Page 64 of Senseless
When Jandro told me about the decoy caravan and the ambush, I couldn’t even muster up the strength to react. Those guys were among our best, and they got slaughtered. It was just one blow after another, and I couldn’t help but wonder if this was some kind of divine punishment for what I did to Shadow.
Hades, of course, provided zero insight.
After Jandro got back, my dad, his lieutenants, Gunner, and I tried to re-think our tacticsagain. For days we’d been going around in circles nonstop. Without Horus’ eyes, we just had no efficient ways to track the enemy. The skirmish had hurt our army’s numbers, which were already small by comparison. If I kept sending my men out, the Steel Demons MC would dwindle down to nothing.
And I still had no fucking idea where Mari was, or if she’d ever come back.
My throat was raw from all the stress-smoking. My sleep was fucked, only catching moments of rest here or there. I was a snapping, irritable prick to everyone I ran into, even my own mother. Gunner and I went at each other’s throats a few times, and needed to be physically separated by my dad and Jandro. None of us were doing well in the slightest.
Therehadto be something. Had to be a way our little territory could stand a chance against the giant threatening to crush us. But I didn’t know what else we could do. Gunner had put forth several formations, but we still only had guesses as to the enemy’s numbers and locations. Andrea hadn’t yet made contact with more information and I was starting to lose hope in her too.
I thought the despair was bad when Mari wouldn’t talk to me. Now, it was crushing. This weight had slowly grown heavier over the weeks and I had finally reached my breaking point.
A door swung open, and I heard both paws and booted feet approaching. My dad stood a few feet away from me in the small patio garden, Hades at his side. Even my dog has abandoned me.The melodramatic thought bubbled up from some nonsensical place in my exhausted brain.
“Sucks, doesn’t it?” Dad remarked casually, like he was commenting on the weather.
“What?” I grunted.
“Everything. You’re lost and not finding a way out. You’re exhausted. You’re fighting with your loved ones at every turn. You’re heartbroken and feeling alone.”
“So what, you came to rub it in?” I shot back.
“Nah, son.” He shook his head, eyes never leaving me. “Just empathizing.”
“Yeah, I know you’ve been through shit too. Being taken away to that labor camp, losing Carter, escaping with Mom. I get it. You’ve had it bad, if not worse than this. Doesn’t change dick about where we are now.”
“No, it doesn’t,” he agreed. “But the lesson is the same.” He came close enough to touch a finger to my chest. “You havegotto keep fighting, son.” I snorted and he growled. “No, listen to me. It’s easy to fight when you’re winning. It’s easy to have hope when you feel good. But right now?” He tapped his finger to my chest a few times. “Now is when you need to fight the most. I can see that dark cloud in your eyes, Rory. I know you’re sick of it all, and it feels like it’ll never end. But it will. You’ve gotta dig deep and find it in you. For Mari, for your family. Fuck, foryourself!” He backed away, turning quickly as he wiped his eyes. “I’m not losing another son. Don’t give a fuck if it’s on a battlefield or by his own depression. I need you around, Rory.”
“Dad…” My cigarette had long since turned to ash and I dropped the butt in a tray on the patio table. “I just don’t see how we can win.”
“We can,” he insisted. “You have gods with you.”
At first, we only told him about Gunner’s ability. After Jandro came back and we had nothing left to lose, I ended up spillingeverything. From the moment I found Hades and started hearing his voice, to the accelerated healing that seemed to be powered by Mari and Freyja’s bond. I even told him about when Shadow and I looked up the gods in books to try to make sense of it all. All this time later, I didn’t feel any closer to understanding why they were here, or what they were really doing for us.
“We have gods who only step in when it suits them,” I argued. “Maybe this shit is fun for them, I dunno.” I gestured a hand to Hades. “He tells me who to kill, big fucking whoop. I don’t need him to tell me we have to kill three-thousand troops, to our sub-one-thousand.”
“There must be more to it,” Dad said, sounding a lot like me back when I actually had hope. “Why can’t you see through him like Gunner does with Horus?”
“I don’t fucking know, Dad!”
You’ve never tried, my reaper.
My head jerked to stare at the dog, sitting calmly on his haunches. He stared back with that unsettling human gaze, and then I was somewhere else.
What the fuck?Where am I?
I tried to yell but my jaw was rigid, like it was wired shut. No part of my body could move, as if I was paralyzed. In the next few moments, I realized I wasn’t breathing. I went to suck in a breath, but my lungs didn’t expand. My heart wasn’t pumping. There was no activity going on in my body at all. It was utterly strange to feel panicked with zero physical responses.
What the fuck, am I dead? Hades, what did you do?!
Look.
It was the only answer I got.
I was lying on the ground, not in my parents’ yard, but some place I didn’t recognize. Someone’s boots were inches from my face. I heard gunshots and felt theinstinctto duck for cover and reach for my holster, but it felt like I was encased in cement.
The boots in front of my face stepped away, the soles tacky with the blood that I realized had pooled around me.What the fuck is going on?
