THE SONG ABOVE IS THE AUDIO FOR THE FINAL SCENE

...

Before he can reply I glimpse Scor walking down the riverbank, machete resting on his shoulder, drug bag in hand. Reid and I fall into prickling silence, "Everything alright here?" Scor looks at me as he arrives at the edge but I rush to the shore so I can pull him away from the water.

He's masking his phobia to look hard in front of Reid.

"Yeah, talk about it later." I murmur, grabbing his waist so I can nudge him toward the tree with all my stuff.

Scor glares Reid down as he places his hand on the small of my back, "Nice to see you don' got two zero's behind your eyes." He snipes but it hits a nerve. He's obviously referring to the tattoo on my hip, which insinuates we were in a situation that was intimate enough for him to know about it.

Now it really sounds like we fück.

We only used to. The crackle of jealousy in Reid's eyes sparks into an outright burn, but he covers it with an easy grin, "Yeah, heard I tried to punch on, sorry about it mate." His tone is anything but friendly.

Scor smiles right back, turning to stand between Reid and I as I collect my cargo pants and pull them on. I refuse to look at Reid as I buckle them up, hating how revealing my bra is now that it's wet.

"You got them pillies?" I grate, looking to the med-bag in Scor's slack hand.

He glares at Reid, his chin tipped slightly to make up the height difference. His manic, disdainful glare is potent with a protective and possessive glean.

Reid scoffs a noise at my question, and it hits a nerve. He's referring to the party, when I got so fucked up that Mal followed me.

"Oh fuck off," I spit, "You jus' fuckin' copped to Pixie Dust so don' go lookin' down on me-."

Reid's glare falls to mine awfully quick, "No. I'm jus' surprised you got a boyfriend who likes to cook." He snaps, cutting my first assumption in half.

Scorpius shakes his head, his risen hackles puffing out even more at the derogatory taunt. Manics are known for enjoying the rougher sides of nightlife.

"Yeah, well you're a prejudiced small-city fuck with a chip on your shoulder and a bad attitude. No surprises here." Scor spears his machete in the ground, fuming at Reid. "Thai said you'd want this." He chucks a set of shorts at Reid's muscular chest who catches them with a simmering expression, but Scor has already turned away. He drops the bag at the log and turns to me, disregarding the threat in the air, as though acknowledging it would be the tipping point to make him throw the first punch.

"You know how to pick 'em." Scor snaps at me, his blue eyes meeting mine with a dose of judgement, angry and disapproving. "You're fuck for brains, you know that?"

Reid wrinkles his face up as he tugs his shorts on, disliking the accusation which implicates him, but more than anything, confused. That's not what a boyfriend would say.

"Yeah, chat some more shit." I mutter, gritting my teeth as I try to stretch my neck out. Scor steps around me, pulling my hair off my neck as I refuse to acknowledge Reid. The intimacy of the action earns a jealous, vindicated glare, "Not like you got two legs to stand on." I don't focus on Reid and bicker back at Scorpius instead.

Scor grumbles in reply, loosening my bra strap as he inspects my shoulder, and I gasp at the instant alleviation of pressure, "You're a dumbass I told you to take it off." He snaps but I close my eyes to stifle an argument, however, he rebuts my bitchy expression, "No for real, it's extenuating the trauma. You still got that singlet? Or you got to wear one of mine?"

I groan in complaint, mortified to experience this kind of a lecture given our company. Manics don' believe in subtlety. "Mine's fine." I snip.

"Liar." He bickers, "You always bitch when you get the smell of blood on you. Like some OCD nut. But you're in luck, baby," He patronizes, kissing my cheek, "I got a clean one that's too small. Packed it for you."

Reid watches us coolly, though his keen eyes observe every facet of our exchange, narrowing specifically in on my growing concoction of embarrassed frustration.

I sigh, "Scor please, I'm fine, jus' look after Reid-." He pulls the rag from his waistband and swings it into my hand.

At the same moment that I realise it's the singlet, he adds, "Don' worry Viper. You so flat no one will notice-."

I smack his arm as he passes me, "Chat, some more, shit."

He grins, "Oh bout your little ti-."

"Are you fifteen?" I balk, but then I witness Reid glance at the log beneath him with the hint of a smile, like he's somehow amused. Outraged and purely mortified that this has descended into a discussion about the size of my—. I spin around and turn out the black shirt.

Scorpius approaches Reid, "Alright. Big guy." The scorn is palpable, "You promise not to kick my nose in if I take a look at that?"

Reid don' reply, but with my back turned, I assume Scor takes his disregard as permission. He crouches, unzipping the bag as he rifles through it. "What 'dem man do to you? Burns from an open flame or burns from hot metal? Or chemical?"

I shrug the shirt on over my bra, guiding my bad arm through before I reach and unhook it. My cheeks flame at the knowledge that I'm halfway stripping in front of them, but I stubbornly disregard the notion and crouch over my pack, stuffing my things into it before I grab my lighter. I hold it with my teeth as I pull a hoodie free. How could he go from breaking down, to yelling, to humour?

Reid's deep voice is drawling and callous, "'em torched a knife till it was glowing yellow."

I glance at him subtly, watching as, in the moonlight, Scor wrinkles his nose like it's an inconvenient thought but not particularly chilling. When you've seen men disembowelled for a laugh, a theatrical torture method isn't much to shiver at.

Reid don' seem to think much of the torture tactics either, but he pays attention to Scorpius's weathered indifference.

Reid's glare fastens on something in the sand as though he knows my gaze is hovering on his cheek.

Scor places a knee on either side of Reid's calf and bolsters him in place. I twist away, shaking out my hoodie.

"You kick me in the balls and I'll introduce you to another red hot knife." The machete in the sand is within arm's reach, "feel me?"

Reid don' reply and I jam my arm through the first sleeve, collecting my lighter from my teeth before I tug it over my head. Scor presumably surveys the wound, "How'd you rip so much off?"

"Fabric was burnt into it." Reid mutters. "You got anti-biotics?"

A bottle cap catches as Scor presses the top down and twists. "Yeah. Flucloxacillin, azithromycin, ciprofloxacin, take your pick." His sarcasm is sprinkled with condescension.

Reid's attention narrows, "Azithromycin? You dog." Scor looks up at him suddenly, half surprised, half unsure of his insinuation.

I find myself on the outside of their joke, unable to glean the meaning of their prickly regard.

"First, I'm a cooker. Now I'm a slut." Scor scorns, like he wan' kick Reid back to the hell we came from just to right the disrespect he just weighed at him. "Tell me, Vi. I ever told you to take a course of zithro?"

I squint, "No?"

Reid shakes his head, the flash of rage on his face peppered by a hostile scoff, like half of him wants to laugh, "Oh cause you're honest with her?"

The burn of intrigue grips me, hanging to understand the nuance of their conversation.

Scor flashes Reid a charming smile as he lowers the bottle over his leg, "Manics don' lie. Smart ass."

"Sure as hell they do."

I turn away to zip the bag but then Reid groans, and I look to them, finding him leaning back against his palms, gripping the tree as Scor douses his thigh in disinfectant. Reid's leanly muscular chest rises and falls, and he seethes out a noise with a brittle grimace, "Fuck, cunt. What is that shit?" He looks at the sky.

I watch Scor as he watches Reid, his antagonistic expression peppered by shock, like he didn't expect a view like that. But then he finds my gaze, his crystalline eyes shimmering with a newfound understanding.

See.

Scor clears his throat, halfway smirking, "Disinfectant and an enzyme that speeds up healing. Stings like a bitch, huh?"

"Fuckin' oath," Reid mutters, wrinkling his nose when Scor douses him in more.

"Vi, princess, you gon' come help?" Scor gestures.

Reid, again, observes my failure to dislike Scor's pet name, his eyes following me as I round them and crouch. He adjusts his leg to give me room, "Gauze?" I murmur, collecting the sterile packet and offering it. Part of me wants to laugh at Scor's reaction.

"Yuh," Scor trades me the bottle, "You pass me the second skin? Him got hands; he can cut it while I set the gauze."

I lean, collecting the roll of adhesive as Scorpius lays the gauze, and I sit useless as Reid takes a pair of surgical scissors from me, rolling out the plastic dressing. My gaze wanders from his hands to his face as he sizes it up, but then we catch eyes, and I bite my cheek, looking down with a prickly expression.

I open Scor's phone, entering my CITE.K pass, but then Scor's shoulders bunch up. "What?" I murmur, trying to assess his tension.

But he grimaces like the damage is done. Confused, I look from him to the screen, but then a painfully familiar mug shot catches my attention.

My face is twisted into a bitchy glare with rude, defiant eyes, and my messy black hair is tucked behind my ears. My chain earring hangs, and my off-the-shoulder top reveals a bruise-ridden décolletage with streaks of soot and blood.

My mug shot was taken last year when Scor and I got picked up for a job in Holders Bay. It's different to my army profile.

"250k?" I balk, my heart dropping. "Jesus nine crews have already claimed it," I hiss, scrolling through the hit urgently.

"What?" Reid snaps.

Scor wrinkles his nose, gritting out a nonchalant grin, "Only three are Holders groups." He tries to redeem my growing panic.

"Three?" Reid grates.

"An' only six Holders guys on me." Scor adds, shrugging slightly as he returns to laying the last piece of gauze. He collects the second skin from Reid, unpeeling the first half and rising higher on his knees as he carefully adheres it.

"You too?" I scroll, my jaw slackening as a queue of photographs whiz along the screen.

"The other's got 50k on their heads, but him, you and me got 250k a piece." Scorpius glowers at Reid who seems irritated by the knowledge.

"Two fifty?" I grate. "Scor you got twelve claims!" A dull groan sounds out in the background, and Reid glances to the sky, but neither of us pays attention to what is probably just a transport vessel passing over the army territory that's beside this REDZONE.

He flashes me a theatrically sarcastic grin. "Yeah, an' only six are Holders men. We're chillin'." He reiterates.

I make a noise of dismay, but then a red alert flashes in our eSight and we mutually whip our heads.

"That's a Viper Zero," Scor launches to his feet, and I grasp my bag when a second alert enters my vision.

"Cunt!" I shout, the deafening roar of the fighter plane belting the air like a boom of thunder. "Go! Go!" We barrel over the log, diving for the cover of trees as another alert pins in my eSight. "There's a helicopter!" It's far away, but the sound of its blades is already beating the air.

Reid, on my tail, nearly skids into my back when Scorpius catapults through a thick spider web, instantly batting the air, spinning as he lets out a ridiculous yelp.

Spurts of water shoot into the air before two trajectories of bullets hail into the beach, scattering through the log before the fighter jet whips past.

"Fuck cunt," Scorpius shouts, diving for the thick cover. "Fuck they got us with our dicks in our hands no way in fuck we can get away by the highway."

"They're gon' shoot up the car," I peer through the thick vegetation at the open beach in the distance and the trail of smoke from the fire. Scorpius's beloved rig sparkles like a coin just waiting to get plucked. Like Crippy's tent, waiting to get jumped.

"That chopper got to be full of Vets." Reid gestures, "They land and we're fucked."

The F-2, or rather Viper Zero, is an old model fighter jet. The base Trick stole housed the bulk of the air force fleet. A fighter jet and a platoon of soldiers against Scor's ute, and a couple of Lake Darling youth? We're capital fucked.

"Why?"

"Them guns. Classified us as part of a criminal org with terrorism ties." Scor talks quickly like he's answering the easiest of all questions whilst his mind races. A boom interrupts him, and amidst the tree cover a flaming missile launches, narrowly missing the re-approaching F-2.

"Cunt, cunt," I cuss, "Jesus fucking christ the KillTagz just fired at it."

"Is the army hitting them?" Scor tries. The helicopter zooms in our direction.

My phone, gripped tight between my white knuckles, snags my attention.

SURRENDER TO THE SOLDIERS AND I WILL GET YOU OUT.

"No, it's us." I flip my phone around, and upon each of them reading Reid snags it from me urgently before he presses his teeth into the sidebar and removes the chip, pocketing it swiftly.

He doesn't stop, "That chopper is us done." He rises, gesturing behind him as he weaves between a tree before skirting the visible path. In the distance, Thai and Elias shout for us.

A hail fire of fighter jet bullets tears through the sky cover and digs into the tray of the ute, scattering through the camp where the others had been sleeping. Blu screams. "Who's got the keys?" Reid asks.

"I'll get in the driver, get them man in the tray. We dip toward the RaltiBorx border then maybe the KillTagz can keep the army busy-." A harsh bang and then an explosion cuts him off, followed by a spinning groan. Impact.

They just shot the jet out of the air.

"We're in fuckin' business." Scorpius beams.

I bolt, making it to the camp fire in what feels like two breaths, before I hoist a supply pack with my good arm, "Get in the truck! Go! Go! Go!" Reid shouts. The other's turn tail, collecting weapons, bags, and sprinting.

Reid snags my second bag, nudging me as he ushers Thai ahead. The boot thuds when Trent launches over the back, helping Blu in who cradles her arm, before Sax helps Elias.

Scor flips the engine and it roars to life, the headlights washing the creepy forest in white before he flicks them off. Two small strips of light illuminate the sand beneath, but when I prepare to hop the boot Reid gestures at the cab, "Get in." He tugs the back door open, the car already rolling as I hoist myself in, Reid piling in behind. Just when the wheels spin, the torque bites, and Reid slaps the door shut.

Scor off roads us up the old stream, the gears groaning as he fights to get up a particularly steep rockface, before he gestures at the glove box, "Vi. You got to get pieces to all them, this gon' be a shoot out if KillTagz are waiting."

I worm through the centre gap and collect two handguns, hoisting them over the passenger seat before collecting my own, and the shotgun wedged between the door and the chair. The guns click against each other as I ferry them back to Reid, who opens the back window, "E! Yo', three pieces. You, me, Sax?"

"Trent a better shot." Elias disagrees, passing Saxon and distributing the weapon to Trent who inspects a nasty splinter of wood protruding from Blu's arm.

"Vi you shotgun?" I open my mouth to say yes, but then I glance at my spent arm and grit my jaw.

"Myers, you big and bad enough for shotgun?" Scorpius tries again, and Reid glances to me, understanding my inability to oblige, before he hoists himself through the passenger and driver, putting the window down as he inspects the weapon. He checks the chamber expertly, though Scor slows to a crawl as we approach the concealed highway exit. We'd never use the road that leads into the campsite, it's too much of a bottleneck, but they might have seen us off-road along the stream.

The chopper roars in the distance, landing on the beach we just escaped. Soldiers shout.

The V8 engine thrums, low and brutal.

He takes us through the trees and rounds us onto the tar, keeping his lights off as he tears in the direction of the RaltiBorx territory. Instantly two shots sound out, though they don't hit anything vital, and within minutes we're flying. But my heart falls to the pit of my stomach. This is a trap.

Scor pushes the engine, squeezing it for every inch of the road it can consume.

"Fuck," He cusses, "Fuck they were fuckin' waiting."

"Any other way?"

"No back roads. Highway is all there is for K's." Scor swears, drumming a frantic beat on the wheel before he flicks the lights on. It paints the empty highway and the darting road lines, but horrifyingly, it illuminates three dishevelled figures standing at different distances.

Their eyes shine as they stare, the first directly in our path. Scor swerves, narrowly dodging the skinny man.

The Zero's are gaunt and pasty, their clothes ratty and torn.

Amongst the overgrown trees bordering the gaping highway, zero carcusses lie strung through a makeshift barbwire fence, their entrails dangling like charms in the wind.

The second figure dives at the car, the back wheel catching its arm. However, Reid pops the last before it has a chance, and the man falls.

"Snap any you see." Scor grits his teeth, groaning lowly, "Vi baby I don' like this. They puttin' their goons on us to wig me out."

"Scor," I gasp when several glim-screens flicker into view ahead, a reflective light flashing as...

Three utes as rigged up as Scor's, and a giant road train behind, sit long in the distance, blocking the road.

"Alright they're not gon' touch us soon as I pull the Trick card." Scor tries to recover.

"We're fucked if they ID us." Reid mutters. "250k a piece? Trick don' mean shit."

"They're in Zero trade. We're not their merch, they don' even ID as routine, doubt they got hands on a scanner to run our faces."

I chew my lip as Scor winds down through the gears, the engine groaning indignantly like it wants to run its legs.

They flick their lights, and instantly the night grows awash in LED glow. The forest line reveals swarms of Manics, most of them so close to the brink that they're barely indistinguishable from Zeros. My heart races.

Standing before the war convey is a man in a sheep skin jacket with hundreds of rings pierced into his face, his ears stretched and his eyebrows sagging from the weight of the silver jewellery punctured throughout his skin.

Scor slows to a halt, stomping on the clutch, pulling the hand brake, before he lets it idle in neutral. "If I try to go they'll shoot your friends up..." He says.

Nausea grips me like a fist clenching my guts. "Scor you not gon' get traders to let a million dollars slip out they hands." I clench my fist.

"Tell 'em to sit pretty." Scor tells me.

"Yous stay put," I say through the back window.

"Line him up?" Scorpius asks, and Reid arches a disliking brow, though his impenetrable features barely reveal the slightest flutter of nerves.

Scorpius pops the door, and Reid takes queue, nudging his door open before he pulls mine, bobbing his head like I'm best to get out too.

Scorpius raises his arms in surrender, though the machete in his left-hand advances long and high. He smiles charmingly as the battlefield of lights shoot from every angle. The metal man sits against a rust-chewed motorbike, flicking a lighter under a crack pipe as he pulls, inhaling with a slight lilt of his eyes.

The docile wind steals his vapour, whisking it into the air as he exhales.

Scorpius rounds the car, walking a few paces before he stands in front of his headlights, which washes a god-like shadow against the body of their road train. The still night is hauntingly stiff. Like the air is a cold blanket, snaking its way around my middle and sides.

Reid raises the shotgun and balances the barrel on the hunting light of Scor's Hillux. He takes aim right at the metal man's eye. The metal man looks at Reid, his nose twitching like he can feel a laser tracing his face.

Scor keeps his hands raised, though his eyes never really carry the surrender.

My wet hair dangles around my face. Silence pervades, aside from the clinking of parts in the idle ute. Dread gnaws at my stomach, my ears ringing like a swarm of bees trying to get into my head.

"Heard the man who run these parts is Kim." Scorpius finally breaks the night.

The metal man lowers his poison, collecting the metal pipe that was neatly perched against his bike.

"You hear that. Did you?"

"Trick told me he'd do good by me should I get to shake him hand." Scorpius says.

"Got two pretty girls. Hard to come by meat like that in these parts." His deep, gravel voice is loud. I breathe slowly, measuredly, trying to shoot my mind into the future and predict where this mess will leave us.

"Pitty they's not your typical merchandise."

"Well figures none of yous come in the zero variety. Got faces too nice for that." Metal man approaches, "See you get to shake hands with me you might come to know times are rough round these parts. We's always looking to make a pretty penny at Dime Street. Typical merch or not."

"The girls will go for sixty, but them man twenty a piece. I'm just looking to ferry them so you let us through and I'll double that."

The metal man arrives right in front of Scor, his giant frame dwarfing the shadow that Scorpius's figure had cast.

"Double?" The metal man grins, nodding slightly as he extends a dirt-caked hand. But then he shouts a shrill whistle into the dead air, and on queue, the Manics surrounding the road enclose, hoards of their near-zombie faces surrounding us.

...

https://youtu.be/_m9SXw5Vuoo

Dun dun dunnnn!!!!

that's a wrap.

Hope you guys enjoyed, stay tuned for Book 2 -> HERATIX

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