Obliterated, p.3
OBLITERATED, page 3
And in that moment, my stomach drops.
I lied.
I lied, I lied, I fucking lied.
I lied to a Watcher. To this Watcher. This monster of a man with Walker’s blood still dripping from his blade, with eyes that look like they’ve stared into the bottomless abyss and decided to make it home.
He lingers for a beat, the weight of his gaze making my knees want to buckle, before a rough huff escapes him. Then, suddenly, he lets me go.
I stumble, clawing at my throat, coughing against the burn. My taped-up flip-flops skid in the slick puddle of gore, the crimson smear marking me just as much as it marks the floor.
“Let’s go,” he growls, sheathing his cleaver like this is nothing, like I’m nothing. Which I am. “They can sort you out at the docks.”
And just like that, he turns his back, walking away with a hitch in his step as if he hadn’t just had my life in his hands.
I grab my backpack—everything I own stuffed in one ragged bag—and scramble after him, tripping over my own feet, my pulse a frantic drumbeat in my ears.
Shit. Shit. Shit. I made it. I made it this fucking far.
When I step out of the ship’s belly, the light slams into me. Too bright. Too raw. My eyes burn, lids squeezing shut, but when I finally force them open the world explodes in colors I can’t fucking process.
Ibitha.
It sprawls before me like something out of a dream and a nightmare all at once. Whitewashed walls, cracked and scarred by red rain, patched over with tarp and rope. Palm trees jutting between broken stone, green vines crawling across balconies. Too lush, too alive against all this ruin.
I haven’t seen this much green since Germany. Since before everything went to hell.
The air hits next. Salt and rot, sure, like every dock I’ve ever known… But beneath it? Something sharper. Sweeter. Almost ethereal. It makes my head spin.
And the people. Gods, the people. Not just the filthy crowd packed onto the pier, but further in… Streets are already stirring in this early morning, voices rising beneath tents and tarps. I catch flashes of life: Men hauling crates and setting up shop, a woman filling a rusty bucket with water, a child tugging at a… is that a goat?
They were right. My mother was right.
This is a safe haven. A city. A place that breathes when the rest of the world is choking.
A place that feels too alive for someone like me.
My heart hammers as I step off the boat, stumbling when my flip-flop catches on the warped deck. I curse under my breath, clutching my bag tighter like that’ll anchor me, like that’ll keep me from falling apart right here.
The Watcher that found me doesn’t slow. Doesn’t glance back. Just cuts through the pier like he owns it, people parting on instinct, like prey scattering from a predator.
A rough hand shoves me forward, wedging me into line with the others. The unlucky bastards who actually made it to shore. They’re gaunt, sunburned, filthy… and all of them glance my way. Brows furrow. Mouths move. Whispering.
They know each other. Shared the boat, shared the fear, probably huddled shoulder to shoulder through those nights of storm and rot.
Me? I don’t belong. And they can see it, written all over my skin.
I ignore them and snap my gaze forward, fix it on the squat concrete building up ahead. A checkpoint. Of course, that’s where the line’s crawling.
My chest seizes. Heartbeat stuttering, then hammering twice as hard.
I don’t have any of the fucking papers you get when boarded. Not like the rest of them. You can’t just climb on a boat, sail to Ibitha, and expect to stay. Everyone knows that.
But desperate times and all…
We pass a crooked pole with a lantern lashed to it, and nailed right below, a weather-beaten pamphlet. The ink is faded, but the words still scream.
THE NINE DECREES OF IBITHA
When the red rain fell and the world rotted, Ibitha rose from ruin.
The wall was built stone by stone, the city carved out of bones and blood.
We endured because we stood together, and together we remain.
But strength demands order, and survival demands obedience.
To keep Ibitha strong, all who live within must uphold the Nine decrees.
Break them, and you break us all.
All must contribute. No work, no food.
All must wear tags. Concealment of your status is a crime.
Childhood is guarded. Adults must serve.
No one leaves the walls. Permission is survival.
The Pit is justice. Trial by blood. Survive, and walk free.
The Touched are marked. Once Turned, they burn.
The red rain is death. Seek cover. Do. Not. Get. Wet.
Obey the Watchers. Their word is warning.
The word of the Nine is final. Their judgment is law.
I skim the paper and the first one hits me in the chest like a fist: All must contribute. No work, no food.
My throat locks. I squeeze my eyes shut. Breathe, Kieran. Gods, fucking breathe. You have to live. You have to survive. You promised.
Her voice is there, even now, rasping through her last breath. Live, Kieran. Live. Be free.
And then the memory crashes in, the way her eyes glazed, how her hand slipped from mine, her body shuddering one last time before going still.
I’ll never scrub that moment from my skull. It’s carved there, burned deep where nothing can touch it.
The line shifts, dragging me forward again, and a murmur ripples through the passengers in front of me. A poor bastard gets pulled aside, directed back toward the boat. The sound that leaves him is half a whimper, half a curse. Desperate voices rise in his wake.
A child clings to the woman ahead of me, knuckles white against the fabric of her ragged dress. “We’ll be fine,” she whispers, though her voice trembles. “They don’t decline minors. They never do. It’s the law.”
A small sliver of an idea punches through me, sharp and shallow, when I hear the words. It’s an opening, a chance, maybe… If I play it right.
Childhood is guarded, the third decree stated. Confirming what that woman said.
I might have nothing. No papers. Nothing to my name. I don’t have the funds to smuggle myself in, to pay the bribes everyone whispers about. Those off-the-book fees that grease the council’s hands for entrance. And I sure as hell don’t have one of the trades or skills that get you waved through the checkpoint with a shiny new tag.
But I’ve got a card left to play. My face. The way I still look younger than I actually am. Boyish. Soft around the edges. I’m twenty years old, and fuck me, I usually hate that I don’t look my age. But right now…
If I stick to my story, that my father was the one who got attacked down in the ship’s belly, that I barely made it out alive… They won’t turn me away.
They can’t. Not according to their own decrees.
I force a breath through my lungs, roll my shoulders, and make myself smaller. Slack my features, widen my eyes. Tilt my chin down. Insecure. Timid. Seventeen. Not twenty. A scared kid who needs saving, not a man they can discard. I chant my new birth year over and over, trying to make me believe I’m actually seventeen and hope to the Gods I come across genuine.
The line shuffles forward slowly. Hours go by. People vanish through the checkpoint doors and don’t come back out, unless they’re dragged onto the boat again, screaming and crying. The rest? They’re probably guided to new homes, new jobs, new lives. Lucky bastards with a dog tag hanging off their necks, a claim to a spot on Ibitha.
Ibitha… where the walls are high, and Watchers stand guard to keep the Walkers out. The safest place left in this part of the world—at least, that’s what the word on the street is.
I try not to look at one of those mythical Watchers. The black-haired, golden-skinned one that saved me from the Walker. He’s all darkness and sharp edges, carved from violence. But my eyes snag anyway.
He stands like a tall shadow stitched into the docks, right beside the checkpoint doors. Smoke curls lazy from his lips, his jawline set hard as stone, and those pitch-black eyes rake over the line like he’s measuring every soul in it.
The dockworkers and other Watchers circle near him but never too close. Not because they don’t notice him—because they do. His presence is a blade, and no one wants to be the fool who leans in and gets cut.
My mother would’ve muttered about his aura, called it a warning, a perimeter all its own.
All stay away from him, all except her. The tall, warrior-like woman at his side. She smacks him in the stomach with a casual hand when he mutters something under his breath. He winces hard and shoots her a glare sharp enough to set anyone else on fire, but she only rolls her eyes and smirks.
There are only a handful of people left before me when the air shifts. The door to the checkpoint swings open, and a woman steps out.
And shit, I don’t know her name, but she’s important. I can just see it. The way what’s left of the crowd hushes, the way people look away too fast. The way the Watchers and workers seem to hold themselves higher.
All except for the broody one, who just squints and huffs, bulging arms scattered in scars crossed.
The woman is tall, blonde, draped in silk that doesn’t belong to this world anymore, with a red cloak around her shoulders. Her sharp smile doesn’t reach her eyes, which are calculated, cold, sweeping the line with the kind of ownership that makes my stomach drop.
“What are you doing out here, Joyeus?” the dark Watcher says. “Didn’t find enough poor souls to snatch inside? Or did you get bored counting your coin?”
She lets out a laugh too high, too polished. “Ah, Max. Good to see you back in one piece. Didn’t Commander Roe let you have a single day off after that spectacular little show in the Pit last night? If you’re ever low on funds, the offer still stands, you know. People would pay a hefty sum just for a taste of you.”
He only raises a brow. Silent. Unbothered. Dangerous. The dark-haired woman next to him snickers at his defiance.
“Well hello, Tass,” the newcomer purrs, turning her sharp smile on her. “I saw you last night in my den. Losing yourself quite nicely, weren’t you?”
The warrior-woman tenses, muttering something sharp under her breath, words I can’t catch.
“Just hobble along, you old goat,” Max growls, shoulders tensing. “Leave her the fuck alone.”
“Careful, Max.” Joyeus’ voice softens. “You wouldn’t want to insult a member of the Nine, would you? Or are you really that desperate to crawl back into the Pit the second you’ve won your freedom?”
The corner of his mouth curls, slow and lethal. “Watch me.”
And shit, the way he says it, the weight in those two words… My blood runs cold and hot at the same time.
Like he heard my shaky inhale, that dangerous gaze cuts to me. Just for a second—but enough. Enough for the silk-draped woman, Joyeus, whoever the hell she is, to notice where he’s looking. To notice me.
Her eyes sharpen, then widen in something that looks far too much like excitement.
“Well… what do we have here? I might get lucky after all.”
She steps forward, silk dragging against the dock planks, and my stomach drops. Instinctively, my eyes dart to the Watcher named Max, like he’s safer than her, like he isn’t the kind of man who held me by the throat moments ago.
I backpedal, panic clawing up my chest, but the sole of my flip-flop skims the dock’s edge. Saltwater churns below, dark and unforgiving, and I freeze so I don’t tumble in. I can’t fucking swim.
She stops right in front of me, smiling like a knife. The mother and child who’d been ahead of me seize the chance, scurrying over the dock into the checkpoint building, leaving me alone in her sights.
Her cold gaze drags over me, slow and deliberate. From my filthy, unruly hair to my dirt-streaked face to the blood on my toes.
“Where are your papers?” she demands, her voice all silk and steel.
“I—I don’t have them,” I stammer, throat dry. “My father… My father got attacked on the boat by a Walker. He died.” My head jerks toward the ship, pulse thundering from the nerves.
“No papers means no entrance.” The warrior-woman, Tass, cuts in as she steps closer, tone sharp. “Did you know that?” Then she looks over her shoulder, straight at Max. “Can we check the body for the papers?”
He’s closer now. Watching me intently, too intently, and something shifts in that dark gaze as he tilts his head just slightly. His voice comes out rough, dismissive. “No need. They already hauled it away, but I saw the papers when I checked the body before finding the Walker. It’s true, there was something about a son on it.”
Her eyes flick between us, assessing. “Really?”
I blink at him, but try to hide my surprise. Not knowing if he just signed my death sentence. Because there are no papers, at least none that mention me. And they also didn’t get rid of the body. I saw them dragging crates and cargo off that ship, but not a dead man who would have my supposed paperwork on him.
No boarding papers means no entrance. No entrance means I’m hauled straight back onto that boat. But now Max said that the body was my dad’s and he checked the paperwork… I can play my minor card.
I just don’t know why the fuck he would help me.
Tass’s gaze pins me in place. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen,” I blurt, too fast, my pulse jackhammering in my throat.
Both women study me. Joyeus with that cutting smile, Tass with something colder, harder, like she’s just waiting for me to crack.
“Do you have any other form of identification?” Tass presses.
I shake my head, jaw tight, praying they can’t hear how hard I’m swallowing. “No. My dad—”
“Has the papers.” She rolls her eyes like she’s already tired of this. “We should get the body,” she says then, already shifting her weight to turn.
Joyeus stops her by lifting one hand, then tilts her head, eyes bright with something that makes my skin crawl. “If he’s a minor, he’s allowed to stay. When do you turn eighteen?”
“Couple of months.”
Her smile sharpens. “Then he can fall under my care until he is of age.”
My stomach plummets. Care? She makes it sound like mercy. But from the way Max stiffens, the way his glare snaps to her, I know better.
“That’s not up for discussion,” Max growls. “He should go to one of the Houses, not your godsdamn brothel. He can’t work for you.”
A brothel. My chest clamps tight, the air shoving out of me. That’s what she means. That’s what she wants. She’s here to scout people to come work for her.
Joyeus spreads her arms, mock-innocent. “As far as I see it, he normally has the choice all underaged do. He can go back on the boat right now or he can rot in the orphan house like you two did. You know he’ll end up with me anyway when he turns eighteen, like all the skill-less who can’t find work do.” Her smile cuts sharper. “I send most of them straight to the mainland when I have no use for them.” She leans in, voice dropping. “But this one? With that face? He has a third option. He can come with me right now, learn the lay of the land before he’s eighteen. Serve five years. Then he earns his freedom.”
Freedom. The word lands like a noose around my neck like my mother’s parting words: Live Kieran, Live. Be free.
Max lets out a low, humorless laugh. “Yeah. Your kind of freedom.”
Joyeus turns her sharp grin on him. “Watch yourself, Max. We both know if you’re tossed back into the Pit right now, you wouldn’t last. Don’t think I missed you’ve been wincing with every move.”
His jaw locks, the muscle ticking in his cheek, but he doesn’t give her the satisfaction of a reply.
Joyeus doesn’t look at me again. She doesn’t need to wait for my answer. She knows what it’ll be. And when her hand closes around my arm, her nails biting into my skin, I let myself be hauled away because there’s no choice, not for someone like me.
The mainland means death. Maybe not quick, but certain. I barely survived the last few months as it is. If starvation doesn’t get me, the factions will. Looters too, the ones who chase boys like me for sport, laughing while they tear everything away.
And the orphanage… If it’s anything like the ones I’ve heard about, I’d rot there until they shipped me back out anyway.
Shit… she’s offering me something. Some kind of freedom.
Freedom on a leash, for five years. But freedom still. A price I’m willing to pay, because the alternative is worse. Even if… even if I can already guess what she’ll expect from me in return.
I don’t let myself think about it. Not yet. Not while, for all they know, I’m still underage. That buys me time. Time to make a plan. A plan to turn to when I supposedly turn eighteen. When I reach the age men can claim me without consequences.
But as she drags me toward the checkpoint, where they’ll put me in the system, where I’ll be registered and tagged, I glance back. He’s still there. Those pitch-black eyes cutting into me, tracking me like prey.
Like a tether.
Like a warning.
Like he’s already claimed me. And he’s just waiting to collect.
Chapter three
Max
“Why are we here, exactly? For the third time this week, might I add? I mean… you can only count so many times as part of our investigation.”
I cut Tass a look from where we’re holed up in a cracked leather booth, the smell of wine, sex, and sweat clinging to the walls. Truth is, I know exactly why we’re here. Why I’m here. Why I keep dragging us back to this hole-in-the-wall bar under the guise of investigating. And why I don’t mind that we got this assignment.
Our commander, Roe, sent us to keep an eye on Joyeus, off the books. I told him what went down at the dock, how she was scavenging for new workers, and he didn’t trust it. Apparently, one of our colleagues also went to him about the fact that there are unregistered people on the island. But since Roe's council too, he needs to be quiet. Needs leverage and to see how deep it goes before he makes a move.
