Page 5 of Worth the Ruin
The kids squeal and scream and sprint for it like rabid ferrets. Traeger…playswith them. My brows rise in surprise as I watch him chase them around, lift them up, and let them crawl all over him. And all the while, he has the most genuine smile on his face. I cock my head as I study him, trying to read beneath the smile and adding even more to my mental profile. Sure,sociopaths are skilled at hiding the monster beneath charisma and “normal” social behavior, but I’m pretty damn good at spotting it. But with Traeger, I…can’t. I blink in surprise as I realize that he isn’t pretending to enjoy playing with the kids, delighting in their squeals and laughs. He genuinely enjoys it.
A shrieking giggle pulls my attention away from Traeger lifting a little boy up to the monkey bars while three others climb all over him for their turn. I watch as a little girl in pigtails shoots out of the bottom of the slide with a look of pure joy on her adorable face. My heart gives a swift, painful twist as memories assault me:Black hair sticking on end as she came down the tube slide; huge grin as she laughed like a hyena; Leo clutched in her arms; her little voice calling, “Mommy! Watch!”
I squeeze my eyes shut and try to swallow around the sudden knot in my throat. I force the memories away, and after a minute, they fade into the darkness again where they belong. Or really that’s not quite right. They don’t belong there, but that’s where I have to force them to stay. When I open my eyes again, I scan the crowd. Half out of habit and half to have something else to focus on as I wait for the pain to ease. Jonah is up front with the rest of the Council, talking animatedly as they watch the kids play. Almost everyone is smiling, enjoying this moment of levity and joy that’s letting all of us forget about the state of the world for a little while. Some people rush forward to shake Traeger’s hand and smother him in thanks as he disentangles himself from a gang of six-year-olds.
But there’s one person who isn’t happy or full of gratitude.
No, Kevin Abercrombie is staring at Traeger with absolute murder in his eyes. It’s a look I’ve seen too many times, one that I know means that we only have a few seconds before everything goes to hell. His body is tense, sweat dotting his forehead, and I immediately go on alert, reaching for weapons that I don’t have.Fuck!Kevin begins to move through the crowd towards Traeger, cold determination in his eyes.
“Oh shit,” I whisper when realization sinks in. Traeger had killed Kevin’s oldest son just before our group had arrived at The Cove. Story was that it had been an example killing, a Traeger Special to scare the rest of The Cove into compliance, and now apparently Kevin planned to take his revenge. I search for Jonah as I make my way towards Kevin, desperate for some backup to intervene and stop this from turning into a very, very bad day, but he’s not where I saw him a minute ago and I don’t have time to find him.
Kevin’s one of the teachers at the school and an overall decent guy who has a sick wife to take care of. He doesn’t need to do this. Traeger’s punishment would be death or, if Kevin is lucky, forced imprisonment at FOS—either option left Sandy without her husband and caregiver. Hell, the punishment could be to kill half the settlement if Traeger really wanted it to be.Fuck, fuck, fuck.
I grit my teeth as I press forward, trying to make my way through the thick crowd and cut him off. If I can reach him before he reaches Traeger, I can get him out of here with no one knowing what had almost happened. There’ll be no punishment, no retribution, no one the wiser. But I have to stop him quietly and not cause a scene.
“Fuck,” I grate under my breath as I try to move faster, but there’s so many damn people. I cut my eyes from Kevin to Traeger and the guards he has stationed around the playground. My pulse races and dread settles in my stomach when one of them seems to sense something off. Before he can do anything and before I can get there, Kevin pushes through the last line of people standing between him and Traeger. He raises a tiny pistol, the kind you saw women pull out of their purses inmovies. I don’t know where in the hell he got the thing, but I know damn well that things are about to go very, very badly.
“This is for my son!” he yells as he squeezes the trigger. A shot rings out and Traeger jerks backwards, spinning to the side as he falls. His men are on Kevin in an instant and have the gun out of his grasp before he can get off another shot.
Absolute chaos erupts. Screams ring out, children start crying and frantically running for their parents. Traeger’s men begin barking orders, keeping everyone in the area but pushing them back from Traeger and Kevin, guns raised and trigger fingers at the ready. Kevin is slammed to the ground and his arms are yanked roughly behind his back.
Oh God, did Kevin kill him?Though I have no love for Traeger, I hope that Kevin failed. Not only would his men retaliate even if he’s gone, word has it that his second in command, a big brawler looking fucker named Jett, is evenworsethan Traeger. He’s too afraid to try to take Traeger’s command by force, but if the seat was open for the taking? Oh yeah, he’d grab it and the result would be bad for everyone. As loathe as I am to admit it, Traeger’s evil seems to serve a purpose at least. From the rumors I’ve heard about Jett, his is just for evil’s sake.
The familiar man from before rushes to Traeger’s side, but before he can do anything, Traeger sits up on his own. His bicep’s pouring blood and will definitely need a few stitches, but it doesn’t actually look that bad, at least from where I’m standing. Kevin had only winged him. That’s good news, but this situation is far from good. The atmosphere is tense, feeling like a powder keg about to blow. All it would take would be one small spark, one act of aggression or one wrong word, and this park could become a shooting gallery.No. No, no, no. There are children here. Please. Don’t do this.
As if reading my mind, Jonah presses to the front of the crowd, hands raised. I keep my eyes trained on the various guns pointed our direction, not daring to move, but the need to go to Jonah claws inside my chest. I hear his calm, quiet voice in between the cries and soft comforting words from parents to their kids.
“Please. Let the children go. Whatever you’re going to do next, don’t let the children see it.”
Traeger studies Jonah for a long moment, and then nods to one of his men.
In a surprisingly gentle voice, the familiar guard from before says, “Take the children home. Everyone else stays put.” Parents quickly scatter with their kids in tow, and the group that remains waits in tense silence. Traeger glances at his arm, at the blood running down his fingertips and dripping to the ground. I try to remain calm, but my mind is whirling trying to take in everything that’s happening and trying to plan for what might come next. My body is tense, and though I don’t have any weapons, I ready myself to fight if it comes to it.
Traeger shifts his gaze to Kevin, who’s still being pressed roughly into the ground by one of the guards.
“Get him up,” he says, voice cold as steel. An icy jolt of fear skates up my spine and my heart thunders in my chest. They haul Kevin to his knees and I wince at his bloody cheek and broken glasses. All of that fire and hatred from before has seeped out of him. Now, he simply looks broken. Defeated. Is it all setting in now that the haze of rage has subsided? The wife he’s about to leave behind alone? The children he loved to teach that he’d just terrified and could have even gotten injured or killed? The friends he’d endangered? Attacks on Traeger and his men werenottolerated. Simple as that. We could all be punished for Kevin’s actions.
Kevin’s lip trembles as Traeger stalks closer to him.
“Now, I don’t take too kindly to being shot at, as you can imagine.”
He rears back and punches Kevin with his good arm. I force myself not to flinch but quiet gasps ripple through the crowd. I see some of the others turn their faces away so they don’t have to watch. Kevin’s head snaps to the side and the hit would have toppled him if Traeger’s men weren’t holding him up. Another punch sends blood spraying from Kevin’s mouth with a grunt of pain. Traeger turns his back to us and takes a deep breath, bending his head to one side, and then the other, as if stretching before running a race or something.
When he turns back again, he says quietly, “There are rules…”
I suck in a breath as he slips a huge hunting knife free from the sheath at his hip, turning it slowly as he eyes Kevin coldly. Something about his demeanor is off somehow, but before I can figure out what, Jonah lunges forward and my heart stops beating.
Jonah stands in between Kevin and Traeger, hands up and palms out in a peaceful gesture.
“Just wait, ple?—”
The butt of Jett’s rifle hits him in the cheek with a sickening crunch, and he goes down hard, blood flying from his mouth. My world tilts and my blood goes cold, but my vision? That goes fuckingred. All of my instincts and training switch immediately into theGO TIMEposition, and I’m a different person. I want to kill the son of a bitch who had just hurt Jonah. No, notwantedto.Will. I will kill Jett. Maybe not this very moment, but it will happen one day, it’s as good as done. I’m not one to make idle threats. When I set my mind, that’s it, there’s no going back. I’ve always been that way, even as a kid. It had driven my dad crazy and was probably why I’d been so good at my job. If I was given a target or a task, once I set my sights on it, nothing could stop mefrom completing it, no matter how badly the odds were stacked against me.
There are very few people left in this world that I would do absolutely anything for, would cross any line to protect, and Jonah will always be number one on that list.
So, yeah, Jett’s days on this earth are fucking numbered. It’s now a cold hard fact, and that very dark, very real part of me that exists—though I like to pretend that it doesn’t—isdelightedby the idea of taking him out. I haven’t always been this way. I’d had to do plenty of things that toed the line of right and wrong, some that flat out ignored the line, to be honest, but it had always been in an effort to help and protect people. And I’d taken that burden on easily, I’d been happy and proud to do the hard things to keep the world safe, but I’d never enjoyed it or looked forward to it.
But then the world ended and we were fighting for survival, and when I’d lost Gabby, I’d lost my humanity. Or almost had, anyway. Jonah kept me mostly afloat, but when it comes to protecting him, to protecting the people in this world that can’t protect themselves, I’ll let myself dip beneath the waves into that dark abyss, the one where my hands are permanently stained red and where screams and pleas for mercy echo.
