Nelken’s gaze flicked to Rachel and Drogan before answering. “Maybe not in the conventional sense, but I do have faith.”
Zach chewed over Nelken’s words for a long handful of seconds, weighing them for god only knew what. Finally, he seemed to come to some conclusion.
“Fine. It’s for the Mayor to decide when he gets here anyway.”
Something about the way he said it set another batch of the creepies wriggling in Rachel’s stomach.
“The Mayor?” Nelken asked, apparently feeling similarly.
Zach waved the question away. “Let’s take it from the top for now. You wanna tell us about some fresh slice of hell roaming around out there,”—he raised a hand in invitation—“tell us.”
With a hesitant look, Nelken started to recount Kul’Gada’s arrival, deliberately avoiding the fact that said arrival had indeed been via alien spaceship. He was just starting to explain the first furor that had hit HQ when Rachel felt it.
A telepathic mind. Just outside the room.
The authoritative clunk of the door handle behind her nearly made her jump.
The door swung open with a mournful creak.
As one, the men all snapped to attention, Zach included, rising from his seat to join the others in planting fist over chest in some manner of salute.
“Mayor Dillard,” Zach said, stepping aside to offer up his own seat.
Rachel turned to take in this Mayor.
Tall. Dark hair, slicked back. Strong build. Strong jaw. Everything she would have expected from the magnanimous leader of The Complex.
Except that he was a raknoth.
14
Of all the many, many fights he’d been through in his not-so-long life, Jarek was pretty sure he could count the number of times he’d been truly afraid on his fingers alone.
There’d been his fight with Drogan—the first time he’d ever had the audacity to square off against a raknoth.
There’d been Zar’Golga, whose strength and ferocity—not to mention that ridiculously enormous club—had had Jarek shaking in his suit even after he’d begun acclimating to fighting enemies who could handily outpower Fela.
There’d been taking on Alton Parker with naught but his own squishy meat suit. Squaring off against the monstrosity that was Kul’Gada. Fleeing that savage, hairless lupine Kul as HQ had fallen.
But, above all else, there’d been Conner.
Facing down his old boss—the leader of the Iron Eagles and arguably the only real role model he’d had in those years—had changed him. But he hadn’t had a choice.
Each time he’d been terrified. But each time, it’d been the right thing to do. The only thing to do.
And now, circling warily with Mosen in the poorly-lit motel lobby, he was looking at another one of those times.
It wasn’t just that he was afraid for his own life, though that was certainly part of it. He would’ve been an idiot not to be.
On top of being a generally vicious bastard, and a particularly pissed one at that right now, after years serving his old Overlord, Zar’Golga, and receiving ample doses of the vitamin R for his efforts, Mosen was superhumanly strong and resilient. Not enough so to take a raknoth in an arm-wrestling contest, maybe. But more than enough to take two or three Jareks.
Worse, Mosen didn’t look nearly as overconfident as Jarek had been hoping.
They circled one another amid the beams of the onlookers’ comm lights and the wider swaths of the camp lights placed around the room. Where Jarek had hoped to see a confident sneer and cocky chest-thumping, he saw only a predatory focus from Mosen as the creepy bastard shook his vitamin-R-infused muscles loose.
An opponent who was not only considerably stronger but also patient, disciplined?
As usual, Jarek probably should’ve listened to Al. Or at least found a shirt.
“Are we really doing this, people?” Chambers asked the murmuring onlookers. “Big alien monsters hunting us across the country, sweeping up town after town, and we’re gonna sit here and watch two grown men whale on each other?”
“This is ridiculous,” Michael added. “We should discuss our options. Put it to a vote.”
A few of the Resistance folks seemed to agree with the sentiment. Most of the people in the room, though, were ready to see someone bleed.
Much as Jarek had been desiring the chance to give Mosen a good punch or five over the past days, he didn’t want this fight. And he sure as hell didn’t want it while he was in squishy meat-sack form.
But it was too late.
It was done, and now all that was left was to make sure he won.
Because if he lost, even if Mosen didn’t kill him in the process (which was a pretty big if), they could kiss their hopes of finding the others—and, consequently, surviving—goodbye. At least without causing a small civil war.
Despite everything, though—dire stakes and punchable faces and all—Jarek couldn’t bring himself to relish the coming violence as he not so long ago might have.
Jesus, was he getting old?
He paused his pacing, cracked his knuckles, and spread his hands wide. “So this is like, to first pin, right?”
Mosen didn’t answer—just rushed in like he’d only been waiting for Jarek to say something stupid.
Jarek pivoted clear of the first punch and ducked back from the second.
Mosen stalked warily after him. “Come on, Slater. Where’d all that swagger go?”
“I’m just wondering what happened to the whole not the face thing.” He frowned from Mosen’s hands to his bare feet. “And whether or not you’re going to start sprouting claws.”
By way of reply, Mosen aimed a sweeping kick at Jarek’s head.
Jarek dipped to the outside, planted, and caught Mosen with a hard side-kick in his disturbingly solid ribs.
Mosen’s hand snaked down lightning fast and caught Jarek’s ankle in a crushing grip before he could pull the kick back.
With little hope of breaking free, and no desire to be bodily wish-boned, Jarek launched himself with his planted foot and twisted into an awkward spinning heel kick.
There was a wet smack and the sensation of heel striking what felt more like leather-covered hardwood than a face, then Jarek hit the ground hard on his side.
A growled curse and stomping feet were all the warning he had.
He spun on the ground, kicking semi-blindly, and caught a charging Mosen straight in the hip, halting his momentum dead and nearly causing him to tumble on top of Jarek.
Jarek followed up with his aching heel to Mosen’s chest and then rolled to his feet in the moment it bought him.
Squared off again, Jarek saw Mosen’s mouth and chin were wet with oddly dark blood, and his eyes were gleaming pale red in the lights.
It was damn creepy.
And the demonically violent grin on his bloody mouth didn’t help matters as he lunged for Jarek’s throat with both hands.
This time, Jarek didn’t shy away.
He went with the grab, sweeping a leg back and twisting at the last moment to deflect Mosen’s hands with the armpit of his raised right arm—the same arm whose elbow he drove straight into Mosen’s waiting bloody face.
Mosen spat and staggered.
Jarek followed with a knee to the gut and twisted to throw his other elbow into the side of Mosen’s head.
They were good strikes. Solid strikes.
Mosen shoved through anyway and nearly knocked Jarek over with a shoulder check that sent him reeling for his balance. He found it just in time to see the fist coming.
No dodging. No blocking. No time.
An idiot. He’d been a damn idiot.
The punch hit like a pneumatic sledgehammer.
Jarek’s world exploded in a kaleidoscope of brilliant dancing shapes and spirits.
A distant jostle, and, for a little while, he was alone in his own little universe. The darkness, his addled mind decided, wasn’t so bad. At least it was quiet. Except for the ringing. And
if it weren’t for that damn pain throbbing through everything …
Rhythmic pulses of hot daggers, riding over the deep steady ache of—
A sound.
Something.
“—rek!”
Someone.
Michael.
“JAREK!”
He snapped his eyes open, already moving into a sideways roll out of some deep-seated reflex.
Mosen’s bare foot stomped down on the space he’d just vacated with an alarmingly solid thump.
Jarek scrambled to his feet and fell straight back over when the profound spinning in his head failed to settle. He landed on his butt and shuffled a few feet backward in an awkward crabwalk. The room took a few seconds to stop rotating around him, and Mosen’s satisfied leer seemed to take too long to resolve into focus.
That wasn’t good.
Concussion? Check.
Right along with a broken cheekbone, if the fire on the left side of his face was any indication.
“You don’t look so good, Slater,” Mosen said, wiping some of the blood from his mouth.
With the utmost effort to avoid letting on just how disoriented he was, Jarek rose to one knee, pointing at Mosen’s still-planted stomping foot. “I kinda get the feeling you’re not even trying for that pin, man.”
Mosen’s sneer deepened. “I wonder how many shots like that it’ll take to finally shut that goddamn mouth of yours up.”
“Eh …” Jarek touched at the point of impact, winced, and took the risk of standing to wobbly feet. “It’s a moot point. Al would haunt your ass with the playbacks of my greatest hits until you came to join me in hell.”
“Dutifully, sir,” Al said through Fela’s speakers.
The exosuit was standing at the ready in a way that made Jarek think Al was debating stepping in to end this thing before anyone got seriously hurt. Or more seriously, at least.
Mosen was shaking his head. “Fancy toys and a smart mouth are never going to make you a leader, Slater. I don’t give a shit what my father says. You don’t deserve their respect. And you’re sure as hell not getting mine.”
That sneer …
So contemptuous it almost seemed to border on insincere. And speaking of Alaric …
Maybe it was just the concussion talking, but suddenly it all came into focus with a clarity that was ironic, given the current state of his head.
Underneath it all—the anger, the violence, the relentless pursuit of control and dominance …
Mosen was afraid.
Maybe not of him. Maybe not even of dying.
But afraid all the same.
“What are you gonna do, Mosen? When you get what you want and realize it didn’t work?”
Mosen started to lean forward as if to attack, then settled his weight back, deciding against it, watching Jarek warily. “What are you talking about?”
It was a reach, but given how sturdily Mosen had handled Jarek’s beating so far, it seemed better than dancing around waiting for him to land another good punch.
So Jarek shrugged and started in on Mosen’s less resilient half. “You’re afraid, man. I get it. I would be to in your situation.”
“What the fuck are you babbling about now?” Mosen said, starting to circle Jarek.
“Life’s been hard,” Jarek said, matching Mosen’s footwork. “Enslaved by Golga—”
“I wasn’t a slave.”
“—forced to fight your friends, hate your own fathe—”
Mosen threw a testing jab, which Jarek dipped woozily back from.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Mosen growled.
“Oh, I know a little bit …”
Jarek deflected a second jab—
“I know what it’s like to have no one.”
—hopped back to avoid the followup.
“I know what it is to clock out and tell yourself there’s nothing but the fight—nothing but survival—until you can’t even imagine you deserve a place with the rest of humanity anymore.”
“Shut up,” Mosen hissed. “You don’t know me.”
Jarek tensed his jaw, not at all enjoying what came next. “I know that he made you kill your own mother.”
Mosen sprang forward with a growl, and Jarek caught him with another momentum-killing hip kick that left him staggering back with a string of curses.
“I did what I had to!” he shouted. “You wouldn’t have lasted two days in my place, Slater.”
“Maybe not. Maybe so. Maybe I’d have lived to know the fear of years lived under a monster’s thumb.”
Jarek twisted to the outside of a halfhearted punch from Mosen and continued circling.
“Maybe I’d come to know what it is to be afraid that that monster is the closest fucked up thing to family I’d ever have again. That I’d already killed or alienated everyone else who’d ever care.”
“Shut up and fight, you bastard!”
“Maybe I’d do anything just to claim an ounce of control. Over my situation. Over my group. Just to try to convince myself I could ever be good enough to be worth a damn to anyone ever agai—”
A savage cry erupted from Mosen’s throat, and he charged Jarek like a wild animal.
Jarek leapt to meet his tackle, catching him around the torso with his legs, locking his feet together behind Mosen’s back and pulling him close with his arms.
Mosen drove into him, unperturbed.
They hit the ground hard enough to shock Jarek’s diaphragm into sputtering inaction. He held on tight, legs locked above Mosen’s hips, controlling his position as he scrambled to pull away from Jarek and into an adequate pummeling position.
Jarek didn’t stop him—just kept his legs tight while Mosen planted his left hand by Jarek’s side and cocked his right to strike.
As soon as Mosen’s support hand touched down, Jarek clamped down on Mosen’s wrist and drove it out from under him with a stiff arm. He twisted and rose, slipping his left shoulder to the inside of Mosen’s, snaking his arm over and under Mosen’s to complete the grip.
Grip secured, he shifted his legs and hips and turned into the floor, leveraging Mosen’s arm until it was twisted at an unnatural angle and his only options were to eat the floor or risk violent dislocation.
“Yield,” Jarek grunted.
Mosen gave a wordless bellow and began to rise, lifting Jarek bodily along for the ride despite the awkward mechanical disadvantage.
“I said yield!” Jarek barked.
Mosen showed no sign of stopping.
So Jarek twisted until, with a sickening pop, the tension in Mosen’s shoulder gave way.
Mosen howled and threw a wild, cross-body punch into Jarek’s ribs with his good arm.
The pain was breathtaking.
And, as Mosen tensed and lifted him higher, Jarek was pretty sure it wouldn’t be the last of it if he didn’t move.
So, at the apex of the Body Slam Express, Jarek dropped his leg lock and threw himself in behind Mosen. He scored a quick kick to the back of Mosen’s right knee and hopped into a piggyback position, hooking his feet through the backs of Mosen’s knees and his arms around Mosen’s throat and head to complete the transition.
“Yield, ass-hat!”
Mosen obliged by throwing their combined bulk into the lobby counter, Jarek-first.
They hit hard. Fresh pain lanced across Jarek’s back, blinding in its intensity. Jarek held tight as they tumbled to the floor in a shower of falling items—too pissed to even wonder how he’d managed to not lose his grip on impact, some of that old fire finally burning to the surface now.
When he noticed the knife that had fallen from the counter with Mosen’s belt, Jarek didn’t think twice. He yanked the blade free from its sheath with one hand and put the blade to his opponent’s throat.
“It’s over, Mosen,” he panted next to Mosen’s ear.
“Do it!” Mosen growled, breathing heavily himself now. “If you’re not going to do what it takes with Carver, with the rest of
it, you might as well just bury that knife in my throat right now.”
Jarek almost thought about it.
Then he tossed the knife to the floor and gave Mosen a pat on the cheek.
“Come on, Seth …”
Mosen flinched at his casual use of the name.
“You know I’m too good a sport for that kind of thing,” Jarek continued. “Honor. Duty.” He released Mosen and stood, taking a few steps away from Mosen and toward Fela. “That stuff’s my jam, man.”
The room seemed to have released a collective breath when Jarek tossed away his weapon and relinquished his hold on Mosen. But still, no one said a word, all of them waiting for some conclusive end to the episode.
“You’re going to get us all killed,” Mosen said quietly, the fight seeming to have left him now.
“Does that mean you yield?”
Mosen pulled himself to his feet, dusted himself off, and grabbed his gear from the floor and the countertop. “It means you can go fuck yourself, Slater.”
And with that, he left.
Satisfied they’d seen the end of it, the onlookers finally broke their silence. Some talked among themselves, glancing warily at Jarek and in the direction Mosen had disappeared. A few congratulated Jarek on a fight well-won.
One guy—Stevens, Jarek thought it was—even clapped but was quickly silenced by his fellow Resistance buddies, who glanced anxiously at a group of glaring Mosenites.
Jarek realized he’d been standing there in a daze for too long when Michael and Chambers appeared at his sides and pushed him toward the chair Al had apparently carried over with Fela.
He resisted, not overly keen to make his first post-fight act a sad, blubbering collapse.
“Show’s over, people,” Chambers called, apparently picking up on the source of his hesitation. “Let’s all try to get some sleep.”
Jarek noticed a few faces turning from her to him.
“You heard her, folks. Big first day tomorrow. Seize the carp and all that.”
The crowd began to disperse with a fair share of vaguely concerned looks from some of the Resistance troops and not-so-vaguely disgusted looks from some of the more loyal Mosenites.
“Seize the carp?” Chambers asked quietly.
Jarek frowned then only half-succeeded at suppressing a delirious giggle. “Is that what I said? Not … carpe …? Fuck, my head hurts.”
Retribution: Book Four of the Harvesters Series Page 13