Page 28 of Fragile Facade
“The town, eventually. Tonight, how about we duel for death. I hear it’s quite the prize you seek.”
I funnel all this information into my mind, reminding myself to recall it later when I can think clearly. Reaper Corp already knows too much, personal details and sinister games, and if they know, it means they have other spies within Moros. It means they might know all the Vile Boys’ identities if he knows mine. They played Yates, making him think they’d ally with him if he allowed them access, even gave him the ‘homicide detective, kid’s dead dad’ story to get things moving, but they aren’t here for alliances—they’re here to take the only place I’ve ever called home.
“I’ve told her to fuck off a time or two,” I agree. “Deal.”
With another smile, he crouches. He doesn’t lunge for me right away, instead choosing to throw a dagger at me from where he stands. I shift my weight, listening to it thud into the wall behind me. I don’t dare look at it, unwilling to be distracted by near-misses. Inhaling through my nose, I become Ghost, the man capable of murder and mayhem and deals pertaining to Death. She hasn’t gotten me in her clutches yet, and tonight will be no different. This is yet another tango of ours.
His laugh is ugly and gorgeous, lighting me up from the inside. “Respect,” he says, nodding at me.
His men are mostly dead, but he doesn’t appear afraid. Well, neither am I. I smile at him, and then my body moves through the space like wind, morphing to the shape of the hall and the openings in the air. I lash out, impaling him on my blade before retracting it and moving behind him before he knows where I’m going to settle. He spins with me, and I lean back to avoid the arc of his knife. It slashes through my shirt, adding a warm, sticky trickle down my chest.
“Touché.” I bounce.
He presses his hand to where I’ve stabbed him, and my eyes drop to follow the movement. A second later, I see it for what it is: a distraction. His hand thrusts forward, his left blade piercing through the skin of my shoulder and retracting just as fast. With blood fully drawn and pain blooming brilliantly, I drop the act and give grace to my anger.
Swiping his legs out with mine, I knock my elbow to his face and draw blood from his nose, but he flips me off and rolls to get out from under me, his knee connecting with my groin in the process. I tackle him back against the wall, making us spin and stab and snarl. He headbutts me in the bridge of my nose, making me leak, so I snarl at him, kicking my foot to his gut. When he thuds against the railing, I charge, but he puts up a blade to stop me.
“This is how our training is different,” he rasps, circling me. “You give in to anger. I don’t.”
Anger gets me places a clear head won’t, so yeah, I sink into it, letting it fuel me. The only way our training is different is that I don’t have to get into knife fights as often as he does. I’m at a disadvantage because I’m rusty, but I’m advantageous because of my unwavering need to be the fucking best. To win. To get the credit and feed my pride.
He’s trying to take something. I’m trying to protect something. Our motives are different, and mine is more powerful.
His shoulder rams into my gut, lifting me high enough to throw me onto my back. Knives slash and knees are thrown. My head rings out in dizziness and pain when he slams it against the ground, but it gives me a chance to stab my knife into his kidney. He cries out, eyes narrowing and body tensing. I attack again, stabbing him over and over until he backs off to gain his composure. I rip the guns from his holsters, sliding them down the hall.
But as I climb to my feet, I realize I’ve been stabbed again, too. His right blade sticks out of my thigh, blood leaking in heavy rivers. I know I should leave it where it is, but I can’t risk the chance of him getting it back, so I rip it out and toss it over the railing.
The rest of Misfit Hall settles as the battle winds down, captives being taken. Reaper Corp lost, and this is their last standing man. He touches his eye, removing blood from his vision, but my head tilts to the side as his eyeball moves. He’s wearing contacts, and anyone born and raised in a corporation that breeds perfection wouldn’t wear contacts. He’d have perfect vision either through birth or laser eye surgery. They’re a video device, and that’s how they’re learning so much about Moros.
“Draco,” he tells me his name in a raspy breath. “Pleasure has been all mine.”
His final dagger flies, but I’m already charging at him. It embeds in the fleshy part between my neck and shoulder, but it doesn’t stop my hands from wrapping around his neck and holding him over the railing. He’s already half dead, and my temper got me here, so I lean in, nose to nose with him, and watch the life filter out of his eyes as I strangle him.
“Soren,” I tell him. “A cursed man has killed you. See you in Hell, Draco.” I drag my blade across his throat and hold his body over the railing to feel his blood coat my hands. It rains down on the first floor like a crimson shower, and Draco smiles as he dies, content to leave this world. I’m lost in a blood high, but there’s a part of me that envies him at this moment. This is that second or two between life and death, and I’ve always wanted to experience it.
“What’s it like?” I whisper the question at him.
His pupils move and I swear he looks at me, trying to show me what it feels like to straddle the line between here and there. As his blood soaks through my shirt sleeves, whatever spark I found in his eyes extinguishes, and I let him fall backwards over the railing.
Watching him fall, I see my Vile brothers. Ransom, Monster, Menace, Kyd, and Riot. They’re all bloody, but they’re also coated in black smudges and smoke. Menace is barely standing, and Riot… I swallow at the way he’s staring at me.
I can’t look away from him because he’s the one who chases me to the afterlife, and right now, I feel too close but not close enough as pain rushes forward now that the madness has settled.
“His eyes,” I rasp, gripping my shoulder. “Contacts. Take them. Where’s Yates?”
“Not here,” Lock says from beside me, blood dripping down his face. “Misfits! Outside, now!” His hand touches my shoulder. “You good, Sauder?”
Dying, but yeah. I nod.
“Get to a medic, yeah?”
I stumble back a step, but before Lock can steady me, Riot’s hand wraps around my throat to hold me up.
“Leave,” he tells everyone without looking away from me.
“Don’t fucking touch me right now,” I snap at him. Because I’m dying but so fucking alive. Every part of me feels something. Pain, pleasure, intrigue, wonder. I’m bleeding from so many places, but it feels rejuvenating, like a purging of this gang and the loathsome way I’ve had to fake it here. The fight with Draco drains out of me, but the fight within me only rises in temperature, burning me up from the inside as Riot stares at me wordlessly.
When the front door slams and Misfit Hall is silent, his hand loosens on my throat and he takes his mask off. His eyes sweep my body before he slides his fingers down the side of my neck, pressing them to the stab wound at the base. He trembles. In rage.
