Kings of Carrion

by Keri Lake

  “Do you think I’d be standing here, if I knew?” A tearful chuckle escapes him, but I don’t share any humor. The anger and frustration inside of me battles for a voice.

  “I told you to stay back.” My throat wobbles from the tears. “I told you to be free!”

  “I don’t regret coming with you. I don’t regret this.” Reaching a hand through the bars, he cups my jaw, frowning as he strokes a thumb over my cheek. “I want you to be happy, Cali.”

  I hold my hand over his, swallowing back the sob that tugs at my throat. In spite of the impending danger, the snarls and the rumble from the mutations waiting to sink their teeth in us, the chaos of this moment, it’s as if nothing else exists around us. “Remember … back in the hibernation room ... when I said I didn’t need you and Titus? I was wrong. I need you.” I reach another hand through the bars, clutching him as close to me as possible, desperate to keep him here, to keep him safe. The panic rises in my chest, displacing the air. “I need you.”

  He snorts a laugh, and a tear slips from the corner of his eye. “I knew you were just pissed. That’s how we are, Sunshine. I piss you off, and you say shit you don’t mean.”

  Rhys strides up beside me and passes something through the bars, which Cadmus accepts in his palm. “Nightshade.” He takes a moment to grab the other Alpha’s shoulder and gives a nod, his brow flickering to a frown, as if he’s imagining himself on the other side.

  “No.” The desperation in my heart won’t let me accept this. It won’t let me switch off the compulsion to get him out. I can’t leave. I won’t leave him down here alone. “We’re just not … we’re not thinking. Hard enough. There’s a way.”

  Cadmus sniffs and smiles, shaking his head. “Not this time.”

  Titus reaches out to grab Cadmus by the arm, brows pinched, and they clasp each other’s forearm. Not a word spoken between them.

  At my left, Valdys stands with his jaw tight, frowning, as well. “Cadmus ... “ He chokes up on the word, and reaches through the bar to set his hand on the other Alpha’s shoulder. One rough shake shows his silent frustration, the same frustration that beats through me now.

  Brows flickering Cadmus looks at me and back to Valdys. “You take care of her, okay? Take care of our girl.”

  Valdys slides his hand up to palm the back of Cadmus’s head, lips clamped as he gives a sharp nod. “I owe you everything.”

  “You owe me nothing. We’re brothers. Always have been.”

  In the pause that follows, an eerie quiet hangs on the air, and I turn to see the mutations behind us are no longer there. They’ve retreated, leaving nothing but Jed’s bones on the floor where they once gathered. Unless my head is so messed up that I’m seeing things. Or what’s not there, rather. But then, Valdys turns, his face holding equal confusion, and I focus my attention back on Cadmus.

  Shadows flicker in the background, letting out a screech that’s louder than before.

  Cadmus spins away, lighting one of the flares from his pack and as he tosses it into the darkness, illuminating the tunnel behind him, a cluster of faceless Ragers scramble toward him.

  The air in my lungs is banished for the gasp that flies out of me. No. There must be hundreds of them, climbing the walls toward him on all fours like spiders exploding from an egg. The low droning of their collective growls echo through the tunnels, reminding me of bees in a hive.

  The dog bounds toward them, disappearing in the throng, and only the piercing echo of his yelp announces his fate.

  “C’mon, you fucks! You want a piece of me?” Cadmus slams his fist against his chest. “Come get it!”

  Screams rip through my chest, the agony rupturing inside of me. I clutch the bars and claw at him, as I’m tugged away. “No! Cadmus!”

  I watch him pop the Nightshade pills into his mouth. Head lowered, his eyes are on me, as the faceless humanoids surround him, dragging him away from the cage.

  “No! No!”

  Arms stretched to either side, he reminds me of a cross, as they cluster around him, swarming him, pulling him under. The shine of his slave band dulls in the shadow of monsters.

  “Cadmus!”

  At his first outcry, I slap my hands over my ears, screaming, as I collapse to the ground. Eyes clamped, I feel my body being lifted, but I can’t bring myself to look as I’m carried away. Away from this nightmare. Away from those sounds.

  Away from Cadmus.

  Sunlight warms my skin, but it’s no balm to the ache that throbs inside my chest. I can’t breathe over the tightness clinched across my lungs. Once my knees hit the ground, I crawl forward, toward the hatch that slams shut before I can reach it.

  “No. No I need to see him. One more time. Please!”

  Valdys crouches beside me, reaching for my arm, but I swat his hand away. “He’s gone, Cali. Only takes a minute for the pill to kick in, and I’m sure his body went into shock before then. He didn’t feel much pain, I promise.”

  “I can’t leave him alone down there.” Sobs rip through my chest, and I rest my hand on the hatch, the entrance to the tomb that now houses a piece of my heart. “Cadmus.”

  Arms slide beneath me, lifting me up, and I curl into Valdys like a child as he carries me. The pain that moves through me like a thick poison tells me I’ll never be the same. With Valdys, I never once lost hope that I’d see him again. I never once thought he was lost to me forever. Not even as I watched those doors slide shut, sealed with no hope of getting inside.

  This time, I know for certain. I won’t see Cadmus again in this life.

  Chapter 32

  Cali

  It’s a somber walk back to Gregor’s house. All of us beaten. Exhausted. The pain behind my ribs is one that’ll never go away. I’ve run through the last hour so many times, as if a different outcome inside my head will materialize into Cadmus trekking back with all of us, making his usual smartass comments along the way. Physical pain is one that often promises an end. But the pain of loss is eternal. It’s the heart’s way of reminding us how fragile it is. How easily it can shatter.

  Arms wrapped around his neck, I hold tight to Valdys, recalling all the nights I cried myself to sleep for him. Those were the nights Cadmus slept close, while still keeping his distance. He’d distract me with some benign conversation about the trees, or the sky, or someone we encountered in our travels that day. Conversations I found irritating at the time, but what I wouldn’t give to hear them again now. His mind was always troubled, always searching for distraction, but in those moments, he put his own preoccupations aside. For me. To be there for me, the only way he could.

  I hope the pill he swallowed finally brought him peace.

  “I remember the precise moment when I realized we were locked inside that hospital.” The sound of Valdys’s voice is a welcomed distraction. “All I could think of was you. How I’d never get to hold you again. Hear your voice. See your face. Protect you.” He clears his throat, and I know the words are hard for him, too. “But I remembered that I left you with Cadmus at that waterfall. I knew he would die before he’d let anyone harm you. That was the only comfort I took with me. The only thing that kept me alive. Was knowing you’d be safe with him and Titus.”

  As more tears gather in my eyes, I wonder how many a person can cry before they dry out. If there’s an endless supply of agony, or if it all comes to an end at some point.

  “He kept me safe.”

  “As much as they fucked with his head, I think his feelings for you were a source of clarity for him. Maybe the only clarity he’s ever known.”

  I bury my face in Valdys’s chest, letting his words absorb beneath my skin, past my ribs, where they stab at my heart. Perhaps, in time, his feelings for me would’ve waned, and we would’ve grown apart. But now, they’re a permanent piece of me, locked in a place I’ll visit someday, when the pain of his absence doesn’t hurt as much. When I don’t stand to be crushed beneath this horrible weight.

  We finally reach Gregor’s house, and Vald
ys sets me down. Rhys strides up the stairs, and before he can so much as knock, the door swings open to Legion soldiers.

  “Where’s Wren?” Rhys growls and lurches forward, where he’s stopped short by the line of guards.

  Valdys and Titus stand at his back, but at sounds from behind, they swing around, and I turn to see more Legion soldiers gathered in Gregor’s yard. Dozens of them. All armed with guns.

  “What the fuck did you do? Where’s Gregor?” Rhys plows through the Legion soldiers gathered in the foyer of the house, who eventually step aside. All of us file in after him, and Valdys threads his hands in mine, his body massive beside the soldiers we pass.

  “Fucking traitor,” one of the soldiers says from behind, and I turn in time to see him spit on Brandon. “Siding with the fucking rebels.”

  “You bastards let them die in there!” Brandon’s voice cracks as he rips the dogtags from his neck and throws them in the soldier’s face, where they clatter to the floor. He swings out at him, knocking the soldier in the face, and two more guards take hold of him.

  Valdys steps past me with a calm and easy stride, pinning one of the two soldiers by the throat against the wall.

  “Stand down!” The one Brandon punched shouts at him. “Fucking Savage!” His words have no effect on the Alpha, who clenches his jaw, watching the guard suffocate in his grasp. As another soldier raises his gun, I dash forward and place my hand on Valdys’s outstretched arm.

  He releases the soldier, who slumps to the floor, choking and gasping for breath.

  Giving Brandon a nudge from behind, Valdys urges him ahead and keeps his eyes on the surrounding Legion officers, as we follow after Rhys.

  One Legion soldier, bold enough to step in front of the line of Alphas, stands with his gun strapped across his body. He jerks his head for Rhys to follow, and I get the feeling if he didn’t move immediately, Rhys would’ve plowed through him, too.

  He guides us into the library, where Gregor and Wren sit strapped to a chair, gags in their mouths.

  “Wren, are you hurt?” Rhys asks the question through clenched teeth, and the way his shoulders are bunched, hands balled to tight fists, tells me he would rain hell on these men if she answered yes.

  She shakes her head.

  A man steps from behind a few of the Legion soldiers guarding Wren and Gregor. His clothes are fancy, too clean and new for him to have lived even a minute out on the Deadlands. His face is pale, shadowed in a salt and pepper beard that, along with the few grays in his hair, tells me he’s older. From his mouth hangs a cigar, like the ones Doctor Ericsson smoked from time to time, and the scent of it fills the room with the rich choking aroma I’ve grown to associate with evil men.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asks Rhys.

  “The man I’m going to kill before nightfall.”

  The Legion officers lurch, but when the man holds up his hand, they still once more. With an untrustworthy smirk, he paces on the other side of the desk, behind where Wren and Gregor sit. “I built this place. Dreamed it long before the Dredge ever hit, when the world was simple, and I was nothing but the son of a ruthless billionaire. He laughed at me, my father. At my ideas. And now? I’m guessing he’s rolling over in whatever shallow grave the Ragers left him in, because not even the ridiculously wealthy were immune.”

  “What do you want?”

  He pauses his pacing, and stares back at Rhys, before taking a puff on his cigar. “I want the only thing in this godforsaken cesspool of a world that I don’t have. The cure.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Well, you must have some idea, seeing as you killed my original delivery boy.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone. Karma bit him in the ass. Literally.”

  The man sighs and snorts a laugh. “So, you’re the great and powerful Six. Leader of the rebels. Feared killer of the Skulls. The most revered Alpha in all of Calico.”

  “I’ve heard of him,” Valdys whispers beside me. “He’s something of a strange phenomenon amongst the Alphas in S-Block.”

  “For what?”

  “His Alpha gene is supposed to be the most pure of any.”

  “I don’t know why, I thought of you as more beastly,” the stranger goes on, his eyes appraising Rhys from where he keeps his distance.

  “Sorry to disappoint.”

  “Indeed. I’ll make you a deal. You hand over the cure. I’ll release your woman. You’re free to go.”

  “Or how about I just kill everyone in this room, except my woman and the ones I arrived with.”

  Pointing his cigar at Rhys, the stranger smiles and shakes his head. “I believe you could. But you’d have to kill an entire Legion army to make it out of this community alive. And then get past the guards at the gate. I have no doubt you’re well versed in combat, but surely you have enough sense to know a stupid plan when it smacks you in the face. You’re outgunned, my friend.”

  “There are three syringes. I’ll give you two of them, in exchange for Gregor and Wren.”

  “I’m afraid that’s not sufficient. I want all, or nothing. Those are my terms.”

  “I’m not giving you all of them.”

  Hands behind his back, he sighs a second time, pacing behind Wren and Gregor once again. “You’re a man who needs proof of another man’s intent. I get it.” Lifting a long, slender piece of metal from the desk, one used to open envelopes, he sets his cigar in a nearby ashtray and runs his fingers along the edge of the opener. “Truly powerful men aren’t often swayed by words over actions.” Without warning, Szolen stabs the metal into the top of Gregor’s skull.

  Mouth gaping, I stare back at the old man, who turns to face Wren, his eyes holding nothing but confusion. As if it hasn’t registered that he’s been stabbed.

  “Homosexuals don’t belong in this world anymore. Neither do traitors.” Szolen attempts to remove the length of metal, but it’s lodged deep into the man’s skull. Instead, he flicks his fingers, and one of the nearby soldiers rests a proper blade in his palm. One harsh jab to the man’s throat, and Gregor’s eyes finally go wide with terror as his head falls to the side where he slumps, while the blood of his wound trickles down his neck.

  “Now, as I was saying. The cure. It belongs to me.”

  Brows pinched tight, Rhys’s eyes drill into the man, and I’m certain if they were only two left in the room, Szolen’s body would be lying on the floor beside his head. Seconds pass, the air thick with tension and the crackle of power between the two opposing forces, like two bolts of lightning ready to strike.

  “Very well.” Szolen jerks his head, and one of the guards presses the barrel of his gun to Wren’s temple.

  Rhys lurches forward, and three guards train their guns on him. “I will tear every one of you apart with my bare hands.”

  “You’ll die before you get the chance.”

  Beside me, Valdys unlinks his fingers from mine, and I know what’s on his mind, as he stares at the men with their guns.

  I want to tell him no, not to risk his own life, but it’s futile. This is a man who was designed to risk his life. He was created to dive headfirst into danger, and if he thinks I might be at risk in all of this, nothing I say will stop him.

  Rhys’s chest contracts and expands rapidly, the veins in his neck popping out, fists balled at his sides. “Fine. You win. I’ll give you the cure.”

  The very thing he risked his life for. Handed over. Just like that?

  “Rhys?” The name slips past my lips before I can stop myself, but he doesn’t bother to look at me as he slides the strap of the bag over his head as if already resigned to the idea of handing it over.

  Valdys lurches forward, and when he pauses beside me, I twist to see the Legion officers standing behind us, all of them pointing guns at the remaining Alphas.

  Holding out Jed’s satchel, Rhys offers it up as if the whole purpose for going down there is suddenly lost to him.

  My gaze flits to Wren, whose eyes fill wi
th tears.

  The man orders one of his soldiers to retrieve the satchel with a jerk of his head, and Rhys hands it off without hesitation.

  The soldier rifles through the bag and removes a small black case, opening it on three syringes tucked inside. Removing one of the glass syringes, Szolen holds it up, twisting it as a taunt. It slips from his fingers, crashing to the floor, and he crushes it under his too-shiny black shoes. The chuckle that follows must strike like blades along Rhys’s nerves. A second syringe is held up, and once again, he allows it to fall, where it smashes against the hardwood floors, and he grinds it beneath his shoe.

  Rhys lurches, stopped short by the barrel of a gun at his chest. “’The fuck are you doing?”

  “Do you honestly think a cure for the disease is going to make you better? Or that I would sit back and let a bunch of savages try to purify themselves? To become one of us? The pure. The uninfected. The only true human species left on this planet.”

  He holds up the last syringe, its clear liquid no indication of the power it possesses. Power that a man like the one standing before us is willing to seize and destroy.

  “Please.” There’s a shaky quality to Rhys’s voice, unfitting for a man so strong and impenetrable-looking.

  “I hold the last shred of hope for your kind. Without this, you don’t stand a chance of surviving. I’m told third generation hasn’t produced viable offspring, which means your dirty, infected, savage kind will die with you.” He tips his head, examining the syringe’s content, and my heart is racing at what he’ll do with it. Throat dry and hands trembling, I pray there’s one small shred of decency in this man, and he’ll preserve the last dose for Wren.

  Instead, he keeps his eyes on Rhys, letting the syringe crash to the floor. “It’s painful, isn’t it?” Bending down, he smiles, and lifts a small piece of the broken glass.