Page 83 of Darkness I Become
Clyde huffed, and Asha braced herself. She couldn’t see his face, but she sensed that whatever was coming, it would be bad.
“Bodies,” he answered simply. “We know that the Guardians, and all the other worthless gangs in these parts, have a robust slave trade. Angel agreed just days ago to supply us with as many able-bodied slaves as we could handle.”
Asha made a sound of horror. This was a nightmare. Cade glanced at her, his eyes hard, silently ordering her to contain herself.
“In exchange for what?” he demanded, pinning Clyde with a look.
Clyde gave another harsh laugh. “For being allowed to exist. Obviously.”
Asha’s heart pounded hideously in her chest, and she covered her mouth with her hand to stop herself from speaking. Meanwhile, Dom’s jaw had clenched and Leo’s face had gone white.
“Surely, you know our capabilities,Captain,” Clyde continued mockingly. “Yes, I know who you are, though I don’t know what compound you’re from. Can’t be from ours—everyone who failed to bow to the Order is dead.”
Cade’s eyes flicked to Asha for the briefest of seconds before he deliberately looked elsewhere, and Asha had to resist the urge to run. It seemed as though they didn’t know she’d survived, and she wanted to keep it that way.
“Since you’re a compound military commander, you know the kind of weapons we can employ,” Clyde said. “Weapons beyond anything these pitiful Wastelander gangs could dream of. Weapons of mass destruction, suffering, and death. If you choose not to assist the Prince of Pain in his goals, you will be signing your own death warrant, along with everyone else’s. Angel—stupid but prudent man that he was—saw the wisdom in complying.”
Cade was silent, his teeth gritted, and Asha’s fear almost overcame her when she realized that he had no adequate response. How could he? He held the lives of every person here in his hands…yet surrendering so many slaves to Clyde and this strange Order was unthinkable. Everything they’d done up to this point to overthrow Angel’s horrific rule would be for nothing. All their best laid plans for liberty and justice would be forfeit.
“Perhaps you need some persuasion,” Clyde said, a nasty timbre to his voice, and turned to one of the other masked men. “Malcolm.”
Before anyone could react, Malcolm raised a small gun, akin to a taser, and Asha gasped as her chest was pierced by a long needle. She had just enough time to look down and see small dart sticking out of her chest before she fell forward. The skin around the entry wound had already started to feel unnaturally numb, and the sensation was spreading outward.
Leo, to his credit, reacted faster than anyone else. He was at Asha’s side in half a second, ripping her jacket open and surveying the damage. She cried out as he slowly worked on extricating the needle from her chest. Cade made a noise that sounded like something between rage and anguish.
“What. Did. You. Do. To. Her?” Cade demanded. She’d never heard him sound so murderous and out of control. “I’ll kill you. I’ll fucking kill you.”
He made a move toward Clyde, but the masked man held up a hand.
“Careful, Captain,” he crooned. “It’s a fast-acting poison.” He withdrew a small, loaded syringe from a pocket on his utility belt. “This is the antidote. I’d be happy to give it to her, if you keep your gang’s agreement with us. If you don’t, however, I’ll be forced to crush this syringe, and she’ll die a painful death.”
The numbness had spread to Asha’s whole body, and her teeth kept clenching involuntarily. Saliva pooled in her mouth and leaked out, and a second later, her body began seizing uncontrollably. Her sense of reality blurred, but she distantly felt Leo turning her onto her side, her mouth facing the floor. More shouting broke out between the two parties.
A moment later, she felt another stab in her left buttock, and heard Cade cursing profusely. She must’ve blacked out, because the next thing she knew, she was propped up against the wall, and Leo was carefully lifting her eyelids and shining his flashlight into them. Clyde and his friends were gone.
She drew back instinctively, coughing.
“Is she okay?” Cade asked, barely above a whisper. He sounded beside himself.
“She’s conscious, which is a good sign,” Leo replied, rummaging in his medical bag. “I have no idea what they gave her, but I’ll monitor her overnight to determine if there’s any lasting neurological damage from the seizure.”
“Seemed like a chemical weapon,” Dom commented, sounding detached as ever. “Designed to kill quick.”
Asha still felt spacey and distant, even when Cade scooped her up into his arms and they headed for Leo’s clinic. He held her close to his body, and she realized he was shaking. When they reached the cot in the clinic, he laid her down so gently, tucking her under the blankets with such care.
“Cade,” Asha breathed, her vision still a little blurry. “I’m…I think I’m okay. I feel better.”
It was true: the numbness in her limbs was slowly fading, and the drooling had stopped. She felt exhausted in the aftermath of the seizure, however.
“That’s good,” he murmured, low and tender, dropping a kiss on her forehead. “You scared me back there, my sweet angel.”
There was a long pause while Leo listened to her heart and lungs and performed some other tests to ensure she was recovering. By the time he finished, Asha was falling asleep. Still, she remembered she had something important to tell Cade, something that couldn’t wait.
“Cade?” she whispered, her eyes shut.
“What, darling?”
“Don’t give them the slaves. Whatever…happens, don’t.”
