by Lan Chan
“Comfy?” he asked, voice suddenly low. My head spun with a tense kind of hunger that didn’t originate from my stomach. I looked anywhere but directly into his eyes.
“Not exactly.”
He pushed between my legs, closing the physical distance between us, with an arm around my waist. With the other, he turned my head around to pierce me with those too-intense eyes of his. Everywhere we touched, my skin became electrified by something other than a nanobot.
How about now? he said in my head. I had enough time to think about nodding before his lips pressed against mine. The pressure was gentle at first, tentative, as though he was waiting for me to give permission. Or to punch him.
My body froze with indecision, one part warning me that this was a bad idea. He was an arrogant jerk with a literal God complex and a legion of fans who would tear me apart if they found out. On the other hand, he was also the devoted brother and a loyal friend.
My pulse pounded in my ears. The sharp, sweet scent of his aftershave wafted around me, gathering me up as his arms did, stroking me into submission.
A strangled sigh mixed with a growl escaped my throat. His fingers laced around the hair at the nape of my neck as he parted my lips with his tongue and deepened the kiss. Ah hell. I wrapped my arms around his neck and felt his body turn hard against me.
Where the kiss had been gentle, his tongue began to probe in earnest. I matched the pressure, fighting him for dominance. His chest rumbled as though he was containing his laughter. His teeth grazed my bottom lip, drawing a sated sigh from me.
I gasped when his mind slid against mine in tandem with his lips. He breached the threshold of my innermost thoughts with the ease of a knife through butter, and I tensed. It was one thing to make out with a very cute boy but another thing completely to allow him access to a part of my mind that only my best friends knew existed.
He felt the hesitation and I sensed his frustration. His demand. His desire. Ryan understood the value of compromise. He’d given me access to his thoughts and dammit if he wasn’t going to get to mine.
In the shadow boxing arena, they called him Hades. He was an alpha in every sense of the word, and as his mind opened, I was bombarded with the many thoughts and feelings that motivated him. The drive to conquer everything that crossed his path. The overwhelming protectiveness of everything that he considered his. The need to master the control it took to contain his strength.
I shuddered mentally at the sensory onslaught. Uncertainty gripped me, fear dripping into every crevice that he so easily set on fire. What frightened me was that I wanted to open up to him. My mother’s voice scoffed that after seventeen years of considered paranoia, I wanted to throw caution to the wind because a hot guy tried to get close to me.
My arms loosened before I’d even made up my mind. But I had scant time to explain to him why this couldn’t happen because another probe pressed up against my shield. It was this voice and the distress in it that pushed Ryan out. Never had I been happier for a distraction.
Willow? Adam’s thoughts called. He was awake. Thank goodness.
23
When we arrived at the intensive care unit, there was already a nurse on duty attending to him. She was taking his blood pressure, but I could tell from the steady beep of the life-support machine and the colour that had flooded back into his complexion that he was improving.
“Hi.” I sat down on the chair beside his bed. Flinching when I reached out to take his hand, he tucked it beneath the blanket. It was like being slapped in the face. I couldn’t help comparing the sharp pain that made my throat close to the bitterness that was Ryan’s last thought before he exited my mind.
“Sorry,” Adam croaked. His eyes flicked to where Ryan stood behind me. “Hey. Nice place you’ve got here.”
“Beats a Psi-Ops facility any day,” Ryan said. “You look like hell.”
Adam snorted and it turned into a cough that wracked his chest. I picked up the glass of water from his bedside and he took it from me, careful not to let our skin touch.
“Do you want me to go?”
He shook his head. “No. It’s not you.” He peered at Ryan again. They obviously knew each other from their mutual association with Rich, but I wasn’t sure how friendly that association ran. Adam’s hesitation spoke volumes.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Ryan said. He came up behind me and placed his hands on either side of my head. His very tactile nature didn’t escape Adam’s notice but I was preoccupied with the block that Ryan was attempting to place around my mind. Somewhere between the kiss and now, that protective instinct had kicked in and he was trying to stop Adam from communicating with me telepathically. I knocked him out of my mind with barely a warning.
Stop it.
Don’t try and keep me in the dark. I deserve that much. Somewhere in there, I suspected there was a whole slew of parental issues, but I didn’t have time to delve into that right now.
“What’s going on, Adam?”
I watched Adam swallow and close his eyes momentarily. “There’s something screwy with the S2. While I was unconscious, it was like I was dreaming. Except I wasn’t me. All of my memories involved a period of time in New China or some other South East Asian country. There was an obstacle course, an octagon made of corroded pieces of decommissioned planes. A chase through an overgrown jungle.”
Before he’d even finished, I knew what he was getting at. “Shit.”
“Indeed.”
Ryan’s frown deepened. “What’s going on?”
“It’s me,” I told him. “Those are all my memories. I don’t understand, though. How can this be happening?”
Adam tugged at the IV. “I dunno, but we need to get our hands on some S2 pills like now.”
“I already have them. We were just waiting until you were well enough to go home.”
“No time like the present.”
Ryan stepped forward. “You can barely sit up. You can’t leave.”
“We have an infirmary at home,” I said. “Rich is trained in medical care and Lily can look after his treatment. Are you sure you’re ready?”
No amount of Ryan’s brooding could make Adam change his mind. There was definitely more to what he had seen than what he let on, but it was enough for me to hear him describe the less appetising aspects of my childhood. Ryan and I left so he could dress and get ready to go. I returned to my room in a stupor, my mind racing with apprehension at the thought of every esper who had taken S2 getting a glimpse into my childhood.
“Can I borrow your phone again?” I asked.
I used it to call Rich. My stomach tied itself in knots. When he picked up, everything came out of my mouth in a rush. “Hi. Adam and I are ready to go home. I know you’re angry and I know I stuffed up and I shouldn’t have gone but neither of us is permanently hurt and maybe I might have killed Caleb but it wasn’t my fault and I couldn’t help it and I know I’ve probably exposed myself but can you please have someone come and get us? I want to come home.”
There was stunned silence on the other end of the line and then he let out a very long sigh. “We’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
After I gave him the address of the drop-off point, Ryan drove Adam and me out there. The meeting place he’d chosen was a small park in a leafy suburb not far from where his sister’s care facility was located.
“You don’t need to wait with us,” I said to him.
“Technically, I don’t need to do any of this. But here I am, darling.” I slugged him across the arm.
“What did I say about you calling me that?”
He raised a brow, the arrogant Hades mask firmly raised. I wasn’t sure if it was for my benefit or his brother’s.
When did this happen? Adam thought to me. I sleep for two days and suddenly he’s a caveman about you.
Oh my God, can we not talk about this right now?
Suit yourself. But you better think about something to tell Zeke because I don’t know how he’s going
to take it.
That’s fine with me because nothing’s happening.
Right. And the sun isn’t hot.
I would have punched him too if he wasn’t still a little green around the gills. True to his word, Oz’s pre-Reset luxury sedan rolled into the street twenty minutes later. I sat in my seat fighting my own feelings. The closer the car got, the stronger the link with Zeke became, and I wanted to jump out and run towards him. But the thought of enduring Rich’s discontent seemed too much right now.
When Zeke opened the back door before Oz even pulled the car into the parking space in front of us, my body moved of its own volition.
I met him halfway, crashing into his chest. He crushed me in a constricting embrace that should have hurt more considering my injuries but didn’t. I wasn’t sure how long we stayed that way, but when he finally released me, Oz and Rich were there.
Oz gave me a short, warm hug, shaking his head when I showed him that so-called bullet wound. Rich and I sort of stared at each other and I waved half-heartedly, unsure how else to react.
“You’re almost pale,” Oz said to Adam. “What did it do to you?”
“Plenty of time for that after he’s rested,” Rich said.
“Actually, we probably don’t have that much time.”
“Any news on Collins?” I asked Oz.
He shook his head. “She’s been the same as always.”
“Let’s go home,” Rich said. “The girls are waiting for us.”
Turning back, I found Ryan leaning against the hood of his car. Zeke had, of course, managed to migrate over and they were talking about something I couldn’t hear.
My approach stopped them short. “We’re going home,” I said to Ryan.
“It seems that way.”
“Thank you for everything. I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t come to get us.”
“You would have found another way.” Sometimes, that jerk really could make me feel like I wasn’t just the trigger-happy alpha with too many gangland connections. He’d put on a pair of sunglasses and I found that I was desperate to look into his eyes. Ironically, there were things I now wanted to say to him that I didn’t want Zeke to hear.
“I would tell you to be careful,” Ryan said, “but I doubt it’ll even sink in.”
We’re not finished, he said in my head. I was pretty sure Zeke felt me mentally shivering through the link, but he didn’t say anything about it as we got into Oz’s car. I watched Ryan’s sedan out of the rear-view mirror until it turned the corner and disappeared out of sight. On my right, Adam had sort of wilted against the side of the car.
“How are you holding up?” I asked him.
“I’m hungry,” he said. “Seems about right considering what we now know about the S2.”
“Welcome to my world.”
“No thanks.” I wasn’t sure, but there was a sharp edge to his words.
Are we okay? I asked him telepathically. I’m sorry that you went through that. I wouldn’t wish my past on anyone else either.
Though he hadn’t heard me, Zeke’s arm draped around my shoulder anyway. Somehow he always knew when I was distressed. Adam covered my forearm with a very cold hand.
You have nothing to be sorry about.
I wanted to push and ask why he was acting like I was a leper, but I didn’t think I had any right to be feeling injured at the moment.
Bianca practically choked me when we finally got inside the mansion. “We can’t take our eyes off you for a second! You’re going to be shut up in here forever where we can keep an eye on you.” She lifted my T-shirt and splayed a hand over my abdomen. Then she stepped aside so Lily could inspect the damage. Or lack thereof.
“Interesting,” Lily said. “The rate of repair appears to be accelerating.”
“Should I be concerned? Those dissected S2 brains haven’t exactly been reassuring.”
Lily dismissed my fears. “If that was happening to you, you’d be dead well before now. Second Sight has only been on the market for a few months and the people who have died have done so in a much shorter time.”
For some reason, I just couldn’t get the fear out of my mind that the nanobots were slowly killing me from the inside.
“Start talking,” Rich said. “From the beginning.” I did most of the talking because Adam was almost comatose on the couch in the common room. Rich took out the medical kit and did a once-over but technically there was nothing wrong with him. Bianca brought out a platter of cheese, crackers, and dips. Even though he said he was starving, Adam barely touched anything.
By the time I got to the part about twisting Scarlet’s arm for the S2 drug, Lily was practically chomping at the bit. “Where is it?”
I fished the bag out of my pocket and looked towards Rich.
“It’d be a shame to have to hand these over to the Psi-Ops when we wouldn’t have an explanation for how we got it.”
“Of course we would,” he said matter-of-factly. “You were on a routine patrol and found them on Scarlet Manning’s person.” If I didn’t know better, the sudden steel in his voice had more to do with Scarlet as a person and less to do with my circumventing the law. Maybe I was wrong and he did hold a grudge for what went down between his dad and Ryan’s mum.
“We’re not turning her in,” I said.
“She’s a drug dealer.”
“I know that.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“Are you really going to sell out your brother like that?”
“Half-brother.”
“Same difference.”
He searched my face for a moment. Something other than what he usually saw in my features made the vein above his eye twitch. “He’d be a thousand times better off with her behind bars.”
“We both know that, but he’s got to come to that realisation himself.”
“This is taking too long,” Lily said. “Give me the drugs.”
Adam chuckled and then sputtered. “Spoken like a true addict.” His laid his arm across his forehead.
Finally, Rich gave me a nod and I released the pills into Lily’s outstretched hand. Her fingers closed over them and she immediately bolted out of the room without looking back.
“Should she be here to listen to the rest?”
“Too late now,” Bianca said. “You probably should have saved that till last.”
She was totally right, but I was still dreading coming to the part where Adam saw my memories as part of his drug high. I couldn’t procrastinate for long, though. The reaction around the room was as I’d expected. Completely shell-shocked.
“I don’t get it,” Zeke said. “How is that even possible?”
“It could be transference,” Oz suggested. “The S2 might cause an esper to take on the memories of whoever is closest to them.”
“Caleb was closer to me than Willow was most of the time.”
“Maybe we should hold off on theories until Lily comes up with something concrete,” Zeke said.
“Did you find anything about Gabe?” The room suddenly went quiet. “What? What happened?”
“I tried to get into the Rendezvous,” Bianca said. “They’ve locked it down to the lobby and common areas. I’ve questioned a bunch of my contacts but the Kings have closed court. They’re not talking to us or to each other.”
Throwing a temper tantrum probably wouldn’t soothe my frustration but I wanted to do it anyway. “Can’t the Academy do something?”
“You know we don’t interfere with the Court business,” Rich said. The way his lips curled told me we shared the same sentiment. This was bullshit.
“How have you explained my absence from school?”
“Illness.” He shrugged as though even he was surprised that they bought it. I hadn’t been sick with anything besides migraines in my entire life. Out of my own mouth, it would have been impossible to keep up the charade. Coming from someone with a pristine record like Rich, they took it as gospel.
Zeke
waited until we were back inside my room to grill me on the other thing occupying his thoughts. So…you wanna tell me what’s going on between you and Ryan?
Well, that didn’t take long. What’s with you guys? I thought. I’ve already told Adam. There’s absolutely nothing going on.
So all that intense brooding when we picked you up was just for kicks?
He wasn’t brooding!
Who said I was referring to him?
Flopping back on the bed, I took my shoes off and punched my pillow to make it more comfortable. I had hoped the gesture would signal the end of the conversation. Instead, he kicked off his sneakers and pounced onto the bed. He sat with his knees bent, arms around his legs and fingers laced together to keep himself upright.
Huh, so any time a girl looks in my direction I get the disdainful eye-roll treatment, but the main attraction of the Shadow Boxing League tries to make a move on you and we’re not going to discuss it at all?
Do you mind? I’m trying to get some sleep.
Fine. He unlaced his fingers and rolled into a supine position. I’ll just get the details off Bianca later on.
I gritted my teeth. Nothing happened. Nada. Zilch.
Are you lying to protect me or him?
I kicked him in the shin. Are you interested because of me or him? I countered. I had him there.
Hey, I’m man enough to admit that I have concerns about what you’re going to do to his career. But at least be woman enough to accept there’s something going on.
I groaned. I really want to go to sleep.
Instead, he sat up and leapt off the bed. He opened up my wardrobe and rummaged around until he found what he was looking for. Tossing the piece of clothing at me, he sat back down again. Then he dragged me by the ankle towards him. Pushing up on my elbows, I threw him a scowl that could have stripped paint. He pointed at the T-shirt.
What do you notice about this shirt?
I scrunched my nose. I thought you said you were going to give that to Lily?