Born Captive (Broken Angel 1)

Before Aidrick unzipped the bag, he paused and turned a lighter shade of skin tone. “Do the others know of this?”

Vash shook his head. “No.” He hadn’t told the other alphas about the money. They would have dissuaded him. “I don’t care anymore.”

“About?”

“This world. People like you. I’ve grown tired of the desperation,” he said.

“You’re beginning to sound like Cassian,” Aidrick said.

“The difference is I know that I can’t save the world.”

Aidrick started for the bag and unzipped the leather. The cobalt and silver coins magnetized him. “You will destroy it instead?”

It wasn’t a question Vash wanted to answer. The only thing he could count on was the knowledge that he would undo his brother’s soul. He’d cut through his lungs until the blood met his airways. Whatever the world did after was the rest of mankind’s doing.

“Ninety-three miles into the ocean from the shoreline,” he said. “That’s where the omegas ship in from. I deposit most of them at the clubs. But you knew that already.

Most of them.

Vash knew more than Aidrick did, but he couldn’t picture this facility. As far as he knew, the Republic’s structures on the water were all demolished.

“A plant?” Vash asked.

“For Cassian’s brother, you don’t know too much about him,” Aidrick said.

“I have been left out of the decision-making process,” Vash said through clenched teeth.

“It’s where he hides the best of the best. The ripest you can imagine,” Aidrick said.

“The coordinates,” Vash

said.

Aidrick wrote them down, a sly smirk on his face. “And you trust that I’ll lead you to him?”

“If these coordinates don’t lead me to him, I’ll string you out in the pipes,” he said. “Consider this a warning.”

Vash had no time for games. Releasing the trigger of the rifle, he sent a bullet into his robust shin. Shattered fragments sprayed across their body, met with Aidrick’s harsh cries.

Vash didn’t believe the world was capable of any more change. Mankind, as far as he was concerned, had repeated the same mistake after same mistake. It was tireless and incessantly captivating. He watched as men worked to their ruin. The books of history weren’t needed when the obvious end was in front of them.

He took until the taking meant nothing to him anymore. For that, he could thank Cassian. He got him to think of a different life, promising him vast fortunes of empire and then the absolute control over production of humanity.

Everything became an industry ready to be exploited. The world itself deserved to be a decayed ruin because the rules of civilization required a drastic end of flames and ruin.

But if they could become God, everything would change in their favor. Cassian showed him his vision through elaborate choice of words.

It gave Vash a feeling of emptiness and left him hopelessly alone. The world had no more excuses to fall back on, and all Cassian wanted was the chance to rule. His obsession with power would be his own demise.

Reaching into his pocket, Vash felt his hollowness consume him. Vash was not the soldier he thought. He was a man on the verge of complete surrender.

He floated in the dark cargo hold of a freighter. One trip. No return. It didn’t matter if he died because there was nothing more to get from the world. It had run out of excuses.

The waves rolled the boat, keel clacking against the curl of the next. They never seemed to cease. Vash’s stomach twisted into knots, and his head spun with relentless images of death and despair.

And the children… what were he and the pack supposed to teach them? They would open their eyes to a world worse than it was today. Everything would come undone for them.

The snake’s thirst isn’t endless. It does run out, and when it does, it retreats into a pit of fire.