Chapter 145 - You can join them in hell

EMMA

“Get them out, I'll hold her off,” I whisper to Lucas. The footsteps are getting closer and I give my brother a pointed look when he doesn’t immediately leave.

Lucas watches me for a moment and eventually nods. Whatever went through his mind was in my favor for once. Lucas uses the shadows on this side of the hall to hide from the exposing light.

“I knew I heard something,” Alex says and I turn around to face her. The light from the hall illuminates her frame. She is holding two silver daggers in her hands.

Her gaze moves over my shoulder to the door behind me. “Step away from that door, Emma.”

When I don’t move away, Alex charges past me and opens the door to the makeshift cell, which is now empty. Alex grips her hands hard around the hilts.

We hear footsteps echo down the hall and Alex turns her surprise toward the sound in the distance. I wince when his steps are still audible. She mutters a curse.

I block her path toward the direction that Lucas moved into. “Is it true?”

“Get out of my way,” Alex says with gritted teeth.

She can swing all the daggers she wants at me, I’m not stepping back. I ball my fists and dig my nails in my palms. “Do you hold soldiers captive?”

It must be a mistake or a misunderstanding. There’s no way. The halls are deadly quiet now as the silence stretches. It crawls over the walls and makes the darkness so much colder.

Alex turns her scowl from the hall to me. “Yes.”

“That’s messed up.” I breathe the words in disbelief. How long has this been going on?

Alex moves to pass me but I catch her arm and lock my leg around her knees. I pull her away and she falls to the ground.

Her daggers clatter to the concrete floor. She looks up at me from the ground with wide eyes and her surprise is clear. “At least we’re not killing them.” She explains as if I’m the one overreacting.

“At least? You really think that makes it better?” I ask and kick one of her daggers away before she can grab it.

Alex pushes herself up from the concrete with one dagger in hand. Her eyes turn furious and the green burns like a forest fire. “We’re doing this to protect the girls.”

The one thing that Alex and I have in common is that we’re adamant about protecting every blue-eyed *human* woman and girl that are the target. I would give up my life and Alex would kill whoever formed a threat. We both do things in our own way.

I blocked her path and now we’re standing opposed to each other. “I’m not going to let you hold them captive.”

“Then we have a problem here, Scarlet. I’m not going to let you get away.” Alex says and charges towards me and I evade her blade.

“You’re taking away their freedom. You take them away from their families.” I say and my voice rises with every word. The truth bounces and echoes off the walls.

“Dex was right about not telling you.” Alex is more skilled in fighting and her next attack slices along my upper arm and leaves a gash. “You’re too naive.”

I hiss at the pain and hold my hand over the cut. Blood spills from the wound and seeps through my fingers. “You had Graciella locked up all this time, didn’t you?” I don’t think I want to hear the answer to this.

“Yes, but she managed to escape,” Alex says with a scoff. “We knew that she was planning something when she stayed in town.” Her enmity and mistrust run deep.

I knew that Alex didn’t trust Graciella from the first second they met. I never thought much of it before. Her enmity towards Graciella stems from a long period of trauma.

Alex uses the hilt of her dagger to knock against the steel pipes running through the factory. The sound reverberates as she effectively runs the alarm.

My eyes widen and anger boils over. “Planning something?” I scoff back.

“Have you even looked at her?” I remove my hand because I can feel that the wound is already closing. Blood stains my hand and I smear it across my tattered shirt. “She has blue eyes, just like me and like your sister.”

Graciella told me her story when she started to remember. She was visiting a friend in one of the nearby packs. On that day the second division was passing through as well. At that time General Zeno was still leading the second division. She had met him once before when her mother was still alive. She didn’t think much of it, but the moment she left the pack house, she was taken away.

General Zeno held her captive and with what I know about him now, I can safely guess that he planned on killing her. But there was one thing that didn’t add up. According to Graciella, this happened in the fall and it’s now spring. So this happened around the time I arrived in Sanguinem months ago. I wanted to know where Graciella was, but she couldn’t remember.

“Don’t compare her to my sister.” Alex spits out.

I block another hit, but not without getting a gash on my side. The blade cuts easily through the fabric of my shirt. Together with the holes from Nero’s teeth, it’s at the end of its life.

“She ran away because she was hunted. Just like any other blue-eyed woman.” I clamor and I winch at the pain. I have endured many hits from Alex during training, but never with blades.

The cuts will heal but that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t hurt like hell.

“Enough,” Alex shouts and she grinds her teeth.

I take her aggravation as a sign that maybe Alex is hearing what I’m trying to say.“She’s not our enemy and neither are the soldiers that cannot refuse orders from their superior.” I’ve seen how their ranks work. They cannot ignore an order from an alpha even if they want to.

“Graciella has the same fate as her.”

I press against the bleeding gash on my side. The sleeveless top that I’m wearing is stained with blood. “How are you better than the Alpha King if you ruin all those lives?”

Her expression is stoic as she looks me in the eyes. A tattooed hand wraps around my neck and squeezes my airways shut. Panic sears in my blood and I instantly try to pry his hand away. I try to scream but no sound comes out.

“That’s cute,” Dex says into my ear. His other arm wraps around my waist. “Seems like I underestimated you.”

His breath fans over the shell of my ear. “You know, I really liked you.” His voice is strained with disappointment. “I could see your pain and I thought, I should give you time and space to heal.”

Dex releases a humerus chuckle. “I was a fool.”

“You were just morning that mutant’s dick.” Dex runs his nose along the line of my neck and down my mark.

His body tenses and he releases me like hot coal. “What the hell?”

Air flows back into my lungs. I stagger away from him and nearly trip. I put my distance away from the man who so easily threatens to kill me. I should have known from the first time they kidnapped me.

Dex watches me with terror and confusion. “You’re healed?”

I gasp and lift a hand to my shoulder. I didn’t think about concealing my healed mark. His eyes roam over my bloodstained, but uncut skin. The gashes have already stopped bleeding and are already closing up.

His confusion dissolves by flames of murderous intent and he charges toward me. “You’re fucking one of them.”

My back slams into the wall when I cannot get any further away from him. He squeezes my neck and cuts off my air supply. The force of his fingers is hard and relentless as they crush my windpipe. My nails dig deep into his hands.

I can practically hear the grind of his teeth and feel his molars pulverize me to dust. My eyes widen in panic and the pressure in my head starts to build. I try to talk but my vocal cords are being crushed.

“Just let her go, Dex,” Alex says behind him, but there is hardly any command to it. More like a bored suggestion as if my presence is annoying to her. Her face is stoic and her lips are turned down in disgust.

I can’t help the hurt I feel. In the end, I did consider her my friend.

Dex releases my throat and I sink to the floor like a ragdoll. Loud coughs echo through the factory when my body forces air back into my lungs.

“Dex,” Alex says.

I look up and find the curve of a bow and the point of a silver arrow directed my way.

“You can join them in hell,” Dex says with promise.