New Regime (19 page)

She buckled on guns and shivs, dragged a comb through her
hair, and then opened the bedroom door to go face her crew.

The kitchen, the center of her home, smelled like bacon and
coffee and was full of her people. It would have been better only if Z had been
there with them.

Levi sat at the table, and though he wasn’t back to normal,
he looked better. He shot her a quick smile. “I left the clinic two hours ago,”
he told her. “I’m okay, Rune.”

“Of course you are.” But they all knew he wasn’t.

 “Fie wants to see you when you go in.” Raze spoke to her,
but his mournful stare was on Lex.

Rune put her hands on her hips. “Raze, are you ever going to
tell Lex you love her?”

Shit.

She groaned, wishing she could snatch the words back as soon
as they left her lips.

The silence was immediate. Levi and Denim grinned, Lex’s jaw
dropped, and Raze…Raze turned and stomped from the room. Fast.

Lex was not amused. She marched across the floor and stabbed
a stiff finger into Rune’s belly. “Stop trying to control everything.”

Rune stepped back and rubbed her abdomen. “Ow. I’m sorry,
Lex. I want everyone to…” She glanced at the berserker as he leaned against the
wall, his arms folded. She silently cursed as heat climbed her cheeks. “To have
something good.” She swallowed. “There’s no time.”

Not for them.

But Lex wasn’t mollified. “Don’t try to control me. Don’t do
that. My love life is mine. And my
demon
is mine. Just…fucking don’t.”

And that was the crux of the problem. Rune could—and
had—forced out Lex’s demon. Not a good thing. Not something Lex was going to
get past anytime soon.

“I won’t call your demon again.” But she’d wondered if she’d
be able to keep that promise.

Lex jabbed her stomach again. “Mean it when you say that,
Rune. Mean it.”

Strad pushed himself with an almost lazy slowness away from
the wall. “She’s got it, little one,” he told Lex. “That’s enough.”

Rune frowned at his protectiveness. “You don’t need to—”

“Let’s go to work,” Jack said from the doorway, “before Rune
gets pissed and kicks all our asses.”

Lex hesitated, then stepped back and grinned. “If she
can.
The berserker has made her soft.”

Rune snorted. “I am not soft.”

Was she?

She couldn’t let her emotions make her weak. And she
couldn’t let the berserker make her soft.

She looked at Strad. His stare was hot and intense and ate
her up. It took her breath and made her stomach tighten with need.

Neither of them said a word.

He lifted the corners of his lips in a tiny smile as he
watched her, and unable to resist, she returned that smile.

“See?” Lex said. “Soft.”

Rune ignored her and strode from the house, the berserker at
her back. It was time to visit their necromancer.

She pulled into the Annex parking lot and left her car,
staring up at the building as she waited for Strad to park.

“Are we ever going to get her out of that net?” she asked,
when he stood beside her.

But he had no answer. “Come on. She’s waiting.”

“Rune,” Fie called, as Rune neared the room.

“How does she do that?” Strad asked.

Rune shook her head. “I don’t know.” Then she pasted on a not
entirely genuine smile and walked into the room.

Elizabeth sat behind a small desk she’d had installed,
peering into her computer screen. In that large room, with Fie, was where she’d
work as long as Fie was confined in the net. She slept in the cot beside the
child.

Fie would have it no other way. No one knew what all she’d
been through. Elizabeth refused to allow the child to be questioned.

Eugene walked into the room. “How are you this morning?” he
asked Fie.

Though he tried to frown and shake his head with doleful
regret, he was too curious about the net, too intrigued by it, to fool anyone.

And maybe his conscience was stricken over his attempt to
use her to destroy his enemies.

He turned to Elizabeth. “If—when—I get her out of that net,
she’ll be taken care of her entire life. She’ll want for nothing.”

Yeah, he felt guilty.

“I’ll hire specialists in necromancy and magic to make sure
she’s prepared for her future.”

“It’s the least you can do,” Rune said, glaring.

 “I don’t like it here,” Fie told Strad. She knew he was
wrapped around her little finger. “I want to go outside.”

Elizabeth rose from her chair and hurried to the other side
of Fie’s bed. “Now, Stefanie, we talked about that.”

“She wanted to go outside at dawn,” Eugene said, at Rune’s
questioning look. “She called half a dozen zombies and then lost control. She’s
tired.” He spoke in an undertone, as though Fie had no idea what she’d done and
he didn’t want to be the one to tell her. “They ate two techs and a nurse
before ops put them down.”

“I can’t move my arms,” Fie cried. “I want out.”

Rune didn’t bother telling Fie they’d get her out soon. Fie
knew those were empty words. She’d leave soothing the child to Elizabeth.

Eugene cleared his throat, then walked from the room without
saying anything else to any of them. Rune wondered if he missed Iris. How could
he not?

“Get it off,” Fie pleaded. She looked at Strad, who stood clenching
his fists, his blue eyes full of misery. “I can’t pet my puppy.”

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Strad said.

The netting was a womb, cuddling Fie, feeding her, absorbing
her waste.

Suddenly noticing something, Rune jerked her stare to
Elizabeth. “What—”

Elizabeth gave a quick shake of her head. “Rune, let’s get
coffee while Strad is keeping Fie company.”

“It’s moving?” Rune asked, as soon as they were in the
hallway. She kept her voice low.

“It’s climbing,” Elizabeth said, closing her eyes for a
second. “I expect in a few weeks it will cover her face. Her head.”

“Shit,” Rune said. Her claustrophobia kicked into high gear
at the mere thought and she put a hand to her chest, trying to take a deep
breath.

“The netting is also closing up the gaps,” Elizabeth went
on. “But I’m not afraid she’ll suffocate in there. I’m afraid she’ll lose her
mind.”

Rune swallowed. “Shit,” she said again, weakly. “We have to
get her out of that fucking thing.”

“It’s some sort of membrane, and it’s…” Elizabeth shook her
head. “It’s attaching to her—not just enveloping her.”

“The net is a monster,” Rune said.

“Yes. Yes, it is.”

Then they looked at each other, neither of them knowing what
else to say. Fie’s situation, always dire, was growing quickly worse.

“Elizabeth,” Rune said, finally, “bring George in.”

If Elizabeth had been the type to gape, she would have right
then. “She tried to
kill
him, Rune. I’m not bringing him to the Annex.”

“There’s more to that than we know. Besides. Fie can’t get
to him. She’s a fucking mummy.”

Elizabeth turned to go back inside the room, and before Rune
could follow her, her cell buzzed. “Yeah?”

“Rune Alexander?”

“Who’s this?”

“I’m a friend of Leon Lafitte. He’s—”

“Karin’s dead?” Her heart began to thud with a hard, painful
intensity.

“No, she’s not dead, but fucking
Annie
is.”

“What?” She backed against the wall, watching as the
berserker walked toward her, barely seeing him. “How?”

“Well, see,” the man said, “Karin Love killed her. Killed
her in a really bad way. Leon, he wanted me to call and let you know.”

“Fuck me,” she whispered.

“Oh yes,” he agreed. “Leon says he knows you won’t pay up
your debt on account of Annie not succeeding, but the way he figures it, it was
you who killed his lady. You’re responsible for that.”

She said nothing.

“You know how bad Leon is, don’t you, Alexander?”

“Yeah. I know.”

And the enemies just kept coming.

“Well, you don’t have to really worry about Leon hurting
you, not right now. He’s not out. He’s not the one’s going to hurt you.”

She stiffened her spine. “Spit it out, you little fuck.”

“Leon’s not out of prison.
Karin
is out of prison. I
guess you hadn’t heard yet. She broke out about an hour ago. Least that’s when
they noticed her missing.”

Rune stuffed her phone back into her pocket with numb
fingers.

The time of Karin Love was coming. She’d always known it
would.

But fuck if that knowledge didn’t take her breath away.

It was true.

Karin Love, with the help of at least three prison staff,
six inmates, and unknown outsiders, had escaped prison.

Lex shuddered once, then she and the twins huddled in a sad
group of inconsolable misery.

Ellie wrung his hands, his eyes wide. “This is the real
battle. This has been coming since the beginning, hasn’t it?”

No one disagreed.

“We won’t see her for a while.” Denim’s voice was soft, but
held absolutely no doubt. “She’ll wait. She’ll hide, and plan, and then…”

Then all hell would break loose.

Rune had never known another human to cause so much fear.

Or so much damage.

“When she shows herself,” Rune said, “I’ll tear the bitch
apart.”

Lex jerked away from the twins. “
I’ll
kill her,” she
screamed. “I’ll kill the fucking bitch.”

Rune held up her hands. “Okay, Lex.”

But Lex began to unravel as the memories of abuse, the rage,
and the terror began to burst from the deep hole into which she’d buried them.

Wings burst from her back, ripping through her shirt,
unfurling in the relatively small space of Rune’s kitchen. She rose into the
air, then shot a stream of fire at the window.

It shattered, the force of the flame sending shards of glass
out into the Moor.

“Lex,” Levi yelled.

But Ellie ran to Lex and grabbed her leg, pulling her back to
the floor. “Come with me, hon. Let’s get some of that out of you.”

Lex followed him, her cries drifting back over her shoulder
as she and Ellie raced to the front door.

Then there was only silence until Jack walked into the
kitchen. He glanced at the broken window. “I’ll get someone over here to fix
that,” he said, and walked back out of the room with his cell to his ear.

Rune poured herself a cup of coffee, then leaned against the
table, watching the twins. “Karin Love will end soon. You know that.”

They looked at her, faces exactly alike, except for Denim’s
scar. But she would have known Levi from Denim regardless. There was a
difference in their eyes.

Levi finally smiled. “Rune, we’ll be okay. Don’t worry.”

She snorted. “Yeah. That’ll happen. I—”

Then Denim pulled a blade and threw it with smooth
precision, so fast and hard Rune felt the air from it as it sailed half an inch
past her cheek.

She dove to the floor, shooting out her claws as she rolled
to face the window. She had a millisecond to see the assassin before he ducked
out of sight.

Denim’s shiv must surely have taken some of the assassin’s
mask with it as it hurtled through space—it was that close.

She got up and streaked toward the window, ignoring shards
of glass slicing into her as she went after the assassin.

Levi and Denim had already left the kitchen, running for the
front door. She knew Jack would be right behind them.

Fucking assassin.

But she was glad he’d appeared. She needed to chase someone.
To cut someone. So did the twins.

The assassin, in his desperation, was becoming careless.

She sniffed the air for his scent but couldn’t separate it
from the other scents of oil, gasoline, garbage, old blood, and human
desperation.

But Jack cornered him. The Assassin had slithered under a
broken car parked in someone’s overgrown yard, and within seconds, the assassin
and Jack were fighting like two raging wolves.

The hired killer wasn’t getting away that time—the twins blocked
him on one side, and Rune blocked the other.

They had him.

“Don’t kill him,” she called. She had some questions.
Questions he might never answer but she was going to ask, anyway.

“Four against one,” one of the Moor’s residents yelled.
“That’s not fair.”

Jack reeled from a deep cut to his shoulder and then slammed
his big body into the assassin’s smaller one. He began punching him with so
much anger Rune knew he’d forgotten she wanted the hired gun alive.

“Son of a bitch,” she said, and ran toward the two men. She
heard the crackly crunch of bone as Jack punched the other man in the face. The
assassin didn’t go down. Somehow, he stayed on his feet.

She punched him in the back of his head.

And that time, he went down.

“You okay, baby?” she asked Jack. She knelt beside the hitman
but glanced up at Jack.

He wiped blood from his face, breathing hard, then adjusted
his eye patch. “My depth perception isn’t what it once was,” he said, out of
the blue. It was the first time he’d admitted the loss of his eye took anything
away from his skills.

Levi and Denim gathered at his back, then turned to shoo
away some nosy neighbors.

“Shit, Jack,” she said, but that was all. There were no
words she could comfort him with. He’d lost his fucking eye.

He shrugged. “I’ll call and have the Annex send someone to
take him in.”

She stood. “Not yet. I want to have some time with him
first.”

“Eugene won’t try to stop you from questioning him.”

“No, but he will complicate things. I’m taking him to my
house.”

Jack nodded and once more adjusted his eye patch. “I’ll
carry him over.”

“I got him.” She bent forward and flipped him to his back,
then grabbed a fistful of his shirt and began to drag him down the street.

“Rune,” Jack said, frowning. “Your chest is bleeding pretty
badly.”

“I’m fine, Jack.”

The assassin regained consciousness before they were halfway
home and even in his groggy, weakened state, managed to slice her Achilles
tendon completely through before Levi wrestled the blade from him.

“Son of a bitch,” she said, sitting on the street, her
fingers wrapped around her ankle. “Take him on in, guys. Restrain him and put
him in the panic room. I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

He was either thinking she’d get angry enough to bite him,
or angry enough to kill him. He was frantic for the first and the second would
have been a relief.

Jack, with the twins beside him, hustled the assassin into
her house.

She waited, so accustomed to physical pain that she didn’t
even whimper. She’d heal a severed Achilles in five minutes. Ten, tops.

She heard a yell in the distance and thought it might have
been Lex. She sighed, then scooted off the street when a truck sped around the
corner.

Lex worried her.

Lex’s demon could destroy Karin Love, but Lex could not.

She didn’t know that, the little blind Other. She believed
her rage would aid her, but Rune knew the girl’s fear scurried around in her
mind, waiting for a chance to smother her. Lex would not be able to kill her
tormenting mother. When the time came, the girl would freeze. Or her mind would
go.

But Rune could kill Karin Love. And would.

She looked forward to it. All Karin had to do was show
herself, and she was a dead woman.

She was aware someone was slipping from the shadows toward
her, and she tensed even as her nose told her it was one of hers.

Owen.

He knelt beside her, his eyes the brightest things in the
stormy darkness of the day. Thunderclouds hung with heaviness and the air was
electric. He wasn’t healed from his run-in with her claws or from his time in
Reverence, but he wouldn’t complain.

“Are you okay?” His hair streaked over his shoulders, thin
strands she wanted to wrap around her fingers.

“Yeah, I’m fine. We got the assassin.”

His gaze sharpened. “Where is he?”

“In my panic room, restrained. Jack and the twins are
watching him.”

He glanced over his shoulder at her house.

“Don’t worry. He’s not getting free again,” she said.

“How’s Levi?”

“Doing better.” She shrugged. “Doing as well as he can.”

He stood, then held out a hand to help her up. Blood pooled
in her boot, not the most comfortable feeling in the world, and she put a hand
on his shoulder to balance herself as she gave her foot a shake.

“Ruined a good pair of boots,” she said, staring dolefully
at her foot. “The bastard ruined my boots.”

Owen was silent, so she glanced up at him.

The look in his eyes made it hard for her to breathe.

“Fuck, Rune,” he murmured.

“Owen, you can’t—”

But before she could finish, he took her by her shoulders
and leaned in to kiss her. Not hard, not fast. But buried beneath the
unintended kiss was urgency. Urgency rising from a lack of hope and the quiet
despair she’d seen in him the first time she’d picked him up in a bar.

Maybe he thought she could make him forget whatever tortured
him. Maybe he thought she could save him.

So she wrapped her hands around his arms and pulled him
closer.

Because for one long, hot minute, she really wanted to try.