“Don’t you fucking touch that, Ben, I’ll?—”
The loudpop pop popof gunfire drew me up short. If there was a dead body, there was shit to take. Hell, if there was a big enough dead body and it was fresh… Well, my group was always hungry.
Why waste the meat?
“Oh, fuck you, Aubrey.” The voice was in pain, and when I rounded the corner, I finally spotted who was speaking.
Two men. One was tall and broad, with blond hair and blue eyes. The hand clutching his side had a pair of dog tags dangling from bloody fingers.
It was the smaller man who caught my attention, though. Iknewwithout asking that he’d killed before. He had that look in his eyes—the fury, the pain, the determination. Yeah, he’d killed before, and it was obvious that he was willing to do it again.
His eyes were the greenest things I’d ever seen—viridian blazes of agony hidden behind a mask of danger and death.
“Give me the tags, Ben.” My gaze dropped to his bloody fingers. Order tags. The same as the ones around my neck, which I’d stolen off a dead body four years ago.
“Fuck you. You don’t deserve them. You didn’tearnthem.”
Those green eyes went dark, and the gun he held in his hand lifted, aiming squarely at the chest of the man in front of him. “Fuck you. I’ve been through more than you’ve ever thought about seeing. I’ve taken everything your shitOrdercould dish out, and I still joined up because—” He cut off, the choked sound at the back of his throat full of razors and secrets, but his hand holding the gun didn’t waver. “Give me the tags or I’ll shoot you.”
“You wouldn’t?—”
The sound of the gunshot rang in my ears, and I idly noted that I probably wouldn’t want to take him back to my pack after all. He was clutching his stomach and there wasevery chance his intestines had been perforated with that second shot—what a waste.
He was probably too big for me to easily lug anyway. I was over six feet and all muscle, but the asshole standing across from the green-eyed man was just as big.
I could have cut off a part or two, but…
“Don’t question what I’d do, Ben. You don’t know shit about me.”
“We’ve been fucking for over a year, Aubrey.”
I watched in fascination as Aubrey leaned forward, snatching the dog tags. “That doesn’t mean shit. I’m done with the Order. I’m done with all of this.” His eyes narrowed, and he looked the injured man up and down once before shaking his head. “I’m done with you. Go ahead and tell Ryker you were right.Tell him my entire life was a lie. Just remind him I’ve been with you for years, and I’ve killed more men than our entire squad put together.” Aubrey’s eyes dropped to the blood pooling between the soldier’s fingers. “Let him know I won’t hesitate.”
I fuckinghatedthe Order. They weren’t any better than the raiders who traveled the lands—the only difference was that they took what they wanted when they wanted it with weapons they’d stolen a long time ago and used to establish power. They were raiders with authority and a badge, and that somehow made themrightwhen they burned down little towns and took their food and water.
Not to mention I’d heard rumors about them taking entire groups while they were alive. I could only guess what happened to those people.
“You can’t justleave, Aubrey.” There was a soft desperationin Ben’s voice now, and I watched in fascination as his fingers clenched on his stomach. “What are you going to do? Follow that fucking letter you keep tucked beneath your pillow?”
Aubrey froze, and from my hiding place I saw the small burst of pain that crossed his features a second before he schooled them and turned back to the bleeding soldier behind him. “Shut the fuck up.”
“Some resort on the coast? Do you really think you’ll find what you’re looking for there? You’re miserable, Aubrey, and you’re always going to be miserable. You’re always going to be alone. It’s no surprise there’s blood on that letter. It’s the same blood on your hands. You killed?—”
Another gunshot rang through the air, and the soldier fell with a bullet hole through his head. Blood and thicker things leaked from the back of his blown-out skull as his body twitched on the ground.
Oh.
Oh.
The expression on Aubrey’s face as he slipped the gun into his pocket and carefully rifled through the dead man’s clothing was blank, emotionless. If there was hurt in his eyes, it was buried so deep beneath ice that it couldn’t touch him.
In that moment, I knew I was born to make him melt.
The problem with existing in a world where you always got the things you wanted came when those things thought they had autonomy.
Strength.
When was the last time I wondered if something might actuallyput up a fight?
