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The closer we draw to the Raven Pack’s town, the noisier the dark magic’s signal becomes. Like I’m approaching a nuclear reactor with a Geiger counter. And it starts to develop a unique signature, too. This isn’t some random member from my Blood Pack.Simon. I can’t be sure, but my instinct tells me it’s him. I both want that to be true and not at the same time. It’s like my emotions are pitting my will to resolve this conflict against the dread that it’ll only conclude when one of us dies.
The path emerges into a clearing. A backyard. The house it belongs to burns, voracious flame consuming its timber. Just outside its backdoor lies a body, mutilated, strewn across the lawn.
Like with my own pack.I fight the flashes of memories that threaten to drag me down as we continue on.
Braxton is suddenly at my side. “Slow, deep breaths.”
And even though I want to be annoyed that he senses my struggles, I do as he suggests, and some of the panic eases. This is not my home. These are not my people. These are my enemies.
I hope.
As we round the house and enter the street, it’s more of the same. Bodies and fires everywhere, a town decimated by an unknown force.Is it unknown?I fight against the presumption my brother’s responsible for this.
Would he be guilty if hewasresponsible?These people slaughtered our kind. They were our enemies. And yet, as we traverse the bloody aftermath, I can’t help picturing the fear in their last moments, like an echo from that terrible night. Even if they were monsters.
And then there was the more important piece of this puzzle.Did my people, their prisoners, survive this? Or were they casualties of whatever happened here?
THIRTEEN
Braxton
Trouble whimpers at my side,clearly distraught by what he sees.Shades of our Middle East missions. I know he thinks it too. Dogs are more intuitive, emotionally intelligent, and complex than we give them credit for. Sometimes I feel like our connection allows me to read his mind. And he mine.
Sometimes I feel closer to Trouble than I do my own twin.
I turn my head to watch him, steely gaze sweeping the neighborhood, passing over the carnage with the same deceptive indifference he exhibits while driving.Is it deceptive?It’s like there’s a simple switch on his heart that allows him to disassociate whenever it’s convenient for him.
But then, around Asha, it becomes easy to feel once again. I wish I was more like that instead of this broken soldier. I envy his tenderness when it’s needed. I feel that my own ability was stolen, if indeed I ever had the capacity. With Asha, I think I have some softness still inside, but perhaps there’s still something in the way, something that threatens to spoil the budding connection between us.
“I have to call this in,” Max announces. He turns to Orson. “Run back, grab your computer. I want a bird’s-eye view of this place. And be careful if this is the same thing as before…”
“The Blood Mages,” Orson says with a knowing nod.
“Yes,” Max says, lowering his voice. “If you see anyone, run like your life depends on it.”
“Sure thing,” says Orson before bounding back down the trail like some fucking blond Easter bunny.Something is wrong with that boy.
Max shoots me a look that says watch over Asha, before pulling his phone out and venturing into the woods to make his call. It’s funny. The guy has always been a born leader, but also always seemed to hate working with other people. He acts like every move anyone makes is his responsibility, which, I guess, it is, but I’ve never worked with anyone like him before. My old leaders either left me alone or ordered me to do horrible things.
Which makes Max obviously the better leader, I guess.
When Max disappears from view, I draw my attention away from him. Like Trouble, I’m on high-alert, looking for any sign of danger. My gun sling is around my shoulder, ready to be pulled into a shooting position when needed. If another fucking Blood Mage tries to screw with my mind like last time, I’ll kill him before he can succeed.
Asha, Trouble, and I stand in the middle of the street, surrounded by dead bodies, the roar of near and distant fires all around us. Trouble upturns his head, looking at Asha with concern, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Despite her features frozen in a blank thousand-yard stare, he can sense as well as I can that something isn’t right inside Asha’s mind.
While I wrestle with the decision whether or not to say something, Asha starts to shiver and makes the choice for me. Taking her by the arm, I lead her out of the street, where we’d been using large rubble in the road as cover, into a side-yard between two unburned houses. I turn her face to meet my gaze, but she doesn’t see me. Asha’s somewhere else, transported by the sights, sounds, and smells of the aftermath of violence.
Fuck. I recognize that gaze, I know that world. The PTSD that claws and eats at you until you want to rip your own heart out to be free of it. The only reason I’m not worse than I am is because of Trouble. When you have a living, breathing creature that needs you to help it heal, and it relies on you to survive. You have to say fuck it to your problems and do exactly that.
The other officers wanted to leave him behind, said he’d never live. Not after all his injuries. But I wouldn’t let him die, and he never stopped fighting to live.
I wish there was something like that for Asha. A purpose outside of revenge against the Blood Mages. Something I could help her with, because right now I feel as useful as a chocolate teapot, standing rubbing her arms gently.
“Asha, you’re safe. Look at me.”
She doesn’t look at me. The color is drained from her face. Her eyes are staring at nothing at all.
“Take deep breaths.” I try to think of all the things I’ve done to get out of that dark place, but I can’t dunk her head in cold water. I won’t slap her. Screaming could bring our enemies down on us. “Touch something. Look at something. Remember where you are.”
