Page 74 of Mud

Then I’d finally be free of all the bullshit.Finally.

So, they began.

Electricity shot from my left shoulder and down my arm, and it felt like wildfire going through my veins. I tried to keep that scream on the inside, but a groan came out of me anyway—couldn’t help it. My head was down, my eyes squeezed shut, and I was ready.

As ready as one can be to be tortured, I suppose.

Then we heard the sound.

It was like a siren that came from somewhere far away, but it was loud enough that it couldn’t be mistaken. Yes, definitely a siren, and one I’d heard before, many times.

Everything came to a halt.

“What the…”

Kaid’s voice snaked its way into my mind and had me wide awake and alert by the next second. He sounded alarmed. He sounded confused.Afraid.

I raised my head and looked at the brothers, all of them with their heads back, staring at the ceiling.

For a long second, nobody breathed.

Then the siren went off again, louder this time.Closer.

“They found us,” Seth whispered, stepping away from me.

“You brought them to us,” Radock said, and he was looking at me now, smiling in rage. “You brought them to us—how?!”

Brought who?

I didn’t bring anyone anywhere!

My jaw was too frozen to speak.

“Radock, leave her—what’s the plan, brother? Give the order,” Kaid said, putting his hand over his brother’s shoulder, looking up still, waiting—and Seth and Taland were there as well.

“Kaid, give me eyes upstairs,” Radock said, but he refused to look away from me.

Iris, he wasmad.His eyes were bloodshot, his clenched teeth showing as he fisted his hands and squeezed and squeezed…

“On it,” Kaid said, and he was already running while Seth was putting all those knives they’d set on the table on his person, everywhere he had pockets.

“How did you bring them to us? I searched you. Isearchedyou,” Radock whispered to me, his hand around my jaws again, squeezing tightly.

Fuck, he wanted to burn me alive—and that was still not what scared me the most.

Like them, that siren terrified me more than anything because it meant thattheyhad really found us. That siren was a siren of the IDD. That siren meant that the IDD was really here, come to find me, and I didn’t want to fucking go. I didn’t want to go back to that place. I didn’t want them to kill me and cover it up. I didn’t want to die at the hands of Madeline Rogan because then she would have won.

Because then she would have woneverything.

My eyes found Taland’s as he stood behind Radock, not smiling, not winking anymore, but furious enough to unleash a world of darkness onto me.

And I wanted it.

“Kill me,” I said, this time in a whisper, as loud as Radock’s hand around my jaw allowed. Tears streamed from my eyes and I was hardly breathing. It would be so easy.

Please, just kill me. Don’t let them get to me…

Something flashed in Taland’s eyes, something that looked an awful lot like regret. Pure, raw regret.

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