The Six | A Reverse Harem Novel | ✔️

Forty Seven

If this was karma, I begged it to take me next.

Chris held me in his arms, banded to his chest, until we made it to Calderra Canyon. The jet activated its stealth mode and flew undetected across the city. Staring listlessly out of the window, I don’t utter a single word.

What can I say? What is there to say? I’d failed again. Another one of the people I love more than life itself died, taken from me, by a creation that should have never seen the light of day.

My throat ached from crying, and tears brimmed in my eyes at a disastrous rate. Before I pushed away the batch trailing down my cheeks, Chris gently wiped them away with a heartbroken grin on his face. He was putting on a brave front for me — for everyone. He was the leader of our group and Charlie right after him, and now that he was dead, Chris would have to lead the remaining ones alone.

I was terrified for the future, terrified for the present. Words, once so easily flooding from my mouth, wouldn’t leave my trembling lips. Caught in his lap, my frame shuddered brokenly. Our team, our family, was shattering bit by bit. Fuck. It hurt so bad.

“ETA is four minutes and 37 seconds.”

Coordinates from our heads directed our path. Iris was at the helm of the plane, watching for dangers while we dealt with our own crippling mortality. I’d built The Six to be strong and unstoppable. What were they now? I couldn’t answer under pain of death.

While I sat in Chris’ arms, begging the tears to go away, I continued to finish the reset codes. I was only two-thirds of the way done, but the lines I had, jazzed with the system. There was something different about it this time. I just knew all of my hard work was going to pay off.

Even if it was too late for Charlie, Lewis, and Jason.

All of this heartache and death had to pay off someway. It had to. I wouldn’t let their sacrifice be in vain.

The plane shifted and dipped as the landing gear unfolded with a groan. We were close to my penthouse, circling the building. Steadily, Iris declined the speed and angled the ship to gracefully land on the roof. As soon as the engines shut down, the door opened and stairs unfolded themselves.

Chris carried me across the roof and into the elevator. Behind us, great steel doors swished shut and the elevator jerked into motion. In less than a minute, we were standing inside of my previous home.

Not much had changed since the last time I saw it. Dust, light and fine, covered the surfaces. My fingers drifted in the brown particles, heaving a shocked breath as we rounded the corner. I’d forgotten the main feature in the living room. Though they were far from me physically, they weren’t far from me mentally. Depression would strike when I was alone, but I found a single image would help remind me why I was fighting.

Hanging above the black marble fireplace was a photo of me and my Six.

Charlie and Chris stood on opposite sides of me, their hands resting on my shoulders. Hayden and Michael stood next to them, slighting forward and kneeled next to me where Jason and Lewis. Sobbing loudly, I slapped my hands over my eyes. Half of the men in that portrait were dead.

“I’m so sorry,” I croaked. “I’m so sorry. I never meant—”

I cut myself off, blubbering nonsense in Chris’ arms. Without a word, he turned me over and thrust my face into his chest. Clinging to his powerful biceps, I let go of the pain.