“Easy,” Killian replied. “They’re using you.”
Ruby’s face twitched slightly, but she managed to conceal it. “I am here to take the city of Dagon,” she said, full of pride and conviction.
“And now you’re trying to save Wren,” Lucas said.
Her expression dropped. “I don’t hold allegiance to her,” she said. “We were born opposites.”
“You can’t kill her. She’s pregnant,” Lucas growled.
“Yes,” she said, gaze wandering to the floor. “She is.”
Ruby released the rifle from her shoulder and handed it to Killian. “I believe this is yours.”
Lucas stared. “And where the fuck is mine?”
Ruby snapped her fingers, and a man came with the rifle. Lucas took it, curiously eyeing the girl. “How did you get them to make fools of themselves?”
She did not smile. “Because they are my equals, and I provide them everything they need.”
“They are on their knees,” Lucas said.
“Power comes to those who obsess over the cracks in the foundation,” she said. “The men who serve me will be rewarded with adoration. They will be well fed and groomed to our liking. And once the issue of fertility is solved, they will be satisfied hourly. Isn’t that what men want?”
Killian stepped forward and reached his arm out to touch her, smell her. He looked at her with longing, thirsty eyes. The tough, rising mass of flesh rose against his wear. “I bet I could take you, right here,” Killian grumbled.
“Supposing my men wouldn’t brand elaborate designs into your scrotum first, I think I’d say that you’re welcome to try.” A spoiled smile formed on her face.
Lucas checked the rifle to see if it was loaded. When he saw that it was, Ruby motioned for them to follow her to the door. Grabbing a headset, she placed the glass piece over her eyelid. She gave a groan when it secured. “We will provide the added gear. The headset will register the heat movements of an individual area. Body armor. You name it,” she said.
Confusion was in the air, but they put on the gear without any words against it. As they dressed, Ruby explained to them the plan. There were known facilities all over the continent, including the one their pack wiped out to get Wren in the first place. “The one we have targeted is here,” she said, pointing against a thick tablet screen.
“In the middle of the sea?” Lucas asked. “Listen, if Cassian had a facility in the sea, we’d know about it.”
Wren turned the tablet screen off and continued through the door. “We load out in an hour.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Wren stood on the edge of the deck, leaning against the cold metal bars. She gazed at the metal facility that towered above the waters. A rich plume of smoke rose from the roof. Behind them, a series of bombs shattered the city’s tallest buildings, and Wren’s heart dropped with dread.
“Faster!” she screamed.
Cassian’s eyes flashed with abrupt terror. He slid up the throttle and increased the boat’s speed. Wren knew he was in there. Vash. If he wasn’t, they were walking into their death trap.
“Mother!” Cassian exhaled.
She felt a huge level of pride. If she hadn’t let them touch her, he would have anticipated the attacks on the city. Instead, they were in the middle of the sea, looking back on his burning empire. It had all come undone.
The boat rolled into the dock where a slow elevator brought the boat up into a pool. With haste, Cassian anchored the small boat and carried Wren by the leash he had applied around her brittle neck. Pulling, they moved into the burning facility.
At the alarm systems blaring, Wren cupped her hands over her ears and lurched in pain. Water sprayed and flooded the stretching hallway. Cassian kept bringing her forward. Her eyes quickly rolled past the empty room with medical equipment, the shiver-inducing sight of an IV. This place was worse than any facility she was brought up in. It was empty and reeked of isolation and the madness it breeds.
Cassian hit his body against the door, checking his shoulder against the impossible lock. “Mother!” he screamed.
Cassian struggled and Wren watched as her captor faced his limitations. Suddenly, she felt the urge to laugh. To cry. To reach out and pry his eyeballs out with her thumbs. As the water fell over her hair, she remembered and internalized every moment she had gone through to get here.
He didn’t know power. She did. And she was going to show him how it was done.
“Move,” she said.
Cassian turned his wretched head and edged his teeth together in manic motions. She pushed forward, despite the threat of his beating fists. She was already swollen, already allowing herself to accept how she looked and felt. Hands clutching around her belly, she pressed her cheek against the cold metal door and said, “Vash. I’m here.”
“Vash…” Cassian grunted, low and quiet.
Vash opened his eyes amidst the flood of water that had begun to rise into the room. His mother lay in bed, a soaking and shivering, thin body. He looked at the copies floating near him in the water. He gasped in horror and ducked under.
“Vash!”
He heard her. Vash felt the slight, reverberating knock of a pounding fist against the iron door. He came to the surface and took another breath. Before he lowered his head into the water again, he saw the focused smile on his mother’s face.
Swimming downward, he pried and called out with subdued bubbles of oxygen. He pushed his feet against the door and struggle back, losing steam once again. “Vash!”
He rose back to the surface and swam toward his trembling mother. “She’s here!” he gasped. “She came for you.”
Her eyes opened and swiveled in his direction. “Wren,” she whispered.
“Yes, mother. Wren.” Vash inhaled.
Like a child, his mother showed her teeth. With glee, she whispered, “Another friend?”
“Yes, a friend,” Vash cried out.
His mother’s expression dropped. Suddenly, she closed her eyes. “I can’t do that, Vash.”
Vash clasped his fingers against the golden frame of his mother’s bed. Slowly, he pulled himself above her and placed his fingers into her complex wiring systems. “You can kill me, but I won’t let you kill my children.”
“Vash…” she whispered.
With tears flowing through his strained ducts, he slowly kneaded his fingers deeper and cried out. Clasping together, he flexed his bicep and slowly tore upward, plucking the cables out of her lower half. She let out an electrified cry, mouth twisting in disbelief.
“Drain the water,” Vash cried.
Her tongue extended, wagging like a defensive roach. Once more, he dug and tore her insides out, splitting her apart for the last time. The stench of pulverized flesh and electrical fire filled his lungs. His mother choked on blood, and the cables spilled milky fluids into the water around him.
“Drain the water, mother,” he said, again.
His mother shook soundlessly three times before she was dead. The alarm systems turned off, and the doors unlocked. Suddenly, the release of pressure sent the water shooting out into the hallway. Both Wren and Cassian flew against the wall, cracking down harshly against the floor.
Wren yelped in pain and threw her arms around her belly with sudden worry.
She was fine. But when she turned, she saw the reflection of light from Cassian’s blade. Without pause or acknowledgment, he sank it into Wren’s shoulder. In desperate shock, she sank to the floor, spreading dark maroon fluid into the flowing water.
Wren’s eyes rolled as she struggled to turn her body. “Why?”
Cassian pulled the blade and briefly eyed the level of blood vacating her body. A crooked smile formed on his face. “You were never that special.”
Leaving to run into the main room of the facility, he saw the drowned copies strung across the floor like leaves on a painted on canvas. Kneeling in the center of the room, Vash watched his so-called brother walk toward him with the blade.
“What have you done?” Cassian said, running toward his mother. “You’ve killed her! You’ve murdered all of them!”
“I did,” Vash said through his teeth.
Cassian turned his head, shaking with vindictive fury. He stood and held his blade. “I’ll dig my knife’s edge through your esophagus,” he snarled. “I’ll remove your colon and use it as my cock puppet. I’ll use you, take your code, and kill you over and over again throughout eternity.”
Vash shot forward like a hunting predator. Tackling Cassian to the floor, Vash twisted the wrist that held the blade. It flickered and ultimately fell to the splashing water.
Cassian lived because other men bled. But this time, he stank of fear. The knives that rested on his thigh were visible for Vash to see.
Vash threw his elbow against Cassian’s nose, deviating his septum. Clenching his fingers around the neck of the fool, he wasted no time choking the air out of him. As each millisecond passed, Vash forced down harder until he felt the cracking of his windpipe.
Roaring, Cassian writhed his fingers around Vash’s eye sockets. Vash whipped his head from side to side, stretching his neck back. “You were never my brother,” Vash uttered under his breath. “You were a bastard, stolen from his real home.”
Choking on his last breath and tears, Cassian jerked his blade upward against Vash’s gut. Vash fought back, wrapping his claws around the jagged edge, pulling with all his strength. Although it cut into his palms, he closed his eyes and fell back with the blade out of his belly.
Cassian collapsed with his jaw unhinged, air flowing against his upper palate. “Mother… I have done bad.” He choked on his tears.
His eyes focused on the bed. Her torn cables… The awful rotting color spreading from her cheeks…
“Oh, God…”
With a light whisper, she would have told him he was the rightful heir. She would have held him and stroked the nerves underneath his failing hairline. She would have kissed his cheek and weathered his pain. She would have painted the picture of power so delicately that it felt possible. At least, that’s what Cassian wanted to believe.
A river cuts through rock because of its persistence, not because of its power. And that’s exactly why Vash knew he would lose. The sea of plagued humans had hit their boiling point. They would start to learn persistence.
Suddenly then, as if sensing the single and unavoidable conclusion to all this, Vash lowered his hands before Cassian could speak. Bleeding and stumbling, he tore away the bed sheets and smashed out the rest of the cables with two hands that came away bleeding and glistening with electricity. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the flare gun and jammed it into her core. He pulled the trigger and felt the hot flame escape and explode him back.
Vash turned to face the dead body on the bed and waited until the moment of equilibrium was reached and Cassian’s final breath faded from his gawking lips. He heard Wren’s whimpers echo from the hallway, and forever, their pasts resolved into a tonic of darkness and the final absence of all motion.
“Wren!”
Vash ran to her, scooped her hurt body into his arms and quickly ushered her into the room with the medical equipment. Delicately, he placed her on the table and turned to find the tools. “I’m sorry,” she whispered with strain.
Vash felt his heart twist into a knot. Holding pressure against her wound, he ran his palm across her cheeks. He’d forgotten how radiant she looked. Trying not to tear up, he said, “Don’t you ever say you’re sorry to me.”
Wren puckered her lips to breathe, shivering through the cold of the water. She pulled against the threads of his damp shirt until his face moved closer to hers. Her lips trembled above his, and he could smell the sweet nectar scent coming from her wet hair. “I was so scared,” she whispered.
Crushing their lips together with obsessive passion, Vash glided his tongue against hers and brought her taste back to him. He ran his fingers through her hair and pulled lightly, breathing in her last scent. “This pack can’t lose you,” he whispered.
Tears trickled down from Wren’s glowing eyes. Swallowing, she took another anxious breath. “What if… what if I’m not supposed to live in this world?”
Vash let go and screamed, punching his knuckles into the used IV bag. There were no medical tools in this room besides the spare needles and pain meds in the corner. He turned and took her face into his hands, shaking her awake as her eyes began to close. “You’re not going to die, dammit! Wake up!”
A light smile wrapped in a bluish hue, formed on her face. “It’s okay, Vash,” she whispered. “It’s okay to let go.”
Vash watched as her breathing slowed. Quickly, he ripped his shirt off and tore the edges. Wrapping the tattered cloth against her shoulder, he tightened a knot and made sure it held. Glancing at the open door to the outside, he took a giant breath and started for the exit.
“Stay there!” he shouted.
The night was a dark shade of smoky death. The city, what was left of it, had been decimated by warfare. “My God,” he whispered to himself, stepping toward the edge of the deck. The quick snap of bullets winding into the concrete could still be heard every few seconds.
Using the last of his strength, Vash took the flare gun and aimed at the night sky above. He felt the furrowing phoenix of a cartridge rise into the air and detonate into shimmering tendrils of red. He collapsed and watched the light burn out.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Wake up, Precious.”
Still a bit sore, Wren yawned and groaned. “Where…” She opened her eyes and gasped. A woman stood above her bed, holding the spinal tap in her hands, but it wasn’t the hospital tool that scared her. It was the fact that the woman looked exactly like her. “Help!” she cried out.
“Wren, they found us. It’s going to be alright,” Vash said, grabbing her by the waist.
“W-Who is she?!”
Killian held Wren’s arms against the hospital bed. Reaching back toward Ruby, he clawed his hands open. “Give me some zip-ties!”
“No!” Wren thrashed wildly, sending Killian to the floor. Pouncing at him with sudden strength, she held his throat and gave him a look of fire.
With quiet haste, the twin took a prepared syringe and arched it toward her arm. Mouth open and dry, Wren felt her belly shift again. Feeling the pain swell like electrical currents, she gave up fighting. A tear slid carelessly down her swollen cheek when she looked at the twin again. “Who are you?”
Ruby didn’t smile as she retracted the needle. “Right now, introductions are not necessary.”
Wren lurched forward and eased her back against the fragile hospital bed. Her clammy hands slid down the thin metal bars, and a cry mimicking the world’s sorrow scraped its way from her stinging vocal cords. Every feature on the woman’s body was identical to hers. “How can a copy look identical?”
Pressure. Undeniable pressure.
It hit against Wren’s stomach, threatening to end her. Ruby dropped forward and grabbed her arms. “Lift her legs,” she said to Killian.
When she was on the bed, Ruby slapped on a pair of gloves and spread her legs. “Three quarters dilation. Not crowning yet, but soon,” she said, voice analytic and sterile.
“Fuck!”
Wren pushed her pelvis back and screamed as the pressure mounted her worse than the alphas. Her skin stretched to its utmost capacity, and she closed her eyes to try to weather through the pain. Every tender nerve started to rip before she heard the sound of skin begging to snap like a rubber band. The children inside her weren’t positioned right. They were too big to pass.
“Shit,” Ruby whispered.
“You can’t do this alone, dammit!” Lucas screamed.
Ruby’s eyes widened, but she managed to focus. “We’re going to have to do a C-section,” she whispered. “You—stay the fuck back, alpha.”
Lucas ground his teeth.
Wren scooted back and covered her hands over the now elongated hole. She could
feel the blocked passageway, feel the wriggling appendages preparing their daring escape. Her strength, driven mostly by adrenaline, washed into a sudden enervation. Weeping deeply, Wren slid her legs closed and gave up like a child.
“Please, Wren,” Ruby whispered. “You can’t die.”
Wren pillaged her tears into her chest. The stinging ache that rutted into the top of chest left her hopeless with fear. “Why?”
The twin did something unexpected. Leaning forward, lips near to Wren’s hearing, she whispered, “Because you’re the key to everything. You just don’t know it yet.”
Rapid tears of sorrow drained onto her lips, catching against the edging saliva. “Everyone says the same thing. That I’m special. But I’m not. I’m just someone to use.”
“You are wrong,” Ruby said. “But you’re just going to have to trust me on that.”
“Who are you?” Wren asked. “Tell me, or I will let my children murder me.”
Standing up, Ruby snapped a clean pair of gloves on her hands and tightened her chin. “I am Ruby, High Commander of the Republic’s army, the Kali. Although, names are not important anymore. The war has been won.”
“If it is over, then let me go!” Wren shrieked and started forward, but Ruby quickly took hold of her arms.
Vash sighed, exhausted. He nudged his hand against his forehead and dropped his eyes to the floor. “Go on. Tell her, already.”
Ruby swallowed and let go, nearly choking on her words. “She knows who I am! She must! We are made from the same monster,” she said.
“Another clone,” Wren whispered.
“No,” Ruby said. “Your twin sister.”
Wren didn’t have to let it sink in. She had faced so much that even the unbelievable felt real enough to accept. As her eyes met everyone in that room, she felt a sense of peace rise over her heavy shoulders. Vash. Killian. Lucas. Now, Ruby. They had all acted on her behalf. If she was special, they were the ones to know it.
“Please. I don’t want to be abused anymore,” Wren sighed.
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