by Angel Payne
It’s ripe for a good follow-up, but my sarcasm is eliminated as soon as my logic kicks in. “But where is Mom?” I lean out from behind the pool equipment hutch now providing our cover, though I’m hardly sure we need it. For a bunch of chickens facing a Cat Five rager, the goons are weirdly oblivious about anything outside the mansion’s physical boundaries. Almost as if they don’t see what’s outside…
“Damn good point,” Foley mutters, joining my scrutiny of the scene.
“Could she just not be here?”
Fershan’s huff comes over the line. “But would the worker bees get that frantic without the queen in the hive?”
“Damn great point,” Foley answers.
“Agreed,” I add.
A new grunt from Alex roughens the line. There’s a sound of the comm piece being muffled but not thoroughly enough to drown out Trestle’s spitting passion for the F-word. “Uhhhh…Alex?” Fersh ventures. “You okay? You need me to come up to the lab or some—”
“Trestle?” Foley’s already dropped his demand to a growl. “Talk to us, man.”
Suddenly, as soon as memory hits me in a rush, I blurt, “The infrared.” And then double-palm my torso and thighs before explaining to Foley, “The detectors aren’t just in the Rover anymore. The guys wired a bunch of them into the battle leathers a few weeks ago.”
Foley eyes my leathers with an approving nod. “Sweet.”
But we celebrate only a second longer, since the line is roughened to static by an explosive snarl from Alex. “Jesus Clark Kent Christ with a Kryponite dildo,” he finally spits out.
“Trestle?” Foley sputters.
“What the hell?” I demand, rising all the way. There’s not a single double-take from any of the goons inside, so I stalk all the way out into the open. The backhoe scoop of gravel in Alex’s voice has buried any remaining cell of calm in my body. All that’s left are the nerves that blaze in trepidation and the senses straining to see or hear anything unusual.
Who the fuck am I kidding?
Is there anything “usual” about any of this?
“Okay…shit…there are more than a few lizards stirring inside there,” Alex rushes on. “They—they must’ve had steel blocker walls across the front of the house. Fuck, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry,” I snap. “Just be on the game now. Damn it, Trestle,” I dictate when his end of the line is too silent for too many seconds. “If you don’t talk to me, I’m just going in.” And am even more driven, along with savagely grateful, when Foley quickens his stride to match my stalk across the pool deck.
“Uh…yeah,” Alex finally stammers. “That’s a damn good idea.”
“What is?” Foley retorts.
“Going in,” Alex returns. “Like, now.”
I break into a jog. Okay, maybe a full run. “What the hell does that—”
“Just do it.” The brutal punch of Trestle’s ordinance makes me instantly wish for the stammering again. “Once you’re in, cut a hard right through the sun room. Then down the hall after that.”
We’re not running hard, but Foley’s breaths are heavy huffs on the line. “Then what?”
“Just keep going.” Another harsh breath, but definitely Alex’s this time. “Just…fucking…please keep going.”
Before he’s even done choking it out, we’re using the Bolt battering ram to enter the sun room—aka, me whomping the window with a directed pulse, sending the whole pane of glass to the ground—before continuing to head right. A few seconds later, our sprint begins down a long, tiled corridor with ornate sconces along the walls out of some damn vampire movie.
As we run down the passage, members of the Faline happy squad seem to materialize out of the walls. They’re really only bursting out from doorways, though the fuck-all with my imagination is the same, sending my mind into surreal gamer mode. The eerie light from the sconces adds to the effect, the dimness accenting the unblinking gold glow in all their eyes, making me feel like Van Helsing without his cool weaponry—or any of the adversaries sprouting fangs. Like that matters.
I take each of them out with the same ruthless instinct, either spearing their chests or slicing their throats with the lightning firing through my senses and shooting out my fingers. I barely think about the actions, adapting each for optimal destruction. And yes, goddamnit, that’s all this is right now. Later, I’ll need to confront the fact that they’re humans—or that maybe they once were—but right now, with Alex’s hoarse pleas echoing in my head, all I can think about is getting down this fucking hall.
Getting to Emmalina.
Because she is here. I know it now. Every lash of my breath, pierce of my pulse, and agony of my muscles confirms it. Stabs it. Torments me with it.
Until they don’t.
Until I reach the massive steel door at the end of the hall and tear it off its hinges with a massive roar.
Until I yell even louder, as her misery hits me like a full gale.
Until I struggle to comprehend the scene before me.
Standing stock still, stupefied and ashamed. Thinking if I stay this way, the horror will vanish. My gut will give my imagination back to my mind and clarify what I’m really supposed to be seeing. That I’m not really supposed to be digging a hand at my head, singeing my scalp as I drive my fingers through my hair, yearning to burn them through my skull. I want to gouge out my brains and hurl them against the wall.
Because I’m not supposed to be seeing this.
Because this isn’t real.
Because this is just another nightmare, only worse.
Because unlike the thousand other times I’ve relived it, when memory has attacked me in the midst of exhaustion or sleep, I’m not the one on that steel table, naked and shackled and terrified.
No.
“Jesus God.” Foley spews it on behalf of us both. My holocaust of a throat has turned my voice to ash. My spirit is a thunderstorm of horror, raining lava through every tendon, bone, muscle, and nerve in my body.
I want to fucking die.
But I can’t.
I can’t.
If I die, there’s no hope for Emma. There’s no way out for her. And yes, she still has a way out. Somehow, I’m able to take a mental triage on her, even from here. Her skin is still the color of pale cream. There’s no discernible energy sparking from her extremities. While the machines Faline has her wired to are advanced versions of the torture devices they used on me, I recognize the humanity in her bit-gagged whimpers. The bitch hasn’t stripped everything from her yet.
Yet.
“Darling! What a lovely surprise!” Faline attempts to croon it, but the soprano to which her voice jumps, instead of its worldly alto, is blatant. Clearly she hasn’t anticipated our arrival at all, meaning the solar flare infusion is holding steady in my bloodstream. Thank fuck, because right now, I feel completely bloodless.
“Jesus…God.” Foley’s repetition, while still a sandpaper snarl, is dunked in a deeper vat of shock this time. The impression makes me look over to where my friend’s stance is racked by tiny, violent lurches. He seems to want to step forward but is being held back by a thousand filaments of invisible wire.
“Hmmm,” Faline hums then. “Close, cariño, but not quite. I am definitely the upgrade.” As she finishes by swooping a couple of fingers toward him, missing only a wand to seal her Slytherin membership, I suddenly realize—it’s her. Whatever strange electric spider’s web has taken over the air and trapped Foley in place, it’s being controlled by her.
And “upgrade” or not, I take advantage of the seconds in which she preens for Foley to pulse myself to Emma’s side. But as her scream splits the air, I leap back with my hands in the air, heart thundering at my ribs. If I ever hear that agonized sound erupt from my Emma again, I won’t just tear my brains out of my head. I’ll rip my skull off my shoulders.
This is killing me.
But even worse, I know exactly what it’s doing to Emmalina.
Every excruci
ating notch of pain throughout her body. Every terrible plea for it to stop in her mind.
Matched by every tormented muscle in my body, holding back from spinning and strangling the bitch who stomps back over with furious hisses. But I can’t kill her. Not yet. The shackles on Emma are controlled by codes that are likely known and controlled by Faline alone. Ding dong, the witch has to live on.
“Attempt to touch her again, or override the codes on those restraints, and I will not hesitate to redline the voltage.”
Though I know she can already see my hands, I hitch them a little higher. The bitch means every word. I’ve never seen her redline someone on the table before, but I’ve heard the word whispered as she performed the punishment—and eventually, the horrendous death—on others. Expendable others. Which may or may not be how she perceives Emma now…
Why is she doing this to Emma?
Revenge is the first option to surface, though I rule it out just as fast. Why would she go to the trouble if she assumed I was still in the induced coma and wouldn’t know about all this? Recruitment is next on the list, but once again I have to wonder why. It would make more sense for Faline to kill Emma instead of attempt to turn her. Why draft a soldier so patently hostile to the cause?
That leaves…what?
Research?
Or simple sadism?
Which, I’m nauseated to admit, would both fit. And yes, both right here and now. Putting Emma through an accelerated transformation—which all the dials and settings in front of me indicate—would neatly check both those boxes for Faline.
Boxes I’ve got to uncheck. And then erase.
“You don’t want her anyway.” Though it’s brutal and guttural, I turn it into an undisputable order—hitting the woman, nearly literally, below the belt. Because as thoroughly as Faline Garand knows all of my triggers and motivations, I know hers. I’m sickened by even admitting the knowledge now, especially after shutting it down so many times since taking my first step away from the Source, during that moonless midnight, so long ago.
But not long enough.
Or perhaps, in some demented depth of my psyche, I’ve purposely never let go of it due to realizing all of this. Recognizing that Faline would never set it free. That she’d remember every one of those days I was chained down for her, forced to forge that link with her faceless voice. I’d needed her for survival—and, in the months to come, I came to the twisted acceptance that she needed me too. I provided some strange connection for her…some unattainable goal, maybe. Back to her humanity? Or maybe the opposite direction, toward reaching for a higher purpose? Seeking her immortality through me?
And do any of those clarifications even matter?
She has the tool to get back to them again.
Me.
Standing before her, saying exactly this.
“We both know what you want, Faline.”
But it’s not Faline’s voice that fills the awful silence that falls then. It’s the high, tearful whimper of the woman on the table. The destiny of my existence. The center of my heart. The pulse in my blood. The more in my world.
The reason Faline isn’t on the floor right now, her throat ripped open by lightning and her heart yanked from her chest and fried into the black stone it really is. I could still try it, but I really do know the bitch that well. Her death by my hand would mean more than the shackle codes dying with her. As soon as she breathed her last, there’d be a dozen hits called on Emma’s life. I know better. The shitty thing is, Faline also knows I know better.
But I still hold the ace here.
Even if she doesn’t see it for herself.
Which she clearly doesn’t, judging by the slither in her step and the gleam in her eyes, as she moves to cover the last couple of steps between us. Or even as I back up by equal steps but twice the distance, giving off the exact vibe I intend. As she follows me, tracing her bottom lip with one crimson nail, she starts gloating in her perceived triumph. But I’m the real winner of round one, having diverted her away from Emma’s bedside—though my girl, seeing only Faline making cat-in-heat moves on me, has no way of knowing that. Her heartsick mewl impacts every inch of Faline’s body like a rush of pure cocaine.
“Oh, do go on, papi,” she stage whispers at me, purposefully leaning over as if I’m hanging on her every word. The thing is, I am. Waiting. Watching. Evaluating. Gauging when to speak. When to strike. “Tell me exactly what I want.”
I swallow down a fuck ton of bile. Picture a steel vise ramming up my spine, fortifying my posture. Staying that way, no matter how wrenching the anguish in Emma’s next groan or how heavily her grief weighs the air. I run the risk of even glancing at her now. Hearing her, smelling her, and feeling her are enough. Goddamnit, more than enough.
But I’m setting up the strike…
“Me.”
Somehow, I declare it exactly like my inner titan dictated it. No matter how deeply this starts to hurt. Holy fuck, does it hurt. Not in the blood cells that hold their charge or the muscles that keep their strength. In the other way. The worse way. In every cavern of my soul and all the tunnels of truth that connect them. In the ice that’s taking over the energy that once lived in them. The truth and energy and life of being with Emma.
Emma, lying there in such misery, helplessness, and God only knows what kind of physical fragility now.
Because of me.
Oh, holy fuck, how this hurts.
“You want me, Faline.”
I steel my jaw, closing off all sounds but one. The searing beats of my heart, echoing through my chest, my mind, my will. The will that’s still holding—and now is clearly starting to bother her. She wants the secret about the signal-blocking miracle we pulled off, but that’s not going to be enough to sway her to this deal. The only thing that changes a bully’s mind is to punch right back, and I’m prepared to do exactly that—with a blow beneath the belt if I have to.
The woman twists her dark-red lips, clearly getting at least that message from my widened stance and hardened glare. But to make this shit crystal clear, I state once more, “You want me.” And then through gritted teeth, “So let’s talk about the terms under which you’ll get me.”
As Faline contemplates that, I refocus on my heartbeat again. In every thud, I imagine the vibrant thumps of Emma’s too. I can hear her breathing. Envision her living. Know she’s alive and filling the world with her light and her love.
And in so many ways, continuing to infuse mine with the same.
It’s the only way, Velvet.
Forgive me…forgive me.
This is the only way…
The ink goes darker in Faline’s tight gaze. “And what terms would those be, cariño?”
I loosen the fists at my sides but reset the clench of my jaw. The moves share the same purpose. If need be, I’m ready to prove how serious I am. “Let them go. Emmalina, Angelique, and Wade. Set them free, and you get me.”
She quirks her lips again—this time to set up her derisive laugh. Just fine by me. I’m setting up my shot too. If it comes down to that.
“Now why would I do a thing like that, darling?” She crosses her arms, forearm atop forearm, like a lioness reveling over prey. “A queen doesn’t just give back the spoils of war, especially when the treasures are an insurance policy to ensure her consort’s good behavior.”
I notch my jaw up by another degree. “Guess it depends on what you value most about the consort.”
And because I already know the answer to that—and before she can see that I do—I strike. Swiftly. Ruthlessly. Accurately.
Directly to my crotch.
With a bolt so swift and strict, her appalled shriek doesn’t detonate until my leathers are smoking and a gash of my charred skin shows through them.
The shock impacts the bitch better than I’d hoped, compacting her focus and fizzling her electric web off the air. Foley, who’s never ripped his brain cells off the same track as mine, already knows exactly what to do with his th
ree seconds of freedom—and before Faline’s goons can react, he’s at Emma’s side, examining the shackles just in case they can be hacked. I indulge a split second of gratitude that it’s Foley at her side right now, knowing he’s looking at my woman and seeing only a hostage in pain, needing to be freed, and not the glorious naked curves of the woman I love. If that weren’t the case, appreciation or not, I may have to consider lopping his dick off, right after mine.
But first things first.
Without ripping my glare from Faline, I take advantage of her distraction from all the goons too. They’re all just a step into pouncing toward Foley before I shoot up my free hand, pulsing them across the room until they slam against the far wall like a pile of human banana peels. By the time all that figurative dust settles, some tables have definitely been flipped—but more importantly, some doors have been opened. Several of my key suspicions are confirmed. They’re sure as fuck not comfortable to confront but are the gory truth all the same.
Which may or may not be great news for the appendage to which I’ve drawn the bitch’s terrified focus.
“Next time, I won’t go for the top of my thigh.” I drill my glare into her while gritting out every word. “And I guarantee I’ll start with my balls, darling.”
Her jaw falls open. She snaps it shut with an audible clash of teeth, only to part her lips again on a vicious seethe. “You. Will. Do. No. Such. Thing.”
I direct a new tine in, slicing so close to that sensitive sack that my thighs flinch from raw reflex. “Screw with Emma again, in any way, and both of them are gone.” It’s fate’s sick joke that I can’t enjoy every second of her dawning dread, but none of my fantasies included a potential castration as part of the plan. “You’ll stand and watch as your consort becomes your eunuch.”
“No!” She unleashes it on a fully bared snarl before trying to come at me again, fingers flicking wildly, only to learn I can toss her onto her ass with half the effort I used on her banana men—with twice the satisfied smirk. Seems the woman’s “superpower”—or whatever the hell she’s using to create her electronic web—has a limited battery life. Interesting. Very interesting…