The Bequest: The Guardians Series, #1

PROLOGUE

When he dreams, it’s always of the desert.

Of the sun, baking him slowly and turning his skin into blistered rawhide. Of the wind, scouring his flesh as effectively as steel wool. Of the sand, encrusting his skin so deeply he knows it is possible to drown in a pool of miniscule golden grains.

Dusk descends, and the sky is breathtaking in its intensity: gold and pink, orange so deep it could be pure flame. A disorienting paradox; hell should be ugly and bleak and without hue. That such brilliance washes the horizon infuriates him, an empty promise no one will keep. The mockery of night is no better: stars glitter like a sea of diamonds, and the thick, glittering twist of the Milky Way pulses as if sentient. It tempts him to believe.

In something. Anything.

With every return to this patch of earth, he notices details he missed. Little things: the faint vibration beneath his feet as the helicopter approaches, the small hole on the bottom of his left boot, the Boston Red Sox bandana Hogan is wearing. Nothing of significance. Nothing important.

Nothing that will stop what is to come.

Fucking wind, fucking sand, fucking shit hole! someone snarls.

Kent, maybe. Or Hogan. He doesn’t know. The wail of wind that surrounds them like a keening child is almost deafening, the sand a maelstrom that swallows them whole. His eardrums throb to the beat of the rotors of the incoming Apache helicopter.

Life with Alpha Team 6 sucks ass today, another adds.

No one disagrees. They are exhausted. Homesick; heartsick. Tired of the sun, the sand, the blood. The rhetorical struggle in which they find themselves engaged: one god pitted against another, a fruitless argument over existence where death is the only victor.

They’re early, Hogan mutters. His hands are chapped and blistered as he straps the wooden crates tightly together. The lettering painted across the top of the warped wood is oddly beautiful; a biting irony. Command confirmed 2100.

Hogan’s unease trips his own, a switch that immediately puts him on full alert, but they can see nothing beyond the whirl of sand and darkness. The sky is hazy, an endless black blur broken only by the infrared lights mounted on the copter’s steel frame as it grows near. Next to them, Kent and Rye are carefully stacking the last of the crates, their faces stark with tension behind the bandanas they wear in effort to hold the sand at bay. Pale with dehydration, skin reddened and chapped, limbs fatigued from swimming through sand.

These are his men. His brothers; his family. They have followed him relentlessly, with such unwavering belief it astounds—and sometimes shames—him. Into every nook and cranny of this godforsaken country, down every IED and mortar strewn road. Without question or protest. They are good men. Men he would die for.

He claps Hogan on the shoulder, but when he speaks, his reassurance is harsh, crushed glass in his throat. Could be the storm.

Hogan shakes his head once, a decisive rejection. Feels wrong, boss.

He knows he should turn away and conduct another security sweep, but the power of Hogan’s rebuff uncoils and stabs deep, rooting him to the hard desert ground he occupies. They remain alive in this land of sand and death only because they do not discount their gut; instinct is a far more useful tool than any weapon they’ve been given. And he trusts Hogan’s gut.

He squints at the incoming copter, seeking reassurance through the surge of sand and grit, but his heart pounds with breathtaking force. The winds grow stronger, a wild, feral howling that feeds his growing disquiet. Foreboding whispers down his spine as he glances at the crates—simple wooden boxes that house death. Coveted and hunted by every faction under the sun, from pole to pole.

The Apache is upon them now; he can feel the steady whoosh whoosh whoosh of the rotors pulse inside his skull. His gut is thick with acid. Deep inside, where his soul clings to tenuous life, a cry of panic wells.

Fall back. He gives the order abruptly, instinct pushing through protocol. "Get to the fucking ridgeline. Now."

The stark wall of sandstone is steep, but riddled by narrow canyons and deep crevasses in which to hide. They know these hollows intimately, as familiar with them as with the underbelly of their armored Humvee or the firing mechanisms of their weapons. They are the only haven to be had in this hellish land.

Boss? Rye questions.

To the ridgeline, he repeats and steps next to the crates. Inside his skin, dread swells like a corpse bloated by death. Go.

His rank overrides the argument he can see in their gazes, pitting their need to stand with him against the indoctrination of their training. That disapproval is the very thing that leads him to protect. He goes first. Always.

His men fall back as the Apache lands. The sandstorm is intensified by the circling blades, and he is swallowed by a suffocating golden cloud. Grit fills his throat as he lifts his night vision goggles and straps them into place. Blood roars in his head, a dizzying rush as the sand pummels him.

The copter bobs as it hits the desert floor and creates fresh chaos. A brutal storm of sand and rock and desert scrub pelts him, tearing unprotected flesh. Poppy petals whirl into flight like confetti. Behind the thick lenses of his night goggles, he tries to make sense of the figures who are jumping from the copter.

He can hear nothing but the rotors—whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, the jackhammer of his pulse, the sickening rush of his blood. As he watches the figures grow closer, Hogan’s words are a drumbeat in his skull.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Two things happen in that moment. First, he realizes the Apache is not powering down; the rotors circle ceaselessly, their speed unabated. Second: the men who have disembarked the copter are not wearing fatigues. Or SEAL gear. Or any military issued wear.

He turns; his gaze clashes with Hogan’s as the first bullet tears through his flap jacket, burrowing into his back to pierce his left lung. A cry of warning lodges in his throat, coated by blood and fury.

Go.

But it does not escape.

The second bullet plows into his right hip and drops him where he stands, next to the crates. Fire bursts to life in his lungs. His breath whistles through his lips, and he can feel blood, warm and wet, streaming down his back, his thigh, filling his lung. He rolls over, and his hip threatens to separate from its socket. He flirts with oblivion, but in his brain the knowledge that if he sleeps, he dies hammers at him. So he grits his teeth and blinks it away, blood spewing from his mouth to sprinkle the sand like flower pollen. And he focuses.

His weapon is heavy, but he clasps it tight, squeezing so hard the steel cuts into the flesh of his palm. It steadies him. Behind him, Hogan is screaming—fury given sound —and regret threatens to undo him. He forces himself to his knees, but his hip gives and he wobbles like the Yoda bobble head Rye once glued to the dash of their Humvee. He wrestles for breath, struggling to suck in enough oxygen to stay conscious. Blood pools next to him, black and oily in the night.

He lifts the SSAR-15 and fires, but his aim is wild, an unsteady arc that sends his shots sharply to the right; he kills nothing but a stray Creosote bush. He grasps futilely at the sand in effort to find purchase, but the grains collapse beneath him. He pulls the trigger again and knows a fleeting, intense moment of satisfaction as three of the bodies heading toward him fall. But when he moves to fire again, buoyed by his small success, a third bullet shatters his right forearm and a broken, enraged sound tears from his throat, expelling the last of his remaining air. His hip gives, and he falls back, his body convulsing beneath the onslaught of blood loss, oxygen deprivation and massive trauma. His weapon disappears into the sand.

Darkness beckons, but he clings to the only lifeline left: consciousness. His goggles are askew, but he can see the booted feet of the men who have come for the crates, who will take them.

Steal them. Sell them. Use them.

They speak in low, guttural tones of Arabic, but he doesn’t recognize the dialect, can’t make sense of their words, and as they step over his body, one of them kicks his wounded hip hard enough to shatter what little is left holding him together. It is everything he can do not to react. To stare sightlessly into the storm, unblinking, blood seeping from his mouth to drool down his jaw. To deny himself breath.

Because he will live; there will be vengeance. Violent, malicious, soulless retribution.

A laugh echoes around him. Husky, low. And there is something in that sound that marks him, a wound deeper than any other, a memento more effective than any of the scars that will mar him.

I will know you. And death will follow.

The crates are gone, leaving nothing but perfect squares stamped into the sand. The Apache lifts, abandoning the bodies of the fallen to the harsh desert landscape, where they will be perfectly preserved in their murderous glory by the dry air. A licentious act—symbolic of identity—and he tells himself to remember. As the Apache fades from sight, a plume of glittering gold sand drifts down over him like a silent eulogy.

Hogan is sprawled on the sand only a handful of feet away; he is missing most of his skull. Just beyond him, Rye lies in a pool of blood so profuse it seems impossible that it was ever contained in only one body. Kent and Axel have fallen to his left, their heat signatures fading into muted splotches of pale pink, weapons still clutched in hand.

Dead.

War has taught him that life is altered in an instant, a span of time so quick it cannot be comprehended, but still, he is stunned they have disappeared so quickly, so thoroughly, from existence. Erased. And the rage that has kept him awake and alive steeps into every breath, every cell, until his pores bleed black with hate. Purpose is born; a need for vengeance so deep there is no consideration of failure.

Live. Live to kill.

Around him, the night is as black and still as the death that has come for them. There is no sound beyond his own rasping battle for air—no moans or groans or twitching limbs. No hope.

Dead.

All but him.

The temptation to follow beckons sweetly, but he does not deserve to live a life none of them will have. He is their leader; none should have gone before him.

Not one.

And for a moment he can only think it is better to let his blood stain the hard desert ground here, now, than to exist in the shadow of their obliteration. Better to give up than to go on.

But the purpose born within him will not allow such an easy end.

Get the fuck up and live. You have people to kill.

Retribution must be his lifeline. That his vision swims with inky streams, and his thoughts break apart, shattering as quickly as his bones have beneath the onslaught of bullets, makes no difference. He will push himself to his feet. He will make it to the village beyond the ridge.

Because he is the only one left. No matter his pain, his rage, the grief that chokes him like a murderous hand. He is all there is: the only one who can sound the alarm that the crates have been taken. The only one for whom blood will be the sole recompense.

As he reaches out and pulls himself across the barren land—like fucking nails, shredding his flesh—his eviscerated soul is rewoven, dark and feral and starved for vengeance. Justice.

Life for life.

Someone he trusted has betrayed him. Someone he will find. Someone he will kill.

ONE

Dead?

Dead.

As in...kicked the bucket? Bought the farm? Sleeping with the fishies?

Er…yes.

Huh, Cheyenne Elias said. Well. Better late than never.

The punctuated silence on the other end of her cell phone spoke for itself—silencing people was something at which Cheyenne was proficient. The sad fact of it was, shutting people up was ludicrously easy, because they were usually so full of foolish expectation.

Death brought the expectation of grief. But grief was a product of loss. And this was…

Plus column all the way, baby.

I contacted you because you are named in Ms. Humboldt’s will, the voice on the other end continued, rather doggedly. To inform you that you have been designated as guardian to her minor son.

Shock jolted through Cheyenne.

Shoe meet other foot.

Huh, she said again. Which was better than Have you lost your goddamn mind? Or Ha ha ha! Suck it.

Grossly inappropriate, even for her.

I quote: ‘In the event that my son, Rafferty Humboldt, is a minor at the time of my death, I hereby appoint Cheyenne Elias to be the Guardian of his person. My Guardian shall be held solely to the standard of good faith in the performance of her duties, and shall exercise her authority without the necessity of obtaining the consent of any court.’

Cheyenne filed through the words and tried to think of something to say. A toxic, jumbled mix filled her throat, unfit to speak. Her cell crackled, static filling the silence she couldn’t.

Georgia Humboldt, dead. Six feet under and pushing up daisies…

Try hemlock.

I realize this is probably a shock. I’m sorry. I urged Miss Humboldt to contact you, to send you a copy of these documents, but she was insistent that you not be notified unless she...

Died. Unless she died.

…well, only if it became necessary. I’m afraid her reluctance has left her son a temporary ward of the State of Wisconsin, and if you decline to act as his guardian, he will remain so until his eighteenth birthday.

Too bad, so sad.

Balls, Cheyenne said. Because she wasn’t really that callous. She wasn’t. No matter how easy it would be.

You can decline, of course. But Miss Humboldt had been confident you would take the boy in.

Had she now? Well, wasn’t that special?

Hardy-har-har, Cheyenne said.

I’m sorry?

Talking to herself—while simultaneously talking to someone else—was one of her worst tendencies. An old, bad habit of simply thinking out loud, born when there was no one listening. But sometimes people thought she was nuts, and according to Phil—her anger management counselor—that was the idea.

You deliberately put people off, Cheyenne. Why do you think you do that?

Because people are assholes, Phil.

Georgia’s idea of a joke, she clarified. "Hysterical."

The voice (whose name she couldn’t remember—Smith? Jones?—attorney at law) replied, but it was inaudible, courtesy of the fact that she was halfway up Sleeping Indian mountain, and backcountry trails were generally not good cell receptors. She smacked her phone once, twice, knowing it wouldn’t help, but it felt good. Then a handful of words materialized. ..afraid…don’t follow…meaning?

You wouldn’t be the first, she said and sighed.

Chuck, her three-legged blue heeler, stood a few feet ahead at the crest of the trailhead. He cocked his head at her as she muttered to herself, painfully aware that her peaceful existence had just been blown to smithereens. Again.

Shouldn’t have answered the damn phone, she told him.

What had possessed her? Answering an unknown number was a no-no—and something she never did. Because she hated dealing with people. Any kind of people, but especially strangers. You have the social skills of a leper, her publicist, Whitney, had once observed. It’s like you were raised by hyenas.

Not exactly. But close.

Look, Cheyenne said, trying her best to sound reasonable. Human. Georgia and I—we weren’t…anything. You need to call someone else.

There isn’t anyone else, came the reply, oddly clear. You are the sole guardian she named. If you won’t take the boy, he will go to the State.

Not my problem, Cheyenne retorted bluntly. But she felt something—a ping? a pang?—that might have—maybe—been shame. Dismissing Georgia was nothing, like throwing out holey underwear. But the kid… The Kid. She’d been The Kid, once.

You won’t reconsider?

Ha, she said, but then—ping! Damn it. Where’s his father?

I don’t know. Miss Humboldt didn’t see fit to share his identity with me. The voice was faintly disapproving and touched by a Midwestern accent Cheyenne knew intimately: the diction of a Cheesehead. One too many lagers, and she’d sound just like him. Miss Elias, you are this child’s only hope.

Well, that was just profoundly stupid. Who would make her anyone’s only hope?

Ah, Georgia. The hate that had once lived in Cheyenne’s heart had long since faded to indolence—or perhaps apathy, because really, why expend the energy?—but this...this was almost funny. Almost. Except for the whole kid thing. And the whole ward of the State thing. And the whole you are this child’s only hope thing.

Fuck a duck.

Son of a nutcracker, she said.

I take it you and Miss Humboldt were no longer…close?

Cheyenne could only laugh, a harsh, bitter bark that hurt her throat. She had no words. What she’d once been—what they’d once been—bore no relation to what they’d become.

No, she said, so cold an unknown part of her shivered. Chuck growled softly in response. And then—ping.

I’m afraid I don’t know what to say, said Smith/Jones.

Which made two of them.

Georgia had given birth?

Cheyenne could not even begin to comprehend it.

To what? she wondered. Rosemary’s Baby?

I’m sorry?

Nothing, she said.

I am sorry to be the bearer of such unexpected news, Miss Elias. I was under the impression that you and Ms. Humboldt were…friends.

Not in this universe. Then, in spite of herself, Where’s the kid now?

At the DHS temporary placement center, Haven House.

Bile surged with sudden, violent force. The response was wholly visceral; she stumbled back a step, lost her footing, and fell ass-deep into the sagebrush, her heart thumping wildly in her chest. Chuck wandered over to sit beside her, his body warm against her thigh. In the distance, the Grand Teton Mountain Range rose from the valley floor like a row of stalwart, granite infantry lined up for battle, and high above them, the sky was pure, azure blue.

She saw none of it.

Haven House.

The crumbling red brick building bled into her brain in rivulets, streams that ebbed and flowed until the image coalesced into the hellish homestead of her childhood, shockingly familiar in all of its dilapidated glory.

White walls and scarred wooden floors and windows barred by steel. Sirens and screams and cold, angry hands. Blurred faces, hollow words, pain, pain, pain⁠—

Cheyenne shook herself. Struggled to breathe. Put her hand over her heart in futile effort to ease its breakneck pace. Chuck put his paw in her lap.

Fuck me, she said.

Miss Elias?

Another bark broke from her.

A kid and a mental breakdown. The gift that keeps on giving.

Cheyenne?

Haven House, she croaked. The scent of urine and Lysol spray flooded her nostrils; mildew tickled the back of her throat. Her stomach clenched in rebellion. "Shit-boy-howdy."

Er…do you know it?

Like the back of her scarred hand. Tied to a truck and dragged down memory lane. What had she done to deserve this?

Try being born.

Not funny, she whispered, her knuckles aching where she gripped the phone.

That it had such power—that all she’d become could dissolve so quickly into what she’d once been…she never would have guessed. Everything she’d considered conquered merely lay dormant, existing in stasis, mute until its reawakening.

Like the plague.

I am sorry, Miss Elias. Clearly this is an unwelcome surprise.

Unwelcome. What a pale, weak word for Georgia’s last hurrah. So mild and understated, the antithesis of who she’d been. Like declaring the sun lukewarm. Or the ocean a bit briny.

Perhaps you should take some time and think it over?

Negative. Over and out. But—How old is he?

Stupid, Cheyenne thought. She didn’t want to know. She didn’t care. The entire conversation was like rolling naked in poison oak. But her mind’s eye—insolent and defiant and gleefully giving her the finger—drew him in startling, painful clarity: thin, like Georgia had been; all angles and sharp edges. Narrow and slight in his mother’s shadow, a whisper to her scream. Hushed and anxious in a prison of rusting iron bars and inhuman chill.

Yeah, sure, why not?

Just make it up as you go, she told herself.

I’m sorry?

Nothing.

Smith/Jones sighed. Rafferty is currently ten years old.

Ten, Cheyenne echoed tonelessly. At ten, she’d been shooting craps and sneaking into R rated movies. Vandalizing freeway underpasses and drinking stolen beer—with this kid’s mother.

Goddamn irony. Someday she would figure that shite out. But not today.

Miss Elias, even with the best of foster families Rafferty’s existence will be…difficult. Children are all too often lost within the system and left to fend for themselves. I would urge you to take some time and consider this. A decision need not be made immediately.

You must learn to control your impulses, Cheyenne. They do you more harm than good.

Bite me, Phil.

I don’t want him. The words were harsh, stark, unflinching. Truth. Next to her, Chuck whined softly. Not today or tomorrow.

I see. Smith/Jones went cold. Well, I apologize for bothering you. I will let family services know you have no wish to serve as Rafferty’s guardian, and they will act accordingly. Good day, Miss Elias.

And then he was gone.

Cheyenne stared down at her phone. Then she turned and threw it into the sagebrush.

"The Kid is not my problem," Cheyenne told Chuck an hour later.

They sat at the summit of Sheep’s Mountain, also known as Sleeping Indian, in the exact spot where the Indian’s arms crossed his chest. Below them, the Jackson Hole valley spread like a picturesque landscape painting, spires of pale gray granite interspersed by waves of brilliant, aspen green and swells of dark pine that hugged the low alpine like an artfully draped scarf. The Snake River wound sinuously along the base of the Teton Range, a glittering ribbon of sun-flecked gold.

It’s a play, she continued. Georgia was a textbook sociopath. Games defined her, and if she could destroy someone’s life, she did. Just for kicks.

Chuck grunted, content atop the small boulder they occupied, his gaze sharp on the hills of sage below them, ever vigilant for the possible chisler sighting.

"I don’t care why she did it. Doesn’t matter. I know what she’s doing—but I let that go a long time ago." Which might not have been—strictly speaking—entirely true, because really, how did one let the complete and utter annihilation of everything they ever were—the stripping of their bones to their fucking soul—go? I refuse to rise to the bait, Chuck. Because that’s what he is—bait. And I’m not biting.

There was no doubt in Cheyenne. Not about this. Georgia had been many things: selfish, greedy, vain. Frighteningly intelligent. A woman who was wholly incapable of empathy, sympathy, or compassion.

What appeared to be was only illusion. Manufactured deception was a skill at which Georgia had excelled. Even at sixteen—the last time Cheyenne had seen her—she’d been capable of building a house of lies so vast, so intricate, that determining her end game was nearly impossible. But there was always an end game.

One where everyone but Georgia lost.

That realization had come late to Cheyenne. In spite of every malevolent act she’d witnessed in their decade of friendship, every machination Georgia had played out around her. Every lie told. None of the pain had mattered, so long as it wasn’t hers. And then, it was.

Sirens screaming and blood spilling down–

The Queen of Fuckery, smiting her subjects. A hand down Chuck’s silky, brindled coat, a deliberate release of the tension. She had to tread carefully—the memories of blood and death and terror slept fitfully within her and were easily woken.

As proven by The Incident, which had led to The Counselor, followed by The Interrogation and—inevitably—The Diagnosis.

You have serious anger management issues, Cheyenne.

And you, Phil, have serious halitosis.

No, the memories were not something she could afford to let control her. All the more reason she should get up, haul her ass off this mountain, and forget. Problem was, The Kid was real. And she had done that, had colored in the lines and made him whole. She had allowed it.

Why? Why had she done that?

She didn’t want to know him. Nothing said he wasn’t as damaged as his mother had been, just as capable of evil. No one could claim he’d been born uncontaminated by her malice, her cruelty. There were no guarantees he wouldn’t mistake a scream for a symphony.

Besides, she was hardly fit to be a parental figure. Cheyenne knew herself well. She was short-tempered, impatient, intolerant of stupidity, and wholly antisocial. That she had been cursed with a soft heart was just another mystery of life—like the Bermuda Triangle or Bigfoot. But there was a difference between adopting a three-legged cow dog—or a one-eyed cat, or a goat with a bad attitude—and taking responsibility for a child.

Especially the child of a woman she’d once fantasized about clubbing to death with a tire iron.

That’s just not healthy, she said. Chuck sighed and rolled over to offer his white belly, his gaze glinting like polished amber as he watched her.

Don’t, she told him. "We can’t. She did this for a reason—some fucked up, crazy-ass reason—and I won’t go there. Not again. She almost killed me."

Anger vibrated, deep, steady, eternal. Another thing to add to the unfit list: incessantly pissed off. And while Phil considered that "problematical," Cheyenne saw no problem with it at all. Except when it slipped its leash. When it became rage. When she acted.

No kid deserved that. And she would know.

I came from crazy, she said and gave in, rubbing Chuck’s belly. I have no business even contemplating this.

But she was. Jesus, she was.

Not for the reason Georgia assumed she would. And not because revenge was best served to a ten year old. No, her consideration was born solely of one unarguable truth: because it was the right thing to do.

Doing the right thing hadn’t mattered in the first half of her life; surviving had superseded any morality that might have shaped her. But she no longer had that excuse. Her life had been changed by one man’s act, and the sole price for receiving that boon was to one day pay it forward. It was the only thing he’d asked of her, and she could no more refuse than fly to the moon. That the opportunity had arisen here and now—when she’d begun to think it never would—attached to the one person whose memory still had the ability to infuriate her really shouldn’t have been a surprise. Goddamn irony.

But while Cheyenne knew it was the right thing, that didn’t make it the smart thing. Because she was damaged. Her mother had been certifiable, her father a complete unknown. She was scarred—inside and out—and what she felt toward Georgia was…toxic. Dangerous. And she wasn’t at all certain she was any better than those who’d produced her. Perhaps that was just fantasy born of her own need to believe. Was she capable of punishing a child for his mother’s crimes? Would the anger that had become so deeply engrained within her use him as its outlet?

All pertinent, important questions—none of which she could answer. Not unless she acted. Not unless she leapt.

….even with the best of foster families Rafferty’s existence will be…difficult. Children are all too often lost within the system and left to fend for themselves…

As she had done. First with the rusty edge of a serrated blade and later with her rage. The only difference between her and Georgia—as she’d reluctantly come to realize in the years that followed—had been the simple fact that Cheyenne felt. All of it. And her reactions had been the result of emotion, not the cold, inhuman premeditation with which Georgia had calculated the world.

Sometimes, Cheyenne wasn’t sure which was worse.

So she knew what The Kid faced. And part of her thought, Hell, I survived it. So will he. Which was probably true. But another part, the one coerced into life by a man who’d demanded only her best, that part understood that who she’d finally become owed itself entirely to that patient nurturing, to that unbendable belief in her, to the utter refusal to allow her to be anything less. And everyone deserved that. Everyone.

Even The Kid.

Now, there was a chance—similar to that whole pigs flying thing—that some exemplary foster family would come along and provide that cultivation. It could happen. Allegedly. And who said she wouldn’t be destroying that opportunity? Who said her need to pay it forward wasn’t simply egotism in the guise of charity?

The odds are screwed, she said to Chuck. Damned if I do, damned if I don’t.

Which left only…instinct. And since she was thinking pretty seriously about getting on a flying boat and embracing legal responsibility for the child of her nemesis, well, instinct had spoken. Loud and clear.

Anger was her one consistent, her companion; her fellow man-at-arms. Fear was not something she’d experienced since she’d awoken in a cold, hard hospital bed at fifteen, her body reshaped, her soul rewoven in hate, but she felt it now.

For The Kid, because she had no idea if she had the ability to give back what she’d received. For herself, because to fail in this would not only mark her, it just might erase what she’d fought so hard to become. But most of all, she feared the motives behind this sequence of events, the manipulative, malicious hand which took such pleasure in arranging the pieces and watching them fall.

All bets are off, she muttered. Chuck thumped his tail, his gaze conveying all of the unknown secrets of the universe, his delight in her unhidden.

Stupid dog.

Cheyenne pulled her phone from her pocket, checked the signal and dialed.

TWO

Blood coats his teeth.

His lung gurgles and threatens to send the acid in his belly surging up his throat, onto the hard ground around him. The air is frigid, turning his exposed skin to ice, stiffening his limbs. He is dying as he drags himself across the merciless scrub and sand and broken rock. One dark, pulsing thought drives him forward, and he clings relentlessly to the life that drains from him with every shallow, bloody breath⁠—

William Blackheart woke with a violent start, a howl of pain and fury and grief wedged in his chest. Cold air sliced through his lungs, piercing them as effectively as the bullets he dreamt of. Sweat matted his hair and trickled down his spine; his hip ached as though he’d caught the business end of an angry mule. The throb of his arm echoed the hammer in his skull, and he could still feel the cold weight of his weapon cutting into his palm as he dragged it through the desert sand.

Next to him, the clock’s obnoxious green display read 4:35.

He pushed from the bed, ignored his pain, and lit a cigarette. His heart beat like a heavy, angry drum, driving the furious rush of his blood. Adrenaline pumped through him like the slide of the finest whiskey.

Fifteen weeks, six days, and seven hours had passed and still, the sand continued to cling. The air—like raw earth—remained in his nostrils. The shriek of the wind—lunacy given sound—was a song that haunted him.

The pain was ripe, fresh and new; this, he accepted. Enjoyed. Because it meant he yet lived, that the promise of retribution had not been stolen. But the sand, the air, that wail of madness…those were not things he’d expected to live on, to trail behind him like a deep, dark wake. To hunt him.

Mock him.

Fury was a raw, living thing within him, and their echo only fanned the fire, like careless children teasing an animal kept chained. The wrath swelled against his flesh, and his skin ached at the effort of keeping it contained. The darkness born within him wanted to unleash the fury and revel in the destruction. The darkness wanted screams.

He had moments of clarity, of knowing, when he understood he’d broken, that survival had become irrevocably interwoven with the need to destroy. That he was no longer who he’d been, but something far