I blink at his words. “What happened?”
Kaiden whips a knife at my shoulder that I catch before it can find its mark, flipping it in the air casually while holding his eye, waiting for him to speak. He storms over and steals it back before he starts barking out the abridged version.
“We picked the right side in that feud, so that gives us a leg up. They know about Ezra and a group from that town has rallied enough support they’re going to make their move. And now, we can’t even hole up and ride this out because of your fucking dick. So you four are going to need to slip out of town discreetly while we cause a diversion and buy you time for a head start.”
My stomach sinks, the war that we fought so hard to escape haunting us even here. It may not be as widespread yet or as brutal, but here nonetheless.
“Breeder or lab?”
I’m not even sure which fate is worse and I’d wish neither on anyone. It hurts to voice so casually, but knowledge is power. The more we know about who we’re up against, the better of a chance we’ll stand. The men advocating to strip away women’s rights and use them as breeders are more crude, thinking with their dicks and looking for an excuse to rape women without consequence. They make rash decisions, more brutes than anything else.
The people pushing for genetic experimentation are more dangerous. They’re cunning, analytical. They don’t make any decision without careful planning and manipulation, exploiting any weakness to get what they want. Those are the ones primarily occupying Omisha right now. Whether the ones here belong to the same organization as the ones we fled from is the real question. Are we running from one interconnected group or are there smaller rival factions across the globe? How widespread is this? And these are just the problems we know about; who knows how many countless others are cropping up?
“The leaders in that city have ties to the whole ‘breeder’ campaign, but because of whatever they injected Ez with, we’ve got to assume there are ties to both,” Kinsley growls, pacing.
Ezra’s face is a blank mask. “I still say you should just abandon ship with us.”
Eli pokes her cheek several times. “Stop it or it’ll get stuck that way. Trust us, Ez, it’s going to be fine. But until you’re better, you’re at even more risk than usual; you need to go.”
She frowns, turning to Eli with worry. “But what if something happens to one of you?”
He shrugs. “Then I guess when you come back you can terrorize the town and bite faces off for revenge.” His voice is light, but the corners of his eyes are tight with worry.
She hugs him and we all pretend we don’t see the tears she’s fighting to hold back. “You better be fine when I get back here, or so help me, you’ll be grounded for a month.”
He laughs, holding her tightly for a minute before finally letting go. “Deal. Be safe, okay?”
Kinsley goes to sit on the couch, reaching underneath for something, but he pauses. “Why the hell is the couch wet?”
He makes it nearly thirty seconds of no one speaking before a horrified look overtakes his face. Without wasting another second, he practically jumps out of his jeans, throwing them across the room and marching to his room. When he comes out, he’s in a new pair and carrying a gallon of bleach that he promptly dumps all over the cushions, gagging the entire time.
Only when it’s empty does he go back to what he was searching for, pulling out a thin metal box. He opens it and pulls out a manilla envelope, tossing the box aside, and offers it to Ezra.
“Here,” he says, not looking her in the eye.
She opens it and her eyes widen as I peek over her shoulder. “There’s got to be several thousand dollars in here!” she shouts, incredulous.
He shoves it back at her when she tries to refuse. “If we can’t go with you, this should at least help make the trip easier, okay? Quit making it into a thing.”
She nods and hugs him before going down the line, everyone having their farewell while Yri, Soren, and I step outside to give them privacy.
“But really, why stay behind instead of coming with us?” Yri asks of Soren, since we came late to the game.
He frowns. “They were followed back to town. Turns out, Hadeon is better than we gave these men credit for, a few exceptions aside. While other cities knew there was a female in the area, they didn’t know where she actually lived. Rumor had it they scoured the other towns and were just sending out feelers to start scanning Hadeon for her.
“Kaiden killed the men, but they were almost to the house before they noticed them. One of them made a call before they took him out, so we have to assume people are coming straight here.
“They blame themselves, and we’d have to take two cars anyway; it’d be harder to leave town unnoticed. There are only two roads in or out. We aren’t even sure how many people we’re up against and a head start could mean life or death; it’s a smart call,” he finishes, grimacing.
My jaw is tight and I try to settle down my guilt. “If one of them dies, she’ll never forgive herself.”
Vyrian gazes off at nothing, lost in his head. I clap him on the shoulder, making sure he knows we’re here if he needs it, but not prying. We all have our scars, so the best we can do is support each other, since some things never fully heal.
Ezra comes out with a backpack slung over her shoulders and red rimmed eyes. “Your car or mine?”
Kahl makes the decision for her. “Theirs. The people around town know yours on sight by now and we can’t swear who might be against us or flip sides when the fighting starts. Weak men always lean towards whichever side they think is winning, no matter what they’re fighting for.”
Ezra nods and climbs into the backseat with Yri while I take the driver seat and Soren slides in beside me up front. “Don’t look so bleak, beautiful. They’ve been preparing for this their entire lives. If anyone is going to come out on top, it’s those cheating bastards.”
