Page 8 of He is… Creed: Part Two

An hour later, finally having leveraged myself out of Julian’s company, I appeared inside Sunrise Canyon on a deserted dirt road eighty miles north of Zodius City. Only a few miles from the underground Renegade Headquarters, their version of Zodius City is Sunrise City.

Kill him, I think.

One day soon, I will kill him and Ava, too, and feel no remorse, but for the time being, I will allow them to live.

A parked black Jeep waits for me by a mountainside, and with nothing but desert and darkness for cover, I waste no time climbing into the front passenger’s seat. Caleb sits behind the wheel. Jensen Jeter, one of Caleb’s closest confidants, sits in the back, his long blond hair loose around his shoulders. Wild, like his entire existence.

“The Dark One has arrived,” Jensen jokes, patting my shoulder. “What’s cooking, Punisher?”

It’s a shitty joke when Jensen normally excels at basic bad jokes. He needs to stick to bad, because shitty makes me want to beat his ass, and if he wasn’t such a good friend and damn good soldier, I might.

I tune him out and focus on Caleb, filling him in on Ava’s hormone shots and her plan to experiment on the women inside Zodius City. “If we rescue the women, he’ll just kidnap more,” Caleb says. “And unless we come up with a magic plan, you won’t be on the inside to help them.”

“It’ll take time for Julian to lure in enough women to make his experiment worthwhile. It’s time that we can use to end him. And it’s time the women inside Zodius Nation don’t have.”

Caleb’s jaw set hard. “I still can’t believe this is Julian I’m dealing with. My damn brother.” He scrubs his jaw. “But, agreed. He’s a monster. He won’t care if they die. We have to extract them.”

“If we do this,” I say, “I’m out of Zodius Nation. Only three people have the codes to override the security to get them to the surface: myself, Ava, and Julian. He’ll know I did this.”

“I can make it look like we hijacked Julian or Ava’s security codes,” Jensen offers. “You know me and technology are good friends.”

“Yeah, man,” I say, “you’re good, but not this good. There is a full-body scan to get into that room. But the bottom line here is, that if I stay inside the Zodius operation, a large percentage of those women die.”

“I could do it,” Jensen argues, “but it will take time.”

“That we don’t have,” I say. “They’ll inject tonight. We have hours, not days or weeks.”

Caleb’s hands close around the steering wheel in a white-knuckled grip, and he curses under his breath, obviously struggling with his choice. After several seconds, he slants me a look. “Are you any closer to finding out who gets the nuclear switch if Julian dies?”

“No,” I say tightly. “And I’ve tried. Every which way and back.”

“And you’re certain those chemical weapons are not inside Zodius Nation?” he presses, confirming what he already knows.

“Positive,” I say without hesitation. “He won’t risk an enemy killing him and taking them at the same time.”

Caleb’s attention is on the mountain, which I doubt he really sees, with tense seconds ticking by as he continues to grapple with yanking the cord on an operation that allows us to see inside his brother’s operation. “We’ll get the women out,” he finally says. “Then we’ll get Red Dart and end my brother once and for all.” He lowers his voice and glances over at me. “And you’ve been in that place too long, Creed. You can only play with the devil so long before you lose your soul.”

Right. Soul. I almost laugh at that. I’m not sure I have a soul to lose. But Caleb does, and I won’t let that happen. “1200 then,” I say. “When the guards change.”

Jensen rubs his hands together. “A long night of kicking some Zodius ass,” he says, excitement in his voice. “I live for this shit.” And he means it. He lives to die every day. I see behind the veil that is his silly humor. He doesn’t like what he’s become any more than I do myself, and he’s willing to die to save the world. And when we invade Zodius City, he might just get the chance. Caleb cranks the Jeep engine and narrows his gaze on me. “Looks like you’re about to walk into Sunrise City and stay this time,” he says, “where you belong.”

I digest that statement about as abruptly as a well-placed bullet, right in the gut, and with a hard bite to boot. Not because I don’t want to be inside Sunrise City, but because this is the day I’ve always known would come—the day I’ll become Julian’s worst enemy. And Addie lands right in the middle of the firing range, a prime target for Julian’s vengeance, and I have no way to get her off the radar. Not when she is the best shot we have at getting our hands on Red Dart—a technology that could hand the world over to a madman. My world is bleeding into Addie’s, but that blood always seemed to originate with her father. A man I’d once had a chance to kill. And Addie wasn’t wrong when she’d said that I’d wanted to. He’s alive because of her, but I can’t promise I’ll walk away from killing him again. At this point, she might be better off if he were dead.

But then she’d hate me.

She would hate me forever, and she’s never getting rid of me. I’m her lifebond. And neither of us even know the real implications of that bond.

Chapter Six

Julian

Sirens shrill through the intercom, blasting through my bedroom. “Oh my God,” Ava gasps, her hand cradling her stomach. “Are we being attacked? Our baby. Julian, our baby.”

My phone buzzes beside the bed, and I snatch it up, listen a moment, and then fling the damn thing across the room. “The Renegades are attempting to remove the females,” I say, already standing and shoving my legs in the fatigues I keep near the bed for just such an occasion.

Ava is on her knees, desperation and panic etched in her sleep-laden face. “What? No! That will destroy our testing. You can’t let them take the women! How could they even get to them? How?”

“Creed,” I snap vehemently. “Creed betrayed us.”

---