Fractured Hearts (Shattered Lives, Book Three) (56 page)

Gunther shuffled up to Henry who was passed out on the cot. “How’s it going here?”

“It’s going. This is a nasty gash. I just hope he doesn’t get an infection. If he does…” She shook her head.

“Right. Well, let’s not think of that right now. I’m going to run and check on all the kids. Are you all right here for the moment?”

“Yes, I can handle it.” Her body shivered when he touched her shoulder before he left the clinic. “Once I get this finished,” Cora said to James, “we need to wake him so he can drink.” She glanced over her shoulder at Thomas’ lifeless body. “That poor boy,” she murmured. “I can’t stand all this death.”

Cora tied the last few stitches, sterilized the wound again, and wrapped his shoulder. When she rubbed her hand over Henry’s head, he groaned.

Cora’s voice rang through the blackness in my head.

“Henry, wake up. I’m all finished. It’s time for you to drink.”

I stirred and opened my eyes. Cora and James helped me sit up. My face hurt and I shuddered from the pain in my shoulder. Cora handed me a full bag. I needed it.

“Thanks.” My voice was heavy with sleep.

She patted me on the knee. “No problem. Just be careful and keep that shoulder covered. Try not to overexert yourself.”

Suddenly feeling the need to hurry, I sucked down the bag in seconds, swallowing quickly. The euphoria hit me hard and fast. Closing my eyes, I rested my head against the wall and groaned. “Fuck…,” I whispered, then moved my head back and forth, feeling the physical tension disappear in my neck. When I opened my eyes, James and Cora were standing in front of me.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

My lips parted and Cora backed up a little. “Better. My shoulder’s throbbing, though.” I tried circling it, but stopped because of the searing pain.

“I bet. The gash is quite nasty. I did what I could. I don’t know if it will heal properly, and I’m crossing my fingers that you don’t get an infection.”

“Well, thank you. I appreciate your care. Now I need to go find Elaina.” Swallowing hard, I glanced over at the cot Thomas’ body was on. I teared up, knowing it was my fault he was gone. After clearing my throat, I said, “When I get back, we will bury Thomas.” Sliding off the cot, my feet hit the floor. Standing, I almost fell over.

“Whoa. Sit back down. Let yourself take a few breaths first,” James advised.

I glowered at him. “My wife is out there. I have to find her!”

“I realize that, but you can’t find her in your state.” He held his hands in front of me.

“You think you can stop me, tosser? Even in my darkest times, I could kick your fucking ass.” I stood again, more stable this time. James backed away as my glare burned straight through him. “Now, if you will excuse me, my wife needs me.”

“Henry, James is right,” Cora said. “You can’t go out on your own.”

My eyes never left his face. “I would crawl a thousand miles to save my wife. No one…not Gunther, not an army of undeads, not Roger…will stop me from getting to her. I
will
murder in cold-blood to get her back. Understood?” It was a low blow, but I had to get my point across. Plus, it was the goddamn truth.

Cora looked at James, Jake, and Chris. They all shrugged, then Chris got up. “I’ll go with you.”

“Me, too.” Jake stood, as well. “I bet others would volunteer, too.”

“Well, we can’t stop you,” Cora sighed.

“You’re bloody fucking right about that. Thank you for your help.” I nodded at her.

Forgetting about my injury, I reached for my vest. The heaviness of it pulled down on my arm, forcing a hiss through my teeth. Without another second wasted, I stalked out of the clinic, still a bit unsteady on my feet.

Feeling raw hatred envelope my entire being, I was on a fucking mission with a killing spree written into my future plans. I was going to get my wife back if it was the last thing I did.

The further I walked, the quicker my steps became. My balance improved greatly. The blood intake was helping. Storming down the hall, I opened the door to our room.

Stopping in the doorway, I could smell her…
feel
her. My hands shook as trepidation and ire were taking over the bit of control I had left.

“Is there anything you want us to do?” Chris’ voice startled me, not realizing they were so close behind me.

I turned around, jaw clenched. “Help me find my wife.”

Chris reached out and grabbed my good arm. “We will. We’ll bring her home.”

With a nod, tears filled my weary eyes. “I, uhh… I need a minute. Head to the weapons room. I’ll be there in a few.” Chris and Jake nodded, leaving me to have a moment of privacy.

After closing the door, I leaned against it. Each breath I struggled to suck in made my chest feel as if it were going to tear apart. “Elaina… Please, love. Fight. Don’t give up. I’m coming for you.” Covering my face, the emotions seeped out. My sobs wracked my already battered body.

All I could think of was Roger hurting my beautiful wife. It terrified me that he would do to her like he did to Sophie. I grabbed the first thing I saw and threw it across the room and against the wall. The spine of the textbook split and pages floated through the air, fluttering to the ground one-by-one in the deafening silence.

“Not my Elaina! Not her…,” I cried, wiping my face with my arm.

Time to gear up and kick some motherfucking ass.

I centered myself. Driven to the brink, but focused. Ignoring the vivid pain in my shoulder, I found a t-shirt, threw on my vest, and put on a hoodie. Then I pulled on my ball cap. I picked up one of her shirts and inhaled her scent, filling my nasal passages with the one scent that made my knees buckle. My love. My anger grew fiercer than ever before and that was what was going to carry me to her no matter the pain or fatigue.

Turning, I stalked out the door of our room, determination festering in my soul and seeping through my body. I swung open the door to the weapons room and everyone from the community was there. They went silent, words and cries hanging on their lips when they saw my angst-driven behavior.

“As you have probably heard…” Pacing, I took a few deep breaths, then choked out, “my…amazing wife is missing. Anyone who wants to join me in the search is welcome. I advise you that your life
will
be in jeopardy. I absolutely will
not
guarantee that everyone will make it back alive…including myself. Fair warning. We are dealing with some serious shit here. I’m relatively sure they took her to the ship that is waiting to take Gunther and me back.” They all looked at each other. “We are not abandoning you. Nor are we taking off on that ship. We are going to fucking storm it and get my wife back. Seek them out and avenge the deaths of Quinn, now Thomas, and everyone who has died amongst the population. Revenge is mine and it’s going to be bloody sweet.”

I was a total fucking wreck, but angry at the same time, which made me dangerous. While chomping down on my tremoring lip to prevent myself from breaking down, I stared at the silent faces.

“I will go on my own, but it would be better with a team. Any volunteers?”

Chris and Jake raised their hands, then Eli and Mara, then Josiah and Savannah. Gunther stepped forward, cradling Grey in his arms.

I put my hands up, stopping him. “I appreciate your willingness to help, mate, but I beg you to stay here with your son. He doesn’t need to lose both parents. Besides, I need you to keep an eye on things here.”

Gunther nodded. “Consider it done, my friend. I’d shake your hand, but I’m kind of…”

I smiled. “Take care of that lad and do well by him. Thank you,” I said roughly.

He nodded. “Take care. Safe journey and bring her back.”

“You better fucking believe I will. Whatever it takes. He won’t see another span of the sun.”

I filled my pack with my necessities, reloaded every gun, passing them around to the volunteers, then handed everyone a knife or an axe.

My vigilante crew, totaling seven, walked out the door. One of the seven had a bit of a fragmentary personality. I was going to fuck someone up hardcore. They had better be ready to experience a bloodbath because that was what was going to happen.

When the door at the top of the stairs opened, Elaina woke and pushed herself further into the corner of the cell. Heavy boots hitting the metal echoed through the darkness. Noises erupted from whatever else was locked up.

Someone was crying… Henry’s mother. Niles dragged her in front of Elaina’s cell and threw her into the one across the way. She was bloodied, beaten, and probably raped. Anne curled up into a ball on the cold, dank floor and sobbed. Elaina’s heart bled for her.

“You.” Elaina jumped when Niles approached her cell. “He wanted me to tell you that you’re his tomorrow morning.” He smiled and walked back out of the cellblock and headed back up the stairs, slamming the door shut, leaving them in the dark.

She refocused her attention to Henry’s mother. “Um…Anne?” Elaina wasn’t sure what would be appropriate to call her. Mom didn’t seem right at the moment. “I just want to say that Henry—Luke—loves you.” She thought back to Henry’s journals that always started with “Dear Mum” and ended with “Love, Luke”. The sounds of Anne’s cries carried across the cellblocks. “Please don’t cry. He will save us. You’ll be so proud of him and all he has done. Even after all he’s been through, he’s an amazing man.”

“He will hate me.” Her voice was as frail as she looked back in Roger’s cabin.

“Why would he hate his own mother?”

“I got us into this mess.”

“Can you tell me how?”

Anne hesitated, not willing to share all of the gory details of her past. Elaina hoped she didn’t sell him into it. “Roger and I had a relationship for a couple years. When we first met, he was under heavy suspicion of murdering his mother, but there wasn’t evidence to prove it. I chose to carry on with him because it just didn’t seem like he could do such a horrific thing.

“I had no idea what he did for a living. I had no idea it was this. He just told me it was government and such. Please believe me,” she begged.

“I believe you,” Elaina murmured.

“We had a falling out and it changed him. I know it’s hard to believe, but he used to treat me like a precious jewel. Then I found out I was pregnant with Luke, and he beat me over it. He didn’t want children. After his birth, he beat me while calling my son a bastard child. He was the most beautiful baby I had ever laid eyes on.

“My life was a nightmare. I tried to get away many times, but he threatened to hunt us down and take Luke away from me. Out of fear, I stuck around.

“If Roger wasn’t beating me with his words or his fists, he was raping me. He just took and took. Shortly after Luke turned five, he beat me so badly in front of him, I nearly died. They removed him from my home and placed him into Roger’s. It was several months before I could leave the hospital. I had so many broken bones, the doctors were unsure if I would be able to walk again. Once able, I began my search for Luke. I found out he was in an orphanage that was under Roger’s thumb…just like everything else. I located Roger and begged him to allow me to take him with me. I promised to leave him alone. I wouldn’t ask for money or anything. I told him I would move away. Even to a different country. He denied every plea and I wasn’t allowed to see my son. By the time he was ten, he had already lived in four foster homes. Then, when I wouldn’t stop harassing him, Roger imprisoned me at his facility. Since then, he has beaten and raped me over and over again.”

Elaina listened to the weak voice full of pain and sorrow. She wiped the tears from her eyes that fell for Anne and Henry.

“When he finally brought Luke to the facility, I was so excited. The first time I saw him, he was so brilliant…handsome in every way. I thought I could save us both. I had plans on breaking both of us out. Through two-way glass, Roger would make me watch them beat Luke to near death. They would tie his arms behind his back, tie his feet to the chair legs, gag him, and blindfold him. They did that to him over and over again. He almost died a few times and was even hospitalized. They also made me watch them inject him with the virus, then the tracking devices. I wanted nothing more than to hold him and tell him I loved him, make his pain go away. I wanted to tell him how sorry his mum was for all the things I brought on him.”

As Henry’s mother sobbed, she apologized quietly many times.

As Elaina ran Anne’s words through her head again, something caught her ear. “Did you say tracking
devices
? As in more than one?”

“Yes.”

“He cut out the one in his arm. There’s another one?”

“They placed one in his head when they repaired his fractured skull. A fail-safe.”

“Oh, god… That’s how he knew where we were,” Elaina whispered.

They were silent for a while before Anne spoke again, “Promise me, whatever you do, don’t fight him tomorrow. Just let him do what he wants to do. If you fight him, you’ll get hurt worse than you already will. He gets vicious and violent. He enjoys it.”

Elaina appreciated the advice…if that’s what you wanted to call it. She listened to Anne cry herself to sleep. With reluctance, Elaina closed her heavy eyelids.

The exhaustion was setting in, but I needed to stay tight. There was no time for fatigue or the throbbing in my shoulder. I needed to rescue the love of my life. We had been walking on pure adrenaline for hours upon hours with no break.

“How much farther?” Chris asked.

“Well, breathe deep,” I murmured.

He did, then whispered, “I smell the ocean.”

“Precisely. We’re close. When we arrive, I want everyone to do as they are told. No arguments, even if it means I have to sacrifice myself. I will do whatever it takes. You are under my orders. No matter what happens, I want my Elaina off that ship. Understood?”

Everyone agreed with zero hesitation. They knew I wasn’t fucking around.

We continued for about another mile or so before we came upon a clearing. The ship was in the port, all lit up from the rising sun. Thankfully, it was the one I knew well from a few training expeditions.

There was a small building off to the side of the docks. I pointed toward it and nodded. We ran in a single, soundless line and hid behind it. I readied the sniper rifle while peeking around the corner and watching what was going on at the ship.

“Chris,” I whispered. “You see those two guarding at the dock?” He nodded. “Think you can pick them off?” He looked at them, shrugged, and nodded. I sure fucking hoped so. “Okay, I’m counting on you. I’m going to run ahead to the next building closer to the docks. The rest of you wait until Chris picks them off. There will be more, but getting rid of those two will give me the advantage. Then I’m going to get on the ship. Listen for my cue to board. There are cellblocks below the deck. She’s probably in one.”

I hoped with everything I had that Elaina was locked in a cell versus in that fuck’s quarters. I needed to stop thinking and just act on instinct. After handing Chris my rifle, I pulled out my Sig and nodded, signaling I was ready to proceed.

Treading lightly down to the next building, two shots rang out and both men fell into the water.
Bloody well done!
The rest of the crew ran toward the building I was just leaving.

With my knife in one hand and my Sig in the other, I ran to the deck. When I heard a female screaming, my body went rigid. My jaw tightened to the point that my teeth ached, pressing together to near breaking point.

It was Elaina. My love.
My wife
.

I glanced around, surprised that no one had heard the shots. The deck was devoid of life. I dodged behind a few supply crates. Her screams grew louder, which almost broke me. I saw two recruits dragging her up the stairs from the cellblocks. I wanted to grab her right then, but that wouldn’t work. I would fight the two at once, but not with her in range. She would get killed.

I didn’t want to hold her like Gunther did Quinn.

I watched them drag her down to the other set of stairs to Roger’s quarters. That made me growl under my breath. A minute later, the two recruits came back up, laughing.

“Yet another whore. I hope we get some of her. She’s pretty hot.”

I stepped out from behind the crate. Two younger recruits, and I didn’t recognize either of them. Although one looked
remarkably
like Gunther.

“Hullo, lads,” my voice rumbled from my chest, my gun trained on them. They both stopped dead in their tracks. Neither one was ready for me.
Perfect.
I was angry as fuck and they were just two more in my path.
Such a bloody shame.
They looked around for the guards. “Killed them. And now…you. Goodbye,” I murmured before shooting both of them in the middle of their foreheads.

I waited a moment and heard the others scurrying on the deck. “They dragged her to the captain’s quarters. I’m going down there. You guys clear the ship. Stick together. Paw these fucks for keys to the cells and release anyone who is normal or even like me.”

Upon descending the stairs toward Roger’s quarters, a pair of green eyes glimmered in the darkness. Not giving a fuck who it was, I shot him or her. No one was going to stop me from getting into that room.

The sounds of her crying were coming through the walls. I wanted to rush in there, but I felt that would put her in more jeopardy. I needed patience, no matter how much it killed me.

The door swung open at the top of the stairs, blinding the prisoners with the morning sunlight. They were coming for Elaina and she was quaking. They stopped right in front of her cell.

“Good morning, love! Hope you had a good rest because you have a morning full of activity,” Niles tormented.

The two recruits chuckled. She was scared far more than she’s ever been. Niles unlocked the cell door and they dragged her out, flailing around and screaming herself hoarse again.

“It’s going to be okay, sweetheart! Just don’t fight,” Anne called from her cell. They dragged Elaina up the stairs.

The sun was rising—the beautiful sun. She feared that would be the last time she would ever see it. The sobs broke from her throat. As they nearly threw her down the stairs where Roger’s quarters were, a nod was exchanged between them and the guard in the hall.

Roger opened the door before Niles could raise his fist to announce their arrival. “Ah…yes. Look at you. Luscious. Thank you, lads. I’m already throbbing thinking about what we’ll be enjoying.”

Elaina looked down and saw a bulge growing in his pants. Saliva rose and she spit in his face again. Then he backhanded her, splitting her lip open.

“I told you yesterday that was a mistake! And you disobeyed again?”

“I’m not one of your brainwashed recruits, you disgusting fuck!” she shouted in his face as she struggled against their grip.

“No. No, you’re not, but you’re going to be my morning fuck every day. I’m getting bored with the frail, loose bird. I need someone young and fresh, and you fit the bill, especially since you are…
were
Liam’s. I have taken everything away from him, including his life. And now I will take his bird, as well.” Roger’s grin brought new meaning to sadistic. “Check your program files, lads. I sent what you needed to track. I don’t want to be bothered unless his worthless arse boards this ship. Got it?”

“You got it boss,” Niles replied.

They left Elaina in Roger’s custody. As he slammed the door shut, he threw her against the wall and tried to kiss her, forcing his tongue in her mouth. Elaina tried to twist away, but he held her firm with his broad hands, pushing her narrow shoulders into the wall, his knee pressed into her abdomen, pinning her.

Roger pulled out a knife and ran it down Elaina’s cheek, scratching it just enough for her to feel the sting. She cried out of fear.

“Oh, love. You haven’t felt pain yet. Wait until you feel me slam into your every opening over and over again. I’m never satisfied with just one time. I will ravage every part of your brilliant body,” he promised.

He dragged the knife to Elaina’s chest, slicing through her shirt at the collar so he could tear it off. Then he used the tip of the knife and cut off her bra, starting with one strap and then the other. Finally, he pushed the blade under the center section between her breasts and sliced through that with no resistance from the fabric.