by Kit Rocha
Smooth, warm, hot. Sliding, melting, burning, flying. Hurt me, cut me, beat me—I'll beg, I'll crawl, just don't take it away—
Sometimes, when Jade saw Finn, her entire body still jolted with anticipation. She craved it, needed it in a part of her she could never entirely lock away—that first bliss of the drugs they'd given her hitting her system, lighting her up in ways words couldn't encompass. Sector Five had mastered the art of customized designer drugs. They could heal, rebuild, regenerate your body and your mind. They could bring you up or down, alleviate pain or flood you with pleasure.
Addiction didn't have to be part of the equation anymore. But with some drugs, addiction was rather the point. Not just the physical dependency but the emotional malleability, the weakness that made you biddable, that bound you to the person who could give.
Who could take away.
Lisa moaned again, but there was an edge to the sound this time, the first taste of loss. Jade locked her own feelings down and crossed the room to lay a hand on the girl's cheek. "Where did you find her?"
"Wandering the old Garden District, too high to know where she was."
"Lisa." Her eyelids fluttered, and Jade patted her cheek gently. "Lisa, sweetheart, it's Jade. I need you to look at me."
"Jade," she echoed vaguely, then huffed out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh. "Not Jade. She's gone."
"I was gone, and now I'm back." Jade put the thread of command the girls had been trained to respond to in her voice. "Look at me, Lisa."
The girl obeyed, but her eyes were glazed and refused to focus.
There was nothing else she could do. A wet washcloth or a glass of water might make her more comfortable, but nothing would bring her back to sense but more drugs—the kind Jade hardly kept on hand. All she had were words and the rage building inside her. "Where were you trying to go?"
It took her a few seconds to respond. "Home. Valerie said to be home by seven."
Her anger spiked higher, and Jade took a careful breath. Valerie had been a trainer at Rose House—an institution, already there when Jade arrived and only digging in deeper with each passing year. She'd enjoyed privileges as a senior trainer, and she'd had a particular flair for breaking the wills of stubborn young girls.
Not that she'd ever tried with Jade. Valerie knew potential power when she saw it. Her deft, frequent flattery might have eventually succeeded in endearing her to Jade, too—if she hadn't spent week after week watching Valerie crush Avery's heart.
Valerie had been through Jade's office twice. The first time had been to deliver a groveling offer to perform as Jade's deputy and reopen the houses. The second time, Deacon's boys had caught her trying to pimp out girls. Jade had slapped her down for that. Hard.
Maybe not hard enough.
But Lisa was flying so high, she might think Rose House was still there and Valerie would be waiting to punish her for an infraction. Jade needed proof, not to let rage guide her. "Where is home, honey? You tell us, and we'll get you there."
A little of the haze cleared from Lisa's gaze again, supplanted by a flash of fear. "If we miss curfew, we miss our dose."
"I understand, Lisa." And she did. Too well, because she should have seen this coming. Should have known that she wasn't Dallas O'Kane, wasn't even Lex—her reputation was built on guile and smiles and knowing how to bend.
They weren't afraid of her. Yet.
Lisa was trembling. Jade coaxed her into a sitting position and wrapped an arm around her slender shoulders. "You're going to be all right. Just tell me where Valerie is."
"The house—" Her voice cracked, failed, and she licked her lips. "I don't want to get in trouble."
Deacon made a rough noise in the back of his throat.
"You can't get in trouble." Jade stroked the girl's tangled hair. "I took over for Cerys, sweetheart. I'm the one who decides who's in trouble. And if anyone tries to hurt you, Deacon and his men will deal with them. I promise."
Lisa stared at her, then squeezed her eyes shut. "Down the street from Rose. The house that belonged to Setta's patron."
"Thank you." She kissed the top of Lisa's head and rose. "My personal driver will take you to the hospital in One. I'll have Avery meet you there. You remember her, don't you? She'll take care of you until you're feeling better."
"Okay." The girl slumped against the arm of the couch.
Deacon didn't break his stony silence until they were in the hallway, out of earshot, with the door firmly closed behind them. "May I?"
She'd had Deacon with her for long enough to know the real question. Not May I give my opinion? but May I eliminate the problem? And he would, if she let him. She could return to her desk, like Cerys always had, confident that her dirty work was being performed swiftly and efficiently.
It would be so, so easy to become Cerys.
"Yes," she said, keeping her voice cool. Rage might be writhing inside her, but she didn't have the luxury of appearing angry. An emotional woman was an irrational woman, and inadequate as a leader—as if Dallas wouldn't already be out the door, on his way to strangle the offender with his bare hands. "Of course you can come with me."
He arched one eyebrow. "I can handle it. This is what I do."
Her gaze drifted to the big arms folded across his chest. One was covered with tattoos—tiny ravens whose significance Mad had explained to her. Delicate, elegant penance, each bird marking a life he'd taken. The dirty work he'd performed to keep someone else's hands and soul clean.
Jade's soul had always been her own responsibility. "This time, we deal with it together."
Valerie had picked the perfect house. Right along the ragged edge of the destruction zone, the property had suffered extensive cosmetic damage but still seemed relatively sound. And the worst of the looting had been concentrated along the river and out toward the grand estates, where two generations' worth of hoarded wealth sat, barely guarded. The people here were scavengers, poor and determined, committed to minding their own business.
The edge of total annihilation wasn't the worst place to hide.
Jade didn't argue when Deacon asked her to wait beside the car. This was what he did, after all—and there were advantages to playing the unruffled leader into whose chilly presence a transgressor had to be escorted.
Theatrics. Something Cerys had excelled at, and the only one of the woman's lessons Jade planned to make her own.
She stood with her hands shoved into her coat pockets, ticking off the seconds in silence. At forty-seven, someone inside the house shouted. A muffled crash followed, along with more shouting. An upper window shattered as a man flew through it, his arms and legs flailing until he slammed into the ground with a grunt.
He groaned and tried to roll over. Jade ignored him and counted off another thirty seconds before Deacon came out the front door, dragging a struggling Valerie behind him.
She saw Jade and stopped struggling, pulling herself up to her full height instead. "Really, was the brute necessary?"
"I wanted to get your attention," Jade replied mildly. "And the brute is Gideon Rios' right-hand man. Your political instincts are getting rusty."
"Yours are the same as ever." Valerie tried to jerk her arm out of Deacon's grasp, then sniffed and gave up when he held tight. "Someone else's right-hand man. Someone else's sector. Honestly, Jade, don't you have anything of your own?"
The verbal jab landed, but not for the reason the woman undoubtedly imagined. Valerie would have burned with frustration to be so close to total control, yet still answerable to others. Jade, on the other hand, had the wisdom to appreciate just how heavily absolute leadership lay across the shoulders of anyone who claimed it.
And she had something else—something of her own. She had Mad's earnest smile and Scarlet's easy laugh and Dylan's quiet protectiveness. She had the thing that mattered most—people who loved her even when she was weak, even when she was broken.
Jade hoped they could still love her when she was neither.
They were attracting a crowd now—workers from the blast zone, opportunists who had been picking over demolished buildings, and refugees who'd been huddled in nearby structures. No one came too close, but they would hear her words…and repeat them.
Good. "I warned you, Valerie. Twice. I offered you a chance at a new life—"
"At that hospital?" She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "I haven't trained my whole life to settle for a job like that. I can do more. I can help these girls."
"With drugs?" She fought the tremor in her voice, because Valerie would latch on to any weakness. "They found Lisa wandering the blast zone, alone and defenseless. Is that how you help them?"
"It's better than uprooting them completely. They can have a bit of their lives back, Jade."
"They can have nothing. They can be used and violated while you pretend they're willing because they keep crawling back to you." Revulsion welled, along with bitter regret. She'd warned Valerie, but it didn't matter. This was what Sector Two was. Selling helpless girls to anyone willing to meet the asking price. She could chastise Valerie, punish her, banish her, and it wouldn't make any difference.
Until there were consequences for violating these girls, there would always be another Valerie.
There would always be another Lisa.
"You were warned." Jade stepped forward, face-to-face with the woman who'd caused so much pain. "And I told you there wouldn't be a third warning."
The crowd was whispering now, a quiet swell that seemed to bolster Valerie. She tilted her head, a smile in her eyes as she regarded Jade. "What are you going to do about it? Have your borrowed brute take me out back and teach me a lesson?"
Deacon would. Hell, from the look on his face he was eager to, which made Jade wonder what further horrors awaited her in the house. More girls, undoubtedly. Wounded, drugged, addicted—maybe even broken, like she'd been once.
Lex had rescued her from that life. Lex would understand this moment—or maybe not, because she would have taken care of Valerie before it got to this point.
A good leader didn't ask people to do things they weren't willing to do.
Jade extended her hand to Deacon. "Gun, please."
He complied instantly, without argument or hesitation, unholstering one of the smaller pistols he always carried. Only someone who'd spent the last few weeks glued to his side could have perceived his displeasure as he passed her the weapon and stepped back.
She'd trained in basic firearms proficiency for two years during her advanced tutelage at Orchid House. Two months under Bren's direction had taught her more. The gun still didn't feel natural in her hand—she'd always preferred knives—but she raised it with confidence.
Valerie was still smiling in amused disbelief when Jade shot her.
The older woman's head snapped back. Time seemed to slow, and the sharp, acrid scent of gunpowder filled the air as Valerie slumped to the ground, dead from a perfect headshot that would have made Bren proud.
Jade waited for horror, for shame—even for satisfaction—but all that came was chilly resolve. She handed Deacon back his gun with a murmured thanks, trying not to look too closely at the blood splattered across his jacket.
Behind her, the crowd had fallen silent. Jade turned to face them and raised one fist in the air. The sleeve of her jacket slid down, revealing her wrist—and her O'Kane ink. More theatrics, but she knew the weight of this moment. If she did it right, maybe she wouldn't have to do it again.
"I'm the leader of this sector," she announced, letting her voice carry through the clear morning. "But I'm also an O'Kane. When I give an order, I expect it to be obeyed. This was Valerie's third chance. The next person who tries to sell initiates from the houses won't even get a second. If you want to earn a living in this sector, you'll do it by selling your own skills and bodies, not someone else's."
Some backed away. Some slipped into the shadows, fear twisting their features. But others stood, watching her, something close to respect—maybe even admiration—on their faces.
She turned her back on them, stepped over Valerie's body, and headed for the house. And finally, finally the numbness broke, swept away by serene confidence in her actions. It welled up from the core of her—strength gifted by her mother and nurtured in secret. Her heart felt no conflict.
Valerie had posed a threat to her sector. She'd dispatched that threat and sent a message that would discourage future ones. Perhaps she'd used some of the skills Cerys had forced on her, but even more important were her mother's lessons—how to tell right from wrong, and how to use whatever power she had to protect those who had none.
This was what Jade was made for, to use every scrap of training from Cerys to tear down the world Cerys had built. And she could do it, like no one else could.
Because her mother had loved her enough to tell her she could do anything.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Poker night with the O'Kane ladies could be a lot of things—raucous, contemplative, hilarious, even obscene—but it was never, ever boring.
"So I come back from the bar with the shots, and he's got his pants open. Just fucking open, with his dick waving around right there in the fucking bar. I mean the table's barely hiding it." Nessa shuffled the cards and started dealing. "And then he says—wait for it—'Thank God you're back, baby. My cock's ready to get wet.'"
Lex made a face and reached for her drink. "Bastard wasn't trying very hard, was he?"
"Oh, trust me, that was the top of his game." Nessa rolled her eyes. "So I dumped the shots in his lap, because you know. Who the fuck wouldn't have? Don't worry, it wasn't the good liquor. But then Six notices what's going on…"
"Oh God, I heard this part of the story." Noelle grinned and refilled her own drink. "The waitresses were laughing so hard they couldn't carry the trays."
Scarlet peered over her cards—a truly, tragically shitty hand she should have thrown in anyway. "What happened?"
Nessa laughed. "Oh, he saw her coming and started trying to put his dick away, but she told him since he was so anxious to show it off, he could just walk out like that. And that table of old-timers was by the door, and you know he didn't want to go strutting by them with his junk waggling in the wind because that'd be the end of his rep. So he told her to fuck off and she said in that case, he could wear the shot glass out or he could leave without a dick."
"And it turns out, he didn't like everyone looking at his dick." Noelle's smile was downright wicked as she held up a finger and then let it droop. "About halfway to the door, the shot glass hit the floor and he took off running. He's probably in Sector Seven by now."
"If he even stopped there." Trix snorted. "Served him right, not waiting for an invitation to whip it out."
Scarlet could imagine the guy, scuttling out the door with his pants around his knees. "Never mess with an O'Kane, man or woman. But if you have to pick one, go with the dudes."
Lex held her glass aloft. "Hear, hear."
Nessa knocked her glass into Lex's and drank. "Okay, someone tell a good sex story now so I can live vicariously, because I'm calling it. The only men left in this sector who aren't scared of trying to get in my pants are the idiots. I'm gonna be the first O'Kane nun."
"I could set you up with Riff," Scarlet offered.
"The bass player?" Nessa considered her cards before flopping them on the table with a sigh. "Nah, don't get my hopes up. Bren would just run him off."
"That's the damn truth." Six came through the door looking rumpled and tired, her shoulder holster visible beneath her jacket. Her voice probably sounded casual to everyone else, but Scarlet had known her long enough to hear the edge. "Bren's extra grumpy this week. Too many assholes from Three testing his patience."
Lex considered that. "Do Dallas and our boys need to roll out? Crack some skulls?"
"Maybe." Six tilted her head toward the door. "If you and Scarlet want to sit this hand out, we can talk about it."
Something about the words—and the way she
said them—made Scarlet's pulse kick into a higher gear. She could have wanted her input because they were talking about Three, and Scarlet had grown up there, knew it inside and out. But there was something beneath the words, an unspoken trill of tension that stabbed at Scarlet's instincts.
She'd always had sharp instincts. It was the only way to survive in Three.
She threw her cards down. "Didn't have anything good anyway. You ladies have fun."
"But not too much fun," Lex added as she rose. "Not until I get back, anyway."
When they were out in the hallway, Six leaned back against the wall and eyed Scarlet. "There's some crazy-as-shit gossip coming out of Two. I thought you'd want to hear it first."
Her stomach twisted. "About Jade?"
A quick nod. "Rumor is, there was a public execution this morning. Some former trainer got a couple girls doped up on some nasty drugs and was pimping them out, and Jade made a statement out of her. Shot her in front of a crowd."
Lex sighed. "Shit."
It sounded far off and vague to Scarlet. Everything did, with her ears buzzing and the world swimming. "Where the hell was Deacon?"
"I don't know." Six shrugged uncomfortably. "By now, people are saying she shot a dozen pimps and put out bounties on even more, so details are sketchy. But the main part—I heard that from someone I believe."
Lex laid a hand on Scarlet's shoulder. "She has to prove herself, honey. Show them she means business."
No, she didn't have to do anything. Someone else—anyone else—could shoot their way through the remnants of Sector Two, reminding everyone that the old days were over. And if Jade's sense of obligation to the sector that almost destroyed her ended up finishing off the job, then Scarlet would—
What? Raise hell? Scream? Kick someone's ass? It wouldn't help, because the damage would be done. Jade would already be gone in all the ways that mattered.
Scarlet locked it down. "I'm sure she can handle it. Jade can handle anything."
"Well, she sure knows how to make her point." The corner of Six's mouth quirked. "And she wasn't shy about waving Dallas in their faces. My guy said she made it clear she might be the new sector leader, but she was still an O'Kane. And they got the message—you fuck with an O'Kane, you die."