Renegade (The Elysium Chronicles #1)(69)
My plan is to break all three of their nosy necks, but when I glance at Gavin, he’s staring at me in horror. When he notices I’ve hesitated and I’m looking at him, he shakes his head.
I shove the woman off to the side and she hits the concrete wall and crumples to the ground. I watch her chest for a moment, confident she’s only knocked out when I see it rise and fall.
The other men are still trying to untangle themselves. I quickly bang their heads together. Their eyes cross, then they slump over each other.
There’s a crunch behind me and I whirl around and drop into a crouch, prepared to defend myself from whoever it is.
Gavin tosses his hands up. “Whoa. It’s just me.”
Again I’m filled with suspicion and hate directed toward Gavin.
After several tense moments, I force myself to drop my hands. I glance over to where the woman lays against the wall and it reminds me so much of Macie.… The next thing I know, I’m collapsing to the ground.
Gavin wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me up, then leads me down the street, glancing behind us every few steps. It surprises me we haven’t passed anyone since I attacked those people, but I’m not going to complain.
I don’t want to hurt anyone else. For Mother’s sake, I almost killed those three, and they’d just been unlucky enough to run into us.
Finally we get to a wall that looks familiar. But it isn’t until he presses a block and the wall swings open that I realize we’re back in Sector One. He shuts the door, but doesn’t stop. He follows the path we made just a few hours before and then forces me into the secret room.
After crawling into a corner, I curl into a ball and sob into my knees. Within moments he’s next to me, pulling me into his lap, much the same way I’d pulled Macie’s body into mine.
At first I fight him. How can he want to touch me after what I’ve done? After finding out what I really am? But he just holds me tighter to him and I give in, letting him gather me into his arms and then sobbing into his chest. Tears are useless. I know that. But I can’t help myself. Everything I thought about myself was wrong. I’m a monster.
To my relief, Gavin doesn’t say anything. None of those useless words people always use when they don’t know what to say. Instead, he just holds me tight and lets me cry myself dry. Finally the sobbing subsides, yet I cling to him. Despite the overwhelming exhaustion, not to mention the agony in my arm, I can’t bear to let him go.
It’s quiet in the room, the only sound the occasional hiss from the recyclers. Then I hear voices. I should have known our escape had been too easy. And with the mess I left, it’s not surprising they found us.
I stiffen and Gavin brushes my hair with his hand. “It’s okay,” he whispers.
I look up and place my finger over his lips. He narrows his eyes, then they widen and I know he’s heard the voices as well. We both crawl over to the small door.
“Are you sure they came in here?” a female voice asks. The sound of her voice brings a flood of memories and I recognize it as one of the friends I’d trained with. She’s an Elite Enforcer. I stare wide-eyed at Gavin. What have I done? Killing all those Guards … and now an Elite is after us. We’ll never escape.
“Well,” a male responds, “witnesses say they ran this way, and there’s nowhere else they could go. Besides, this is where they were earlier.”
“People see a lot of things. I don’t see anything,” the Enforcer says. “This trail is fresh, but you said they were here earlier. There isn’t any blood, and if she was covered in it, like you said, there’d be blood somewhere.”
“Then where do you suggest they went?”
“Probably into the tunnels. They could be anywhere now. Send your men to search.”
“What about you?”
“I’m going to search this place just to prove you’re wrong.”
There’s silence, then the scrape of shoes against the concrete, and he mutters, “Bitch.”
I’m sure she hears it, but she doesn’t respond. It’s entirely too quiet for my tastes. Then she mutters, “Come out, come out wherever you are!” There’s silence again and I dare not breathe, for fear she’ll hear it. “Now that you know what you are, where are you going to hide? Do you really think that Surface Dweller is going to accept you now that he knows?”
More silence. Then there’s another scrape and her shoes click against the concrete as she walks away. We wait, frozen in our spot, too afraid to move even a centimeter, until long after we hear the squeal of the hinges of the wall door. Then we sneak out and make our way back to the apartment we stayed in before, watching our backs the entire trip.
Gavin double and triple checks the apartment before securing the door.
I’m a mess, covered in blood and Mother knows what else, and I just want to wash everything away.
My feet drag and I know it’s not only the exhaustion that has finally caught up with me; it’s mind-numbing depression. Not only did I watch my best friend die while I did nothing, but then I went psychotic and killed her boyfriend.
I go straight to the shower, but sit on the floor of the stall and let the freezing water wash over me. I’m hoping the water will wake me up, but even when I’m completely clean and shivering, I still feel weighted down. The water soaks my bandage and burns the wound, but I can’t make myself get out. I just sit in the corner of the granite stall and bury my face in my hands. I’ve cried myself dry, but that doesn’t stop the sorrow.