by Tracey Ward
“No. He was—” he clears his throat sharply. “He was an Eleven, but I don’t know his name. It was almost a year ago. I had a fight with Kevin and I stormed out.”
“You fought about the elk kill,” I remember immediately. “He said he earned the antlers. You said they were yours. He told you that you were being a baby and you called him a shitstain.”
“Jesus, how do you always remember this stuff?” Ryan marvels. He wipes his face, his eyes drying up. “Yeah. That’s the fight.”
“Neither of you deserved the antlers. It was my kill.”
“Yeah, I know. But you didn’t want them.”
“What would I even do with them?”
“Trent?”
“Tell me what happened with the Eleven,” I refocus.
“Not much. It was fast. I wandered into their territory. He jumped me out of nowhere. I saw his knife. I drew mine. He rushed me. We fell on the ground. We rolled around, both of us fighting to be on top.” Ryan’s words are speeding up, his speech and breathing becoming rapid. “I was scared. I didn’t know how to get away. I just started slashing at him. He grunted and yelled but he kept fighting me, trying to pin me, and I stabbed him. I put my blade in his leg. I aimed for the artery.”
“You wounded to kill,” I confirm.
“I meant to kill him. Yes.”
“He was going to kill you.”
“It doesn’t make it better.”
“No. But it makes it bearable.”
Ryan looks at me with surprise, his eyes searching mine. “Some nights, I don’t think that’s true.”
“Do you have nightmares?”
“Yeah. Do you?”
“Yes,” I answer honestly. My chest feels heavy when I think about it, but I let myself do it. I go to the darkness inside the corners of my mind and I relive that moment on the Japanese ship when I shot a man, a living man, out of pure, primal fear. I do it for Ryan. I do it so I can understand. I want him to see me hurt the way he is so he knows he’s not alone because I’ve tried everything else and nothing has worked. Maybe this, our mingled misery, is what he’s needed all along.
Or it could be time. It could be alcohol. It could be a night with a pretty girl. I really don’t know, but I’m willing to try any of it to get him right because he’s all the family I have left in the world.
“Not every night,” I explain, “but, yes, some nights I have nightmares about the things I’ve done. It’s the old world creeping in. There’s a part of all of us that remembers how things used to be, and that part does not like our lives now.”
Ryan licks his lips nervously. “Is it weird if I say I like my life like this? Like, I like it more than I did my old life.”
“You don’t remember your old life.”
“I remember some of it. I remember my parents.”
“You didn’t know them the way you know the people in your life now. You’ve lived in the new world longer than you did in the old. This is the life you’re the most familiar with. You’re comfortable with it because you grew up in it. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
“Kevin didn’t think so,” he argues glumly. “I think it hurt his feelings.”
“Did he ever try to take you to live in the Colonies?”
Ryan scowls with disgust. “No. Never.”
“Then he didn’t mind it too much. The Colonies are the closest thing to the old world that there is. If he wasn’t begging to get you both inside, he couldn’t have hated this life too much, could he?”
“I guess not. And I’m sorry, by the way.”
“It’s fine.”
Ryan smirks, his shoulders jostling with silent laughter. “Don’t even want to know what I’m sorry for, do you?”
“It doesn’t matter. I forgive you.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you my plan. I should have.”
I don’t know if that’s true. I would have stopped him. I never would have let him go to the Hive if I knew that he intended to kill Chapman because it’s a suicide mission. It’s a line I will never willingly watch him cross, no matter how badly he pleads to be made the master of his own destiny.
“It was a terrible plan,” I inform him frankly.
“I know.”
“You knew you wouldn’t make it out alive, didn’t you?”
His face darkens. “Yeah. I knew that.”
I feel sick in my stomach. I feel dizzy and angry and afraid in a hundred different ways that crash over me in one agonizing wave.
“Would you have forgiven me?” he asks numbly.
I swallow hard, trying to breathe. Trying to think. If I lose Ryan too, what do I have? Who would I be?
Nothing. That’s the honest answer. I’d have nothing. I’d be nothing. I’d be as dead as the brothers I’ve spent the last seven years learning to love.
“No.”
Ryan nods. His lip quivers. His face crumbles, and his body pitches forward like the air has gone out of him. He falls against me, his face on my chest and his tears springing from nowhere, falling like rain in a torrent that soaks us both. As his arms wrap desperately around my waist, I lay mine over his shaking back. I hold onto him as hard as he’s holding onto me and I cry with him. Silently and painfully, sobs rising in the back of my throat. They swell in my head, cracking my skull, piercing my eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he whimpers. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay.”
And as dark as this night has become, I honestly believe my words might be true.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Vin
Emotions are flying high in the Hive. Hormones are coming from every direction and women have cried on my shoulder so many times I’ve legit started carrying a handkerchief in my pocket, like I’m Dapper-Fuckin’-Dan all of the sudden.
After Breanne had her baby, it took three months to get things back to normal in the Stables. While everyone was still dealing with the fact that we sold the kid, Elise miscarried. She took it really well. Maybe a little too well. I look at her and feel like I’m waiting for other shoe to drop, like one day it’s going to hit her hard and she’ll be a puddle on the floor. Natalie says it happens. Delayed reaction or some shit, so I’m on watch for that indefinitely. Meanwhile, Onyx is swelling up like she swallowed a watermelon and I’m dreading the day that kid comes out. I’ll have to play another round the asshole-baby-thief and live through weeks of these women hating me.
That thought bothers me more than it should.
The upside is, Marlow doesn’t micro-manage the Stables the way he does everything else. He keeps clear of the women and their business, giving me something that feels dangerously close to freedom in the way I run the operation.
It feels good. So good I wonder when it will end.
Marlow is fickle. Marlow giveth and Marlow taketh away, and he did just that two months ago with the Arena. After he blew our shot at getting Ryan Hyperion to fight for us, Chapman lost the ring to Yenko; like Yenko didn’t have enough on his plate already. He’s running with it, though. I sat down that first night and brainstormed with him about how to pull the Arena out of the dumpster, and now it’s running almost full steam again. Bets are building back up. Attendance is rising. He’s made some changes to the layout of the fights, brought back man-to-man fist fighting on special occasions, but the biggest change is just him. He’s more entertaining than Chapman. More dynamic. Personality matters more than you’d think.
And where does that leave Chapman? He’s Yenko’s bitch now. He’s out there scavenging for parts and trading with other gangs, whistling his ‘s’s and scowling like a kid who got his dick kicked for being an asshole on the playground.
Across the lobby, Asher straightens by the door. His eyes shoot to mine, his brows rising in warning.
“Vincent.”
“Perfect,” I mutter under my breath.
I rise slowly from my seat, turning to face him. I lock my shoulders back as I slide my hands in my pockets.
“Marlow.”
“On your way to the Market?”
“In five. I’m waiting on the girls.”
He crosses the open area slowly. Eyes in every corner and some hidden high in the rafters watch him walk toward me. There are over seventy people in the Hive. Most of them can go a month without talking to Marlow. It’s a rare displeasure for them. For me and his other ‘chosen’, it’s a daily deed, like breakfast and bowel movements. It can be ok or it can be a nightmare, depending on the day.
Judging from his tone, today is going to be okay.
“Who are you taking?” he asks curiously.
“Nats and Cobalt.”
“What about the other one? The young blond one?”
“Breanne.”
“Why aren’t you taking her? She’s a high earner, isn’t she?”
“She’s alright. She’s a dime on a good day.”
“And Nats is…”
“A fifteen.”
“She’s getting older, isn’t she?” he points out, the wrinkles around his lips carved like stone. “How is she earning so much more than the young girl?”
“Nat’s is a good listener. She’s smart. Guys like talking to her almost as much scoring her. Breanne doesn’t like to talk and that bothers most buyers.”
“Really?”
“That’s what I’ve seen. Men are more lonely than horny these days. They’ve got a right hand for free, but an intelligent conversation is hard to come by.”
He grunts in agreement. “That is most certainly true. And Cobalt? What is she?”
“A Jackson.”
“Do you ever just use the values, Vincent?” he asks impatiently. “Is it always in code?”
I suppress a smile. “A Jackson is a twenty.”
“Was that so hard?”
No, I think happily, but it was fun.
“You worked the streets too, Marlow. I assumed you remembered the slang.”
“I never used it.”
That’s why no one liked you. You always thought you were better than us.
“Might be time to start.”
“The English language is a fading relic,” he explains imperiously. “I’ll cling to it in its truest forms until my dying breath.”
“Not me. My last words will be to butcher it.”
“And what will they be?”
“‘FML’.”
“What does that mean?”
“Fuck my life.”
Marlow laughs, genuine and bold. The room tenses under the pressure of it. “I believe you.”
“You should. I never lie.”
“Now that, I do not believe,” he chuckles.
“No one should.”
Marlow nods thoughtfully. He calms, his smile fading by degrees until it’s nothing but the barest upturn of the corners of his mouth. He takes a step closer to me. “I know you wanted the Arena when I took it back from Chapman,” he explains quietly. Suddenly.
He’s trying to catch me off guard, but I’m used to him and his tactics. I’m ready for him.
I shake my head carelessly. “I didn’t.”
“Of course you did. It’s your baby. It has been since it was the Underground. That was a nice move, by the way, telling Yenko to bring back the old rules. People love a throwback.”
“We don’t have much to throwback to anymore.”
“No, and yet you managed to instill a sense of nostalgia. It’s very impressive. You are very impressive, Vin. You always have been.”
I don’t know what the hell to say to that. To any of this. Kindness is not a color we see Marlow wear very often; even me, his favorite. If anything, I get more of his sinister side than anyone else. He resents me because he needs me. That means I have power that he doesn’t, and Marlow hates anyone who has a leg up on him in anything. Given the right phase of the moon, the right time of the month, I could sweep this entire operation out from under him with little to no fuss. He knows that.
And I’m always watching for those stars to align.
There used to be a grudging acceptance between us. Almost like a friendship neither of us wanted but we couldn’t get away from it. We’re permanently in each other’s orbit because it’s the only way both our worlds can survive, and we were fine with that. Right up until Seven and Lucio. Ever since the night she died and he made me kill my father at the edge of the pier, the tension between us has been growing. It’s turned sour and it’s almost unpalatable at this point. It’s gonna get ugly before too long. For one of us more than the other.
Marlow grins into my silence. He reaches out to touch my shoulder, shaking me gently. “You’re doing a good job and I’m grateful for you, son. People here need you. They like you. I just wanted to make sure you knew that.”
Yeah, to remind me that if I step up against you, you’ll punish them, not me.
“Got it,” I reply deeply.
“Do you? You’re sure?”
“Sure as shit.”
“Eloquent as always. Good.” He squeezes my shoulder again before releasing me. “I’m so glad we had this chance to talk.”
Footsteps echo through the lobby, light and slow. The girls are here.
“Ah, your entourage,” Marlow announces happily. He turns his back on me to go to Natalie and Cobalt. Freedom and Dante are following close behind them. Dante is security under Asher, but I trust him to watch the girls for me while I’m at the Market. He’s a good guy, solid. He’ll make sure Elise keeps her private appointment here with an Eleven, he’ll check in on Stormy to make sure she really has a stomach bug and not a baby in her belly, and if he and Freedom can keep from killing each other, today will end just fine for everyone.
“Hello, Marlow,” Nats greets him sweetly. She smiles. She accepts a kiss on the cheek.
She’s full of shit. She hates Marlow’s withering old face more than most people. But she’s a good actress and that’s one of the reasons she’s such a good earner.
Cobalt goes in for her kiss after Natalie. Her face is perfectly composed as his lips touch her skin, and I feel a kick of pride in my chest. She’s young, in her early twenties, but she’s as good at hiding her emotions as the older, more experienced girls.
Lot of ugly dudes out there in the wild. The women can’t afford to offend them by letting on how unattractive they find them. Especially not in their own house.
“Ladies, you look lovely, as always,” he gushes over them.
Nats smiles slightly. “Thank you.”
“Thanks,” Cobalt echoes.
I catch Natalie’s eye, jerking my head toward the door. She takes Cobalt’s hand and quickly leads her in that direction.
“We’re going to be late,” I warn Marlow, falling in step behind them.
“Don’t let me keep you. Go. Go. Have fun, girls!”
I cringe inside at how fucking out of touch that statement is. I can see it on Freedom’s face as she watches him walk briskly out of the lobby; Marlow is an asshole.
“Y’all be careful out there,” Freedom reminds us when he’s finally gone. “Endo says the Z pop is low but it’s still sticky in pockets.”
“Forget the Risen. It’s the Colonies you gotta worry about now,” Asher counters from his post by the door.
Dante nods to him. “Yeah, man. I heard they took a Pike last week. And the Westies said they saw Colony vans surrounding the Cannibals’ park.”
“What’s the point?” Cobalt inquires nervously. “The Cannibals don’t even live there anymore, right? We wiped ‘em out forever ago for killing John.”
“We ran ‘em out,” I clarify for her. “We didn’t kill any of them because we couldn’t find ‘em.”
“They had to have died, though. You burned their food.”
“We burned a few hundred cornstalks. Do you think burning corn is going to kill cannibals?”
Cobalt shakes her head sheepishly. “No. I guess not.”
“They’re still out there somewhere,” Asher tells her, his tone softer than mine. “But no
one knows where.”
“Sounds like the Colonies are trying to find out,” Dante comments.
“Yeah, well, good luck to ‘em. We searched for weeks and never found a trace.”
“I’ve heard stories, man. People say they’ve seen ‘em.”
“Yeah, and they say their people are getting eaten by them too, but then the guy turns out to be Z food or dead from over-masturbation or some shit.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” I chuckle.
“It’s a real thing.”
“Yeah, it sounds like it. Really technical, man.”
“Look, fuck off, whatever. Every gang has a ghost story about seeing cannibals but none of ‘em are true. There’s no proof because they’re not a thing. They’re dead.”
“Well, if they’re still out there, I hope the Colonies find them,” Freedom announces. “Let them duke it out and kill each other off.”
Natalie tugs at the front of her jacket, yanking on the old, sticky zipper. “Better them than us.”
“They’ve already picked off three of us,” Dante reminds the room.
“They died hunting,” I correct him pointedly. Falsely. Truth is, we don’t know what happened to those guys. Marlow is convinced they defected to the Colonies. I’m not so sure. Just like I’m not sure the people in the park died off when we burned their veggies.
“Whatever, we’re with the Hive,” Cobalt chuckles. “Marlow has a deal with, like, everybody out there. We’re safe.”
“Sweetie, we’re never safe. No one is.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, there’s always something out there to worry about. No matter what deals are struck with who.”
“Whom,” Freedom corrects me.
I snort. “Fuck you and your grammar.”
“It’s a dead art.”
“So is a good blow job. When are you gonna bring that back?”
“When you bring me back a diamond.”
“Old rules still apply, huh?”
“It’s a timeless tradition, Vin.”
“Yeah, I’ll see what I can scrounge up out there.”
“Promises, promises.” She waves, taking a step backward. “You guys stay safe out there. Be careful. Of everything.”
“Yeah, we’ll be good,” I promise.