Page 31 of Veil of Death and Shadow (Order of Reapers #1)

31

MAREENA

Present Day

“ W hy?” I shook my head, crawling away crab-style from Thorne and the corpse. My body was shaking, and it felt like if I stood up too quickly, I’d only come tumbling back down to the floor, though I wasn’t sure if that was due to the blood loss or because I was on the verge of a panic attack. “Why did he do that? Why would—” I took a deep breath and tried to regulate my body’s response, focusing on the flare of pain in my arm, letting it ground me. I looked up, searching Kieran’s face. “I don’t understand?”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Thorne, it’s that there’s no getting to the bottom of his decisions unless he wants you to.” Kieran picked up the reaper’s unconscious body and tossed it over his shoulder, then he grabbed my hand, helping me back to my feet as much as his foothold in this world would allow. “Let’s get your friend and get the feck out of here before we run into any more issues, yeah?”

I nodded, then ran my tongue over my lips to bring moisture back to my mouth. “Okay. You got the keys, right?”

“Who’s she talking to?” Benson One muttered to Benson Two. They’d made their way back during the chaos, looking a little rumpled but uninjured for the most part—and judging by the light in their eyes and the subtle curves to their mouths, they’d actually enjoyed that unexpected interruption to the rescue mission.

Fucking Wrath recruits.

“Don’t know,” Benson Two said, “but it looks like she took the third one on her own.” They both shot me an impressed look. “Not bad, Rina’s friend.” Apparently they hadn’t bothered memorizing my name either. “Maybe you should consider pledging to our house. Might fit in better than you think.”

They spoke about House of Wrath as if it were a fucking frat house. And, honestly, if they were true representatives of the larger whole, it probably was.

Swallowing my frustration, I ignored them and opened the door that Kieran had unlocked.

Sora shifted awake as we spilled into the room, and I felt some of the tension ease in my chest. She was okay, she was alive. This room must’ve been sound-proofed because the chaotic battle in the hall clearly hadn’t woken her.

“Mars?” she asked, her eyes wide with shock that then quickly bled into panic. “What are you doing here?” Her gaze dipped to my arm. “Oh my god, are you okay? What happened? How did you find me?”

I grabbed the ring of keys hanging on a coat hook and started the tedious process of figuring out which one actually opened her cage.

“I’m okay, it’s okay,” I said, convincing myself as much as her, as I moved from the third key to the fourth. “We’re going to get you out of here and then we can answer questions. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

A cursory glance showed that she had a few bruises and cuts, and judging from the way that she seemed to be favoring her right side, I had a feeling that leg was injured. Hopefully nothing worse than a light sprain.

“Yeah.” She sniffed; her expression stiff. “I’m okay.” Okay was relative of course, and I could tell from the way her voice wavered and the tears clinging to her dark lashes that okay definitely did not mean good. She offered a small, tight smile. “Nothing we haven’t been through before.”

Also not the most comforting words. At the hands of Blake, we’d been through quite a lot, which meant there was a pretty big range of shit they could have done to her in the last twenty-four hours.

I shoved the possibilities from my thoughts.

“We’ll—” My words broke off at the sound of a click as the lock tipped open. I sighed with relief and swung her crate open. Placing her left arm around my shoulders, I had her lean as much of her weight on me as she could, guiding her out. “Let’s get out of here. Sound good?”

She grunted. “You have no fucking idea how good.”

The hall was silent, and Sora’s eyes widened at the sight of three bodies scattered on the floor. I gave her arm a gentle squeeze, and we stepped over them, wordlessly retracing our steps back to the entrance.

But when we reached the base of the staircase, two men came bolting down the last few steps, expressions twisted in first surprise, then rage.

“Go,” Benson said, a devious grin twisting the corners of his lips. “We’ll take care of them and meet you back at the rendezvous.”

The men looked downright giddy at the promise of another fight.

Well, they weren’t going to get one from me.

Sora and I side-stepped their grunts and shoves as the four men locked in a battle of limbs and blows.

“I think I’m good,” Sora whispered, pulling her arm back and quickening her pace up the stairs. She leaned heavily against the arm rail for support but made decent time up to the main floor. “Leg was really stiff, but moving it is helping I think.”

Alarms greeted us when we emerged into the fresh air, and while the echo of fighting surrounded the compound, we had a pretty clear path back. I sent a silent thank you to whoever organized this particular layout, deciding to keep their captives away from most of the House’s chaos. From here, we just had to hope that once we made it back over the fence, the Wrath recruits could restrain some of their bloodlust and stick to the mission. The faster we got out of here, the better. And that wouldn’t happen if they decided to start a full-fledged territory war right now.

Getting over the fence proved to be a bit of a struggle. I did my best to boost Sora up to the ledge as much as possible, and though I could see the pain lining her face as she hopped down over the other side, she didn’t make a sound or protest.

Out of fear of drawing attention to ourselves, we didn’t speak again until we were almost a full block away from the compound, just a few minutes’ walk from the rendezvous where we would meet Rina and the others.

“Thank you,” Sora whispered finally. “I seriously don’t know how you found me, but I’m profoundly fucking glad that you did.” The corner of her lips twisted into a small grin. “Your guardian angel give you a tip or something?”

I grunted. “Turns out he’s actually a reaper.”

Her eyes widened. “As in . . . grim?”

I nodded, shooting Kieran a look from the corner of my eye.

“What? Is he here?” She craned her neck, like she was trying to find him, her gaze hitting everywhere except to my other side, where Kieran walked silently with Thorne lobbed over his shoulder.

I nodded again.

“Mars,” she shoved my uninjured arm, some of the playful energy I was used to seeping back into her features now that we were almost home free, “you seriously mean to tell me that you’re being stalked by a literal grim reaper and you decided it was a good idea to break into one of the compounds on a rescue mission? Have you lost your mind? Do you have a death wish?”

“You didn’t leave me much of a choice,” I grumbled. “Sometimes, when it comes to the people we love, we make reckless decisions. Like,” I shot her a knowing look, “trusting a smarmy redhead from the market.”

She winced, and her entire face scrunched with the expression. “Fair point.” She smirked. “You know what this means, right?”

“Hm?”

“Now you really are being haunted by death.” She let out a bemused laugh. “Can’t believe you were right in the end. The curse lives.”

“Me . . . right?” I grinned. “I do like the sound of that, though I would absolutely prefer if it were about something a little less depressing.”

“Hey!” A loud voice barked behind us.

The ease of the last few minutes deflated instantly when we turned towards the voice.

Kieran cursed next to me, adjusting his hold of the unconscious reaper.

There was a woman jogging after us, maybe in her early thirties. She wore a purple silky pajama set, and her blonde hair was crumpled on one side like she’d just been pulled from bed.

Definitely not a member of our rescue party.

“Agony,” Kieran warned, fear riding his voice as he shifted in front of me.

I followed his gaze, and my stomach dropped. Dangling in her right hand was a gun. And when I slowly tugged my focus up, I saw that her eyes were laced with tears and a flaring hatred.

“You need to run,” Kieran said, his voice quiet but firm.

Sora froze next to me, her hands held up in surrender. “Look, we don’t want any trouble. We’re not part of this fight. We just want to go home.”

She was too injured to run, and I didn’t trust that this woman wouldn’t shoot us the instant we tried.

“Mareena,” Kieran begged again, his body fully in front of me now, even though we both knew that wouldn’t do anything.

A few people rounded the corner about two hundred feet away, and I recognized the masked, all-black uniform of the Wrath recruits—Jenson among them. When they spotted us, they took off running in our direction.

“Bit late for that don’t you think?” The woman sneered; her focus locked on Sora. She raised the gun, until it pointed at her head. “I told them to just kill you. Don’t know why they insisted on fucking playing around. Children, all of them.”

“Please, you have to listen to us,” Sora started, but she flinched when the woman’s grip tightened. “Whatever you think I did, I didn’t?—”

“I don’t think you did anything,” the woman yelled, spit flying from her lips. “I was fucking there last year. I watched you kill my sister.” Her nostrils flared. “And didn’t see a damn ounce of remorse or regret on your face when you did it either.”

“Agony, please run,” Kieran demanded. “Now. You need to get out of here—please.”

But I didn’t. And I couldn’t.

I knew with a rigid certainty that the woman was going to pull the trigger only a half of a second before she did, but it was enough time for me to shove Sora to the side.

“No!” Kieran yelled, his voice piercing through the crashing cry of the gunshot.

When Sora fell to the ground, she looked up, then echoed his scream.

I pressed my hand to my chest and pulled away a palm covered in blood. And as my knees collapsed to the pavement, the only thing that went through my head was how silly it was.

That tonight alone, I’d survived reapers, a demon club, a vampire bar, and two compounds.

That this was a world filled with monsters and magic, but it was a human-made bullet and a woman’s festering grief that finally delivered Death’s invitation.