What’s your price for flight?
Jessa
In that moment, I changed. Something inside me snapped, the crack deafening inside my own head. The sound like water rushing inside my ears was next. I saw their mouths moving but the hands on me were grabbing, burning me like they were fire.
I fought like I never had. Like I’d never had to. And I was all alone, but honestly, I’d rather die than stay with any of them. Including my husband.
Especially my husband. I reached out and tore my nails down his cheeks, deep gouges that drew blood and made him scream like a girl. I heard the other men around me laugh. When I turned to the man trying to buy me and kicked him in the balls—since that had obviously been effective when I’d done it earlier—they all stopped laughing.
But I didn’t stop. I didn’t think I ever could, and that’s what I always feared. It’s why I’d never let myself lose control before, because I was sure I’d never come back from it.
The anger and shame and fear from the past two weeks—the past years—flew out of me before I could think to control it. I knew I’d be hurt, but I didn’t care. I punched and kicked and bit and screamed.
And at that moment, I wasn’t sure if I was fighting to stay alive or fighting in the hopes they’d kill me and I wouldn’t have to be sold to any of these disgusting men. And it didn’t matter, because I had to change something. I’d stayed passive, like Charlie wanted me to, not arguing, listening to the leather-clad gang as they bossed us around and leered at me.
I got hit in the head—I don’t know if it was on purpose or if I was caught in the cross fire, but then I realized Charlie was still trying to stop me. His hand gripped my wrist and he yanked me close, hissed, “You’re a crazy whore, Jessa. Know your place.”
For the first time in my nineteen years, I finally did.
I kicked him while simultaneously throwing a sharp elbow into his stomach. He let me go—he was soft. Always had been. And when I moved back I walked into someone. I whirled around, fist flying.
And then it was stopped like I’d hit a brick wall. A man I didn’t recognize held my fist securely in his hand, inches from his throat. Something in his expression, in those deep obsidian eyes, told me he approved.
He stood so still, my tattooed angel. He was tall, wore only shorts and he was watching me like I was a wounded, unpredictable animal.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’d certainly become one. I was sure he was armed, but he didn’t pull any weapons, just let go of my hand and steered me toward the clearing even as he elbowed one of the LoV in the throat.
I listened to him, moved aside while I could and watched the violent brawl. Dusk had fallen but I was still hot from the fight. I kept my eye on the dark-eyed man and realized he wasn’t fighting alone. The other man was tall and blond and I watched the scene unfold in front of me. I almost felt like I was floating out of my body and maybe I’d been hit harder than I thought.
A man landed at my feet. I blinked and saw there was a knife sticking out of his throat. I recognized him as Ocho, the LoV who’d been guarding me all week. I also recognized the knife he’d used daily to threaten me with.
Poetic justice for sure, coupled with the men who were like avenging angels, if avenging angels wore tattoos and leather.
Who’s to say they don’t?
I didn’t know what would happen when this was over, but I had no place to run. I’d be as vulnerable in the dark as I’d be with anyone.
I bent down and took the knife out of Ocho’s neck. And I waited.
Take the long way home
Mathias
Bish hadn’t stopped moving, wouldn’t until he’d cleared the scene. He was still in the zone. I wouldn’t touch him and trying to call him off at this point was worthless. Besides, the men he’d killed deserved to die and it was better there was no one left to identify us from Keller’s or the LoV. Blowback would come, but it would take a while. I surveyed the carnage for a long moment. There were only two survivors out of the original twelve we’d gone up against.
It’d taken every last bit of restraint I had—and trust me, I didn’t have much—to not strangle the man who’d sold her out without so much as a glance in her direction. Her nails had raked his cheeks deep enough to draw blood. He stared up at me and said, “I can pay.”
You will, I told him. He didn’t understand my signing but that didn’t matter—I knocked him out and signed for Bish to Tie, gag and not kill him.
Bish was glazed but he got the message. This wasn’t to say we wouldn’t take care of him later, but for now, the son of the president of what was left of the United States wasn’t someone we could murder and walk away from.
The fact that we’d killed Victor would bring enough of a shit storm our way. When Bish finished, we’d find out how she and Charlie ended up with the LoV in the first place.
The fact that the president’s son had been taken by MCs told me how fucked up our world had become since the Chaos. I half expected to see Secret Service come out of the trees, but Bish and I both knew from our time in the military that nothing was the same, that post-Chaos security was nothing more than thugs with guns.
Civility was long gone.
I turned to see the girl Charlie had called Jessa in the same place I’d left her, against the backdrop of dying trees, outlined in the dusk. I held up my hands to show her I wasn’t armed and then took a few steps toward her. Surprisingly, she took a few steps in my direction too. She got close enough for me to almost touch her, and then pain seared through my biceps. I’d had worse injuries, but this was unexpected and I howled silently, angry that I’d let her get the best of me.
“Can’t let your guard down just because she’s a woman,” Bish would tell me later, and goddammit, I hated it when he was right. In a flash, I had the knife she’d used on me in my hand—the knife I’d stabbed an LoV with, no less.
I didn’t waste time worrying about it. Instead, I turned the knife’s blade in her direction and let it fly.
She opened her mouth to yell when I threw the knife, but she was too scared to move. She’d also closed her eyes and, after a long moment, she opened them and stared at me. And then she followed my gaze as it traveled from her face to the dead snake on the ground next to her feet.
By the time she’d started to look back at me, I had her in my arms.
And she was fighting again, tooth and nail, the way she’d been earlier. I couldn’t talk her down, but my hands weren’t anyplace threatening as I subdued her and carried her away from the madness, since Bish was in the gasoline phase of his massacre. She’d be traumatized for life by his plan to make all these men hard to identify. The smell of burning bodies wasn’t something you forgot the scent of, ever.
She had a lot to learn, but I wouldn’t want to be in a fight with her when she did.
“Let me go—put me down.”
When we got close enough to the van, I did just that, kept her back to Bish and the fire and waited to see what she’d do.
She starting coughing almost immediately and I pointed to myself, then the van, then back to me. She stared at me, like she was waiting for me to talk. She’d be waiting forever and we just didn’t have that kind of time.
I pointed again and moved my hand in the move-it-along, fast-rolling motion and she didn’t do a thing. I don’t think she even blinked or breathed. I put my hands up and took a step closer to her, then extended my hands out to her. I rarely fought completely bare-handed, but this time things had happened too fast to grab my gloves to ward off the damage. My knuckles were bruised, my hands had blood on them and she was half frozen, half ready to run. I never took my eyes from hers. It was oddly silent. I knew she was fucking terrified of everyone and everything at that moment and I sure as shit couldn’t blame her.