The Fortunates (Unfortunates #2) (24 page)

Unexpectedly, my eyes flutter open sometime later. Tension dances up my spine and I arch my back to stretch it out. Groaning, I swipe my hand against a wide, clothed back. My heart slams into my throat and smashes my oesophagus. Gasping, I snap my hands to my chest and shoot up in bed.

“Kade?”

“Yeah. It’s me.”

“You scared me.” I exhale, relaxing instantly. “What are you doing?”

I shuffle over and reach out to the bedside table. The air is cool, much cooler than I was expecting it to be. As a result, goosebumps bubble along my skin. I touch the base of the metal lamp and it turns on, casting a dim, yellow light around the room.

“I couldn’t do it,” he mutters, looking down at his lap.

I frown and kick back the blankets. “You couldn’t do what?”

I push myself onto my knees and crawl up behind him. I smooth my hands up his back and over his shoulders.

“I couldn’t kill him.”

I rest my chin where his shoulder curves into his neck and glance down at the handgun in his hand. I’ve never thought of weapon as beautiful before, but this one certainly is. Kade strokes the face of the lion that’s expertly carved into the handle.

“I was there…I had the gun pointed at his head while he slept, but I couldn’t pull the trigger.”

Disappointment bites my chest, but I ignore it. I guess it’s a good thing he didn’t. I’d hate for Vince to miss the shitstorm we were going to whip up.

Sighing, Kade places his gun on the bedside table. “What is wrong with me?”

“Nothing is wrong with you.” I don’t sound very convincing.

Standing up, Kaden shrugs his blood-stained jacket off his shoulders and lets it fall down his arms to the floor. I sit back on my heels, resting my hands in my lap.

“I still remember the excitement I felt when my mother brought him home.” He whips his shirt off over his head and tosses it away. “He was so small and innocent. I’d give anything to go back in time and fix him…”

I swallow the bitterness dancing on the tip of my tongue. I’d only go back in time to stop Vince’s conception. Nothing else.

“I bet that makes you sick,” he states, pulling back the blankets.

I shake my head as I crawl to the top of the bed and slip underneath the blankets with him. Kade pulls me into his warm arms and holds me close, so close I can barely breathe and I love it.

“He’s your brother. I get it.” That’s a lie. I don’t get it. “No one expects you to make that decision.”

Maybe it’s because I don’t have a sibling and I don’t understand that familial bond, but Vince is a monster and I will wear his heart as a badge of honour around my fucking neck.

Chapter

Twenty-One

Anna

(Three Weeks Later)

Today is the day.

I haven’t slept much since the night Vince killed Portia. Kade hasn’t either, though he spends all day in bed while I finish making last minute adjustments to our plan. It’s quite simple, really. As the sun sets over the horizon this evening, the moderators in the Unfortunate camp on
our
side will kill the moderators on
their
side. Yesterday, John informed us that the moderators guarding the fence and patrolling the town will have a shift change at five to six, giving us a fighting chance at making it to the Unfortunate camp at the top of the hill before they have time to react. The most important thing for us today is getting as many people to the camp as we can. We need to keep those who don’t want to fight safe while assembling a small army of those who do.

The Unfortunate camp on the hill is the perfect place to plan our next move and keep an eye on our surroundings while we do.

To be honest, we don’t know what our next step is. Ideally, we’d like to start negotiating new laws right off the bat, but obviously that’s unrealistic. They’re going to test us. They’re going to see how strong our will is and, when we don’t back down, they’re going to get angry and come at us with all they’ve got. We have to be ready for that.

Or it’s all for nothing.

As soon as we’re in and the large gates of the camp are closed behind us, we’ll start plotting our attacks. We want to hit them where it hurts first.

Their companies…

And then their homes…

And then their lives…

They need to know we’re serious.

Yesterday, the last of the weapons were deposited in the camp silos and scattered throughout varying locations around the town. This was done by moderators on our side to avoid suspicion. They’re always moving weapons, so pushing a wheelbarrow full of rifles isn’t something anyone considers odd.

Sighing, I lower the bullet I’ve been staring at for the past hour and set it on my table with trembling fingers. Do I even have what it takes to pull the trigger? On the occasions that Kade has managed to drag himself from the bed, he’s done five things. Use the toilet, shower, nibble on food, drink alcohol, and show me how to use a rifle. I know the ins and out of one now, but I still don’t know what it feels like to shoot one. Kade said shooting a rifle isn’t a good idea, especially in light of Portia’s death. It’s suspicious, apparently. Maybe he’s right.

And that reminds me…
Vince.
He’s banned from the Milano household until further notice. He claims it’s because we sympathise with Unfortunates—an accusation the heads of the families are more than happy to look into—but John says it’s because Vincent Sario damages the functionality of their house by killing needed Unfortunates when the Milano residence has already reached their limit. I don’t know what the verdict is. Last I heard, the heads of the families were waiting for Kade to resurface and slip in his two cents. As far as they know, Kade is suffering a stomach bug and cannot leave the room. We’re supposed to launch into civil war today. How can he do that if he’s still in bed and it’s already launch?

Knock.

I flinch, snapping my attention to my bedroom door as the handle turns and it opens. In bed, Kaden pulls his pillow over his head and tugs the blankets up, shielding himself from the visitor. I take in Oliver’s dirty appearance, from his week-old beard growth down to his ripped jeans and dirty sneakers.

“I thought you’d forgotten about us,” I say, pushing myself to my feet.

Oliver has been a no-show since the night Portia was killed. Some nights, I hear him drag his drunken body down the hallway and into his room and others, I hear him cry, but he doesn’t show up to important Ribbon meetings anymore.

Swallowing, he blinks, scanning my room. He bypasses the lump that is Kade underneath my sheets and turns his sad stare on the fireplace. On the mantle is Portia’s beautiful glass urn. In the lid, there’s a tiny terrarium. Now she can be under the trees without a care, like she wanted.

Oliver grimaces when he sees it and he has to swallow hard to quell the tremble in his lower lip. He swipes at his face and sways with a lazy blink. Still drunk. A pang of sympathy hits me in the gut. I have been mad at Oliver for weeks. I was mad the night he allowed Vince to kill Portia and I’ve been mad since…until I realised there was nothing anyone could have done. Vince was going to kill Portia regardless and he was going to kill whoever stopped him.

Oliver did the right thing. The thought makes me sick, but it’s true. This war was his brainchild. We need him to finish what he started. I can’t run this without him. I just can’t.

“You’ve lost people you love. How do you do it?” he slurs, swaying to the side. “How do you keep going?”

“I’ve lost people I care deeply for,” I say, walking around my desk. “If I lost the person I love…I don’t think I could carry on.”

Live a life without Kaden? I’d sooner allow myself to fall in love with Vince.

“The past few days have been rough.”

I frown. He’s not serious? How much alcohol has he consumed over the past twenty-one days?

“Three weeks.”

His face remains placid, his eyes thin and tired. Then it hits him. His eyes widen. “Three weeks? It has been three weeks?”

I nod. “Today is the day. You know that, right?”

Cursing, he starts to pace, and he rakes his fingers through his oily, blond hair. “I can’t do it today. I’m not ready.”

“You don’t have a choice.”

“But I—”

I click my fingers, demanding his attention. “Shower, eat a big lunch, set an alarm, and sleep. When you wake up, you’ll be good to go.”

Oliver blows air out of his cheeks, resting against my doorframe. “We’re actually doing this, huh?”

Nervousness coils in my belly. “Yeah. I guess we are.”

“They’re going to slaughter us.”

Gee. Thanks for your vote of confidence. “You weren’t born an Unfortunate. The rest of us have nothing to lose. They’re going to slaughter us all anyway. Might as well go down fighting.”

He purses his lips with a clenched jaw. Nodding passively, he sulks away, slamming the door behind him. I don’t know what it means. Who knows whether he’ll show up or not? Exhaling, I sit against the edge of my desk and cross my feet at my ankles. For the first time, I’m wearing long pants. They’re weird…and uncomfortable around my hips, but they cover my legs and I like it.

I glance down at my hands as I smooth them along the black fabric against my thighs. My wedding ring looks so beautiful on my otherwise bland hand. I’ve been so busy I’ve barely had time to sit down and appreciate the fact that I’m married to Kaden Sario. God. It would be nice to spend a day doing something normal together. I’m not opposed to picnics and sight-seeing. I’ve rarely spent time in the town and I haven’t seen any of the farms, factories, or animals. Funnily enough, I miss the days when I was his Unfortunate. Despite the drama, life seemed so simple and I hope, in my lifetime, it can be both equal and simple again.

∞ Kade ∞

The clocks ticked away the remaining hour as the sun began to set. There was a fierce nausea in his stomach, threatening to rip it apart. He’d have thrown up if he had anything in there to dispel. Kade launched himself out of bed just after Oliver left. It wasn’t fair that Anna had to deal with everything on her own. The time for grieving a lost friend had come and gone. Now he had to make both Anna and Portia proud or die trying.

Kade kissed Anna on the mouth before hitting the shower. She sat back in her seat, watching him as he zipped around the room packing things into a large, black bag. He didn’t say much to her the past few hours because he was focused on making sure he packed as much as he could carry.

He bent low and scooped up a brand new pair of runners. He didn’t know if they were her size, but they were better than nothing.

“Sneakers will be better for you to run in, yeah?”

She didn’t answer. Kade lifted his stare to Anna, who eyed the rifles on the bed. They were cleaned and loaded, raring to go. She looked like she was going to puke.

“Nine?”

Snapping her stare to him, she frowned. Kade couldn’t even remember the last time he called her Nine. She told him not to, but to be honest, he missed it. He missed her,
her
weaknesses, her minor worries and insecurities, but he missed saying her name the most.

“Anna…” he clarified, nervously clenching the lip of the shoe. “Do you want me to pack you a pair of sneakers?”

She glanced down at her bare feet. How far did she have to run? Thankfully, she nodded, keeping her eyes on her toes.

“I can’t do this,” she whispered and he dropped her shoes to the floor. “These people are following me to certain death—even Oliver knows that and he started this stupid thing.”

“Fuck Oliver,” Kade stated, tossing the clean black shirt he had resting on his shoulder on the couch. “He’s scared.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

He shook his head as he crossed the room and circled her desk to stand in front of her. She glanced down at her hands and refused to look at him. For three weeks he’d ignored her, wallowing in his own self-pity. He couldn’t help it. He tried not to, but losing Portia was like losing a limb. It was as though he couldn’t function. Since he was younger, she’d been there every morning making breakfast while his parents were gone. He hadn’t realised how attached he’d grown to her face. Losing her was like losing an older sister, or a mother. He was certain he could give her the freedom she deserved…

But he couldn’t…and now he never could.

“Is it too late to back out?” Anna asked, lifting her welling stare to his. “Is it too late to take you up on your offer? I can be your wife and we can live in your house. We can go to the city together, stay there as long as we need to—”

Kade took her hand in his and pulled her to her feet. Shifting, he dropped into the seat and pulled her into his lap. He tipped her head back, resting it where his neck sloped into his shoulder. Her hands trembled in his as she curled up on his lap.

“We’re going to go to war,” he muttered, stroking his thumb over the back of her hand. “We’re going to fix everything that is broken and then we’re going to live out the rest of our lives happy. Truly happy.”

“And if we die?”

Kade scoffed. “Since when were you afraid of death?”

“I wasn’t…until today.”

“You have every right to be nervous. Today we’re going to make history. Together.” Releasing her hand, he swiped his index finger along her jaw, tilting her chin up. “I can’t think of a better person to go down in history with.”

Anna’s pink lips twitched at the corners and she bit her plump lower lip. It wasn’t often that he was able to suppress her anxiety, but he tried wherever he could. She was a brave girl, that was obvious, but she was young. Irrational and uncertain. Unlike him, her choices were never set in stone. She made spur of the moment decisions and regretted them later. It wasn’t her nature that forced her to make regrettable mistakes, it was her age. He often forgot that.

Anna pressed the palm of her hand against his bare chest and stretched her neck for a kiss. He gave her one.

And another…

And another…

…until the chair no longer sufficed and the surface of the desk became a more suitable place to continue their display of affection.

It wasn’t easy loving a woman who wanted to change the world, but Kade loved her enough to aid her cause and not get in the way. When she was happy, she would build her new world around him. A world where their love would thrive. Until then, being patient was all he could do.