by Laken Cane
She couldn’t stand their pain.
“Go to Levi,” she told Ellie.
Jack’s one visible eye swam with tears. He said nothing.
Bill Rice and Elizabeth stood in the doorway then, watching her, their hands clasped.
Her people.
She processed it all in seconds. Mere seconds.
Then she turned away. Turned toward the girls.
Death waited, and Rune was ready.
She’d always been ready.
The children stood huddled together, watching her, unsure. Their doubt made them seem once again vulnerable, human.
But they changed as she walked to them.
It was either fight or die, and they wanted to survive. They’d plucked a huge bag of tricks from Levi’s blood, and they were made up of Rune Alexander.
They’d fight.
She was grateful that along with their abilities they hadn’t been cursed with love.
The thought made her throw one last glance at the berserker.
His spear lay forgotten on the floor as he stood outside the impenetrable circle, watching her with a fierceness that said he would not look away. He would not.
No matter what he had to witness.
“I’ll never leave you, Rune.”
“Not even if I want you to?”
“Not even then.”
She dropped her fangs.
The girls mimicked her.
Once upon a time she’d not only been ready to die—she’d wanted to die.
She drew that remembered despair to her. She pictured the parents who’d adopted her. She remembered Amy. She opened the part of her mind behind which she’d hidden her shame, her guilt.
She thought of Jeremy, of Llodra.
She thought of life without the berserker and Ellie and her crew.
And then, she remembered Z. His life, his death, his absence.
Z.
And she killed the monsters in the only way she could.
By killing herself.
Chapter Fifty-Seven
She put the fingertips of both hands to her body—one hand to her throat and one to her heart—and without another hesitation she shot out her built-in shivs with more force than she’d ever used, having time for a barely there realization that it fucking hurt, and then, then there was nothing.
But suddenly, there was.
There were sounds of stomping feet and yells of rage and screams. Flashes of light through her eyelids.
It was a symphony of confusion and she couldn’t make sense of it.
Surely she was dead.
“Z?” she asked.
I’m here, sweet thing. Always.
For an instant she was back in the field of zombies, lying there as the infection did its best to wipe her out, with strange voices inside her mind.
“I know you. How did I forget?”
How, indeed.
“The fuck are you?” she muttered. Or thought she did.
The world tilted.
She remembered finally how to open her eyes. Ellie peered down at her, his face pale but calm—and she knew from experience it was the calm of extreme crisis. He’d crumble later, when he had time.
She smiled.
He did not return that smile.
“The babies are dead?” she tried to ask him, but the words didn’t form because her voice was…air.
Then Strad was there, but he didn’t take her from Ellie.
“What is she?”
She was confused for a moment but then figured she’d misheard. He’d asked “How is she?”
Hadn’t he?
The world tilted again.
“You’re strong,” Ellis whispered. He never took his gaze off her. Not once. “You’re so strong.”
“Hurry,” Strad yelled. “Hurry the fuck up.”
Her eyesight was dimming. She wanted to grab Strad, to hold on to him, but she couldn’t move her arms.
She was fading. Whatever was inside her, the spark, the life, was fading.
She couldn’t feel anything.
Paralyzed.
She hadn’t beheaded herself—she’d paralyzed herself. And that fucking sucked.
“God, Rune,” Ellie cried. “God!”
Annex ops ran and tripped and talked in low, fast voices.
Eugene was there—she heard him shouting orders. “Careful,” he yelled, his animation unfamiliar.
“We’re all here, Rune. We’re all right beside you.”
“She can’t,” Jack mumbled. “She can’t.”
“Shut up, Jack,” Raze growled.
“Rune,” Lex cried. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
For what?
“I’m okay,” Levi told her, though she couldn’t ask. His words reassured her.
But she kept fading. Layers of cotton nestled her in their warm fluffiness. There was no pain. Not then.
Voices were dim. Not real.
“No,” Strad roared, his explosion of horror so abrupt and dismayed it brought her back, somewhat.
Two Annex ops were pushing a cot toward her. Likely the children. The dead, monstrous children.
But then she understood Strad’s cry of horror.
She understood what he hadn’t wanted her to see.
A leg hung off the gurney, a leg as familiar to her as her own.
Because it was her own.
She’d managed to decapitate herself after all.
It just hadn’t killed her.
Oh.
Oh no.
She was a brain in a jar.
A brain in a jar.
She couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. Couldn’t cry out. A numbing darkness descended, and when she next woke up…
She had her body. She had her body.
“Fuck me,” she screamed, and lifted her hand to stare at it with overwhelming relief. Her throat hurt, but she ignored it. She’d pierced it with her claws. Of course it hurt.
Ellie bent over her. “Rune? Rune!”
His eyes were bloodshot in the midst of his drained, pale face, and his hair, normally so neat and clean, clung in limp strands to his cheeks.
She frowned. “What’s wrong, baby?”
He gaped at her, then put his hand over his mouth and started giggling, his eyes too wide. “What’s wrong, she says. What’s wrong?”
Strad appeared behind Ellie and lowered him gently into a bedside chair.
And then, he turned to face her.
“You’re back.” His voice was so raw it hurt her to hear it.
She was in one of the Annex hospital wards. A sheet covered her body. A bag of blood hung on a pole. The sight was familiar and strangely comforting.
Owen stood against the wall, watching her. When she looked at him, he blinked once, slowly, then left the room without a word.
“I dreamed…” But then she shook her head, grimacing at the pain in her neck, her throat, and didn’t say what she’d dreamed. “The babies?”
“Dead,” Strad said, caressing her cheek with the back of his hand. Over and over and over. “They didn’t survive your…what you did. Eugene had them cremated. If not for him…” Then it was his turn to cut off his words.
She owed Eugene, then.
“As soon as you cut yourself,” he finally continued, “the field dropped and we were able to get inside.” He tightened his lips into a hard line but not before she saw the trembling there.
And that scared her more than anything.
“What happened to me?” she asked. “It wasn’t a dream, was it?”
The berserker shook his head. “No, sweetheart.”
“How…” She ran her hand over her body. “How am I okay?”
“You can’t die, Rune. You can never die.”
She ignored his words. She had to. “Did I decapitate myself? Did I shred my heart?”
He swallowed, looked away, then forced himself to meet her stare. “Yes,” he whispered.
Her eyes were dry. So dry. “How did you fix m
e?”
“Eugene had Annex doctors wrap you in something I’d never heard of. Some sort of…flesh bandages. It’s been a month. Your body reattached.”
She’d been lying there for an entire month, reattaching parts she’d deliberately severed.
She wasn’t dead.
“The babies?” she asked again.
“They’re dead,” Strad answered. Again.
“The one the sheriff took?”
“Not yet.”
She ran her fingers over her concave belly and up over ribs so prominent she flinched. She was a monster.
And she could never die.
There was no longer any doubt.
Once upon a time that thought would have sent her screaming into the depths of a black despair too deep to climb out of. It would have shoved her headfirst into madness.
She took Strad’s hand, frowning at the shakiness in his fingers. “A month?”
He nodded.
Shit. He and the twins had been dealing not only with the horror of her decapitation, but with their addictions as well. They’d been mired in withdrawals for the last fucking month.
“Help me sit up, Berserker. Ellie, go get the twins. They need to feed.”
“No,” Ellie said, but slowly, it seemed to dawn on him that she was really okay. “The twins?”
She nodded and hung on to the berserker’s arm as he helped her sit up. “Their withdrawals must be killing them.”
Ellis stared at her for a moment longer, his mouth working but nothing coming out. Then he turned and fled the room.
The berserker watched her with glittering eyes that made him look, to her, half mad. A month, watching her, wondering…
He smelled of freshness, of outdoors. She spotted his spear leaning against the wall behind him. He’d clubbed his long hair into a ponytail and let it fall over his back, and had dressed in a simple dark T-shirt and khakis.
As usual, he wore a variety of weapons. He crossed his arms, his muscles bulging. She wanted to grab him, to hold him, to feel him. To soak in some of his vitality.
She pulled the IV from her arm and tossed it away, then reached up to smooth her hair. She would look like death. And death was rarely pretty.
Her arms grew tired from that little bit of activity, and she lowered them to her lap.
Finally, she met his stare.
“Berserker,” she said, almost afraid, and not quite understanding her new hesitancy. “I…will you—”
He growled, and in that sound was every horror and every pain that had tormented him over the last month. He leaned forward and yanked her off the bed, into his arms, and squeezed her so hard she couldn’t breathe.
“Damn you,” he whispered.
“We kicked ass, didn’t we?”
He blew out a hard breath. “We fucking did.”
She wrapped her arms around his warm neck and pressed her lips against his soft, familiar skin.
“How is Fie?” she asked.
“She…” he hesitated, and in that hesitation was her answer. “She’s alive.”
“And Bill?”
She could feel his frown. “Bill?”
Later. Later, she’d worry about Bill.
“Berserker,” she murmured, then repeated the words he’d said to her weeks ago. “You’re mine.”
He pulled back and stared at her. He said nothing.
She smiled, and her lips, in their dryness, cracked. She had to say it again. “You’re mine. But you know that, don’t you?”
All the bad shit in the world still waited, and that was okay.
Because she had the berserker.
She had her crew.
She had her life.
And at that moment, it was really just that fucking simple.
Shadows Past
By Laken Cane
A Rune Alexander short story
A glimpse into Shiv Crew's past before the twins and Lex entered the picture, before Owen got under Rune's skin, and before the berserker gave her his heart.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter One
Fucking Christmas.
It was the holiday season during which Shiv Crew saw the most darkness. Murders, violence, and suicides climbed steadily from November to January.
And on Christmas Eve, they were right in the center of the black, swirling cloud that lay over Spiritgrove and spat sharp, evil darts at everyone who lived in the city.
Rune blew out a long sigh and her breath hung before her like a curious wraith, white and solid beneath the streetlights.
“You guys feel that?” she asked her crew, as they strode through the city and back to their waiting cars.
“What’s bothering you, sweet thing?” Z, walking beside her, reached out to catch her hand.
Maybe because the dark eeriness of the night was getting to her, or maybe because his hand was warm as it clasped her cold one, she didn’t pull away.
“Don’t call me sweet thing,” she said, out of habit. Then, “This time of year fucks with me.”
He squeezed her fingers, gently. He said nothing. There was nothing to say, really. Her crew—Raze, Jack, and Z—had her back. They kept her sane.
Sort of.
She stiffened suddenly, narrowing her eyes as she caught sight of a huge, hulking shadow standing still and sinister at the mouth of the alley they were about to pass. Her stomach tightened immediately.
“Berserker,” she muttered. She pulled out of Z’s grip and touched her familiar blades, barely resisting the urge to slide them into her eager hands.
Strad Matheson awakened something primal inside her. Primal and fearful. He shouldn’t have—he was, after all, Jeremy’s man. Technically, he was on her side.
But there was something about him. Something terrifying. When she looked into his eyes, she saw nothing but a chaotic rage and the desire to kill.
He was a fucking…berserker.
And he scared the hell out of her.
As she and her men strode past him she couldn’t help but look at him. And even in the dark shadows his eyes glittered. He caught and held her stare.
It seemed as though she walked in slow motion, caught in the snare of his gaze for an eternity before finally she was past him.
She shuddered.
“You good, Rune?” Jack asked, and when she glanced at him, she saw that he hadn’t resisted his urge to fill his hands with silver. His blades flashed as he pushed them back into their sheaths.
They were all suspicious of the berserker.
“Yeah,” she said. “Of course I’m fucking good.” And if her voice was a little angry, they understood. Rune Alexander didn’t like people to see her fear.
Raze’s voice rumbled suddenly into the frigid night air. “Trouble.”
As one, they pulled their shivs, each of them on sudden and familiar guard. Were they ever not on guard? No. Not really.
Their lives were violent and bloody and every day was a fight to make it into the night as they battled the bad guys.
They were Shiv Crew.
And that was what they did.
“Fuck,” Raze muttered. “Rats.”
“Hang back, baby,” Rune said. “We’ve got this.”
Raze’s terror of the rats was well known. His phobia had no reason. It just was. They understood it, and they respected it. It didn’t make him less. It just made him human.
“No,” he said.
Rune sighed. He’d go after the rats with a vicious and desperate horror that meant the rats would not escape death even if they tried to run.
Raze would kill them.
And when she saw what they were doing, she was fine with that.
With Raze’s yell of disgust and rage leading them, they waded into the group of wererats.
A skinny teenaged
boy knelt in the middle of the shifters, his hands—one of which was covered with a huge, bulky glove—held out in front of him. As she watched, he dug at the bound hand furiously, trying to get the stubborn glove off.
His face was bloody from the rats’ lethal claws. His clothes were too thin to keep him warm, and the rats had managed to make them even worse by shredding them to rags.
They’d been playing with the human before going for the kill.
Shiv Crew protected the humans from the Others, and the boy was human.
“Destroy the motherfuckers,” she said, furious.
The rats fought, surprising her. She’d fully expected the bastards to run. And at the end, one of them shifted to his human form, maybe hoping to halt the blade she held at his throat. “He trespassed into our territory, Alexander. He tried to seduce one of our girls.”
She stared down at him, her knee planted firmly on his chest, the tip of her blade sliding into his flesh. “Fuck you,” she whispered, and drove her blade into his throat with such force the tip hit the pavement upon which he lay.
Fucking Others.
She glanced up and stopped breathing for one long moment as she caught sight of the berserker, his arms crossed, watching them from a few yards away.
As she knelt there, frozen, he pulled the long, silver spear from its sheath on his back and threw it. Hard.
She ducked at the last minute, stunned, but as she rolled and leaped to her feet, Strad Matheson’s weapon of choice speared a huge rat through the chest, carrying him backward and pinning him to a streetlight pole.
The rat had been two seconds from sticking his claws into her back.
One corner of Strad’s lips lifted in a mocking smile as Rune stared at him. He walked by her and yanked his spear from the dead rat.
And then, he was gone, disappearing into the darkness and leaving them to the rest of the wererats.
Only two remained. Jack and Raze made short work of them as Z strode to the injured boy.
“You okay?” he asked, crouching beside the boy.
Rune knelt on his other side. “What’s your name?” He shivered from cold and shock, and she frowned when she noticed his arms were not only skinny, they appeared atrophied from disuse.