Fuse

by Angel Payne

  I lean forward until my forehead knocks against the plate-glass window behind the desk. “You don’t fucking say.”

  Despite the heat already permeating the glass, a shiver invades my body as well as my voice. Foley doesn’t miss either. “And what the hell are you saying?”

  I drop my hands, only to lift one back up and sprawl my fingers against the window. Behind me, Foley is thankfully still. Around us, the air is equally so. Still, I don’t allow myself any easy breaths. The ghost could return any second.

  But maybe, if I just say something first…

  Especially to a friend who gets it more than most. The only person on the globe who literally might be hiding more violent secrets than me…

  “Richards?” he prompts again. It’s not a mandate, but he’s not going to just walk out of here for a refill on his coffee because I’ve chosen to clam up.

  So it’s time to haul in a long breath and find my fucking voice again.

  “Foley.” All right, it’s a start. Not a great one, but he’ll have to deal. “You really do know what it’s like to be a dancing monkey for someone, don’t you?”

  At last he does move, coming around to occupy the same spot on the desk I vacated. “It was more like being a pinned moth, but yeah.”

  “Better.” I snort. “Pinned moth. Yeah. That’s it.” I twist my fingers into a tight fist and then turn my whole hand, perfectly positioned to take out the entire window if I have to. “So…did you…do you…ever think about the monster who put the pins in?” A morning wind kicks up across the ridge. I watch it move through the bright wildflowers and grasses, ordering myself to absorb the inherent peace of the swaying plants. “I mean, still?” I stammer. “Not on purpose or anything.”

  “Like in nightmares?” Foley probes. “Well, fuck yeah. You can’t help what your subconscious drums up.”

  “Or even…not in nightmares.”

  He grunts softly. “Not if I can help it.” Then shifts a little, his T-shirt and khakis rustling as if he’s crossing his arms. “But sometimes, something will bring up…memories. Visceral shit, mostly. A smell or a sound.” A new rustle, giving away his shrug this time. “Still can’t listen to Van Morrison for that very reason.”

  “Van Morrison?” I pivot enough to shoot him a quizzical look. “You have to avoid Van Morrison?”

  “Didn’t say it was easy, man.”

  “No shit.”

  We’re quiet again, though I turn to look out the window once more—and nearly hope he’ll drop the subject and just get back to offering me coffee. The sun’s nearly all the way up, and the bitch-ghost in my head seems to have vanished along with the night. Thank fuck.

  Are you ready for more fun, papi? I certainly am…

  And that’s what I get for allowing myself to breathe normally again.

  “Shit!”

  And as deeply as I stash the hiss beneath my lower registers, Foley’s back on both feet again. Looming in my peripheral again. Intense and unyielding and one hundred percent his undeterred PI self again. In short, he’s yanked out every trait I keep him on the payroll for. I’m just not sure how epic the proverbial shoe feels on the other goddamned foot.

  “All right, man.” He comes closer but seems to know what’s too close, stopping short of that boundary before turning and leaning back against the support beam that bisects the window. “Ice breaker time is over. Time for the real work.”

  He pauses again, as if really waiting for me to pick up on that riff. I don’t move. I don’t allow myself even the luxury of half a breath. If I don’t allow the universe to know I’m here, then Faline won’t either.

  “Richards.”

  Goddamnit.

  “Reece.”

  I’m cold again. So cold. With gritted effort, I hold myself back from visibly shivering. It feels like coming down off one of my wilder weekends, only worse. Much worse. Maybe I’m just getting sick. Is this all some strange fever dream? I haven’t been sick since escaping the hive, an item added to the small plus column of Consortium torture aftereffects. Who needs penicillin and Nyquil when a guy’s got megawatt sterilization in his blood, right?

  But if it’s not the flu, then it’s got to be…

  Not the worm.

  Not that fucking worm.

  That stupid. Fucking. Worm.

  For some strange reason, the words are suddenly comical.

  The mighty lightning bolt. Taken down by a…worm.

  I laugh. Hard. The action unlocks my restraint—and more chills. They rack me as I flip around and slide down the window, hugging myself.

  “Richards.” The alarm in Foley’s exclamation tells me more. Great. I really look as craptastic as I feel. “What the fuck is going on?”

  I roll my head back and forth in a show of haphazard denial. It’s another move borrowed from my party king days, which makes me laugh again. I can’t believe I remember how to do this. I can’t believe I’m still admitting there really is an art to this.

  And I really can’t believe how loud the voice is, returning to my head in all its crooning, cruel glory.

  That’s it. You’re learning. Just let me in, cariño. It’s so much easier when you don’t fight.

  “Christ,” I bite out, barely keeping my teeth from chattering. “A f-f-fucking worm. A fucking w-w-worm.”

  Foley double-takes. “What the hell?”

  “It’s th-th-the only ex-explanation. Th-The worm.”

  “Explanation for what?”

  “F-F-For her. T-T-Talking to me.” I jack my head back, straining for even a little of the sunlight stretching across the hills. Needing the heat to blast me. To banish her.

  “Her?” Foley crouches closer. Grabs my shoulder. “Her who?”

  I slam my eyes closed. Gulp hard. Realize that I’ve got to say it. Comprehend, with some stabbing part of my psyche, that I have to tell someone. That I have to say it out loud before I can’t say anything anymore.

  “Faline.”

  “Faline?”

  “She’s…she’s inside my head.” And though my teeth are chattering like humping chipmunks and even my toe hairs have icicles, I hear the pitch of desperation in my voice. Jesus, is this really happening? “I can hear her, as if she’s parked her bony ass on top of my brain. Like she’s here.” I manage to curl a hand up and around, twisting the sleeve of his shirt with my fingertips. “But like she wants even more. As if…as…if…”

  “What?” Foley’s growl fills the space left by my stammering fade. The dwindle of my voice…because of the explosion in my awareness.

  Oh, holy fuck.

  Not an explosion.

  A revelation.

  “As if she’s getting ready to control me like she controlled Kane.”

  No stuttering this time. Funny how a guy forgets to be cold when he’s terrified out of his goddamned mind. And if the stupefaction seared across Foley’s face is any accurate gauge, I’m not steering at all toward melodrama.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  Fuck.

  Which, surprise surprise, are the exact three words that seethe out of Foley—

  As another cold front broadsides me.

  And knocks me all the way over to the floor.

  “Fuck!” It’s a yell from Foley now before he’s got me rolled to my back with his face consuming my vision. “Reece. Buddy. You have to stay with me.”

  I want to laugh again. I think I do. Well, hell. I got a Reece and a buddy at the same time. Must be my lucky day. Or my unluckiest. Why do I feel like laying strong odds on the latter?

  “Dude. Can you hear me? Reece, you bastard. You’ve got to stay with me!”

  “Yeah.” I try to nod, but the motion’s more like my post-bender weekend loll. “I’m…I’m here. St-Stop yelling.”

  “When?” he charges without his normal one-liner of preface. Just right into the nitty-gritty. Makes me want to shoot out a quip of my own, something involving his lack of conversational lube, but the guy’s brain is clearly fi
ring on more cylinders than mine. On the other hand, he doesn’t have a bitch supreme filling up his mental plate, complete with a side of fuck-you-up salsa. “When did this start happening, man? How long has she been there?”

  I swivel my head to the side. Focus my gaze randomly. There’s a bush abloom in purple flowers outside sheltering a little family of wild rabbits. Bunnies. My favorite. I almost blurt that out but remember something at the last minute. Foley needs an answer. The information is important. “Last night,” I finally get out. “Yeah. Last night. Right after I got back from…from…”

  “From saving the fucking city.” Foley’s growl is fucking scary now. Yeah, even to me. “And having to put down your friend because he—” The growl is upended by a fierce choke. “Holy shit.” Then an even harsher snarl. “Having to put down your friend!”

  From the middle of my mental and physical glacier, I groan as if his thumping hand to my chest is a dump of boiling water instead. That succeeds in getting me to open my eyes at least, since I throw the force of any remaining strength into my hard glare up at the man.

  Which becomes self-inflicted torture, from the second Emma’s face swoops into my focus too. Her irises are the color—and size—of storm-tossed oceans. Her lips are seized with shock. Her throat is a column of solid strain.

  “Reece? Dear God. Reece?”

  “Velvet…”

  “Uh-uh.” Foley clamps a hand around the underside of my jaw, jerking my focus back his way. “Soliloquies later, lightning boy. I need facts. Concentrate, goddamnit.” His gaze is filled with the same holy-shit-this-is-bad sprawl as Em’s, but I don’t have the strength to point that out. Every force in my blood and will of my body is converged on fighting off the ice that keeps creeping and the winter witch that’s bringing it. “Now you’ve got to focus, dude.” Foley rises up, thumping the middle of my chest with even more force. “And remember for me—”

  “Remember what?” Emma inserts herself into the small space between the window and me. She’s stretched with most of her weight on one curled knee, with the opposite leg extended along the outside of mine. “Holy shit. Reece? Why does he look like this? Why is he so cold? What the hell is—”

  “Emma.” The interjection doesn’t belong to Foley. Not unless he’s turned into a female with a smoky French accent. “Please, you must let Foley—”

  “Do what?” She shirks Angie’s hand away from her shoulder but doesn’t rip her gaze from my face. “Do what? And why? Sawyer? Wh-What’s happened?”

  As if she hasn’t spoken, Sawyer balls his hand and thumps the middle of my chest. “Richards, I need to know what went down between you and Kane on the roof.”

  “Are you joking?” Emma lashes. “He looks and feels like a damn iceberg, and you want him to recount all that now?”

  Again, Sawyer hardly flinches, but mutters, “Good point.” Directly to me, he says, “Just the last of it, man.” He pushes in, eclipsing even Emma from my view, and turns his words into a matching order. “You need to tell me, word for word, exactly what the fuck Kane did and said to you, dude.”

  I swallow deep in my throat while diving my mind back through memories I swore I’d never touch again. But if Faline gets any further into my gray matter, I won’t even have a will to control that touch. So Nightmare Lane, here I come. “I told him I was s-s-sorry. Then he s-s-said…he was sorry too. No. Wait. The worm came first. Or did it come after?”

  “Huh? But—”

  As soon as Emma goes quiet at Foley’s halting hand, Foley rasps to me, “What worm, dude? And did you ask him exactly why he was sorry?”

  I push some energy into my head. Whether the nod is discernible, I don’t care. I can’t care. I’m without the physical capability. My lungs are ice caverns. My heart pumps arctic rivers. My thoughts are practically crystals of cold fusion. “He…he said…didn’t matter. He said…it was already done.”

  “It…what?” Emma rasps.

  But all Foley spits back is, “Fuck.”

  Angelique releases a dire sigh and whispers, “Mon dieu.”

  I let my hand drop from Foley’s shirt, across my woman’s trembling, bent knee. Then funnel as much fortitude through my system as I can, digging my mental claws in to hold on to the parts that are still all me, to take in that perfect face wearing nothing but my heart’s adoration across my face.

  But there’s no time to add the thousand sonnets, three thousand songs, and ten thousand novels’ worth of words that’d be necessary to even start expressing my love. There’s not time for even a handful of words. Not with the more exigent ones that need to be issued.

  “Foley,” I say, though without deterring my stare from Emma for a second. “You…you know what to do, right? If this all really goes to crap…”

  “Goes to crap?” She speed rockets a glare between Foley and me that tempts me to close my eyes again. The fuel in her rockets is thick aqua tears, and they’re fissuring every inch of my heart. But I don’t look away, because in the pain, I find a miraculous kernel of truth. If Faline really pulls this crazy stunt off—has somehow managed to use Kane to plant phantom code into my DNA—then she’ll have conquered my mind and my will, but never my heart.

  And never the soul that belongs solely, completely to Emmalina Paisley Crist.

  “I asked a damn question,” my gorgeous goddess reiterates. “If what goes to crap? And what the hell is it that you’ll ‘know what to do,’ Foley?”

  He gives me a succinct nod, totally ignoring the fact that she’s used his last name instead of first for about the third time since they met. “I got you, buddy,” he assures. “Don’t worry.”

  Emma lets out a war cry worthy of the Wakanda veldt. “If someone doesn’t freaking tell me what the hell is—” But she sobs herself to a stop as soon as I grip her knee even tighter with an equally strained sound. “Baby.” She leans over, stroking the side of my face. “Please. You’re…you’re scaring me.”

  “I’m sorry, Bunny.”

  “Don’t be sorry. Just talk to me.”

  My protesting wheeze doesn’t help—but I’m unable to help it. The electrons in my veins are slowing and freezing, slaves to another program now. To another power. “I’m so fucking sorry, Emmalina.”

  “But why?” She shoves Foley’s hand away and replaces it with her own, circling the space over my heart as if the mixture of her frantic touch and her raining tears will be enough to bring me back online. And God help me, how I long for the same thing—with every fiber of the heart that still beats for her, worships her, needs her. With every shred of the soul that will never stop loving her, longing for her, being grateful for how she’s rescued it.

  How, because of her love, it’ll be able to hold on to a tiny piece of heaven, despite the hell for which the rest of me is headed.

  “I love you, Velvet.” A massive shudder takes over me. “I do, okay? Always, okay? Until the end of time.”

  Until the end of my time.

  “Nooooo!”

  Emma’s scream echoes through the freezing darkness behind my descending eyelids…

  As the bitch inside my mind lets out a long, victorious hiss.

  Oh, yessssss.

  Chapter One

  Emma

  “Wake up. Please, please, wake up!”

  No matter how many times I whisper it, the man I love is cold as ice and still as death where he lies on a steel medical bed, covered in nothing but a hundred medical leads and one small loincloth.

  And me.

  I lean over farther, press my cheek to the indent between his unnaturally chilled pecs, and listen for the slow, faint thrum from within. With gritted teeth, I shove everything else in the room out of my awareness. The bleeping machines, ticking monitors, plain gray walls, rubbing alcohol smell—none of it is as important as the organ pumping the lifeblood into his body. Not that it’s a difficult feat. Despite this mini hospital and the attached command center being located just across the driveway from the broad steps of the home we’ve
built together, I’ve always tried to deny their very existence—but now, my existence is centered on everything that’s right here. As his heart thumps, so does mine. Every lift of my chest waits for the rise and fall of the broad plane of his beneath my hand. I stretch my aching spirit into the darkness he’s fallen into, fighting to make him see my light. Our light. The connection, like a pair of colliding comets, that only we know. That only we share.

  “I’m here, you beautiful man.” You magnificent hero. My hero.

  I press a fervent kiss to his sternum. “You know me, Reece. And I know you can still feel me. Damn it, I know you can. Lightning needs the earth.” My breath hitches. My senses sting. “And damn it, the earth needs her lightning.”

  Despite the savage battle I’ve waged against myself, the tears escape. Drip between my fingers. Drive deeper stings behind my eyes. Blur my blinking vision.

  “Come back to me, baby. Please…come back.” It’s a rasp from my lips to his skin. “I…I can’t lose you like this. Not like this, damn it!”

  As my gut-deep sobs splash into the salty puddle I’ve created in his chest, I realize irony is intent on making me her bitch today. Emmalina Crist, the girl who swore she’d never be so weak as to “need” a man, has become the idiot blubbering all over her fallen hero.

  Because I’m not that girl anymore.

  Because I’m a woman fully changed.

  Because I’ve learned about the transformation of true love.

  Because I’ve realized that in needing and loving, the real lessons of strength and courage are found.

  Because even if that weren’t the case, no way in hell am I’m stopping any of this shit—until one thing alone occurs: this man opens his eyes and looks at me with the full strength of his soul again.

  “Reece.” His name becomes my pleading mantra, the only bond I still seem to have to him since he collapsed on the home-office floor three hours ago.

  Collapsed.

  I shake my head in sharp disbelief…but also to confront another piercing truth. If his proper name is my mantra for everything I love about his masculinity and humanity, his public name has come to have meaning as well. In twelve months of living with Bolt the superhero, I’ve watched the man cripple bad guys in three different cities, in a thousand different ways, brandishing his power at eighty electrical settings. I’ve also been the focus of that force in ways no other woman has dreamed of, let alone experienced. I’ve even seen that strength ripped away from him by a custom EMP wielded by his own father.