Page 29 of Rogue: Planet Athion
“Good news, good news,” Marick muttered to himself. “House Ryzer is going down.”
I met his gaze. “You’re a disloyal bastard, you know that, Marick?”
“Yes, you’ve said, and you were right. I have no interest in House Ryzer. I’m team Zantar.” His attention slipped to Vex. “And Zantar will be getting back their prize soon enough in a rematch now that I’m house manager.”
“What?” Marlon said.
Marick’s smile was smug. “You’re looking at Zantar’s new manager. I just transferred.” He held a small black device. “I was simply coming to say goodbye, and I thought I could do it with a bang, accidentally of course, but now I have the perfect excuse.”
His gaze was on me, on the collar at my neck. My hand went to the metal.
“You think I’m done with you, Rogue? You think I’ll ever be done with you after what you did?”
Ice flooded my veins, but I raised my chin. “You fucking deserved it, you sick fuck.”
His smile widened. “Call me a sick fuck again.”
He was going to press that button regardless so what the heck. “You sick fu—”
A wet boom echoed across the chasm, Killion let out a bellow, and Vex cursed. My body shook as my hands went to my face. I was here. I was still here, then who? Killion yelled again and again. I turned my head slowly to where Marlon had been standing a moment ago, my heart in my mouth, because I knew … I fucking knew. His body was down, and where his head had been … Oh, fuck.
A keening whimper filled the air.
Where was that coming from? Me. It was coming from me.
Marick laughed. “Did that hurt, Rogue? Did it?”
Marick’s face swam in my vision as I turned my back to him. I wanted to scream, to shout, to curse him, but the words were trapped in my throat, frozen in place. Killion’s sobs echoed around me as he rocked beside his lover’s body.
“How about this one?”
Another wet explosion and Killion’s sobs were cut off. There was silence in the cavern, ominous and thick.
Vex’s face had drained of color, and Xavier had gone very still on the ground beside me.
“Rogue, don’t.” Vex’s voice was hoarse.
But I wasn’t in control of my neck muscles; they forced my head to turn stiffly and jerkily in Killion’s direction. But my friend was no longer sitting up. His body was slumped over Marlon’s, and his head was a red explosion of brain tissue.
Marick was laughing, full-on head-thrown-back gleeful laughter, and the fist squeezing my throat loosened. Rage rushed through me like a tidal wave, and then I was on my feet and rushing toward Marick.
His eyes widened in shock and a stab of bloody satisfaction ripped through me, but then a band of steel snagged my waist, and I was lifted off my feet and away from the Trad.
Vex hugged me tight. “Stop. Don’t. Rogue, please. He wants you alive. Stay alive.”
Heat blasted the back of my eyes and nose, it crawled up my throat and erupted in a fiery scream that left me raw. Vex held me as I thrashed and kicked.
Marick raised the black control once more. He was going to kill another one of my team. My body went limp.
“Don’t. Please.”
Vex’s arms tightened around my waist.
Marick canted his head. “Sorry? What did you say?”
I swallowed the bile that rose in my throat. “Please, don’t hurt them.”
Xavier was on his feet now, his hand cradling his abdomen.
