Undone (The Guardians Book 1)

by Jessica Roe

  He heard quick footsteps behind him, and knew Walker, Charles and Zay were following. He was grateful that they'd chosen to stick by him like a team.

  They hadn't even reached Zebb and Uang before Nicky realized that Charles had been right. Three more of Pablo's men seemed to appear from nowhere, and they charged right towards the Guardians. No time was spared for questions before the fight broke out.

  Nicky ignored the newcomers and headed straight for Zebb, who casually shoved the Fire Elemental to the ground before catching Nicky straight in the face with his sharp elbow. Nicky hadn't expected it, and his head shot back and a spray of blood spurted from his nose. He ignored the pain and charged Zebb for a second time. Zebb was stronger than his wiry frame suggested. He was skilled, too. An excellent fighter.

  Nicky was better.

  They fought hard, a blur of kicks and punches, before he kicked Zebb in the stomach and forced him against the car when he doubled over. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the others in action, and it relieved him to know that they were all holding their own. Charles was fighting two men at once, and Nicky was momentarily surprised to discover that Charles was...deadly. He'd never seen him fight before, but the older man definitely knew what he was doing.

  Zebb's head shot back and cracked into Nicky's chin. Nicky stumbled and Zebb threw himself forward, knocking the both of them to the ground. Zebb gripped Nicky by the hair and smashed his head into the cement, once, twice. His vision went dark for a moment and pain sliced through his cheek. The tangy, bitter taste of blood exploded in his mouth, and then Zebb's hands were on his throat, choking him, depriving him of oxygen.

  He clawed at Zebb's hands but they were unrelenting, getting impossibly tighter, and for maybe the first time in his life, Nicky really wished there was a shadow nearby to help him. His vision blurred, and the world around him began to grow dark.

  And then a body smashed into Zebb, knocking him away from Nicky. He took in great gasps of air, spluttering when the pain in his throat peaked.

  When his vision had finally cleared and he was able to breathe normally—albeit painfully—again, he sat himself up. Charles had rendered one of his opponents unconscious, and tossed the other into Zebb—saving Nicky's life in the process. The two men had become a tangle of limbs, and were yelling at each other as they tried to stand. Charles pulled out his gun and pointed it at them. “Don't move,” he ordered. They stopped struggling immediately. Nicky didn't blame them; even without the gun, Charles had a lethal vibe going on.

  Walker and Zay's own battles seemed to have simmered down into nothing. Zay limped over, cradling his arm, and Nicky spotted the man he'd been fighting handcuffed to a car door nearby. Walker was dragging a seriously pissed off Uang along with her in a headlock as she too joined them.

  “Guess we won this round,” Zay said with a grin, helping Nicky up with his undamaged arm.

  “Guess again, blondie.”

  Nobody saw her coming, and none of them had any time to react. A woman stepped forward from the shadows and in one fluid movement, she had kicked the gun from Charles' hand and elbowed Walker in the face, allowing Uang to scramble away. Before anyone else had time to reach for their own weapons, a dozen more of Pablo's men approached, and they had the Guardians restrained in less than a minute.

  Two men gripped Nicky's arms and no matter how hard he tried to shake them off, they wouldn't budge. And then he stopped even trying, because the woman had brushed back the hair from her face and everything inside him went hot and cold, all at once.

  “Gabrielle?” he breathed.

  Of course he hadn't recognized her straight away. The last time he'd seen her, her hair had been as blonde as Walker's, instead of shining, coffee coloured waves. But he knew it was her with every fibre of his being, though they'd been teenagers the last time they'd been anywhere near one another and she'd changed a hell of a lot since then. She seemed harsher, edgier, and he'd never have been able to imagine her working for Pablo if he hadn't just witnessed it himself. But her eyes were just as wide and sultry as he remembered, and her lips were just as full. And that ass...it was the kind of mighty fine ass a guy couldn't forget, especially when it was so tightly encased in those leather pants she was wearing.

  When she heard his voice, she stopped moving to look over at him, and shock spread over her face as her eyes met his. But if he hadn't of been feeling exactly the same, he might have missed it, because it only took a second for her to compose herself. The surprise vanished, replaced by a cool, blank mask. She smirked, slowly and seductively, and sauntered to where he was being held. He could feel the questioning stares coming from Charles, Zay and Walker, who had stopped struggling against their own captors, but he couldn't take his eyes off of Gabrielle, not even for a second.

  “Nicky,” she murmured. Her voice was low and smokey, just like he remembered. She spoke his name like it amused her. “It's been a while, huh?”

  He couldn't find his voice. Not that it mattered because Zebb, bloodied and angry, had clambered to his feet and was shooting daggers at Gabrielle. “Gable, you know this asshole?”

  “Not any more,” she answered. Despite her cocky attitude, she seemed to be finding it just as hard to look away from Nicky as he was from her.

  “Why in the hell is he calling you Gabrielle?” Zebb wanted to know.

  She finally managed to tear her gaze away. “What do you think Gable is short for, genius?” It was obvious that though they both worked for Pablo, they didn't exactly hold one another in high regard.

  Gable. That was what she was calling herself. Back when he'd known her, she'd refused to acknowledge anyone if they shortened her name at all. Nicknames are for losers, she'd said. He'd liked her name. He'd always thought Gabrielle was a beautiful name—strong and sweet, just like her. Gable was the same as Gabrielle, he supposed, but totally different as well, which was apt, because that's exactly how he'd describe her. Exactly the same but totally different.

  Zebb rolled his cold eyes. “Whatever. Are we going to put a bullet through their little Guardian skulls or what?”

  Gabrielle—Gable—looked thoughtful. “No. We're going to let them go.”

  “But Pablo—”

  “Pablo” she interrupted. “would understand that if we got rid of this team of Einsteins, the Guardians would only send an army in their place.” She tapped his head. “It's called a brain, use it.” She sounded convincing, but Nicky couldn't help but wonder if there was more to it, that maybe seeing him had affected her just as much as it had him.

  Zebb seemed to concede her point, though he still didn't look happy about it. He huffed and kicked at the fallen Fire Elemental, who still lay unconscious on the ground. “Fine. Let's just get the Outcast and go.”

  “Get him up,” Gable ordered. She had authority, that much was clear. And most of the other men—Zebb aside—didn't seem to mind taking commands from her. Two hurled the Fire Elemental up by his arms and leant him against the side of a car. She approached him and with quick, precise movements, she pushed back his head and lifted up one of his eyelids. It took her only a second to find what she was looking for and drop the eyelid, and she let out a furious curse. “I swear to God,” she hissed, glaring at Zebb and Uang. “you two are the biggest pair of idiots I've ever met. How could you let Yagoona fool you? Again?”

  Uang raised a questioning eyebrow.

  “He's a Fire!” she explained slowly. “She promised she was bringing an Earth Elemental.”

  A sullen looking Zebb toed the ground. “Well, how were we supposed to know the difference?”

  “You check, you bonehead! Fires have a red ring around their pupils, Earths have a yellow. It's basic freakin' knowledge, and checking that out was the first thing you should have done before handing that damn Witch the money.”

  “Damn! Pablo's gonna be pissed.” For a moment, he looked genuinely frightened.

  She gave him a no shit kind of look. “It's your own dumbass fault. And why in the
hell is he unconscious? Pablo wanted a meeting with the guy. How exactly is he supposed to achieve that if the dude is knocked out cold?”

  “Fuck me. Let's kill the Outcast and go. He's useless to us.”

  Gable shook her head despairingly. “You're so blood thirsty. If we killed every useless moron in the world, there'd be no one left. You'd be dead for sure.” She glanced at the other men. “Let the Guardians go, but watch them until we're gone. Let them deal with the Fire Elemental.”

  “But Pablo—” Zebb started.

  “Pablo isn't here!” she snarled. She had finally lost her patience with his protests. “Which means I'm in charge. So shut the hell up and do what I say.” She turned to Nicky and her frown faded, melting into a challenging grin as she looked him up and down. “You grew up well, Nicky. I never would've guessed you for a Guardian, but...it suits you. Maybe we'll see each other around.”

  Nicky found his voice. “Hopefully.” It was probably the stupidest thing he could have said.

  But her smile faded, and for one tiny moment, Nicky was sure he spotted something genuine in her eyes. Something that wasn't bad—because how could she be anything but bad if she worked for Pablo? But then it was gone, because she was gone. Taken by night and cloaked by shadows. Gone.

  Zebb glared after her through narrowed eyes. It was obvious to Nicky that Zebb didn't like following Gable's orders, and that was dangerous to her. He just hoped she knew it.

  Zebb nodded to the rest of the men, and they released the Guardians. Uang roughly shoved the Fire Elemental in Walker's direction and she caught him before he hit the ground.

  “Deal with him.” Zebb indicated towards the Outcast. “If I see him again, I'll kill him.”

  And then the Guardians were alone in the dark parking lot, although Nicky could feel that they were still being watched.

  “I wonder if they're given lessons in being creepy,” Walker muttered, slapping a pair of handcuffs on the sleeping Outcast.

  It was probably the wrong thing to be thinking of, but Nicky couldn't help but wonder where she'd been keeping those cuffs.

  IT WAS A solemn group that congregated in the sitting area back at headquarters. Queenie, the most skilled with first aid, attended to their injuries with careful hands as they sat quietly on the sofas. The majority of their wounds were superficial—cuts and scrapes and bruises—though Zay's wrist was sprained and Nicky had a nasty gash across his eyebrow that was likely to scar. He didn't mind all that much; he was pretty sure he could pull the look off in a sexy, bad ass kind of way once the scabs had faded.

  They had gotten off easy.

  “Are we going to talk about what happened tonight?” Walker demanded. If looks could kill, the force of her steely glare would have turned Nicky to dust at least a hundred times.

  He winced, hissing when it caused his eyebrow to burn. He wasn't about to take full blame for the general craptakulafest of the night—Gable and her team would have been there regardless of how long Charles had waited—but he knew he wasn't faultless, not by a long shot. He'd acted rashly and foolishly assumed he'd known best, even though Charles had been doing the job a lot longer than he had. If he'd have just listened and followed Charles' instructions, they might not have been so easily beaten. “Look, I know I—”

  “You know, do you?” Walker scoffed at him. “What? You know that you're an incompetent idiot? Because that's what I know!”

  Charles rubbed his forehead, massaging away a headache. “Don't attack him, Walker, that won't make you feel better.” She snorted at that, but Charles continued. “Besides, with Gable and the rest of Pablo's men, we would have been outnumbered whatever the situation. But Nicky,” He glanced over at him, his stormy eyes serious. “You should learn a valuable lesson from this. We were lucky to leave with our lives tonight. We Guardians work as a team, always, because when we don't, things fall apart and people get hurt. We have enough people working against us as it is; we don't need to work against ourselves.”

  Nicky couldn't have felt worse if Charles had kicked him in the balls. Disappointment was so much worse to stomach than anger, especially as he respected Charles so much. “I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking right. The whole situation went to my head and I acted like a dicknut. It won't happen again.” His voice was hoarse from almost being strangled to death.

  Walker, who was so unused to having Nicky admit that he was wrong, seemed ever so slightly mollified by his admission and her shoulders relaxed a fraction of an inch. The tension in the room diffused slightly.

  Queenie giggled as she fixed Nicky's eyebrow with butterfly stitches. “I can't believe you just called yourself a dicknut.”

  “We were fortunate tonight,” Charles said, leaning back against the sofa. “We were able to contain the Fire Elemental and walk away almost unharmed.”

  “Only because of Nicky's little girlfriend,” Walker announced hotly, her calm threatening to disappear.

  “Grow up,” he snapped back at her. He really didn't want to talk about Gable. “What happened with the Fire Elemental?” he asked Charles. “Did you hand him in to the cops?”

  “No. When he wakes up from the sedative, he'll be dangerous, and the police won't have the means to handle him. Imagine the chaos if he were to use his powers to break free from their holding cells.” He grimaced at the thought. “A couple of Guardian Officials came by and picked him up while you were putting away your weapons.” Guardian Officials were the guys who dealt with the every day tasks—escorting prisoners included. “They also let me know that Hubert has been found—he was the Tracker the Elemental escaped from, if you recall—and he's okay. Singed, but healing.”

  Nicky needed his questions answered. The Fire Elemental wasn't an innocent—he had killed, that much he knew—but he didn't deserve whatever enslavement or weird ass crap Pablo'd had in mind for him. But what had his fate with Pablo been traded for when Charles had handed him over to the Guardians? There was still so much about the Guardians that Nicky didn't know, hadn't even bothered to ask. The thought made him shiver.

  “What will the Guardians Officials do with the Outcast now?” He kind of wished he knew his name. It seemed wrong, somehow, to keep referring to him as just the Outcast, like he wasn't even a real person.

  “He'll be sent to a rehabilitation centre,” Charles answered. “much like the one you were sent to. Of course, he'll know where he is, unlike you, because the security level will be much higher than yours was, due to the volatile and uncontrollable nature of his gift. Every Outcast that we take in is given a year to rehabilitate, because we believe that everybody deserves a second chance. He'll be given that same chance, just like everyone else.”

  That didn't really do anything to ease the tightness in Nicky's chest. “And what if he doesn't rehabilitate in that time? What do you do with him then?”

  “We, Nicky!” Charles stressed, leaning towards him. “You're one of us now, a part of us.” Always so very good at reading people, Charles caught the hesitance in Nicky's face, because he sighed frustratedly. “When will you get this idea out of your head? We Guardians aren't monsters, or senseless killers. We only ever kill if there is absolutely no other option, and only ever in defence.”

  “So answer the question.”

  “If at the end of the year the Outcast has shown no signs of progress and is deemed too unsafe to be let back into society, he'll be sent to a permanent prison.”

  “You said he was too dangerous for normal prison.”

  “It isn't a normal prison,” Kain piped up. He moved over from the kitchen area, passing everyone a cold beer. Nicky took one and slugged it down appreciatively. “It's guarded by Leeches.” He seemed entirely too gleeful about his statement.

  Nicky stopped drinking. “Leeches like...those freaky little blood sucking slug things?”

  Kain grinned, like that was exactly what he'd been hoping Nicky would think. “Yeah. Except these ones are huge. Giant blood suckers that gobble you up if you try to escape.”

>   “Seriously?” Nicky was pretty sure he was about to hurl.

  “He's just messing with you,” Walker explained, bored.

  Kain fell into his seat, laughing, and Nicky huffed. “Idiot,” he grunted, kicking out at him with his foot. But he couldn't help grinning when Kain carried on chuckling. The guy was like a big kid, and sometimes Nicky felt like his big brother, even though Kain was older.

  “A Leech is a type of Outcast.” Queenie had stopped laughing at his gullibility and had taken pity on him. “It's what we call the Outcasts with the ability to drain the powers of other Outcasts. Only when they're close by, and when they move away the powers return. But they make really cool guards for Outcasts.”

  Oh, snap! Nicky didn't like the sound of that. Leeches sounded awful on an epic scale. “I'll bet.” He hoped he never ran into one.

  “Don't worry,” she said. Being the only other Outcast on the team, she must have felt the same. “There are only a few of them in the world.”

  “But this is irrelevant for now,” Charles spoke up. He'd barely even sipped at his beer—Nicky knew he was more of a red wine kind of guy. “I have high hopes for the Fire Elemental. I believe that he was frightened by his powers, confused. Just like you were, remember?”

  Nicky frowned at that. “Well...yeah, but I never killed anyone.”

  “Look,” Walker burst out. “Can we just cut the bull here and stop talking about things that aren't important right now. You can all give Nicky lessons in information he should've already learned later. What everyone really wants to know is how in the hell you know that bitch, Gable.”

  Nicky was almost impressed. She'd held out a lot longer than he'd thought she would.

  The rest of the team looked at each other awkwardly, uncomfortable at her blunt questioning. However, the way they all remained silent was very telling, and Nicky knew they wanted to know just as much as Walker did, but they were just too polite—or too embarrassed—to bring it up themselves. But Gable was a story that he really, really didn't want to tell. She was just...someone he hadn't talked about in a very long time.