How Beauty Loved the Beast

chapter Nineteen



“The price of anarchy, Jolie Benoit.” Pierce’s voice was soft against the crackle and hiss of the fire and the heavy gasp of her sobs.

Jolie wanted to strike out at him but couldn’t find the strength to do anything but clutch at the marble steps and cry. Her strength was burning away on a pyre.

Pierce stood above her, somehow regal even in his ridiculous toga-like getup, and stared down at her with unflinching gray eyes. “Tomorrow we’ll give you your own choice.”

“F*ck you, Pierce.”

He continued like she hadn’t spoken. “We’ve already given your reporter friend the tattoo. He may have run off, but he will come back to us soon. Meanwhile the others we’ve inoculated are programmed to secure the Underlight, infect those they can with the potion and report back to us your location so we can take care of any stragglers. The Underlight is dead, Jolie. You have until morning to consider carefully your choices. We give you this option in honor of your father. But whether you join us willingly or not, you will be one of us tomorrow.”

He left and it didn’t matter. Hauk was dead. They could do what they wanted, and she wouldn’t give a damn. Her reason for fighting was gone.

Together. She and Hauk were supposed to be together to the end. He’d promised.

A dark chuckle behind her made her hackles rise. She didn’t turn away from the fire, couldn’t tear her eyes off of Hauk’s blackened body, but she sat up straighter.

“I hope you keep that bad attitude, hotness. I’ve been promised a nice present for my hard work.” Ric’s voice snaked around her, oily and chill-inducing.

The revulsion that prompted broke the thrall of Hauk’s remains. Hatred seethed through her blood. She aimed it at Ric with all the withering disdain a Benoit could muster. “It would take more than a lobotomy to get my hands on you, a*shole.”

He grinned. “I don’t think you’ve got it in you to give in. I think you’re doomed. And that will make you mine.”

She stepped toward him, nails ready to sink into his skin, but he stayed just out of reach. “Coward.”

“You have no idea what they can do.” His grin turned into a snarl. “But you’ll find out what I can. And then I’ll dump you for the next pretty bitch who comes along.” He blew a kiss off his fingers. “Hasta mañana, hotness.”

She lunged against the chain, straining to reach him as metal ground against metal, holding her back.

He laughed and turned around lazily. So confident.

Her arm couldn’t reach him, but she bet her foot could. She executed a roundhouse, leaning into the chain for leverage. With a satisfying thud, her shin connected with the back of his skull.

He stumbled forward, yipping like a puppy and grabbing his head. He glared venom at her. “You’ll pay for that.”

She wagged her fingers in a “come and get me.” He could probably beat her in a fair fight, particularly with one of her hands bound, but she didn’t care.

Instead of advancing, he spit on the steps at her feet.

“Coward!” she yelled. “You’re not half the man he is. Programmed murderer.”

“Maybe, but I’m the one standing here with a gun in my holster, and he’s the one roasting.”

Jolie yanked against the chain, straining for him again. “Come back and fight, a*shole! Come back!” No matter what she yelled, he ignored her all the way around the temple and out of sight.

The scream built from deep inside, an animal sound of fury and despair. She faced the fire. Keening her pain to the sky, she could swear she felt her heart break.

* * *

Screams of the zombied citizens echoed through the halls as Mercy sprinted to the shop. The door was cracking. If it burst, a flood of infected people would likely overwhelm their defenses. But that lock and those hinges were designed to discourage mischievous kids, not hold back a determined tide.

The bursting door, of course, would be the least of their problems if the handful of pendejos who’d refused to be tested and came up infected managed to beat their way past a guard station and escape to bring Ananke down upon them.

Somebody else was dealing with that containment. She had to make sure these doors held.

“How’re we doing?” she asked the guards. But she didn’t need to see their wide-eyed stares to know. The relentless pound and creak said those doors weren’t long for this world. Nearly two-dozen people were throwing their weight against the wood. “Ay, Virgen.”

“Incoming!” yelled from around the corner.

One of the knitting crew streaked down the hallway at breakneck pace, brandishing what looked like a bloody knitting needle. A guard from the main room staggered around the hallway, bleeding from his side.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Mercy raised her tranq gun and aimed for the knitter’s thigh.

The dart hit true, and the knitter paused midstride. Fought forward a step. Fell.

The door groaned behind Mercy, and she threw her back against it. “She did that with a knitting needle?”

The guard fell back against a wall, breathing hard. “She stabbed herself in the arm and then me. It’s not deep, but damn.”

Another pound on the door. “Stabbed herself? Why?” That was disturbing.

“No...idea...” The guard sank down, eyes suddenly heavy.

“Chris? What’s going on?”

His eyes fluttered closed as he rested against the wall, clutching his side.

Her muscles tensed for action, pushing down the flutter in her gut. “You’re freaking me out, man. What’s happening?”

Eyes clearing, he raised bloody fingers toward her.

“Yuck. Get to the doctor. We’ll hold ’em.” The only people excused from guard duty were Doc Benson and Tally and LaRoche, the former to care for injuries and the scientists to keep working on an antidote.

Mercy had little hope for that. The pair hadn’t slept in two days. She and the other guards had to hold the fort physically until Hauk and Jolie got back, hopefully with a solution to the formula. Something LaRoche could study and replicate quickly.

Chris sank to the floor to study the unconscious knitter. “I’ve got this. You get to the main room.”

“Why, more knitting-needle-wielding crazies? You don’t look like you can handle anything right now, much less this breaking dam.” There was something off about Chris’s eyes. “Seriously, man, take a break. Go see Benson.”

He lunged at her. Mercy ducked and tripped him.

The bloody knitting needle arced toward her side. She stepped away and brought the gun up to his neck. “What are you doing?”

He swiped. She shot. The dart pierced home, whipping his neck to the side and throwing him back. Her friend glared at her with such vitriol she hardly recognized him.

The other guards stared. “Was he infected?”

The door groaned behind her.

She looked from Chris to the needle and paled. “Viral. LaRoche said it worked virally. They’ve been programmed to infect the rest of us with their blood.”

A vicious slam, and one hinge popped. Fear jerked in her belly, insistent. Again she shoved it back. There was no time to be afraid. She dropped her empty clip and slammed another one in. She’d spent the day filling as many vials as she could while Tally bolted together a gun that could shoot repeating darts. It wasn’t the most accurate weapon she’d ever owned—by a long stretch. But she’d practiced enough to get the hang of it. She’d managed to make enough darts to down the known population of infected people and a few to spare, but if Ananke’s formula was infectious...

Her gut turned leaden. “I can’t tranq them all.”

“We can’t hold them,” the guard grunted, pushing against the doors.

They couldn’t. The doors wouldn’t hold, and who knew how many people in the common room were infected by now? Somebody was going to escape. They had to do something else. “You’re right,” she said. She couldn’t tranq them individually, but maybe there was a way to get large numbers at once. “Hold the doors. I’ll try to get a canister.”

She turned for the lab. LaRoche had spent over a year developing a formula to drop Hauk in his rage state. Surely he had something that would work.

A booming crack. Screams. The door had opened.

She glanced back. Brayden led the charge out of the shambles of the Underlight’s shop. He winked at her and raised one hand, handcuffs dangling from his wrist. They’d double-chained him, knowing he’d be able to pick the shop lock. Apparently he’d picked the cuffs, too.

He pointed, and the crowd surged toward her. Mercy ran, her heart in her throat. She had to reach the lab. If she, Tally and LaRoche couldn’t sedate the whole damn Underlight, they were doomed.