Chapter 20
North
The world is a strobe light of pain.
My head jerks forward and back, each swing yanking against the chains biting into my wrists.
The metal’s chewed skin down to raw meat, slick with blood, and every drop trails warm over my forearms before dripping into the dark.
My shoulders burn like they’ve been wrenched out of their sockets, my feet nowhere near the ground.
Hanging here feels less like being captured and more like being crucified.
Every breath drags blood up my throat until I taste nothing else.
My eyes keep closing, no matter how hard I try to force them open.
I can taste iron and gasoline in the air. Blood, my own, runs into my mouth, metallic and bitter. The drug Myka pumped into me is still flooding my veins, turning the edges of my vision into a crawling black haze. Every time I force my eyes open, the world slides sideways.
Soul hangs to my right, strung up like me, his shirt shredded and soaked dark with blood. His head lolls for a second before he jerks, muttering, “Stay with me, Prez.” He’s trying to sound steady, but his voice is fraying like rope about to snap.
Rook’s on my left, straining hard against the chains. They’ve cut deep enough I can see where flesh turns red and raw. He curses under his breath, eyes darting to the door like he’s measuring how many seconds he’d last before getting gunned down.
Somewhere outside, engines rumble. The air hums with tension, like the moment before a storm tears the sky apart.
I keep fading in and out.
Sometimes I’m here, breathing, bleeding, waiting for my moment.
Sometimes I’m gone, watching the room from somewhere outside my own skull, like a fucked-up movie I can’t shut off.
And then… I see her. Hair wild, eyes blazing like she’s about to take down the whole goddamn world just to get to me.
For a second, I’m sure my mind’s gone. Hallucination. Got to be. The women don’t come to the field. Ever. Saints' rule number five: club women are never brought to a rescue, because they don’t come back from this kind of fight.
If Iron brought her here… I’ll make sure he doesn’t see another sunrise.
The main door explodes inward with the sound of gunfire. The staccato crack of rounds ricochets off the walls, shards of metal and wood spraying the room. Glass from the barred windows rains down in glittering daggers. The air fills with smoke, acrid and hot, burning the back of my throat.
I try to shout for her to get the fuck out, but all that comes out is nothing. My voice is gone, shredded.
She moves forward anyway. Every step is a fucking dare to fate. She’s smaller than any of the men here, but somehow she manages to reach close. A spray of bullets rips into the wall beside her, close enough to catch her in the spray of plaster dust. She doesn’t flinch.
I’m motionless. Probably dead-looking. Can’t move, can’t speak. Can only watch through the thin slit of awareness the blackness hasn’t stolen yet. Blood streams down my arms, dripping off to the floor.
Then movement is too fast. She jerks sideways like a puppet with its strings yanked.
Her body folds, knees buckling, and she hits the ground hard.
Something inside me shatters. Rage ignites inside me, burning hotter than the pain, hotter than the drug tearing through my veins.
Blood roars in my ears, drowning out Soul’s shouts, Rook’s cursing.
The room tilts and bends, the black haze trying to close in, but I push against it with everything I have.
Because she’s here. Because she’s down. And because if I black out now, I might never open my eyes again to see her breathing.