by Meli Raine
Every space between. Outside the shower. In my apartment.
Space itself.
Lily turns around, her hands scraped up as she reaches for soap. Extending my arm above her, I take the bar and lather it, washing her back with big, long circles.
“If I could roll back time and stop them, I would,” I say, the steam cushioning my words.
“I know.”
“I'm so sorry.” The words aren't enough.
“I–I can't stop thinking about his head. His skull. How the bone–how it hurt to hit him so hard. How my elbow screamed, like I was the one being, you know–” Her hands go up, gesturing. “Knife. Hit. Cut.”
“Stabbed?”
“Yes!”
“No one imagines that until their first time,” I say, commiserating. Losing her words shows she’s still at risk, stress on display.
She shivers as if a ghoul walked over her grave.
“Sean, I don't think I can–” Her hips move away from mine, pivoting so we're not aligned, the temptation to move against her body in upward strokes removed entirely.
“Shhhh.” My fingertips cover her lips. “I don't want that. I just want to be with you. I want to help you wash away what happened today.”
“It feels like it'll always be on my skin.”
“I know. It always does. But it fades.”
“Does it ever go away completely?”
“No.”
“You never lie to me, do you?”
“Not when I can help it.”
“You're not lying now, are you?”
“I wish I were, Lily. I wish I were.” An ache no one can take away vibrates between us, her arms folding around my ribs, my chin resting on the top of her head, right where she stabbed Justin. We stand in the hot shower so long, it turns lukewarm, heat wasted, but then entropy reminding me it's not.
Nothing is wasted.
We finish rinsing, the shower over. There's a shift in consciousness that comes right after you kill someone. The horror is still there, relived over and over. Center stage, though, is a place for rotation when it comes to the mind. Nothing engages it for very long. Violence tends to stick the longest.
Violence and pain.
But at some point, it moves on to the next act. Never let it be said that the mind isn't fickle.
As we dry off, I pat her back gently with the towel. Bruises are appearing, silent reminders of today’s violence that I’m glad she can’t see. We dress. Leading her to bed, I close the bedroom door and turn down the covers. Lily crawls in, settling into place on the right. Curling my body around her, shielding her as best as I can, I hold her as she cries, great wracking sobs lifting her body off the mattress.
Slowly, slowly, they subside, like the tide changing with every wave.
And then the last sob. The last shudder. The last tear.
Lily fades off into sleep in my arms, safe.
Always safe in my arms.
Chapter 31
Sleep eludes me. I'm half in, half out, hovering in that non-sleep state where we fool ourselves into thinking we're right on the brink of release. Clock says I've been in bed with her for three hours.
Feels like three days.
Like three seconds.
Eyes wide open, I look at the ceiling, the globe from the light fixture a weak spot. The window, too. Every point of entry comes to my attention, calling my name, taunting me.
Romeo and his stateless people have found the cracks and crevices no one else can.
I turn over on my belly and look at Lily. Her face is relaxed, her breathing even, a strand of hair across her nose. Like this, she's so innocent. So lovely.
But back on that hiking trail, she was so damn fierce.
Protecting her is no longer just a mission. Hasn't been for a long time. This is about protecting my heart, too.
Protecting it from being broken if they get to her.
Sliding out from under the covers carefully, I try not to wake her. She stirs. I freeze.
A long sigh comes out of her as she curls into a ball like a kitten.
Then peace.
My kitchen is empty. The guys are outside, I know, hidden so they're not obvious, but close enough in case of a crisis. I look in my fridge. Milk.
My stomach growls. Haven't eaten since this morning.
Look in the cabinet. A tin of chocolate-milk mix.
Two minutes later, I'm stirring mindlessly when cold dread fills me.
“Why are you up?”
I jump a thousand miles into the sky. “Bloody hell, Lily! Don't do that!”
“Do what?”
“Scare the shit out of me like that!”
“You sounded Irish when you said that.”
“I fecking well have the right to,” I reply, laying the accent on thick.
She laughs. It's good to hear that sound.
“Want some?” I offer up the glass. “Chocolate milk.”
“You drink chocolate milk?”
“Sure.”
“That's a kid's drink.”
I shrug. “I was a kid once.”
“It's hard to imagine that.” She leans her ass against the edge of the counter, crossing her arms over her t-shirt. “What were you like as a kid? I saw that picture of you with your brother. The one Jane found.”
“I was a kid. Like any other kid.” I chug my milk. It suddenly doesn't taste good, but I drink it anyway.
“What really happened?” she whispers. “With your parents? Your brother?”
I'm down to the end, the gritty mix that sank to the bottom of my glass tasting like sweet dirt. I choke it down. I look around.
“I told you. They died. My brother disappeared.”
“You can tell me the truth.”
“I know.”
“No, Sean,” she says, stepping into my space, giving me her warmth. “Please tell me. Please. I need to understand you.”
“I'm a simple guy.”
“You're lying.”
I grab the milk and the mix. Bending down, I find a bullet blender.
“What are you doing? I don't drink cow's milk. You know that.”
“I want another one,” I lie. The motor makes a steady, loud sound. Loud enough to screw with any listening devices in here. Pulling Lily close, I get my lips to her ear and say:
“It's simple. I want to find him.”
“Find your brother? Wyatt?” She follows my lead and gets her mouth close to my ear. We flip-flop turns.
“Yes.”
“How old is he again?”
“Twenty-seven.”
“How old was he when he disappeared?”
“Four.”
Her hand moves to her throat, a gesture of emotion. “Four? He was so little. I thought he was an adult, working for some secret agency.”
“You're... close.”
“Just say it, Duff. I don't have the energy to figure this out.”
“He might work for the same people Romeo works for.”
She turns red. “WHAT?”
“Shhhhh. He was stolen, Lily.”
“Stolen? You mean kidnapped?”
“He was stateless.”
“How? Are you–are you–?”
“No. I have a birth certificate. I'm not one of them.”
“Then what–”
“I don't have much time. Can't blend forever.”
She nods.
“My dad and mom were off-the-grid folks. Back to the land. Dad got weirder and more paranoid, my Gran said. By the time they had Wyatt, they decided not to record the birth. One day, when I was eleven and Wyatt was four, these men came. They beat my dad to death, shot my mom, made it look like a murder-suicide, and stole Wyatt.”
“But you're alive!”
“They left me for dead.”
She touches my scar. “Is that where you really got this? It wasn't from combat?”
I nod. I don't need to explain that an IED added to it years later.
“Gran went to Alic
e to find Wyatt. The local police were useless. Said there was no proof he ever existed, so... Gran took me home to Philly. Raised me best she could.”
I turn off the blender.
I take a sip.
She just blinks and blinks and blinks.
Then her fierce hug bowls me over.
“You worked for her all those years because you're trying to find your brother?” she whispers, so soft, it might be the snore of a butterfly.
I nod.
“I can't believe I ever doubted you,” she says, louder.
I yawn, and my jaw pops. It's contagious.
Hers does, too.
“C'mon,” I tell her, offering my hand. “Let's go back to sleep.”
“You think I'm going to sleep more after everything that’s happened?”
“Then let's pretend to sleep.”
We crawl into bed. She wiggles her ass against my front, inviting me to spoon. I do. It feels nice.
Better than nice.
Meanwhile, earthquakes happen inside me, tectonic plates rearranging themselves. No way am I sleeping tonight, but as that thought hits me, I yawn again.
Huh.
Maybe I'm wrong.
“Duff?” Lily asks in a sleepy voice.
“Yeah?”
“You need to buy almond milk for me.”
“I will. Tomorrow.”
“Good. Get a half gallon.”
“That's a lot.” An unfamiliar warmth washes over me, muscles feeling heavy and slow. She moves against me, seeking more skin contact. The comfort is nice. Relaxing.
Strange, yet familiar.
“I'm planning to be around for a while.”
I squeeze her. “I'll get a gallon.”
Chapter 32
On my stomach. Sheet in my mouth. Blinking hard. No sunlight on my face. Sheers are pulled closed. I stare at the window.
Bang bang bang!
Someone's pounding on my door.
“Duff!” A muffled shout from the hallway. What's going on?
I sit up.
Except... I can't move. My hands are clenching the cotton sheets, fingertips like aging raw meat. I'm half naked, boxer briefs on, shirt off.
Lily.
Where's Lily?
There's three notes, pieces of paper torn out of a larger page. Three? Why three?
I squint. The notes become one. Not three. My eyes made three out of just one.
I lick my lips.
But my tongue can't move.
* * *
The president wants to see me.
* * *
The paper flutters as I move my fingers to grasp it better, eyes focusing to read. That's Lily's handwriting, loopy and feminine. Even the i has a heart over it for the dot.
A thin tickle on the back of my hand makes me rotate my wrist.
I freeze.
Three black spiders stare back at me.
I focus.
No. Just one.
God, no.
“Lily,” I whisper as I hold my hand up high, shaking the eight-legged black weapon off my middle finger, reaching for my gun. I grab it, the cold metal stabilizing me. My legs are rubber bands. I flop to the ground, willing my hips to work, my head pounding like someone's pressing a concrete block on it.
Standing on legs that shake like a broken compressor, I find the spider. An empty water glass from my bedside table makes a fine prison for it. This one needs to be kept whole.
BANG BANG BANG!
My front door flies open, the handle smashing a hole into the wallboard.
“DUFF!”
I look down at the spider inside the glass. The spider tries to find an out, scrambling, moving fast from side to side, wasting effort that is futile. As I try to watch it, the room spins.
Where is Lily?
Silas charges into the room as I drop back to the floor, knees weak, gun positioned down.
“What is wrong with you?” he asks, grabbing my jaw with one hand, yanking it up. He kicks the gun away. Shadows fill the doorway, two guys in suits.
I want to answer.
But I don't know.
I don't know what's wrong with me.
“Your eyes. They're like black pennies. What the hell are you on, Duff? You're an addict?” Contempt spits out of him with that last word.
“No,” I say, my tongue coated with fur. “No.”
Spider bites connected to El Brujo. Victims tortured by them. Lily's hospital room. The stateless turning against us. Romeo is stateless.
The president wants to see me.
“Where the hell is Lily?” Silas demands. “What did you do with her?”
I look at him, skin tingling, eyes rolling in different directions. I can't form the words. Can't think the thoughts. I'm spiraling down, down, down a drain like something you wash away into the sea.
He snatches the note. Reads it. Looks at me.
“Damn it,” he hisses.
“Drug,” I say. “Nee elp.” The connection between my brain and my mouth isn't working. Is this what Lily felt like all those months?
“Knee help?”
“Elp me. Some-un drug... me. Lily. Elp Lily.”
“Oh, shit,” he says, moving with lightning speed between the guys hovering, barking orders into his phone as I fall on my back, staring up at the ceiling, the same glass globe that was the focus of my insomnia now the object of my doom.
It's been under my nose the whole time.
How could we all have missed it?
What if Monica Bosworth was never the mastermind? Not even El Brujo or Nolan Corning?
What’s Romeo doing? Who is giving him orders? Who is still alive to run whatever plan is being played out? There aren’t many suspects left.
And the most obvious is the one with the most power.
Harry. The now-president of the United States.
Was it Harry all along?
Now he's got Lily.
And it's all my fault.
The world goes grey, like a drawstring closing.
Blink.
* * *
Get the stunning conclusion of the False series in False Start, the final book in the False series by USA Today bestselling author Meli Raine.