The room was filled with a flurry of movement. Guns were locked and loaded. Muzzles pointed at me and Kenya as soldiers filled the room.
“Pestilence has come,” Miles muttered as he lifted his head, cruel eyes seemed to stare through me. “Just like the preacher said…and I think I found her right here.”
I scanned the room, staring at the faces. “You think I’m Pestilence? You think I’m causing all this?”
“Miles, stop…she’s not the person causing the plague,” Kenya started pushing against the soldier in front of her. But there was no getting past as he shoved her backwards and raised the gun…there was a second where Miles waited, until he gave a nod. The soldier wrenched his rifle across his body and unleashed, driving the thick timber stock across her face.
“Kenya…no!” I lunged, punched, fists clenched and swinging as the wall of males closed in. “You goddamn bastard. She was here to help you…she was here trying to save you!”
“Take them down to the cage,” Miles snapped. “Let’s see how they do down there.”
Excitement grew like a tempest storm, and outside in the yellow clouds, a peal of thunder cracked through the sky. Kenya stumbled, holding her hand to her face. Blood trickled from the cut underneath to slip through the gaps in her fingers.
Someone grabbed the collar on my jacket and yanked, forcing me to scurry backwards. “You’re a fucking coward! A goddamn coward. Look at her. She risked her damn life to come here and help you!”
Miles crossed the floor and stopped in front of the backpack. He bent, grabbed the straps, and opened the top. Liquid sloshed against the sides of the vial as he pulled it free. “One of you is lying, and I intend to find out.”
“No, stop…no…Miles, you can’t do this. We had a treaty…we had a deal, remember?” Kenya clutched her head and screamed.
But it was useless…he was already walking away. There was no treaty. There was nowhere safe. There was only fists and fury…there was only the stairway as we left the fifth floor behind.
They wanted blood. It didn’t matter whose it was.
They wanted to take us to the cage and make us pay.
Dad’s words came to me now…don’t let them take you, Harlow. Once they do, you’re dead. Even if they don’t kill you, you’ll be dead inside soon enough. You fight, you understand me? You fight with everything you have, and you keep on fighting. You keep on living. You keep on doing exactly what I taught you, and you survive.
My steps blurred. I tried to swallow the lump in the back of my throat.
If this was the end, I wouldn’t cry—not for myself.
I’d be happy. Soon, I’d see my family again.
11
“We can talk about this!”
Kenya’s words rebounded through the stairwell as I stumbled down one floor after another.
“Please, Miles. Stop. We can talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about…not yet, anyway. I want the truth, Kenya, and it seems you’re incapable of that.”
He turned his head and stepped down, leading the way as we passed floor three, and then two…and one…still, I kept moving, heading lower back into the shadows, and into the dark
The rifle’s muzzle dug into my shoulder as he shoved. I winced and turned my head to the blown-out walls of the building. Light poured in. But instead of the sickening yellow clouds I was used to, these burned blood red.
A storm was coming.
A…reckoning.
The words welled in my chest as I kept descending, past the first floor to what had to be the parking garage beneath.
Light filtered in from the floor above, consuming the darkness from the middle out. Others moved, they whispered, they stared. I could feel their gaze on me, judging…condemning.
I saw in the right hand of Him who sat on the throne a book written inside and on the back, sealed up with seven seals.
The passage came to me now as I stepped down the last stair and stared at the mammoth cage in the middle of the empty garage. It was a fighting ring, a torture ring. Heavy chains hung from the grill overhead, bars on the door prevented escape. It was designed for one way in, and one way out, and that was dead.
Chairs hugged three sides, the ends of the seats almost brushing the bars, so their audience could get nice and close to the action—and on the fourth side, hidden half in the murky light, were two chairs…
I was betting one was for Kenya—and the other for me.
My stomach tightened, steps stuttered. Kenya fought, twisting and turning, her curls went wild, yellowed eyes were wide. I could taste her terror. “No…No, Miles. We can talk about this. Don’t do this. I’m begging you!”
Steel shone from the corner of the room. Baseball bats, dented and bloody, sat on a counter with crude equipment. I didn’t need to linger to know their use. They wanted the truth, by any means necessary, and yet…that was all I had to give.
I closed my eyes as the room swayed. My heart picked up pace, thundering inside my chest. Don’t let them take you, Dad warned me—and yet here I was.
Taken.
A tear slipped, warm and slick along my cheek.
The Calling was quiet inside me…there was no more vibration, no more leading me to the place where I needed to be.
There was only an emptiness, and out of the void of nothing came a clarity so cruel it buckled my knees. The ground seemed to rise up. I shoved out a hand and hit the ground. Pain flared, savaging my knee like a ravenous beast.
“Get up,” the cruel bastard sneered from above. “Move.”
I splayed my hands against the ground and stared at his filthy boots.
Maybe I deserved this?
Maybe I belonged here, in the dark, lost…just like them?
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…” The words consumed me, spilling like lava from my lips. I shoved, limped. My knee buckled before I swallowed hard and climbed to my feet to meet his gaze. “For thou art with me.”
Thick, bloody, mucous tears slipped from the corner of his eyes. Midnight pupils were blown, widening as I stared. He was dying—right here, right now. His jaundiced skin turned ashen, as though he’d been squeezed of life and wrung dry.
Concern flared, cleaving a valley between his brows as he took one slow step and then crumbled to the ground.
“Jesus Christ…Brendan…Brendan!”
Miles rushed forward, shoving me out of the way. Brendan wasn't moving, not moaning, not rolling. Just lying there…leaking.
"You fucking killed him..." Miles wrenched his head upwards, hatred flared in his eyes. “You killed my fucking brother!”
Hate flared, cold, cruel, and endless. I’d never seen such depths. Terror filled me as Miles touched the still form, and his fingers came away coated with blood. “Hunter,” he snarled and shoved to his feet. “Get this bitch to the chair."
“No.”
My heart thundered, driving that fear through my veins. Someone grabbed my arm, pulling me toward the darkness.