Before the End (Beyond Series Ultimate Glom Edition)

by Kit Rocha

Her nightmare had taken a turn for the better.

  Trix stared down at the blood on her clothes, frozen in an interminable moment of confusion and torn between a laugh and a scream.

  Mac Fleming was gone. Better than gone—dead—and the laugh won. Only it didn’t come out sounding like a laugh at all, more like a frightened, strangled whimper.

  Warm hands cupped her face, and a broad, calloused thumb swept over her cheek. “I got you, girl. Stay with me.”

  Finn’s words echoed in her ears, as surreal as the sensation of his hands on her face. “This isn’t real.”

  “I know how you feel. Look at me, Tracy.”

  Her vision swam as she lifted her gaze. Finn had always been a rock, the only solid, reliable thing in her old life. Surely if this was a dream or drug-induced hallucination, he’d look the same—serious, intense, the barest hint of one of his rare smiles lifting the corner of his mouth.

  Instead, he looked worn. Not just older but haggard, his beard scruffier than she remembered. His eyes were bloodshot and red, as if he hadn’t slept in months, and her mother’s voice drifted up somewhere behind her. Ten miles of bad road.

  “Fuck,” he whispered roughly. “Close your eyes and breathe.”

  He bent to tug at the plastic tie securing her hands. The room went dark for a moment, and Trix opened her mouth to remark on the darkness before she realized she’d only closed her eyes.

  She licked her lips and winced at the pain—and the taste of blood. “They gave me something—”

  The door opened and slammed shut. “Holy fuck,” a new voice growled.

  Trix snapped her eyes open. The man who had come in was dark—dark clothes, skin, eyes, hair. He locked the door behind him and stepped forward, but all of his attention was focused on Fleming’s body.

  Finn pulled a knife and cut her hands free. “Ryder, meet Tracy.”

  That stopped the man in his tracks. “Tracy?”

  “Yeah.” Finn rubbed Trix’s wrists before rising, the knife still gripped in a steady hand. “Shit’s about to get real ugly.”

  Ryder’s jaw clenched, and he dropped to quickly check the dead man’s pockets. He came up with a small pistol, which he pressed into Finn’s hands. “Come on. Hurry.”

  Finn didn’t ask if she could stand. Instead, he hooked an arm under her legs and one behind her back, lifting her with familiar ease. “I’m going to get you out, girl. One way or another, you’re going home. You hear me?”

  Ryder headed for the back of the room and the narrow, cleverly concealed hallway leading to the exit from Mac’s office. Trix had stumbled down it before, and she closed her eyes now to block out the memory.

  “I can’t help you much,” Ryder bit off, his words clipped and urgent. “But I have some resources in place.”

  Finn’s body tensed. His arms tightened, crushing her body to his chest. “What kind of resources?”

  “The kind that just might save your life.”

  They burst through the back door, and a wave of cold air cleared Trix’s head a little. “The border,” she mumbled, gripping Finn’s vest. “If we can make it back to Four—”

  “You won’t,” Ryder said flatly. “Not on the streets. Any minute now, the whole goddamn sector’s gonna be swarming with Fleming’s men.”

  “Beckett’s men,” Finn corrected with a rumble. “He’ll need to make a good show of it.”

  “He gives zero fucks,” Ryder agreed, heading down the shadowed alley toward a back street cluttered with delivery trucks. “But there’s no time for him to gloat. Especially when he could have your fool head on a platter, too. What the fuck were you thinking, man?”

  A grunt. “Doesn’t matter now. All that matters is getting her back to O’Kane.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that.” Ryder took a left down a narrow gap between two buildings.

  The space wasn’t wide enough to be considered an alley, and Finn let Trix slide to her feet before urging her into the darkness. She tripped over a loose brick and pitched forward, landing hard against Ryder’s back.

  He turned and stared down at her, backlit by the faint moonlight filtering down between the buildings. He looked like an angel—not the kind with harps and halos, but an angel of war, fierce and terrifying.

  “Hopkins picked her up,” he growled. “He uses hallucinogens.”

  “Christ, that explains it.” Finn caught her chin and tilted her face toward the light. “Shit. Shit. She can’t be stumbling around the sector in this condition.”

  “She won’t be.” Ryder shoved a tall crate aside, revealing a dented door behind it. The lock was new, electronic, and advanced. Out of place in a shitty, narrow alley behind Mac Fleming’s office.

  Trix blinked at him. “Who are you?”

  Instead of answering, he opened the door and snatched up a small black duffel before waving them in. “I didn’t pack enough supplies for two people,” he said, thrusting the bag at Finn. “Three days, tops. There’s a map of the tunnels in the side pocket.”

  Finn caught Ryder’s arm, and the two of them exchanged a look Trix couldn’t decipher, some sort of silent communication that ended with Finn biting off a curse and seizing the bag. “You’re crazier than I am, you know that?”

  “Hey, somebody’s gotta be.” Ryder shrugged. “How else is all this shit gonna stop?”

  “Don’t get dead,” Finn ordered, swinging the heavy duffel up on one shoulder. His other arm slid around Trix’s waist. “Tell them I ran south. Beckett’ll believe it.”

  The only thing south of Sector Five was desert, wide and open under the sky—and Finn’s tiny cabin, the one he’d fixed up with his own hands.

  She’d been there only a couple of times, riding the whole way on the back of his bike, not quite sheltered from the wind by his solid shoulders. She could feel it now, whispering over her skin and roaring in her ears.

  She might as well have been back there, watching idly as he stoked the fire, gentle light playing across his bare skin. Her lips moved, and she found herself asking him the same question she had then. “Do you ever think about ending it all?”

  “Not tonight, doll.” His arm tightened as light flared in front of her eyes. A flashlight, bright enough to illuminate a narrow tunnel leading down into the ground. “Come on, Tracy. Just put one foot in front of the other, and you’ll be back with the O’Kanes before you know it.”

  “Trix.” She braced one hand on the pitted wall. “I changed my name because of you.” So no one would put two and two together, so Fleming would never come after her and use her to hurt Finn.

  “Trix,” he echoed, his voice rough around her name. “Whatever I call you, doesn’t change facts. We’ve got to move. Can you walk, or do I need to carry you?”

  “I’m fine.” Her spinning head threatened to turn her into a liar. She shook away some of the haze and focused on taking even, careful steps into the darkness.

  Whatever waited there couldn’t be more terrifying than what was behind them.

  Chapter Two

  Ryder’s map was meticulously labeled in his precise hand, and it outlined multiple routes out of Sector Five. The one to Four was straightforward enough, but there was one big damn problem.

  It led straight under the factory Dallas O’Kane had blown up earlier in the week.

  Finn stared at the rubble from the cave-in while Tracy—Trix, and wasn’t that a guilt-punch in the gut?—slumped against the wall, trying not to show how hard she was coming down. It took effort not to swing her up into his arms over her protests, but doing anything over her protests didn’t seem like a smart move right now.

  Stomping down panic, Finn shoved the useless map back into its side pocket and turned to her. “We need to find a place to rest for a few hours. Get some food into both of us. Can you make it back to that four-way intersection? A few of those doors had old-fashioned locks.”

  She nodded, then winced and pressed the heel of her hand to her temple. “What the hell did they give me?”

>   Christ only knew. Hopkins had a new favorite rush every week, and most of them jacked you up so high you saw pink dragons and polka dots. “Probably nothing too heavy, if you’re walking straight and still know your name. Need a hand?”

  “No.” She took a shaky step away, then turned back down the tunnel. “Supply hubs. Noah said there were storage rooms under Five. For the factories.”

  Finn froze. Adrenaline had faded enough for his brain to kick in, and connecting the dots stirred rage. Noah Lennox had popped back into Finn’s life and work with the same abruptness as he’d left it, mouthing big claims about how he was ready to help Mac take Dallas O’Kane down.

  Finn hadn’t bought it. He wasn’t sure Mac ever had, either. Noah wasn’t a great liar or an eager criminal. But he had a weak spot—a girl who’d ended up with the O’Kanes—and Mac had never questioned Noah’s claim that Dallas tried to blackmail him with the girl’s safety. It was exactly what Mac had been planning to do, after all.

  Mac should have known better. Dallas O’Kane didn’t bully men into working for him. He seduced them with big dreams, soft living, and the fantasy of brotherhood. In return, he enjoyed the kind of loyalty most petty kings only dreamed about.

  So it wasn’t a shock that Noah had been playing both sides, sharing information about Five with the O’Kanes. Finn wasn’t exactly the poster boy for sector loyalty, either. But that bastard had sat across from him as recently as four days ago, knowing Tracy was alive, knowing how Finn had always felt about her...

  Nothing. Not a word. Not a fucking hint. “So you and Lennox are tight now?”

  “He’s trying his best,” she muttered. “We all are, Finn. Don’t blame him.”

  “Don’t blame him for what, Tra—?” He bit off her name. Her new one felt like battery acid on his tongue. Tracy, turning tricks. Turning into Trix. Because of him. “Trix.”

  “For not telling you I was in Four.” She shuddered. “It’s not his fault. I wasn’t ready to face you. I’m still not.”

  Another knife in the gut, but he didn’t let it show. “Fair enough, doll. As soon as you’re snuggled up in Sector Four again, I’ll be out of your face.”

  She whirled on him. “That isn’t what I want.”

  He almost asked what she did want, but his lips wouldn’t move. They’d hit the part of the tunnels lit by emergency lights, a soft glow from strips high on either wall that softened the shadows and washed away the worst impact of the drugs and her fear.

  She looked fierce. Healthy. Getting away from him had given her a chance to bloom, to become an independent woman instead of some fading junkie. She’d gained weight and curves, the kind men lost their minds and their good sense over. The kind men started wars over, on the off chance she’d cast those big, beautiful eyes your way and smile.

  Hell, he’d just started a war for her, and she could barely look at him.

  “Let’s find one of those storage rooms, and we can figure it out. Okay?” He held out his arm.

  Reluctantly, she took it. “I’m doing this all wrong.”

  He didn’t know how the hell to comfort her, so he fell back on old habits. Lazy and sarcastic, because even when he’d cared, he hadn’t known how to do it well. “If there’s a right way to get kidnapped, sweet cheeks, that’s news to me.”

  She sucked in a breath, sharp and rough. “Zan.”

  It took Finn a few seconds to connect the name with a face. A bouncer at O’Kane’s bar, one of his soldiers who had been a member for a long time without rising into Dallas’s inner circle. Important to recognize on sight, but not a player. Not in Finn’s world. “What about him?”

  She went pale. “He was walking with me. They—they shot him—” The words broke off, and her hand clenched on Finn’s arm.

  He bit back another curse and swung his other arm around her. “I’m sorry, honey,” he whispered, pressing his lips to the top of her head. “I should have put that bastard down months ago. Years ago.”

  Trix took another shaky breath and broke free of his embrace. “You’re not the only one.”

  No, but he was the one who’d had a thousand opportunities. So many times he could have put his gun to the man’s head and pulled the trigger, but he hadn’t. Not when it could have done some good. Logan Beckett had undoubtedly already stepped into Mac’s shoes, an even bigger monster with an even smaller conscience.

  Too little, too late. That was his go-to move. And he still wanted to pull Trix back into his arms, wrap himself around her, breathe in her scent until it felt like his own. He wanted to run his bloodstained hands over all those perfect curves and watch her chest rise with each breath, because every fucking part of this moment was so surreal, he was probably dreaming.

  Mac Fleming was dead. Tracy was alive.

  I missed you. He had no right to say that to her, not when she kept pulling back. She was radiant, and he was the dirt and muck of her past, still clinging to her boots. “Is your life good in Four?”

  She reached the intersection and stopped, spinning around to peer down each corridor before answering simply, “It’s home. I have a family there.”

  Family was more than he’d ever given her. So he steeled his heart and his nerves and focused on the one thing that mattered—getting her back to the people she loved.

  The people who deserved her.

  They tried four corridors and backtracked twice before Finn found a promising door without a fancy card-swipe control panel. His picks were tucked inside his boot, so he let Trix hold the bag as he knelt and studied the lock. “Bet Noah Lennox has fun down in these tunnels with that big brain of his. Hacks his way past all the fancy security, huh?”

  “He spends most of his time with Emma.” She hesitated. “Cibulski’s little sister. You remember him, right?”

  Finn glanced up, but Trix didn’t look like she was digging. Maybe that was a blessing, that she still had that much faith in him. Someone else might have asked, but there would have been a second question beneath the first. An accusation.

  Did you kill him?

  He hadn’t. Cibulski had sealed his fate when he’d taken the drugs he was supposed to be dealing, but Finn hadn’t pulled the trigger on him. He’d just cleaned up the mess—his own way. “I never meant for the kid to find him. Noah was supposed to be on his way there.”

  “Oh.” Her hand grazed his shoulder, a light touch that ended too quickly. “You were trying to warn him.”

  He turned his attention back to the lock, but his movements were simply muscle memory and instinct. His focus was still trapped in the fleeting whisper of her touch on his shoulder and the deeper heat kindled by her lingering trust. “Mac was going after the sister next, trying to get Noah in line. None of us needed that. Mac’s too greedy. He’d have gotten us firebombed inside a year.”

  The lock yielded under his hands, the click of the tumblers almost drowning out her soft noise of assent. “And now he’s dead.”

  “Now he’s dead,” Finn agreed. “And his crazy-ass son-in-law is up there, getting real comfortable in Mac’s chair. It’s Beckett’s best day ever.”

  “You can’t stop them all, Finn.”

  He tucked away the tools and rose without looking at her. “Stopping him’s not on my radar. Nothing is right now except for getting you home.”

  She laid her hand on his arm and, this time, left it there. “Thank you.”

  He hadn’t brought his jacket, so she was touching him, brushing the tattoos just beneath his shirt sleeve. Her fingers were pale and delicate against the vivid ink, bringing back memories he’d locked away out of self-defense. It felt obscene to slide his own rough hand over hers, but he couldn’t stop himself.

  And God, her skin was soft. Smooth. His calloused fingertips scraped over the back of her hand as he traced up to the raw spots around her wrist. “Ryder probably has a med kit in this thing.”

  She stared up at him. “What?”

  “For your wrists.” He brushed his thumb over hers, and the catch in
her breath wasn’t his imagination. Neither were the sparks. They’d always been there, buried under their respective layers of drugs and hopelessness. Nice, but dull. Muted.

  Not anymore. That tiny hitch sparked all over him, carving out a wanting he couldn’t afford to indulge. He needed to get his hands off her. He needed to back off, so he wouldn’t end up hiding a boner behind the fucking duffel bag while she shivered through withdrawal and worried about her friend.

  He needed to do anything except hold her gaze and stroke her wrist again.

  Trix sucked in another breath. “Finn—”

  A thundering sound shook the ground above them, a strange galloping noise that made no sense until the distant buzz of shouting voices joined in.

  “Shit.” He wrenched open the door and scanned inside with a flashlight, taking note of boxes, a dusty floor, and not much else. Barely bigger than a closet, with just enough room for them to stretch out side by side.

  It was all they had.

  He hustled her inside with a hand at the small of her back and checked the outside tunnel to make sure there was no sign of their passage before swinging the door shut as quietly as possible and engaging the lock.

  Trix huddled against the wall, still except for her trembling. “Will they find us?” she whispered.

  “No. Hell, no.” He made his voice more confident than he felt. “They’ll figure we made a run for it, not hunkered down right under their feet. Probably no one will even come into the tunnels.”

  “If they do…” She licked her lips and squared her shoulders. “You could go back. Tell them I shot Mac.”

  “Tell them—” The words really penetrated, and then he was moving again. Moving without thinking, crowding into her space to slam both hands against the wall on either side of her head. He loomed over her, intimidating, trapping her and not caring as he lowered his face until she had to look at him. “Don’t you fucking think it, woman. Do you hear me?”

  Her angry, fierce gaze clashed with his for one heart-stopping moment before she turned her head, averting her eyes. “Hypocrite.”

  He caught her chin and forced her gaze back, his heart slamming against his ribs in full-on terror. He had to head this off, had to make her believe, so he gave her the truth. The raw, messy truth. “I’m breathing because you’re breathing. You hear me? I was on a slow trip out of this world before you showed up. You dying would only speed that shit up.”