“I’ll be satisfied when I impale Cassian’s skull with my cock,” he said.
Killian grinned and ran his fingers against his coarse scruff. “Be careful what you wish for.”
When they were ready, they looked through the empty hallway of the home. Suddenly, a cold wash of nostalgia washed over Lucas. He kept asking himself the same question over and over again:
What will I become after the world ends?
And the babies Wren held inside her belly… Everything in their life was fragile like an antique snow globe.
“Let’s never come back to this place again,” Lucas muttered.
“Deal.”
The horror that mankind was willing to create seized on their hearts. A vileness like the pounding of clay before it slides on the wheel. It lay dormant in all alphas, and they used to believe that it made the world go round.
As they set out for the city, they chose not to look back at the house they molded from their nightmares.
Wren had changed them, whether they liked it or not. They would never be the same again.
Squinting into the dirty sunset, Killian breathed in the air and tried to remember her scent. Lucas smacked his shoulder and moved through the sea of street vendors, rumbling motorbikes, and sex-crazed alphas looking for a good time.
“How does it feel to be the most wanted man in the world?” Lucas asked.
Killian smirked. “You tell me.”
Lucas analyzed every face that walked past him. He was worried. There were alphas everywhere, and he was sure they’d run into a familiar face if they kept on this street. “Too many fucking people tonight,” Lucas said nervously.
As the rounded corner, he could see a parade forming. In the distance, alphas shot rifles into the air. Their faces were stained with the crude Ouroboros insignia written in blood. Their tongues searching the air outside their lips, they cackled and raged as the gathering crowd howled with religious fervor.
Killian held his rifle underneath his jacket, fingers shuddering against the trigger. “If I knew it was going to be a holiday...”
A large platform with bundled omegas slowly drove toward their path. Twine and threading held their bodies together. Their eyes scanned the beckoning crowd in shock. Above them, the Ouroboros was displayed with pride.
“Give them bread and circuses.”
The performing alphas, most likely slave workers from the outer sectors, threw buckets of chips into the crowd. The horde of ogres leapt over the backs of one another until a massive brawl broke out.
“They got one thing right. But where the fuck is my bread?” Lucas asked in jest.
“Vash would have our heads for coming back into the city like this,” Killian said.
But Vash was gone, and the idea of him dead or locked away made them feel uneasy. Worst of all, they had no way of knowing if they were walking into a trap.
The parade thickened, and hydrochips graced their heads. Killian elbowed through two civilians, but he was met with multiple swift blows to the nose. He fell back and made sure to hold Lucas with him.
Blood ran from Killian’s inflamed nostril. “Don’t,” he shouted.
But the mob of people only grew, and it became impossible to see where they were. Flashing lights, frantic movements, and throaty cries from exasperated bellies circled them. The men on the platforms unleashed their fury into the sky with a rain of bullets.
Lucas clasped his hands over his eyes and shook his head to get some grounding.
“Look up!”
The lights of the city shut off with a crack. Killian grabbed Lucas’s jacket before he could focus his eyes on what appeared to be, falling gift-wrapped presents.
“What the fuck?” Lucas whispered as Killian pulled him toward a clearing.
One by one, the gifts opened to exploding shrapnel. Waves of men fell to the floor, choking on bits of blood and rust, gasping for air. Within seconds, the parade had turned into a bloodbath of ruined lives.