Long Time Gone (Hell or High Water )

by SE Jakes

  There was way more to this. “Do any of them work for Phil?”

  “None of them work for Phil. I don’t either,” Prophet added, with a gleam of anger in his eyes.

  “Do they not work for Phil because they’re looking for John?”

  Prophet didn’t answer.

  “Tell me this—if your team is still so close and loyal—” Prophet didn’t argue with that. “—then why didn’t any of them show up to save you from Sadiq?”

  Prophet’s jaw twitched, and he stared at Tom.

  “The Irish guy with the skullcap,” Tom said slowly. “What the fuck, Proph? Are they around us, all the time, like ghosts? All those texts . . . I thought they were EE or Cill . . . but your team . . .?”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “You want me to be your partner—your partner—and you won’t let me in.”

  Prophet shook his head. “It took a murder charge to get you to open up to me.”

  “Tit for tat?”

  “Tommy, I have a team. A past. A lot of shit I can’t talk about. I know you want to try to help, but you can’t.”

  “If you took over EE, would you hire any of your boys?”

  “I’m not taking over EE.”

  “If you were allowed to partner with your old teammates, would you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So much for being anti-partner.”

  “They saved my life.”

  “Thought you saved your own life when you forced the CIA to release you,” Tom challenged him. “Guess it depends on what version of the story you tell?”

  “Guess so.” Prophet said, his voice quietly frustrated. He stalked off and Tom let him.

  “Guess I pushed it too far,” he muttered to himself.

  A voice with a tinge of an accent said, “You did. You should really leave him alone.”

  Tom froze. Didn’t turn around right away. “Leave him alone, as in forever?”

  “Depends. Will you pull that shit constantly?”

  Tom did turn then. Same guy, same skullcap, standing by the window. “You’re damned straight I will. For one thing, he’s my partner. I take that shit seriously. For another, I’m already involved. Sadiq knows who I am. So for better or for worse, I’m a part of this. So no, I’m not going to leave him alone. Maybe you can start telling me what the fuck’s going on?”

  The guy grinned. “I can see why he likes you.”

  “I’m not liking him much right now.”

  “You and I both know that’s not true. Look, I can’t hang out here. I shouldn’t even be here.”

  “Then why are you?”

  “Sadiq’s guys are sniffing around. Getting a little close.”

  “And you’re sniffing around them, looking for John?”

  The guy’s eyes flashed. Tom was pushing his damned luck all around. “Tell Proph I’ll be in touch. And if anyone besides him asks, you never saw me.”

  Before Tom could say anything, the guy was gone out the window in a jump to rival Blue’s.

  Prophet came back into the room about twenty minutes later, carrying another plate of shrimp. He glanced warily in Tom’s direction, like he was bracing himself for another round of interrogation.

  Yeah, well, he can fucking deal with it.

  “Your friend was here. You know, skullcap guy.”

  Prophet’s brows raised. “King was here?”

  “He didn’t take the time to introduce himself.”

  “Why isn’t your voodoo shit working, Tommy?” Prophet asked as he grabbed for his iPad and hit some buttons.

  “It was. I just didn’t know your team would be stalking me.”

  But Prophet was talking to the screen, demanding, “Were you here the whole fucking time? Because I almost got eaten by alligators.”

  Tom heard King’s voice, noting the accent was a little thicker, more of a brogue, almost. “Do you think I would’ve just sat there and watched you nearly get killed by alligators?” King hummed. “I mean, I’d like to think I wouldn’t have done that, but . . . no. No, I think I would’ve saved you and not waited.”

  “You’re such an asshole.”

  Prophet cut King’s cursing off and threw the iPad on the bed.

  “So I don’t get it—these guys just . . . hang around, waiting for you to get into trouble?”

  “Kind of, yes.”

  “How many of them are there?”

  “King. Mal. Ren. Hook.”

  “And you repay them, how?”

  Prophet managed to look vaguely insulted. “Sometimes I save their asses too, and they have to pay me back somehow.”

  “For Mal,” Tom said. “How do you repay Mal?”

  “Mal likes favors.”

  “Favors.”

  “Yeah.” Prophet raised a brow.

  “Like sexual favors?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Wait a minute, after Mal helped when you got shot—”

  Prophet waved him off.

  Tom decided that, as much as he wanted to know, it was better right now that he didn’t. Still . . . “One day, you’re going to answer my questions about Mal.”

  “Yeah, one day.” Prophet smiled, and Tom got hard.

  “You’re baiting me into fucking you.”

  Prophet had the nerve to look offended by that. “I don’t need to bait you into fucking me. I don’t need to bait you into me fucking you, either. If I wanted to fuck you or you to fuck me—” Tom found himself flipped onto his stomach on the floor, with Prophet’s dead weight pressing him. “—I’d do this.”

  “This is your idea of seduction?” Tom managed.

  Prophet jerked him onto his side and cupped his cock, which of course, had long since betrayed him. “You seem not to mind.”

  “What was this conversation about again?” Tom asked.

  “If you’re not with me, you’re in less trouble . . .”

  “No, it wasn’t. And you don’t know that I’m in less trouble, not for sure. Besides, it’s too late. I’m involved.”

  Prophet moved off him with a curse.

  Tom rolled over. “You’re so fucking impossible.”

  “It serves a purpose.”

  Tom grabbed him by the back of the neck. Knocked him down and rolled him, using Prophet’s own body weight and struggle against him.

  “Tell. Me. About your team. Why all the secrecy?”

  “They’re around. I talk to them, but we all work better alone. Keeps us out of trouble.”

  “Because if you work together . . .”

  “The CIA tends to get involved if we get together,” Prophet said. “We’ve been ordered not to. By the CIA. And I can’t fucking tell you anymore about that piece of it. Not without risking them, so stop. I wouldn’t risk you like that.”

  Tom nipped the side of Prophet’s neck with his teeth.

  “You like marking me,” Prophet noted.

  Tom sucked hard where he’d bitten, then asked. “What’ve you been doing?”

  “Stuff.” Prophet’s voice was hoarse.

  “Well, while you were doing stuff, I was in Eritrea, trying to contact you.”

  “Except when you were chasing me thinking it was Cillian,” Prophet pointed out.

  Tom rewarded him by sliding his tongue along his neck, then biting his earlobe. Prophet shivered. “Not fair, Tommy.”

  “Were you working with Cill?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “And your team isn’t working together.”

  “Well, when you see King, Ren isn’t far behind.”

  “I didn’t see Ren.”

  “You never will, unless he wants you too. He and King are a matched pair.”

  “Of what?”

  “Can’t pry them apart.”

  “I thought none of you were supposed to work together.”

  “We’re not. But there are psychos who are the exception to every rule.”

  Tom put his hands to Prophet’s face. “Talk to me, Proph. What do you
do?”

  Prophet looked into Tommy’s mismatched eyes and finally told the man exactly what he was goddamned best at.

  “I go after the guys the CIA and the military leave behind, the ones they tell, ‘we will disavow any knowledge of you if you’re captured.’ When that happens, I don’t fucking forget them.” Neither did his SEAL team. It wasn’t a particularly glorious or high-paying job most of the time, but it wasn’t a thankless one either. “I also help their families, because civilians shouldn’t have to suffer because their spouse or parent signed up for all that shit.”

  “How did that become one of your specialties?”

  “My first CO . . . his brother was a POW.” One long, whiskey-soaked night, Prophet, LT, and LT’s brother—who was blind as a result of his capture, but Prophet didn’t tell Tommy that—had talked about . . . everything. That conversation still reverberated through Prophet’s life, affecting everything he did, most of the choices he’d made.

  Tommy was the one choice off the path he’d started down that night.

  But right now, Tom was watching him. Waiting. He knew there was more. That goddamned voodoo shit.

  He drew in a deep breath, trying not to worry about what Tommy’s reaction would be, and not succeeding. “I also guard the men and women we call specialists,” he explained. “Typically, the knowledge they possess is dangerous enough that we want them on our side. But if they fall into enemy hands during transport and that knowledge is compromised . . .”

  “What happens, Proph?” Tom asked.

  “If I can’t stop the situation, I have to take out the specialist.” His heart beat a thousand miles an hour as he waited for Tommy to judge him for that.

  “I can’t imagine,” Tom started. “How do you know you’d be able to handle that?”

  Prophet stared at him. “You’re thinking it was a way for me to punish myself or something? These jobs started before John and I were captured, T.”

  “So?” Tom asked quietly, and Prophet ignored that in favor of answering Tom’s original question, sans the double meaning.

  “Look, with a job like that, especially with the specialists, the most important thing is a conscience. People think you don’t need one—shouldn’t have one, because that would make it easier. But it shouldn’t be goddamned easy. And when you can’t feel anything, that’s when you’ve turned into the walking dead. And I’ve seen too many walking dead men in my time. I never want to become that.”

  “And you didn’t.”

  He’d come so damned close, though. He took a breath, but he wanted to get this out fast. Because he never liked talking about it. “After Azar and the CIA, I lost myself for two goddamned years. And Phil found me. Pulled me up and out. To this day, he doesn’t know much more than what kind of job I’d been doing and that I was looking for John. He knew enough then not to ask about it. Still knows enough now.”

  “Sometimes not knowing any better gets you further,” Tom said.

  Damn, the guy was smart as fuck. “When Phil first tried to recruit me, I resisted. But Phil told me I was wasting my talent.”

  “You, resisting?” Tom drawled. “Say it ain’t so.”

  “I resist until I get all the facts,” he protested, but Tom shook his head slowly.

  “You try to make it impossible to love you.”

  He stared up at the man. “Tommy, I don’t fucking have to try. This is just me.”

  “I know. I fell for just you.”

  “Give it time, T. You’ll regret that.” No self-pity, just a truth he believed.

  “Like Phil?”

  “Yeah, just like that,” he muttered. “Took him longer than most.”

  “So what do we do now?”

  “You go with Cope.”

  “We are not back here again, are we?”

  “No, we’re not. This has nothing to do with us—I want to fucking be with you, Tommy. I just can’t work at EE anymore. You can, and I don’t want you giving that up.”

  “You can’t or won’t?” Tom pressed.

  “Same thing in my world,” Prophet said. “It’s good work. You like it.”

  “I like working with you, Proph. We’re a fucking good team, and you know it. And I know you’re going to keep taking black-ops jobs. I won’t let you do that alone.”

  “Sadiq will take any opportunity to use you against me. He already has.”

  Tom persisted. “We’re effective together.”

  “We’re fucking scary together.”

  “We can grow old fighting crime.”

  Prophet obviously didn’t hide his expression fast enough, because Tom asked, “You worried about growing old? We can retire.”

  “Yeah,” Prophet said wistfully, and how was he going to share his impending blindness with Tommy?

  You’ve already told him way too fucking much.

  “What are you worried about?”

  “That I’ll hurt you,” Prophet said honestly. “That I’ll get you hurt.”

  “Same here, Proph. But I can’t stay away.”

  The tension was running high between them, good tension of the what the fuck do we do now variety. Tom watched Prophet carefully, trying to gauge his mood by the color of his eyes. Dark gray meant danger, lighter with a tinge of blue meant happy, even peaceful, if only for mere moments. But now the mood ring colors that were Prophet’s eyes weren’t helping, because he’d gotten caught up in their sadness. “Why does me not being able to stay away upset you so much? It’s not supposed to.”

  Prophet nodded, and his voice was rough with emotion when he said, “I’m okay with putting myself at risk, always have been. But I can’t keep pulling people into my shit.”

  Tom put his arms around him and just held him. “No one’s ever taken care of you back, Proph. You have to fucking let me.”

  “I don’t know how,” Prophet said, and Tom sighed internally, because that wasn’t a no. Not by a long shot. “I can fuck up a lot of things,” Prophet muttered.

  “Not this.”

  Prophet didn’t even look up at him.

  “Come on, Proph. Don’t do this.”

  Prophet stood, paced around the bed, and stopped in front of the window King had entered from. “You want to be my partner outside of the job too. But T, being a partner’s the same all the way around. Still gotta learn to work together. In sync, not just trying to put the other one in to a bubble and going all out to save him. If we listen and work together, we don’t need that shit.”

  “So we listen and work together—” Tom started, but Prophet held up a hand.

  “As it stands now, you count on me. I watch your back. I spend so much time worried about you, I get us both into trouble. I won’t go back there and let that happen again. You’re scared I’m going to get hurt. I’m fucking terrified of the same thing, but there’s something you can do about it. And you won’t.”

  “So I’m supposed to go work with Cope and you’re going to disappear, just like the rest of your team’s been forced to do?” Tom demanded.

  “For a little while, yeah.”

  “And what about us?”

  “Tommy—”

  “No, don’t. Don’t use that name in one breath and tell me you’re leaving in another.”

  “It would help a whole hell of a lot if you’d understand.”

  “It would help a whole hell of a lot if you’d let me help.”

  “You can’t. I can’t bring you any further into this than you already are. I can’t do that to anyone, T, but especially not to someone I . . .” He trailed off, shook his head. “I can’t.”

  “Won’t.”

  “In this case, they’re the same exact thing.”

  “How long?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It could be years?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why did you come here then?” Tom demanded.

  “Because I missed you.”

  “But only for the sex, right? That’s the only thing I’m allowed to help you wi
th.”

  “Did you ever consider that you’re a shitty partner, and that bad luck has nothing to do with it, Tom?”

  “Fuck you very much,” Tom growled. “I don’t need this shit.”

  Tom’s head ached under the weight of Prophet’s words. They’d hit the mark, the dart in the bull’s-eye, and while Prophet meant them, he hadn’t completely said them to wound.

  He’d spoken the truth and that made Tom’s world spin. Because he’d never trusted himself enough to be an effective partner—and that’s exactly what Prophet had been trying to show him the entire time.

  But that familiar anger rose up, and he couldn’t get a handle on it fast enough. “Go home, Prophet. You still have one of those, right? Go to your spook or Mal or Doc and fuck your way through whoever you need to.”

  “Right. Me leaving like this clears your conscience. Makes all this so much easier on you.” Prophet leaned in. “I’m staying. Gonna watch all your secrets tumble out onto the floor. Watch it get messy and ugly. And you know what? Afterward, I’ll still be here, because I’m done running from us.”

  After spending two days in Etienne’s studio feeling sorry for himself, Tom manned up and emailed Phil. And then he showered and dressed for Etienne’s memorial service.

  He wasn’t invited, so technically, he’d be going after the fact. And it was hot and crowded and horrible. And he swore he saw Prophet there, but when he blinked, he couldn’t find him again in the crowd.

  When he’d visited Remy in the hospital, the kid had sworn Prophet hadn’t been there, but Tom knew better. Remy had been released that morning, but he’d heard rumbles that Remy’s mom wouldn’t let him come to the service.

  Tom needed to keep Della involved in that. He’d given Remy Della’s number—and he’d make sure Della knew it. When she was speaking to him again.

  Now, he said a prayer for his old friend, his heart heavy for the way this had ended. For being the only one to escape. But Etienne would’ve forgiven him, because the man always had. It was time for Tom to forgive himself.

  He stopped at a bakery first, then drove to Della’s. Prophet’s truck was still in the driveway. He was still there, as promised.

  When Tom walked through the front door, the house was warm and smelled like paint. He followed the scent, walked through the kitchen and back into the rarely used formal dining room. Prophet was painting—rolling the walls, the fan lazily blowing the hot air around the room. Prophet was caught up in the mindless work, his shirt soaked with sweat, his hair caught in a green bandana, the muscles in his arms standing out with the slickness of his skin.