Chapter Seven
Chaos and Broken Souls
Fear
Fear
Fear
Dusty knew the taste of it better than her own name. Every morning, she woke up, and it was there waiting on the back of her tongue like a promise long forgotten. Her fingers clawed down her arms, desperate to peel it away but afraid there’d be nothing left of her if she did.
“Edward!” Dusty forced herself to walk faster despite the pain in her leg. In the darkness, she could just make out the dim outline of his back. The farther they descended, the faster he moved until he was running. She took off after him, calling his name, but knew deep down he couldn’t hear her. Not now. She wanted to tell him everything would be alright, but she knew better than anyone it would be a lie.
“Slow down!” she called, but her voice was too shredded, too broken. He glanced back at her, his eyes glowing strange and animal-like from the depths of the shadows. Dusty froze and Edward disappeared around a bend in the tunnels. Breath escaping her in a hoarse cry, she pressed her head against the damp stone wall. The air tasted of old metal and stale sewage, but anything was better than the fear. Fuck. She needed to get control over herself. She knew that…but she was alone , and the walls were closing in. From the corner of her eye, a sliver of light swam around her. Smoke crawling up the length of her body until she tipped her head back and gasped for air untainted by the stink of decay it brought with it.
The air was cold, like ice, like the kiss of a blade. It could draw blood if she let it. Weight coalesced around her, threatening to drag her to her knees, and a breathless scream built deep within her.
“Coward.”
The voice, disembodied, came from just behind her.
“Desi?” Her throat burned as if it were bleeding, and her mouth tasted of metal.
“ What happened to that fire of yours, sha.”
What was an endearment from Eliot was now a mockery. Shuddering, Dusty glanced back the way she’d come. There was a figure there, backlit by the light spilling from the antechamber where gunshots and screaming still abounded. The voice sounded like her sister’s, but the figure was too big to be Desi – alive or dead. A sob escaped her, and Dusty slapped a hand over her mouth. She clawed her way past the dead trapping her in place as the figure took a step toward her. The tunnel opened up a bit more the deeper you went, but the extra room was offset by the darkness and the stench.
Her boots slapped against the ground as she ran, the unforgiving walls scraping her forearms.
“That’s my girl, make me work for it.”
A scent enveloped her. Something not of the sewers but of the other side, and her thoughts clouded as reason fled. Though she knew of the tunnels, Dusty had never ventured here before. Mainly because she recognized them for what they were. An endless maze through purgatory. A miasma of death and decay. She put her head down and tried to remember what it was like to put one foot in front of the other without the overwhelming fear her next step would send her tumbling into an open grave. That greedy, angry hands would wrap around her ankles and pull her under. There was breathing at her back, an insatiable hunger that clawed her hair and she wanted to lay down. Lay down and die, because anything was better than this rank terror -
“Dusty?”
How much farther until she found the light? How much farther until she could reach fresh air?
How much farther do I have to dig …
Dusty could hear laughter in the darkness, but there were no answering smiles to welcome the merriment home. Everything was cast in an eerie twilight, interspersed with long stretches of darkness that peered beneath the skin. She wanted to scream and scream and never stop, to rake her nails down her skin until it bled. The scent of wet earth was everywhere and there were earthworms burrowing under her flesh.
There was a wild, sharp cry at her back – like a hunter spotting his prey or a warrior hungry for battle – and she was sure, so sure, the man in the dark would find her. Take her, the way he’d promised to do all those years ago…
“Hey!” A hand on her upper arm, strong fingers on small flesh.
Dusty lashed out, gun up and safety off. Her shot went wild as hands shoved her against the wall of the tunnel. An explosion of sound left her ears ringing, and she bared her teeth, legs kicking. The wall was a cold weight at her back, and her arms were trapped above her head.
“Shit,” Edward gasped, breath warm and familiar against her throat. “Be still, be still, be still.” Flesh, hot and hard, pressed against the length of her body—a desperate bid to get her under control—but the hunger that rose was instantaneous.
Vicious. A rabid dog snapping sharp teeth at the cold and the dark.
Dusty’s finger squeezed the trigger, firing off another shot. The grip on her wrist tightened in warning, and she dropped the gun with a sob. Her back arched, searching, and Edward lowered his head and found her lips with his own.
Dusty was no stranger to kisses. She’d stolen her fair share. But she’d never been kissed quite like this. Never had another’s tongue spread her lips wide and delve within her as if he were thrusting into other things. Never had someone swallow the throaty gasps they pulled from her throat as if they were something owed. Her hips lifted, and when she found the throbbing length of him, she tugged at her arms, begging him to let her go so she could snatch his sanity the same way he’d snatched hers.
Instead, Edward used his other hand to lift her off the ground, the cold of the dead vanished beneath his heat. His scent overpowered the rot and the dirt, and Darkness fled as if it had never been. Dusty’s legs wrapped tight around his waist. Even through her pants, she could feel how perfectly he fit against the mound of her pussy. How right. She imagined him filling her, shoving so deep she could feel the head of his dick kiss her cervix, and a rush of excitement left her dripping, inner walls clenching on nothing but imagination. Dusty worked one hand free of his hold, then she was clawing at him with nails and canines. Urging him on, searching for the beast living behind those anxious eyes and magician’s hands always painting sigils in the air. His control weakened, and that raging, monstrous nightmare, leash already frayed and crumbling from the fight, spilled out of Edward and into her. His hips thrust between her legs, driving her hard against the wall.
Through a haze, she knew her hand was wet with something. The metallic scent of blood was thick in the air. He must be hurt. But Edward didn’t slow, didn’t stop, so neither did she. His lips traveled down the column of her throat, even as her hand slipped between them to grip his cock. She stroked him, bloody hand working him to rigid attention. He was so hard it was like holding a piece of steel, and frantic, her hips danced in silent entreaty.
Edward pulled away with a growled, “Fuck.” He fell away from her as if he were a sinner dragging himself free of the flames. Dusty reached out, pining, all too happy to pull him close once again and lose them both to the inferno. Even in the shadows, she could see the way he shook. He clasped his fingers and pressed both hands against his chest. With another curse, he lowered his head, a man in such ardent prayer that when he went to his knees, she followed. Over his shoulder, the figure from the tunnels loomed large. Its outline was faint, barely a shadow amongst shadows now, but still, she could feel it. Feel him, feel his rage, feel his…fear? Between one thought and the next, the figure dispersed. Gone so completely, she may as well have made him up.
Dusty’s hand went to the back of Edward’s neck, her fingers brushing the soft curls at his nape, and she pressed her forehead against his.
“I can’t do this,” he gasped, voice thick with unshed tears. “I can’t fucking do this.”
“Shh, darlin’. Breathe,” she said, and laughed, the sound just as wild and lost as they were. “It’s only chaos. I ride it all the time.” She met his eyes, and the tunnels fell away like smoke.
“If you’ll let me, I’ll teach you how to do it too.”
And God help them both, but there beneath the earth, with blood between them and desire a needle against exposed flesh, Dusty could have sworn he nodded, yes.
***
“Uuugh.”
It took an hour to realize he’d been shot, and now, he was dying.
I’m naked and dying
The girl who’d done the tarot reading for him over Instagram had said it would end like this, but he hadn’t believed her. The entire sexy yoga class—including the instructor—stared slack-jawed as Dusty drug him from behind a wall of mirrors and across the length of the yoga studio. His arm was over her shoulder, and she was supporting most of his weight. He would have felt bad, but she was the one who’d shot him in the first place, so it was only fair. Plus, he really liked the way she smelled.
“Namaste,” she muttered as they passed one bare mid-drift after another. “Grand rising.”
As soon as they were clear, Dusty made a beeline for the men’s locker room. Grabbing the first gym bag she could find, she shoved Edward unceremoniously into a pair of stolen jeans and a T-shirt reading Black Don’t Crack Unless You Smoke It .
“Leave me naked,” he begged, but she ignored him.
Together, they stumbled out of the studio and down the steps to the street below. Dusty led them through a few back allies, and before Edward knew it, they were once again at the bar.
“Uuuuuugh,” he groaned again.
Dusty muttered beneath her breath in rising frustration, happy to drop him.
“How bad is it?” he asked, piteously. “Should I call my mom? A priest? A lawyer?”
“You would sue me?”
“I mean…” He motioned at the blood soaking through the sleeve of his new shirt.
Dusty sized him up, socking him in the bicep before finally stalking away.
Edward went down like a puppet with his strings cut. Alas. Is this where he was destined to take his last breath? On the floor of a run-down bar? Oh, how his mother would weep if she knew.
“Will you shut the fuck up?” Dusty yelled as he began coughing. “I’m trying to make a call.”
Oh, right. Edward had forgotten he’d wandered into the middle of a Quentin Tarantino film. Yes, he was absolutely going to die here.
“I’m so sorry,” he sassed, somehow gathering enough strength to be bitchy. “I’ve never bled out before, so there’s a bit of a learning curve.”
He didn’t see her roll her eyes because he was glaring at the back of her head, but he could imagine it. Dusty muttered something rude under her breath, but Edward was too far away to catch the details.
What the hell is the matter with me?
What happened in the ring was still replaying over and over again in his mind. He’d promised himself he would never lose control again. But seeing Crusher hurt Dusty had flipped a trigger within him. Edward wouldn’t have been able to stop himself even if he had wanted to.
Edward drug a hand down his face. He was a moron. That was the only explanation. A glutton for punishment. There was no way in hell he could afford to get involved with Dusty. She was a means to an end, not some hapless damsel in distress. If anything, she was just as fucked up as he was, which shouldn’t turn him on as much as it did.
Edward groaned again, this time in self-disgust, as his hands shook. His fists clenched and unclenched, fingers stretching over and over again as if the bones didn’t fit quite right beneath the skin. His jaw tightened. For what may have been the hundredth time, panic suffused him, along with the unshakable belief he’d made a terrible mistake.
***
“How bad is it?”
The line buzzed in her ear as Ape weighed his answer. “Bad,” he admitted.
Dusty’s teeth worried at her thumbnail before she forced herself to drop her hand back to her side. Christ, she needed a joint.
“ Boondock Saints bad or…”
“Rat will have to wait,” he said. “There’s too much heat on the Legion to risk breaking him out right now.”
“But the governor—” After everything that had gone down today, her throat was in shambles. The words died on a painful croak. Great. Her voice was almost gone. Knowing she’d need to pick her words with more care, Dusty tried again. “There’s not much time.”
“With all due respect,” Ape hedged. “Fuck Rat. I love him like a brother, but we can’t save him if we’re caught for this. We need to get the hell out of town while we still can.”
Dusty frowned, leaning her butt against a nearby pool table and peeking into the pocket next to her hip. “Hayes?”
“I’ve been doing some digging on Hayes,” Ape said, used to following her train of thought by now. “The guy’s loaded, but word on the street is he’s bat-shit.”
Dusty frowned. “Go on.”
“A few years ago, he beat the hell out of some old man during a charity event. Sent his stocks crashing. A guy named Andrew took over running the company, but they’ve been fielding rumors about him ever since. Been working real close with Governor Wilks to try and improve the company image around the community over the last few years.”
“So?”
“So, the kind of shit he’s in, we can’t dig him out of.”
“What does that matter?” she said, truly confused. “We don’t need to fix him. We just need to keep him alive and figure out who the fuck wants him dead. Once I have a name, I’ll take care of the guy myself, and Pretty Boy can go home.”
“Why?”
Dusty went still. “What?”
“Why are you still trying to help this guy when we’ve got bigger shit to worry about?”
She wasn’t the kind of leader who demanded blind loyalty, but at the same time, Ape was all too happy to indulge her and her various whims. It was a testament to how bad things were getting and how fast, that he was balking now.
“He got me the flash drive,” she reminded him. “I owe him.”
“Who gives a shit?” Ape sighed. “Look, the drive is useless to us now, especially without a decent hacker. Even if we had time to find one, the cops are so far up our asses we won’t be able to take a shit without the Feds kicking down the door, and you’re still talking about a Prison break?”
“Iwalani,” the sound of his name drew an audible gasp from the older man. Dusty rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Drop it.”
It was impossible to shake the tunnels from her memory. The ghosts, the voice and presence of that mysterious figure, and Edward’s touch were all seared into her brain. But Ape didn’t know anything about that side of her, and she wanted to keep it that way. Something about Edward had kept the figure – whoever or whatever it was – at bay, and that alone was worth the headache that was E.M. Hayes. Besides, Edward might still prove himself a useful ally to have in more corporeal ways. For one, Papa Tate respected men with money and power, and Hayes had both in spades. Maybe he’d get off her ass if he knew they were working together. Besides, if Edward fixed his little problem, maybe he’d help her out with the code. He was the one who created the damn thing, after all, and with him in her pocket, they wouldn’t need a hacker.
When Ape spoke again, his voice was neutral. “So, what’s the move, Boss?”
Dusty winced. Shit. She’d have to make up for snapping later. Though after learning what she had in mind, he’d have other things to be pissy about.
“Well,” she drawled. “Wilks wants to use Rat as a scapegoat, and it’s only a matter of time before SWAT raids the bar, looking for something they can pin on him.”
“Dusty,” Ape groaned. “Come on. Not again.”
Dusty grinned. “You got property insurance?”