Rage and Ruin | 2

6 | 1

D E L P H I N I U M

      Jaxon and I entered the compound after buying more ammunition from one of Jaxon's slightly shady connections. After unloading the packages we'd gotten into the training room, he followed me back out into the main area. Jake was nowhere to be seen. I frowned. He'd been here when we'd left and he'd been the one to urge us to buy more ammunition.

"Evans?" I called uncertainly, walking up the stairs. There was no answer. Jaxon gave me a doubting look.

No one else had arrived at the compound yet. We were still unsure of Kane, Arlo and Finn's whereabouts and Riley had gone somewhere without telling us the location. I hardly cared to know anymore.

I pushed open the door to Jake's room. It was empty. I narrowed my eyes. He normally came and went at his leisure, but after what had happened yesterday, I was more on edge than usual. I doubted Gigi was dead and Benny certainly wasn't. Who knew where they were right now? I wished that I could have killed her yesterday, but my power was dangerously low after using it in such copious amounts.

"He's not here," I yelled to Jaxon as I went to my own room. But there, sitting on my dresser was a folded note. I opened it up, not sure if I should fear what was inside or not.

It read in Jake's handwriting,

Come to the alleyway where Ninth St. and Sepulveda Ave. meet. I have a lead.

-Jake

A note wasn't strange. Almost none of us carried a cell phone, so this was the only way of communication we had. Although his habit of tending not to give more than the barest information was irritating, it still worked to get messages across.

Jaxon appeared in the door of my room holding up a similar note. "You got one too?" I nodded. "Well, then. We'd better be on our way or he'll be even more unpleasant than usual."

Jaxon never let me drive; he was always muttering about how he didn't want to die early. He'd even told me that he would have offered to teach me if I wasn't so much of a lost cause. I knew my skills behind the wheel weren't exactly professional. When other children had been going to high school and learning how to drive, I'd been shooting targets and slitting throats. Yet another part of normal life that I had missed out on.

On the ride there, I thought about what Benny had revealed about Jaxon. What had he done that was bad enough to get locked away in a supermax prison? Those cells were meant for the worst of the worst: terrorists, drug lords, criminal masterminds. The kind of place I would have been sent, had the ONNT not taken my enslavement into account. I glanced at Jaxon as he drove, took in the lowered brows and glittering blue eyes. He was certainly a criminal—there was no doubt about that—but he hadn't done anything bad enough to be imprisoned with some of the most evil people in the world, right?

I hadn't asked. Loud and boisterous as he was, he'd never questioned me about my time with Imperium, so I wouldn't pry him for answers now.

A while later, we parked across from the alley Jake had instructed us to meet him at. "I swear," Jaxon said as we crossed the street, "If he makes a single comment about how we were late..."

      "It's not even a question. He will."

      "You're right." He rolled his eyes. "Why do we even put up with him?"

       I shrugged, not quite knowing the answer myself. But I did know that for me, it had become more than simply putting up with Jake Evans. It had been more for a while now.