Dosed with adrenaline, I’m shaking as I climb off him. “Fuck. I’m sorry.”
I don’t know who’s the target of my apology. Maybe them. Maybe myself.
Malice, his expression unreadable, shoves me at Jester. “Get him outside.”
Jester puts an arm around my shoulders. “Come on, bro.”
“The fuck?”
“You weren’t here, Wraith,” Jester says as we step outside. He slips his arm from around me and looks all kinds of sick. “Was that how it was in that place? That’s what you had to do to survive?”
I wipe my bloody hands on the legs of my jeans. “Yeah. That and worse.”
When we get to his Wrangler, he leans against it and kicks the dirt with the toe of his boot. “I’m sorry, man. I’m so sorry we failed you.”
His apology a shot to my gut. “What? No. No one failed me. Who the hell would have thought to search for me in Florida? None of us heard of Crane or Gomorrah or his sick fucking gladiator games.” I lean against the truck as a crushing realization crashes down on me. “I can’t fight anymore. No way can I risk getting into a ring after being in that place…after the things I’ve done.”
“You don’t know that.” Since when is Jester diplomatic?
“Nah, man, I do. Look what I just did to Axel.” I know what I’m now capable of, and how Gomorrah got me all sorts of wrong in the head. “I don’t trust myself. The lights. The crowd. All of it. I can’t. It’ll put me back in that goddamn cage, and I won’t be able to stop. I’ll end up killing someone.”
For once, Jester’s expression is serious. “What happened, Wraith?”
I heave out a heavy sigh. “I told you most of it. They kept me in a cell and doped me up on ket. Ripped my body apart in ways you can’t even imagine. Sick fucking ways. Shitwewouldn’t do to someone. Fuck.” I fist and unfist my hands, my breathing rough and erratic. I close my eyes and knock the back of my head against the Wrangler. When I reopen my eyes, I focus on the sky to avoid looking at my friend. “I murdered nine innocent men, Jester.Nine.” I hold up my hands and stare at Axel’s blood smeared on them. “Beat on them until they were raw meat. Broke their fucking necks. Who does that?”
“Someone who’s fighting to survive.”
I drag my gaze from my hands to Jester. “What gave me the right to walk out of the cage and not them?”
“No onegaveyou a goddamn thing, Wraith,” Jester snaps. “Youearnedit. If you can’t fight anymore, who gives a shit? You fought because you wanted to, not because you had to. You’re Unholy first, a fighter second. Keep it in perspective, and remember we’re going to kill that sonofabitch. Oh, and you took his wife. Let’s not forget that little piece of nasty.”
“Nah, man, Jamie was never that cunt’s wife. She never even fucked him.”
“Holy shiiit. No fucking way.”
I give a one-shoulder shrug. “It’s complicated, but yeah, Jamie never let that scumbag touch her.”
I purposely leave out the part where she’s a virgin. That part of her story is mine.
“That little minx. I knew I liked her for a reason.”
He can like her all he wants. I’m still pissed as hell at her, and that’s not going away anytime soon. “Whatever, asshole.” I pull out my phone. “I have to call Crow.”
Jester looks horrified. “Why?”
I point to the mill. “Because I beat a Berserker within an inch of his life. That’s something our president might need to know.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He waves his hand through the air. “We can make him go away.”
“Jester, I’m not making Axel disappear.”
He throws up his hands. “Kidding. But not really. I love Crow, and I love the Unholy, and I’m loyal as fuck to them, but you’re my brother and I hate to bring up the elephant in the room, but after what you’ve been through, I’m more loyal to you than I am to them.”
“Love you, too, bro, but I have to call Crow.” I tap the contacts icon, and when I get to Crow’s name, I hit that, too.
He picks up on the third ring. “What’s wrong?”
I cut right to the chase. “Things went sideways.”
