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“Wanna talk to ‘er.”
“You asked yesterday and she said no. Do you really want to debase yourself by asking a second day in a row and getting the same answer?”
Yaron snorts. Clear the fucker can hear everythin’ on the call. I try to stay still, but I end up pacing even though, in this tent built for a dozen Omegas or six Betas or four Alphas or two Berserkers comfortably, there’s nowhere for me to go.
“Yes.”
She mutters so low I can’t catch it over the sound of the rain poundin’ down on the roof a’ the lined canvas tent.
“Ward,” I growl.
“I’m going, I’m going. I just think you’d benefit from giving her space. You did chain her to your bed and she didn’t seem to appreciate your efforts to keep her safe.” Sarcasm coats her tongue like a thick paste.
“Watch your mouth,” I snarl.
Ward huffs, though I can hear that she’s movin’. That’s good at least.
I’m chewin’ on my bottom lip again. Just about chewed the damn thing raw already. After the first time she rejected my call.I’d rather bite off my own tongue and swallow it than talk to that Alphahole.That’s what I heard through the phone when I called yesterday. And instead of takin’ a fuckin’ breath, I’d shouted back, tellin’ her that that could be arranged. Fuck me.
I rub my face roughly. It’s just a fight, though. We fight all the time. When I’m back with her, I’ll fix it. I’ll fuck it outta her. I won’t chain her up again.That’s what I told her the last time.
“Do you hear that, Berserker?” Yaron’s entire body is tense, alert.
He rises before giving me a chance to unchain my thoughts from the Omega I chained to my bed and walks to the tent’s slitted opening. He rips back one edge of the canvas and stares out at the bleak, sodden world and the tents studding it. I move to stand next to him and, with a great show of force, pull my attention away from the crackly sound of Ward walking.
I stare at the greyscape that is Paradise Hole’s high plains. We’re headed in the direction of Emerald Plains and I can’t help but think that we’re so close to the Grasslands Beta compound, one of the places where Echo grew up. Part of me wants to go there and raze it to the ground for their mistreatment of her, but I’m not so sure I’m in a position to do that.
“They are over the next rise,” Yaron says at the same time that the phone in my hand makes a crackling sound, like bubble wrap exploding.
“Ward… Fuck!”
Yaron surges forward, moving out into the rain, water sluicing off of the pelt he wears fastened around his shoulders.
“Dragnovic…hear…can…it’s…”
“Ward?”
“Dragnovic, my god…” The line cuts.
Fuck.
There’s shouting coming from around the edge of the next tent where Yaron disappeared. I hesitate to follow him immediately, choosing that moment instead to glare at the plastic brick in my hand. My claws surge at the sight of it as I fight not to smash it into a million fuckin’ pieces. Can’t hear Ward. Ward’s gone. And onthisshitty end of the line, the shouting’s getting louder…louder…louder…Bang!
Gunfire.
“Fuck! Six, to me!” I shout and I hear the sound of boots squishin’ over the waterlogged ground. It’s rainin’ way too much for the plains, this far east a’ Dark City.Somethin’s off.
Maybe everythin’.
And still, this is where Echo wanted to be. Right here beside me, gunfire screamin’ through the watery world. But I remember what happened last time. Last time, she got fuckin’ shot.It’s better she stays where I put her. Yeah…
Better for me.
Because when that bullet ripped through her shoulder, she didn’t make a sound. She took it all like a fuckin’ warrior, a savage that I shackled, a beast without a Berserker’s build but no less deadly. And it hits me then, just like a bullet…
Echo says I draw her gifts out of her…but she draws my strength out of me, too. I may be unworthy when I’m alone, but how can I be when we’re together? Because she may be made of many unsettlin’ and sinister things, but there ain’t a doubt in my mind that all of ‘em have worth. And if I make her stronger, maybe I got worth by proxy. When I chained her, did I cut the legs out from under us both? I shrug outta my jacket, lettin’ it hit the muddy ground, frustrated and pissed off and unsure as I move out to meet my Six as we all converge with Yaron and his people.
“Beasts, hold! Scavengers, hold your fire!” Yaron shouts, Stallin’ my Berserker’s beast from takin’ over.
