Before the End (Beyond Series Ultimate Glom Edition)

by Kit Rocha

  He trailed off into silence, his eyes unfocused, and goose bumps joined the raised hairs on the back of Mad's neck. Most of the time, he thought Gideon's displays were just that—conscious theatrics. A useful way of influencing the devout.

  And sometimes Mad thought he wasn't the only one in the family who ended up arguing with ghosts when shit went to hell.

  "Church and state," Gideon said abruptly, as if simply continuing his thought. "It solves all our problems rather neatly, don't you think?"

  Mad blinked his confusion. "You're already the church. And the state."

  "I know. That's the problem. Too much damn power, Mad. And what have you always told me?"

  Maybe you mean well, maybe your kids will. But it won't take long for someone to come along who sees all that power and thinks it would be fun to abuse the shit out of it.

  It was true of every leader, maybe, on some level. But in Sector One, they didn't hold power through money or violence or even legacy. Theirs was the power of belief, of faith. The threat of ruination not just in this life, but for eternity.

  The faithful of Sector One wouldn't give up their beliefs easily. Gideon knew that from trying to change them. But if the walls came down and the sectors changed, not everyone in One would be part of that faith anymore. Gideon would have to build a new sort of sector, one where the leader of the government and the leader of their grandfather's religion worked together—or, if the worst happened, checked each other's power.

  And he knew, in his gut, which type of power Gideon would choose for himself. "Who are you thinking of for the new religious leader?"

  "Isabela." Gideon smiled. "She's the traditional one, anyway, and she loves the rituals. That's what they want. Someone who can give them that comfort. She'll take the best parts of what faith should be and do good with it. Especially if she doesn't have to worry about running the sector."

  "She will." Mad might not agree with his cousin's worship of their grandfather, but he'd never doubted her heart. And the sector adored her for upholding the traditions of the Prophet. "It's a good idea, Gideon."

  "I'm glad you think so." When Mad started to smile, Gideon shook his head. "I'm serious, Mad. You've lived in O'Kane's back pocket all these years. He's done this right. And you watched him do it."

  He had. And he'd bit back criticism of Gideon every time he came home, because it wasn't his place, and because too much lay between them to ever meet in the middle when it came to religion.

  But leadership and loyalty... "You want my advice?"

  "Yes."

  Mad thrust out his wrist, showing off the ink that wrapped around it, along with the O'Kane logo. "Every time the Riders get another raven, you remind them how little their souls are worth. Dallas only marks us once, and it's to remind us how much we have to live for."

  Gideon stared at the ink forever before meeting Mad's gaze. "But that's not all you're living for now."

  He was living for the three exhausted people still tangled together in a giant bed, no doubt holding each other a little closer just in case. Just in case guilt or obligation overcame him, and he turned Dylan's terrified words into prophecy and chose to be a living martyr instead of a man in love.

  "No," he agreed quietly. "There are different sorts of marks we use for that, ink I hope they'll accept from me. Because they're mine, Gideon. My responsibility. I'll protect them from anything."

  Understanding stood in his cousin's eyes. "Even yourself."

  "Even myself. And there's only one way to do that."

  "I know." Gideon extended his hand and clasped Mad's in a surprisingly strong grip. "Then go do it."

  A handshake wasn't enough. Mad leaned in and hugged his cousin. Then he left, nodding to the Rider guarding the door and the second stationed at the foot of the stairs. No one was taking chances anymore, which only spurred Mad on as he took the steps two and then three at a time.

  Scarlet, Jade, and Dylan were where he'd left them, talking sleepily. Their voices faded into silence as he slipped through the door and walked to the end of the bed.

  His whole damn life he'd fought against letting people need and depend on him. Maybe it all went back to that cold, dark little basement and the choices he'd made—and the ones he hadn't made.

  How much guilt had he carried for living when his mother hadn't, for giving in to her pleas and hurting her to save himself? Reliving it over and over, the refrain always the same—I should have died to spare her that pain.

  But he wouldn't have been sparing her pain. He would have been deciding what sort of pain she had to live with, deciding for her that her life would go on just fine if he wasn't a part of it.

  His parents had died to give him the life he had now. He owed them too fucking much to throw it away recklessly. Especially with three shining reasons to embrace life staring at him.

  They were nervous. Jade and Scarlet only a little, but Dylan was still bruised, still raw from baring his heart. So he was the one Mad smiled at, the one whose hand he reached out to squeeze. "Get dressed. We're going home."

  Dallas

  Their revolution was looking ragged around the damn edges.

  As what remained of the sector leaders settled into seats around his conference table, Dallas took a mental tally of the devastation.

  Colby and Scott were gone, taken down in the wave of assassinations. Dallas hadn't had much use for the leaders of Six and Seven while they were alive, but they were somehow even more annoying dead. Better the incompetent devils they knew than whatever mess those leaderless sectors would face now.

  Gideon looked like shit three days warmed over, and Dallas almost felt guilty dragging the bastard out of his home. But no one wanted another meeting in One until they were sure Gideon had straightened out the loyalty problems with his staff—even Gideon.

  Jade had taken the seat next to him. No, not Jade. Jade was gone, burned up in whatever trial by fire had gone down in Sector Two over the last few weeks. Only Jyoti remained, a woman who sat with the casual confidence of a billionaire and the chilly ruthlessness of a person deeply in love and willing to do whatever the fuck it took to protect her people.

  The look was plenty familiar. Dallas saw it in his mirror every day.

  But the scariest eyes in the room belonged to Ryder. On a practical level, freaking the shit out over Jim's loss was hard to avoid. He'd been the backbone of this rebellion, the driving force, the man who'd plotted it for dozens of years. They were in deep shit without him, and they all knew it.

  That was practical. Personally, Dallas had spent years cordially loathing the bastard and years more circling him warily, unsure if he was looking at a potential friend or a crafty enemy. Ryder's pain was grief, pure and simple. And grief was dangerous, because people fought hard and smart to protect the living.

  People got themselves—and everyone around them—killed trying to avenge the dead.

  Six sat on Ryder's other side, damn near vibrating with nervous excitement. She knew she'd been tapped to speak for Sector Three today. She didn't know they'd be making it official soon—if they were still around in a week to make anything official.

  Which was the point of the damn meeting. He gathered everyone's attention by rapping his knuckles on the table. "So. Eden tried to take us out."

  "Motherfuckers," Ryder muttered.

  "We knew they'd make a move eventually," Lex said flatly.

  "It was well-coordinated," Jade—Jyoti—added, tapping one fingernail on the table. "And well-informed, too, to target me so soon after my...promotion."

  Gideon barely managed to hide his flinch. "I'd like to think the contents of our meetings were confidential, but obviously I had a spy who saw everyone who was coming and going."

  "Doesn't mean that's how they knew about Jyoti." Six shrugged. "Street kids know everything about twenty minutes after it happens, and there's always a few willing to get bought off by the MPs."

  "Security, then." Ryder scrubbed his hands over his face. "It's time for
all of us to get serious about it."

  "Security doesn't answer the real question," Dallas drawled as he exchanged a look with Lex. "They came after us with guns instead of bombs. What do they know that we don't?"

  "Everything," said an unfamiliar voice from the door.

  Even knowing that Cruz and Bren were holding down the hallway, Dallas went for his gun, and he wasn't the only one. Six already had hers drawn, and Ryder even made it out of his chair, his pistol pointed at the newcomer's forehead.

  Dallas had never met him, but he'd seen pictures of Ashwin Malhotra. The pictures showed a stone-faced, frozen-eyed man with medium-brown skin, dark-brown eyes, and black hair, coldly handsome even when he looked likely to murder you.

  Compared to the reality, the pictures were warm and fuzzy.

  Cruz slipped in after him and nodded to Dallas, so Six relaxed back into her chair. But Ryder stayed where he was, his arm and his aim steady. "Who's this?" he asked.

  Ashwin studied Ryder for a moment and then dismissed him, turning back to Dallas as if having a gun pointed at his head was such a common damn occurrence that he didn't even give a shit. Considering how much Dallas's fingers still itched for his pistol, he'd wager having guns pointed at him was a normal day for Ashwin.

  "This is an informant," Dallas said carefully. "One with access to high-level information within Eden."

  "And outside of Eden," Ashwin corrected. "Which is the relevant detail in this case."

  Lex sighed. "What the fuck does that mean, Malhotra?"

  "It means Eden didn't bomb you because they can't." He said it casually, like he was issuing a weather report. "They've lost the support of the Base."

  The words might as well have been a bomb themselves. They crashed into the silence with an audible boom, and Dallas was so fucking stunned he didn't realize he was hearing a literal boom until the power flickered.

  And went out.

  That got people moving. Chairs squeaked and people cursed. Dallas reached instinctively for Lex and found her hand reaching for him. A heartbeat later, light flared as Cruz cut on the flashlight from his belt. "Blackout?"

  "No," Ashwin replied, and that one word kicked Dallas into action.

  Other people were heading for the roof, too—it was the best place to assess the extent of a power outage. But a hushed murmur of confusion greeted Dallas when he stepped out the access door, Lex's hand still gripped tightly in his.

  As far as the eye could see, the sectors were dark—even Five, which never lost power. Bits of light that looked like fires flared here and there, but a dark stillness had settled.

  Only the city still glowed.

  "What the fuck?" Jasper muttered beside him. "What the actual—?"

  A loud buzz that seemed to vibrate through Dallas's bones cut off the words, and he watched as the tall wall surrounding Eden came alive with hundreds of tiny lights.

  "Holy shit." Rachel shook free of Ace's restraining hand and stepped forward. "Is that—?"

  "They turned on the juice," Bren confirmed. "The wall's hot."

  "Lockdown," Dallas murmured. It was urban fucking legend to everyone but the old-timers. With the wall electrified, anyone who got too close to it would get slammed with enough voltage to fry their brains. Useful in sieges.

  Or when the sectors turned against you.

  Eden was going to war. Not from the sky with drones and bombs, but from behind their precious wall. A knock-down, drag-out war of attrition with their population growing more restless by the day and their every supply route leading straight through the sectors.

  Dallas would have laughed if it hadn't been for one tiny detail.

  With Jim dead, Eden was going to war with him.

  Beyond Ecstasy

  The O'Kanes have a reputation for working hard and playing harder--except for Hawk. He joined the gang with one goal: to ensure his family's survival through the impending war with Eden. It's been years since he had the luxury of wanting anything for himself. Now, he wants Jeni. From the first moment he saw her, he’s been obsessed with making her his. Not for a night--forever.

  Jeni's been lusting after the former smuggler for months, but he keeps shutting her down. She's almost given up on getting him in her bed when he offers her the last thing she ever expected--a collar. Accepting it means belonging to him, body and soul. It's a reckless gamble, but Jeni can’t resist the chance to slip under Hawk's armor.

  The only thing more shocking than the dark, dangerous pleasure they discover is how right it feels. But falling in love is even more reckless when forever is far from guaranteed. Because they aren't just at war, they're out of time--and every breath could be their last.

  Chapter One

  Hawk couldn't decide which would drive him crazy first—the shadows or the light.

  The shadows, that was the easy answer. The sectors had been dark for a month now, driven back to the earliest days after the Flares. Back home in Six, things wouldn't be so bad. The farms had always survived off wind and solar energy, and as powerful as Eden was, they couldn't still the air or blot out the sun. But sectors like Four relied on whatever electricity they could borrow, beg, or steal from Eden's grid. Blackouts had always been an infrequent annoyance.

  Now they were a constant reality—and Sector Four was unraveling under the strain.

  That was why Hawk was out for his fourth night in a row, patrolling the market square with Jasper. He could feel people watching them from behind closed doors and windows, from hidden alleys and sheltering walls. Watching and waiting. Calculating their chances of getting away with whatever trouble they'd been planning to start. Out of fear or desperation, or just to relieve the unrelenting tension.

  But all those stares couldn't raise the hair on the back of his neck the way glancing over his shoulder toward the city did.

  The darkness was awful, but the light posed the real danger. Hell, it was going to make them crazy. Eden's damn glowing walls, sparking with the power they'd stolen from the sectors. Precious electricity twisted into a weapon and a warning and brazen, bragging psychological warfare.

  During the day, you could almost ignore it. But when the sun dipped below the western hills, all anyone could see was Eden's walls lighting up the night in a silent reminder that everything had changed.

  “Nothing,” Jas growled. “I hate the waiting.”

  I hate the waiting. Words that summed up life in the sectors now, on every fucking level. “It's only a matter of time.”

  “The intel is good.” Jasper pulled a cigarette from his pocket, but he didn't light it. “Two shops and someone's house have been hit on this block in the last week.”

  The intel might be good, but crime wasn't simple anymore. Some people were stealing out of greed and need, but more and more had been starting shit just to start it. The wave of petty crime had dropped after the O'Kanes bumped up fight night to twice a week—an approved outlet for violence with a chance to make some money was math even an idiot could do—but the feeling was back, seething from the shadows, growing day by day.

  If something didn't happen soon, every damn night would have to be fight night.

  Jas rubbed the spot between his eyes with the heel of his hand. “Let's take a walk.”

  Hawk nodded in agreement and fell into step next to Jas as he turned toward the city. Even this far away, an ache was already forming behind his eyes. He knew how many blocks they could walk before the ache blossomed into pain, and how many more before nausea joined the party.

  No one could live this close to the wall anymore. Some of the shopkeepers who'd kept homes above their shops had been driven back after the first two weeks. A few stubbornly stayed—pale and drawn and increasingly sick from the constant exposure.

  Hawk couldn't understand how. When they cleared the last row of buildings, he could feel the damn thing in his bones, thrumming, humming. It took all his self-control not to turn the fuck around and run for it.

  But he couldn't. Not until he and Jas had complet
ed their most grisly task of the night.

  The open space closest to the curving walls was strewn with abandoned carts and trash no one had bothered to pick up. No shadows lurked here—just eerie, unnatural illumination that made Hawk's eyeballs itch and washed everything out into silver and blue.

  Especially the dark form standing at the wall, his hands wrapped around a line of wire.

  “Fuck,” Jasper muttered. “Motherfucker.”

  Suicide-by-Eden. The newest threat facing the sectors, and the most hopeless.

  Jas was pushing through the carts, looking for something they could use to knock the body loose. They'd pry this poor bastard off the wall the way they'd done the ones before, but they couldn't hide what was happening. The whispers would spread, and tomorrow would be a little worse than today.

  People were giving up. Old-timers who'd lived through the first terrible years after the Flares, who couldn't face doing it again. Their children, who'd grown up with the horror stories, with nightmares that only intensified in the telling.

  The worst were the kids. Teenagers, really—adults by the rules that guided the sectors but still fucking children in the way that mattered. Too young to understand mortality and too fucking scared to fight, because they'd already spent all of their short lives fighting. If they had to drag another kid off the wall—

  Jas came back with a board, and Hawk reached for it. “I'll do it.”

  He hesitated only for a moment before handing over the plank of wood. “Careful, man.”

  Hawk didn't relish getting closer, but Jas couldn't afford to take the risk at all. Too much rested on his shoulders—and Hawk sure as fuck wasn't going back to the compound to face Noelle after letting her boyfriend fry himself. “I got it.”

  He approached carefully, setting each foot down firmly to eliminate any chance of tripping. By the time he was within swinging distance, his teeth were vibrating. The low buzz filled his ears, and maybe that was a blessing.