The Wrath of the Chosen

by K. C. Hamby

Two guards, both turned away from us, are chatting and watching a small TV. My eyes twitch over to Ash again and he’s glaring at the back of their heads, listening. My ears pick up their conversation.

  “Yeah, how many times?” the first one asks.

  “How many times what, dumbass?” I realize it’s Thing One and Two.

  “How many times, you know, have you been up there?” My stomach threatens to get rid of everything I’ve eaten today. He’s talking about the girls. They’ve been going up there and..

  “Ah, god. Why do you care?”

  “’Cause I bet I’ve been up there more.” I twitch and a grumbling comes from my chest, but I swallow it down before a growl can rip out of my mouth. I can’t listen to them talk about how many times they’ve done horrible things to those girls.

  I nod at Ash, signaling him to attack with me, but I don’t think he’s is mentally here anymore. His eyes glow brighter amber and his upper lip quivers in a silent snarl.

  I’ve seen this look once before when he overheard some of the other Lupi talking about me in a sexual way. I haven’t seen them since.

  I tap his shoulder and he flinches, coming back to reality. He nods at me and we move on the Things together. Once we are close enough, Ash pulls out his dagger and I nod. We grab them at the same time. I take Thing One on the left and Ash takes Thing Two on the right. I pull the trigger on my springblade and it plunges into the side of Thing One’s neck as I cover his mouth with my other hand. I glance over to Ash while I make sure Thing One doesn’t make a sound and find he’s doing the same with Thing Two, except he dragged the blade of his dagger across the Thing’s throat, making it hurt from the looks of the gaping slash.

  Thing One finally quiets down and I pull my springblade from his neck, lower him to the floor, wipe the blood off on his shirt, and push the blade back in place with a click. Ash does the same with the other Thing and sighs while he puts his dagger back in his belt. I can’t tell if it’s a sigh of guilt or relief. I hope it’s the latter. It definitely satisfies my bloodlust and washes away any guilt I could have ever had for these asshats.

  We make our way back to the stairs and blend back into the shadows. We skip the first two rooms at the top of the stairs in anticipation. I want to get those girls out now and I think Ash has the same idea after hearing what those wastes of creation said.

  I unlock all the locks as fast as I can when we get to the door.

  “Goddess, that’s excessive,” Ash whispers to me as I click open the last lock.

  I pull open the door and we walk in slowly. The scene is pretty much the same as yesterday. They are all asleep—or drugged—and chained to the walls or floor, cuddled up against each other and trying to keep warm. I hold in a growl that rumbles in my chest and inspect the dark room. I find the girl that woke up yesterday while I was here and slink my way over to her. I press my hand over her mouth and her eyes pop open instantly, her body thrashes to get away as she tries to scream.

  “Shhhh! Hey, it’s me,” I coo softly. Her tear soaked eyes flick to my face. They are slightly glazed over and she seems a little out of it. Then recognition hits her. “I told you I would come back.” I smile at her and slowly take my hand off her mouth.

  “My hero,” she whispers and pulls her cut lips into a grin. Something stirs inside of me. Happiness doesn’t quite explain it. It’s like a warmth in my chest spreading across my body. Is it gratefulness? Maybe it’s just relief.

  “Here, sit up.” I help her sit upright and get her to hold out her wrists. “Hey,” I call out to Ash and he hurries over with the chain cutters. The girl, I’ll call her Hope because it’s what she represents to me, rubbernecks trying to take in all of Ash. He catches her eyes and winks.

  “Don’t worry, I get that all the time,” he boasts and I scoff. Hope quietly giggles.

  Ash places the chains between the blades of the chain cutters and with a ‘huff’, he clomps down and the chains fall to the floor.

  “Oh, my god. Thank you.” She jumps in my arms, wrapping hers around me. I’m not used to physical contact, so it takes me a second to wrap my head around the situation and hug her back. Hope stands and grabs Ash in a tearful hug. He appears confused, but returns the hug with a blush creeping up on his cheeks. I’ll have to pick on him for that later. I stand and touch Hope’s arm.

  “Hey, wake the others and make sure they don’t make any noise.” I squeeze her arm in silent motivation. She nods eagerly and gets to work.

  She first wakes a blonde with dark brown roots and fair skin. The faraway look in her eyes hints that she’s more out of it than Hope, but she seems to come to life when Ash cuts off her chains.

  And then all hell breaks loose.

  The door flies open, effectively waking the other three girls. They scream bloody murder. Two meatheads come rushing in and I lunge for the closest one. I manage to pick the one with the gun, so I spinning-heel kick it out of his hand. I land, crouching low and swipe his feet out from under him with a sweeping slide of my foot.

  He goes down hard and I pull my pistol off my thigh and send a bullet right between his eyes.

  My ears register Ash grappling with the other guard, so I twist around to help him out, but another guard apparently showed up while I was taking mine out. Taking me by surprise, he shoots the dead douchebag’s gun and it slices past my left arm. My shoulder jumps back at the unexpected bullet shoving into my flesh. He knocks my gun out of my hand and uppercuts me in my stomach. I hear Hope scream. I heave and grab my midsection, fighting to pull air back into my lungs. Pushing through the pain, I yank my dagger out of my belt, facing off with the bastard.

  He pulls out his own knife and I smirk. Ah, a knife fight. My favorite.

  He swings at my stomach—he must have a thing for it—and I back out of the way gracefully. He slices at my head and I lean back—far enough that my braid grazes the floor—and watch his arm and the knife zing through the air right above me, right where my head was a split second ago. I vaguely register more screams.

  I stand back up and he swipes at my right side. I barely dodge his knife by jumping back at the last second. It cuts my jacket, narrowly missing my stomach. He jabs and my left side and a stabbing pain registers in my brain for a split second and then disappears.

  While he’s leaned into his jab, I place my hand on his shoulder and ram my dagger into his stomach with the other hand.

  “This is my favorite jacket, you asshole.” He coughs up blood, making a cringeworthy, wonderful gurgling noise, and I jump behind him, slitting his throat, and stop the gurgling. I wipe my dagger off on his shirt after he falls to the floor and slide it back in my belt.

  I turn to Ash, breathing hard, to find the meathead he was fighting face down on the floor with the axe in his back. I look at Ash who has his hands on his knees, breathing deeply. He smirks up at me.

  “See!” he says between breaths. “Useful.” He gestures at the axe and I breath out a laugh. He has a gash on his cheek, but other than that, he looks fine. He straightens up, pulls his fingers through his hair, and picks the chain cutters up off the floor.

  “Okay, who’s next?”

  ***

  I pull up to the hospital and all the girls quickly file out—covered with blankets and towels I found lying around the building—of the white SUV I stole from one of the now dead meatheads. I’m about to pull off at the sound of the back-door slamming shut, but a knock on the driver’s side window makes me flinch. I snap my head over to find the eyes of the girl I called Hope staring at me. I roll down the window.

  “Hey, thank you. You really are my hero,” she praises and smiles, touching my arm with tears in her eyes. My heart pangs and I try to shut the emotion off. I study her face, wanting to memorize every detail for some unknown reason to me. Her hair is dirty and flying everywhere, but I think it’s an orange color. Her eyes are deep brown, reminding me of fresh dirt on a spring morning and her lips are thin and cut with dryness, but they tilt up in a smile anyway.
Under the dirt and blood, her skin is a soft beige. “I know you probably can’t tell me your name or anything, but I’m Tonya. I just wanted to say thank you and that you’re pretty amazing.” She squeezes my arm. “Be careful out there,” she whispers, leaning in closer. Before I realize what she’s doing, she kisses me on the cheek and walks away to the hospital.

  I lean back in the driver’s seat with fire racing up my neck.

  Tonya. I’ll remember that.

  I glance in the rearview mirror and find my eyes are red and stinging.

  Tears? What the hell?

  I rest my head on the seat for a second before I’m forced back to myself with a burning sensation lighting me up from my shoulder and stomach. It takes my attention away from my almost tears. I grab my left side and groan at the pain the pressure causes. I pull my hand away and, even with the black glove on, I can see the blood shine all over the leather.

  “Oh, for shit’s sake.” I reach over to the glove compartment and cry out when my shoulder sings. I poke at the hole in my skin with my finger and a slur of curses sure to make a sailor blush floods from my mouth. The bullet is still in there.

  I pull of my jacket and stuff the sleeve into my mouth before my fingers plunge into the bullet hole. I scream and bite against the fabric as I dig around for the bullet. Luckily, it didn’t shatter in my body. I pull out a whole, bloody bullet and drop it in the cup holder. My head swims, but the flesh of my shoulder begins to heal. Slowly, so slowly, but the muscles and skin knit together all the same. It will have to do for now.

  Reaching over to the glove compartment, I grab napkins to stuff into the wound in my stomach. It’s all I can do for it right it at the moment. I hope it holds long enough for me to get the job done. My shoulder hurts like a bitch, but I hastily stuff a napkin in the remaining hole and groan.

  I left Ash at the squatter to clean up the mess and I have to pick him up so we can meet Boss at the location. I will take him out once and for all. I have to push past the pain.

  I drive through the streets until I pull back up to the squatter building to find Ash in the alley and leaning against his SUV. I peel the blood-soaked napkins off my wounds and stuff more wads in as soon as I park.

  “Please let that hold up.” The prayer is a whisper as Ash makes his way to the passenger side of the car. Thank goddess it’s on my left side. Hopefully he won’t notice my shoulder. I slide my jacket back on anyway, cursing the bastard that shot me when I see the hole in the fabric. I turn the air on full blast, making sure it doesn’t carry my scent in his direction. I just hope he doesn’t smell the air too hard.

  He opens the door and slides in silently with a hard look set in his features.

  “Ready?” He nods and pulls out his IPhone with MAPS open so I know how to get to the rendezvous point. I drive along the highlighted route in silence. Dizziness is creeping through my body from the blood loss and I shake my head to focus on the road and get my mind off the pain, but all it does is break the levee holding back a flood of unwanted thoughts.

  I hope Nina doesn’t hate me for leaving her.

  Wait, of course she does. I hope she does. That makes staying away from her so much easier.

  But her face, it was covered with hurt. My heart pangs again, but not in the same way it did with Tonya. This hurts.

  “Fal?” I snap back to reality. “Are you there?” Ash is talking to me.

  “What?” I ask a little too slowly.

  “I asked if you are okay.” He glares at me with concern floating in his paint covered eyes. He sniffs the air and locks his dagger eyes on me.

  “I’m fine, Ash. I need to get this done,” I push through my teeth. He knows I’m hurt. He smelled my blood, but he doesn’t know the extent of my injuries and I’m not going to be the one to tell him. Not right now.

  I pull the SUV into the deserted parking lot the GPS has led us to. No one’s here yet. I lean back in the seat and try to focus my thoughts on killing Boss and get them away from Nina and the impending unconsciousness clouding my vision. She’s a dangerous subject for my mind to get stuck on and I can’t stray from my duties right now. I have a job to do.

  I sneakily press my hand to the gash on my side and blood drains from my face—literally and figuratively—because I’m soaked in my own blood. Those napkins didn’t hold for shit. I apply as much pressure as I can without crying out in pain to slow the bleeding. My body is having trouble healing because of how deep the gash is; or at least I hope that’s why.

  After five minutes of sitting in silence, effort from trying not to pass out, and horrible anticipation with Ash, a black Mercedes Benz pulls into the lot, parking on the opposite end, facing us, and a good thirty yards away. I flash the headlights just like the messages instructed and the doors of the Mercedes open. Two more meatheads slide out of the front seats followed by Boss himself.

  I share a glance with Ash, nodding my head and unclipping my pistol from its holster. We jump out of the SUV simultaneously and walk together towards them with our pistols raised. I easily take out the one on the left and Ash shoves a bullet in the one on the right before they have time to register what’s going on.

  Ash hangs back while I press forward toward Boss. He’s sloppily fumbling for his own pistol, but he is so flustered, he drops it twice. He finally picks it up and points it at me, but I’m ready. I shoot at his hand, sending a bullet through the palm and being rewarded with a scream and a clattering of the gun on the cement. He punches at me with his other hand, but I catch his wrist and twist it hard enough to break the fragile bones beneath the skin. He screams so loud, I have to punch him right in the jaw, cracking that bone too and rendering him speechless for a few seconds.

  He falls to his knees with quiet sobs and has the audacity to beg for mercy, wincing with every movement of his jaw.

  “Ha!” I spit. “Mercy? I didn’t even know you knew the meaning of the word. Where was your mercy when you took those girls from their homes; from their families and friends?” I’m suddenly feeling like a rabid dog. A snarl rips from my mouth and I grab Boss by his throat. “Where was it when you let your men rape them? Where was your mercy,” I growl the word at him and pull him mere centimeters from my face, “when you planned on selling them for a pretty penny?” I stare down my nose at his tear streaked face in disgust. My wolf is pushing and I don’t have the energy to stop her. Her presence fights to my eyes and I know they must be glowing menacingly.

  “God, please! I’ll change. I promise you!” he screams.

  “Burn in Tartarus, asshole. You’ve been chosen.” I throw him on the cement and lift my gun up, sending his rotten soul to the pits of the Underworld with one twitch of my finger. He falls to the ground in a heap and I collect his blood in a Proof without missing a beat.

  My catch phrase ‘you’ve been chosen’ is my play on my own identity. I’ve always thought it to be hysterical, but I can’t find it in me to be amused right now. My wolf is sucking the adrenaline from me because of my efforts to shut her down again. My shoulder and side scream for relief.

  I swing around and head back to the car, but my vision begins to darken. The pain in my side and shoulder is nearly unbearable due to the absence of my adrenaline and continuous flow of my blood. The edges of my sight are turning black and I can’t even walk straight. I can barely walk at all.

  I peer up and catch Ash’s eyes as he’s running toward me in a dark blur. I involuntarily break our eye contact and can only watch as the asphalt rushes toward my face.

  But, I’m out before I hit its hard surface.

  Chapter 13

  I pry open my eyes and immediately slam them shut again at the brightness in the room. Well, it’s not even that bright, but my head is pounding.

  I peel my eyes open again and fight closing them this time. The light coming through the window is burning my pupils and coaxing me into puking. After a few seconds, my vision clears and I can bear the light without needing to dump everything—including my dignity�
�out of my stomach. I gently push my back off the comfy bed and groan at the pain in my side. I glance down and nearly pass out again.

  This isn’t my shirt. I don’t own any band shirts. I definitely don’t own Titanium Lass shirts.

  I lift the thin material anyway and find the gash on my side has been bandaged. The bullet wound on my shoulder is stitched once. That’s a bit excessive. They will be healed in a day or two.

  I flick my eyes around the room cautiously. I’m not in my own clothes and I’m not exactly in peak condition, so naturally I’m on high alert. Then the gray, Aztec patterned comforter, beige walls, and black/brown furniture registers in my brain.

  I’m in my room at Ash’s house.

  I let out a relieving sigh and pull in a heavy breath. That’s when I smell the other wolf I smelled in the bathroom. Invidia’s scent is all over me. These must be her clothes.

  Shit. If Invidia helped my incapacitated ass change into these clothes, she may have seen my Chosen mark. My eyes are wide and painfully dilated, but I can’t tell if it’s anger or panic.

  Breathe.

  I don’t need to rip my brother’s girlfriend’s head off when I don’t know exactly what happened.

  Or, you could. Pretty easily, actually, the bloodlust in me prods.

  No. Absolutely not. What the hell? My bloodlust should be satisfied from the mission last night. I definitely killed a lot of people.

  Ah, hell. I can’t worry about this right now.

  I gingerly get on my feet and head down the hall into the bathroom. I stare into the mirror and cringe. There’s a small gash on my hairline, I’m assuming from when I hit the asphalt. Someone also tried to wipe the paint off my eyes, but there are still smudges in random places. I thought Voítheia are supposed to be cleaning experts.

  I grab a wet cloth and gently wipe off the rest of the paint. I clean the gash on my head and dab some antibiotic ointment on for good, unnecessary, measure.

  Placing both hands on the sink, I drop my head. I pull in a few deep breaths to collect myself before I make an appearance. If Invidia knows I’m Chosen, she’ll have to tell someone. I’m not sure if I can handle what will happen if everyone knows. I pick my head up, take one last look in the mirror at my scarred face, and leave the bathroom to face whatever—or whoever, for that matter—is waiting for me.