Except there was no way to do that. Tru told me, in no uncertain terms, that Mathias made them promise I wouldn’t do anything foolish. “Where’s Bishop?”
Tru jerked her head and I whirled around. Bishop had come in at some point, silent as a ghost. “You knew!” I yelled at Bishop. “You knew he’d do this.”
Bishop nodded. “So did you.”
I stopped in my tracks. Mathias had told me everything, left me clues, a trail of breadcrumbs to follow the path he’d planned on taking. And I’d ignored the signs. “I thought...he was opening up to me.”
“He was, Jessa. Don’t turn that into something ugly.”
I hugged my arms around myself but couldn’t stop shaking. Not even when Tru wrapped me in a blanket and Aimee came by with some medicine to help me calm down. I didn’t fight it and then I was floating away from reality, which was fine by me. If I couldn’t have Mathias, I didn’t want to come back down to earth.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Sledgehammer
Mathias
In between fights, all I did was play music, as loud as I could. Alone in the small room on Keller’s compound, I wrote letters out of song lyrics to Jessa, letters I’d never send. Maybe because it would hurt her too much, or hurt me too much.
Either way, she knew I was thinking about her. I imagined her sitting in the guesthouse, listening to the music I’d left her, and in that way, we were still connected.
She’d be there for me if I went back. I was fighting for my life here, the way I always had, but there was no guarantee of survival this time.
Then again, there never had been.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Hangman is comin’ down from the gallows
Bishop
Several days later, after making sure Jessa was as all right as she could be, I rode my bike into Keller’s compound, my pack tied to the back. I’d come here on a one-way trip and I wasn’t leaving.
Now, I had to convince Keller of that, and before Mathias got wind of me being here. I caught the guy at the front gate, held a gun to his head until Keller’s bullshit head of security came out.
“Tell Keller I just want to talk to him. And I want Keller to be the only one you tell, or your brother dies.”
Threatening someone’s family was the cruelest and best way to get what I wanted. And it worked, because five minutes later, Keller was there, right inside the gates of his own compound. I released the man I’d been holding and Keller said, “I’m trying to decide if you’re brave or just fucking stupid.”
“Go with your first thought,” I told Keller. “I’m here for one reason only. I’m here to take Mathias’s place.”
“I didn’t ask for you.”
“Sometimes you have to lead a horse to water.”
Keller stared at me. “Trying to talk me out of keeping your friend?”
There was no point in beating around the bush. “Yes.”
“You wasted your time coming here. He’s like having our very own fighting circus freak. He doesn’t make a sound. You know what it’s like to watch someone get pummeled and stay silent?” Keller asked and yeah, I knew.
“Mathias is good. We just have different ways.”
“Yeah? And what’s your way?”
“You’ll have to hire me to find out.”
Keller stared at me. “I know about you, Bishop. Your reputation’s grown over the past years. But you’re still not telling me why I should take you instead of your mute friend.”
My style was to leave enough people alive behind, the theory being that witnesses could spread rumors. Apparently, it was working. “Because I’m the better choice.”
Keller was losing patience. “Yeah? Why’s that? Because I can actually hear the words coming out of your mouth?”
“I’ll do more than fight in the ring for you.”
Keller’s brows raised. “You’ll collect for me?”
“I’ll kill for you,” I told him bluntly. “It’s a job most people don’t want.”
“I’m not allowed to use Defiance members for my personal army.”
“Then lucky I’m not a Defiance member.”
He stared at me as I held my breath, ready to kill the man if he said no. Hell, I should kill Keller anyway, but that would fuck things up for Defiance even more.
Finally, Keller said, “Aren’t you worried you won’t sleep at night?”
“It’s always night. And I’ve never slept a full night through in my entire life.”
“You’re not lying.”
“Mathias always says that the truth will set you free.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
I’m still alive
Mathias
I won the fourth fight at Keller’s, the way I’d won the three before it. I knew I’d won, because the ref held my arm up and declared me the winner, but that’s all I remember. But something happened, because I woke up, barely dressed, lying on the ground at Defiance’s gates. A simple note had been pressed into my fisted hand.
Your debt’s been taken over.
As soon as I read it, I knew exactly what Bish had done. I screamed silently, over and over again, until my throat was sore from the cold air and I passed out in the dirt.
I don’t know who found me, but when I woke again, I was in the infirmary, those icy blue eyes and scarred cheek the first thing I was able to focus on. “They fucking drugged me. Bastards wouldn’t give me a chance to say no to Bish taking over.”
“Yeah. Saw the note,” he rasped.
Fucker. Get him out of there.
“You and Bish’d be doing that shit forever.” Caspar stared at me. “He did it for you and Jessa.”
I knew that. I’d have given anything to stay with her, but with Bish gone, it still felt like half my soul had been removed. My head throbbed, my bones ached and I swore that if it was anyone but Caspar in front of me, I would’ve been up, pushing him aside.
“He’s alive, Mathias. Anyone can get through this, he can. He’d want you to have faith in him.”
I did. But without the balance...
I’d never been on my own either, and the irony that I’d accused Jessa of needing time by herself wasn’t lost on me. My insides twisted.
“Jessa doesn’t know you’re here,” Caspar continued. “Figured you might not want to stick around.”
I stared into those eyes, wanting to ask him what he’d do. But it didn’t matter, because this was my decision and no one else’s. Speculation wouldn’t help. Bish wouldn’t forgive me if I screwed this up. I’d have done the same damned thing for him and I’d never have expected him to be my white knight. I’ll go see Jessa.
“So you’re stayin’?”
Yes, but I’m not joining until Bish comes back. Whenever that is.
With that, Caspar handed me a letter. I opened it and found an IOU for Bish. A year of service, signed over to Keller, with Caspar’s approval. A full year and all the debt would be released.
There was no way Bish’d be able to pay that back fighting in the ring. I know what he did.
“So do I. We’ll all be here for him when he gets back.”
Jessa rushed in then. Caspar must’ve gotten word to her by, like, fucking secret smoke signals or something before I could even get out of the damned bed. She flattened me on my back against the cot. She was breathing hard from running across the compound, and her cheeks were flushed. It’d been a week since I’d seen her, and I hadn’t let myself deal with how much I’d missed her. I wound my arms around her tightly and she did the same, her body covering mine. She didn’t ask questions and how she’d figured out what had happened was the biggest one of all, because I was one hundred percent sure Bish hadn’t shared his plan to set me free.