Ravage (Raegan of Ruin #1)

1. Raegan

Chapter one

Raegan

A short, wide building sits unassuming before me in the dark of night. It’s three stories of worn and chipped brick, with metal-barred windows on the front, and large black numbers over the double doors. The buildings on either side of it are at least eight or nine stories and tower over it, shadowing it almost completely from view on this narrow, dead-end road tucked away on the city outskirts.

If not for the specific address scribbled on the card I’m holding, I’d never have noticed it existed.

It’s the perfect hideout for the shadow organization that I’m hunting.

One that’s also hunting me.

Gifted Enterprise, Inc.

They kidnap people, particularly children, who exhibit powers that should be impossible. They brainwash and then use them for power and control over a society who still has no idea that people with these powers, like me, exist.

They stole me from my grams when I was only eight. In the beginning, they made me believe that I was taken for a special training program so I could one day help save the world. Like some superhero. I was sixteen when I learned that we were being trained to be mindless soldiers to do their dirty work from the shadows. And those who never complied became lab rats attached to tubes and machines until their bodies gave out.

Even though I’ve been free of them for five years, they’ve left me with scars that will never heal.

The card that led me here was in the pocket of one of their men that I’d dispatched in the last city. I’m hoping this is some facility for testing or maybe a drop-off point for the kids they kidnap. So far, it looks like an abandoned apartment building, but Gifted Enterprise has already shown me how deceiving appearances can be.

After stashing my backpack of supplies in the tight alleyway, I grip the gun on my hip and pull it free. I count the entry and exit points around the building. Windows and double doors in the front, windows on the side, a single door, four balconies and windows in the back.

I triple check there’s no one around before sliding through the shadows to the back door. I pull my lock picking kit from my pocket and get to work. It takes longer than usual with the extra locks on it, but finally, the click sounds.

I could always use my gift to break in faster, but the last few times I’ve used it, GE found me within days.

The door creaks and squeals as it opens. Cringing at the loud noise, I leave enough room for me to slip through before closing it behind me .

The space reeks of rotten food and piss, and I immediately switch out the lock picking kit for my gun and flashlight to scan the room and check for squatters. It’s large and open, with a stairwell on the right and a set of entryway doors opposite me. There are mailboxes mounted to the wall on the left, confirming my theory that this was once an apartment building.

The floor is layered with unfinished food, wrappers, an overturned chair, ratty blankets, cans, empty glass bottles, and what looks like a still-wet puddle in the corner.

Gross.

I wrinkle my nose and focus on the path from where I’m standing to the staircase. It doesn’t look like anyone has been here in a while, aside from that puddle, and it’s the first time I’m forced to consider the possibility that this is a dead end. Why would the GE goon I killed in the last city have this card on him if this place had been abandoned? It makes no sense. Or maybe they’re looking to buy this building and turn it into a testing or storage facility?

I’m grateful I’m wearing thick, army-style boots as I step deliberately through the mess, careful to avoid any food or debris that might stick. The single flight of stairs ends in a narrow hallway with two doors.

The nearest one is a plain, boring nude color with a gold knob. There are no numbers or letters to indicate the individual apartment. I flick my light down the hallway and to the other door, and it’s bare as well.

I clutch my flashlight between my teeth and pull out the lock picking kit again. Pressing my ear to the door to listen for noise, I count to sixty, then insert the tools into the keyhole until it clicks. As soon as the tumblers turn, I swap the kit for my gun and open the door.

My flashlight reveals solid hardwood floors that are clean and polished. The smell of lemons permeates the space as if it was freshly wiped down. There’s a coat rack on a short wall, a boot tray below it, and a small door on the other side that I’m assuming is a coat closet.

The contrast between this and the rest of the building is like night and day.

I cautiously move further inside, closing the door behind me, and the space opens on either side. There’s a cozy living area directly to my left, complete with a full sectional, rug, and entertainment center. Across from it on the back wall is a U-shaped desk stacked with computer monitors. A hallway of closed doors splits the two areas on the left wall. The rest of the open floor plan flows from a dining area to a kitchen with another hallway through it to the right.

Based on the size of the space, this has to be most, if not all, of this side and floor of the building.

I follow the hallway at the end of the living area first, nudging each door and sweeping the flashlight across the rooms for signs of movement. Bedrooms. Spacious ones, with a walk-in closet and private bathroom in each of them, which I check for hidden occupants before I move on.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around what the hell I’ve stumbled into. It went from a homeless hangout to a recently updated, penthouse-style apartment in the span of thirty stairs and an ugly door .

After three bedrooms and a locked door, I make it to the last room at the end of the hallway. Origami in various shapes litter the nightstand next to the bed. I step closer and holster my gun to pick up the one in the shape of a crane.

My chest constricts at the memory of a na?ve girl collecting origami animals like this on her shelf from a sweet, quiet boy. Of the first paper crane he ever gave me.

The memories thicken my throat, reminding me I’ll never have anything close to what I had with him, and the others again.

I ruined that.

Then GE ruined me.

I toss the paper bird back to the nightstand. It’s been five years since I last saw the guys I’d grown up with on the island where GE kept us. It’d be best not to think of them when it only reminds me of happier times followed by years of pain and remorse. I need to keep my focus on my mission.

I yank the top drawer open and rummage through stacks of paper and a bag of hard candies before shoving it closed and going for the bottom one.

“Don’t you know it’s rude to pry through a guy’s drawers without permission?” a husky male voice murmurs teasingly, his breath heating the back of my neck.

I grab my gun, spinning around and swinging my arm out. The stranger moves back effortlessly, like some ninja, but my finger is already on the trigger. The gunshot rings through the room. I focus my flashlight on the dark figure to see if I got him, but there’s no sign of him being injured.

Something pale appears out of the darkness in front of him— fingers , I realize—when they pinch the air. He’s wearing black fingerless gloves that meld with the rest of his attire. It looks like he pockets what he grabbed—which I’m having an oh shit feeling was my bullet—and then something clicks behind him.

Light bursts in the room, and I recoil into the nightstand and squint my eyes at him. He doesn’t move, thankfully, and I blink furiously until I can get a good look at him.

He’s much taller than me, close to a foot, and wearing nondescript clothing. Black jeans, boots, and a hoodie that shadows his face.

I hope he’s not some Gifted Enterprise assassin who can control metal. The lower ungifted goons were easy. I haven’t come up against one with a gift yet.

“Who are you?” I keep my gun trained on him.

He chuckles, and the sound sends a shiver rippling through me. It’s cold and hollow. Nothing like the warmth that normally comes with a person’s laughter. No, his sounds more like a dark promise of all the painful things he enjoys doing to others. But there’s a niggling familiarity in it that tugs at my chest, and I don’t fear hearing it like a person with any self-preservation should.

He raises his hands slowly, palms out, and then pushes his hood back to reveal himself. He tugs down the gaiter from his face until it’s bunched up around his neck. The lighting reveals raven-black hair with an almost bluish tint. It’s cut short on the sides and left long and messy on top. He has a full, pouty bottom lip that would be pretty if his mouth wasn’t twisted into a smirk while he eyes me intensely. As if he’d enjoy nothing more than to chase and devour me.

He cocks his head, reminding me of a confused puppy. A large, deadly puppy. And then it hits me.

The origami animals.

His laser-focused attention.

It’s been five years, and he’s fucking grown since I last saw him, but it’s definitely him.

“Jackson?”

His smile returns.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, my breathing thin.

He doesn’t seem surprised or upset I haven’t lowered my gun, even at knowing his identity. He tucks his hands into his hoodie pocket and shrugs. Like seeing each other after so much time is no big deal. Even after what I’d done that caused him and the others to hate me. They hated me so much they abandoned me on the island with GE and didn’t look back.

But maybe that wasn’t enough.

Are they here to hunt me down and kill me?

If only they knew how much I’d suffered by the hands of GE, by him , after what I’d done, they’d know I’ve already been punished beyond repair.

“This is my room,” he answers matter-of-factly. His voice is low and quiet, but it’s also so calm and confident. It’s exactly how I remember it, and that twists like a knife in my heart at how much I miss it.

“Why did a GE goon have your address in his pocket? Are you working with them now?”

Smirking, he leans casually back against the wall. For what he thinks is going to be a long catch-up session, no doubt. “Because I put it there.”

My expression slackens as I realize the implications of that. He used a Gifted Enterprise lackey to lure me here. I tighten my grip on my gun. “Do you all hate me so much still that you sought me out to kill me, then?”

“No…” He pauses, cants his head to the side as if in thought, then adds, “I don’t hate you. I never have.”

But the others do .

The unspoken words hang in the air between us.

“But you’d kill me for them?”

This time, his smirk looks closer to a smile, and I catch the dimple in his left cheek. “No.”

Exasperated, I huff. He never was the verbose one. “So, what am I doing here then, Jack—Jackson.” I correct myself immediately when his nickname slips out by mistake.

He flips a business card out from his pocket and holds it up. “I have a gift.”

It’s a non-answer if I’ve ever heard one. Jackson never lied. He’s not a coward with his words or at saying exactly what’s on his mind; whenever he shares, that is. But it’s been five, no, actually six years, since we were last together.

People change.

I have.

“Not interested. If that’s all, then I’m leaving.” I click the safety back on my gun and lower it.

Jackson chuckles softly and flicks the card at me. When it should fall and spin through the air, it remains flat and steady as it cruises its way over to me. He used to send me his origami animals this way back on the island, using his gift to create a controlled current of air around them and guiding them where he wanted.

It pauses in front of me, and I stare at it. “You’ve gotten better,” I comment, though we both know I’m referring to how he stopped a bullet traveling at a high velocity in a short distance rather than this business card.

“Of course. I’m not the same weak kid you remember.” There’s still a smile on his face, but darkness consumes his gaze when he delivers the words. A darkness that now looms like a shadow. If I could afford to care about him or the others anymore, I might wonder what happened to him in the time we’ve been apart.

But I can’t.

“I’ve changed,” he finishes.

His words only remind me of all the things GE did to me and I did for them in our year apart on the island. Nausea slides up my throat like reflux, and I swallow the burning memories back down.

“So have I,” I deadpan. Ignoring the card still floating before me, I walk out of the room. Thankfully he doesn’t stop me, and I make it out the front door.

I’m not accepting a gift or anything else from him. He may think he’s changed, but he doesn’t know what I’ve been through. Even when I was still within arm’s reach of them, I’d been changed. Broken and remolded into the foundation of who I am today .

I’m no longer a na?ve little girl thinking she’s some kind of hero.

I’ve accepted that I’m a villain.