AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Shit. You okay, baby? Peate, take a look at her. We thought you weren’t bit. Okayo said you weren’t bit. Yaron thought the zombie fucks were tryin’ not to hurt you. Was he wrong? Were we? Talk to me. Please…”
I hold up my hand as Peate’s presence rides up against my right side, crowding me. I shake my head. “I’m fine,” I lie. And it might be the biggest lie I’ve ever told because I’m not alright. I’m shaky. My limbs are all sore. I feel like I just ran full out for hours. My joints are creaky. My lungs burn.
“You’re not fuckin’ fine. Peate…”
“Peate,” I snap. “Don’t. I just want space.”
Slowly, I feel him pull away. As he does, I finally find a seat and rub my hand up and down my face. “Where…where are we?” It’s dark in here, but there’s big lanterns set up throwing orange and white light over everything, and in the corner, looking so ghostly she shines like a light herself, is Freya. And as Balcazar said, she is completely naked. Against a darkness that’s nearly black except for the bright green lattice of vines stretching over it, she looks like a ghost.
“You made a tree.” The voice is Freya’s, but it’s unimpressed. She crosses her arms over her chest and continues to glare at me.
“I made a…a tree?”
“Yes. A tree grew around you as you slept. I think…you made it to keep…out your Berserker and the Alphas he travels with. But he is a dumb brute and smashed it.” She flicks her pointer finger to the right and, sure enough, there’s a gaping opening that’s jagged on all sides. It’s hard to discern the edges precisely because of the vines and the flowers that drape across it — that, and the Alpha bodies blocking the doorway. Adam’s Six, as loyal to him as ever. When he chained me up, I wonder if any one of them tried to stop him. Knowing that they didn’t embarrasses me.
“Balcazar,” I say, surprised to see her among them. “You’re alive.”
“And kicking.” She chuckles.
I frown. “I thought Adam — Berserker Dragnovic — beat the life out of you.”
“Not quite, though he gave it his best effort.”
“And I already apologized for that,” Adam pipes up. “I meant it. I shouldn’a…shouldn’a used my fist. Shoulda said shit…”
“No need.” Balcazar’s curls ring her face. She has them pinned back with a headband. So much of her forehead on display, it makes the crude black stitches crawling over it stand out violently. “I fucked up. I let Maengor get close to you,” she says to me, tipping her head forward in contrition. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry,” Adam blurts. I think he’s talking to Balcazar until I glance quickly over to see his gaze pinned to me. It’s haunted and wounds me. “You gotta know how fuckin’ sorry I am. For Balcazar, for invitin’ Maengor, for hostin’ the stupid fuckin’ Omega Ball in the first place. For the way I run my City and the way Betas and Omegas get treated in it. For all the fucked up shit I did and said to you in Paradise Hole. For…for the chain. For breakin’ that promise, I’m sorry, baby.” He swallows hard. “I’m sorry, Echo.”
My face burns like a torch and I feel hard, hating tears swim across the surface of my eyes, but they’re not tears for Adam or for Freya or for Mirage City. They’re my tears, my anger, my frustration. “I told you already, I forgive you.” The man in the cave gave his life to tell me the things he did, including urging me to work together with the Berserker of Dark City. The least I can do is forgive him and extend that olive branch…
I just can’t do more.
“You…do?” He sounds skeptical and I…I struggle to meet his gaze, choosing instead to focus on his hands. They’re clasped between his knees. He’s got his elbows braced on them and is leaning forward as far as his little stool will allow for. His heels tap out a beat on the dirt. It looks like he’s just itching to come towards me, but doesn’t. I’m grateful for that.
I nod and swing my legs over the edge of the cot, fighting off a small dizzy spell as I do. “Yeah. I want to work together to take down Mirage City and the undead, like we said we would.”
“Can do that.”
I don’t believe him and my expression must say as much because he continues before I get the chance to respond.
“Not gonna keep you in the dark anymore. Not even gonna try. Saw how that strategy backfired the last time.” He laughs a dry, humorless laugh and fidgets in his seat.
Slowly, and without acknowledging his promises, I say, “I want us to work with Freya. Freya, I want you to work with us.”
Neither Adam nor Freya respond immediately. After a beat Adam starts but Freya cuts him off, “I will not work with your stupid savage…especially not after…his betrayal. He is not trustworthy.”
“Fuck you,” Adam hisses, a surge of aggression rolling off of him and crashing into me in a way I have to fight.I may not want to, but my body remembers…
I cough, working to clear my throat. “She’s right. Not about the name calling but she doesn’t trust you and I don’t trust you, either.”
Adam’s eyebrows lift and I scoff at his disbelief. “I’d be the biggest idiot in Gatamora if I let you get close enough to me to put me in chains again. Though, thanks to Freya, I’m more confident now that any chains you did put me in, I’d be able to break.”
“Echo, I fuckin’…” He surges up onto his feet and clenches his hands at his sides. “When all this shit with Maengor is over, I’m gonna prove it to you.”
I don’t know whatitis, but I don’t care. “It doesn’t matter. When all this is done, I’ll still go back to Dark City with you, if that’s what you want.”
“If that’s what I want? The fuck are you…”
