Under His Guard (18 page)

“Jesus motherfucking goddamn Christ.” Cannon rattled off all the curses on the tip of my tongue.

I took her skinny arm in my hand and gently drew her into the shade of the truck that had been set on a collision course with Omega. “Is there anyone with you?”

“My husband was among the first subjects. He died.” She coughed, collapsing against the truck at her back. “No children.”

“You understand what you've asked for?”

“Please. Now. I won't be part of the Company's agenda. I'd rather die.”

I placed my hand on her cheek. “You are a brave woman. A warrior before all.”

I returned to the others. “We do this now before it can't be contained.”

Despite their previous objections, it was clear there was no choice. The sag in all our shoulders said everything.

Nathaniel dialed up Darwin on his D-P. “We need insta-euth hypodermics delivered fast. There will be a supply in the medic building. Bring them all.” He ended the call. “We can't do it…” He linked his fingers with Cannon's. “We can't let them bleed out; can't let them bleed at all.”

“No guns.” I nodded.

The safeties locked into place with resounding clicks.

Darwin raced across the bald terrain, a big olive-green satchel slapping her back. She delivered it to my open hands.

“How goes it inside?” I asked.

“Better than out here.”

No doubt.

As Darwin sprinted back to the barracks, we passed out the doses and swirled the deadly liquid contents of the syringes. Puncture the vein, end suffering. So easy, so…enervating.

We broke ranks and began the cull. I heard every emotion in my head, in my heart. Terror of the unknown, hopes for a serene afterlife, silent good-byes sent to husbands, wives, children. And that was just the people we were…killing. On our side, I battled through an emotional miasma of disgust, shame, self-hate, and maybe a small glimmer of hope we were ending suffering.

The first plunger I sent home was to the woman I'd comforted. “This won't hurt.”

“I know.” She watched me lower the needle to a vein in her elbow. “Do not worry. You are giving others life.”

As I depressed the plunger, I thought of doing the same to Leon, except with the cure. That was the only thought I allowed myself, the only way I'd get through this.

The drug hit her quickly. As her head rolled back, I cupped her skull and laid her out on the ground. My fingertips were no more than whispers upon her skin when I closed her eyelids.

I looked over to the tent and saw Cannon and Nathaniel inside. Neither was moving and Cannon's face was corpse-white.

“What is it?” Nathaniel's concerned voice pricked my resolve.

“She…That girl…” He pointed to a brunette laid out on a cot. Her face was so still it looked like a mask. Her open eyes stared unblinking. A locket hung around her neck. She was pale, possibly already dead. “She looks like Erica did, my sister, the night she…” Cannon swallowed. “Like my mom and dad when the Plague killed them all.”

Jesus Christ.
How many more reasons did we need to stop CEO Cutler? Families ruined, lives destroyed, populations wiped out.

No more.

Rubbing Cannon's shoulder, Nathaniel leaned in to whisper to him.

“I'm solid.” Cannon came back online just as another of our toughened crew got a bad case of the shakes.

Perched on the bed of a civilian, Liz's entire body shook from earthquake-sized chills. As she struggled to hold her injection steady, Linc placed a hand on her arm.

“I won't let you do this.” His voice was low and soft.

Liz stared blankly ahead. “I'm a soldier. This is what I do.” Tears ran down her face while she raised the needle for a second attempt. Shame and sadness wafted off of her like misty clouds before an incoming storm.

“Not this time, sweetheart.” With the gentlest movements, Linc plucked the syringe from her hand.

“What about you?”

“I'm capable of coming out of this in one piece.” Linc sneered at himself. “Think of all I've done before.”

“Don't say that.” She stood abruptly to put her arms around his stiff form, but he backed away.

He jerked his head in the direction Darwin had taken. “You go help the others. We've got this.”

I couldn't watch anymore. I became nothing but a robot carrying out a task. There was no honor in this. None at all as we made sure to euthanize everyone inside and out of the combat hospital.

On the drive back through Omega city, black twists of smoke spiraled into the air behind us. We'd burned the field hospital to the ground to contain the germs. The civilians gathering in the open bazaars of Omega knew the location from which the smoke billowed. It was a visible symbol of the Corps's defeat. The crowds amassed in celebration, but even as we heard the sweet rush of their cheers, our vehicle was filled with an ominous air.

The mass graves we'd grimly dug and gently filled provided no solace, only cold comfort for what we'd done. I felt unclean. Dirtier than I'd ever been. Never had I killed innocents. Judging from the bitter metal tang of distress threatening to drown me, neither had the others.

My foot stammered on the gas, then stuck on the brake.

Sebastian reached for my shoulder. “We had no other choice.”

Even though my head believed him, my heart practically turned upside down in my chest.
Sure. How to tell this to Leon? By the way, we just happened to slaughter a bunch of people infected just like you. But it's okay, babe, because—you know—they had that rapid strain. And, oh yeah, I was the one who gave the kill order.

The only prescription to make this whole shit situation better would've been to find Cutler sitting pretty and ready to receive his own fair share of payback at the Corps camp. But of course there'd been absolutely no joy there either—he was not on site and probably never had been.

We figured out why quickly when the massive citywide D-Ps flashed to life and the giant mocking face of the CEO himself appeared in real living color, probably on a different fucking continent.

His smile was supercilious and his eyes, piercing. His fingers were steepled just below his chin as he relaxed in a big cushy chair in front of a giant glossy desk with an arrangement of InterNations flags hanging on the wall behind him.

“I have a special message for my people today.”

Gag.

“The infection is spreading, the virus multiplying. You have only the Revolutionaries to blame for this new infection. If they would simply give themselves up for the greater good, my friends, everything would return to normal.”

Normal as in having no personal rights, no freedom to choose, no electoral power, no prospect of a better future.

“And now I speak directly about the insurgents responsible for today's batch of deaths in Omega. You see, my people, the cause for your celebration is not a victory against the Corps or the Company. Today, at the Omega Corps combat hospital, a group of rebels killed civilian patients in cold blood.”

Jesus Christ.
Apparently he had eyes in the skies and just about everywhere else, too.

“You cannot win this war. Any further rebellion or anti-military action will only end in the loss of civilian life…and more often than not it will be caused by Revolutionary fighters.”

“Well, this is a clusterfuck of the highest order.” Cannon stared mutinously at his father-in-law in front of us.

I couldn't agree more.

Cutler's diatribe was cut short when the D-Ps fizzled and frazzled with static interference that always introduced a sound bite from the so-called Voice. What a relief. At least listening to a broadcast from him-her-whoever wouldn't make me want to yank my ears off my head and throw them out the window.

I started to slowly ease down on the gas, maneuvering the vehicle through the crowded streets, when Cannon laid a hand on my arm. “We should probably hear—”

My foot slammed on the brake, hurtling everyone in the Cruiser forward.

The faceless Voice didn't start in, no. Leon,
my Leon
, was up on the screen, bigger than life.

Foreboding didn't so much as creep up on me as crash into me like a ten-ton weight. It was magnified by the fact that Raine had been the one to feed us false info about Cutler being on the scene. Leon was with Raine. And right now, Leon was getting a shitload of face time on the InterNations D-P.

“What the fuck?” Cannon shouted.

“Raine must've rigged something up…” Sebastian said.

“I'm going to rig something up. His neck with a rope…” I stared at the screen above, hoping like hell my instincts were way the fuck off-kilter, because at that moment every single sense inside me screamed with mortal fear for Leon's life.

“Yeah, I don' know 'bout y'all, but I got sick of listenin' to dat asshole Cutler.” With a slight smirk, Leon started right in. His first words made me bark out a laugh. I wondered how many channels this was going out on. If, like the Voice, his reach was InterNations wide, wouldn't that just yank Cutler's nuts up to this throat?

“
I
got some really important news to tell you. I'm a rebel, a Revolutionary. I'm a freedom fighter, 'cause I believe everyone gets the right to love who they love and live how they wanna live.” His eyes shined with the beautiful truth. Pushing the sun-streaked locks off his face, he frowned. “Somethin' else I gotta say. I am one of the people CEO Cutler personally infected with the new Plague. He thinks he can use us to kill our own people!” His gaze wavered off to the side and then returned to the screen. “I received an antidote today. I tried it.”

“He said he would wait, goddammit!” I yelled in disbelief.

“It din't work.” Leon's voice rang clear.

All the air was sucked from my lungs. I shook my head, shook it again, but I could barely make out the rest of Leon's words through the buzzing in my ears.

When Cannon gripped my hand until I thought he'd crush my fingers to dust, I focused on what Leon was saying.

“I won't let Cutler use me like this. I will not let dat bastard make my body his weapon.” His jaw set at a hard angle, he all but repeated what the female patient had said.

Cannon whispered, “The little shit's gonna fucking sacrifice himself.” He sagged in his seat with tears pinging on his eyelashes.

Leon leaned forward. “I'm gonna do what I need to for the greater good. I'm encouraging anyone who was infected, like me, to do the same. We can make a difference dis way!” His fist came up to pound on his chest. “I will kill myself before dis goes any further.”

My chest started pumping like a bellows. That was the only way I knew I was still breathing. Other than that, I was dead. I knew tears were pouring out of my eyes because I had to swipe them away to make sure I could see Leon. Because I had to see him.

To think this might be the last time I see him alive…

A sob broke out of my throat before I wrenched open the door and evacuated the contents in my stomach onto the ground.

I was dimly aware of Cannon pulling me back inside the vehicle and saying, “Maybe Raine's putting him up to this?”

My head was shaking again, and tears were flying everywhere. I had no voice. But I knew this was Leon's choice. Thinking back to our fight when he'd thought he could never be enough for me, my heart squeezed until I thought it would simply shrivel right up in my chest and expire.

He'd flat-out told me he didn't want me around to watch him die, didn't want me near him at the end. This was deliberate.

He wasn't going to wait.

With an almighty roar, I slammed my fist on the dash. The whole vehicle shuddered. He was still alive. He was still on the D-P. I cranked forward in my seat, my face almost up to the windshield.

What I witnessed wiped any last spark of hope from my heart. Leon started to talk, but he choked up. Tears slid in twin paths from his eyes, and he hastily brushed them away. He couldn't smile. He was thinking about me. I knew he was. He was trying to say something to me, but I didn't want to hear it. If he said it, I'd know this was all true and I was too far away to stop him.

His voice cracked. “
Tiens-moi serré
, Darke.”
Hold me tight
. It was what he'd wanted Liz to tell me the day Taft abducted him.

The screen went blank.

“NOOO!” My shout silenced all the others. I exploded inside the vehicle, arms flying, feet kicking out.

A hard punch to my cheek knocked the hysterics out of me. Cannon's face appeared in front of mine. His bleak eyes and low voice carried through my heaving breaths. “Pull it together, man. We've gotta drive fast, right goddamn now if you have any chance of reaching him.”

I
didn't trust anyone else to drive. My hands melded to the wheel and my eyes peeled on the horizon, I waited for the break between sand and sky that meant water was near.

The ocean. The castle. Leon.

My fear that I wouldn't get to Leon in time was off the charts as I jammed my foot on the gas and shifted through gears. I didn't give a shit if I pulverized them to dust. Everyone else wisely remained quiet except Cannon, who was trying to get in contact with someone at the fortress to no avail. No one answered his repeated messages on the D-P. Not Leon. Not Raine.

That kind of silence added oil to the fire racing through my veins.

“Try again,” I punched out between my teeth.

“There's no ping back.”

I snarled at Cannon, “Keep. Fucking. Trying.”

Driving gave me purpose. If I'd been in the passenger seat—Cannon's seat—I'd have destroyed the goddamn D-P. I might've torn up the entire motherfucking vehicle.

I didn't keep tabs on the Cruiser that was supposed to tail us, which held Linc, Liz, and Nathaniel. If they were behind us, good. If not? I didn't care.

Leon, Leon, Leon.
I almost puked again but managed to swallow the bitter bile before it hit the back of my throat. It felt like hours when finally the castle reared up—the mirage before us.

“LEON!” I thundered the second I jumped from the Cruiser. I didn't stop yelling his name the entire time I sped across the causeway that never seemed to end.

Bursting through the door, I took bearing of the empty rooms with the fastest visual ever. I bolted up the stairs. Boots pounded behind me. At the top of the castle, I turned the doorknob. It was locked.

“GODDAMN YOU!” I pounded on it once, twice. Then I simply kicked the hundreds-years-old thing in.

I barged into the room on legs that all but fell out from under me when I saw Leon.

“NO!”

The chair I'd sat in the other night was knocked on its side on the floor. A rope looped over the open beams knotted around Leon's neck. His face was hidden behind the tumbling locks of hair, hands wide open, head hanging limply.

I moved in a flash. “Not you. Not now. Not ever. Not like this.” I grappled with his legs and swung them over my shoulder to take the weight off his neck. “Get the rope. CUT THE FUCKING ROPE NOW!”

Cannon was there. His KA-BAR sliced the thick twine like it was melted butter. Leon's body slumped into my arms.

I laid him out on the floor, inspecting him with my eyes and my hands while I throttled back the roar rumbling through my body.

His eyelids were closed. His features were relaxed as if in repose. His arms and legs were limber.

I reared back and smacked his face with enough force to wake the dead.

He didn't so much as twitch.

My palm burned.

“Oh God. OhGodOhGodOh…”

The others rushed forward, boot-shod feet standing all around us. Too close. Too much. Too many.

I jerked up. “Get the fuck back! Don't touch him. Nobody touch him. I got this. I got him.” Boots shuffled back. Bending over Leon's still form, I pulled him into my lap. “I've got you. I've got you, I've got you.” Blabbering, sobbing, reeling from dread.

I felt for the pulse in his neck, willing it to send up a strong throb beneath the pad of my thumb.

Nothing.

I bent for his mouth and his chest immediately. Hands pumping up and down, breaths filling his lungs at intervals. I gave him my breath as I'd lay down my life for him, but not yet, not now. I wasn't ready for him to be gone. I'd never be ready.

My arms creaked two minutes later. My heart cracked open. Instead of puffing breath between Leon's lips, I kissed him. I kissed him and cried over him. I kept a hand on his neck and one on his chest and I willed him to live. I filled him with the all the love I'd never shown him. I clung to him like a wave breaking over a rock.

“Darke?” Liz's voice sounded clotted, thick.

I shook my head and started another round of compressions.

“Darke.” That was Linc.

I ignored him, too.

Cannon started in. “Maybe it's time to—”

Leon gasped. He inhaled and cried out. His eyelids shot open and he stared at me.

“Keep those eyes open, baby. That's right. Do what you're doing. There you go. Perfect, just perfect.” I gently coached him through his first seconds back in the land of the living with tears coursing down my face.

I choked. “He's okay. He's okay. He's alive!”

His breath warmed the hollow of my neck when I drew him to me. I watched Liz fall into Linc and Cannon accept the ready-and-waiting embrace from Nathaniel.

“You're alive. You're okay.” I cradled Leon in my arms and kissed all over his face. “I'll make sure you're okay.”

Minutes later, I lifted him from the floor and made him comfortable on the bed. I turned to the others.

My voice dropped low. “I'll take care of Leon. You find Raine. I think I need to have words, or maybe a reckoning, with our shaman.”

With one last relieved look at Leon, everyone filed from the room.

After propping Leon on the pillows, I retrieved some water. I made him drink from the cup I held to his lips, and then I wiped his lips with soft touches of my fingers.

Ligature marks that had been red from the rough rope were shading into deep purple bruises circling the column of his neck. The more the marks surfaced on his skin, the more my fear, and ultimately my anger at his rash actions, consumed me until I slammed the water down.

“How could you do this? What the fuck were you thinking?” He blanched, but that didn't stop me. Maybe I was supposed to treat him with kid gloves, but I couldn't. “You promised you'd wait.”

“I'm a hustler; you know dat,” Leon whispered back in a voice raw from the rope's wounds. “It's easy enough to lie.”

I had to distance myself before
I
did something rash. I leaped off the bed, pacing back and forth. “That's it? That's all you've got?”

The door swung open, Liz behind it. “Maybe you two shouldn't be alone right now.”

Her concern had the effect of cold water splashed on my face and I sat down. I tried to breathe evenly like a normal human being, not a wild savage animal. “It's okay. I'm good. We're fine.”

I sounded so, so solid with my two-word answers.

Liz glanced at Leon, who gave her a small nod, letting her know it was okay to leave.

The pain, the fear, the all-encompassing panic rushed over me. I moaned. “How could you do this? Why, Leon? Why?” I looked up to see his eyes filled, and he kneeled before me. “Why do you want to leave me so much?”

His remorse was like a blanket smothering him. “Because I don' wanna leave you at all.” He bowed his head until his cheek lay on my thigh.

I reached under his arms, lifting him to my lap. There I rocked him. “Why?” I asked against the soft hair beneath my lips.

His face hidden in the lee of my neck, he said, “I had to know if it worked.
Possédé
—dat's what
Maman
always said I was.”

“What?”

“Possessed by the devil, always gone my own way quick as I could.”

Arms gliding around my neck, he slid his cheek against mine where his soft whiskers rubbed my rough stubble. “I injected myself as soon as you left.”

I'd felt it in my bones while we drove away from the castle. I opened my mouth to rip into him again, but before I could speak, he pulled back.

“I got in touch with Hatch. He put me on the line with Doc at Chitamauga. I wasn't bein' completely stupid, Darke.”

Hatch. Another name to add to my shit list.
My hand moved to Leon's neck and stayed on the heated, bruised flesh.

“Doc talked me through it. And there's somethin' you don't know.”

“What?”

“Hatch gave me a module for my D-P before we left. It sends a blood sample to the Doc so he can test it immediately.”

Slipping off my lap to sit beside me, Leon wrapped his arms around me. Instead of relaxing into his hold, I remained upright as if I had a stick jammed up my ass.

He huffed, a long gust that sent his hair off his brow. “So I did it. Sent the results to Doc. He tested my blood. Still positive for the Plague.”

A shiver raced over his body. His emotions that had run bright since he'd come around dimmed like candle flames dying out.

I leaned back and pulled him with me. I couldn't believe I'd found him dead such a short time ago. Now he was here and living, alive and breathing.

Tracing the lean lines of his back, kissing him until his trembling stopped, I warmed him, soothed him, held him. “We'll have other chances. There will be another antidote, one that works.”

Tension loosened from his limbs all at once.

“What was the deal with the broadcast?”

“I din't wanna die without making a difference. I din't wanna die without sayin' good-bye to you.”

My heart slammed up into my throat. “You do not say good-bye to me, ever.” I drew his head back to lance him with my stare. “How did you manage to set it all up?”

“Hatch connected me just like Nate did when Liz's stuff went live from Beta.”

Hatch again. Double Hatch Death. I might even use my hatchet on the man when we got back to the commune. Call it poetic justice.

I paused before asking the hardest question. “Why not wait for me?”

Leon stepped onto the floor and moved away.

I shot up. “What?”

“I din't think you'd care.”

“That right there better be one of your perfect fucking lies.” Another current of rage blasted through me.

He backpedaled. “I…I can never be sure with you.”

My voice quiet, I asked, “Is that so?”

He swallowed and nodded.

In two steps I was right in front of him, grasping his face in my hands. “I love you! I love you, you shortsighted son of a bitch. Jesus Christ, I didn't want to, but…” Dragging him into my arms, I lowered my voice to whisper against his ear. “I think I fell in love with you that first night, angel.”

His fingers reached for my shoulders and dug in. His tense body clung to mine. He said nothing. I don't think he even breathed.

I drew back and cocked my head. “I say I love you and you've got nothing?”

Leon chewed his bottom lip to hide the sweet smile forming. He shook his head a little and sighed. His nose nuzzled my throat and a long breath moaned out of him. “Say it again.”

“Don't I deserve something in return?”

He pushed up to pop a kiss on my lips, beaming with self-satisfied delight that settled my heart solidly in my chest for the first time in months.

I didn't let him duck his head, instead going for his lips with my own for a deeper, longer, lustier taste. I kissed his cheeks and temples, his quivering eyelids when the dark fans of his lashes swept low.

I murmured against his brow, “I love you so much, Leon Cheramie.”

He gave a rumble before launching himself into my arms. His legs wound around my waist, and his searing kiss nearly knocked me off my feet. I groaned when he pulled back, trying to recapture his suckling mouth.

He nibbled my bottom lip. He slid his tongue along my jaw with a hum. Leon lapped my parted mouth and retreated when I gasped.

“
Je t'aime
, Darke.”

I cranked my arms around him and let out a resounding
whoop
! If Liz busted in now, I was going to bust a cap in her ass. Joy spread through me like warm sun rays after a long, dreary winter. I sealed our love on Leon's lips with a kiss that seared my soul.

Spinning toward the bed, I eased him down and crawled on top. His mouth was plumped up, glistening. Irises coin-sized and dilated. Body waiting, ready, especially when he stretched and rolled his hips, drawing attention to the hard ridge in his pants.

I wanted to get him naked, consummate this moment. I wanted to take him and stamp my essence within his body and all the hell over him until he knew without a doubt no one would ever reach as far inside him as I did.

First I needed to make sure he saw sense because—
fuck
—he'd very nearly succeeded in killing himself in the name of the Revolution. For a second time. Tumbling aside with a groan, I willed my erection to stand down.

Leon propped onto an elbow beside me. He idly played his palm beneath my shirt, tugging his hand over muscles, tickling my nipples. “What?”

I clamped down on his wrist to stop his toying motions. “You know what.”

He shook his head.

I leaned over and stretched his arms out. “Yes. I need to make sure you're okay in your head, not just your heart.”

He tried to snatch free. Good thing I was stronger, bigger, and had been through a few more battles than him. He was going nowhere.

“Whatever.”

I ignored his response. “I'm not saying I have the first clue about what you're going through, but I am saying I will be here every step of the way.” I captured Leon's tears when they fell, then his lips when he sighed. “I
want
to be with you. I'm choosing you. I need you to choose life.”

“I choose you, too.”

I relented with a kiss, retreated with a question. “And life?”

The battle within him was not black-and-white. It came across in bright bursts of feeling where hope warred with fate, a destiny he'd already accepted.

I cupped his face. “I'm going to be completely selfish here, baby. I love you. And my heart is tethered to yours now.” I figured out right away I wasn't above using his emotions for me, or guilt about our circumstances, to make him stay put, in this life, on this earth. “I already decided that if you die, I die, because I am not doing this again. I've never loved anyone as much as I love you. I never will.”

Gone was my guilt over Tam and Wilde. They would be happy for me. I knew that. As long as the little prick with my heart in his hands stopped trying to put an end to his life.