by Renard, Loki
“Take a deep breath, and remember what it feels like to have the sun on your face. The warmth on your scalp. A soft breeze playing across your skin. You can feel it tickling you a little when it gusts gently. And you’re safe, so safe, in this place where you are protected.”
I can feel the sun. I can sense the wind. Silver’s voice builds a place in my mind outside this dark little survival shack. He lulls me not only toward sleep, but toward a feeling of being so completely cared for that I know I will be safe, no matter what. The dream world rises around me, mixing with Silver’s words until I drift away, held in the arms and the words of the man who saved my life.
Chapter Ten
The door clangs. Cool early morning light and colder morning breeze rush in. I open my eyes and let out a piercing scream as I look into a terrifyingly brutal, bloodied face.
It takes my sleep-addled mind far too long to realize that it is Pharaoh. And he is not alone. He has come dragging Tore behind him. They are both badly injured, and my foolish shrieking has not done a thing to improve the situation.
Silver and Alexios leap into action. Tore is laid down on the stretcher I vacated. He does not look good. He is breathing, but only just, and doesn’t seem to be conscious. His body looks like it has been haphazardly gift wrapped with blood-red bows, but I know they are tourniquets, attempts to stop further blood loss.
Pharaoh slumps down on the floor next to Tore. “I’m fine,” he lies. “Help him.”
Silver and Alexios do their best with the limited medical kit they have. They start an IV fluid drip. They clean the wounds. They try to find the source of the bleeding, and they find it in a few places.
It is messy. It is squelchy. By the time they leave him be, hours have passed and they are just as bloody as Pharaoh. Tore seems to be no better, but also no worse. He lies there, insensate, rasping his breath as the others try to wash the blood from their hands and question Pharaoh as to what happened.
“Everyone’s gone,” Pharaoh says. “All of them. They killed. Everyone.”
“You sure...”
“I saw Keanau and Rick go down at the beginning. They ran toward the fire...” Pharaoh takes a deep labored breath. “Steve almost made it out, but they surrounded him. There wasn’t anything I could do. Tore was bleeding out when I got to him. I did my best. But he’s going to need surgery. Those rounds ripped through him.”
Surgery? We can’t do surgery here. This is a cross between a hole in the ground and a shack.
I stand back, stunned, trying to process what Pharaoh is telling us. The names he uses aren’t ones I know. But I can deduct who they belong to. Rick. That must have been Cowboy’s real name. I never knew it until he was gone. And Steve must have been Zen.
The silence in the room is heavy. People are dead. And not the small people, the ones we don’t know. The ones who don’t matter because we don’t know their names. Our people are dead.
Alexios, Silver, and Pharaoh are utterly destroyed.
I feel grief. Their grief. My grief. Our losses rolled into one.
But that grief is not allowed to paralyze. After a few minutes, they begin to tend Pharaoh. He has a round buried in his arm, and one in his shoulder and another in his thigh. He lies, stoic as they dig them out and clip the skin closed over it.
The strength these men have is unbelievable. Nothing daunts them. Nothing stops them. Not even death. While they work, Pharaoh talks, answers their questions.
He and Tore had to hide overnight, so he knew what was happening around them.
“There’s forces from San Antonio and Houston fighting over the city. And there’s more coming. They’re bringing everything they’ve got. It’s war.”
War.
The word makes my stomach churn.
My father told stories of war. I have not seen it in my lifetime, but the scars left from the previous conflicts are easily seen everywhere in our world.
There hasn’t been a war in decades. Not since the city states were fully formed. The sheriff’s death led to this. I led to this. I killed one man, and now many more are dead and many more will die.
“War never changes,” my father once told me. “It never gives, only takes, and it ends only when so much blood has been spilled that both sides are too weak and gutted to taste another drop.”
Mattias tried to warn me that what I had done wouldn’t change anything, would probably make it worse.
But I didn’t understand, and it was too late anyway.
He’s dead. Elias is dead. Keanau. Zen. Cowboy. All dead. And Tore... the man who took the last of my innocence, he is dying.
I crawl up onto the stretcher beside him. I am very careful not to hurt him as I press a soft kiss to his bruised cheek and whisper, “I’m sorry.”
He makes a soft grunt. His eyes open. Those beautiful blue orbs now utterly glazed with pain.
“I’m so sorry,” I cry softly. “Tore, for everything.”
“Is... okay,” Tore says, his voice weak and husky. He is forcing words that should not come.
The others slip to the other side of the bed. We gather around the mortally wounded man and we watch, knowing what is coming. I heard them talking. He needs surgery. But there can be no surgery here.
“I don’t want you to die,” I whisper, hot tears running down my cheeks, dripping onto his skin, making a little rivulet of red run down the side of his face.
“We... all die,” he rasps. “Live first. Live... first.”
With those words, he slips back into unconsciousness. I start to sob, but nothing is bringing him back now. This beautiful, powerful, masterful man has been destroyed by the death I brought to this part of the world. This is my fault. This is...
“Trissa. Come over here. You need to eat.”
I refuse. I will not eat. I will not drink. I will not do anything until the inevitable happens. I will stay right here. I will be by his side as he passes. Because that is all I can do now, and I will damn well do it.
The day is long. The others try to cajole me away several times, but I will not move. I cling to Tore, watching every labored, shallow breath he takes until finally exhaustion draws me down.
* * *
The next day is very much the same. Tore is weak, and growing weaker. I overhear conversations nobody should ever have to hear, let alone have.
“...him out of his misery,” I hear Silver murmur to Alexios.
“No.” Alexios shakes his head. “He may recover.”
“He’s bleeding out,” Silver rumbles softly. “There’s the slow death and the quick one. I know which one I’d rather have.”
“He has her,” Alexios whispers, flicking his eyes to where I lie, cuddled up with Tore. “Let him have her as long as he can.”
That ends the conversation, or at least, what I can hear of it.
I am devoid of hope. I am numb with misery. I never wanted to be sold to these men, and now they have laid down their lives for me. Tore has me by his side, but Keanau, Cowboy, Zen, they died holding off the invaders. They died to keep me safe. I owe them a debt I will never, ever be able to repay.
Weak fingers curl around my hand. It’s Tore.
He looks into my eyes. I look into his, as best I can through the welling tears.
“I... was always... going to die,” he breathes. “But... I... had... you... first.”
“I am so sorry,” I sob, my hot tears making his pale skin all wet.
I see a spark of light blaze in those stunning blue eyes.
“Worth it.”
* * *
Those are the last words he ever says.
Another day dawns. I wake with a start, sensing in my sleep that I have missed something important. The body beside me is no longer taut with pain. Instead it is just heavy and hard.
“Tore?”
I reach out to touch him. My fingers brush his cheek. He is cold to the touch. Too cold for any living being. He is gone.
The cry that erupts from my throat is almost inh
uman. It wakes the others from their slumbers and it begins the mourning of a man who deserved so much more than this.
I clutch Tore, wrap my arms around him and refuse to let go. In the end, Alexios and Pharaoh have to transfer my miserable grasp to Silver while they wrap Tore’s body in the blanket on which we laid, and move him to the very back of the shelter, where it is coolest. We will bury him later. We will bury him when we find the others and bury them.
It is strange, but there is some odd comfort in him being there. It is just his body, but we are less alone for it. That is twisted, I know, but when my father died, his body was taken by scavengers. I never said goodbye to him. I ran and I ran and when I returned there were just bones, scattered about. I buried them as best I could, alone in the desert. This time, I will not be alone.
“It’s my fault,” I sob into Silver’s neck.
“We are mercenaries,” Silver says. “We expect death, court it. We have lost men before. We may again.”
“No! No more!”
I can’t bear it. Grief is tearing me apart. All my life, everything I have loved has been taken from me. I did not know Tore long, but I did love him. I loved him because he was my first. Because he branded me with his body, left his seed inside me. Because he never took any shit from anyone, and because in the end, he died for me—and I know what it means when a man lays down his life for a woman.
“Shhh,” Silver comforts me. “We’re not going to die any time soon. That’s why we are down here with you, not up there fighting. We’re going to look after you.”
“You have to promise me you won’t die.”
“I can’t promise that,” he says gently. “But I can promise you that none of us are going to forget what Tore and Keanau and Zen and Cowboy did for us.”
“They died and I didn’t even know their real names. I didn’t know... anything about them. They died for nothing!”
“Not for nothing,” Pharaoh interjects. “We came for you, Trissa. We came for the virgin with the blonde hair, the sheriff’s captive. We came to take his life and claim you for our own. We never expected to be successful in one endeavor, let alone both. There was a reason seven of us set out. We knew we weren’t all going to make it back.”
I try to take a deep breath and calm myself. “You came to die?”
“We came to chance our luck,” Alexios adds, drawing closer to me. “There is nothing in this world for a man anymore. There is no meaning to endless battle without home or family. We swore a long time ago that we would find a woman and make her our own. That she would bear our children and we would protect her and them. We took the contract on Dallas. We should have foreseen the invasion, if not the betrayal.”
“So you think... you think the people who sent you to kill the sheriff also sent soldiers to kill you?”
“Would you keep men around who have proved themselves willing to murder for money?” Alexios smirks the question. “We’re a tool in the hands of desperate men, one they want to melt down when the deeds are done.”
“We didn’t realize how quickly the word would travel, and how swiftly the other city states would act. That was our mistake, not yours,” Silver agrees. “Four survivors out of eight is not a bad number.”
In more civilized times and places, what he is saying would be a horror, but he is right for this time and this place. Half of us are still here. Pharaoh has made a swift and strong recovery. I suspect, though I do not know and will not ask, that Alexios and Silver used the bulk of the antibiotics on him, while giving Tore most of the painkillers. In the end, it was all they could do to ease him out of this world and into the next.
Their explanations make sense, but my guilt still writhes in my belly.
“I am sorry,” I apologize to Pharaoh. “It was the dress...”
“Stop,” he says. “This is not your fault.”
“If I hadn’t...”
“The sheriff sealed his own death when he took you. He should have been more careful. This war is not because of you. It is because of men who must conquer all they encounter.”
I smile a little, but mostly because I am glad to hear him speak. The strength in his voice is encouraging. His wounds will still take time to fully heal, but they will heal.
“I need to know your real name,” I say, crouching next to him. “I don’t want you to die, and I don’t even know who you were.”
“Oren,” he says. “And I have no intention of dying.”
“Neither did Tore. Neither did any of the others...” I am starting to get upset again.
“We are mercenaries. We court death. And we should have been more careful. Stop blaming yourself. There is no blame here. There is only life and death, as there always has been.”
He is so perfectly stoic. It is an attitude Alexios and Silver seem to share, and it makes them strong. I can see them grieving their friends. But they are not breaking down. It is not making them weak. They accept their losses and appreciate what they have all the more.
Now what?
That becomes the question. Now there are four of us. Now there is a war raging. Now the cities that were once safe are in chaos, and there is every chance the war will spread. Houston and San Antonio will leave themselves open to attack by sending troops to Dallas, and other cities will take advantage.
We discuss this and many other things and come to the conclusion that this could easily be the catalyst that plunges the entire country back into conflict.
“Don’t you dare feel guilty for that,” Alexios points his finger at me sternly before I can begin to proclaim my blame.
“We move,” Pharaoh says. “We find somewhere remote and fortified and we gather our strength. We let the war unfold. We see what comes of it in the end. We do not let the sacrifices our brothers made be in vain, by wasting what we have now.”
“But where do we go?” Silver asks.
Finally. A question I can answer.
“I know.”
Chapter Eleven
Two months later...
We return to the home my father built, far out in the rocky ridges. The journey takes several days, and we must go slowly so as not to stress Pharaoh. We are all laboring under supplies. We bring Tore with us, and when we arrive, he is placed to rest under the acacia bush where I put my father’s remains. It looks out toward Dallas, and there they both lie sentinel. Tore, and my father, watching over us for all time.
We make our home in the one-room shack my father built, and we learn how to live together in some semblance of peace. I find comfort in the small things, because the small things are all I have.
“Your father did well here,” Alexios says, his muscles rippling in the sunlight. He is shirtless, as are the others. They are working on trying to irrigate a patch of dirt with the runoff from the spring where I get my water. They want to grow seeds and plants.
“He did,” I say, feeling no small amount of pride at his appreciation.
We are all doing well. I know how to hunt, as do they. Together we have caught enough wild game, coyote, and small birds mostly, to feed us. We are surviving well here, perhaps even beginning to thrive.
This is strange for us all. At first, our grief made the beauty of the place seem melancholy, but slowly we are all regaining our spirits. Silver, Alexios, Pharaoh are all my men. I belong to them. They belong to me. Blood has been shed in the making of our bonds, and only blood will dissolve them.
“You don’t want to go back to your sponsors? You don’t want to go make all that money you wasted buying me?”
“That was not a waste!” Alexios’ hard palm finds my bottom sharply. “Worth every cent we scraped together.”
“It was millions. And you never got it back. It’s sitting in Dallas.”
“What do we need money for out here? Are we going to pay the eagles?” Pharaoh makes a smirking joke.
“Well, no, but you were rich.”
“Money is a tool. Not an end. We have you. That’s what we wanted.”
“But you didn’t need to buy me in the end...”
“No,” Silver says, coming up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist and nipping the back of my neck lightly. “We just needed to hold you down and fuck you in front of every man in the city.”
I have not had sex since Tore. They have given me time to heal emotionally, but I know their lusts are rising. As is mine.
The thought of his name gives me a pang of sadness, but it is a bittersweet feeling. I am sad because I cared for him. I am sad because I lost him, and that is because I had something to lose. And not just Tore. I lost Keanau. I lost Zen and Cowboy before I even knew them. They died for me, just as all these men will.
One day I will lose these men too. Or they will lose me. We cannot have each other forever, and the mere thought of that can bring me to tears at times.
“I can’t stand it,” I sob softly. “I wasn’t worth it. I wasn’t worth what you lost. I wasn’t worth anyone’s life.”
“You bring life as much as you take it,” Pharaoh rumbles.
“That’s not true,” I sniffle. “I’ve never even managed to grow a potato. And potatoes grow on their own!”
There is a little snort behind me as Silver finds amusement in what was not a joke.
“Tore lives in you,” Pharaoh says, approaching me to wipe away my tears with the pad of his thumb.
“His memory maybe, but that is not life. That is just a slower death.”
Pharaoh’s amber gaze catches mine. He speaks with an intensity I do not understand. “You have not bled.”
“That’s because nobody has gotten close enough to cut me.”
They all look at each other.
“We have been here eight weeks. You have not bled,” he says, speaking slowly. “Do you not understand the significance of that?”
“Oh!” I understand what he is talking about. My period has not come. “I have been too stressed, I suppose.”
“Or you are already with child.”
“But...” I stare at him. Why did I not think of this before? I never considered it. Too focused on death to think of life, too convinced I only brought bad things to hope that something good might come from me. “It was only one time.”