Page 67 of Darling Wildfire
“It has to be tactical—we’re all either military or cops,” Atlas said.
“Fuck—like live action COD?” I shook my head. “Why does part of me really not hate that idea?”
Being in the military, I’d gone on plenty of missions, and they weren’t always fun with bullets flying at you and people you cared about getting blown up. But then there were the times the darkness would take over. The adrenaline kick—the sickness in my mind that thrived on violence. When my humanity would shut off and something from the shadows would take over. The monster inside me that craved the blood on my hands. The part of me that reveled in the high of living in the gray, dealing out death like the Reaper himself.
That is after all, how I’d gotten my call sign—Reaper.
For all the lives I’d collected.
“He said he saves the best for his team,” North said.
I laughed. “I mean, this sounds like some real life gladiator shit.”
“That’s why he has to traffick people. No one would volunteer,” Atlas said.
It was a sobering thought. I didn’t know what this all meant but now that my sister was gone, the monster inside me didn’t have anything stopping him and he needed retribution—paid in blood—for what was done to my baby sis. I would play Vetticus’ games, but only until I could get my hands around his neck and show him who I really was:The Reaper come to claim his soul.
33
ATLAS
TWO MONTHS CAPTIVE
“All I’m saying is I’m an ass man,” Nyx said, flashing me a brilliant smile so at odds with his appearance. He was the definition of shadows, with his black hair long on top, short on the sides and dark eyes a color in between black and brown. He had tattoos covering his chest, back and arms all the way down to where they spilled over his hands and fingers. I could see tan lines where rings usually adorned him and sometimes I’d see him try to play with them, as though it was a habit he hadn’t yet lost even though the rings weren’t there anymore.
Despite his generally positive demeanor, there were times I’d see his mind drift and shadows would take over, filling his eyes and spilling over where it was almost physical in the way his entire personality darkened. He was a brooding, sarcastic and dark humored playboy with a look that could tear you to pieces or melt you into a puddle—sometimes I wondered if they were one and the same. I was drawn to him in a way I couldn’t explain and despite only knowing him for a few months; it felt like I’d known him for years. Now North was here and in a few short weeks, the three of us had become inseparable.
I racked the bar of the bench press and sat up. “I like to have a pillow,” I said, sticking out my hands and acting like I was going to rest my head on a woman’s chest. “What about you, T?”
I stood up, and North took my place. He laid back on the bench and positioned his hands on the bar.
“I like a woman with a good personality,” he deadpanned before beginning his set.
Nyx and I burst into laughter. North had slowly been warming up toNyx and I the last few weeks. Like I’d said to Nyx in those first few days of meeting him, he was one of those men who thrived in the military because of how much of a sociopath he was. His eyes held the haunted look of someone who’d lost his humanity a long time ago, if he’d ever had it at all.
I’d held on to mine for as long as I could. I was still trying to hold on to the scraps of it if I was being honest. I couldn’t bear the thought of letting it go for fear of what I would become. Vetticus had shredded it further when he’d taken me from the safety of my civilian life and torn my loved ones away. He’d killed both of my partners in front of me—my wife first, then my husband. They’d been my anchors to my humanity. The ones who’d shown me the true meaning of love made even more potent by being in a polyamorous relationship. Now there was only darkness left where their light had been and everyday I sunk deeper into its depths where all I thought about was revenge.
North finished his set and sat up, breaking through my morbid thoughts.
“Have you guys even lost your virginity yet? What are you like teenagers still?” He said.
We weren’t much younger than him, early thirties, but he enjoyed making fun of us for it.
“Ha haold man,” Nyx said. “Very funny. I lost my virginity to an Italian beauty the first year I was deployed abroad.”
“Are you bragging, Nyx?” I joked.
Nyx held up his hands with a grin. “I’m just saying—Europeans know how to do it better in my experience. At least I wasn’t the cliche like Atlas over here—”
“Fuck off,” I laughed.
“What do you mean?” North asked, starting another set.
“I lost my virginity at eighteen to a girl I knew in high school a few weeks before I went in—”
“Where?” Nyx prompted.
“The back of my truck,” I added.
