by Tracey Ward
“Convinced of what?” I ask.
Ryan looks at me with a weird expression I can’t quite read. It’s almost worried. “They were convinced he was the one who would set them all free.”
Amber laughs. “Maybe not so biblical as that, but yeah. We realized he was strong enough to help us finally take over. We’d all wanted it since the day we set foot in this place. Vin gave us the opportunity and the courage to do it.”
“We have to leave,” Trent says suddenly. “They’re moving the cannibals. We should go with them to make sure they get out safely.”
“Oh, okay,” Amber says, sounding confused. She’s probably wondering why we care if the cannibals live or die. Part of me wonders the same thing. “Good to see you again, Joss. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
I smile at her. “Thanks.”
Amber blushes suddenly, her eyes going to Trent who has yet to stop staring at her like a lunatic. “Bye, Trent.”
“Goodbye,” my robot replies.
Chapter Nine
We go our separate ways, Amber heading out with the flow of Colonists and us following the cannibals back to the shower room. More members of the Guard have joined our group, some leading and more following, and I’m grateful that Ryan, Trent, and I aren’t lumped in with the cannibals; we’re allowed to follow freely behind the herd.
“All right, what’s wrong?” I whisper to Ryan as we walk.
“With what?”
“With Amber’s story about the overthrow. You didn’t like it.”
Ryan pauses, his eyebrows coming together in concentration. “It’s not that I didn’t like it, it’s… I think it worries me. The sort of hero worship vibe I got from your friend could be bad news.”
“Why?”
“Because it reminds me of what Sam told us about Westbrook and how the Colonies first got started. And also because it’s not really true. In that story of him surviving two assassination attempts, where were you?”
“I was with him by the wall when Caroline stabbed him.”
“I know that and you know that.”
“Caroline knows that,” Trent remarks.
“But Amber didn’t mention it. Does she not know that you’re the one who saved Vin that night?”
“I don’t know,” I reply, not sure what it matters.
“If you’re being left out of that story, are more people being left out of the other story? The other attempt on his life? If he was already injured, I’m thinking he wasn’t alone for that second fight.”
“Okay, probably not, but who cares? He still survived. She’s right—they tried to kill him twice and he survived both times.”
“But why did they try to kill him? Why did Caroline do it the first time?”
“Because she was crazy and in love with him and she thought I was stealing her man.”
“So it wasn’t an assassination attempt at all. It was one person acting on jealousy. And the second time, why did that girl try to kill him?”
“Probably because Caroline was her friend and Breanne was kind of nuts. She went native the second we got here. She was insanely loyal to the Colony by the time I left.”
“So neither attempt on his life was actually ordered by the Colonies or by the Team Leaders as a group—it was all personal and emotional, but that’s not how the people here are looking at it. They’re looking at him as some messiah who their enemies tried to strike down but couldn’t. It gives him this legend status and puts him on a pedestal. It’s no wonder they follow him like they do.”
I hadn’t thought about it, but he’s right—these people are looking at Vin as their savior, but he’s actually nothing more than a gangster pimp with bad taste in women and a habit of getting shanked.
“If he gets them where they need to go, then what’s the problem?” I ask, trying to convince myself as much as Ryan.
He shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”
“Are we staying here tonight?” Trent asks out of the blue.
“I’m not really sure,” I reply hesitantly. “We’ll have to talk to Vin, I guess.”
“Do you think it’s safe?” Ryan asks.
I want to say yes, of course it is, but after what happened upstairs just now I’m not so sure. Vin didn’t turn on me, but he didn’t exactly help me either. He left me to fend for myself, and something about that royally pisses me off. Whether we’re staying here tonight or not, he and I have to talk.
“Probably not. It might not be a bad idea for us to sleep behind locked doors tonight, wherever we go.”
“Careful what you say. I’ll think you’ve grown to love prison life.”
“I do miss the bathrooms. And the soaps.”
“I miss the pillows.”
“I miss the books,” Trent adds.
“Was Sam right?” I ask him. “Could you have busted us out of there?”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe or probably?”
“Definitely.”
My jaw drops. “Why didn’t you?”
“I didn’t need to,” he says like it’s obvious. “You wanted to stay.”
“How would you have done it?”
“Picked the lock.”
“Is that easy to do?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know you could have done it?”
Trent grins. “Because I did it.”
“What? When?”
“While you and Ryan were sleeping. Sam was out cold too. I was up and I was bored so I picked the lock. Wandered around a little. That house was nice. Big kitchen. They had oranges.”
“Are you kidding me?” I cry incredulously.
The guards ahead of us look back at Trent warily.
“No.”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” Ryan demands.
“You guys wanted to stay in that room and play by their rules until they let you talk to their council, so I played by their rules.”
“Not really. You ninja-ed around their house in the middle of the night.”
“Just for a few minutes. I told you, I was bored. Besides, if they had found out I could do that we’d have been killed or kicked off the island immediately.”
“If you had been caught,” I begin.
“But I wasn’t.”
“But if you had been—”
“But I wasn’t.”
“Oh my God,” I grumble, closing my eyes briefly. “Ryan, I can’t.”
He rubs his hand on my back in small circles. “I know. Believe me, I know.”
Luckily, before I lose my mind we reach the showers. The body has been taken out—probably to the gardens, which is kind of fitting considering where Rebecca worked—but her blood remains. There are two people in the room cleaning along with two guards standing nearby watching. The cleaning crew pushes pink-stained mops toward the hole in the floor, water washing away the red remains of Bryan’s mistake.
It changes everything, what he did. This could have been easy. Well, easier. The Colonists didn’t even have to know these people were cannibals. They could have been a random group of gang members we rounded up, something that would have gone over perfectly with the mixed company inside a Colony. But no, Bryan had to go and get hungry and murder some innocent girl and now we’re all screwed—Vin included. This castle of his, no matter how sturdy it looks from the inside, is made of sugar. And the rain is coming.
“Warn Elijah to stay away,” Ryan tells Macy as they approach the drain. “It’s not safe to come here again.”
“No joke,” she mutters.
“I think we’re all assuming the plan is off,” Kyle agrees bitterly.
Ryan steps up to him, catching his eye. “Not yet. It’s not over yet.”
“They’ll kill us if they ever see us again.”
“If they ever see you here again.”
“What’s your point?”
“This place was meant to be a battle, but it’s not the war.”
“You really think they’re going to fight
side by side with us someday?” Macy asks, her tone disbelieving.
“I think very soon they aren’t going to have a choice.”
“You think the Colonies are coming,” Kyle says.
Ryan shakes his head. “Worse. I think The Hive is coming.”
“Marlow knows what we have planned,” I mutter, catching on. “He knows Vin is here. He knows we don’t have a prayer without him or the Vashons, and he definitely knows the Vashons told us no.”
“It won’t be long before he comes here. He’ll rally a small army and storm this place, just like we did. The thing that worries me is what will V—”
“No,” I blurt out, interrupting Ryan.
He looks at me with surprise on his face, but I shake my head firmly and shift my eyes to the guards; they’re standing on the edges of the room, listening.
I don’t know what Vin was doing up there in the rec room letting me drown myself in stupid, but I’m not willing to undermine him in his own house. Not yet. Not until I know what his deal is. Ryan must pick up at least part of what I’m trying to convey because he drops the issue immediately.
“Tell Elijah we’ll send word on the plan,” Ryan tells Kyle, offering his hand. “Until then, please ask him to sit tight.”
“What about Bryan?” Macy asks suspiciously.
Ryan sighs. “Tell Elijah about Vin’s demand, but I won’t be shocked when he says no. We’ll have to figure out a way around it.”
Kyle hesitates only a second before taking Ryan’s hand in his. “You got it. Good luck.”
“You too.”
We watch the cannibals go one by one down into the drain. The cleaning crew doesn’t even stop their work. A thin river of blood and water pours through the hole on top of the cannibals as they leave. They’ll be covered in blood when they get home, but they should count themselves lucky it isn’t theirs.
“What’s the plan now?” Ryan asks me when they’re gone.
“You and Trent go look around. Mingle. Whatever,” I say with a shrug, not really concerned what trouble they get themselves into. They can go set the display tree on fire for all I care. Things can’t get much worse than they already are.
“What are you going to do?”
I angrily chew on the inside of my lip until I taste blood. “I’ve got a date with a pimp.”
***
“Where is he?”
The guard—another Hive member, judging by the hornet tattoo on his neck—looks me up and down.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to know where he is?”
“Why do you think?” I ask hotly.
The guy smirks. “For the same reason all the women look for him.”
“Unless all the women here are looking to kick his ass, then no.”
“That doesn’t make me want to help you find him.”
I turn away in frustration to head up the hall. “I’ll find him myself, dick!”
“Roof.”
I stop, looking over my shoulder at him. “Why?”
His smirk becomes a grin. “Why what?”
“Why are you telling me?”
“Because you’re not a Colony girl. You’re a wild girl. He likes wild girls.”
“You’re still a dick.”
He laughs. “So are you, wild thing.”
When I reach the roof, there he is—just as the hornet downstairs told me he would be. He’s sitting on the edge of the roof, his legs dangling, his back to me. It’s a dangerous position he’s in, and no eyes on the entrance? It worries me more than impresses me.
“What’s on your mind, Joss?” Vin asks without turning.
I sigh before going to sit next to him. The anger I had building inside of me is dying out. Maybe it’s because I’m tired, but it’s probably because it doesn’t matter. I’m still alive. The cannibals got out alive. One Colonist died—I genuinely feel bad about that, but it could have been worse. So, so much worse. All in all, if I survive to see the sunrise, I’ll count it as a good night.
When I sit, I let my legs dangle off the edge of the building as well. Like a little kid. A little kid sitting three stories above the ground, tempting fate, begging it to take its best shot.
“Nothing much,” I lie.
“Did they send you up to tell me to hand over the Colony?”
“Nope.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Not for the company, that’s for sure.”
“Spill it,” he insists.
I glare at him before looking away out over the black water. “Why’d you do it?”
“You mean why did I leave you hanging?”
“Almost literally, yes. I don’t feel safe being here anymore.”
“You shouldn’t. You shouldn’t feel safe anywhere. That’s when your guard goes down and you die.”
“Did you want them to kill me?”
“No.”
“Then why didn’t you help me?”
“Your boy helped. You don’t need me, Kitten.”
“Is that what this is about? Ryan?”
“Get over yourself,” he scoffs. “No.”
I throw my hands up in frustration. “Then what is it about?”
“It’s about this place,” he hisses fiercely. “It’s about this building and the people in it.”
I stare at him, shocked. Then something slowly begins to occur to me: he’s not actually angry. He’s feral, like an animal. An animal protecting his territory.
“It’s your house. You want to keep this Colony and I’m a threat to that.”
“I took it. I did that. And I did it half dead.”
I pause, feeling scared, but it’s weird because I think I was already feeling it. It’s not a new feeling; it’s an uncovering. It’s shining light on something that’s been hidden in the shadows of my mind since I got here. I think I’ve known something was wrong since the moment I walked in the building.
Something is off, something is missing.
Someone is missing.
“When Breanne died,” I begin, my voice whisper quiet, “you weren’t alone, were you?”
Vin curses harshly under his breath. It’s all the answer I need.
“Nats is dead.”
He nods.
Tears sting my eyes, hot and angry. I will them back, I pull them inside, and I swallow the rough, salty tang down into my stomach where it burns like lava.
“How?” I whisper shakily.
The worst thing is that Vin doesn’t give me a hard time. I’m emotional, I’m obviously nearly weeping beside him, and he doesn’t say a word about it—that’s how bad it is, how hard it’s hitting him, and it makes it so much worse because it somehow makes it more real.
“She was standing watch over me after you left. I was in and out of it, sweating and aching, feeling like I was dying because I was. Sometime the next day I woke up to fighting. It was Nats and Breanne. On instinct I reached under my pillow for a knife. I always kept one there in The Hive, just in case. I was surprised to actually find one. Nats knew. She must have put it there. She fought Breanne hard, but the entire time she was asking her to stop. To remember we were family. I pulled myself out of the bed to help her, but I fell on the floor. I couldn’t stand up straight. I was useless. When I looked up, Breanne had sunk a kitchen knife into Nats’ chest. To the hilt.” Vin coughs roughly, rubbing his hand over his mouth. “She pounced on me, but she was too excited. She didn’t see my knife. I put it in her stomach three times, then I tossed her aside. I lay there on the ground with her and I watched her die. It took hours.”
“Where’s Nats now?”
“She’s buried by the water. Breanne and Caroline are buried by the wall. I wanted to toss them to the zombies, but…”
“But what?”
He runs his hand over his face briskly. “I thought better of it.”
“It would have been an aggressive move for this crowd.”
“That’s what I thought, but the
y were pretty eager to throw out that option tonight.”
“You were already thinking of ruling this place the second I killed Caroline, weren’t you? Or was it when they asked you to go home and bring back help?”
He chuckles darkly. “I’ve been thinking about ruling this place since we walked in the door.”
“You’ll never be able to keep it. Not once word gets out that you have it.”
“I know that.”
“Marlow will want it and you’ll have to give it. You owe him a lot.”
“I don’t owe anybody anything,” he replies, his tone harsh.
I glance over at him to find his jaw clenched tightly, the muscles working under his skin.
“You care about this place, don’t you?”
“I always watch after what’s mine.”
“This isn’t like the stables, though. Those were Marlow’s. This is real to you, isn’t it? This place really means something.”
He sighs heavily, the air sliding past his lips for what feels like eternity. When he finally speaks his voice is shockingly soft, all of the anger seeming to have slipped out of him.
“In The Hive people feared me. There were a few that knew me better than the others, ones who weren’t afraid of me, but they were of Marlow. That entire place is run on fear. I never knew there was any other way.”
“They respect you here, I can see it. I saw it in the rec room when you talked to them. They listened and it was because they love you, not fear you.”
He nods. “It’s different.”
“And you don’t want to go back to the old way?”
“I don’t know what I want.”
“I think you do.”
“I’m surprised about your boy,” Vin says suddenly.
“Oh yeah?” I ask, thrown by the change of subject. “Why’s that?”
“Because he’s Ryan Hyperion,” Vin replies like it’s obvious. “Kevin was a big deal in the Arena, and everyone—me included—was sure Ryan would follow him. He’s a hell of a fighter.”
I eye him shrewdly. “Is that respect I hear in your voice?”
Vin grins. “It might have crept in there.”
“So you approve?”
“Yeah.”
“Can’t tell you what that means to me,” I mutter sarcastically, but part of me means it. There’s a weird feeling of satisfaction knowing Vin is impressed by Ryan. Ever since I met him, part of me has worried about Ryan a little. He’s not exactly soft, but… I don’t know. I think I worry he’s too nice. I see it as a weakness.