Liam and Dane look. Though not for the same reason. Definitely not for the same fucking reason.
“You should be asking me who gave me those screengrabs.”
I don’t know what would have made me feel sicker. That Tragen watched a video of my girl’s rape, or that some unknown other person did. Either thought is absolutely unbearable.
“I only watched the tape after I gave you the screengrabs,” continues Tragen, and my mind freezes as I realize this is the worst fucking scenario.
They both watched that tape. I wish I could summon up the bile rising up in my throat and vomit.
It feels like the only way to get release from the intolerable pain crushing me.
Vaguely, though, I’m aware Tragen isn’t saying all this to torture me.
Vaguely, I realize I should be putting two and two together and understand what he’s getting at.
But how the hell can I do that when each of his words is like a knife stabbing into my heart, reminding me of everything Piper has suffered?
“The person who gave me the screengrabs,” says Tragen, a touch impatiently at having to spell it all out, “did so believing that the result would be you killing Piper Day.”
I frown, my eyes automatically scanning the soldiers. But that’s stupid. Why would any of them want me to know about that tape? Anyway, apart from Dane and Liam, I doubt any of them even knew Piper was mine.
Even if for whatever reason one of them thought it was a good idea to show me the screengrab, how the hell would they have managed to get their hands on the tape?
The person responsible is a higher-up. Someone in power. Someone like…
“Logan Colt,” I take a shot in the dark.
Tragen’s expression tells me I’ve got it all wrong. Again.
“I’ll give you the identity of that man,” he promises. “But first…” He gestures to the nineteen soldiers still standing, as much at attention as their nerves are allowing them to. “I thought I’d give you the chance to get revenge.”