New Regime (14 page)

But by the time she reached the correct interrogation room,
Owen had already been released to the Annex’s medical department.

And no one could tell her a damn thing.

She stood over Owen’s cot in the small, austere, all white
room, watching him as he slept. He’d been hooked up to a monitor and a tube
snaked into a vein in his arm, filling him with fluids and antibiotics.

Her cell buzzed, but she ignored it.

“Can I trust you?” she finally whispered.

For a second all she saw was a young, slender man with
unkempt hair and skin scarred by battle. A man who was briefly unrecognizable,
unfamiliar.

Who the
fuck
was Owen Five?

She didn’t know exactly who he had been, or what he’d lived
through. What he’d done. She only knew one thing for sure. He was Shiv Crew.

He was hers.

She let her fingers drift to his hand, and gently, she
caressed his skin before gripping his hand with hers.

“I’ve got you,” she said.

He squeezed her hand, gently, and her gaze flew to his face.

He was watching her, his feverish eyes half open, something
in them she didn’t care to examine too closely.

For a long moment she didn’t move, or breathe, just kept her
stare locked with his. But finally, she released his fingers and stepped back.

He closed his eyes.

She turned and strode from the room without another word.

Her cell buzzed again and she glanced at the display before
answering. “Ellie?”

“Rune,” he almost screamed. “Levi is killing Gustav. Come quickly.”

“Where are you?” She was already running, dodging other
employees, her heart racing.
Levi, Levi.

She understood his level of pain. He
would
kill
Gustav.

“Basement. Cafeteria. God, Rune. Run.”

She ran, clutching her phone with a grip nearly strong enough
to break it, not really to save Gustav, but to save Levi.

To save Ellis.

“Shiv Crew, report to Monitor One. You have a run. Shiv
Crew, Monitor One.” The voice booming over the loudspeaker was unfamiliar. Ellis
had been replaced already, and obviously the new guy was unaware that right
then, his coworker was being beaten to death by a man who might never climb out
of the hole into which he’d been buried.

She flung herself into the echoing stairwell and leaped down
the stairs, pretty sure she caught the dim sound of screams in the distance.

When she reached the cafeteria the doorways were full of
knots of people, watching whatever was happening within. At nearly the same
time she began shoving her way through the crowd, she spotted six Annex
operatives coming from the opposite direction.

Unless they’d been ordered to put Levi down, they’d shoot
him with a tranquilizer to neutralize him.

Then anything could happen. If they figured Levi was out of
control…

And Eugene wasn’t there to run interference. Iris was.

That made Rune a little nervous.

So she swerved at the last minute, going instead for the
operatives. She shot out her claws. “Stay back,” she said.

“We’re—” the man in the lead started to say.

“Stay the fuck back. He’s mine. I’ll handle the situation.”

“Then you’d better do it fast,” the op said. He brought his
gun up. “You have thirty seconds.”

She didn’t waste any time. Levi had finished taking his rage
out on Gustav and had begun methodically and calmly beating him to death.

He straddled the fallen man, his blows landing with solid
thuds. Gustav didn’t move.

When Rune flew to Levi and looked into his face…

No one was there.

She grabbed his fist before he could land another punch on
the mess that had been Gustav’s face. “Levi.”

There was no rage in his eyes. Only emptiness. He was a
shell absently finishing a job.

He didn’t resist when she pulled him off Gustav. She led him
away as the waiting operatives converged on the injured man. They’d take care
of him.

And she’d take care of Levi.

She’d forgotten about Ellis, but when she started to walk
back through the doorway, Levi beside her, she saw him.

He’d collapsed back against the wall, his face paper-white.
He put a fist to his chest, as though to hold in his heart. She couldn’t hear
him, but she saw the words form. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

Levi stared straight ahead as they walked, acknowledging no
one.

Broken.

She held out her hand to Ellie, silently, and waited for him
to come to her before she left the nearly empty cafeteria.

He took her hand and glanced at Levi once, and in that
glance was fear, sharp and hurt.

Maybe love was there, too, but it was covered with the other
shit.

“Fuck me,” she whispered.

The berserker stood outside the doorway, waiting.

She wanted to back away from the truth in his eyes, from the
finality. She wanted to shut it out and pretend everything was okay.

But she couldn’t.

“Give him to me,” Strad said.

She shook her head. “I’ve got him.”

Lex streaked suddenly toward them, her cry full of rage and
sorrow. “Get away from him,” she screamed.

Denim was at her back.

“I wouldn’t hurt him, Lex,” Rune murmured.

Her cell buzzed, insistently and filled, somehow, with doom.
She pulled it from her pocket and stared at the text.

Gustav is dead.

Levi had murdered an innocent man.

Lex knew. She straightened her shoulders and took a breath,
then reached for her Levi.

He stood in the circle of her arms, unmoving, uncaring.

“What the fuck has happened?” Denim’s voice was angry, but
beneath that anger was a confused, trembling tone that meant he had no idea
what to do to help his brother.

And he was terrified.

That time when trained, armed operatives marched down the
hall, they walked behind Iris.

She stopped when she was fifteen feet away. “We’ll take him,
Rune.”

Rune glimpsed movement from her peripheral vision and saw
Jack and Raze striding toward them.

All of Shiv Crew, except for Owen and Z.

Unspeaking, not even glancing at each other, they formed a
line in front of Lex and Levi.

“He’s ours,” Rune told Iris. “We won’t hand him over.”

“That’s fine. We came prepared to take him.”

“We’ll handle it,” Raze said. “You don’t want to fight us on
this.”

Iris ignored him. She slipped to the side, motioning to her
ops. “Do it.”

She had to have known that no Annex ops were going to take
Shiv Crew.

Which meant her judgment was clouded and she was not
thinking clearly. Not even a little bit.

“Ellie,” Rune said. “Take Levi and run. We’ll find you.”

The chances of Ellie getting Levi out of the building were
slim, but it was worth a try.

Before she had time to say anything else, the operatives
charged, and then there was only the fight.

The violence.

And the crew threw themselves into it with a bloodthirsty
eagerness that left room for nothing but blood, pain, and darkness. They had to
take down the enemy.

They were Shiv Crew.

It was what they did.

MAYHEM

It wasn’t always easy to tell enemies from allies. But when
the choice was kill or be killed, everyone not fighting with them fought
against them. Annex or not, the ops were trying to take out the crew, and that
made them the enemy.

The hall was wide but in no way a proper battlefield. The
crew blocked the Annex operatives from slipping by them to grab Levi, who, even
as Ellie coaxed and prodded, refused to run.

He didn’t fight, either. He stood against the wall and
watched the fight with an apathetic face and dead eyes.

Ellie ran.

After that, Rune concentrated on fighting and making sure
her crew didn’t end up trampled and bloody upon the floor.

She swung her silver claws with a practiced ease, barely
noticing as they plunged in and slid through flesh and became coated with the
sticky heat of blood.

After her crew was safe, she’d have to feed. She was hungry.

Jack flung a man against the wall, leaving a messy splotch
of blood when the dead op slid to the floor, then he turned to Rune.

“Mom and dad are coming,” he shouted, gutting a particularly
stubborn op, “and they look pissed.”

Iris had backed away but as the men thinned out, Rune could
see her watching with narrowed, angry eyes. And something else.

Sorrow?

Her operatives kept fighting. And Shiv Crew kept putting them
down.

But Elizabeth, stiff and firm and unflappable, marched into
the middle of the two groups of battling ops, and if the berserker and Rune
hadn’t leaped to surround her, she might have not have survived the next
second.

She’d known the crew would protect her.

“Stop it.” Her voice rang with a command that sounded over
the clash of blade against blade and fist against flesh. “Stop.”

The Annex ops, as though waiting—hoping—for someone else to
tell them what to do, threw down their blades and backed away.

“You can’t command them,” Iris said, pushing her way
forward.

“I believe I just did,” Elizabeth answered.

Rice pushed his way through the ops and shiv crew to stand
at her side. “What is this about, Iris? You killed your own men.”

“Alexander and her crew killed these men after
he
killed my son.” Her voice broke and she pointed at Levi. “He beat Gustav to
death, and I will make sure he is punished.”

“Iris,” Bill murmured, and in his eyes was something soft
and horrified.

Rune stomach tightened, and she pushed her fist against it
to try and loosen the knots. She’d had no idea Gustav was Iris’s son. It wouldn’t
have made a difference, though, since she’d not reached Levi in time to stop
him from killing the boy.

But that wasn’t something Iris would ever be able to get
past. She was going to demand Levi’s head, and Rune couldn’t see a way out of
that.

Rice looked at Rune. “Truth?”

She glanced at Levi, then back to Rice. “Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“I don’t
care
what happened,” Iris said. “I want the
ones responsible for killing Gustav. Stand in my way and I’ll see to it that
Eugene terminates every single one of you.”

“Iris,” Rice said, gently. “Go to your office. We’ll figure
it out.” He looked around. “Ellis? Call housekeeping and get this mess cleaned
up.”

Rune finally noticed Ellis standing alone halfway down the
hall, and realized he’d been the one to summon Rice and Elizabeth.

But Iris wasn’t leaving. “I am head of Annex with Eugene not
here. I say what happens and what does not happen.” She pointed at Levi. “You
killed my son. Are you afraid to face his mother?”

Levi said nothing, but finally, a dim spark lit his eyes as
he watched her.

She turned up her lip. “You’re no warrior,” she spat.
“You’re not even a man. Go on, then. Hide behind your mistress and her claws.”

“Shut up,” Rune said. Her heart hurt, not only for Levi and
the darkness that had been growing inside him, fostered pretty much since
birth, but for Iris and her pain.

Levi pushed himself away from the wall and walked toward
her. “Do what you need to do,” he said.

Denim stepped in front of him, Lex at his side. “No,” they
both said.

But Levi put his stare on Rune. “I killed a man in cold
blood. I beat the fuck out of him even as he begged me to stop. I didn’t give
him a chance.”

“No, Levi,” she whispered.

“You can’t protect me from what has to come after.”

“He’s right,” Iris said. “He’s mine now.”

“Rune,” Lex begged.

Rice and Elizabeth watched, waiting.

Rune looked up at the berserker. Her eyes felt too wide, too
dry. Her heart was fluttering, beating too fast, hurting her chest.

She was suffocating.

The wounded ops began dragging themselves and their injured
down the hall. The dead were left where they lay.

Did she always do what was right?

No.

And she wasn’t going to start with Levi.

“Take him out, Berserker,” she murmured. “Take him the fuck
out.”

Strad didn’t hesitate.

He walked toward Levi, and Lex and Denim backed away,
leaving Levi unprotected against the berserker.

Lex bent over, her hands on her knees, and her thin sobs
beat the air like the wings of a trapped butterfly.

“Are you sure, Rune?” Elizabeth murmured.

“Yeah. I’m sure.”
Fucking liar.

Levi pulled a blade, then another. Both hands full of sharp
silver, he watched the berserker come.

“Don’t make me cut you, Strad,” he said, his voice as grim and
hopeless as the look in his eyes.

Levi needed to be punished. He needed someone to take away
the darkness.

Rune understood. She’d been there.

“I’ve got you,” Strad said, and before Levi could decide
whether or not he really wanted to cut the berserker, Strad punched him in the
temple.

Levi, perhaps with a look of resentful inevitability on his
face, went down.

Strad yanked him off the floor, threw him over his shoulder,
and strode away.

No one, not even Iris, dared try to stop him.

“We’ll fix him. We have to fix him. We have to fix
everything.” Lex clenched her fists and paced the large room, not even pausing
when her foot hit a chair leg and she stumbled.

Rune frowned at Lex’s sad and uncharacteristic clumsiness,
but she understood it. Lex’s mind was cloudy, full of worry. She couldn’t “see”
as well.

Ellis bit his fingernails, grimacing when Rune pulled his
fingers from his mouth. “I don’t think it can be fixed this time,” he said.

“Bill will call when we’re cleared to go back to the Annex.”
Rune took a drink of her coffee, trying to seem calm. She was pretty sure no
one was fooled. She was worried about Owen, left in the hands of the Annex
while the crew wasn’t there to protect him. Worried about Levi, whose dormant
darkness had been awakened by his rape and deepened by Ellie’s unfaithfulness.

Dr. Haas had taken Levi in without a word. She’d assigned
him to one of the clinic’s more spacious rooms. She was no stranger to Shiv
Crew, and she knew that while Levi was there, some of the crew would stay to guard
him. They’d need some space.

Levi watched them from his bed. The nurses had hooked him up
to an IV and a monitor, much as Owen was at the Annex. Except Owen hadn’t been
restrained.

They’d tied his hands to the bedrails, not to protect others
from him, but to protect him from himself.

“He’ll try to kill himself,” Denim had murmured, his face
turned away from Rune. “I know he deserves punishment, but I love him too much
to care. If you want him to live, restrain him.”

“If they don’t clear us in the next half hour,” Rune told
them, “I’ll have to go in and break Owen out.”

“That’ll mean leaving River County,” Raze said. “Probably
forever.”

Rune swallowed. “I’ll do what I have to do.”

“We,” Raze said, gently.

“Don’t you understand yet, Rune? We’ll follow you anywhere,”
Lex said. “Someplace where the Annex can’t touch us.”

“The Annex has a long reach and a longer memory,” Elizabeth
said from the doorway.

Strad, who’d been standing guard in the hall, was at her
side. He gave Rune a quick nod, then went back to his post.

Rune shuddered as a sense of foreboding hit her. “Elizabeth.
Tell me.”

“Eugene is flying in. He’ll be at the Annex within the
hour.”

“Why are you here?”

Elizabeth’s gaze went to Levi. She sighed. “Iris decided to
have me killed. If it hadn’t been for Bill, I’d be dead right now. I’ll return
when Eugene calms her.”

“
If
he calms her.”

“He’ll control her. Iris has no doubts about Eugene’s
power.”

“Maybe,” Jack said, “but it was her son who was…who died.
She won’t be easy to appease.”

“No,” Elizabeth said. “She will not.”

“The Annex might decide to come after us,” Raze said. “We
killed one of theirs. Then we killed a dozen Annex ops.”

“You didn’t kill Gustav,” Levi said. “I did.”

No one disagreed.

“
You
are one of theirs. And you didn’t murder
operatives,” Elizabeth said. “They attacked you. You defended yourselves.” She
sat down and folded her hands, then looked at Rune. “Let’s wait and see. Eugene
wants you on his team. He’s not going to take a chance that you’ll run off and
join the Shop or the Next.”

“He’d kill her first,” Denim said, finally speaking.

“No,” Elizabeth disagreed. “Worse—he’d lock her away. But
let’s wait and see what he has to say.”

“He’s not going to do
anything
to me,” Rune said,
folding her arms.

“Don’t underestimate him, Rune. If he wanted you controlled,
I’m not sure he wouldn’t succeed.”

“We need to get Owen out of there.”

Elizabeth’s cell rang, her ringtone a terse, hushed
chirping. She glanced at the display, then put the phone to her ear. “Yes?”

Rune tapped her fingers on her coffee cup, her stomach
churning.

Elizabeth listened for a few more seconds, then clicked off
without saying another word to the caller. She stood.

Lex left her place at the foot of Levi’s bed. “He chose us.”

“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “He chose you. He wants the crew back
to work. You’ll not be attacked.”

“Not a trap?” Rune asked.

Elizabeth’s hesitation was almost imperceptible. “No.”

“And Iris?”

Elizabeth looked at Rune, her face too blank, her eyes too
dark.

“He had her killed,” Rune said. “That’s it, isn’t it?”

“Good,” Lex said, then clapped a hand to her mouth. “I
didn’t mean…”

No one said a word.

“He chose you,” Elizabeth said. “Gather your crew and come
back to work. Levi will not face retribution from the Annex.”

 “I guess I have a little of my mother in me after all,” Lex
murmured, and without a goodbye to Levi, she followed Elizabeth from the room.

Rune wasn’t quite ready to leave the twin. She went to his
bedside and stared at his beautiful face and his glittering, strange eyes. She
leaned over to hug him as Denim watched from his place by the wall. He hadn’t
moved since they’d arrived at the clinic.

Ellis stood alone on the other side of the room, as though
he didn’t deserve to be close to any of them.

“Levi,” Rune murmured. “You have to come back to us.”

He said nothing for a long, long moment, but kept his gaze
glued to hers. “I don’t know how.”

She nodded and caressed his ravaged cheek with the pad of
her thumb. “We’ll help you.”

“Right now,” he said. “Right now I want to hurt you. I want
to kill you.”

“No, baby. You want to hurt
you.
”

Ellis bolted from the room.

“God,” Rune whispered. “What did that fucking monstrous
bitch do to you?”

Levi smiled, and though Rune was familiar with the demons
that could live inside a person, that smile shook even her.

“We’re stronger than she is, Levi.” She ignored the
gooseflesh that arose on her skin. “We love you more than she hated you. And
we’re not letting her win.”

“Feed me,” he said. “Before you go.”

Rune hesitated. A monster peeked from those eyes, and she
didn’t want him tasting her. Didn’t want his lips clamped over her flesh as he
sucked the life from her.

Jack took her arm and pulled her from the bed. “Not right
now, buddy.”

Rune might have fed him anyway, but Strad strode into the
room at that second. “Let’s go, Rune.”

She snapped her head around at his tone. “What happened?”

“Rice just called. They found an abducted pregnant Other.”