by Laken Cane
“Karin hates you. The church hates you. You’ve insulted her. You addicted one of our men to your filthy blood and sent him to prison to suffer. You’re our enemy and you’ll hunt COS until you die. So we’ve decided you need to die soon.”
“I’m immortal,” she said.
“Likely you are,” he agreed. “But there are some things even the immortal can’t come back from.”
So a bomb.
She looked up and realized her men hadn’t left the porch. Strad stuck his head back into the room. “Let’s go, Rune. Come on. Now.”
“Don’t fight me on this, Berserker. Get the fuck away from this house.” She glanced down at her feet. “Am I standing on the trigger?” she asked Bach.
“Maybe you are. Maybe you aren’t. But you will not escape the house.”
She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds coming from the phone. She heard the call of a Blue Jay, and finally, the lonely, eerie whistle of a distant train.
She put her fingers over the mouthpiece. “I think they’re in Hawthorne Forest,” she told Strad. She wasn’t afraid—not for herself. “When I move, I’m going to trigger a bomb. I need you not to argue with me. Get away from this house.”
Raze, Owen, and Jack walked up to stand beside Strad. “We’ll leave when you leave,” Strad said.
“I might die,” she said. “I’m not taking you with me. Standing there is stupid. If we all die, Lex and the twins are lost.”
She gave them a minute to think about it.
“Boys, you know I’m fast.”
“Not that fast,” Raze said. “Why is it we’re always on the verge of losing you?”
She shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.”
Jack adjusted his eye patch nervously. “Fuck, Rune.”
She smiled. “If I’m blown to bits, don’t stop until you have Lex and the twins. And destroy COS. Every time you see a new branch, destroy it.”
“You know we will,” Strad said, his voice hoarse. “Be fast, Rune. Faster than you’ve ever been.”
“I’ll give it my best shot. You guys take off.” She grinned. “Go on, now.”
Owen was the only one who returned her smile. “See you on the other side.”
They lingered, lingered just long enough to make her afraid they’d refuse to see reason and would be killed with her.
But then, finally, they melted away and left her alone.
Alone with the bomb.
Chapter Forty-Seven
She stood frozen when they were gone, afraid to move. She didn’t hang up the phone but let it dangle against the wall. Just in case hanging up would be the trigger.
But beneath her feet she saw the line where the floor had been cut. The explosive was right below her.
Maybe.
It didn’t really matter.
It would go off and if she could move faster than she’d ever moved, there was a chance she would live.
The house was silent and watchful. She heard nothing but her own breath, rushing through her ears as adrenaline built.
Fast. Faster than I’ve ever been.
Faster than a bomb.
She didn’t want to try for the door—even though it was only a few feet away, it was still too far. There was a window to her left, and it was closer.
Even if she’d wanted to follow Z from the world, she wasn’t going to let COS be responsible for her departure.
She inhaled life, pulled it deep, and as her lungs expanded as far as they could, she vaulted off the floor, her stare on the window.
Faster than she’d ever been.
Faster, maybe, than anyone had ever been.
The house exploded.
It was something she’d never felt—it was as if in half a second, her body was ripped apart and various parts of her violently swirled in space before ramming forcefully back together again.
She was the blast. She was the heat and the energy and the force, and she exploded through the window, her body battered as it was flung into the side of a neighboring building.
She lay in a boneless heap, blind, deaf, and so disoriented she had no idea where she was or what had happened.
Then red, licking flames appeared in the blackness. Scorching wind whooshed around her, cradling her in a burning bed of chaos.
She was alive.
Wasn’t she?
She cackled, half-crazed but joyful, and fought her way back to the daylight.
The crew needed to know she was still there.
Still fucking there.
As she crawled away, trying to stand, a burning board hit the side of her head. Blood, hot and angry, gushed down her face.
“Son of a bitch,” she muttered, and climbed to her feet.
She heard sirens in the distance. Even in the Moor, a place in dire need of a cleansing fire, the firefighters would rush to the rescue.
It was what they did.
Rune tottered in the direction of the destroyed house.
The crew would be watching for her. Hoping.
The street churned with people. “Bring on the zombies,” one of them yelled. “We’ll have us a barbecue.”
And in a line, as close as they could get to the burning house, stood her men.
She kept her stare on their backs as she made her way toward them, ignoring the shock of those who caught sight of her as she pushed through the crowd.
“Watch it,” a man said, when she bumped into him, and turned with aggressive anger toward her. His yell of terror caused those near him to turn around to look.
A woman screamed.
Rune walked on.
Ordinarily she would have been more concerned about their reactions, but her mind was on only one thing. Letting Strad, Jack, Raze, and Owen know she was alive.
They’d been through enough—she didn’t want them thinking they’d lost her, as well.
She wasn’t in any pain. Her body was numb. She realized she probably looked like death, burnt and broken with seared skin and a bloody face.
But she had no idea how bad she actually looked until Owen turned and saw her.
She grinned, but his immediate shock and the horror in his eyes made her smile disappear.
Her crew, alerted by Owen, spotted her then.
The crowd quieted as they watched.
“Unreal,” someone said. “Is that Rune Alexander?” The voice echoed inside her skull, coming from far away and yet, right there, right beside her.
Maybe inside her. She didn’t know.
She stood still then, letting her men come to her.
“I’m alive,” she said, when they reached her. “I’m alive.”
Strad reached out, then withdrew his hand. “Fuck, sweetheart.”
Jack murmured, “Rune,” then turned away. It was the first time she saw him cry.
“But I’m alive,” she whispered, a little confused.
Owen crossed his arms, then swallowed, and also turned away. “If you can,” he said to Strad, “you need to fix this.”
“How can that be alive,” someone called. “How can that be walking?”
Rune sighed, fed up. She didn’t need another fucking delay—COS waited in Hawthorne and it was time for retribution.
She lifted a hand to Strad. “Feed me,” she said, then fell silent as she realized, finally, what all the shock was about.
Her clothes had been burned away, as had much of her skin. She was a walking skeleton. Bits of scorched flesh clung to the bones of her hand and arm as she reached out to the berserker.
Unable to help herself, she looked down at her ruined body.
Many of her bones were visible. Skin had been melted away by the blast, and the bones gleamed through gaping wounds.
And when she saw it…
She screamed and stumbled back, unable to process it. “What?” she asked.
But she knew. She could live with damage like this, because she was immortal. An immortal monster.
Shamed, she hid her chest with her crossed, bony arms
. “Cover me,” she begged.
They moved fast then, competent but shamefaced, awkward as they tried to touch her without hurting her.
They surrounded her and walked her gently toward the arriving EMTs. When the emergency workers backed away with horror-filled eyes, her men ignored them and loaded her into the back of the vehicle.
Strad climbed inside with her.
“Fix her,” Jack demanded, before he slammed the doors shut.
She sat on the edge of the cot and then leaned back gingerly, her gaze glued to the berserker’s face. He barely fit inside the vehicle.
She didn’t want to feed, but knew she had to. “I feel different.”
Strad leaned over her. “I know, sweetheart. I’m afraid to touch you. Can you drop your fangs?”
She tried three times before she gave up.
“No matter.” Strad pulled a shiv and sliced through his wrist. “Drink.”
She closed her eyes and ignoring her protesting stomach, drew his blood inside her.
And when, with each suck, the pain became more and more real, she kept Lex’s tragic image in her mind, and that gave her strength.
She concentrated on the twins’ faces, on their smiles.
She thought of Ellie and his devastation.
And COS…
She would annihilate them.
Nothing else mattered.
But then, she realized why she felt different.
Her monster was no longer inside her.
And quite suddenly, something else did matter.
It mattered a lot.
Chapter Forty-Eight
She pushed Strad’s arm away, feeling infinitely better, but strangely empty. She held up her hand and stared at the bones still visible through the slowly knitting flesh.
“How do I look? Better, Strad? At all?”
“You’re not dead.” His voice was gruff, and he refused to let her see what was in his eyes. “You’ll heal. You just have to give it some time, like you always do.”
“Not this time. It’s different. I don’t…my monster. He’s missing.”
He met her gaze, finally. “Your monster is you, Rune.”
“No. It’s something else. He’s gone.” She shook her head, whether in denial or slowly dawning horror or an almost overwhelming relief, she couldn’t have said. “I can’t fight without my monster.”
“You fought before. You’ll fight again.” He smoothed back her hair. Despite the damage to her body, her hair, she realized, was still there. “I’m taking you to Willowburg, to Dr. Haas. She’ll take care of you until you’re better.”
“No.” She sat up. “We’re going to Hawthorne. Move over, Berserker.” She waited until he had awkwardly moved his big body out of her way before she held her hands in front of her and tried to shoot out her claws.
They wouldn’t come.
“Gone. My monster is gone.”
She looked at Strad and silently dared him to argue.
He didn’t say a word, but the flinching sympathy in his eyes was nearly too much for her.
She stared at her hands, watching as slowly, the flesh began to mend, trying to repair the damage it had sustained.
Regrowing.
She blew out a tired breath, a puff of air that burned her throat. “I was mistaken. I’m always going to be a monster. For a second, I thought…”
But still.
She felt empty. Something was different, less.
Something…
“I feel almost human,” she said, suddenly. “I feel like I did before I recognized my monster. Before I let him out. Before the claws and fangs. Back when I was letting Jeremy tie me to a bed and beat the shit out of me.”
The berserker growled.
She looked at him. “What does this mean? My monster was always there. I just refused to acknowledge him.”
“Maybe now he is the one hiding,” Strad said.
She knew he was managing her, humoring her. Knew, but didn’t care. Because he was right.
“How do I look now?”
“Like you’ll heal. How bad is the pain?”
She’d always healed after Ellie brought her blood. But she’d never been as damaged as she was right then, not even when she’d carried the berserker’s child through the burning church. Not when a COS member had hit her with the evil vaccinator. Not even when Jeremy Cross had sliced her up and left her to die.
“I feel less numb,” she told him. “There’s pain but it’s as though my nerve endings have been burnt away.”
“A gift,” he said. “We’ll take it.”
She held out a hand for him to take. “I’m ready now. Let’s go to Hawthorne and end this thing.”
He caressed her hand with his thumb. “Okay.”
“I need clothes.”
He dragged the sheet off the gurney and wrapped it around her. “We’ll get you some clothes.”
“And some coffee.”
He laughed. “Yeah.”
He stepped out and helped her down. When her feet touched the cold pavement her legs gave out.
“Shit,” she said. She was too weak to fight fucking COS. “It’s going to take a little while.”
“You’ve been through some shit,” Owen said. “You take all the time you need.”
Her crew gathered around her, keeping back the crowd, the cops, the media.
She spotted the reporter, Sam Cruikshank. She ignored them all.
“Where do we take her?” Jack asked. “The clinic?”
“She wants to go to Hawthorne,” Strad said.
“Like this? Not possible.” Raze crossed his big arms and stared down at her.
“I just need a minute. I fed. I may have to feed again. Ellie can…” She had to pause to get her breath. “Ellie can get me more blood.”
No one answered.
She stared them all down. “I’m going to fucking Hawthorne. You don’t want to try to stop me.”
“Well okay then,” Jack said. “Okay.”
“Call Ellis.”
“I already did,” Strad answered. “He said he’d have a bag at RISC in less than half an hour.”
They arrived at RISC in twenty-five minutes—she asked Strad to stop for a coffee. She couldn’t drink it, the one sip she tried burned all the way down. Still, the scent of it was enough. It brought her comfort.
And she needed all the comfort she could get.
Raze would meet up with them later. He’d stayed in the Moor to talk to the cops. It wouldn’t take long.
She walked into RISC unaided, but it was an effort. “One more bag of blood,” she kept murmuring. “One more bag.”
It would heal her. It had to. She wasn’t sending her crew to Hawthorne without her. Unless she had to. Unless she absolutely had to.
Ellie waited in one of the employee overnight rooms—sort of an “on call” room. She suspected Elizabeth had spent a lot of her nights in those very rooms. She rarely went home. Maybe there was nothing to go home to.
Ellis stood stiff and expressionless, the bag clutched to his chest.
Strad urged her into the room, his arm protectively at her back.
Ellis’s expression didn’t change when he saw her, but his eyes did.
She glanced at him and then had to look away.
“Someday,” she told him, trying to keep her voice light, “I’ll stop tormenting you.”
“No,” he said. “You won’t.”
Then, his face bright with shame, he ran to her and threw his arms around her, still holding tightly to the bag.
“Easy,” Strad said. “She’s—”
“I can see what she is, Berserker,” Ellis snapped. “Now move aside and let me take care of her. I’ve been doing that a lot longer than you have.”
Strad lifted an eyebrow but said nothing.
Rune grinned. Ellie sounded more like his old self than he had in a long, long time. “I’ll be okay.”
“You always are. Do you want to drink this, or…?”
She shook her head, stopping when the movement made her dizzy. “No. I don’t think I could keep it down.”
He moved brusquely, ordering Strad to hold the bag while he pushed the needle into her arm.
“You’re becoming less and less human,” he said suddenly.
He clamped a hand over his mouth and stared down at her, his eyes wide with horror. “What’s wrong with me?” he whispered between his fingers. “You know I adore you. Why am I so angry?”
“You’ve reached your limit. Give me the blood. I’ll go get your love back.”
He nodded wordlessly and blinked tears from his eyes.
He was a mess. They all were.
As she lay there, piping blood into her system, Ellis’s brutal words echoed through her mind like ominous bells of doom.
“Less and less human…”
The thought was terrible.
But he was not wrong.
Chapter Forty-Nine
While the blood was flowing, Ellis slipped away to the inn to fetch her some clothes.
“And any weapons you see lying around,” she’d told him.
Owen came into the room. He looked her over, nodded approvingly, and then dropped a shitload of blades, guns, and holsters on the table. “Figured you’d need these.”
She smiled. “I knew there was a reason I liked you. As soon as Ellis is back with my clothes, we’ll head to Hawthorne.”
He winked. “We’re ready when you are.”
She watched him as he left the room, her gaze lingering. When she looked up, she found Strad leaning silently against the wall, watching her, his face unreadable.
Neither of them said a word.
She put her arm over her eyes, finally, and lay in silence until Ellie came back with her clothes.
“How do you feel?” he asked, kissing her cheek.
“Great. Almost myself again.” She didn’t feel normal, but she felt…capable. Her body was slowly waking up, and the first tingles of real pain had begun to ripple across her skin.
Ellis tossed a smile at the berserker, perhaps to make up for snapping at him earlier, and left her to dress. She stood, a little wobbly but nothing major. She held the sheet around her with one hand and studied her other arm.
Her skin was bluish in places, with dim red lines where it’d knitted back together, but there were no gaping holes showing the bones beneath.