Darling Wildfire (Red Rabbit #2)

32

NYX

“Rise and shine, it’s workout time,”

I called out just for the satisfaction of watching Atlas roll his eyes.

I watched the newbie, North, slowly pull himself out of bed and throw on a t-shirt. I remembered that feeling vividly, and I didn’t envy him. Coming out of Vetticus’ initiation session was brutal. Dead gray eyes swept the cell. Right away I recognized North as one of those men you encountered in the military sometimes—cold, detached—with a quiet authority that demanded obedience. Violent by nature but not recklessly so.

If I’d learned anything during my time as a SEAL, it was the quiet ones who were the most dangerous and lethal. They were always the first to charge into the fray, not to be self-sacrificing, but because combat was in their blood and it was just what they did.

I looked over at Atlas who was retying his hair up in a bun, looking like a viking in all his bronzed, sculpted glory. I wasn’t one to usually admire a man but there was no denying Atlas was beautiful. I shook my head and turned to the door again—I was not just checking out a dude. It didn’t help that I felt like I’d known him for years instead of just a few weeks. There was a magnetic quality about his quiet demeanor. He was almost too perfect, and I didn’t like it.

I wanted to see him messy, undone—fuuck.

I needed to get laid. Not having sex for a few weeks was doing terrible things to me.

I ran a hand over my face and pushed all of that away as the doors of our cells opened. There were about forty of us that made our way down the hallway towards the two sets of double doors leading outside. I hated being caged and sometimes the confines of the cell messed with my mind and made me feel like everything was closing in on me. All of that went away as soon as I stepped outside. I took a deep breath of fresh air, letting the sun hit my face.

Atlas and North followed behind me and I turned to see North squint violently as he tried to adjust to the sun he probably hadn’t seen in weeks. I watched the men head off to different sections of the yard as they divide into their usual cliques. The back area was a full track with grass in the middle where one group headed to start a game of football. The next section held two basketball courts and the part closest to us was a full gym set up under some mesh awnings. There was every kind of workout machine you could want. The entire thing was enclosed by high fences wrapped with barbed wire and towers guarded by snipers.

“Come on, let's get a run in first,”

Atlas said.

We walked to the track and stretched a bit before we took off, setting a slow pace initially so North could at least go a lap with us. He was still weak, but I knew that wouldn’t last long. Atlas and I picked up our pace after the first lap, leaving him to acclimate on his own.

“Nice guy,”

I commented once he was out of earshot.

“You mean unhinged,”

Atlas scoffed. “I can see it already.”

“Aren’t we all?”

“Not like him. You know what I’m talking about.”

“Yeah, I do. Might be helpful to have one of those in here though,”

I said. “Someone not afraid to mess up their pretty face.”

I grabbed Atlas’ head and shoved him playfully then took off at a quick sprint.

“Fucker,”

he barked a laugh and ran to catch up to me.

We ran two miles and stopped when we made it back around to North. He tensed when I slung an arm around his shoulders but didn’t object.

“We’re gonna go work out, you coming?”

After exhausting ourselves with a circuit of weights, we walked back up to the grass to stretch and sat around looking out over the yard.

“Where do you think we are?”

North asked.

Atlas shrugged and squinted out past the fence at the vast stretch of forest and mountains.

“Could be anywhere honestly.”

“Yeah, no one knows. Everyone was knocked out when they were brought here. For all we know they could have put us on a plane and we could be halfway across the world,” I added.

My thoughts darkened for a moment as I thought back to the night they’d taken me. My baby sister had been visiting me, although at twenty-six she was far from a baby, I still called her that affectionately. We were close, and she would come see me occasionally or as I liked to say, come check up on me. When I’d gotten out of the military, I’d been in a dark place. Two attempts at taking my life later, she’d started calling me every day and visiting frequently. Together we’d pulled me out of that space and I had her to thank for my renewed outlook on life.

That is until they came and brutally murdered her in front of me. My face must have betrayed my thoughts as I stared off into space because Atlas snapped his fingers in front of my eyes and I blinked to refocus.

“Hey—don’t go there,” he said.

I scrubbed a hand over my face and shoved the thoughts away. He was right—I couldn’t go down that dark path. Not here, where the depression was liable to send me instantly spiraling.

“Atrox Gaming,”

North muttered.

We looked at him curiously. “That’s what he said to me,”

he went on. “That’s who’s behind this, apparently.”

“What do you think the games are?”

I asked, welcoming the distraction.

“It has to be tactical—we’re all either military or cops,”

Atlas said.

“Fuck—like live action COD?”

I shook my head. “Why does part of me really not hate that idea?”

Being in the military, I’d gone on plenty of missions, and they weren’t always fun with bullets flying at you and people you cared about getting blown up. But then there were the times the darkness would take over. The adrenaline kick—the sickness in my mind that thrived on violence. When my humanity would shut off and something from the shadows would take over. The monster inside me that craved the blood on my hands. The part of me that reveled in the high of living in the gray, dealing out death like the Reaper himself.

That is after all, how I’d gotten my call sign—Reaper.

For all the lives I’d collected.

“He said he saves the best for his team,”

North said.

I laughed. “I mean, this sounds like some real life gladiator shit.”

“That’s why he has to traffick people. No one would volunteer,”

Atlas said.

It was a sobering thought. I didn’t know what this all meant but now that my sister was gone, the monster inside me didn’t have anything stopping him and he needed retribution—paid in blood—for what was done to my baby sis. I would play Vetticus’ games, but only until I could get my hands around his neck and show him who I really was: The Reaper come to claim his soul.