The hallway beyond the loading dock leads into a warehouse section of the mall. Must’ve been a department store or something. Now there’s only empty and rusty metal shelves along the walls, cracked flooring and some rotted curtains hanging crookedly from broken rods. The Vipers might leave their bikes by the loading dock, but it’s somewhere else they use for a safe house.
Animal and Badass take left, while me and Alpha take right, stepping carefully and keeping an eye open for trouble. If we can take resistance down quietly, we will, but it’s only a matter of time before we’re noticed. Too many of them and too many of us. Stealth is more Blade’s territory. I hope he’s already fought his way out and taken Faith with him, because the alternatives are looking worse by the second.
There’s only one path for us: making our way deeper into the decaying mall and praying we aren’t too late.
34
FAITH
Oh my God.
“You killed him,” I barely squeeze out before covering my mouth with my hand. It’s either to keep my scream from being too loud, or to make me not throw up, but I don’t know which one yet.
I’ve seen so much death the past few days, but there’s something different about the pool of bright red blood forming around Shovelhead like a grisly halo. Blade’s knife is stained the same color and dripping on the floor.
He gives Shovelhead one more disdainful look, and nods. “I did. And I’d do it again, then spit on his fucking grave. You’ve gone through enough fucking shit. I wasn’t about to let him fucking add to it.”
“Couldn’t you have knocked him unconscious?” Slitting a throat is just so… it’s like butchering. Even knowing what’s behind me gives me chills, never mind actually seeing it. This feels a lot like how I felt when I saw Dad’s video.
“Maybe, but it’s not like with Razor. We didn’t hit him hard because he wasn’t interested in coming after us, it was just a cover. This asshole would’ve put a bullet in the back of our heads if he woke up. Besides, he was out more than a short while, he was probably going to fucking die anyway. It was him or us. This was the only way to know he was out of the picture.” He wipes the knife off on Shovelhead’s clothes. “And the fucker deserved it.”
“Jesus Christ,” I whisper. He’s not wrong, but it’s such a cold way to look at someone’s life.
“We’re going to fucking get out of here, but you have to let me do what I do best. If we fuck this up, these fuckers will kill us. I need you to pull yourself together long enough for us to make it. Can you do that?” His tone’s rough and his eyes are flat. Like the man I’ve made love to has locked himself down. This isn’t normal, and he knows it.
I nod, because what choice do I have? “Blade, what did you do before you joined the Screaming Eagles?”
“This isn’t the fucking time.”
“I need to know, I think.”
He shakes his head. “This. I did this. I ate and breathed death because in this world there are people who aren’t safe to leave on the street and I was more than happy to make that happen for money. Now let’s see if that fucker lied.” He approaches the keypad next to the door and taps in the code. The lock clicks.
“Why?” I whisper as he opens the door and peeks out into the hall. “You were in the Vipers when you were younger. What happened?”
He sighs. “You want the truth?”
No. “Yes.”
“They noticed I was good at killing and I started to get more and more of those types of jobs. Even in a place like that, not everyone has the stomach for it.”
“So you left because you didn’t want to kill anymore?”
Blade laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “No, I left because there was no honor in the assignments they wanted to send me on. It was random, petty shit. It didn’t take me long to realize there was more money and less bullshit in freelancing.”
The matter-of-fact way he describes his choice, like it was a better career opportunity, chills my soul. If he’d told me this when we first met, I would’ve run, but this man has had his hands on me, he’s beeninsideme. I’ve seen that what lurks behind his eyes is dark, but it isn’t a monster.
“But you got out.”
“It’s like a fucking maze out here. Quietly,” he whispers, pulling me along behind him. “Your dad pulled me out of it. I had him as a fucking target. Someone in the mob who he’d rubbed the wrong way, but I recognized him from the Pit Vipers. It made me sloppy and he caught me. We had a fucking moment.”
“You had a moment?” I should probably be worried if this is the prettied up version.
“He kicked my ass. I was only twenty-two and already dying inside. When I came for Eagle-eye, it almost seemed fitting that he’d take me out. Full circle, you know? But he looked me in the fucking eyes and asked how my momma was doing. I didn’t even—I don’t know how the fuck he remembered that I’d been sending her money back in the day, but it fucking broke me. Two days later I was at the gate. I was on the edge, about to let go and he threw me a fucking rope.”
I have no idea how to process this. It’s so far out of my experience I don’t know where to start. Do I hate Blade for what he is, or was? Do I hate Dad? Does him pulling Blade out of it somehow make up for what they did?
“You can hate me later, but can we go now? Every fucking second we stay here is a chance for them to find us.” He waves for me to follow him out of the room.