Chapter 21
Quill
“So let me get this straight. You’re offering me an army… by having me kill your army.”
“Only the disloyal ones,” Tragen corrects me. “An army is only as good as its loyalty is.”
“These men have always been loyal to you,” I say, staring at the nineteen men who are still silently standing at attention around the living room. Even Liam and Dane don’t dare to break out of formation.
Knowing they could die at any moment, and for any reason, has them living in a state of mindless terror. Such terror that it’s become a part of them, so internalized that even now, listening to us talk calmly of their possible deaths, they still remain unmoving and silent.
What greater loyalty can you demand than that?
“They’re loyal to me,” agrees Tragen. “But not to you. They have wronged you. Even those who didn’t know. Knowledge doesn’t matter. Actions do.”
I grit my teeth, realizing what he’s referring to. The way all those soldiers must have witnessed Piper’s rape. They may not have known she belonged to me, but they’re guilty of betraying me all the same.
I understand Tragen’s way of thinking, but what I can’t understand is why it matters to him who wronged me.
“From now on, this will be your army, just as much as mine,” he says. “We are united by a common cause. Saving Piper Day.”
Okay. What the fuck?
This is sounding batshit insane coming from the man who’s banned soldiers from having girlfriends. And who previously gave me a contract to kill the very girl he now apparently wants to save.
“I now know who she is,” he declares. “And that changes everything. She matters to you, and her continued existence matters to my cause. We’re on the same side, soldier, but if we wait much longer, there won’t be a side to stand on.”
My mind is still reeling from unanswered questions, but he seems to have grown sick of talking. “Attention, soldiers!” he barks.
They were already standing at attention, but now, any emotion in their eyes is wiped clean from them, replaced by a steely glare that tells me their robot mode is now fully engaged.
Your wish is my command. My death to serve you.
Words that have ingrained themselves in my subconscious just as much as the others. Destroy, Obey, Kill.
Act, don’t ask.
Blood brothers.
Not anymore, I think, as, on a sign from Tragen, I grab the gun in my back pocket.
“Turn around!” orders the officer, and at once, the nineteen soldiers in the room face the wall. Even Liam and Dane, though I hear a rather loud whimper coming from Liam.
“I’m not shooting them in the back of the head like a coward,” I grit out under my breath.
Tragen shrugs, before adding in a voice even lower than mine, “No matter how well I’ve trained them, it’s too much to expect of a soldier that he watch eighteen of his brothers die while knowing the same fate awaits him.”
Then he pulls out his gun, and in a thundering explosion, the first soldier falls.
The lust for blood overwhelms all of my other senses, as I look on with satisfaction at the blood pooling out of the missing portion of the soldier’s head. I kick him so he’s on his back, and although he’s already dead, I aim another shot at his eyes, destroying half his face in the process.
You fucking saw. You looked at her, and you saw. But you’ll never fucking see again.
I shoot the next soldier too, lodging two bullets in his head as well, one to the back to remind him what an inconsequential coward he is, the other to the front, robbing him of whatever eyesight he might have had left in those last, rapidly dimming moments on Earth.
I do it again and again, until Tragen stops me.
“Not him. He’s loyal.”
I guess at what he means. That soldier didn’t see. He wasn’t there. Would he have done anything to stop it had he been? Maybe not. But the sin of seeing doesn’t stain his brain. That makes him loyal.
Four other men are saved for that reason. Not much of an army, but better than nothing.
I wonder about the rest of Devil Army.
There are eighty-nine soldiers, and I know enough about those orgies to know that most if not all of them attended. The few who didn’t must have had a very valid reason. Tragen really does favor me, because he somehow allows me to exist outside of the rules imposed on the soldiers.
Kind of fucked up that you can get shot in Devil Army for not sticking your cock inside a prostitute, but it’s all about control. What you eat, when you sleep, where you live, who you fuck.
One last shot to the head, and my gun is pointed at Liam.
The guy is literally shaking, and I can tell he’s one second away from shitting his pants or something.
“Not him,” I grit out, lowering my gun.
He sags against the wall, turning around. “Thank you,” he gasps. “Thank you, man. You’re a real friend. Thank you. I can explain everything, I–FUCK!”
I’ve just shot one of his kneecaps and he falls to the floor, groaning. Then I shoot his thigh, and he screams in pain. I’ve heard the femur is the most painful bone to break in a body, and Liam’s face, contorting now with such pain that he can no longer make a sound, makes me suspect it’s true.
Dane turns just slightly, his eyes wide as he sees his friend on the ground. He probably realizes that what awaits them is far worse than two bullets to the head. And he’s right.
Something about him doesn’t make me want to hurt him quite as much as Liam, at least not for the moment. I stop at knocking him out with the butt of my gun, and he falls with a loud grunt.
Tragen snaps his fingers, and in a flash, the soldiers he’s let live surround the men I once thought of as friends, and bind them tightly with zip ties.
They gag them, but, undoubtedly realizing my plans for them require they stay alive, they apply compresses to Liam’s wounds so he doesn’t bleed out, and leave cups of water and cereal in front of them.
I get a satisfying mental image of them eating like the fucking dogs they are.
No, not dogs. Dogs are loyal. These shits don’t deserve to be compared to any living creature. Not even fucking bacteria.
“We’ll deal with them later,” declares Tragen. “We’ve waited long enough.”
“What do you mean, waited long enough?” I ask, a sudden rush of foreboding creeping up my back.
But Tragen doesn’t answer. I follow him out, my entire body tense with anxiety that has turned into actual anguish. If he’s fucking me over—if all of this was to waste my time—if anything has happened to my Piper…
Nothing will stop me from burning the entire fucking Devil Tower to the ground. And burning him along with it.
I slide into the front seat of his car, while the other soldiers head to a second one just behind ours. Tragen turns on the ignition, and it doesn’t take me long to realize… we’re not going to Devil Tower.
“What the fuck?” I growl, ready to murder him right then and there.
Though again, I’m aware I don’t stand a chance.
“Calm down,” he says, speeding down the road outside of Astley, toward the thick forests that extend far beyond it, past the range of mountains that border our town, which tourists flock to during skiing season.
The Astley natives know better than to head beyond the mountains. You can get lost in those thick forests, and never see the light of day again. Plus, there are rumors of the kinds of things that can happen to you out there.
Devil fights its battles in the wild underbrush. At least that’s what people say.
“Devil took Piper to the forest?” I ask uncertainly.
“No.”
“So why are we heading in that direction?” I question with mounting unease.
“Piper is in that forest. But Devil didn’t take her.”
“They didn’t?” I’m starting to feel sick to my stomach again as I remember what Tragen said. She’s not in danger… as long as she’s in Devil Tower.
I suddenly realize he’s right, because the thought that she’s in those woods, outside of the tower, makes me far more nervous than when I thought she was trapped inside it.
Logan was on her side. I don’t know why, but he was. The head of Devil, Damien, may have wanted her dead, but he had yet to follow through on that threat, even though she hadn’t exactly been in hiding. Which meant his intention wasn’t all that strong.
I can’t quite understand it, but somehow, I realize Tragen is right.
Why the fuck do I only realize it now that she’s left the tower?
I rub the bridge of my nose, the remaining waves of pain from my migraine threatening to turn into another full-blown one. It’s only the continued stress wreaking havoc on my body that keeps it at bay.
“Were you just trying to keep me at the apartment until she escaped?” I ask suddenly, suspicion pounding at my temples.
“Something like that,” concedes Tragen, pressing the gas pedal to the floor, which makes the car jump up and down the country road. “Though she didn’t escape.”
Fuck. Stress, adrenaline, postdrome, and an empty, nauseous stomach have me feeling like I’m on the verge of passing out.
No. Get it together, Quill. You’re the only chance Piper has. No one else but you is on her side. So get it the fuck together.
I’m very well aware how unlucky my cricket is when the only person on her side is a fucking psychopath.
And Josh.
So basically, just me, because there’s no fucking way Josh could manage to do a single thing.
Maybe having a psychopath on your side is not such a bad thing, after all, because who else would be ready to kill every single person on Earth without batting an eye, just to save you?
“How did she leave the apartment if she didn’t escape?” I question, trying to calm my racing heart.
“Someone took her.”
“Okay.” I take a deep breath to keep myself from slitting his throat in frustration. “Who took her?”
“The mafia.”
I snort loudly. The mafia. Right. Are we in a fucking Scorsese film now?
Tragen tears his eyes off the road for just a second to look at me. “You do know that before Devil was a thing, the mafia was, don’t you?”
I don’t answer, leaning against my seat, my migraine beating down on me, wondering what kind of a fucking shitshow this is.