Before the End (Beyond Series Ultimate Glom Edition)

by Kit Rocha

  One of her nails was chipped, and her hands were covered in dirt. He took one and wiped it clean with the hem of his shirt. "You should wear gloves for this."

  "It's just skin." She managed to make the words sound seductive—or maybe anything would sound seductive while they were touching. "It washes."

  "The dirt leaves its mark." He turned his own hand over in hers, showing her the roughened skin, the calluses. The dirt under his nails. Earth and engine grease—two things he'd never been able to scrub away completely. "Your hands are soft."

  Her gaze clashed with his. She stared at him like she didn't give a shit if his hands were rough or soft as long as he put them on her. And this time he wasn't imagining it—there was no room for doubts or misunderstanding in the bright light of day.

  He should say no anyway, because Dallas still might not take kindly to Hawk trespassing on someone so recently his. Because war was coming to Sector Four. Because something worse—starvation—could be for his family back in Six. And Hawk would have to be there, fighting, one way or another.

  He should say no. Instead, he rubbed his thumb down the center of her palm and molded his voice into the same sort of velvet-wrapped steel Jas used to melt Noelle's knees. "Put on the gloves, Jeni."

  At first, her only reaction was a fine tremor. Then she slowly pulled her hand from his. "You're a tricky one, Hawk. I don't think you misunderstand anything." The words were still hanging in the air when she stretched past him—and picked up her discarded gloves.

  "Sure I do. But only once." And he wasn't misunderstanding the satisfaction that stirred low in his gut. It was the biggest reason he should say no. The O'Kanes came together casually, easily—and temporarily. He'd tasted enough of fleeting to know it wasn't for him.

  Before he took Jeni to bed, he had to learn everything he could about what she wanted and needed. Because when he took Jeni to bed, he had to be ready to convince her to stay there.

  Chapter Fourteen

  It felt strange to be back in Three.

  Not bad, exactly, but different and familiar, all at once. In a way, it still felt like coming home for Scarlet—the blocked, often-shattered surfaces of the streets, the scent of the mud-and-grass mortar used for makeshift repairs to brick and stone, even the way people milled about without ever seeming to come out of cover.

  People in Three had long, long memories.

  And so did she. She'd gladly volunteered to be part of the labor force clearing some of the more structurally sound tunnels in the sector. It was something she could do, a way to be productive while nearly everyone else she knew was making big plans and even bigger decisions.

  But being underground brought those goddamn memories screaming to the front of her mind. The fire, the chaos. Staring down into the gaping crater where the Greer Street facility had once stood, wondering where her father lay in all that filthy rubble.

  The nightmares were the worst. For months, she'd woken, silent and panicked, unable to scream, from terrifying dreams of smoke and choking darkness. In sleep, she'd watched her hands turn bloody and raw from scrabbling at debris. From trying to dig herself out of her own grave.

  It was hard to get enough air through the mask covering the lower part of her face. She straightened, tugged off her gloves, and yanked the stifling mask away from her mouth. "It's a pretty far cry from our last show, huh?"

  Riff's habitually stern expression almost softened into a smile. "I don't know. Crowded, loud, sweaty…"

  "This is arguably easier on the hands, though. For you, anyway." She arched an eyebrow at him. "Better watch those magic fingers while you're tossing this shit around. The ladies sure would miss 'em."

  "On and off stage." He threw aside a chunk of concrete. "You're pretty damn chipper. Got some ladies waiting back at home for your magic fingers?"

  He didn't know. The realization shouldn't have startled her, because of course he didn't know. And yet she felt so different, as if she'd changed on some inextricable, fundamental level. Couldn't everyone tell?

  Sure, they could. He'd asked, hadn't he? He just didn't know why. "Jade's waiting. And maybe—" She bit her lip. Another thing that shouldn't have startled her—how impossible it would be to explain Mad and Dylan.

  Riff raised an eyebrow. "And maybe…?" he prompted. "What, have you gone full-on O'Kane on me, Scarlet?"

  "Depends, I guess, on what you mean by that."

  "You know." He shrugged and reached for a bottle of water. "You and I have always fucked who we want, how we want, and not given a shit what the world thinks. But the O'Kanes don't just fuck that way. They love that way, the crazy motherfuckers."

  His words were circumspect, careful even in their bluntness. "Is this your delicate way of asking if I've fallen in love?"

  "Well, we're underground and you're still glowing, so…" He offered her the water. "C'mon, Scarlet. It's me."

  It was Riff, her friend and bandmate. They'd shared everything, from meals to money, sleeping space to lovers. Sob stories and tales of glorious conquest. More than anything else, they'd shared the music, the rhythmic moments of truth that flowed through them and out into the world.

  They were closer than blood. As close as O'Kanes. So she gave him this truth, silent and still in the dark. "Jade and I have a thing. With Dylan and Mad."

  "Dylan?"

  Another jolt. "Sorry. Doc, that's his name." When had she started thinking of him that way? By his first name, an intimacy that usually meant nothing, but she'd still never imagined sharing with him?

  "Huh." And that was all he said until he reclaimed the water bottle and drained it. "Jade and Mad I get. They're hot. But Doc? I mean, sure, he's headed straight for silver-fucking-fox territory, but he comes off like he'd be a bossy motherfucker in bed."

  "He is." And Riff was right for thinking it was the sort of thing that would normally turn her off. Fighting to see who came out on top had come between her and Riff often enough. But with Dylan, all that mattered was seeing how his hard, unbending commands affected Jade and Mad. "Let's just say I'm learning to appreciate the art of compromise."

  "Then they must be magical," Riff said, his expression deadly serious and his eyes dancing.

  Without thinking, she hurled her gloves at his chest. "Asshole."

  He caught them and tossed one back. "Scarlet, honey, you're good at a lot of things. Taking orders has never been one of them."

  "That depends on the orders." She shrugged. "If it's something I want to do, I'm not going to say no just because someone told me to do it. I'm too practical for that shit."

  "Fair enough." Riff pitched her other glove at her. "So he's telling you to put your magic fingers interesting places, huh?"

  "Aren't you dying to know?" But her cheeks heated, and she didn't move fast enough to cover them.

  Riff started laughing. "Goddamn, I take it all back. If the good doctor can make you blush…"

  "I don't blush." The water bottle was warm, but it still felt cool against her face, proving her protest a lie. "You're the one who asked."

  "For old times' sake." Riff's smile faded a little. "I miss it sometimes, you know. As shitty as our lives were…"

  "I know." They'd always had each other, and there was a certain comfort and camaraderie in that—us against the world, and damn everyone else. Now, she had a new life in a new sector, and when she came back to Three, she wasn't coming home. She was visiting. "I could talk to Dallas—"

  "Hey, no." Riff shook his head. "This is where I belong. I'm not O'Kane material, and we both know it."

  "Not being O'Kane material and belonging here aren't the same thing," she corrected gently. "There's a whole wide world out there, Riff."

  He tugged his gloves back on. "Yeah. But this isn't a bad place to pass the time for now. A hospital, Scarlet. A fucking hospital."

  Even before Eden blew the place up, Three had had to make do with medics and healers, folks who were quick to learn from books or from knowledge passed down from elders. They oper
ated out of cramped tenement apartments or drafty, abandoned warehouses, and all too often, their skills had boiled down to little more than apology. Because knowledge didn't matter for shit if you had no medicine or supplies.

  Her father had never spoken of it, but their older neighbors had. Scarlet had been left to piece their mournful whispers—childbed fever, poor thing—together with the faded photos her father had hidden behind the loose panel of a kitchen cabinet. Together, they formed verse and chorus of a tragic ballad. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and a smile Scarlet couldn't remember.

  Two sectors away, factories hummed night and day, making the antibiotics that would have saved her mother. They might as well have been on the moon.

  She shook herself. "It's not just for people in Three. It's for everyone. The lines between the sectors are blurring, Riff. You know what that means."

  "Yeah. That it only took about forty fucking years for us to figure out we should be working together."

  The truth was even more terrifying, and it could set them free—or get them all killed. Because Eden depended fiercely on the sector leaders being at odds, warring with one another. If they stopped, eight sectors could turn into one. And that one…

  The sectors had been built not only as a first line of defense against invasion, but to make goods for the city. Even things like meat and grains that were farmed well outside of the sector limits had to be shipped through them and into the city. If the sector leaders managed to turn against Eden, the city would be surrounded, cut off, damned by their own hubris as much as geography.

  Because they'd never imagined this might happen. Riff could talk about how forty years was too long, an eternity, but it was a fucking miracle it was happening at all. Because it was never in the plans.

  "I worry," she admitted finally, "that we'll never get the chance to fight. We know better than anyone—Eden doesn't play fair."

  "I worry about Four and One," Riff replied quietly. "Eden could put their own men in charge of the factories in Five and Eight, and the workers are so tired they might not even care. But Four and One—that's how I'd take the heart and soul out of the sectors. Take down the people who have something to fight for."

  "Shh." It was another thing he didn't know, only this time it wasn't a shock. The O'Kanes held their people tight, and their secrets tighter. "Come on."

  Scarlet led him up the gentle slope toward the tunnel's new exit, which was cleverly concealed in a small, concrete building that had been there as long as she could remember. It was the perfect place to hide such an ambitious project.

  And the perfect place for a private conversation. "Something already happened in One. An attempt on Gideon Rios."

  Riff slumped against the wall. "Shit."

  "Either Eden's behind it, or someone has the shittiest timing ever." She paused, trying to pinpoint her roiling unease. It wasn't the anger that flooded her when she thought of Mad's brush with death, a panicked rage that clawed at her throat. This was acid burning a hole in her gut. "It's not right, though. If Eden kills Gideon, his people will still fight. Hell, they'll fight harder to avenge their murdered saint. So why?"

  "Maybe they think Gideon's the only one who can hold together the sector alliance."

  "Could be," she allowed.

  "Or they could be crazy motherfuckers planning God knows what."

  And it wasn't up to them to find out. They weren't the people holding lives in their hands, sitting in back rooms and conference halls, making decisions and talking strategy. They were here to get to work, to clear rubble and make way for Dylan's vision—a hospital in a safe, secure location.

  But she had an undeniable tie now to the people pulling the strings. It would be Dylan's hospital, after all. Mad, whose cousin still ruled One, spent his time at Dallas's side, advising him as well as carrying out his orders. And Jade didn't talk about it, but she had more money than all the rest of them put together, years of carefully placed investments that equaled practical power, if not political.

  Somehow, even though she was no one, Scarlet had ended up surrounded by important people. And important people made excellent targets. "Can you do me a favor, Riff?"

  "Anything. Always."

  "Keep an ear to the ground, huh? If you hear anything strange—anything—"

  "I'll be knocking down your door." He grinned. "Unless Bren stabs me before I get there. That crazy bastard does not like me."

  Bren didn't do subtle. It was one of the things Scarlet loved about him. "If Bren didn't like you, you'd have a knife in your face already. Just saying."

  Riff choked on another laugh. "Christ, Scarlet. Your new friends are a little scary."

  "Yeah." She caught Riff's hand—and held on. "But you can back me in a fight anytime. You've always been there for me. I haven't forgotten. I won't."

  He gripped her hand so hard it ached. "I know."

  Scarlet waited for the wave of nostalgia to sweep over her, to miss her old life so much she could barely breathe. But the pain didn't come.

  And maybe this was the real brilliance of what Dallas had to offer—she didn't have to miss her life and her friends in Three, because the O'Kanes had never asked her to leave them behind. She carried them with her, as much a part of her as if she saw them every day.

  Still, she clung to Riff's hand. "Come on. We have work to do."

  Chapter Fifteen

  The requisitions list of hospital supplies on his tablet was endless. Dylan checked it three times, and he was still sure he'd forgotten something huge.

  "Ryder will just have to make it work," he muttered to himself.

  He should have already had the lists of drugs and equipment ready in case they needed to set up special manufacturing, but he'd been so focused on finding the funding. Money was always his first concern, the great definer of limitations. You didn't get shit if you couldn't pay for it.

  Then Lex had blown apart all of his expectations with five little words: it'll be taken care of. When pressed for more information, she'd admitted that every sector leader involved in their newly minted revolution had agreed to pitch in to fund the hospitals in One and Three.

  Revolution, indeed.

  When was the last time he hadn't had to worry about money? Back in the city, he supposed, but even that had come at its own price. He'd been at the beck and call of every councilman and climbing bureaucrat. He'd treated their children's suicide attempts, their mistresses' drug overdoses, all their dirty little secrets. He remembered every single one—and then he learned what happened when you knew too many of those secrets.

  They locked you away, and only let you out when they needed someone tortured.

  The scent of vanilla spiced with cinnamon wrapped around him, and he closed his eyes to savor it.

  "Dylan?" A soft hand touched the back of his neck. "I knocked, but you didn't answer."

  Jade. He reached up and held her hand to his skin. "I didn't hear."

  "I figured. You've been working so hard."

  That made him laugh. "Not nearly. I've been a little distracted, after all."

  She brushed her thumb down the back of his neck. "Which only means we're not letting you get enough sleep."

  "I won't argue with that." He turned his head just far enough to study her. She was wearing a sweater dress and high boots, and her dark hair was piled on top of her head in a messy knot. "You look nice."

  "I'm trying something new." She ran her fingers over the hand-knit fabric. "It cost a fortune and it's not exactly silk robes, but I like it. Though it's warmer than I expected."

  "Shit." He fumbled for the environmental control on his desk and almost knocked it off before thumbing the screen to life. "I'm sorry. I set the heat too high and then forgot to turn it off."

  "You were focused." She set a basket on the table next to him. "I bet you haven't eaten, either. I considered trying to cook something for you, but I'm pretty sure I could burn water. So I stopped in the market."

  "You didn't have to do that." He was h
ungry, all right, but not for food. Instead, he watched her, drank in the simple grace of her movements as she began to unpack the basket. "I missed you."

  "I missed you, too." She set a loaf of bread wrapped in cloth on the table and smiled at him. "Maybe bringing dinner was a little selfish. It's lonely over at the compound today. Everyone who isn't on duty is either over in Three or locked in the conference room for meetings."

  "And you somehow escaped?"

  "Not entirely. In fact…" Jade drew a tablet from the basket and slid it in front of him. "I spent my morning with Noah and Noelle. Noah thinks he can adapt some of the medical diagnostic software they use in Eden so it'll run on tablets, even the older ones Dallas has piled up in storage. We'll have to have Jim manufacture the accessories, but if you think it's worthwhile to pursue, I'll find the money."

  He skimmed the list. Making equipment cheap and portable had never really interested Eden—where the hell would they ever need to take it?—but in battle, it could mean the difference between people making it to a hospital or dying in the field. "I'll go over it with Ryder when we meet to talk about the hospital requisitions. With a little innovation, there's no reason this couldn't work."

  "Good." She unloaded the last of the food, but instead of sinking into a chair, she slid into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck. "I want to help with this, Dylan. Not just with money."

  "I know." He'd already loosened his collar, and it slipped down, baring the base of his neck. His skin tingled where she touched him, soft knit fabric and warm flesh brushing over him.

  The tingles increased as she threaded her fingers into his hair. "And I want to take care of you. If I'm not there, keeping an eye on you, you'll forget to eat or sleep or turn the heat down when it gets too warm."

  "I'm not that ridiculous, am I?"

  She smiled and kissed the corner of his mouth. "The only reason Mad hasn't noticed is because he's a little ridiculous, too."