“I think we should split up.” Braxtyn suggested quietly.
Lex and I shared a look. If there was one thing we didn’t want to do, it was split up. Why would he want that anyway? Because it’d make it easier for him to off us, for sure. So we’d be helpless away from each other. No. There was safety in numbers.
I opened my mouth to tell him where he could shove that idea when my feet froze beneath me. My heart dropped to the pit of my chest as my gaze locked just at the end of the hallway. There, just a few feet before us was a hybrid.
Lex and Braxtyn froze at my sides, hands tightening against their own weapons. I held my breath. The thing was frozen, staring at us with dark eyes. I wondered briefly which royal was before me now or if perhaps, it wasn’t a royal at all but someone else entirely? And how had it been so silent? How had we not noticed it before?
“Back up slowly,” I commanded. I eased my foot back, sliding it across the tiled floor beneath me. They obeyed, going as slowly as I was, careful not to make any sudden moves.
And then an alarm blared all around us, the sound wafting out of speakers high in the corners of the walls. The sound seemed to jolt the hybrid to life. It jerked its head back and roared.
“Run!” I screamed.
We whipped around and zipped down the hall just as the creature rushed towards us. Each roar seemed to bring it closer to us and the scars on my back pulsed as if in warning. Braxtyn ran ahead of both Lex and I, and then he came to a sudden halt before us. I nearly tripped as he whipped around, his fury filled gaze distracting me. The breath left my body in a painful exhale as he reached a big arm out and yanked my arm forward. I flew to his chest and then he was pushing me behind him quickly, yelling at Lex to hurry. I whirled around in time to see Braxtyn grab hold of a tall metal cabinet and pull.
The piece of furniture came crashing down, blocking the hybrid’s pathway. Braxtyn jerked on my arm. “Run!” He screamed, pulling me alongside him.
I was already out of breath. My chest on fire, lungs heaving but still I ran. I didn’t turn around to know that the hybrid had jumped over the cabinet. Braxtyn’s actions had bought us time, but very little.
We turned corners and I fought to think beyond my panic, to come up with a plan. But Lex was way ahead of me. “There!” He shouted, pointing towards a door at the end of the hallway. Braxtyn was already rushing for it, reaching for the handle and pulling it open.
I stopped just at the threshold and turned to see Lex. He was running towards us but the hybrid was just a few feet behind him. I screamed his name, holding out my hand to him. His face was set in tight panic as he ran and he was nearly to the door. He was so close…
And then I was hauled backwards through the entrance and Braxtyn was closing the door tightly, locking Lex out.
The hybrid’s growl was loud from the outside while Lex’s scream was muffled. And then there was silence. Braxtyn’s body was pressed up against the door, his fist tightened around the doorknob.
I was on him in a second. My fists pounding against his hard back in my rage. “You fucking bastard!” I screeched. My breathing had grown erratic. Lex. Oh, gods, Lex. I knew what he’d intended the moment he’d decided to come with us but to be so sneaky? To lock Lex out?
I pulled back and lifted my bow and arrow, aiming it straight at his chest.
He turned slowly to me, his frown growing more prominent by the second. He eyed the bow and arrow like he would a minor inconvenience. “I just saved our lives,” he said darkly.
“You just killed Lex.” I felt the tears trail down my cheeks as the words escaped my mouth without meaning to. I hadn’t wanted to show him weakness. But the hybrids were taking everything from me and Braxtyn was helping them along.
“I saved us. Ungrateful little queen.”
“He could have made it!” My fingers trembled but I couldn’t seem to let the arrow fly.
“Not without bringing that thing down on us.”
“You’re a bastard,” I spat. “You’ll do anything to save your own skin. Even if that means throwing everyone else to the hybrids to get what you want.”
He frowned. “You’re right,” he admitted. “I’ll do anything to get what I want and I’ll kill anyone who stands in the way of that. Your friend stood in my way and I will not regret my decision.”
A sob wrenched out of my chest like a battle cry and I let loose the arrow. But his tense body had been expecting it. He moved to the side and it bounded off the metal door, falling to the floor. He didn’t give me a chance to grab another. He was pulling me towards him and whipping me around to slam my body against the door. I cried out as he pressed himself against me. His forearm was tight against my throat as he pinned me. He lowered his head and his breath was nothing but a whisper of dangerous warmth near my lips.
“I don’t expect you to understand, country queen,” he said menacingly. “I will do whatever it takes to get what I want.”
“Get off me.” I jerked against him.
“You’d be dead without me,” he went on as if I hadn’t even spoken. “This is the second time I’ve saved your life. Next time, I expect a little more gratitude.”
“I’ll never thank you for murdering my friends!” I spat.
He pushed me back against the door. His movements were rough and painful but I bit back my cries to glare at him. The tears wouldn’t stop coming, wouldn’t stop falling down my cheeks. A sob choked out of me. And another. And another. Until soon, I was crying freely, not able to hold the tears back. It didn’t seem to matter that Braxtyn was in front of me, that even as I tried to reel the tears in, they spilled forth.
Braxtyn loosened his hold on me, lowering his arm from my neck. My fists found his chest and pounded out my rage. “You killed him!”
“He wouldn’t have made it, lass,” he whispered quietly.
“You don’t know that!” I hit him again.
And then he was pulling me to his chest by the back of the head. My hands were between us and flattened against him as his arms went around me to hold me close. He smelt of Akir and on instinct, my body curled into his. I sobbed into the crook of his neck.
His fingers dug tightly into the roots of my hair while his hand rubbed circles around my back. His chest hitched up and down against my own. “I’m sorry, lass,” he whispered against the top of my head. “But I have to save my brother.”
His words jolted me to my senses, had me remembering that he was not Akir. Akir would have never done what Braxtyn had. He would have never let Lex die without first giving him a chance to live.
I pulled away quickly and turned, wiping the tears from my eyes. I’d embarrassed myself enough already. Every instinct in my body wanted to rip Braxtyn to shreds where he stood. But he could easily overpower me. I had to be smart about this. We couldn’t split up. That wasn’t an option. So I had to tolerate him if only for a little while longer before all of this could end.
I sniffled one last time and then demanded, “Let’s go.”
***
I tried ignoring the pain in my chest as I caught sight of the blood in the hallway. I held my head high and walked past it, ignoring the fact that the blood seemed to stop halfway. I couldn’t think about Lex. Couldn’t think about what had happened to him or if he was still alive or if they had turned him into a hybrid. If it was the latter, I vowed I’d save him.
My bow and arrow were poised. There would be no more running this time. This time I’d face those creatures bravely and I’d kill them if necessary. I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to murder the royals but it would seem I’d have no other choice.
So as we went on, I kept a sharp eye out for anything abnormal, for any signs of trouble. Surprisingly, there was none. There was no noise and that caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand unpleasantly.
We went up a stairway and then another until we found an opened door. Braxtyn gestured towards it with his head. I nodded back and we stepped forward together into a room with bright white walls
and monitors. Lights blinked above us and black and white screens showed the laboratory both on the outside and the inside. The room was wide and I stopped in my tracks beside Braxtyn.
Because it was hard to miss that there was another person in the room, fingers running across keyboards, eyes glued to the screens. He swivelled around in his chair and gifted us both with a familiar, warm smile.
“Glad you could join the party.”
Braxtyn froze in his place. “But...you…”
“A shock to see me, is it?” He stood from his chair. He was wearing tight jeans and a t-shirt, so different from the last attire I’d seen on him. “Thought I was dead, did you?”
“Cole,” I whispered.
Braxtyn’s younger brother smiled warmly in my direction. “Princess, what a lovely surprise.”
Braxtyn was frozen in his shock. Whatever he’d expected when coming to the lab, it obviously hadn’t been this. For a brief moment, shame heated my cheeks. I’d been so adamant in my decision to not trust Braxtyn that I’d overlooked their younger brother completely. He’d been too naive, I’d said. Obviously not.
“It was you,” I said breathlessly.
“Ding, ding, ding,” Cole mocked loudly. His smile was wide, nonchalant. “And the prize goes to Keanna Ferguson! How very observant of you, your Highness.”
Braxtyn took a step forward. “What is the meaning of this, Cole? Why are you here?” My heart clenched. He was obviously in denial. How would he take this? This obvious betrayal?
Cole rolled his eyes. “And I thought Akir was the dumbest brother. Really, Brax, what does it look like?”
“You’ve been turning the royals into hybrids,” I accused.
“You are on a roll today, princess.”
“Why, though?” I narrowed my eyes at him. My bow and arrow were tight in my palms. Loosing one straight would end all of our troubles. But not yet. I had to figure out why. Why would Cole betray his own family?
“I thought that would be obvious.” Cole shrugged and plopped himself back into his chair. “You want a back story? It’s not that complicated. I have no stories of revenge to tell. You see, all I’ve ever wanted was power.”
“Cole,” Braxtyn snapped impatiently. “You are a prince. What power could you possibly need[1]?”
Cole smiled. “The youngest prince,” he corrected. “Third in line to the throne. I could have dealt with those odds. It would have been so easy to off all of you and claim the Ruined City for my own. But then your engagement to Akir was announced,” he nodded in my direction. “And we’d heard stories of you in our kingdom. Stories of the mighty Huntress. Of the brave daughter of the Hybrid King Ferguson. It was rumored you were very beautiful and fearless.” I flushed, despite myself. “I knew it wouldn’t be long before you came, before my brother Akir would claim his birthright. Before he got you with child.” My hand involuntarily went to my stomach. Cole followed the movement with his eyes briefly before flicking back to my face. “My hopes of claiming the throne dwindled. But then I thought, huh, only a little man dreams of something so simple as claiming one kingdom. What if I were to claim them all?” He leaned back in his chair as if it were a throne.
“You can’t possibly claim the Broken World for your own, Cole.” Braxtyn said furiously. It was as if he was trying to convince his brother of the impossibilities rather than reprimand him. And that made me nervous.
Cole smiled widely. “Not alone, no. Alone it’s an impossible feat[2]. I’d need an army. But who would back me? The youngest of three, the fuck up of the family? The one no one could ever take seriously? The one who was always overlooked?” He gestured at himself.
“So you decided to use hybrids,” I added.
He nodded vigorously. “Brilliant, don’t you think? It was so easy, too. All I had to do was come to the lab with a few loyal men and everything I needed to know was on these computers. For so long, we’d thought the scientists of old had experimented on bears and made them insane but that wasn’t the case.” He was rambling now and I could make out the crazy glint in his eyes, the psychotic glow that I hadn’t noticed before, that I’d passed off as naivety. “Cross genetics,” he went on, “is what they called it. They basically took the DNA of animals and reformed them so they’d be compatible with human DNA and made us more. Of course, there are many other complexities in the science but that’s the basis.”
One shot to the chest and he’d be dead. But I needed the cure. I needed to know how to reverse the effects. I opened my mouth to pose the question but Braxtyn was taking another step forward so that his back was to me. I could see his entire body trembling.
“Our father—”
“I had to get him out of the way along with the other royals. Me and my men stole a few dirt bikes to guide father along the way to snatch them up.”
“How have the hybrids not turned on you yet?” I asked, though I feared I already knew the answer.
“They react to high frequencies and I can control them that way. Besides, they start to lose their human selves the longer they’re in their hybrid bodies.”
I recalled weeks ago during the battle, how all of a sudden the hybrids let out ferocious roars and ran away. My mother had been thrashing around, fighting off some call only she could hear. It had been Cole all along. He’d led them to us. His people were dead because of him. And all because he’d been the overlooked sibling? I would feel no sympathy for him.
“Enough with that,” I whispered and notched my arrow, drawing the string back to point it at his heart. His eyes flickered to it and he smiled. Rage boiled hot within me. I was close to erupting. “I have only one question for you now and that’s: how do you turn them back?”
“Stand down, lass.” Braxtyn whispered harshly to me, holding out his arm.
I ignored him. “How do you change them back, Cole?”
“Now why on earth would I tell you that?”
“Because if you don’t, this arrow will fly straight to your heart.”
He threw his head back and roared with laughter. “You don’t want to do that, princess. And before you ask ‘why not’, let me direct you to these screens.” He gestured at the monitors behind him, turning in his chair to stare at one in particular.
Cautiously, I edged forward, close enough to see what he was gesturing at. I sucked in a breath. “Lex,” I whispered, feeling the tears prickle behind my eyelids. I shoved them away. Lex was alive. He was on screen and appeared to be in a room of some sort. I could tell he was hurt because he kept pressure against his abdomen. He was leaning against a door helplessly.
“Look, princess.” Cole pointed to another screen. This one showed the image of a hybrid wandering down a hallway. “These doors are automatic. That means I can open them from here and your precious Lex would no longer have protection against the beast.”
I swiveled around and touched the tip of my arrow against his forehead. “I’ll kill you before your finger touches that button.”
He smiled and I knew he wasn’t afraid. That only made everything worse. And a wild, savage part of me thought that I should kill him anyway. That I should just go ahead and let my arrow fly. His finger hovered over the button, over the button that could doom Lex. And how could I let that happen? How could I let him suffer?
The answer was there. It was in my many lectures, in my training. It was the reason Akir had not come here and it was the reason I had. Because the needs of the many outweighed the needs of the few. And I would gladly die here alongside Lex if that only meant I’d find the cure that would save everyone else.
I heard my mother’s voice clearly in my mind and I understood that sometimes, what needed to be done was never the easiest decision or even the one your heart told you to make. It was why she’d pushed me on Akir. She hadn’t wanted to, but our people had depended on it. Not because of the hybrids, because they hadn’t yet had time to come into play but because we needed reinforcements. We’d needed protection and the needs of our people had been way more
important than my feelings.
My thoughts flashed back to Akir, and all that he was doing. If we died here today, I’d have died not telling him that I love him, too.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to no one in particular, but also to everyone, just before I let the arrow fly.
But Braxtyn was shoving me just as I let the string loose, causing my arrow to wobble and land in Cole’s shoulder. He let out a cry, slamming his hand down onto the button. My heart dropped as I watched on the monitor, as I watched the door open. Lex had been leaning too heavily on it and fell back into the hallway. Straight in the line of vision of the hybrid.
I pulled another arrow out and aimed it at Braxtyn. But he wasn’t paying any attention to me. He was looking directly at Cole. “I have a question, brother.” His breathing was erratic, his words shaking.
Cole let out a painful laugh, clutching his shoulder. The arrow protruded from it and blood was gushing out. “Ask away, Brax.”
“The day you took our father, why didn’t you take me as well?” His voice sounded like he desperately wanted to know the answer.
Cole didn’t pause. He held tightly to his shoulder with one hand and with the other, broke the arrow in half. He screamed, dropped the broken piece and laughed. “I don’t know.” He pulled the rest of the arrow out in one quick, painful motion. “I assumed they would suspect you of foul play and off you themselves, saving me the trouble of having to kill my own brother.”
Braxtyn staggered back a step. “You would have killed me? Truly?”
Cole laughed again, slumping back in his chair. I saw his hand slowly going into his pocket and tensed. I took a few steps away from Braxtyn, putting space between us so he wouldn’t have the time to run towards me as I killed his brother. I wouldn’t have him ruining my chances again. Not this time.
“Of course I’d kill you. You mean nothing to me. And you know too much, besides.”
I thought I could hear Braxtyn’s heart break from here. His face changed into rage and betrayal and heartbreak. “You’re my brother,” Braxtyn said. “I came back for you. To find you.”
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