Night In A Waste Land (Hell Theory #2) - Lauren Gilley Page 0,18

curls of smoke off her cigarette. He got a taste for it. Beck had killed to get answers; to hurt Castor; to avenge his brother. But Beck also killed because he liked it. She could close her eyes and see him now, head pressed back in his chair, firelight dancing in low-lidded, honey eyes; black-smudged fingers tracing the rim of his whiskey glass. After.

In the time between her world shattering and turning up at the recruitment office, she’d killed three people. One was a sour-breathed man who’d grabbed at her arm and asked where you going in such a hurry, honey? She’d putting a starving, begging, dying man out of his misery, at his request, when he didn’t want the bread she offered, and instead asked for the knife.

But there had been that pimp. The one who’d come out of that underground bar; the one who’d slapped a woman. The one who’d sneered in her face and told her to run back home to her mommy. His blood had slid hot and velvety between her fingers. That one had been just for her.

Because I got a taste for it, she didn’t say.

But there was another reason. A stronger one. Beck was in hell, and it was down to her to get him out. On the streets, she’d had no resources of any kind. She’d entertained fleeting, wild thoughts of joining the criminal underground; fighting and clawing and stabbing her way to the top. Becoming the next Castor. The, with money and goons at her disposal, she would have the means to figure out how to reopen the portal to hell. Maybe she’d find a conduit of her own. She already had the dagger…

But, no. Too much risk; too little chance for success.

The military would be the easiest, cheapest way to gain access to the powers of heaven of hell. Her best chance for answers.

She’d hesitated too long; could feel the tension vibrating in the air between them, now. Said, “It seemed like the best fit.”

His gaze weighed heavy against the side of her face, but she didn’t turn her head.

~*~

Because the Knights were an elite force, prized, rare, and used only for certain kinds of missions, there was more down time than she’d ever expected to have in the military.

For the most part, Rose occupied herself with training. There were treadmills and ellipticals that she used every morning before tackling a heavy bag. She jumped rope, and worked through a calisthenics routine. Lifted weights, rep after rep until she could barely lift her arms, her whole body quivering with exhaustion. Her mirror was small, and only offered a view from her chest up, but she could see that her body offered evidence to her regimen. The stark lines of muscle in her shoulders and arms; the slender line of her neck; the hollows below her cheekbones. The transformation that had begun the night Beck pulled her from the pie safe had reached its final peak: she was a weapon now. Fully.

“Do you ever sleep?” Gavin asked, grinning, one evening in the gym.

She executed another bicep curl and said, “As much as I need to.”

His brows gave a little jump in the mirror and he didn’t press.

She liked him for that – him and Tris. They seemed content to let her throw herself at physical activity and never tried to dissuade her from it; never looked at her with mingled concern and pity.

Unlike Lance.

He was better not thought of.

She missed the library at home, some nights, when sleep was slow to come, and she tossed back and forth on her bunk in the dark. She’d brought only two books with her: the romance about the boy with the wings and his homeless girl, and Jane Eyre, because even smelling the pages reminded her of sitting across from Beck, his eyes glinting, his gaze impossible as she told him she didn’t think Jane was the lamb and Rochester the lion. Two books that she paged through and reread when she needed to feel close to the life she’d lost. But she missed the shelves; the multicolored spines and the paper-dust-ink scent of air saturated with knowledge. The crack of the fire.

The only thing that cracked here was the poly fill in her pillow when she rolled over.

It was almost a month before she went on her next op: a clean extraction in the once-dry deserts of New Mexico, now frigid and snow-dusted, fat flakes mingling with ash in a slow, constant drift