When Nothing Is All You've Got

by Kirsty Dallas

  On the other side of the steel fortress I stood within was a large open area. Soldiers from the outside world could march the prisoners into the underworld, unlock the cage from their side, and we would collect them from our side. I often wondered about the world beyond that room. Up here, I was so close to sunshine and freedom, and yet so very far away. On this side of the cage was darkness. Casting a quick look at the closed door on the soldier’s side, I longed to see the light at the end of the twisted corridors beyond it.

  Of the few prisoners that still found their unfortunate way down here, most of them discovered that the transition was more than a little difficult. The sense of claustrophobia was too intense for some, and madness would set in to corrupt their minds. If a fire was to spread down here, or the massive pumps that kept the underground rivers from flooding were to fail, we’d be doomed. It didn’t worry me in the least; I had been born here and knew no other way of living. For others though, it was a hell worse than death, and many chose that death in its stead. It was easy to end your life in the Underworld. There were enough drugs to see you hallucinate your way out of this existence, or there were plenty of reds willing to do the grisly job for you.

  Using a heavy key that hung on a hook by the entrance, I unlocked the first cage and grimaced at the smell of fermenting feces. Hauling my bucket over, I emptied the foul substance, and scrubbed everything I could reach with bleach and a wire brush. The work was back breaking and disgusting, but it helped put a pause on my memories for a moment, and just exist. Having a photographic memory meant my days and nights were plagued with the past. Working and fighting helped turn that monotonous torture off.

  It was unexpectedly peaceful working with Shadow in the room. I hadn’t looked, but I knew he was leaning against the doorway, watching my every move. I could feel his eyes on me, something of a heavy weight at my neck. Even though he was not here for my protection, it actually made my shoulders loosen a bit, knowing I was safe for the moment. Even though the man was a complete asshole, I knew, in my heart, he wouldn’t force himself on me. The memory of the night I was forced was crystal clear in my mind, and the outrage in Shadow’s eyes the moment my head had lolled to one side and found him standing in that doorway had been hard to miss. The death and blood that followed was a sweet ending to the most horrific moment in my life, and it had been Shadow to mete out that justice. I hadn’t taken much notice of the then twenty-year-old man who was quickly rising through Kingsley’s forces. He was just another soldier, another dog to slather over every bone Kingsley gifted them. That night though, I saw something different, and it would have been easy to lose myself in Shadow’s silent strength, resilience, and handsome ferocity. His nonchalance towards me following the incident, his snide arrogance, the way he used women, and his unwavering obedience to Kingsley killed any romantic inclination.

  Three hours later, all five cages were spotlessly clean, unlike me who was covered in many questionable liquids and smelled like a raw sewer line. Another cold shower was in my immediate future. I didn’t care if I got a little dirty, but shit under my nails was about as far as I could push it. Once back at my room, I carefully stored the cleaning products away, and grabbed myself some clean clothes, ignoring the pull towards that loose rock in the corner wall of my room.

  Shadow followed me to the bathrooms and took up position on the wooden bench in the corner, back to the wall and a perfect view of the entire room. I took the first stall and pulled the door, which hung off one hinge and offered little privacy, closed. Hanging my bag off a hook, I quickly stripped bare and stepped under the spray. It was at this moment I cursed the tepid temperature of the water. Power in the Underworld was conserved, and after a few days of continual electricity, we’d have hot water for a time. It never lasted past two days. The inmates soaked up every last drop of the gloriously warm water. The ice water usually didn’t bother me, I’d had far more cold showers than warm in my life, but right now I would have traded everything I had for a little heat.

  I scrubbed my body with the gritty soap that was filled with sweet almond oil. Regan explained it was good for my skin. I knew nothing about things like that, but it was damned good for my nose and smelled much better than the toxic waste I had removed from those buckets.

  Soon, I was standing in front of a long mirror covered in large patches of black rust-like stains. Using the gel Regan had gifted me, I fingered my hair back up into a Mohawk.

  “This is new,” Shadow murmured as he moved to stand behind me. He was so close I could feel the heat from his body seep through the comfortable leathers I was once again wearing. While my body thrummed with energy that wanted to reach out and absorb his warmth, my head didn’t want him so close. He made me nervous, and trying to ignore the six-foot three bulk was difficult. “You smell good.”

  “As opposed to the shit I smelled of twenty minutes ago?”

  “You smell clean, and like a woman.”

  I tried not to flinch as he dipped forward to run his nose along my neck, nothing more than a whisper of a touch. His gentleness confused me, and much to my abject horror, frightened me. This wasn’t the Shadow I had grown to know and could easily predict. This Shadow was a contradiction of a somewhat familiar rough surface but a completely unfamiliar smooth edge. This was the second time in as many days that he had taken liberties with me. He’d gone from a man who completely ignored me to one whose attentions were far too intense, and far too gentle.

  Shadow claimed he knew I had secrets. Was it his mission to unearth them with tender seduction? He wouldn’t get very far. Men were nothing more than a tool for me to use if and when I needed, and my hatred for Shadow would never ease long enough to let the man in. Also, I knew for a fact that Shadow couldn’t do gentle. He might try and he might succeed for a moment, but he’d never be able to keep it up.

  I used the guise of throwing the gel into my backpack to move away from his intrusive closeness, before slinging the bag over my shoulder and hightailing it out of the bathroom.

  “You’re my little duckling. You have been promised to me, and I will claim you.” The whispered words slithered over my skin as I rounded the corner of a dimly lit corridor. Where the hall split and delivered a sharp turn, I noted the heavy build of a tall figure leaning over the much smaller build of what was obviously a woman. “You are mine,” the unfamiliar male voice growled as his hands began a fevered and clearly unwanted exploration of the woman’s body. She made a pathetic attempt to fight him off, and when the low whimpers filled with misery reached my ears, the backpack on my shoulder slid down until it made a quiet thump on the floor by my feet.

  “Let me take a look first,” Shadow whispered in my ear. I was already poised to ignore him and walk down the short, dark hall when a small voice had my blood run cold.

  “Please don’t.” The feminine voice was childlike, and it froze Shadow and me in place for a heartbeat of disbelief. As far as Kingsley, and most the men in the Underworld, were concerned, a little forced coercion was acceptable between a man and woman. Children were a whole other matter, though.

  As I reached the back of the massive beast who was fumbling with his jeans, I kicked the fucker right between the legs. I took immense satisfaction in the pain filled howl that echoed off the stone walls, and watched as he fell to his knees. A light brought the dark space into clear focus, and I glanced over my shoulder to find Shadow holding a lantern up high. The generators went down often, so lanterns were hung at regular intervals throughout the entire facility.

  A sob brought my attention back to the problem before me. As I turned and took in the girl’s beaten, bloody face, my breath caught for just a moment, and anger bled into a deep guttural fury. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen by the look of her still underdeveloped body, but what really stoked the flames of rage was the white robe she wore, splattered in a deep crimson that had fallen from her own pure face. She was an innocent, a child born in the slums, not delivered through the front fucking doors. We
were close to the arena, in what was a communal color area, but the girl was too young to be outside the innocent sector on her own.

  “You dumb motherfucker,” murmured Shadow.

  The girl flinched, and I reached past the brute that clutched at his balls to pull her away from her attacker. She flew into my arms and curled into my body, which shocked me and crossed the line of my preferred no hugging rule. When I noticed the alarm filled eyes of Regan and a few other passersby standing behind us, I quickly palmed the girl off into her outstretched arms, which were much more adept at consoling. Then my gaze returned to something I could handle with effortless precision.

  “He’s mine,” I growled at Shadow as he stalked forward, ready to charge the gutless pig that was as good as dead. Shadow paused and smiled, an evil smile which was both beautiful and frightening.

  “Cutter, I don’t think you’ve officially met Nada yet.”

  It was the first time I had ever heard my name fall from Shadow’s lips, and I took a split second to push away the ridiculous pleasure I felt from hearing it.

  “Cutter?” I filtered through my memories as one might do a filing cabinet until I found the information I was after. “Bry Charles Maiden, thirty-two years of age, five foot eight, two hundred and twenty pounds, only son to a Declan Charles Maiden and Eva Rose Maiden. You were diagnosed with split personality disorder at nine when you attempted to drown Billie, your pet cat. At this point, you were institutionalized in the hope you could be rehabilitated into a functioning, crime free member of society, and at thirteen you were released with a recommendation for continued parental supervision.” I knew Cutter’s file well, as I’d been the one to enter him into the system. It wasn’t my job to do so, it was Dejohn’s, but he wasn’t good with computers. I wasn’t much better, but I’d been entering them on his behalf for many years now, reading all the dirty secrets and carefully placing them into their designated sector in the Underworld. As I read back Cutter’s records, his cheeks filled with an angry red hue, while Shadow’s face betrayed a hint of surprise. I was revealing one of my secrets, and had I not been so close to the edge of a volcanic eruption of rage, I would have been more careful with it. “You coasted under the radar until your thirty-second birthday, when you took the life of your much younger girlfriend, Tia Louise Simons, a twenty-one-year-old nurse, blonde, blue eyes, pretty.”

  Cutter flew at me then, a sharp blade pulled from the back of his dirty jeans aimed directly at my gut. I blocked the lethal blow and used the palm of my other hand to break his nose. Feeling the cartilage snap, I quickly stepped back and watched the blood gush down his face.

  “It was then authorities took a closer look at the house fire that killed your mother, father, and twelve-year-old cousin, Bethany, who was staying for the weekend,” I continued as Cutter let the blood spill down his chest, his angry eyes on me. “They caught you with her, didn’t they?”

  6

  SHADOW

  I had no fucking idea how the girl knew so much about Cutter. But since it was Dejohn’s job to enter in the information the above world gave us on new arrivals, it shouldn’t have surprised me. Nada was supposed to stay clear of the computer; evidently, she had not. The fact that she remembered every little detail had my brain churning away like a well-oiled machine. I always thought she was smarter than she acted, but from her crystal clear memory, my respect for her intelligence grew.

  Cutter was hunched over, his body heaving with pain and fury, as blood poured down his face; he looked like a raging bull. The blade in his right hand was held with a precision that had obviously garnered him his nickname, the wicked looking bowie knife far superior to any cheap switch blade. Even with his obvious expertise, he didn’t hold a candle to Nada.

  She stood tall, leaning forward slightly on the balls of her feet, ready to move. It was in these conditions that the girl excelled, up close and personal. Her opponents always underestimated her because of how small she was, and the fact she was a woman. You’d think after all these years of spilling blood in the cage would teach the arrogant soldiers something; the girl was a force to be reckoned with.

  She held her knife in a fierce hammer grip that looked far more casual than it actually was. She knew how to hold a blade in a way that could maximize damage and minimize injury to herself. Cutter held his in a reverse grip, the knife’s blade angled down and back towards his wrist. It was nowhere near as agile a position as the traditional hammer grip. When Cutter lunged for Nada again, she was ready, ducking and weaving out of his way, her empty hand held in a protective fist in front of her face, ready to defend while the hand that held her knife slashed forward and cut a clean, thick slice down Cutter’s arm. Infuriated by the wound, Cutter tried to reach for Nada’s wrist in an effort to make her weapon hand immobile. A glimpse of amusement in the girl’s eyes almost pushed a smile to my lips. While Cutter’s focus was on her weapon, Nada punched him with a quick jab, hitting his already broken nose and causing the man to howl in pain. With sloppy stabs and clumsy movements, Cutter somehow managed to slice open Nada’s arm, but she didn’t so much as flinch; instead, she kept moving, keeping her opponent in a defensive position while she wore him down. He was a big, out of shape man, and it didn’t take long before he became sluggish, and Nada was quick to take advantage, plunging the long, carbon steel blade of her knife deep into his flank. She retreated when Cutter fell to his knees.

  “Kidney strike, you’ll bleed out slowly, painfully,” she murmured as Cutter grabbed at his side. He looked pathetic there on his knees, blood coating his face and chest, oozing from his arm and now flank. With a swift kick, she knocked the knife from his feeble grip and took a step forward, lowering herself until she could look into his eyes. “You don’t deserve mercy. You deserve pain, and lots of it.” She tilted her head to one side, as if considering her next words. “I don’t have time to watch you die, and I don’t want you hurting anyone else as you bleed out.” Raising her knife, she used her empty hand to grab Cutter’s hair, pulling his head backwards and exposing the tendons of his neck. “Men who touch children have a special place in hell reserved for them. I’ll be sure to stop by and watch the show when I finally make it down there.” Then she drew the blade across his throat, clean and efficient. Cutter gurgled out a groan as his body slumped to the ground, and silence filled the corridor.

  “I’ll organize clean up and make sure Kingsley knows he was playin’ with a child.”

  “You think I give a fuck what Kingsley thinks?” she snapped.

  “You’re just as scared of a bullet to the head as everyone else down here.”

  She laughed, but it was a sound that held no humor. “I’ve had a gun pressed to my skull enough times to know it’s not death I fear.”

  “What is it you fear, tough girl? Does it have anythin’ to do with those secrets you’re hidin’?” Her gaze rose to mine, boldness, surprise, and fury each battling for supremacy in her beautiful, dark eyes. “Dejohn will be waitin’ for you in the gym. Get movin’. I’ll clean this up and find you later,” I said, effectively dismissing her.

  “Can’t fucking wait,” she hissed.

  As she turned to leave, I couldn’t help but call out, “And Nada?” She glanced over her shoulder, a furious glare that caused a little furrowed line between her brows. “You owe me for this.”

  She flipped me off before storming away. Hell yeah, she owed me. I was going to clean up her mess, even if she didn’t want me to. If I didn’t, Kingsley would punish her for another death, even if Cutter was an asshole who deserved to die.

  *

  “He was fucking with an innocent kid. As far as I’m concerned, she did me a favor, but that’s two in one week, not counting Viper. She’s not my fucking queen, so she has no right to condemn whomever she sees fit. She needs to be punished.”

  “She has a fight,” I calmly pointed out.

  “And she’ll fucking win it. We all know that. This will help even the odds.” Kingsley pushed aside the piece
of paper he’d been reading as I told him about Cutter. “So, have you learned anything from following her? Is she the spy?”

  I snorted, a show of disrespect, but Kingsley let it slide. I’d proven myself over the years and was allowed more freedom with him than others.

  “All I’ve learned is that she smells bad after diggin’ around in shit, and she’s cranky first thing in the mornin’, but I’d bet my left nut sac that the girl isn’t the fuckin’ mole.”

  “Locky says that he’s heard chatter that the rebels are gearing up to make a move.”

  I raised a brow in surprise. I couldn’t think of where Locky might have heard a rumor like that; the man was about as subtle as a flying brick, and people had a tendency to become closed lipped when he was around. He’d been trying to win favor with Kingsley for a long time now; I didn’t think he had the balls to actually try and slither his way into Kingsley’s inner circle with false information.

  Talk of the rebels had filtered down into the Underworld, planting the seeds of hope in the hearts of the innocents. Their cause was about change, about liberating the innocents and taking out the power that had risen in the Underworld, that power being Kingsley. The Underworld couldn’t afford to lose its ruthless leader; there was a reason why Kingsley was in power. He was man enough to keep the animals in line and rule with the iron fist needed to prevent an all-out civil war. While he was a man without mercy and questionable motives, the Underworld needed that kind of hate to rule over it. Many of the men and women sentenced to the underground didn’t take well to orders, and needed a harsh hand to keep them in line. The rebels were a pain in my backside, but if Nada was a part of their group, I’d bend over and kiss my own ass.