“What? What’s wrong?”
“Nate! The girl had to be taken care of. You know the rules! We can’t have another” —Katsia paused just as I caught her glaring at me— “mistake out in the open.”
“Fuck you.” I flipped her off.
Bishop took another drag of his smoke, biting down on it. “Six.”
“What?” Katsia’s eyes flew between him and Nate. “I answered!”
“Yeah, but you see, we had a deal.” That was Bishop.
“The deal went out the window when she was born a swan,” Katsia retorted.
Bishop shook his head, taking the smoke out of his mouth. “The deal was that when the baby was born, I would say what happens—not you. You think you can run around and act boss bitch, Katsia? You forgot one thing.” Bishop threw the smoke onto the beautiful marble floor and squashed it with his dirty boot. “I’m the fucking boss around here.” Then Bishop’s elbow flew out to the guard beside him, knocking him onto the floor. Nate squeezed the other guard’s head and slammed it into his knees. Suddenly there was a swim of violent chaos lurking at my feet.
“We need to go!” Tillie pulled me up, but I yanked at her hand.
“No! I can’t leave them!”
“They’ll be fine, Mads, we need to go. Now.” Her eyes searched mine pleadingly like a silent conversation was being passed. Now, Madison.
Tatum came up behind Tillie. “Let’s go with her and let the boys finish the job here.”
My eyes went to Bishop just as his fingers dived into one of the guard’s eye sockets and he ripped out the balls of mush. Jesus. I watched in fascination as he then slid his blackout from his back pocket and slit it across his throat. Blood sprayed every, dancing in the thick breath of the Reaper.
I scrunched my eyes closed and nodded.
“Madison! Go with Tillie!” Bishop ordered. “Now!”
“Okay!” I snapped back at him, a jolt of shock rippling through me. My legs began following her out of the sitting room of carnage with Tate close behind me.
Tillie looked from left to right, checking the corridor, and then grabbed my arm. “Quick, we don’t have long.”
“Don’t have long for what, Tillie?”
I was answered with silence as she continued to jog down the hallway. We passed artwork knotted in serpentine strokes brushed onto blank canvases. We were all born as a blank canvas, perfectly untouched. Then life happens, and the more you age, the more paint you need. In the end, some of us would escape with our morals, leaving beautiful paint strokes from a tractable life behind on our canvas. But others, like me, will be ending with brushstrokes far too acrimonious to warrant us a ticket through the golden gates of whatever the fuck was waiting on the other side. No matter how unpleasant our canvas may be at the end, all that mattered was who was willing to gape appreciatively at us. My eyes caught a cabinet nailed to the wall. Quickly, I pulled it open and smiled when I saw it was lined with shotguns. Snagging the AR15, I checked the rounds and then quickly caught up to Tatum. Tillie pushed open a door at the end of the hallway and disappeared inside. I followed behind her and then Tatum, who I was hoping wouldn’t be too affected by not only Tillie being here but the fact that she had a kid with Nate. My head was spinning from the overload of information that it had collected over the past few minutes. I couldn’t dwell on it too much right now—couldn’t decipher my feelings in the middle of a war, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. About everything. All I knew was that I needed to follow Tillie. There was obviously something important that she needed to tell me or show me. She flicked the light on and I squinted from the influx of the brightness. Shading my eyes with my hand, I gazed around the room. It was small. No bed, a pile of boxes to the side. It smelled of dust mite corpses that had suffocated horrific deaths by the contained space and lack of oxygen. That’s when I saw hands clenched around the opening of a window.
“Daemon!” I whisper-screamed, just as he climbed up. He lifted the rest of himself through the window, and then gave me a small smile before turning back.
“What’s going on?” I asked, confused with the movements.
Tillie rushed towards him, her hand going around his waist as she peeked over the windowsill. I slowly started walking towards them, my eyes going around the room. They eventually landed on Tatum, who looked as confused as I felt.
“Dae—” a baby crying broke through. I paused, leaning outside.
Tillie took the baby that was wrapped in a soft pink blanket and cradled it to her. When I looked back out the window to see who it was that passed the baby through, all I could see was the back of a retreating Tinker.
“Figures,” I muttered, snickering at her retreat.
“She’s the good in this, Mads. I promise.”
I brushed her off, which I guess I didn’t have much evidence to do that. She did help Tate and I escape, and she’s been nothing but helpful, but there was always a nudge in my gut when it came to her. Confusion, or something else, I wasn’t quite sure yet.
“Okay,” I breathed out, leaning against the windowsill. “Okay,” I repeated.
“She’s not okay,” Tate mumbled under her breath.
My chest tightened and the grip I had around the wooden edge compressed. A cold sweat broke out over my brow, my breathing coming in shallow heaves, then a cool, yet familiar hand brushed against my arm. I slowly whistled out the pent-up breath, my eyes going to Daemon. “What do I make of this, D?”
His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. His eyebrows crossed. “I don’t…” then he paused, before continuing. “All good things, Madison.”
“We’re going to work on your English when we get back,” I mumbled my reply grumpily under my breath.
There was another cry. Turning around, my eyes fell on the little bundle that was wrapped up tightly in Tillie’s arms. I couldn’t see her face, and I wasn’t sure whether I was capable yet. Something told me I should wait—until Nate at least gets to see his daughter first. I felt as though I was trespassing on his turf by just looking at his baby before him.
“I’m sorry, Mads. The whole thing is so complicated, and I—”
“—don’t have to explain right now.” I offered her a small smile. “We have a two-hour flight you can fill me in on. For now, we need to go look for the boys.” Just as the words left my mouth, the door smashed open and Bishop stood on the threshold, shirtless with blood splattered all over his abs and his chest drawing in and out. His shoulders lifted and dropped as he sucked in each breath. I jolted to him, going on instinct to see if he was okay, but his eyes cut to mine and I flinched. His eyes were black orbs of hell and in that moment, he was barely recognizable. I stilled, my fists clenching together.
“Bishop…”
He shook his head at me, and then kicked the door open wider to let Nate, Jase, Hunter, and Saint walk in behind him. They looked like they had just stepped out of World War III.
“Fuck,” Nate coughed out, stepping backward to stabilize himself.
There was a long pause until Tillie finally broke the silence. “Do you want to hold her?”
Nate’s eyes closed, a hiss escaping between his teeth. He dropped to his knees, the silence was enough to haunt me.
I began slowly drifting to Nate, ignoring the pull I was feeling between Bishop and I. “Nate?” I whispered, although my voice came out shaky. “You can hold her…”
“Can’t.” He shook his head, choking on his words and standing back to his feet. “Not like this. We need to leave. Now.”
“He’s right,” Bishop agreed. “We only got rid of who was there, and amongst all the bullshit, Katsia slipped away.”
“Well, of course she did.” I rolled my eyes. I hated her.
“She doesn’t know Micaela is alive. We just have to make sure we can sneak out before then.”
“And what the fuck makes you think you should be alive?” Nate seethed, his eyes cutting to Tillie. The energy in the room immediately shifted. Unease oozed through me.