Page 71 of Fragile Facade
“Go,” Krypt demands. “Do not let him fucking die.”
“We’re almost there. Break the plan.”
When Riot says something that makes the man angry and panicked, I lose my common sense and act on instinct. An instinct to keep him alive.
I open the door.
27
LUNG FULL OF POISON
RIOT
Krypt and Remihave a joke about the moment of death. Remi says it’s regret that goes through your mind when you’re about to die, but not for me. It’s vengeance. Because if this asshole is going to nail a bolt through my brain, I’m going to ensure he knows I’m the reason for the many people who are about to die from an illness that’ll show up anytime now.
He was stupid enough to bring me down from the LSD trip, and now that my mind is my own again, I’m going to use it until it no longer works. I laugh in his face, the air hurting my mouth and my vision almost entirely gone. One sliver is all I need.
“What could possibly be funny right now?”
My smile feels good. Better than it should. It’s my omen, the little thing I leave behind to haunt Reaper Corp. “Anyone sick?” I ask, a new lisp in my voice from my missing teeth.
The device next to my head shifts as his interest is piqued. “Sick how?”
I simply laugh harder. So hard that I throw up from pain and damn near pass out with the effort it takes. Vomit drips down my chin, nothing but spit, blood, and bile, and when he smacks me across the face before grabbing my chin to press the bolt to my head, I choke on my next laugh.
Fuck, I feel like Ghost right now. No wonder he laughs so hard in the face of death. There’s nothing more satisfying than pretending you don’t give a fuck!
“Sick how?!”
“Drink the water lately?” I ask, tears leaking down my cheeks. “Hospitals full?”
“What’d you do?” he barks at me while I laugh more. “How? You’ve been in captivity this whole time!”
Yeah, but while Ghost was stealing those devices and the keycodes we came for, I got up to no good before putting on my show. Never thought I’d be sticking around to see the results, but here we are, and I’m not too mad about it. The Harpy is a crazy old bitch, but she cooks up some lethal things in her cabin in Janie’s woods, and I was more than happy to test her newest creation when Menace handed it to me before we boarded the plane. Undetectable through security, and tiny enough that the small vial fit in my pocket.
The guy is on his phone, telling someone to investigate it and get back to him, but I can tell he doesn’t fully believe me. Which only pisses him off. I understand that. When people get one over on me, it sends me into a rage that’s so consuming I can’t think straight. So, when he firms up the bolt to my head and finally looks me straight in my one remaining open eye, I know this is it. He isn’t going to let me hang around long enough to watch Reaper City reap the benefits of The Harpy.
“Any last words?” he asks like this is a fucking movie.
“See ya in Hell.” I smile as wide as my busted jaw will allow. Like fuck I’m closing my only open eye, so I stare right at his, breathing in the last seconds of my life, waiting for that precipice between that Soren is always after. Maybe I’ll be able to tell him what it feels like.
I’m barely coherent, but right as the bolt presses to my temple, a commotion outside the room draws his attention, and at the same time, his phone rings again. When I look over, I seemyomen of death. The one I’m chasing to the afterlife but almost beat him to.
Stalking into the room like the phantom of pure rage, his ice-blue eyes glow at me, bringing back my hallucinations from the other day. Fuck me, has he always been so pretty while lethal? He doesn’t spare me another glance. Soren moves in like he commands the air in the room, grabs the man’s wrist, and snaps it. The bolt device clangs to the floor, and right in front of me, Soren grabs the man’s hair, forces him to his knees, and makes sure I have the best seat in the house to the knife he drags across his throat.
Instead of looking at that, I look up, meeting his eyes. While the man who has been torturing me gurgles and bleeds out, I take stock of reality. Because, admittedly, it takes me a few extra seconds to ensure this is real and not a hallucination from the drugs. Soren is here, killing my enemy, staring at me with an intensity so abrupt my hot skin breaks out in goosebumps, and a few thumps of my heart remind me I’m not dead yet.
Because of him.
“Is this our new game?” I ask, hoping he can understand my slurred and lispy words. “No longer chasing death, just competing to be the hero? Because if so, I think I won, sweetheart. You aren’t supposed to be here.”
“Couldn’t live knowing you fucked me over by being the hero.” He looks at my chains. “Can you stand?”
Gunfire echoes outside the room, making all the other prisoners scream for their freedom. Through the window, a blurry man moves by, and when that man grabs another man by the throat, breaking his neck and throwing a dagger at the third man, I laugh. I’d recognize my brother anywhere.
“Fuck, you’re all so dumb.”
“Thank you works too,” Soren says. “Key?”
