Текст книги "Daggermouth"

Автор книги: H. M. Wolfe

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Текущая страница: 32 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

Chapter thirty-nineThis Is What Hope Does

Callum’s world collapsed in front of his eyes.

Lira had just signed her own execution order.

Maximus would kill her for this. Not quickly, not cleanly. He would make an example out of her, his own daughter.

There was no hesitation as Callum started running. He was out of his office and down the stairs before he could even think about the others. All that mattered was Lira.

He had to get to Lira.

He punched in numbers on his tablet as he sprinted out of his club and onto the empty streets.

First Farrow. No answer. He tried again. No answer.

Second Jameson. He would answer. He had to answer, he had only been floors beneath him waiting for the signal. No answer.

No fucking answer.

He tried Jaeger next. The line connected this time. But there was nothing. Nothing but static spewed into his year.

“Fuck.” The word dragged from his lungs as he rounded a corner two blocks away from the checkpoint of the entertainment sector.

He dialed Brooker. No one answered.

His stomach twisted, bile rising in his throat as his feet pounded against the pavement. He had to get to her. He had to stop Maximus before he got his hands on her. Had to get her out.

He forced himself to slow as he reached the checkpoint, panting as he approached the guards.

“I need to pass,” he said, not bothering with pleasantries. “Immediately.”

The officer tilted his head slightly. “I’m sorry, sir. The plaza is under lockdown. President’s orders. No one in or out.”

“I’m Callum Thane.” He injected authority into his voice. “My clearance supersedes any lockdown.”

“Not this one, sir.” The officer’s posture shifted subtly, hand moving closer to his weapon. “President Serel was explicitly clear. No exceptions.”

Something inside Callum cracked—a thin fissure in the dam holding back his fear, his rage, his desperation.

“You don’t understand. I need to get through. Now.”

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to step back and return to your residence.” The officer’s hand now rested openly on his holster. “The situation at the plaza is being contained.”

Contained.

The word echoed in Callum’s mind, conjuring images of blood and pain and Lira’s broken body.

“Please,” Callum said, and he didn’t recognize his own voice—stripped of pride, of pretense, raw with a desperation he’d never allowed himself to show. “Please, I need to get to her.”

The officer’s voice hardened as a second officer appeared behind him. “Step back, sir. Final warning.”

He was going to lose her.

Something inside him shattered.

His fist connected with the officer’s helmet before either of them realized he’d moved. The impact sent pain shooting up his arm, but he barely felt it through the roar of blood in his ears. The officer staggered back, stunned by the unexpected attack, and Callum used the moment to snatch the gun from his holster.

The second officer reached for his weapon, but Callum was faster. The sound of the shot cracked through the streets, echoing off glass and metal. The officer dropped, his lifeless body pouring blood from the bullet through his skull.

Callum turned the gun on the first officer.

“Let me pass,” Callum demanded, voice steady in a way that terrified some distant part of himself.

The officer hesitated. Callum shifted the barrel, firing a shot that grazed the man’s ear. Not enough to cripple, enough to prove his intent.

“Next one won’t miss,” he promised.

Slowly, the man reached for the card hanging at his belt. He unclipped it, then backed toward the checkpoint barrier. Callum watched as he slid the card into the reader, then punched in a code and scanned his palm. A light began to flash green as the electric field disengaged with a soft hum.

Callum wouldn’t take any chances.

He pulled the trigger and the officer crumpled to the ground as he broke into a run and passed over the barrier.

The twin towers in the center of the plaza rose into the sky. He was so close now. Just two more blocks. Just two more blocks and he would reach her.

Shouts erupted behind him—reinforcements arriving, alerted by the gunshots. He didn’t look back, couldn’t afford to waste the seconds. His lungs burned, muscles screaming as he pushed himself harder, faster.

He had to get to her. He would do anything to get to her.

Maximus’s mask caught the sun as he turned toward Lira, each movement controlled, deliberate, a predator calculating the kill. Shadera recognized that stillness. Had embodied it herself before taking a life. And though her body screamed with pain from a hundred injuries, though her broken ribs threatened to pierce her lungs with each breath, she moved.

Her hand found the slit in her dress, fingers wrapping around the gun strapped to the top of her thigh. The metal was warm from her body heat, familiar and comforting in her grip as she slid it free. Every movement sent fresh fire racing through her torso, but she kept her face blank, refusing to reveal pain.

Three steps brought her between Maximus and Lira. Her arm extended, the barrel of her gun aimed directly at the golden mask. Steady. Perfect. Even broken, she was the best the Daggermouths had.

“Not another step,” she said, her voice carrying across the suddenly silent platform. The medicine dulled her pain, but sharpened her focus, narrowing her world to this moment, this confrontation.

Maximus’s eyes locked on her.

His head tilted slightly, as if amused by her defiance.

“You would threaten me?” His voice carried the confidence of a man who had never faced consequences. “In my Heart? Surrounded by Veyra?”

“Yes.” No hesitation. No fear. Only certainty.

Greyson appeared at her side, his own gun drawn, aimed at his father’s head. The tension in his body matched her own—coiled, ready to spring. She didn’t need to look at him to feel his presence, to know they were perfectly aligned in this moment.

“It’s over, Father,” Greyson said. “Your Heart is broken.”

Movement flickered at the edge of Shadera’s vision.

A Veyra officer shifting his weight, hand dropping to his weapon. She tracked him without moving her gun from Maximus, calculating angles, timing, priorities.

One bullet for Maximus, then pivot to the officer, but that would leave Greyson exposed to—

The shot cracked through the air before she could move.

The Veyra officer dropped a neat hole through his faceplate, body crumpling then rolling off the platform’s polished surface. Shadera’s gaze snapped to the source as horrified gasps rippled through their audience.

Captain Mikel stepped forward from his line of men at the back of the platform, his weapon shifting targets to Maximus’s head.

“Traitor,” he hissed at Mikel, the word dripping with venom.

Shadera’s fingers tightened on her gun, the weight of it reassuring despite the tremor spreading through her muscles. Three guns now pointed at Maximus.

The air between them seemed to crystallize, tension drawing it taut, ready to shatter at the slightest movement. Shadera’s heart hammered against her ribs, each beat a fresh burst of pain. She could feel blood seeping through the open wounds beneath her dress, warm and sticky against her skin.

Maximus tilted his head, then he laughed. The sound was hollow, echoing strangely behind his mask, a sound devoid of mirth or humanity.

“Do you think you’ve won?” he asked, his voice almost conversational now. “Do you think this is it? The great revolution? The downfall of the Heart?”

He took a step forward, seemingly unconcerned by the weapons trained on him. Shadera's finger twitched on the trigger, but she held her fire. Something in his confidence made her hesitate.

Maximus turned toward Lira, his eyes fixing on her bare face. “I must admit, daughter, I’m impressed. This—” He gestured toward the scattered masks on the platform, the unmasked women below. “—this I didn’t anticipate. The only move you have made that I did not see coming.”

His words sent a chill through Shadera’s spine.

What other moves?

“In fact,” Maximus continued, his voice swelling with perverse pride, “I’m proud of you. The only one who managed to do something under my nose.”

Shadera saw the slight stiffening of Mikel’s back, the shudder in Lira’s chest.

They knew something.

“Did you truly think I wouldn’t know about your plans? Did you think you were so clever hiding the rings underground, thinking it would save them from my bombs?”

Shadera’s heart seized.

It wasn’t just Lira who’d acted, Jameson had to be a part of this if the Boundary is underground.

“While everyone focused on this spectacle,” Maximus said, spreading his arms to encompass the ceremony, the platform, “my loyal Veyra were busy elsewhere. They hacked into Callum’s system using the same techniques he’s so proud of. Fed him false footage while we moved undetected throughout the city.”

Her hand tightened on the gun.

“The rebels in the Entertainment District?” Maximus continued, his voice almost gleeful now. “Detained. It was bloody, I’ll admit. Messy. But we managed to keep some of them alive. For questioning. For examples.”

Greyson’s face had gone pale, and Shadera realized he had been left in the dark like her.

“The Daggermouths?” Maximus chuckled, turning his masked face toward Shadera now. "They were rounded up like rats in a trap.”

Each word was a knife to her flesh, splitting through skin and twisting.

“And Jaeger Nolin, the Wolf,” Maximus said, seeming to savor the name. “Your leader. Your father figure. I have something special planned for him. Something that will make what you endured in that cell seem like a lover’s caress.”

No. No, no, no.

Shadera’s vision blurred, her heart convulsing as its rate quickened.

Not Jaeger. He wasn’t supposed to leave the Boundary. He was never supposed to leave.

“Kestrel Farrow,” Maximus continued, his voice softening in a way that made Shadera’s skin crawl. “Oh, she is exquisite, isn’t she? Such fire. Such intelligence. It would be a pity to waste her. No, I think I’ll keep that one. Find uses for her talents. After I break her, of course.”

Maximus paused for only a breath. Letting his words settle, ferment.

“And Callum.” Maximus turned back to Lira, whose face had gone ghostly pale. “Your lover.” Greyson tensed beside her. “Your co-conspirator. I’ll take my time with him. Perhaps I’ll even let you watch as I peel him apart, layer by layer. As I extract every secret, every plan, every thought he ever had about you.”

Shadera watched the gears turning in Lira’s mind, watched as she decided how to respond. Choosing between begging for his life and not giving her father the satisfaction of seeing her flinch.

She chose the latter and when she spoke, her voice was steady, cold as steel.

“And Brooker?” she asked. “What are you going to do to him this time?”

Greyson’s vision blurred, the gun in his hand suddenly leaden.

“What?” he breathed, the question directed at Lira, whose face remained resolute despite the pallor that had crept beneath her skin.

It wasn’t possible. Couldn’t be possible.

Maximus laughed, the sound grating against Greyson’s eardrums like metal on glass. His father’s amusement, his casual dismissal of the pain he’d inflicted, ignited fury in Greyson’s chest.

“Surprised, son?” Maximus asked, his voice pitched to carry across the platform. “You shouldn’t be. Death has always been . . . negotiable in our family, as you know well.”

Something in Maximus’s words made the Veyra surrounding them hold their guns higher. Veyra loyal to Maximus formed a perimeter, weapons raised, while those who had sided with Mikel stood their ground, creating a protective formation around Greyson, Shadera, Lira, and Elara. Outnumbered at least three to one, but unwavering.

The tension in the air was a physical thing now, pressing against Greyson’s skin, filling his lungs with each labored breath. A single wrong move, a twitch of a finger, and the platform would erupt in blood and bullets.

Maximus raised his hands, the gesture almost benedictory as he addressed the scattered crowd below. “Citizens of the Heart,” he called, his amplified voice booming across the plaza. “Return to your homes immediately.”

The crowd hesitated, uncertainty rippling through the gathered masses. Some began to retreat, filtering toward the exits, while others remained rooted in place, eyes fixed on the drama unfolding above them.

“Now,” Maximus added, the single word carrying the full weight of his authority.

The exodus quickened, people streaming toward the exits in growing numbers, desperate to escape whatever violence they sensed was imminent. But not everyone fled. The women who had removed their masks—hundreds of them—stood firm, forming a defiant knot at the base of the platform.

Maximus observed them with an air of detached amusement.

“Interesting,” he murmured, just loud enough for those on the platform to hear. “Your little rebellion has more backbone than I anticipated, Lira.”

He signaled to a squad of Veyra, who moved immediately toward the women. “Deal with them,” he ordered. “I’ll address their . . . disobedience later.”

The Veyra swarmed around the unmasked women, herding them together like livestock. Some went quietly. Others fought, their resistance quickly subdued with practiced brutality. Greyson forced himself to watch, to bear witness to the courage they showed, to memorize each face, each act of defiance.

Maximus waited for the plaza to empty before he turned his attention back to them, and allowed a light chuckle to slip over his lips.

“What does she mean about Brooker?” Greyson growled toward his father.

“My poor son,” he said, locking his eyes on Greyson. “This is what hope does to you. What love does to you.” He shook his head in disappointment. “It makes you naive. It makes you dull and blind and weak.”

Greyson’s finger tensed on the trigger, the urge to end this—to put a bullet through the golden mask and whatever twisted expression lay beneath it—nearly overwhelming. But something held him back. The need to know. To understand.

“Your brother is indeed alive,” Maximus continued, his voice almost gentle now, as if explaining a difficult concept to a child. “And he’s played you beautifully. Played all of you, really.”

“No,” Greyson said, the denial automatic, instinctive. “Brooker wouldn’t—”

“Wouldn’t what?” Maximus interrupted. “Wouldn’t serve his father? Wouldn’t protect the Heart? Wouldn’t do his duty?” A harsh laugh escaped him. “You never did understand your brother, Greyson. Never saw his true nature beneath that facade of compassion.”

From the corner of his eye, Greyson saw Lira’s sharp intake of breath, saw Mikel straighten as if struck. Their reactions made no sense.

“What’s going on?” he demanded, looking between them. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“So many secrets,” Maximus said, enjoying his confusion. “So many lies. It must be exhausting trying to keep them all straight.”

He took a step closer, unconcerned by the weapons still trained on him.

“I had such fun toying with you, breaking you,” he continued. “And it was so easy once you thought the Daggermouth killed your brother.” He gestured toward Shadera. “I did not have to tell you anything about Brooker, could have waited until you figured it out on your own, but I enjoyed watching you crumble. Watching you try to reconcile your feelings for the Boundary trash with the idea that she killed your hero.” Maximus shrugged. “It was a test of trust, I suppose, and you passed. You still trusted me, even after every lie I have ever told you. You trusted that I was telling you the truth.”

Greyson’s stomach clenched, bile rising in his throat as his words sank in.

Movement below caught his attention. A figure emerging from the perimeter of the plaza, walking with confident strides toward the platform. Greyson’s gaze caught on the man, and his world tilted on its axis.

Brooker.

His brother. Alive and whole, a gun in his hand and a smile on his face that Greyson had never seen before—cold, cruel, triumphant. And beside him, stumbling as Brooker dragged him forward, a gun pressed to his temple—

“Callum,” Lira whispered, then louder, a scream and a sob tearing from her throat all at once. “Callum!”

Brooker laughed, the sound so familiar and yet so wrong that it made Greyson’s skin crawl.

“Grey,” he called up, his voice carrying across the plaza. “I missed you.”

Greyson’s stomach bottomed out, a hollow sensation spreading through his core, as if everything that had anchored him to the world had suddenly dissolved.

His brother.

His brother who had held him through nightmares as a child, who had taught him to fight, to survive their father’s cruelty.

“I killed him,” Shadera said beside him, her voice cracking with disbelief. “I killed him. He should be dead.”

“Unfortunately for you, you didn’t,” Brooker replied, his smile widening as he tightened his grip on Callum as he struggled against him, blood seeping from a cut above his eye, from his lips. “Though not for lack of trying. Your reputation is well earned, Shade.”

Brooker pulled down the collar of his shirt to show a thick scar at the base of his neck as he continued to move toward the platform. “I’m gonna have to repay you for this one day. Hurt like a bitch.”

They reached the base and Brooker forced Callum to ascend the steps ahead of him, the gun never wavering from his head. Up close, Greyson could see the changes in his brother—the harder set of his jaw, the coldness in his eyes that had never been there before. Or perhaps it had, and Greyson had simply been too blind to see it.

Lira reached for Callum, and he moved to run to her, but Brooker pulled him back quickly, pushing him to his knees and pressing the gun to his temple.

Lira gasped, tears streaming down her face now. “Please don’t. Brooker, please don’t hurt him.”

“You’ve been alive this whole time,” Greyson said, the words tasting like poison in his mouth as he met Callum’s eyes.

He had never seen fear there. But now, it was exploding in his irises. His eyes flickered to Lira then back to him. Then again.

“Very much so,” Brooker confirmed. “Dad and I came up with the plan years ago to plant me in the rings. We took a gamble with my life by buying that contract, but I was willing to die for the Heart.” His smile didn’t falter as he glanced to Shadera. “And I almost did thanks to that bitch. Thankfully, she was a little too drunk that night to realize she left me breathing.”

Dad.

Greyson forced the sickness back. His mind reeled, struggling to process the betrayal unfolding before him. His brother—the man he’d idolized, mourned, tried to emulate—had been working against them all along.

“The contract was the only way to make the rebels truly trust that I was a deserter,” Brooker continued, his tone too close to the sound of his father’s. “That my loyalties were with the rings. It took years of planning, of building my cover, of sleeping with Cardinal trash and helping the scum of the rings.” His smile deepened with something like pride. “But it was worth it because it all came to this moment.”

Each word was a knife, slicing through Greyson’s last illusions about his family, his brother, his place in the world. The man before him was a stranger wearing his brother’s face. A monster who had orchestrated suffering and death with the same casual cruelty of their father.

“We learned a lot about Shadera through the grapevine,” Brooker went on, his gaze sliding to her with a coldness that made Greyson’s hair stand on end. “Knew how important she was to Jaeger, to Vine. Knew they would do almost anything to get her back.”

Maximus stepped up beside him, the two of them forming a united front that made his stomach turn. Father and son, power and cunning combined.

“Dad and I had just planned to keep her prisoner after your death, but then you had to go and remove your mask in front of everyone. That’s when Elara suggested the Vow.” Brooker nodded toward their mother standing at the back of the platform, shoulders folded in on herself. “That’s when the real plan formed. Came together brilliantly, if I do say so myself.”

Brooker chuckled, squeezing Callum’s shoulder and shaking him.

“I whispered in Farrow’s ear that the ceremony would be the perfect time to strike,” Brooker continued, “and the information just trickled down. Dad and I didn’t have to do anything, really, but wait and let all the rebel leaders come to us.” He laughed again, the sound haunting. “And they did it so easily.”

Callum made a sound, a snarl, struggling against Brooker’s grip. “You won’t get away with this,” he spat, blood spraying from his split lip. “The people know now. They’ve seen—”

Brooker pressed the gun harder against his temple, cutting him off. “They’ve seen what we wanted them to see. A spectacle. A distraction. While we took care of the real threat.” His smile was razor sharp now. “And without leaders to oppose us, the rings will be easy to eliminate for a greater purpose.”

“A greater purpose?” Greyson echoed, unable to keep the disgust from his voice. “Mass murder is your greater purpose?”

“Progress,” Maximus interjected, his tone reasonable, almost paternal. “The expansion of the Heart. The preservation of civilization in a world still recovering from its collapse.”

“You really are the devil,” Greyson whispered, but Brooker just laughed.

“You were always the weaker brother,” he said, shaking his head. “So emotional. It makes sense you would have a different father. Something so weak couldn’t come from Maximus.”

The words hit Greyson with astonishing force, driving the air from his lungs.

Different father?

He saw his mother straighten. Saw Mikel’s hand tighten on his gun.

“What is he talking about?” Greyson demanded, looking from face to face, searching for answers in their expressions as he raised his gun a little higher.

Maximus stepped closer to him, one hand coming to rest on his arm with false affection as Greyson’s gun pressed against his chest.

“That’s right,” he said, his voice dripping with contempt. “Your mother is a whore, spread her legs for Mikel, and weakness is the only thing that came out of it.”

The world stopped. Expanded. Contracted. Greyson felt as if he were standing outside himself, watching the scene unfold from a distance. Mikel. His father. Not Maximus. The revelation should have been earth-shattering, should have rewritten everything he knew about himself.

Instead, it felt like confirmation of something he’d always sensed—the wrongness of his place in the Serel family, the disconnect between himself and the man he’d called father.

Mikel finally pulled his helmet off, letting it fall to the platform with a clatter that echoed across the plaza. His face—a face Greyson had known his entire life without truly seeing—was contorted with rage, eyes fixed on Maximus with murderous intent.

“Get your hands off of him,” Mikel snarled, raising his gun higher.

Something in Greyson snapped. All the rage, all the pain, all the betrayal of the past days, years, lifetime, coalesced into a single, burning point of clarity.

This ended now.

He adjusted his aim, finger tightening on the trigger, ready to put a bullet through the golden mask that had haunted his nightmares since childhood.

But the Veyra were faster.

The first shot came from somewhere to his right—one of Maximus’s loyal officers firing at Mikel but missing. Then another, and another, until the air was thick with the sound of gunfire, the acrid smell of cordite burning Greyson’s nostrils.

Chaos erupted on the platform. Mikel’s men returned fire, bodies falling on both sides. Shadera dropped to one knee, firing and dropping Veyra after Veyra. Elara ducked behind the altar, clutching it with shaking hands.

Brooker’s grip on Callum must have slackened. Because in the next breath, Callum twisted away, lunging toward Lira with desperate speed.

He ran for her, reaching for her as bullets whizzed past them.

Greyson felt it in the air, felt it shift around him as a scream built on the tip of his tongue.

But he was too late.

The shot that took him came from Brooker’s gun.

A single bullet to the back of Callum’s head. His body jerked once, then crumpled to the platform, blood pooling beneath him in an expanding circle of crimson.

The world stilled, every sound muting except for the single horrifying scream that erupted from Lira’s throat.

It was a sound of pure anguish. A sound that seemed to tear through the entire city, echoing between its buildings.

To Greyson’s eyes it was slow, it was an eternity, as she ran to him, heedless of the bullets still flying around them. He watched Lira drop to her knees beside his body. Could see her lips moving and forming Callum’s name as tears fell onto his body, but he couldn’t hear anything now past the static.

A bullet caught her in the shoulder, spinning her sideways as every sense crashed back into Greyson’s body. He lunged for her, slipping over blood and bodies as he fought his way toward his wounded sister, his best friend.

His best friend.

A Veyra officer tackled him from behind, driving him to the platform floor with bone-jarring force. His gun skittered away across the polished surface, out of reach. He fought, twisting beneath the officer’s weight, but more hands joined, pinning him down.

Around him, Mikel’s loyal Veyra were falling, overwhelmed by superior numbers. One by one, they dropped, until only Mikel himself remained standing, back-to-back with Shadera as they fired in desperate defense.

But it wasn’t enough. Couldn’t be enough.

A bullet caught Shadera in the thigh, driving her to one knee with a strangled cry. Another grazed Mikel’s arm, leaving a smoking furrow in his flesh. They were losing. Had already fucking lost.

“Get my daughter out of here,” Maximus commanded, gesturing toward Lira, who still clutched Callum’s body. Her sobs transformed to a keening wail that tore something from Greyson’s soul. “And my son. Keep the heir safe.”

Veyra officers moved to obey, dragging Lira away from Callum. She fought like a wild animal, kicking, screaming, her fingers leaving bloody trails across the platform as they separated her from his body.

Other officers surrounded Brooker, forming a protective barrier as they escorted him from the platform, away from the violence.

“No!” Lira screamed, the word so raw and broken. “No! Callum! Let me go! Callum!”

Greyson struggled harder against the hands that held him, desperate to reach her, to help her, but they forced him down, a knee pressing between his shoulder blades until he could barely breathe. He watched as they dragged Lira away, her bare feet leaving bloody smears across the platform, her screams growing fainter as they pulled her down the stairs and out of the plaza.

Shadera snarled at the three officers holding her down, rage twisting onto her face as she thrashed against them.

Mikel stood still, arms pinioned behind his back, but he did not struggle at their hold.

Maximus approached Greyson slowly, drawing a sleek pistol from inside his jacket. He stood over him, the golden mask betraying nothing of the expression beneath, but Greyson could feel the triumph radiating from him like heat.

“Put him on his knees,” Maximus ordered, and Greyson could feel the air rush back to his lungs as they pulled him upright.

“You might as well kill me now,” Greyson spat, tasting blood where his lip had split against the platform. His eyes fell to Callum’s body only feet from him and his heart convulsed. His voice hardened into something sharper than any blade. “Because I will never stop fighting you. I will never stop coming for you until you are fucking dead.”

Maximus tilted his head, considering him for a long moment. “You have served your purpose. I have no use for you now. No reason to keep the captain’s bastard alive.”

He raised the gun, aiming it at Greyson’s head. “You should have stayed in line, Greyson. Should have accepted your place, and you could have stood tall beside your brother and me.” His finger tightened on the trigger. “But you chose the wrong side. This rebellion was doomed from the start.”

Greyson didn’t close his eyes. Didn’t flinch. Instead he drifted out of his body. If this was his end, he would face it with the same defiance that had defined his life.

He would die as himself, not as Maximus’s creation.

Shadera’s guttural scream came only a breath before the shot rang out.