Page 146 of Soul So Dark

I’m not ready to go.

I’m still not ready to go.

“CLEAR!”

The last voice booms, this one much deeper and so loud that I think my eardrums will burst. Then there’s a punch to my chest and it feels like my heart explodes against my ribcage. My muscles twitch and all I can hear is a loud rumbling and Thatch shouting above me. It sounds like he’s crying.

I’m lying on my back, and it feels like we’re driving over a boulder field at 90 miles per hour. Gat and Adair hover over me, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. I think Gat’s holding the defibrillator paddles. Then I catch a glimpse of Keller in the driver’s seat.

If I’m not already dead, I will be soon. Keller can’t drive worth shit.

But something smells burnt, like a bad sunburn, or singed hair. I glance over at Adair hurriedly wrapping my hand. It looks like it’s in shreds, but I can’t feel anything.

Apparently, direct contact with a high-voltage electric fence will do that. And bleeding profusely from a stab wound doesn’t help, either. I don’t know how I’m still alive, but the voices keep playing over and over. They keep calling to me as I drift in and out.

Calling me back.

LaCrosse survived, thanks to our backup getting Thatch’s call before the sat phone shit the bed. From what I understand, Keller went beast mode and rammed the truck straight through the wrought iron fence, which is how they were able to drag my ass out of that courtyard while I was unconscious—well…

Dead.

For eight minutes, I left this mortal coil while my body lay in the back of an armored vehicle racing through a dusty valley on the other side of the world. If they hadn’t gotten me out, I would be just another corpse, a casualty destined for an unmarked pit where my bones would join those of others who served as cannon fodder in futile wars and forgotten “skirmishes.” Maybe my skull or my spine decorating the village gates would’ve served as a warning to future colonizers.

I wake up in a hospital far away with doctors and nurses constantly checking my heart and waking me up at all hours to make sure I’m still breathing. On video chat, Thatch recounts how it was no livestock fence I grabbed onto, which was why I couldn’t let go when it started frying me. I don’t ask about the fallout, and he doesn’t volunteer the information. All I care about is that we’re all still alive and no one on our end is getting screwed by management.

But even in that hospital bed, I still feel the vibrations of the rocky terrain beneath me. I still hear that one voice that sticks out more than the others right before it’s interrupted by the screams.

Now, it’s months later, I’m back in the U.S., and I get the same feeling while following a dirt path jutting off a county road between a line of thick woods and vast spans of ag fields. The GPS directions end at the mile marker on the road and the Australian voice on my phone states that I’ve arrived.

I sure as fucking hell have not.

But I know that my destination today can’t be as bad as that one mission that finally put me on a plane back home.

Home.

Do I have one of those anymore? I left three days after graduating from high school and haven’t stayed in my childhood home for more than one night since then. But at least I know there aren’t insurgents lurking behind the brush or an ambush at the next oak. But when Aiden told me to meet him at the Rhodens’, I nearly refused.

I’m not sure why; rumors, stories, legends conjured up over a matter of years that’ve taken on a life of their own? But now the ground beneath my truck feels like it did the last time I walked into a trap, and my body isn’t about to let me forget it. The road seems to go on and on until I drive through a thick grove of trees and reveal into a rolling hillside that backs up to the forest.

I approach a black iron gate with a largeHforged into the middle of the arch.

I knew it. I fucking knew it.

Hunter’s Landing.I always suspected that the Rhodens were associated with the Hunters somehow.

The gate is flanked by livestock fences, where black angus cattle congregate under the shade trees across the pasture. The cattle stunt, prom, and the speculations swirling around who caused it…I’m not sure how it’s connected, but I’m sure I’ll find out eventually.

When I reach the gate, I notice a figure dressed in black pants, a black t-shirt, and sunglasses standing motionless next to the entrance. A semi-automatic rifle hangs across his chest, immediately putting me on edge.

I don’t need a flashback right now.

I’m about to lower my window, but he gives a disinterested wave and allows me to pass without a word. I continue on the path to a black building with the same architectural style as the barns and outbuildings that lead up to the main house—a veritable fortress on the hill—and that’s where I finally see Aiden’s Lexus parked in the gravel.

When I walk through the heavy black door, it looks like an office with two heavy wood desks and leather chairs sitting in front of bays of CCTV screens. It’s deserted, but distant voices drift down the hallway. When I follow it to the source, I find Aiden sitting in a black leather chair, his head cocked to the side while a guy who’s almost as tall as him tattoos the side of his neck. He’s talking to two other guys lounging on a black leather sofa, who I recognize as Brantley and Wesley Rhoden.

Back in high school, they looked like a couple of rednecks that would skin you alive and make your hide into a pair of boots, but they’ve cleaned up slightly since then. Wesley still has the same long dirty blonde hair pulled back in a messy bun, but it’s not as unruly as it used to be. His sharp clean-shaven jaw is set hard so his mouth is affixed in a perpetual snarl. Brantley’s expression has always been less severe, with a glint in his blue eyes that betrays his formidable front. The two of them could pass for twins, only discernible by Brantley’s short hair that looks much blonder in the light.

Aiden’s face looks the same with his jet-black hair, porcelain skin, nose piercing, and lip rings just beneath his canines. The rest of his body, however, is completely covered in black tattoos. The last time I saw him, his neck was devoid of ink, but now it’s nearly filled, extending all the way up to his hairline at the base of his skull and along his jawline.