by Terina Adams
The air thinned with tension. The barriers holding my destruction within rattled with the fear and desperation welling inside of me. My power status bar would be red, I’m sure. Dad had always taught me to believe in myself, and I hadn’t. He’d said I had to go deep within if I wanted to be the best. Any emotion that held me back, I was to face it, hold it, befriend it, breathe it, become it, and only then would I control it. Only once I became that which I avoided the most could I then master it.
I turned my attention inside, felt the heat of destruction caress along my mind, soothe down my body, tingling and exciting all my nerve endings. There was no need for me to funnel my power down into my body to keep it harnessed, as Holden had once taught me, for it was already everywhere within me, snaking its way along my back, down my neck, around my muscles, and down to my feet. The fine hairs on my body stood erect as every part of me zapped alive, because destruction was my tool.
I was still unsure whose side Jax was on, which meant I had to do this on my own and allow him to reveal his intentions.
I had one chance to do this right.
My pulse thudded through my ears as I gathered destruction and focused on tunneling it outward in a single stream toward Carter’s desk. I gritted my teeth with the energy it took to restrain the amount of force that came through.
A fissure ran down the middle of the desk, then it exploded into pieces with a loud crack. The computer torpedoed into the wall behind while chunks of wood splintered outward like mini spears. In the chaos, I dived for Ajay, who’d thrown himself to the floor with lightning reflexes.
“Jax, the grafter.”
Please be on my side.
It didn’t need to be said. The grafter had also launched into the air and lay on the other side of the room. Jax was across the room in seconds and scooped it up.
For one horrible moment, our eyes locked, time seized, my breath too. Was my belief in him my greatest mistake?
“Take it.”
He threw it at me. As it left his hand, his eyes changed. Red began to soak his irises as he became bloodlust. A roar from behind and I spun to see the guy who’d escorted Ajay into the room pounding across the floor, lost in his own factional nature. Jax and the guy collided midair with a sickening crunch of bone. I grabbed the grafter and pulled Ajay close as Carter climbed to his feet and threw the desk that had landed on him aside, shattering its legs into the window. His bloodshot eyes glared wildly around. How sane were Aris during bloodlust?
I tried to cover Ajay’s eyes—after what he’d already witnessed, it was too late—and tunneled my ability, focusing on the back wall. As I released destruction, I sucked a little back, creating an inward vacuum, forcing the wall to explode inward. Large chunks flung forward amongst the billowing fine powder and pummeled down on Carter.
I had to get Ajay out of here.
Jax and the other guy were locked in a merciless battle. Conscious of Ajay by my side, I spun him around to shield him from the terrible sight of Aris in motion. I could protect him from seeing, but I could not blanket the sound of fighting, the agonizing cries of pain, the guttural howls of fury. I didn’t want to leave Jax, but Ajay was my priority.
I ran for the door as a chunk of plaster embedded in the wall close to the exit. I dragged Ajay low as Carter bellowed his rage.
The door opened and a man stepped in and froze on seeing the chaos inside. Two security guys came barreling up behind him, but the guy blocked the doorway, trying desperately to escape back the way he’d come.
My mind spun ahead a million seconds an hour, making plans to get out. The door was blocked by the idiot, so I made an exit by redirecting the destruction within and blasted a hole through the wall in front of me. This time I forced all my destruction outward, raining debris down into the next room. The guy sitting behind his desk dove for the floor and crawled under his desk.
“You gotta go, Ajay. Take this.” I shoved the grafter into his hand. I pulled my phone from my pocket, flicked through my contacts until I found Holden’s number. “When you’re in the lift, call this number. The guy’s name is Holden. He’s tall with blond hair. He’s waiting outside the building. Tell him he must take you away. See here.” Again I scrolled through my contacts list. “This is Mum’s number. Ring her and tell her you’re down on the street below waiting for her. Make sure she comes to meet you. Holden must take both of you with him. Do you understand?”
He shook his head. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t tell you now. Just do this for me, please.”
Ajay pressed his lips firmly, then yelled, “No.”
I yanked him toward me and shouted at him. “Don’t be a baby, Ajay. Dad didn’t raise a baby. Dad would never approve.” I was being a bitch, but I had to make Ajay listen. “Be strong like Dad taught you. Get Mum, then get out.” I shoved him away hard. “Go. I’ve got to help Jax. Holden will take you somewhere safe, where I can meet you. You can trust him.”
He froze in fear, eyes welling with tears.
“Please, Ajay, you’ve got to do this. And don’t give that to anyone but Holden. He’ll make sure you’re safe.”
I shoved him again. He stumbled, then turned and ran.
Chapter 38
Carter’s look of triumph was not a pleasant sight. I could end you. The thought like a drug, but I would kill what was good about myself.
On the ground in front of Carter was the guy who’d blocked the door, possibly out cold, or dead. The two security guards lay next to him; blood pooled around the middle of one guard. Playing Dominus, I’d seen enough blood, but this was not a game. The other security guard lay on his side. Apart from his woozy, uncoordinated attempts to sit up, he appeared fine.
The bloodlust had drained from Carter’s face. He looked calm and in control. “It’s time we slowed this down.”
Large gashes tracked from Jax’s face down his throat. His shirtfront was slashed and colored crimson red. Hopefully most of that was from the other Aris, but judging by the way he wavered when the guy released him, he had to be in pain. Any minute, I expected him to crash to the floor. A small justice came when his opponent, looking somewhat worse off than Jax, collapsed to his knees and coughed up blood. I turned away, not wanting to see. This was Carter’s doing—the satisfaction he must gain from seeing us fight without humanity in our soul.
I glanced at Jax. He looked out of his one good eye, the other fast closing. Blood trailed into his bad eye from a long, deep tear above his eyebrow.
“You cannot win, Sable. You must know that.”
“My chance of success is as likely as yours.” Because I could end you now.
Sweet Jesus, don’t think it. Don’t let this become you.
“And what do you hope to achieve? You’ve turned my best against me, but he is one amongst an army.”
“Do you really think Persal recruits will stay faithful to you? You’ll lose control of this fight.”
Conscious of Ajay making his escape, I had to keep Carter chatting. Ajay needed time to get Mum and find Holden.
“They will remain loyal long enough to complete the goal I set for them. I’ve found the minds of your kind particularly susceptible to brainwashing. You were not in Dominus long enough to benefit from the tweaks I made to the game, but most others have played for years. My view is the only view they have. They are incapable of questioning their actions.”
I looked to Jax, but his face was too much a bloody mess for me to tell if he knew or not. Likely not.
Carter looked at Jax. “Unfortunately, my tweaks do not work on those from my world.” He focused on me. “So, you see, it’s hopeless. As we speak, recruits from around the world are converging to the warehouse. Tyren is waiting there to greet them. At any time, I can signal the beginning.”
“It was Tyren who told you I was coming here.” The relief washed out through my voice. Elva was also innocent.
Carter’s answer was a smirk.
Not only was I overjoyed it wasn’t Jax
, I was also weirdly pleased it wasn’t Elva. She still hated me, but I admired her loyalty to Holden. To betray me was a betrayal to Holden. I needed at least one person in this screwed-up reality Carter had created to act with integrity. Besides Jax, I’d pinned my hopes on Elva; I wanted to believe love could mean that much. Somehow this revelation settled the destruction inside of me from a turbulent storm to a few gusty winds. “I thought it was Elva.”
“The bitch has a loyalty problem.”
“I’ve never found her loyalty lacking.” Jax staggered toward me, then stopped and rested a hand on his knee for support while he struggled to take a breath. I took his arm, indicating I was willing to take his weight. He looked up at me. “Elva warned me of what Tyren overheard last night and of what he told Carter.”
“Perhaps we should all sit down and relax. My men will arrive soon with your brother and mother. And Holden too, I hope.”
If the ground cracked open and swallowed me up, I would welcome the escape. Was there no end to Carter’s reach? He huffed a triumphant laugh at the expression I portrayed. It would be a pleasure to wipe that from your face. But not the way I wanted to. I would not sacrifice myself for what he desired.
“Only now do you learn the extent of my power. In fact, this is only the beginning. With one call, I can end your family, little girl. Just like dear old Dad. Jax tell you about that? How Nixon killed his dad for betrayal, then went on to eliminate the rest of his family because killing one wasn’t enough?”
“It was you all along.” Jax’s voice was weak. The effort it took for him to speak was written across his ruined face. “You pinned your betrayal on my father. The way I see it, you’re as guilty of their deaths as he.”
A man appeared at the door wearing black combat fatigues. Jesus, he had his own SWAT team, more lethal than anything the government could provide. Hair razored to his scalp, his tattoo was clear for anyone to see, a broken circle, Persal, one of my own, brainwashed to see only Carter’s truth. Unlike me, he would perhaps attack without thought to anyone in the building.
With a jerk of his head, he motioned for Carter to join him out in the corridor. Undecided at first, Carter glanced to us, his expression tight. He didn’t want to leave us. Likely deciding what the guy had to say more important, he stormed across the room and out into the corridor, making sure to position himself where he could see us.
As if only Carter’s presence had held him up, Jax sank to his knees. I crouched with him.
“Jax, you’ve got to get out of here. There’s no point in the two of us staying.”
“I won’t leave you.”
With the hem of my shirt, I wiped some of the blood from his good eye so he could see better. “Don’t try and be heroic. Just be safe.”
“You have no way of getting yourself out of here.”
“Neither will you if you stay any longer. You’re bleeding too much. You’ll lose your strength. I doubt whether Carter will be forgiving.”
Jax’s head drooped, shoulders following. The other Aris lay on the ground, his chest rising and falling.
“I have to make sure Ajay and Mum got away. I can’t go with you.”
Finding some strength, he looked me in the eye. “I’m not leaving you.”
This is what loyalty meant. Something Carter didn’t understand, didn’t care about.
“I won’t be long.”
Carter’s conversation wasn’t going well, hands gesticulating, the other guy standing back like he expected Carter to explode. Seeing his anger fed fire into my belly. If Carter was upset, something had gone wrong with his plan. There was hope.
I left Jax half kneeling on the floor and ran to the wall, sliding myself along until I reached the door, then inched my head around. Carter’s voice was low, a loaded threat. Elsewhere noises of chaos as people yelled, crashed about, tried desperately to evacuate from something they had to believe was a terrorist attack. Good thing too, but I needed to make sure everyone had gone. I scanned the area around Mum’s desk, then back down the corridor. What I looked for was on the wall near the entrance to the lift.
This would take precision and a lot of pain holding destruction in, but I could do it. My dad had said so. I focused inward and touched the thread of my factional nature. It flared up in response, eager to wreak havoc. I clenched my teeth with the effort it took to release a fraction of my potential. Using my finger as a directional guide, I pointed to the small red box mounted on the wall, feeding a snippet of my destruction along my finger in one thin shaft straight down the corridor. The glass of the box shattered, releasing the alarm.
No one fled from the rooms because they’d all been smart enough to escape when the fighting first began. However, the alarm would sound around the building, initiating a mass exodus, perhaps not the entire building, but at least the immediate floors below.
My eyes locked with the deep green of Carter’s. His mouth opened as his face screwed up about to yell something, but I was pinwheeling backward into the room, back toward Jax as the doorframe splintered behind me.
Something thumped across my shoulders, punched the wind from my lungs, and sent me sprawling across the carpet. A sharp burn singed my chin as I grazed my face along the carpet. I pushed up, coughing, gasping for air I couldn’t suck in.
“Jax, give me your phone,” I gasped, then turned over onto my back to see someone who was supposed to be my family, a Persal—loyalty thicker than blood, or so I’d repeatedly been told by everyone—stride through the remains of the door toward me, destruction in his eyes.
No thought, just instinct. I funneled another splinter of my power, ripping the carpet at my feet, sending it up into the air in a long sheet to descend on the guy now pounding toward us. Power released, I half turned to Jax. “Cell.” My voice come out nothing more than a squeak.
The carpet exploded into strips as something small hit me on the arm.
I crawled backward on my ass, swiping the phone as I went. The guy strode through the falling strips of carpet.
“Is that all you’re going to give me?”
I looked at the cell screen. “Password,” I squeaked to Jax, gasping breaths because my lungs still wouldn’t work how they ought to.
The guy darted his eyes over me to Jax. “You should see the state of your boyfriend. He ain’t looking too pretty.”
Jax’s broken voice came to me as I continued to shuffle backward on my ass, reciting six numbers that sounded like the hardest things for him to say.
Behind our tormentor, Carter sauntered through. “It’s a shame to lose competent players. You, I’m not too sad about, but it wounds me to say goodbye to my game master.”
I lay backward onto the floor and stared at the ceiling, a long way up. This time it wasn’t a nudge, a gentle tug, a slow release. I sent destruction up and yanked that sucker down. The explosive force shot backward as a roar filled my ears. I rolled onto my stomach as bits of ceiling came down. Shielding my head with my hands, I peered ahead to Jax as a jagged spear of plaster smashed down beside him.
I’d pulled part of the ceiling down without thought, down on us as well as them. The air filled with a cloud of debris and fine powder, clogging my throat, blocking my nose as pieces of plaster pummeled my back and tore through the skin on my arms.
Jax was right behind me, one eye swollen closed, the other a slit filled with blood. White had settled around him, through his hair, a coating of powder clinging to the blood on his face. Thankfully most of the chunks of plaster had found me, missing him. The tear above his eye was an ugly weeping wound. He’d collapsed down onto his side, propped up by an elbow, head sunk as blood dripped from his nose to the carpet, soaking through the moment it hit. Another dark stain pooled around his middle from wounds hidden under his shirt, wounds better not seen—or else I would fall apart.
I forced my eyes away, swallowed the panic down into my belly, and punched the code into the phone, then Mum’s number once I had access.
Jax barely moved. He wo
uld have nothing left in him to shift to safety.
Two rings and Mum answered. “Who is this?”
Someone coughed behind me. “The last dying fight of the helpless.” Carter coughed again.
“Mum.”
“Sable, where are you? What’s going on?”
“Are you and Ajay with Holden?”
Jax lifted his head, his face a hand’s reach from my own.
“Sable, tell me what is going on.”
“I applaud your effort. But I cannot let it go unpunished.” Behind me, Carter crunched his way through the debris.
“Just tell me,” I said into the phone.
I looked at Jax. He met my eyes, and I fed into my stare my plan, which wasn’t the best way to tell him, considering what I was about to do. Please have the energy to make this work.
“Sable, I want to know what’s going on.”
“Tell me.”
“Yes, yes, I am. I don’t understand what─”
I ended the call and gripped his cell in my hand.
“Jax,” I whispered. “Take my hand.” On my elbows, I crawled closer to him.
“You will be a lesson to anyone else who chooses their own path.”
I looked over my shoulder to see Carter had made his way to within yards of us.
“You’ve won, okay?” I said, hoping to placate anything the Persal guy could think to do in retaliation as I pulled myself closer to Jax. Close enough I hugged him to me as I slipped his cell into his back jeans pocket.
Carter sighed. “This is a pitiable sight.”
He was covered in white. It dusted along his eyelashes and formed an arc below his eyes. Blood trickled from a small cut left of his mouth. Other than that, he looked unharmed.
I turned to Jax. His head was bowed, so I lifted his face to meet my eyes with a finger under his chin. This wasn’t going to work. One look at him, and I knew it wasn’t going to work. But this was our last chance, our only choice. When I was sure he was looking, I nodded once.