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Jack had known anger before. He had known hatred. He had been in situations with the Command where he had been degraded to levels of shame and self-loathing that he couldn’t have anticipated. But never once had he felt such a roar of fury—
The dart gun went off with its characteristic pfffht, and as soon as he heard the sound, he wanted to curse the distraction of his emotions. There was no time to think or feel much more. The pinprick of pain in the pad of his pectoral was the calling card of the trance, and almost immediately, his body went limp and he fell to the floor.
The worst part of it was that as unresisting as his arms and legs were, his mind remained clear. And thus he was fully aware as the Command came to stand over him.
The hood turned to the guards. “Leave me. Stay by the door.”
There was a click as he was shut in alone with the Command, and then he was straddled, the black draping swinging as one black boot landed on the far side of him. The hood went back and forth as they shook their head.
“You bring a gun in here. I am so disappointed in you.”
As the Command leaned down, he felt his hand get lifted and tossed aside, his palm slapping into the floor as it landed as dead weight. And then the weapon was in front of his face, so close that if he were to focus on it properly, his eyes would cross.
“This. You bring this here to me.” Another hand appeared from out of the other sleeve, and the weapon was checked. “And it’s loaded—and it’s one of mine. You brought a fucking loaded gun from one of my guards to my house?”
The nine millimeter was drawn back across the Command’s shoulder, and Jack braced himself to be pistol-whipped—
Before he was struck, the Command spun off of him and stalked around, the black robes streaming out in the wake of the furious pacing. In his paralysis, Jack took satisfaction at the anger—
The Command stopped abruptly. “Did you think you were going to kill me? Did you think you were going to come here and kill me? You motherfucker.”
The gun rose toward him, the muzzle shaking ever so slightly.
Jack stared into the black hole where the bullet was going to come out. Over the course of his life, there had been a few incidents—not many, but a few—when he had entertained briefly the idea that he was going to die: An illness when he was young. His transition. And then twice since he had come to prison.
Nothing had been like this.
The sound that came out of the Command’s hood was guttural as the gun went off, not once, but many times—and Jack was utterly exposed in his paralysis. Not that anything short of a stone wall could have helped him. Pop! Pop! Pop! Pop—
Abruptly, the gun swung toward the door and the Command yelled, “Get the fuck out! You get the fuck out of here until I call you!”
The door was slammed, likely because those guards were afraid of being served lead as their last meal.
The Command stomped back over to Jack, double-palmed the gun, and trained it in his face. From this close, his head was going to blow up like a melon when they pulled that trigger.
And as he contemplated his death, his biggest regret was that he could not be sure whether Nyx had made it out safely. That he could not save her. That—
“Open your eyes!” the Command yelled. “You will open your eyes and look at me when I kill you—”
He hadn’t been aware of shutting his lids, but he reopened them because he would not be a coward. He would look his death in the face. All along, he’d know this was how it would end, and there was so much on his conscience, on his heart. Except it was too late.
The Command leaned down even farther. “You did this to yourself. You chose this—”
Jack moaned a denial.
“You bastard. You fucking bastard!” they barked.
More gunshots rang out and he didn’t flinch—and not just because he’d been drugged. He stared right at the hood, at the mesh that covered the face. The irony in all this was that the Command would suffer more than he did. This flight of their anger and retaliation was temporary; his death was permanent. There would be epic regrets, and if there was indeed a Fade? For all the Command had done, they were going to Dhunhd. No Fade for them. Meanwhile, he would wait for Nyx. For an eternity, he would wait for his female, his fighting angel who had showed him that however trapped he was, his soul remained free.
To love who he did.
Nyx.
—Pop!Pop!Pop!—
The ricocheting bullets stopped, the sharp ringing ended, the echoing explosions drifted into silence.
