by Tracey Ward
I curse, lacing my fingers behind my head. I glare at the floor like this is all its fault. “I hate my life.”
“Don’t we all?”
“I don’t know anything,” I promise her seriously. “I don’t know how this feels for any of you. All I can do is give you the choices you’ve got and try to help you through them. That’s my job.”
She softens into my honesty. “You’re more than your job to us.”
“I know.”
“And we’re more than a job to you.”
“I know.”
“We’re a family.”
“Natalie, I know,” I tell her firmly but gently. Begrudging the truth that I feel in my gut. In my heart. It’s crept up on me over the years. They have crept up on me, like I always knew they would. “I’m just trying to get us all through this.”
Her lips purse tightly, her chin trembling. “It’s not right,” she whispers. “This is so screwed up. None of it is fair.”
“No, it’s not.” I take her face in my hands and pull her forward, kissing the top of her head lightly. “But it’s the best we’ve got.”
She takes hold of my hands, squeezes them tightly, then hurries past me. She’s crying and I know it, but it’s not only over Breanne or her baby or the other girls who will see the same fate. It’s everything. The whole messed up world we live in that can’t stop kicking us. It’s like the undead outside. It keeps on moaning and groaning and pushing forward no matter how desperately you wish it wouldn’t.
You can drown the world, raise a sea of tears, but it will never stop spinning. Best you can do is learn to swim.
I curse again before straightening my spine and my head. I go into the room, casting a look to the doctor and Cobalt that silently tells them to get lost. When they’re gone, I shut Breanne and me inside.
It’s messy. Messier than giving birth. Messier than dying. It’s a different kind of goodbye than any of us has had to go through in a long time, and I hate that I’m a part of it because I feel like I’m screwing it up. Everything I say feels wrong, even though I know it’s right. But an hour of arguing doesn’t get us anywhere but dizzy from running circles around each other.
“A boy in the Hive is going to be one of two things,” I remind her calmly as she cries her eyes out of her skull. “Either a dealer or a fighter, and neither of those lives very long.”
“He could be like you. Vin, you could help him. You could train him to take over for you someday.”
“It’s not my call, sweetheart. It’s up to Marlow.”
“He’ll listen to you,” she pleads desperately, the same plea she’s made three times already. “You have to try. Please.”
“I can’t. You know I can’t.”
She trembles as she sobs. The baby frowns in its sleep. Its tiny, delicate face closes in on itself unhappily.
“Shhh,” I coo, pressing my palm firmly to her arm. “Calm down. You’re going to wake him.”
“Kennedy.”
“What?”
“That’s his name.” She sniffs loudly, her face a faucet turned on full. “Kennedy James.”
“It’s a good name, Bree.”
“I don’t want to lose him,” she whispers brokenly.
“I know that.”
“Wh-what if I went to another gang? The Westies let their women keep their babies.”
“And a lot of them die in the first couple of months. We don’t have the food to feed him.”
“Kennedy,” she insists forcefully. “No ‘him’. His name is Kennedy.”
“Bree.”
“I’ll feed him.”
“And the doc will have to come check on Kennedy constantly. That’s going to cost you.”
Breanne shakes her head, her blond hair clumped with sweat swinging around her face. “I don’t care.”
“You will in a couple years when you hit your limit.”
“My what?” she mewls.
“You’re limit. Marlow’s limit. He’ll only let you take out so much credit before you’re cut off and you have to start earning instead of bleeding. With a baby, that’s going to be impossible.”
She looks down at Kennedy’s tiny face, tears dripping off her chin onto his blanket. “I could try.”
“And you’ll both die,” I tell her frankly. “Marlow will kick you guys out and no gang is going to pick you up. You can’t join with the Westies with a baby already in tow. They’ll see you as a drain and they can’t afford that any more than any other gang can.”
“The Hive could.”
We could. She’s not wrong, not this time or the dozen other times she’s made that argument tonight. But Marlow won’t allow it and I have to get that through her head, one way or another.
“One baby, sure, but not all of them. Onyx and Elise are pregnant now. What happens to their babies when they deliver?”
“I don’t care,” she whispers, and I think she actually means it, cold as it sounds.
“Okay,” I sigh, switching tack, “so if we let you keep him, and we let the other girls keep their babies, that’s three just this year. We can survive that. But what happens next year if another three are born? Or four? And the year after that. We’ll be outnumbered by babies in a few years.”
“I don’t care, Vin.”
“I know you don’t, Bree, but those are the facts and you can’t ignore them just because you don’t like them. The Hive can’t afford all of those kids, especially not when the Colony is a better place for ‘em anyway.”
“So let me go with him. To the Colony.”
Shit.
It’s an obvious solution, but it’s one I was hoping she’d be too stupid or tired to mention.
“No, babe,” I tell her gently, squeezing her arm with my hand still resting against her skin. “You can’t go. You still owe.”
Her face crumbles, her body shaking. Her heart breaking.
By the end of another hour, Breanne and I have talked ourselves hoarse. She falls asleep and I let her go. I sit with her and watch as she passes out with tears on her face and her baby in her arms. And then I take him. I take him and I leave some part of myself, some tender slice of my soul that will lay withered and dying on the rapidly cooling spot where Breanne’s baby once lay.
I’ve stolen a lot of things from a lot of people in my life, but I’ve never felt more like a thief than I do in that moment.
I walk down the hall silently, passing doors and wishing I could knock on one. I want help with this but I can’t ask the girls because what if one day I’m carrying their kid? Two more girls are pregnant right now and if I involve them, they’ll remember this moment and the part they played, and it’ll kill them. So I leave them out of it. I protect them the best I can, and I go it alone.
I’m supposed to bring the baby to the doctor so he can get a final check out to make sure he’ll survive the trip to the Colony, then I deliver him to Neil, the Hive butler. He keeps the house working by overseeing pretty much everything none of us want to deal with. He makes sure the sheets are clean, the meals are prepped on time, the booze is stocked, and clothes are mended. And he makes sure babies get from their mother to their buyer, safe and sound. Asher will assign a guard to guide him to the gates of the Colony where Kennedy James will disappear forever. He’ll never know his mom. He’ll never know she wanted him, that she loved him. He won’t understand that she did this for him, not to him, but I know from experience that he’ll always wonder.
“Dammit,” I snarl low in my chest, my words vibrating against the beautiful baby boy with the pretentious name.
I look down at him and I see myself. I see a kid without a mom and a whole lot of questions that will never be answered. A boy that doesn’t know how to give a crap because he’s convinced no one ever gave a crap about him. I look at him and I see his mom sleeping peacefully for now, but what will happen when she wakes up? She’ll be wailing. She’ll be broken and angry and scared, and she’ll never forgive me for this. I don’t expect her to bec
ause in her eyes I’ve taken everything. I’ve stripped her of every last ounce of hope and love she managed to spring forward in this desolate world, and there’s nothing I can ever do for her or give to her that will make it okay.
But what’s the harm in trying?
I hurry through the shadows up a flight of stairs to the hall where I used to sleep. I try Asher’s door, feeling lucky to find it unlocked but empty. I make a barrier of pillows in a small rectangle on the floor, put a folded blanket in the middle, and lay the kid on top of it. I only hope he doesn’t wake up while I’m gone because if anyone finds a crying baby in Asher’s room, that’s going to be hard to explain.
I find Asher in the lobby. He’s throwing darts with some of the guys, laughing and smiling like nothing’s going on. Like the entire second floor isn’t in mourning for a tiny little soul that’s still here.
“Hey, man,” he calls to me. “How is she?”
“I need you to do some ink for me.”
“Right now?”
“Yeah. Right now. You got time?”
He smiles hesitantly, following me out of the room. “Yeah, sure. I got time. What are you looking to get? You want another sleeve?”
“Come on.”
I take the stairs two at a time, looking back to make sure he’s following me.
“Where are we going?” he asks suspiciously.
“You’re room.”
“What’s with the hurry? Why do you need ink so bad all of a sudden?”
“It’s not for me.”
“Who’s it for then?”
“You’ll see.”
It doesn’t make him happy to find out. He stands in the doorway to his room staring down at the baby with a confused expression.
“That’s a baby,” he tells me.
“No joke.”
“That’s who the tat is for?”
“Can you do it?”
“Can I tattoo a friggin’ baby?” Asher asks incredulously. “No. I can’t.”
“You can’t or you won’t?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s not happening.”
“It’s for a good reason.”
“It’s not happening.”
I turn to him, crowding him in the dark room.
“I’m not asking,” I caution him quietly.
He smiles as he looks down at me, easily three inches taller and a whole hell of a lot broader. “You tryin’ to intimidate me, Vin?”
“That all depends. Is it working?”
“No.”
I take a step back, pointing to the kid. “Just do it.”
“Just tattoo a baby? No! It’s not good for him. It’s dangerous and it’ll hurt like a you would not believe. He’ll cry.”
“I know that.”
He glares at me. “And you’re okay with that?”
“It’s worth it. Trust me.”
“There’s no reason good enough to hurt a baby, you psycho.”
“It’s for Breanne too, okay?” I push him farther into the room, closing the door behind us. Even though we’re alone, I continue in a voice barely above a whisper. “It’s so she can find him someday.”
Asher takes a step back, looking me up and down. “What the hell you talkin’ about?”
“I wanna tag ‘em. Both of ‘em. Same mark. Something that will match up someday if they ever find each other.”
“You mean if we ever live in a totally different world than we do right now?”
“Yeah. That.”
He stares at me for a long time. I can almost hear him thinking. I can feel him sweating. The room is hot. Muggy. The baby on the floor is small and fragile. We’re two mountains towering over him as he sleeps peacefully, totally oblivious the way only the innocent can be.
“How big?” Asher asks unwillingly.
“Small. Something simple.”
“Black?”
“Yes.”
“Better be real simple. His skin will stretch when he grows. If I do this, whatever I ink won’t look like what it’s supposed to in ten years.”
“Do a circle or something. Or a square. Whatever you do, you gotta make it identical on Breanne.”
“This kid is getting sold to the Colonies,” he hisses. “You can’t screw with that.”
“I’m not. He’s going. No question.”
“Then what are we doing?”
“We’re giving them a chance.”
“The world doesn’t work like that anymore. You know that. Mothers don’t keep their babies anymore, man.”
“It wasn’t always like this,” I remind him. I sound stupid, even to my own ears. The filthy feeling of hope reverberates in my voice as I plead, “And someday maybe it won’t be this way anymore. If that day comes, wouldn’t you want a shot at finding your own?”
“Why do you care so much?”
I care because I never knew my mom. I never even knew her name. Lucio called her his Black Beauty, laughing hysterically every time, and that’s all I’m ever going to have of her – an odd joke and a hollow feeling in my stomach every time I look at the girls in the Stables.
“I just do,” I answer Asher stubbornly. “Don’t ask me why I have to help her. I just do.”
“You’re going to tell her?”
“Yes.”
“It’ll give her hope, dude,” he groans with a grimace. “It’s not a good thing.”
“I know that. But she still needs it. She’s losing everything right now, man. It’s gutting her. She’s empty and that’s the point these days when a person puts a bullet in their brain if they can find one, so we gotta give her this. We owe her this.”
He hangs his head, his eyes on the kid on the floor. It’s sleeping soundly. Totally oblivious to us and the world and the horrible things it has in store for him.
“Alright,” Asher concedes with a sigh. “I’ll do it, but on one condition.”
“What?”
“We have to do it to all of them.”
It’s a dangerous thing we’re doing. If Marlow knew, he’d be furious. He’d ask me where I got the bright idea that I could have bright ideas. He’d wonder out loud, in front of everyone, who the hell I thought I was, making decisions for the Hive without consulting him first. And he sure as hell it wouldn’t like my answer, the words rolling off my tongue the same ones he gave to me at the edge of the pier.
I’m the head of the Stables. That’s who I am. I’m the keeper of the women of the Hive, and I’ll do whatever it takes to protect them; mind, body, and soul.
CHAPTER TEN
Trent
Ryan growls a curse wildly. He drops his knife on the floor, pacing our small room with his face buried in his hands.
“You’ll get another chance,” I remind him evenly.
I don’t understand his reaction. He’s been in a state ever since Vin announced that the fights were cancelled. I know he’s disappointed but Ryan doesn’t act like this. It’s abnormal. Abnormal usually piques my interest, but tonight it makes me nervous.
“No. I can’t… I…” He struggles to find the words, his mouth unable to catch up with his mind. “It was tonight. It had to happen tonight. I don’t know if I can go through that again.”
“Go through what?”
He stops suddenly, dropping into a crouch. He wraps his arms around his abdomen. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”
“Put your head out the window.”
“You don’t know what almost happened, Trent,” he moans. “You have no idea.”
“Then tell me.”
He lifts his head. His face is soaked in sweat, his eyes wet with tears. He looks absolutely miserable. “I wasn’t going to fight tonight.”
“What were you going to do?”
“I was going to kill Chapman.”
I pause only a second before going to the door and pushing it closed. I lock it tight.
“Trent?”
Moving slowly, I sink to the floor in front of him until we’re face to face. I hold him with my eyes
the way I can’t fathom holding him physically. I embrace him as best I can, wrapping him in the calm inside me. “Tell me everything.”
Ryan hesitates. Licks his lips. Finally, he nods, leaning back until he’s sitting on the floor across from me. His body relaxes visibly. “I, um… I was going to kill him.”
“I heard you. Tell me what your plan was.”
“I agreed to fight for the Hive just to get in the door. It was the only way they’d let me fight and I had to get close to Chapman to…”
“To kill him.”
He blinks rapidly. “Yeah. Yeah, to kill him. It had to be a tier three so I’d have a weapon. When he came out to announce me, I was going to stab him. In the throat.” He blinks again, slowly this time. His eyes go glassy and distant. “I was going to tear his throat open the same way the wolf ripped into Kevin’s.”
“And then what?”
“Huh?”
“After you killed him, what was the plan?”
He shrugs shakily. “Nothing. I didn’t have a plan past killing him.”
“That’s not a good plan.”
He lowers his head, his arms loosening around him. “I know. But it’s all I had.”
Ryan looks like a kid then. So much like a little boy curled up on the forest floor that I met so many years ago that my heart aches just looking at him. Kevin was with us then. He knew exactly what to do to make everything better. He knew what to say and how to say it. I don’t know any of those things. I know a lot about a lot, but about this, about people, I know next to nothing. It’s my biggest fault. And it’s killing Ryan.
“You couldn’t have done it,” I tell him quietly.
He glances up at me, tears on his cheeks. “Yes, I could. I was going to.”
“No. You couldn’t. That’s not who you are. You’re not a killer, Ryan.”
“Trent, it… it wouldn’t have been the first time.”
“The first time you killed a man?”
“Yes,” he whispers.
“We’ve all killed. Every Risen used to be a person, but they’re not anymore. By the time we kill them, they’re husks.”