Beast, Part Two (The Church #5)

Dog Lover

chapter Twenty-six

Many

L eaning back on my hands, my feet dangle over the edge of the playground equipment. We’re sitting on the very top of the play set.

It took us over a week to set this night up. We needed to make sure Zeke came to this particular park. So, we started subliminal advertising. We paid for billboards and signs to go up all around his home advertising the running trails at this park. Not only did we put up signs, but Lucien was even able to tap into his home camera system. For the last two days, we’ve been playing a repeat of the park’s name through a loop on his speaker system while he slept.

It took a lot to get us here, but we all believed tonight our efforts would finally pay off.

“You’re so cute when you’re focused.”

We look down into the face of Ari. She’s standing on the platform underneath where we’re seated. We get that fluttery feeling in our stomach like we always do. It takes our breath away every time our eyes land on her.

“She shouldn’t be here. It isn’t safe.” We think in my social worker’s British accent.

“ Women are at a higher risk for miscarriages in the first trimester,” Our Phyllis voice says.

“She’s smart and well prepared. She will be fine,” Priest says in my head.

“You will stay here and out of sight,” we warn her in our Priest voice.

Climbing down from the roof of the playground, we plant our feet back on the monkey bars. We then swing our body onto the platform she’s standing on. Lying at her feet are Kraken and Hydra. We left Cerberus and Echidna home.

Ari grins. “Don’t worry, Milo. I won’t do anything to endanger the baby. That’s what these two are for.” She points to the dogs before taking a seat in front of the slide as if she’s about to slide down.

We occupy the spot right beside her.

“We know, but we still want you to take it easy.”

“You do know I am not the first agent of D.O.E to take a mission while with child?”

She reminds us of this constantly, but it does nothing to ease our concern. We know what Ari is capable of, we just don’t like the idea of her risking herself. However, it wouldn’t be right to ask her to step down when we are not willing to stop either.

We know Lucien and Hawk are hoping that after we clear our names that we will be able to walk away from the Church. We feel at odds with them on that. We don’t want to stop. Although we don’t have a driving force to kill like our brother Beast, we do enjoy what we do. It is part of who we are.

It gives us a purpose and makes us feel as if we’re protecting those in need. Unlike what we did as kids.

The memory of our mother and sisters pop up in our head. We shut our eyes to fight against the vision. We failed them.

You will fail Ari and this baby too. Our thoughts are loud and hard to ignore. They have been harder to fight since Priest was taken away from us.

“Stop it,” her soft voice pulls us out of our head. We look over at her, her fuchsia tipped hair hangs past her shoulders now. “You’re thinking about failing me again, aren’t you?”

We didn’t answer her. Instead, we push her hair behind her ear to get a better view of her face. People think Ari and I don’t have deep conversations. They think we only talk about movies, anime, and books. But she is our other half. She knows our deepest fears and the thoughts that haunt us.

“You are my world, Ariane.”

“And you are mine, Milo. But don’t change the subject.”

A smile lifts our lips. She never lets things go. “We failed them. My sisters, my mother, Priest. We failed them all.”

She places my face between her hands. Her brown eyes staring into mine. “You were a child when your family was killed. You did what any sensible child would have done.”

We pull our face from between her hands. We have to look away from her.

“She is right. We were too young to fight Papa,” our social worker voice says.

“He outweighed us by nearly a hundred pounds. We would have been defenseless against him,” our Phyllis voice responds.

“We could have outsmarted him. I could have saved Natalia. She was the youngest and easy to carry. We could have gotten her to safety,” Our Priest voice argues.

“We could have saved one of them,” I say in my Priest voice.

Ari turns my face back to her with a finger under my chin. “She could have fallen and broken her neck. You could’ve gotten caught and been killed too. Or either she would have witnessed what you did and never been able to recover. There are a lot of scenarios in this that could have gone horribly. Don’t linger on them.

“The decision you made was the best. Because of it, you got to meet your brothers and Priest. And not only that, but you also got to meet me, which should be the highlight of your life.”

Her joke causes us to laugh.

“It is,” I admit in my Milo voice. I use this voice more often when I am alone with Ari.

We had no idea we would ever find love. We didn’t even plan on it. However, the day we first laid eyes on Ari at the receptionist desk, we fell for her. I’d never met anyone as beautiful as her.

Finally, being able to be with her and spend time with her has taught me that her value goes deeper than her good looks. Ariane is funny, loving, caring, smart, brave, encouraging, and the most giving being we’ve ever come across.

We don’t deserve her.

“Approximately 70% of heterosexual unmarried relationships break up within the first year,” Phyllis’ voice says.

“If she tries to leave us, we will kill every man that touches her,” Priest growls.

“Just love her and treat her right and she will never leave,” Laura states.

Grabbing her hand, we place a kiss on her palm. “We will never let you go.”

She giggles. “Aww, you thought you had a choice. I’m pregnant with your child, Milo. I’ll kill you before I let you leave us.”

She places a kiss on my lips before turning away from me.

“Alright, guys, it’s show time. Zeke just arrived,” Lucien’s voice comes through the earpiece in my ear. “Turn the mics on from here on out. Many, I want this over quick.”

Ari and I both take the devices out of our ear and switch on the microphone before placing them back in. Now we can hear the others and they can hear us.

“You got it, brother Lucien.”

“Get to your spot,” Lucien says. “Ari, get your dogs ready.”

She chuckles. “They’re always ready.”

We stand, then help her to her feet. She places her arms around my neck and brings her lips to ours. We happily open our mouth for her. She rakes her tongue against ours deepening the kiss. Placing our hand on her ass we pull her into our erection. We feel her smile against our lips. We have not laid with Ari in the sexual intercourse since Papa Priest died. Up until now, we have not wanted to. We do now.

“Easy does it,” Ari giggles. “We don’t want to put on a show for your brothers.”

“We do not want that,” I say in my Priest voice.

“Please don’t,” Zel adds in my earpiece. “Nobody wants to see y’all’s weird ass sex.”

We pull away from Ari and jump down from the play set.

“Kraken, Hydra, go with Daddy,” Ari says directing the dogs. They will only follow her command, so we had to fit the dogs with hearing devices as well.

Both dogs rush down the slide to stand at our side. With one final glance, we leave her at the playground. We rush to the running path and to the designated tree.

“I’m here,” we say to the group.

We grab the lowest branch and swing our body up, using our legs to wrap around the next limb. We then right ourselves and use the rest of the tree limbs to climb as far up in the tree as we can get.

“Alright, Ari. Get the dogs in place,” Lucien says.

“Kraken, Hydra, playtime. Wait for my command.”

The two dogs move onto the track and start play fighting. We wait patiently.

Twenty minutes later, a tall man with a baseball cap, dark shorts and a white t-shirt approaches. He slows down once he spots the dogs. Kraken runs away, leaving Hydra behind. The dog picks up her paw and whimpers as she limps to Zeke.

Zeke stops and looks around. His eyes even scan the surrounding trees. We knew he would most likely be on guard, which is why not only did we climb as high as we could go in the tree with the most foliage, but we also wore all black.

“Hey, you hurt?” Zeke asks as he slowly approaches Hydra. His gaze still sweeps over his surroundings.

Hydra stops in front of him and sniffs his outstretched hand before lying her head against his leg.

“Good girl,” Zeke says. “What are you doing out here?”

Slowly, Kraken approaches Zeke. He’s so quiet, if we weren’t looking at him, we wouldn’t know he was coming. Before Kraken could get a good attacking distance, Zeke shoots to his feet, spins around and aims a gun at Kraken. He pulls the trigger, but Hydra reacts faster. She bites into his leg, sending him to the ground and his bullet whirling past Kraken.

Taking a deep breath, we leap from the tree. Tucking our body into itself, we hit the ground and roll into a standing position.

Zeke spins around and aims his weapon at Hydra. Grabbing our short spears out of our back holster, we toss one through the air stabbing him in his shoulder, causing him to drop the gun.

Zeke stands up, yanks the spear out of his arm and glares at me.

“I know you,” he sneers at me. “You’re one of those freaks from the Church.”

We nod our head without replying.

“Did my bastard little brother put you up to this?” We don’t miss the way Zeke’s hand seems to slowly move behind his back. “This is his attempt at payback for killing his handler.” He laughs. “You boys will never learn.”

He brings out another gun, but we don’t flinch. Kraken does his job. While Zeke was trying to keep me distracted while he went for his gun, we were keeping our eyes on Kraken.

The dog latches his teeth onto the arm holding the gun. Zeke yells as he tries to pull away from the dog’s teeth. Slowly, walking over to the other fallen weapon, we pick up the Glock and weigh it in our hand.

Zeke finally gets Kraken to let go of his arm. He holds up the bleeding appendage and aims his gun at the dog.

Our bullet hits the back of his head before he could pull his trigger. He falls to the ground. We walk over to his body and place three more slugs into him.

“One down,” We say into the silence.

“Seven more to go,” Beast says through the earpiece. “Good job, brother.”