Page 17 of Storm

I can’t decide. My body makes the decision for me, unmoving in the arms of the Halo keepers. My eyes plastered open, I gasp in lungfuls of air as I’m dragged to the car, Nix’s voice circling through my numb mind. “And if you should ever forget.”

Until finally it finds its pair. “Find me in your heart where we are equals.”

I’ve never truly known loss before… At this moment, when my heart stops and pinpricks of black cover my vision, I dance with loss in a heady, unrelenting tug.

Where our souls will meet in eternity.

Where our souls will meet in eternity.

Where our souls will meet in eternity.

The poem of my reckoning is all I hear as everything within me breaks into a million tiny pieces.

My brother gave everything for me, and now, I find myself bereft of life. A sickening bitterness rises within my throat, and before I’m thrown into a car, I vomit on the gravel in front of me. Excrement of acid splash boots and my own bare feet. The crude display gives me satisfaction.

Tumultuous exclamations hit my ears. Rough hands tug me forward. But I’m drowning in a pool of utter despair, devoured whole.

Ears crackling with static, I find myself manhandled through a door, my bones finding relief beneath it as I sink further into the lapping, endless darkness as it buries me. I suddenly lurch. No one holds me. My head freely hits softness.

My worn lids close, and I wish they won’t open again. Not unless the endless brown orbs of home are staring back at me.

CHAPTER 6

SHE WILL BE MINE

Twelve Hours Later

Blindfolded, I’m kept in the back of a hollow car for the better part of a day like a dying animal, fed scraps, and only let out to use the bathroom in front of the keepers. At the end—or start—of my prison sentence, I’m made to walk, a gun cocked at my lower back, towards an unknown target. My blindfold is finally released as I’m thrown to the ground, surprisingly soft against my stinging palms.

“What is this?” a gravelly, biting voice asks before me, shiny black leather boots mere inches from my heaving state, unable to catch a decent breath since I last saw Nix. I stare at those shoes, gaining strength for what is going to come next, the fate of my existence in the hands of a man.

“She is the half-breed swine from the energy factory you were informed about, Lord Commander. We were told to bring her straight to you for placement.” Two Halo keepers stand behind me, addressing black boots, different to the voices I heard on the way here.

Knowing this man with the perfectly polished shoes and thick black pants—without a hole in sight—is going to be my fate-giver, I look up.

Bad idea. Height used to be my weakness. I suddenly find my second. The man they call Lord Commander. The man who, in my mind, put this whole endeavour in motion. The man who now holds my life in his hands. A life I’m not sure I want anymore. Not without Mam or Nix.

Madness boils from my core, all the way out of my lips, bubbling to release.

Steel eyes watch with a cunning awareness, assessing every twitch of my lips and flutter of my lashes before he speaks. “She’s Halo?” He stares me down as he says it, but he’s obviously addressing Stupid and Stupider at my back.

A giggle releases from my lips at my new nicknames for the assholes who hauled me towards their leader at gunpoint. Insanity has befallen me, and I welcome it.

Thick, lush brows rise, and the fucking lord commander bends before me. He does not kneel—no, he curves ever so slightly at the hips and raises a hand to grasp my chin harshly. This man is strong. If I didn’t know it from his broad size and unending height, I do as his hand encompasses the whole lower half of my face.

Silence descends as he assesses the contents for sale. My head is jerked left to right. Up and down. Lastly, his eyes linger on mine, squinting.

Too long, his eyes are on mine. Until the grey is moving around in circles like the snake on the bronzed badge sitting proudly at his chest. And I can’t handle the heat radiating from my heart any longer, his fingers moulding to my skin.

“You will never have me.” Fury laces every syllable. If he couldn’t see what I was before, he knows now.

Thick, evil lips turn upwards. Not just any smile, but a smirk built for sin. My thighs automatically clench. My breath is a wheezing crescendo. “She will be mine.” Heart stuttering, I’m stuck, unable to move. This man will be the death of me. If anything, I’m sure of that.

He lets go of my chin, and I almost faceplant instead of catching myself on the unusual cushioned floor I’ve been thrown on.

“She will be mine.” I take longer than a moment to understand what he just said. The keepers speak up. “But, Lord Commander, she is beneath you. Only fit for a mere keeper. Not a⁠—”

They do not get to continue when the lord commander says two words. “Get out.” The tone with which he delivers his beginning and end is final. A suffocating tingle racks my body before it finds the embers that are ready to burst. It’s just him and me now as the men scurry from the room, leaving with a loud bang of the door.