God, I loved hearing those words from his lips. They were words he saved for me, and me alone. They made me feel strong, and I don’t know how he knew I needed to hear them right then, but they somehow settled my raging thoughts.
“I hear you,” I replied, allowing myself another moment to enjoy this little cocoon he had created for us.
When Ink’s lips pressed against mine, for just a fleeting moment my stomach flipped, and my body heated. He had never touched me like that before. Although the kiss was innocent, and over way too fast, it wasn’t the kiss a man gives someone he regarded as a child. It was too intimate for that. Before I could analyze it further, he’d pulled away and he was dragging me, yet again, up the wide path that led to the extensive porch of Viviane’s cabin. I’d never been inside before, but I’d been told it was much like all the other cabins with quaint timber finishes and solid timber floors. Though, it was much bigger than all the other homes. Ink abruptly stopped again, and this time I avoided colliding with his back. He looked my way, a nervousness on his face that I was completely unaccustomed to. Ink was never nervous or apprehensive, he was the most confident man I knew.
“What Jebediah said out in the field…” he began but paused, as if struggling for the next word. Jebediah had said a lot out in the field, so I wasn’t sure what he was exactly referring to. “About Viviane?” My body tightened. Oh, that. I really didn’t want to hear it again, and I especially did not want to talk about it.
“It’s fine,” I was quick to say.
“No, it’s not. I want you to know it isn’t true. Viviane and I were never together like that. She was interested, but I wasn’t.” Relief inundated me, and the taut line to my body vanished. “I have never been one to care what people think of me, and I’m not interested in gossip, but I do care what you think. I wanted you to know that my relationship with Viviane was never anything but professional.”
He cared about what I thought?
He’d never cared before. Why now?
A throat clearing at the stairs we stood in front of interrupted Ink’s confession and my confused thoughts. Two guards lingered either side of the front door, watching us with sharp, vigilant eyes. Before we could say anything, the front door burst open and Jebediah pranced out with a wide grin in place. He was adorned completely in white which blended perfectly into his ghostly pale skin. White slacks, a white jacket that tapered at the waist, and beneath it a white vest and pristine white shirt. The only thing interrupting the pale theme was a blood red tie. Even his freaking shoes were white. He looked completely out of place in the middle of the forest. His unusual coloring drew my eye, and I recalled Max telling us earlier today about a condition he had once heard of called ‘Albinism.’ It was a birth defect which washed out all pigment in the skin, hair and eyes. I’d never seen anything like it, and couldn’t help but stare and wonder if that was what caused Jebediah’s odd look.
Tucking one hand into his pant pocket pulled Jebediah’s jacket away from his lean torso, giving me a glimpse of a shiny gun holstered there. His entire presence was bizarre and foreign. The way he dressed, his skin, his hair, the metal in his face, it was all so baffling. Jeze stepped out of the door right behind him, looking the complete opposite to her brother in head to toe black. Her long, dark hair pulled into a smooth ponytail. Dressed in clothing so tight it made her look like some sort of slutty soldier.
“It’s time to party,” Jebediah shouted, making me flinch at the unexpected cry.
Jeze stepped up alongside Ink and linked her arm through his. The maneuver was far too cozy for my liking, and as I attempted to step forward to reclaim Ink’s hand, a tug on my own hand stopped me in my tracks. Jebediah was holding it with an assumed familiarity which made my skin crawl.
“I told you not to touch her,” Ink growled, casting away Jeze’s touch with a flick of his arm.
“You two are far too possessive of each other to not have fucked.” Jebediah laughed, moving away from me.
I couldn’t help the blush filling my cheeks at Jebediah’s crude words. Ink took my hand and pulled me close. “Search them,” Jebediah ordered.
We had been expecting this, while at the same time hoping it never happened. It proved Jebediah wasn’t a complete idiot and took his security seriously. Hands roamed over my body, cupping my breasts for far too long to be impersonal. It took all my willpower not to fight off the touch. Ink growled at the man searching me, and Jebediah chuckled but ordered his soldier to move it along.
Ink’s weapons were taken, except for the knife in his boot, like mine. Once the search was finished, the guards moved a few steps away, standing obediently at Jebediah’s back. With a flick of his head, the pale man signaled us to get moving. Jeze was tucked under his arm as they both began their walk toward a massive pile of wood that had been dragged into the center of our field and set alight.
I wondered how large a dent in our collection they had made in just one night.
Every now and again Jebediah would glance my way, watching me with undisguised lust. Jeze, though, seemed completely indifferent to our presence, her gaze constantly on her surroundings, her hand which wasn’t wrapped around her brother’s waist sat right by the gun in a hip holster.
Jebediah’s hand rubbed almost soothing like patterns on the back of his sister’s shoulder, and now and again he would lean into her space and whisper something in her ear. Jeze would give him a short nod, or a pitiful attempt at a smile, and Jebediah would giggle like a child. Their behavior was weird, and they were far too intimate for a brother and sister.
The flickering flames from the fire were dancing high into the night sky, which tonight was full of stars. It crackled and popped as it burned away at the wood, the scent of smoke filling the air. The only people from Liberty I could find were Ink’s soldiers. The rest were strangers, and there were a lot. Most of them were armed, some sullen and brooding, others laughing in a lighthearted manner as if they hadn’t attacked an innocent community that morning.
My feet slowed as I took in the scene on the field and eventually I came to a stop, my breathing choppy and my heart pounding like an out of control engine. I was unable to tear my gaze away from the sickening sight before me. Seven bodies were lying beside the fire. This was the first time I’d seen a dead body up close. The man I had killed had been bathed in shadows, and I didn’t have time to stop and examine him. These bodies locked in death looked so peaceful in what had been an horrific and violent ending to their lives. Viviane’s naked corpse lay at the furthest end, nobody had even attempted to protect her modesty with a sheet. I recognized John and Reed at her side, two of Ink’s soldiers. They were good men with families. The other bodies were unrecognizable, their faces beaten so badly.
Not realizing my hand was being squeezed tightly until it began to hurt, I gave Ink a quick squeeze back, reminding him I was there. His grip softened a little, but we both remained frozen as we watched Jebediah’s men gather closer, pointing and laughing at the bodies. I was beyond horrified as tears began to gather.
“Don’t worry,” a voice right beside my ear made me flinch. Jebediah chuckled and stepped forward to stand alongside us. “They aren’t all yours. Two of them are mine.”
The man I had killed laid there, his throat a mess of exposed tendons and torn flesh. It made my stomach roll, and I was dangerously close to throwing up. Tearing my gaze away from the lifeless bodies, I took in a few of the familiar faces surrounding us. Niall, Max, Henry, Ace, Charlie, Fury all looked ready to murder someone. They were good men, some of them innocents born in the Underworld, some rebel soldiers who had settled in Liberty to protect us. Seeing our people slain and disrespected was a battle they couldn’t afford to lose right now. We were grossly outnumbered.
Sucking my sorrow and grief down, I pushed my shoulders back and offered them all a hard look of encouragement. We could do this—we would prevail, we were strong. Max gave me a subtle nod before turning to speak to Ace. Charlie also nodded before glanc
ing back solemnly to look over our dead. Fury, though, he glared right back at me as if to say ‘prepare yourself, I’m going to kill them all’. Fury was a former innocent inmate from the Underworld. He’d also been a fighter in their cage fighting arena, a behemoth of a man with a broad chest, thick arms, and even thicker legs. There was also a chance he was surlier than Ink, which was saying something. His rage was always close to the surface, and right now I worried he might lose it and be added to the line of bodies.
“Please, have a seat,” Jebediah offered like some sort of demented gentleman.
Ink was the first to move, pulling me down to the tree stump sitting directly across from where Jebediah and his sister made themselves comfortable.
“Begin,” Jebediah said with a wave of his hand.
Immediately, his men began to throw the dead bodies into the fire. I barely held back my horror, those tears I had forced away again gathering into pools on my lashes. Watching our dead tossed so carelessly was breaking something inside of me, something I feared might never be whole again. This field where we came together for births, marriage, and celebration, had officially been tarnished in the most shocking of ways.
“Nothing like a good old-fashioned barbecue.” My horrified stare found Jebediah’s, and he laughed. “When I heard you buried your dead, I couldn’t believe it. This is far more efficient, and less work. Not to mention you don’t have to worry about animals digging up the bodies.” He rattled off his reasoning as if we were talking about garbage disposal, not human beings.
“So, tell me about Kingsley Duke.”
Both the name and change in conversation caught me by surprise.
“He was an insane dictator who thought he had more power than he did, and now he’s dead,” Ink calmly replied, though his hand still gripping mine with an unforgiving hold, told me he was anything but calm.
“Not you,” Jebediah brushed away Ink’s response like one would do a meddlesome bug. “You!” He pointed to me as he accepted a fancy, crystal glass filled with amber liquid from one of his men. Jeze declined, as did Ink and me.
They were serving drinks beside our burning dead. Could this night get any worse?
“Just like Ink said… he was insane, drunk on power, and he died because of it.”
Jebediah stared at me and smiled. “Was he charismatic, like me?” he wondered aloud.
“He kept his insanity better controlled than you do,” I found myself replying.
When Jeze moved to come at me, Jebediah was quick to leash her with a hand on her thigh.
“I’d suggest you keep opinions about my sanity to yourself. Tell me about the fights.”
The eager look in his eyes made me realize this man held far too much enthusiasm for Kingsley Duke’s Underworld. I’d only been twelve when I’d been imprisoned, and a tough as nails warrior by the name of Nada had been quick to take me under her wing. She protected me and found me somewhere safe to live, a sliver of shelter in a place that only knew brutality. My stay had been a brief few months compared to the lifetimes of many other innocents.
“I didn’t see the fights, only heard a few things about them from others.”
“Did you meet Nada?” he asked, his face alight with anticipation.
“She made it safe for me,” I confessed with a nod. “And from what I heard the fights were brutal and bloodthirsty.”
Jebediah’s eyes rolled back in his head with something akin to a look of intense pleasure.
“Kingsley Duke, he was a man of vision.” Jebediah’s voice was filled with excitement. “He had that prison running like a city, and he controlled some of the most violent offenders of our time. He was a fucking genius.”
Ink and I remained silent as Jebediah crooned on about the former prison leader, who was one of the vilest creatures I’d ever met. He scared me like no other, and I’d met some very unsavory characters during my short stay in the Underworld.
“Bet you’re wondering what your new job will entail?” Jebediah rambled on. Again the abrupt change in subject took Ink and me by surprise.
“It has crossed my mind,” Ink confessed, dragging his gaze away from Viviane’s body as it was tossed into the fire. Hers had been the final body to go in, and I dragged the loose scarf from around my neck and placed it over my nose and mouth, fearing I might inhale the ashes of the dead. Somehow that seemed disrespectful, not to mention unhygienic. Jebediah laughed at me. He laughed so hard a tear escaped from the corner of his pale eye, and he held his stomach as he collapsed over his knees.
“Not fond of having Ink’s ex-lover in your lungs, little bird?”
“Ink didn’t sleep with Viviane. Whoever you’ve been talking to doesn’t know shit,” I spat out. Ink might not care about gossip, but I did.
“Whatever helps you sleep at night,” Jebediah said in a sing-song voice.
The vile callousness of this clearly crazy man made my blood boil. I hated him, I wanted him gone. My gaze drifted to Jeze who sat at his side, her fingers caressing the knife at her thigh holster as she watched me with those dark, penetrating eyes. She had my knife. Indignation had me sitting straighter, and I glared at the woman who simply stared back with something akin to disinterest. I hated her too, and my temper boiled beneath the surface of my barely held composure. Jeze then smiled. Not a full honest smile, nor a manic one like her brother, but a small, sly smile which held a promise, of what, I didn’t know. My eyes narrowed, and I hoped she caught the word I wanted to say but held on to—bitch.
“Oh, little bird, you certainly are special.”
CHAPTER 4 – Ink
The man was either pure crazy or had been dropped on his head at birth a few too many times. His concentration seemed to jump from one thing to the next, his movements fluctuating from frantic to cavalier and back again. I couldn’t get a read on him because he was just plain odd.
“NIM, NIM, NIM,” Jebediah repeated, and I felt Gracie tense beside me.
“What?” she asked.
“NIMMM,” Jebediah replied, rolling his eyes and dragging the word out as if we were deaf and dumb.
We were neither, and we both knew exactly what NIM was. Kingsley Duke’s drug of choice, a cocktail of chemicals that drove the user to hallucinate, their inhibitions lowered, and sexual awareness heightened. There had been stories of the drug seeping out of the Underworld and into the cities, but I’d never seen it for myself.
“What about it?” Gracie murmured stiffly.
Gracie had told me many stories about her time in the Underworld, and an inmate had once offered her an inhaler containing the potent substance. She’d, of course, denied the offer, but the man had been so lost on his high he’d tried to rape her. When an older boy came along and interrupted her attack, he’d in turn been beaten bloody before being held down and raped himself. The brutal assault was one of many nightmares Gracie had to deal with.
“Your new job,” Jebediah said with a sinister smile directed at me.
“You want me to make NIM?” I asked, which was ridiculous because I had no fucking idea how to create the product.
Jebediah brushed off my question with an errant wave of his hand. “Of course not, I have people for that, who are setting up a lab as we speak. No, I need someone to guard my distribution and delivery.”
“There’s no one out here to distribute to,” I reasoned, my voice rising with frustration. This man had attacked my compound because of drugs? The idea was ludicrous. “You should be somewhere closer to the city if you want to become a drug lord, in the middle of the wilderness is a bad business decision.”
Jebediah grinned at my little outburst. “I have my reasons for what I’m doing, and I have no intention of becoming a drug lord. Though, I am going to be a man of power. I’m in the middle of the wilderness because nobody knows of this place. It’s as off the grid as it gets. You’re hiding from the government, and I don’t want to be found doing what I’m doing by the government. So, as you can see, this compound is a perfect business de
cision. As for distribution, I have buyers willing to travel, and I’ve organized a pick up from someplace eight hours south of here, once a month. You will meet them with the NIM, and in exchange, they’ll give you money and goods.”
Money, it had been a long time since I’d seen money. There was no need for it out here, and I couldn’t fathom a reason Jebediah would need it.
“If my NIM doesn’t make it safely to the rendezvous… Grace is mine. If you don’t return from the rendezvous… Grace is mine. If you take a cent of my money or supplies… Grace is mine. If you attempt to harm me or mine… Grace is mine. Are you seeing the pattern here, Ink?”
Hearing the man talk so casually about taking Gracie against her will made my anger churn like a volcano looking for an outlet. I wanted to pick her up and get her away from this insane fucker. Get her out of Liberty. Get her to safety. It probably should have bothered me that I wasn’t as concerned with the lives of everyone else caught up in this madness, but Gracie had always been my priority. Even so, I needed to assure our people went unharmed.
“And no harm will come to the people of Liberty?”
“You mean The Arena,” Jebediah corrected me. “For the most part.”
Obviously from his elusive answer he had some fucked-up plan building in his fucked-up brain, but I figured he wasn’t about to tell me. That meant I needed to fix this shit before it got out of hand. Our soldiers had been thinned out to just seventeen, while Jebediah had a militia somewhere of around sixty men, who were all well-armed. I didn’t know for sure if they were all trained and devoted to Jebediah, which was something my men and I would have to figure out as we went. If there were any cracks in their defense, we needed to exploit it.
Watching as they moved around the fire now, most of them seemed efficient and strong, their hard eyes carefully watching everyone and everything. I was positive most of these men had military backgrounds. Some of them, though, seemed a little rough around the edges. Their clothing tattered, their hygiene questionable at best. They were hissing crude comments about the dead and laughing loudly. But the giveaway was their guns hooked over their shoulders rather than poised in their hands ready for use. They weren’t true soldiers, which meant, they were a weakness.
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