My men awaiting the okay to slaughter my pet, the Governor of New York making my life a living hell, the sounds of another helicopter off in the distance…
The endless turmoil and treachery of this life that I was never supposed to be leading.
“This won’t end well for you, Ivory…”
Leave me alone.
Everyone fuck the hell off.
“Jefe, this is serious!” Paulino hollers as they come for me, and I run away from them.
“Bite me!” I hiss.
It’s loco, but I don’t care right now. About any of it.
I just need to get to the aviary…
To my little bird.
I make it right up to the conservatory… And then everything goes dark.
God damn, man.
I mean, seriously…What the fuck?
As if this entire thing couldn’t get more complicated… Here’s a new piece to the puzzle. A piece I think we’d been missing.
Though, it’s not quite theshapeI’d been expecting.
We’re all crowded around in the old armory; this cold, damp crumbling structure, still pretty damn different from theothercold damp crumbling structure we’ve been scampering around in for the last way too many years.
Dirty. Tired. Frayed and shot to hell, emotionally and physically. And yet, it is most certainlynotthe time to lie down, whine about wet socks, sore muscles, a grumbling stomach or a killer fucking migraine.
It’s time to dig our heels in, lift our goddamn swords. Andfight.
We’ve been preparing for this moment for months. The fall of Alabaster Penitentiary tossed us into the deep end of this war before we were technically ready. But when are you ever truly ready to go to battle?
The most you can do is steel your nerves, set aside all emotion. Anything you might be feeling takes an immediatebackseat to logic. Switch it all off, and focus on just one thing, above all else…
Winning.
Endingthis, once and for all.
We have a major advantage here, in that survival instinct is something we’ve all been honing for a long time. We haven’t been ripped from an existence that’s cozy and warm, and safe. We weren’t summoned to leave the arms of our families to go off and fight.
We were already in survival mode.And my family is fighting right alongside me.
Still, I’m not so arrogant as to think this advantage is specific to us. Our enemy is every bit as bloodthirsty as we are.
The troops are on the march, onbothsides. It’s all hands on deck right now, and so yes, I’m counting on my survival, but not for myself. For them. I will stay alive to protect my people.
But if I die making sure he can never wield control over a single one of them again, so be it.
The thought has me gripping the brass knuckles around my fingers tighter from within my pocket.
Sucking in a long breath, my eyes flit to Fenwick, who appears equal parts pleased with himself and oddly protective of the kid. I’m not privy to the nature of their relationship, being that I’ve been locked in a damn broom closet reading maps by candlelight for weeks, but it seems like Trevel has some sort of kinship with this mysterious person.
But that can’t be…
