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“Nah. He can wait. But we need to regroup. Need reinforcements. Need to get rid a’ the bodies.”
“We’ll burn the zombies,” Whiskey says.
“No. No.” I clutch Echo tighter to me, her light breath fannin’ my neck. “Burn all of ‘em.”
“Absolutely not. The bodies of my Alphas will be returned to Shadowlands where they will await proper burial.”
“Mean no disrespect, but any Alpha body that isn’t charred is a potential enemy. You’ve seen with your own eyes that the dead don’t stay dead.”
Yaron hesitates as he stares into my gaze. His teeth clench and the microscopic pulsing of a vein across his forehead becomes his only sign of rage. One of his Crimson Riders approaches — the one calledJesús — and tips his head to Yaron. “Lord, what would you command us to do?”
“Make records of their identifiable marks. Then burn them all.”
30 | Echo
Paradise Hole
I’m warm and dry and I’m not alone.There are people here. People I know. I can’t say that they care about me, but they’re not here to hurt me and that’s more than I’ve ever been able to say for the ones I encounter out in Paradise Hole. I think about alerting them to the fact that I’m awake and can hear them, but my body feels heavier than lead and my mind’s foggy to boot, so I just lie there and listen to them argue, too curious to fall back asleep.
“They what?” Adam. His voice is closest.
A voice slightly further away and that sounds like Whiskey’s answers, “Told you, Dragnovic. We tried all their phones. No answer. Vi’s willin’ to lead a small team back now to see what happened.”
“No. Can’t afford to lose any more bodies right now. Need all the Alphas here. After we confront Mirage City, we’ll go back for the rest.”
“Think somethin’ bad happened?”
“Know somethin’ bad happened. Trash City set us up.”
“Our good friend Yaron is on the war path,” Balcazar butts in. “He says after Mirage City, he’s razin’ Trash City to the ground.”
“Tell him Dark City’s happy to help. Shoulda killed Merlin when I had the shot. Instead, I traded four truckloads of shit to the bitch. Won’t make the same mistake twice.”
A corner of my mouth twitches. I don’t know what happened, but from what I understand, Merlin did some shady stuff — somemoreshady stuff. She deserves to die but somehow I don’t want to be the one to kill her. That said, if anybody else wants to — and I’m sure they do — I won’t stand in their path. Hell, I’ll hand them the gun. But…I won’t pull the trigger. Someone with that much will to live — at any cost — may just come back and haunt me as a ghost.
Balcazar and Whiskey chuckle. It’s Balcazar who says, “Any Betas killin’ Alphas deserve whatever Yaron’s got in store for ‘em…”
“You don’t think he’ll take them to his dungeons, do you?” Barbero asks quietly.
“Goodness,” Sierra hisses. “A frightening thought.”
“Trash City does the world a service…killing Alphas. Where they fail is giving them up to the Fates to bring back,” a voice snarls and it’s so vicious it takes me a moment to understand who it is.Freya. What’s she still doing here?
There’s a commotion which cuts this thought short. Whiskey curses. Balcazar shouts, “What the fuck! Why the fuck do you have a naked witch in your tent?”
“Where did she come from?”
“You all should leave now that she’s awake,” she shouts back. “Leave me with the Omega. Breeders are not needed here.”
“She’s awake?” Adam asks, tone entirely changed.
His words are followed by silence that makes me uncomfortable. I know they’re all looking at me without having to open my eyes and I’m not ready to be subject to their questions or their scrutiny. I’m not ready forhim.
“She is awake, though she pretends not to be. Pretending won’t save you, Fallen Omega. I need the answers I am owed.”
I release a small “oomph,” already exhausted, before I carefully peel my eyes open. Adam’s the first thing I see. He’s sitting on a short stump just a few feet away from whatever I’m lying on — a cot, I think, based on the way it squeaks when I move — staring at my face with an expression that’s as bright as the world beneath this tent is dark. Full of hope. It breaks my heart.
I sniffle and look away from him quickly. I struggle to push myself up onto an elbow, my whole body protesting at the movement. “Ow,” I whisper.
