Page 8 of Code Bound
“You ready?” I whisper to Dox.
“No,” she answers back. “Where we going?”
“Away,” I say. “As fast as possible. Take out whoever you have to.”
She gives an almost imperceptible nod.
“I’m going to enjoy punishing you for trying to betray me,” Orion says sweetly. “Just as I’m going to enjoy sinking into that sweet pussy again.”
My grin widens as I unwrap the fruit bundle and hold the orange up high in the air. The crowd around us shifts as they realize what I hold. No doubt, their mouths are watering just like mine did when I saw it. They want it. They’ll do anything to have it.
Even kill.
“You’ll never get this pussy again,” I say before I whistle and throw the orange into the air.
The crowd erupts into action, all of them lunging for the orange. Fists fly as they desperately scramble to taste the orange, to get it before someone else. A man bites into it, peel and all, before he screams and is sucked down into the mass of writing bodies, another man digging the bite from his mouth and popping it into his own.
“Get them!” I hear Orion scream, but I’m not worried about him anymore. My hand is on Dox’s as I jerk her through the crowd, tossing a few other fruits behind me to make sure the crowd closes ranks behind us.
“Run!” I scream.
We run like our lives depend on it.
Because they do . . .
CHAPTER3
VESPER
We lose them in the chaos quickly. People are scrambling for the fruit we toss into the street and the Union can’t get through the crazed desperation fast enough to follow. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t still in danger. It actually makes things worse.
The Black Spur Union has eyes everywhere and Orion is a slippery fucker. He’s going to be downright obsessive over my location. I’d challenged him in front of everyone, his people, the people he rules over. He won’t take that lightly. He won’t allow it to slide this time.
“He’s gonna have every fucking gang after us,” I groan, tipping my head back against the cracked wall behind me. My lungs burn from more than just the toxic air now as my breaths saw in and out of my chest.
Dox snorts. “Yeah, well . . . one of us made the decision to challenge the fucker and it wasn’t me.” She meets my eyes. “I told you it was a bad idea to sleep with him, but noooo. You like bad boys.”
I roll my eyes. “You act like Trig isn’t also part of a rival gang.”
“Everyone is these days,” she shrugs. “But he’s not the leader.”
We hadn’t stopped for hours, running until we were out of breath, pausing long enough to catch it, before running again. We made it to twenty-one before Dox suggested we stop to actually rest. Then again, we had to slow down anyways. Twenty-one hasn’t been truly habitable in as long as I can remember.
Around us, tall buildings are crumbling, some of them leaning against each other, some of them downed entirely. In one part of the district, it looks like something big struck it, leaving a crater behind with all the damage. There isn’t much here. Anything of worth has been picked clean by the Spine Jackers long ago, but it’s shelter at least.
And we have a bag of fruit.
“They’re gonna be pissed that they paid us this haul and didn’t get what we promised,” Dox says as she digs out an apple and tosses it my way.
I catch it, holding it to me like it’s fragile. I suppose it is. There’s a bruise where it must have banged against one of the other fruits in the backpack as we ran, but damn if I care. I’ll eat every bite of it. I know I’ll be sucking on it at the very least until I finally crack and eat the core, too, only leaving behind the withered seeds. If we weren’t on the run, I’d try to plant them, but I never had a green thumb. They likely wouldn’t grow even if I did.
“Yeah, they will be,” Dox nods. “They’ll find us, too. If we go anywhere there are people. And we can’t live in the abandoned districts forever.”
I look around. “I don’t know. It’s not half bad. It’s quiet.”
The silence that echoes around us is eerie. But while there’s not the normal overcrowded hustle of people, there are still sounds that echo out every now and then. Metal grinding and settling. The sound of some sort of small creature scrambling over stone. The gentle rasp of a Breather who’d come here to die rattling out their last breath. It all makes it creepier, but I don’t want Dox to know that.
She levels me with her gaze and points behind her.
