Niko's P.O.V.

“Cheers,” Jay grumbles, clinking our shots together before jabbing himself in the outer thigh.

I hate killing people, but I really hate being drugged to persuade me to kill people. For a split second, I consider ditching the shot entirely—retaining control over my breathing and heart rate when I’m in there, maybe faking a little extra energy as if I injected it.

The elevator dings, arriving at the last floor. Jay shoots me a terrifying glare. He’s already boosted and violence-prone, so I know I should watch myself around him.

But I still haven’t done the shot. I don’t want to.

Mom was right; I’ve lost my mind, and I’ll be killed for this.

As the door swings open, Jay rips the shot from my hands and slams it through my pants. We seethe at each other as a spreading web of heat burns my outer thigh, releasing adrenaline throughout my mind and body. Then the mystery drug takes over.

This isn’t a single dose. Jay and I grew hyper-tolerant to that about a year ago. At this boosted dose, my blood feels like it’s bursting from me, begging to be expressed through my twitching fingertips. It clouds my conscience and leaves a trail of destruction in my path. I do everything I’m told and more. And once I’m done with my orders, I turn to attack Jay for doing this to me.

Before I can tackle him to the ground and fight him hand-to-hand, he clutches my cheeks so hard that I’m concerned my molars will pierce through them.

“Don’t fuck this up again,” he says through his teeth.

The Communications members on the other side of our in-ears fall silent. They’re waiting to see what we decide to do to each other before issuing further instructions.

They’re probably anxious about losing such precious assets. It’s not uncommon for DoTD unit members to kill each other. We’re trained to. If someone goes rogue, no matter how friendly we are, we’re supposed to kill them.

But Jay and I keep our mutual devotion a secret; it’s the only taste of control we have that no one else has to know about. We know we’d die for each other, even if we have to pretend we’d kill each other. So they don’t see the hurt in Jay’s eyes. He’s not threatening me; he’s warning me. Terrified for my life, more than I am for my own.

We’ve seen what they’ve done to our friends for disobeying. They slaughter people, right in front of us. So we stopped making other friends. And we stopped disobeying.

Until now. I guess I’m even crazier than I thought. What would I do if Jay risked what I did, blatantly disobeying the Department in front of everyone? He’s right to be upset. He’s relying on me too. If I sabotage myself, I’ll be leaving him behind. Just because I couldn’t care about myself enough to care for him.

I have work to do.

I shove him off me. We distance ourselves, not wanting to do anything we regret. Or maybe it’s embarrassment. The mess of bodies we’ve left behind makes me want to keel over from imagining their families’ grief alone. They might have been “bad” people, maybe killers themselves, but they each had a life we stripped away from them. This isn’t us, I wish I could say. But it is. This is us. Disgusting, ravenous creatures. No longer deserving of the title, “human.”

The Department calls me the Wolf, but they fail to see what a beast Jay is. If I didn’t have him rescuing my sanity and taming me every five seconds, I wouldn’t be the terror I am. I could hate him for it, but I don’t. He’s both helping and hindering me, but with the best intentions. We’re just trying to figure life out, and we haven’t been handed the best examples. I would’ve never seen anything wrong with this life if Jay, Lilith, and Emmalee hadn’t pointed out the Departments’ manipulations.

They wouldn’t have seen anything wrong with it either if Lilith didn’t realize other women existed who were also attracted to women. Before then, we simply felt the Departments were “unfair,” but that didn’t matter; we were the problem for defying them. We never learned the word “discrimination,” or any of its counterparts. Once Lilith learned discrimination existed, she announced she was not only a lesbian, but also a terrorist.

I still regret dismissing her revelation the first time I heard it, unwilling to process the horrors of what I’ve done. Jay took it upon himself to educate me—which is exactly why he might be taking too much responsibility for my epinephrine hesitation, thinking he made a traitor out of me too early.

I have to be patient. Someday, we can get out of this. Just not now.

They airlift us once we grab what we came for: a metal safe I’m positive is also a bomb. It’s been chirping rhythmically ever since Jay and I removed it from the wall.

It turns out it is a bomb; a disarming specialist swoops in the instant I hand it over in the helicopter. We watch in a quiet calm, uncaring if it blows us all up. Everyone’s expressionless faces surrounding a live explosive tempt me to laugh. Maybe I fit in better than I thought.

The safe reveals a set of unmarked vials. Our Superior Commanding Officer slams it closed, realizing Jay and I are still watching. Then we’re all transferred to a DoTD private jet.

Jay and I try to hide our giddy relief. We’re finally going home.

But then I see him. The Commanding Officer I haven’t seen in months.

My previous life path is over. I’ve been complaining over digging through the topsoil, getting my hands a little dirty, but Dr. Sumner’s molten stare drags me closer to the earth’s core. Something in his frigid blue eyes threatens to bury me alive.

I’m ordered to deliver the unmarked vials to Dr. Sumner in the plane’s sectioned-off, back half. Alone.

I don’t understand how or why he’s here, but after I’m given my orders in front of my best friend, I don’t care what Sumner does to me next. Not after my mortification when Jay puts the pieces together: what I’ve been rushing off to do after work on the homeland.

The dreadful pain of Sumner’s requirements never hit me until now. Anxiety seeps through my mental armor, and pure horror worms through Jay’s eyes, shattering his stoic mask.

After Sumner takes thirty agonizing minutes to say his usual “hello,” he injects me with a dose of clear liquid from the unmarked vials.

Sumner has a higher ranking than our mission’s Superior Commanding Officer. It’s an order to take the injection, so I can’t say no. And I don’t. Not to him.

As the mystery liquid disappears into my body, my heart pumps through my ears in anticipation, spreading it even faster.

But then I don’t feel anything from it. I hope it stays that way.

Sumner warns me of potential side effects, admits he doesn’t actually know most of them anyway, and that’s why I’m helping him discover them. Then he stores the last remaining sample of my poison-free, pre-injection blood, summoning Jay for his dose. I can’t stop Sumner from injecting Jay either. Even if Sumner didn’t have bodyguards, he reminds us, this is what we signed up for.

And he’s right. This has been our designated reason for existing for as long as I can remember. And not just the Departments are at fault. Our own parents bred us for this job. Before, that was a fact of life. Now, it’s an irrevocable insult.

And while my eyes have opened, they also see how deep I’m trapped. Tied to this reality, for life, down to my soiled blood.

I had my doubts about the Departments’ intentions, but this is much, much worse than I realized. And I have a sick feeling it’s just the beginning. That where we are now will soon seem like paradise.

END OF EXCERPT

WANT TO CONTINUE READING? Soul Survivors debuts OCTOBER 15th, and is available for pre-order now on Amazon, Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, and more! Visit https://riverkaiart.com/soulsurvivors for a list of quick links.

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