Page 11 of Worse Fates (Soulmates Suck #1)

A thud, followed by a rustle, comes from behind me. I spin, the hair on the back of my neck rising as I tense for the worst.

Instead I find Kai on the ground in a heap.

“Kai!”

I whisper-shout, helping the idiot up.

“What the hell, why are you following me?”

“Oh, so you can vanish again?”

Kai straightens his leather jacket.

“C’mon, we need to get outta here.”

Hissing, I grab his arm and tug him down the back alleyways, a maze of brick and dull concrete. The dark sky full of fat, angry clouds.

“Dude, I’m not one of your stupid little brothers you can boss around.”

“Then stop acting like them.”

He dips his head round a corner, checking both ways. Once Kai’s sure the coast is clear he nods, and we rush across the road into another indistinguishable backstreet.

“God, no wonder Thomas moved to Japan for uni.”

A dusting of rain begins to fall as our feet beat down the pathway.

“It’s hilarious you think I don’t track his phone,”

Kai responds sarcastically.

“Now stop arguing with me.”

We duck and dive, skirting around towering flats. The very few people we pass have their hoods up, no umbrellas, however. In a country where it rains constantly, you’d think more people would use them.

“Please don’t joke right now,”

I snap, scared Mickey could be around every corner.

I grab Kai by the elbow and drag him under the overhang of an abandoned building tucked behind two towering flats. The patch of grass is overgrown, and the smell of soil mixes with wet concrete.

“I’m not joking,”

Kai argues back.

“And we gotta go.”

“No, I have to go. You have to leave.”

I stop him before he can speak.

“Kai, you’re the most annoying person I know, but also my best friend. You’ve got two little brothers and parents who actually love you, I am not letting you get dragged into my mess.”

Kai pulls out of my grasp.

“Too bad, Golden. I’m not leaving.”

“Dude—”

“Don’t ‘dude’ me!”

Kai shouts, his gaze hot.

“I thought you were dead, Golden! I thought you’d been killed! I couldn’t go to the police, or ask anyone for help. All I could do was worry, and remember every single time I watched you go back to that crazy bastard.”

My fingers run through my damp curls, chest a riot of conflicting emotions that batter into my ribs like the pounding rain.

“I have no idea what I’m doing, Kai,”

I admit, dropping my hands.

“I know he’s a fucking lunatic, but like me he grew up in the care system and when I aged out he didn’t even think twice about taking me in. I don’t care if we weren't blood. I loved him.”

Kai opens his mouth but I hold up a hand, glaring.

“Fuck sakes, Kai, not in that way. Why does it always have to be romance with you? We were a family. A real one, no matter what anyone says.”

Kai turns away from me, so frustrated he’s shaking then turns back, teeth clenched.

“Why are you so fucking stubborn?”

“Me?”

I say, blinking in disbelief.

“Yes, you!”

Kai pokes me in the chest.

“You act like that fucked up cunt was your only option, when I’m standing right bloody here. Remember our plan to get a flat together when we finished school?”

Exasperated, I throw up my hands.

“You were a tattoo apprentice and I worked part-time at a fish and chips shop! We couldn’t afford a pot to piss in, let alone a flat!”

Kai’s mouth forms into a stubborn line.

“You’re my family, too, mate. What’s it gonna take to get that through your thick skull? I’ve never left your side, and I never will. So, if you’re running, I’m coming this time.”

We stare at each other, rain pouring down hard and breathing harder.

“You’re a right soppy sod…”

I sniffle, throwing my arms around him.

Kai hugs back.

“Yeah, I know. C’mon, we’ll address your many, many, issues later. Right now we’ve gotta leg it.”

“And why would you wanna do that?”

That voice cuts through the air like a knife. Then, in the direction we’ve been running, a man walks towards us.

“Hey, goofball.”

I move in front of Kai. “Jace.”

Jace looks so normal that sometimes I forget he’s my big bad wolf. Average height, tan brown skin, hair shaved close to the scalp. He’s got a hard face, but when he smiles his dimples shine like the sun. It’s what makes Jace disarming, what makes people trust him.

Jace strolls towards us, something bulky and square strapped with thin black belts on the outside of his upper thigh. From the wrinkled grey leather, it almost looks like an old book. And as his smile grows wide, like he really missed me, my stomach sinks lower.

“I’ve been worried about you, goofball. The flat doesn’t feel like home without you.”

Jace’s voice is kind. Full of lies. Or worse—a truth that he wants, but I’ll never give him.

My eyes track him, unblinking, wide, trying to capture any sudden movements. I push at Kai, silently begging him to escape while he’s got the chance. But the idiot doesn’t move.

“I-I’m allowed to leave whenever I want,”

I tell him, hoping he doesn’t hear my tremor.

He strolls closer, towering over me like the blocks of flats.

“‘Course you can. I’d never trap you. But then you took something of mine. Didn’t you?”

Each clap of his shoes on the cracked path makes me flinch.

Panic closes my throat as Jace stops in front of us.

“Where is it, Golden?”

he asks, a smile full of promises meant to inflict pain.

I push harder at Kai, wishing he’d leave. But Kai doesn’t budge an inch.

“I…”

Squaring my shoulders, I face him head on.

“I flushed it.”

And like the rain washed it away, his kindness melts to reveal a rage that has Kai grabbing hold of my forearm, forcing us both to stumble back.

“You. What?”

Jace hisses out, low and deadly.

I’m about to stutter out a lame excuse, but then the flash of a knife pulls my attention to the glinting point.

“Jace,”

Kai says, voice tight.

“Chill out, yeah? We’re all good…”

“Stay out of this, Kai!”

Jace shouts, then does something I don’t expect—he cuts his arm open, blood flowing out.

“What the fuck.”

Kai and I say in unison.

Between clenched teeth, Jace, the man I still think of as my big brother, snarls.

“Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

Jace holds up his arm, blood gushing from his parted flesh. None of it hits the floor, however. It flows up to above his outstretched hand, swirling like a red whirlpool.

The belts at his thigh unclasp with a snap, the bulky thing begins to float before him, and I realise with a start that it really was a book. An ugly grey thing with wrinkled leather.

Mouth hanging open, I’m frozen as I watch the whirlpool of blood grow from a tennis ball into the size of a football. A squishing sound, like mushy, raw, meat squeezed between fingers, pulses from its centre.

Kai is dragging my shocked body back, chanting ‘what the fuck’ under his breath.

Then the whirling pool becomes a bloody spear, long and sharper than the knife. It spins above Jace’s hand, his mouth pulled into a too-tight grin, then—hurls it at us.

Before I get a chance to scream I’m moving. Or falling. Or flying. But one second I’m under the overhang, and the next me and Kai are standing in the rain, away from Jace—who hangs struggling in the air, Lucero’s fist around his throat and face twisted in pure fury.

“What the hell is happening right now!”

Kai cries out.

That’s what I wanna know.