Page 138 of Hurt

It was all thefucking same.

Noah found himself laughing. Hysterical mirth spilled from his lips as he watched his blood merge with his uncles. This is what everyone was dying for? Did they know? Did they all know that it was indistinguishable once it left a person’s body?

He laughed until he couldn’t laugh anymore. He laughed until his sides hurt and the blood congealed on his hands. He laughed until the red mist abated, and he was left facing his uncle’s dead body with Elijah’s knife sticking out of his serrated neck.

Noah didn’t feel sad about his uncle. He didn’t feel anything anymore.

Kurt. Elijah. Luther. They had all taken swings at his heart, bashing it until it finally broke. He thought it would hurt. Instead, it was a gaping cavernous hole. An emptiness he slowly found himself getting used to.

Pushing Luther’s shirt aside, Noah felt around until he came across his father’s gold-plated gun. The one he had found in his briefcase as a child. The one that every White Sand Mesa leader carried. His bloody fingers gripped the filigreed handle, and he felt the warmth from the metal soak into his hand.

Elijah had wanted to keep him off the path he walked. He wanted to keep him clean.

But all he had done was push him to stain his own hands.

Noah left two bodies in room 5126: Luther’s and the White Sand Mesa’s heir.

Willow licked and chewed at the tape over her mouth. Sweat beaded up against the silvery adhesive, but she couldn’t work it free. Rubbing her face against her shoulder, she managed to peel one corner off, but the tape stubbornly stuck to her skin. Her wrists were bound behind her back, and her shoulders ached. The thin plastic zip tie cut into her skin painfully. There was a slickness on her hands, and she couldn’t tell if it was blood or sweat.

Kurt was pressed up against her. His eyes closed and breathing shallow. The heat was unbearable. Their breaths mingled in the small space, and with every moment, the air felt thicker.

It was a spacious trunk when you looked at it from the outside, but it was not designed for two full-grown adults. Willow was pressed against the wall, face brushing up against the rough carpet lining. She felt it chafing her nose every time she turned her head.

Dimly she remembered someone telling her that if she was ever locked in a trunk, she should kick out the taillights. It was one of those seemingly useless pieces of information that she had picked up and immediately discarded. When would she ever need to know that?

Now. Now is when she needed to know that.

The problem was she couldn’t get to the lights. Kurt’s unconscious body was blocking the way, and there was no room in the pitch-black trunk to maneuver. Willow had already hit her head several times in an attempt to wriggle free.

Ezra had hit Kurt so hard that his head snapped back, and he fell to the ground unconscious. Willow couldn’t be sure how long they had been in the trunk, but Kurt had yet to regain consciousness. It was only because they were pressed so close together and Willow could feel the rise and fall of his breaths that she even knew her brother was alive. Every time she stopped moving, she relived seeing him hit. The sound of Ezra’s knuckles slamming into her brother’s skull would forever haunt her. She thought she might have screamed through the gag, but she couldn’t be sure.

Their bodies shifted as the car bounced down a road. It didn’t feel like asphalt anymore. A dirt road? It was difficult to tell, but Willow swore she could hear thetingsof stones ricocheting off the undercarriage.

Eventually, the car stopped, and the trunk popped open. Blazing late afternoon light seared into her eyes, and she twisted her face away.

Rough hands grabbed her under her arms, and the pain in her shoulders flared white hot. She groaned through the tape as she was set on her feet. Legs wobbling, she almost fell to the ground. Blinking, she looked up to see a massive man with a cold face holding her upright. He was holding her with a detached, clinical sort of air. Like he didn’t really recognize Willow as a human or as a prisoner. She could have been a bag of groceries for all the care this Vega was using.

Two other Vegas dragged Kurt out of the trunk. Not being careful in the slightest, his head dangled limply as they struggled to support his dead weight.

Willow lifted her aching head and looked around. To the east, there was nothing as far as she could see. Empty, flat desert expanded to the horizon in one direction. The occasional cactus or lumpy rock formation broke up the skyline.

In the other direction was a tall chain link fence. Willow had to crane her neck to see the top where wicked loops of razor wire ran along the top. She followed the fence line into the distance but couldn’t see the end of the massive compound.

They moved forward. A large double gate rolled closed behind them, clanging shut as the locks dropped into place. Two guards armed with assault rifles manned a fortified booth just inside the gate. They were wearing Vega red.

Prodded forward, Willow leaned heavily on the Vega, guiding her forward.

The compound spread out in front of her. Squat buildings painted the color of the desert clustered around each other. No more than two or three stories tall, the roofs were flat. It gave off an adobe feel.

Each building seemed to fade in and out of her vision. It was almost as if they were one with the surrounding desert. Perfectly blending into the heat coming off the rocks. The color, combined with the way they were built, made it so that they would be easily missed from a distance or from above.

The entire place was camouflaged.

Willow finally understood why the Weavers couldn’t find this place. This far out in the desert, it would be completely off the grid. With their own network of utilities and using their desert's natural isolation, it would be impossible for anyone to just stumble upon the Catacombs.

He could see two of the larger buildings up ahead. Half dragged and half walking, they entered the closest. Inside, the walls were made of utilitarian-looking concrete. It looked more like a military bunker than a home.

A set of narrow stairs opened up off the entry, but they were taken past them down a hallway and into a darkened room. Letting his eyes adjust from the brightness outside, he finally could pick out a desk and a wall of books. On the far wall was a collection of what appeared to be Medieval weapons.