Before the End (Beyond Series Ultimate Glom Edition)

by Kit Rocha

Them. He said it like she should understand, like they had a shared enemy. But what the fuck could a street rat from Three have in common with a runaway prince?

  Not a whole hell of a lot. Just an adoptive sector—and the tattoos around their wrists. "Dallas is gonna lose his shit," she whispered. "Completely. Lex won't be able to contain him this time—not that I think she'd try very hard. Not after this."

  Mad took a slow breath and closed his eyes. "He'll keep his shit together. Because something bigger is going on."

  "What, you mean the bombing in Two?"

  "More than that." He slid an arm around her, his fingers tracing up to sink into her hair. "We have to head back to Four soon. Dallas is calling everyone together for a vote."

  Something in his tone raced up her spine, bringing with it a cold jolt of awareness. "About Eden. About going to war with the city."

  "Yeah." His voice dropped. "It scares the shit out of me, but so does what happened in Two."

  Only an idiot wouldn't be terrified, because the two things were intimately entwined. When Eden's leaders felt threatened, whether actively or just by someone's radical ideas, they lashed out. "Better to go down swinging than let them stomp you like a bug."

  "We won't be the only ones swinging." He stroked her hair with steady hands. "Eden can't destroy all of us. They need Five and Eight, at least. And the crops…"

  "And Four?" She almost didn't ask, because she already knew the answer—Sector Four's liquor was worth far, far less than Dallas O'Kane's head on a silver platter.

  Mad finally opened his eyes, and he looked tired. Haunted. "I'm the worst kind of asshole. I want you and Dylan and Jade to stay here."

  Because it would be safer. Scarlet snorted. "If you think I'm gonna punk out when things get tough—"

  He shut her up with a kiss.

  She'd kissed him before, in the tent and during the stolen, dreamy hour when they'd all come together. This kiss held a different kind of desperation, not a physical hunger that would no longer be contained, but a silent plea. For understanding, for connection—she didn't know.

  All she knew was the soft graze of Mad's tongue against hers, his hand on her jaw, his slow, careful exploration—like he was learning her, memorizing her.

  He broke away to kiss the corner of her lips, and then the tip of her nose. But his words were serious. "I need to do something before we go back to Four."

  She couldn't stop her hands from tightening out of worry. "Mad…"

  "It doesn't involve killing," he assured her. "Exorcising, maybe."

  "Can I help?"

  Mad closed his eyes. "I need you to. All of you. I need to…"

  She cradled his face. "What is it?"

  He took a deep breath, then another. Slowly, like his body was aching. Like his heart was aching. "Dallas and Lex know. Ace does too, some. Cruz and Bren have probably figured it out. But I've never—I've never told anyone. And I need to, so I can let it go."

  "Tell us?"

  His eyes drifted open. "How Adrian Rios died."

  Chapter Ten

  The shrine had spilled out of the building that had once contained it and onto the surrounding structures. Most of them were abandoned, walls crumbling, roofs destroyed in a civil war that had threatened to tear a sector apart.

  Mad had abused his Rios privileges to have the entire area cleared. The Riders had swept through, urging pilgrims and worshippers to leave their offerings and finish their prayers. By the time the sun kissed the hills in the west, the only people left were Dylan, Scarlet, and Jade.

  And him. Adrian Maddox Rios, grandson of the Prophet, son of Santa Adriana. Tragic hero of a civil war—but not in the way anyone believed.

  The building wasn't much. It hadn't been much then, either. Cement and chipping mortar and long-broken windows. He remembered them being covered in thick curtains, hiding the rebels inside—and the hostages trapped in the basement.

  But the building wasn't the point. The shrine was what mattered—two decades' worth of flowers and candles and charms and offerings. Someone had covered the east and south walls in planks of wood that glittered with milagros in the last sunlight.

  Everything had ended here. His innocence, his faith in his grandfather—nearly his sanity. He'd run to Sector Four, and when that hadn't been far enough, he'd talked Dallas into letting him head out west, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. As far south as the old border with Mexico, and far enough north that he'd seen the sky light up in a riot of color—greens and blues and purples and pinks.

  Running hadn't done him a damn bit of good, and he was tired of being a coward.

  "This is where it happened," he said. Slowly at first, but the words came faster and faster, like he could rip off this bandage if he just kept ahead of the pain. "The civil war had been going for several months. A few outright fights, but mostly bloodless political posturing. They wanted my grandfather to abdicate. They thought he was corrupt, that he was abusing his power."

  A valid enough complaint, except that the rebels hadn't been outraged at the abuse. They'd been jealous of it, and willing to do whatever it took to get their piece of the Prophet's expansive pie.

  But that was the easy part, the stuff most people already knew. He swallowed and fixed his gaze on the flickering flame of a candle, because he'd never said these words before, and he couldn't get them out if he had to face Jade's gentle sadness or Scarlet's worry or Dylan's tense concern.

  "They kidnapped my mother and got me as a bonus. They dumped us in the basement in this shitty little house and held us in the dark."

  In the dark. As if the words encompassed the terror of it. The dank scent of dirt and mildew. The drip of water from leaky pipes. The way his eyes had strained to adjust but couldn't, because there was no relief from that inky blackness. He'd been thirteen. Old enough for a man's duties and responsibilities, according to his grandfather.

  So shame had mingled with his terror—but not enough to keep him from clutching his mother's hand while she stroked his hair and murmured for him to be brave and promised they'd get out.

  Only one of them had.

  "We were there for days," Mad said hoarsely. "Barely enough water to survive. Stale bread to eat. They sent my grandfather a ransom demand."

  Dylan took a step toward him. "Mad—"

  Scarlet cut him off with an angry, incoherent sound. "And the bastard paid it, right? He paid it, because he sure as hell had the money."

  Painful laughter shredded its way out of Mad's chest. How differently would the story have ended if his grandfather had practiced what he preached? If he'd valued family over power? If he'd chosen love over his own pride. "It wasn't about the money. It was about being challenged and giving in. He couldn't. So he decided to have a vision."

  Her glower deepened. "A vision?"

  "Like Abraham." And because they probably wouldn't have a fucking clue what that meant, he elaborated. "God was demanding proof of his faith, Scarlet. A willingness to sacrifice what he treasured most if that was the price for the safety and sanctity of Sector One."

  "Oh, Mad." Jade touched his shoulder, and her sympathy scraped him raw. No wonder she hated the pity he'd been choking back every time he looked at her—hers made him feel naked and vulnerable. It made him feel small.

  He fought it off with another laugh. "The rebels didn't believe his vision. So they came down to the cellar to prove they would hurt us. But none of them could bring themselves to touch my mother, just in case it was all true. So they shoved a gun against my head and told her—"

  His voice cracked. This was the nightmare, the one that could still jolt him out of bed screaming, struggling, tearing at anyone who got close because if he could just go back, if he could do something…

  But it always played out the same. The gun against his temple, mean, digging into his skin. The knife in his hand, his entire body shaking with the desire to use it, to spin and plunge it into the nearest man and damn the consequences, because that's what a man would do, sh
ould do, had to do.

  The voice, cruel and heartless and cold, giving Adriana a choice that, to her, was no choice at all. "Your finger or his corpse. We're sending your father one or the other."

  Mad swallowed the memories of his helpless fury. "They put the gun to my head and told my mother she could convince me to cut off one of her fingers for them, or they'd send my grandfather a dead grandson instead."

  "No." Dylan reached out, then jerked his hand back, sorrow and horror warring on his face.

  Sorrow—for him. As if he deserved it. He'd been the one to cave in, to scream as he carved the knife into her flesh. Adriana had suffered in silence, no doubt trying to spare him. "I should have stabbed the guy instead, and she would have been free. They weren't desperate enough to hurt her yet. If they'd killed me, she could have walked out without anyone laying a hand on her."

  "Oh, sweetheart." Dylan breathed a sigh so heavy it almost sounded like a groan. "If they'd killed you, she wouldn't have walked out at all."

  "That's not how mothers work." Jade stroked his shoulder. "Not the good ones. Believe me, Mad. All she wanted in the world was to get you out alive."

  He closed his eyes. "I know. But knowing doesn't make it easier."

  "Could anything?" Dylan asked. "Maybe...some things aren't supposed to be easier. They stay with you forever, because you need to remember."

  He'd never forget her. She was still vivid in his mind. A memory, a hallucination. A ghost. But for the first time, he was sharing her with people who knew him as Mad. Who cared about who she'd been to him, not who she'd been to an entire sector. "That's why living here is hell. They tattoo her on their skin, but they don't even know how or why she died. Just the story my grandfather sold them."

  "So tell them," Scarlet muttered, somewhere between a whisper and a flat, stark command. "The truth. He can't stop you now, and Gideon wouldn't. You could tell them all what really happened."

  It was so simple, so inconceivable, that it stole his breath. "People would fall apart."

  "So fucking what? If that's all it takes to shake their world view, maybe it's not such a great one."

  "Scarlet," Jade whispered.

  "No, she's right." Mad shoved his fingers into his hair and pulled until his scalp tingled. "But I'm scared. With all the shit that's coming, we need everyone. Even people with a shaky world view."

  Dylan sidestepped a cluster of candles. "What shit? What's coming?"

  Mad glanced at Scarlet. She was fierce and fearless, and there was no way to keep her out of the war to come. But Dylan and Jade—they were healers. They needed to be protected, safe, because they were the ones who'd have to pick up the pieces when it was all over.

  Scarlet held his gaze. "The fight, Doc. The big one."

  "Eden," Jade said, and oh God. The ice in her voice. Scarlet would burn and rage, but Jade's fury was fresh and vast, and if he fought to protect her the way he'd been trying to protect her, she'd cut through him on the way to her vengeance.

  There was no keeping any of them safe. The best he could do was keep them together.

  He turned his back on the shrine and its offerings to face them, the people who mattered more to him than all his ghosts. "We leave for Sector Four tomorrow. Dallas is holding a vote, but you know it doesn't matter. No one will back down. We'll be at war, and the only question is how long it'll take Eden to figure it out."

  Dylan's face was inscrutable. "And the rest of the sectors?"

  "Everyone who matters is already in. One, Five, Eight. Not the leaders of Six and Seven, but the people who control the food production."

  "So it's already decided," he said flatly. "The people at the top say it's time to revolt, and fuck what happens to the little guys. You know, the ones who suffer when things go cold because they don't have solar converters. The ones who die when the shells fall because they don't have nice, safe bunkers to hide in."

  The bitterness sliced deep, and Mad clenched his fists. "Come on, Dylan. You know Dallas. He won't sign on to something like this and then ignore his people. Any of his people."

  "And neither will your cousin. But can you say the same for the other leaders?"

  There was nothing to say. They all knew the answer. The leaders of Six and Seven were useless. Ryder was an unknown quantity, and Cerys was in the wind, leaving no one to speak for what was left of her sector. And Jim—

  Jim had been planning this from the beginning. Only a fool would underestimate how far he'd go and how much he'd sacrifice.

  "Dallas and Lex aren't stupid," Jade said, sliding her hand into Mad's. She squeezed, her deceptively fragile fingers warm and strong around his. "And they aren't shortsighted. They won't stop caring about people because of a sector boundary."

  Dylan ran his fingers roughly through his hair. "Look, I—"

  Scarlet stepped in front of him, her voice low and pleading. "It's worth it. You of all people know it's true, Dylan. No matter how bad things get, they can't be worse than the way they are now."

  He stared at her for an eternity, then held up both hands in surrender. "All right, all right. It doesn't matter, anyway. No one's exactly asking for my input."

  "Because, in the end, we're not the ones who decide." Mad's heart thumped hard, and it was a struggle to choke out his next words. Even with part of him hoping Dylan would take the chance to run as far and fast as it took to get to safety, it was a struggle. "But you don't have to wait around for the fighting. None of you do."

  Scarlet crossed her arms over her chest. He could practically hear her words echoing through the space between them—if you think I'm gonna punk out—but she remained silent.

  Dylan eyed him, as well, but with confusion. "What are you saying?"

  Run. Hide. Be safe. Christ, he was selfish. He couldn't urge Dylan to leave. He could barely offer freedom. "Just that we all have a choice, and I'll support yours. All of you. No matter what you decide."

  He saw the moment understanding dawned in Dylan's gaze. His eyes shuttered, and his shoulders stiffened. "I see."

  Shit. He'd fucked it up, and with Scarlet and Jade watching. Maybe if it had just been him and Dylan, he could have found the words to fix it. Or no words—they did better with hands and mouths, communicating through pleasure and pain.

  Tonight. He'd make it right tonight. Because if he could stand on the spot where his parents—and his childhood—had died and lay his heart bare without the world ending…

  Fuck. He could survive anything.

  Chapter Eleven

  Scarlet had never considered herself a particularly good person. But now she knew she'd been overly generous with herself, because she was a bad person, a terrible person. One who was going straight to hell.

  Ever since their visit to the eerie shrine where Mad had poured out his heart as well as his painful past, he and Dylan had been on edge. There was a tension simmering between them—not quite hurt, and not quite anger—that twisted in Scarlet's belly, scraping over her nerves and raising her awareness.

  She was definitely going to hell, because only a sick fucker would find that tension erotic.

  Mad shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it across the back of the couch. His movements were lazy, almost relaxed, even though there was so much energy coiled inside him that it turned his walk toward the minibar into a prowl. "Who wants a drink?"

  Dylan stood by the door, as if he hadn't quite convinced himself yet not to turn around and walk back through it. "I'm game."

  "Plastic cups and fresh bottles." Mad lifted one—an amber bottle with a label declaring it one of Nessa's exclusive batches—and rubbed his thumb over the unbroken seal. "Maricela isn't taking chances."

  "Do you blame her?" Scarlet kicked off her shoes. Across the room, Jade was doing the same, her appraising gaze flickering back and forth between the two men.

  "I suppose not." He dragged four cups into a line and cracked the seal, spilling a double's worth of liquor into each one. "We might as well enjoy it. This is a good batch. It
's so rare in Four because Gideon got half of the bottles in exchange for growing the juniper."

  No one gave a fuck about the gin, not even Mad. But talking to fill the silence was how most people dealt with the kind of pressure that pervaded the room, a strain that could snap at any moment.

  Mad set down the bottle. As if taking pity on him, Jade joined him and picked up two—but when she carried one to Scarlet, she realized it wasn't pity at all. Jade had neatly removed them as a source of distraction.

  And Mad knew it. His jaw clenched as he grabbed the remaining cups and approached Dylan. He held one out, silent and challenging.

  Dylan grabbed his wrist instead, sloshing the clear liquor onto the woven rug. "Don't ever do it again."

  "Dylan—"

  "I mean it." He glared at Mad. "Don't ever talk to me like I could just walk away from you, because I can't. You should know that by now."

  Mad closed his eyes with a frustrated growl. "I don't want you to walk away. I want to hide you somewhere safe so you don't risk your fucking life."

  "My life?" Dylan echoed with a laugh. "My life doesn't mean a goddamn thing—not without you in it."

  The world froze. This was a personal moment, an intensely private one, and Scarlet willed herself to look away. But she couldn't. She was a part of this already, and she could only watch as Mad drained the second cup and let it drop to the floor.

  It bounced softly on the rug. The thump of Dylan's back hitting the door was louder. Mad groaned and kissed him, wrapping his fingers so hard around Dylan's upper arm that they bit into flesh.

  Scarlet's smoldering arousal burst into flame, kindled not by the kiss, but by the desperate ferocity behind it. She'd never thought that Dylan could feel this much, this hard. Mad did, of course—it was who he was, just like Jade—but Dylan had always seemed vaguely cold. Bored.

  He wasn't bored now. He gripped the other man's hips and dragged him closer, close enough to tear his mouth away and sink his teeth into Mad's shoulder through his shirt. Mad slammed his free hand to the door and ground against him. "Then stay with me. Stay with us."