The Cross (Alliance Book 2) Read Online Free Page A

else in Waller had. For trying to comfort him after all the things he just heard Max say about his kind, calling them animals. It couldn’t have not hurt him, hearing it from Max, and yet there he was still, trying to make him, the bloody offspring, feel better. He never got over asking him if he’d walk away, trying to make him angry at him for asking, and the way he looked at him then.

    He should have done the rest of it himself, the beating, knowing that Anders actually enjoyed hurting people, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not to Riley. So he let this boy hurt his best friend, because he was too much of a coward to do it himself. Riley was looking at him, not Anders, not making any noise, just taking it. He heard something break in him, and it scared him, and he had to turn away from it, hoping Drake didn’t take much longer.

    He watched the face of the girl. She wasn’t screaming anymore, but pleading, quietly, her face wet. She was watching him, her eyes much too big for her face, and suddenly she looked surprised. He hoped Anders didn’t kill Riley. He spun around and for some reason couldn’t see him clearly enough, his vision going dark. He registered the swaying form of Drake hovering over him, pointing something at him, and hit the ground.

    He woke up to Drake pouring tea into his mouth and making him swallow it. It tasted of some kind of herb he didn’t recognize. He hoped it was poisonous, remembering how Riley looked when Anders pummeled him at that tree, and the girl screaming, but Riley just taking it, looking at him, looking right at him until he finally couldn’t take it anymore and turned away from him.

    He coughed and spat some of the liquid out, and sat up. Drake grabbed him roughly by his shirt and yanked him upright, and as soon as he was standing, slapped him hard on the face with his gigantic hand, making his ears ring.

    “What the hell is wrong with you, Brody? How could you? You, of all people? Your best friend in the whole world, you son of a bitch. I hope he does to you what you had done to him when he wakes up, or worse. I’d shoot you right now if I could, Brody, I swear I would, and I’ve never shot anybody, before that animal you brought here, and even that was an accident. The damn dial must have moved to lethal in my backpack. So in a way, you are lucky I didn’t shoot you first,” he was shaking him roughly, screaming the words at him. He’d never heard Drake scream at anyone before, and then his voice went all quiet, “a part of me wishes I had, Brody, wishes I killed you, instead of that other kid, if only so Riley never had to look at you again.”

    He looked down, hoping again that whatever was in that thermos would kill him, “I wish you had too, Drake.”
    Drake looked at him strangely at that, as if trying to make sense of it.

    “Put your hands behind your back, Brody.”
    He did, and he felt Drake put a metal tie around his wrists, pulling it tighter than he needed to, tight enough to hurt even when he wasn’t moving his hands. He let him push him over to a tree, and sit him against it, and then wrap long straps around his whole body so he could barely breathe. He didn’t mind any of it. Drake was right to be furious with him. They all were. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, not wanting to see the anger and disgust on Drake’s face.

    He must have dozed off again. He felt Drake shaking him awake, not too gently, and then pulling him up, and marching him towards the fire. He hoped Riley would just shoot him. There wasn’t anything he could do about Trina now. Maybe they would let her go anyway, after they learned that he died trying to capture one of the replenishers. He didn’t know if they would, hadn’t thought of it like that before. Maybe that would be enough. His crew would eventually stop with the holding pattern and get the other one safely to one of those compounds they kept them in. That ought to count for something