The Jackal (Black Dagger Brotherhood: Prison Camp #1)(89)

She let herself fall to the side.

The mud of the ground caught her in a sloppy embrace.

She didn’t know where she was. She didn’t care.

Nyx closed her eyes and let go of everything . . . and as she did, she realized that Jack was right. Freedom was so much more than being physically unrestrained. Even though she was back up here, she remained chained to where she had been, what she had seen, what she had done.

Who she had known.

And who had forced her to go.

It was a lifetime sentence.





As the escape passage’s panel locked back into place, Jack laid his hand on the stone and said a prayer unto the Scribe Virgin that his love would get out safely. Then he gathered up the chain links and started running. As he raced along the empty tunnels, he thought of all the places the Command might have hidden their young.

He returned to the private quarters, retracing the roundabout way he’d had to go with Nyx because of the barricades of the lockdown. It was inefficient and a waste of time—and his only option. When he arrived at the arch marked with white slashes, he shot forward, punching through the steel door—

Blood. Fresh blood.

So much of it, and from so many different individuals, he couldn’t trace all the sources.

His footfalls were loud against the tiled floor as he thundered down to the young’s cell. Which was open.

Just outside of it, on the ground, was the wicker basket, the one that contained the Command’s pet.

The lid was off.

“No . . . no!”

There was blood on the bed. Blood on the floor. Blood in a trail out of the cell—

The laughter started soft, but did not stay that way.

Jack looked down the corridor. Standing with feet planted over a still-twitching corpse, the Command was unhinged, and stained head to toe in red.

“What did you do,” he demanded. Even though he knew.

And there were so many bodies to show it. Guards and prisoners alike littered the hall, their bodies tangled one into another. A dozen or more.

But there was only one that he cared about.

He’d never thought she would hurt their young. It was the one thing they had in common.

The Command smiled, her fangs flashing white in the midst of the blood that covered her face and dripped from her chin, her hands, her red hair. “I took care of things. I took care of everything. Everything!”

The laughter rose to the level of hysteria, and that was when he noticed what was in her hand.

“Oh, do you want to see my souvenir?” she said. “Would you like to see my souvenir?”

She screamed with maniacal mirth as she held up the heart.

“I got my souvenir from this place,” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “I got my souvenir! And I’m not sharing with you!”

Her face was a distorted, ugly mask of horror, her eyes crazed and bloodshot.

“What did you do—” Jack launched himself into a run, attacking her, grabbing her by the throat and shoving her against the wall. “What—did—you—do!”

Bang. Bang. Bang.

In the back of his mind, he wondered what that noise was. Bang. Bang. Bang—

“You. Fucking. Bitch!”

Bang. Bang. BANG—

It was the Command. Her body was making the noise as he beat her against the wall, breaking through the lath and plaster with her torso, smashing the finished panels into pieces. And even as her head lolled forward and she clearly lost consciousness, he continued, over and over again, taking all of it out on her, the violations, the murder of their young, the murders of his friends, the danger to Nyx, who he loved. Matted red hair lashed his face and shoulders, and from out of the choking sandalwood spices she wore to conceal her sex, he smelled her own blood begin to flow.

And he would have continued. Until her skin was but a bag for everything he’d mangled.

Except from out of the corner of his eye, he saw something race toward him, something low to the ground, something furred—

The wicker basket. The animal therein that had been freed by its owner.

Jack looked toward the creature. The thing was part groundhog, part piranha, part rabid raccoon, with short grungy fur and feet that splayed out to the side. It ran over the bodies that littered the hallway in a wave formation, like a weasel, but it was much bigger.

And it was snarling, its red-stained muzzle peeled back from its dagger-like teeth.

Black eyes, matte and mostly blind, were trained on Jack.

He wheeled around, keeping the Command between him and the imminent attack—

“You love me . . .” The words were gurgled, and blood splattered his face as the female he hated with everything in him spoke. “You love me.”

She lifted her head and those hazel eyes focused obsessively on his own. “You will always love me—”

The Command let out a high-pitched scream and her body arched in agony.

The creature had leapt up and was feasting on the back of her skull.

Jack shoved the female away from him, and as he jumped free, the Command kicked and thrashed, her hands slapping and clawing at the animal that was eating . . . chewing . . . swallowing . . . at an open wound in the back of her head.

Jack had started the process by banging, banging, banging her against the wall. But that hungry little demon she kept in that wicker crate finished the job.