Page 90 of The Last True Hero
Twenty-Three
ADAM GRIPPED THE bars, his biceps flexing as he tried to tear the steel apart. Jaw ground together, he winced as the newly-knit wounds in his chest pulled, and his hands burned from the silver coating the bars. The second Colton put the medallion back on him—almost ten minutes ago now—he’d made the slow, torturous change back to human, his skin rejecting the shotgun pellets. He’d spent every second since then trying to escape.
Especially after several reivers burst in and found him halfway between man and warg. They'd run out to tell Vex, which didn't leave him a lot of time.
"You ain't getting out."
“Fuck off, Colton.” Adam finally tore his hands from the bars in defeat. His chest ached like a son of a bitch, and it wasn’t just from being shot.
Mia.He could see her horrified expression as plainly as if she stood before him still, the look in her eyes…. That damning look. A lump in his throat made swallowing difficult. He’d lived this truth before. Seen his townsfolk, his friends, look at him the same way when his true nature had been revealed almost a year ago. Time didn’t make this moment hurt any less. He’d spent the past year using Colton as his goal to keep moving forward, even as he refused to look to the past, or accept what had happened. In that time he’d grieved, but he’d also refused to let anyone else get close to him.
Until now.
"Just saying." Colton picked at a thread on his combat pants, before looking up, those dark eyes locking on Adam. "You don't think we haven't all tried?"
Of all the hells.... Rearing back, he smashed his palm against the bars. It hurt and did nothing to calm his rage, but at least it felt like he wasn’t giving up. "Shut up."
Fabric shifted as Colton clearly slid to his feet. He hadn’t put up much resistance when the reivers came in and found all of the blood on the floor. Simply held his hands in the air and entered his cell again, while they tried to figure out what to do. "I can’t help thinking that this is fate—”
"I said... shut up," Adam growled, tilting his head toward his enemy. "Or I'll make you."
A line of bars separated them. Colton looked unimpressed at his threat, and rested one arm on the single horizontal bar that ran at chest height. He rapped his other knuckles against the bars, withdrawing with a flinch when the silver coating burned him. "Yeah. You seem pretty tough behind those bars.”
Ignoring his nakedness, Adam took a step closer and Colton tensed. "Why are you even here?" he demanded.
"Someone had to stay with you, and I figured you'd prefer not to tear one of your friends apart if you lost control. Besides, your woman looked a little shell-shocked. Keeping secrets, were we?"
"I should have killed you the first time I met you."
A shrug. "Probably." Their eyes met. “Would have done us both a favor."
And with that, they were both back in the past, seeing Bartholomew Cane’s face again—the psychopath who’d created them all, keeping Colton on both a physical and mental leash.
He didn’t want to sympathize with the bastard. But it was hard not to. Adam’s experience with the man had begun and ended in little more than two nights. Colton spent years under Cane’s heel.
“How’d you get caught?” Adam finally asked, sinking onto the frigid stone bench. "You're not stupid." After all, he'd managed to avoid Adam for at least a few months.
“Found a small town in an uproar. Reivers had taken three of their women. Thought I might as well do something about it. Only problem was, I walked right into a trap. Townsfolk sold me out to keep the reivers off their own asses.”
Typical strategy in some parts of the Badlands. It made it impossible for towns to band together when they couldn’t trust outsiders, and therefore made creating a militia against the reivers damned near impossible. Adam grunted.
“The reivers took me out of my cage one night to have a little fun with brands and hot iron,”—this time Colton’s smile was vicious—“and let’s just say all hell broke loose that night. I cut free, Cypher’s raiding party found the remains, figured out what had done the job, and War Dog tracked me down.” He rapped on the bars with his knuckles. “Home, sweet home ever since.”
“So you fight in the arena?”
“I kill in the arena.” When they locked eyes, he saw the chill disregard in Colton’s eyes, as if he used it to distance himself from the nightmare. “You’re looking at Cypher’s most valuable property.”
“Guess that makes two of us.” Adam clasped his fist in his palm, rubbing at his knuckles.
“You know they’ll probably pit us against each other if your woman doesn't make it back? Cypher will want revenge on you for sneaking in beneath her nose.”
Made sense. Adam looked away. The chance he’d been waiting for all year, yet now he’d almost lost all enthusiasm.
Or maybe tracking Colton down had become a crutch. Something to give his life focus, until Mia strolled into his vision, with those hands on her hips and that eyebrow arched.
Don’t think about her. His ribs felt empty again—hollow all the way through. She was better off getting the hell out of here.
“I’ve been here for over a month,” Colton said quietly. “It’s taken all the rusty edges off me. You won’t stand a chance.”
