by SE Jakes
And still, there was no reason not to be an asshole. Do I look like I need reassurance?
“Maybe I do,” Cillian said, in an uncharacteristic confession.
This is a long time coming. Mal turned his head to catch a breeze through the opened window, letting the wind race against his skin. But you already knew that.
He felt Cillian’s eyes on him, as if trying to discern if Mal meant any malice toward him with those words. But Cillian just let that hang between them, a wall of uncertainty that neither man had the time to climb or knock down at the moment. Hell, maybe Mal fortified it purposely, to get himself through the next hours.
Are you clear on your mission? Mal signed when they pulled in a blind spot, as close to John’s building as they dared.
“You still don’t trust me.”
Are you clear on your mission? Mal repeated. Because originally, you were willing to kill Prophet in order to keep John alive. So I don’t know where you are on any of this. I don’t know if you’re still the CIA’s bitch . . .
Cillian was on him, pinning him to the seat, which was a dangerous fucking move, and one that Mal appreciated. It gave him a chance to look Cillian in the eye. “I was never the CIA’s bitch. Or SB-20’s. I learned my lessons, Mal. Learned them the hard way.” He backed off into his own seat. “Prophet didn’t want this.”
Since when do you do what Prophet wants? Mal demanded, assuming he meant the rescue and not the breeding suspicion, but it could’ve been both.
“Is he stable enough for all of this?”
It’d be worse if he was.
Tom’s entire body ached, and that only served to fuel his anger. It felt good to finally unleash it, let it run wild without fear of reprisal because this time? Killing someone was exactly what he was supposed to do.
John stood in the ring across from him, Prophet still bound in the corner, watching them.
John took a step toward him. “We have a lot in common, Tom.”
“What? Daddies who beat the shit out of us? Wanna bond over that?” Tom taunted, saw the briefest flash of vulnerability before the anger replaced it. “That’s right—Prophet told me your deep dark Daddy issues.”
John smiled suddenly. “I thought we could bond over Prophet, because, try as you might to stop it, we still share him. I’m sure he wakes you up at night with my name in his mouth.”
Tom’s anger rose swiftly and he could almost hear Prophet telling him to calm the fuck down. To remember what happened the last time he fought someone and lost complete control. He’d almost killed someone on their first mission together . . . and right now, that would fuck up the entire plan. “That’s in the past for you. He’s my future, and that’s what this giant temper tantrum of yours is all about. You couldn’t get your ex-boyfriend’s attention, so you tried to blow up the world? Fucking pathetic.”
“He’s only thinking about you when you force him to. Even when you’re inside of him, he’s thinking about me. And he always will.”
Fucking, he was playing on Tom’s deepest, most secret insecurity. And wasting time, which was the point of all of this, he reminded himself. “Why? Still pissed about Daddy? Mine just used me as a punching bag. Yours was looking for pussy.”
John lunged and they made contact briefly, with John slamming his forehead against Tom’s, and Tom taking that and slamming John back with a hard hit to the man’s shoulders.
Tom would say the most disgusting, hateful things, words he didn’t mean and would never say to another survivor of sexual violence—anything to keep John angry. But rape was about power and right now, John held it. And one of the strongest counters to power? Anger. Pride, even. “You can talk about Prophet’s dick all night. We all know the one you miss the most is Daddy’s.”
It only took a beat for John to come at him again, John’s palm wrapping around his throat, squeezing and for a long moment, Tom watched the burn of pure hatred in his eyes. Even as he struggled for air, he was aware of another pain—and Prophet’s yell—but he brought his elbows down on John’s arms, breaking the hold.
Behind him, Prophet’s protests continued. Maybe they’d hate each other for this later and Tom would have to live with that, with everything that happened in this room today.
“I’ve seen you fight, you know. I know it’s dirty,” John said with a sneer. “You almost killed Ivan that night.”
Rage burned through Tom—whether John was actually there the night he fought was irrelevant. But he forced himself to stand still and make John react. “I was stronger than your brother Chris, though.”
John charged like a bull, and Tom braced, took the hit, and stumbled back with John, which allowed him to wrap his arms around John’s head and shoulders and semi-immobilize him as they fell, and then rolled.
They hit hard, Tom landing on his shoulder, John elbowing his chest, but Tom used the momentum to shoot a leg out and roll John under him. He used his hand to grab the front of John’s hair and slam his head a few times against the wood floor, stunning him momentarily. But the man had a hard fucking head and lunged up to try to grab for Tom’s throat again.
Tom evaded, jumped up from his knees straight to his feet and out of the way before John attempted to knock him down again.
John rolled and got to his feet as well in a swift moment, but he wobbled just enough to let Tom know he’d knocked something loose.
Tom brushed the hair and blood out of his eyes and suddenly, he was woozy.
Dizzy as fuck. Had John drugged him?
He blinked and his hand went to his biceps where he’d registered the brief pain earlier.
“You didn’t think this would be a fair fight, did you, Tom?”
Tom blinked and saw John standing above him. One minute, he’d had John in a headlock and the next, the world was spinning. “You . . . drugged me.” His voice felt thick, like he was pushing the words through molasses.
“Give the man a prize.” John was trussing him up, tying knots and using metal cuffs on top of it in order to ensure Tom wasn’t moving. He had a knife now, and Prophet was calling him off, yelling for John to “Take it out on me instead,” and John turned to Prophet.
“There’s plenty of time for that, Proph.” His attention went back to Tom, who couldn’t move his body no matter how hard he tried. Even breathing wasn’t easy, and that’s all he could concentrate on, because John wasn’t going to kill him, not now. Not until he’d made Tom suffer, and Tom knew he hadn’t suffered nearly enough.
John bent down and ran a finger along the dreamcatcher on Tom’s biceps . . . and then he dragged the knife across it, following the same path, like he was ruining it. Cursing it. Rendering it ineffective. Taking its luck.
John smiled, like he knew. “Bad luck, Tom? How’re your other partners doing? All dead, right? This won’t end any differently, but you knew that. You always do.”
Tom smelled fear and pain and blood, all of it washing over him as his body became a lead prison, the mat sticky under him, the sweat and the drug making him shiver. Useless adrenaline raced through him, because he knew what John had planned now, knew it in a flash, and there was nothing Tom could do to stop him.
Not when John dragged him over to face Prophet with a clear view and told him, “Figured because you like to watch Prophet’s dick so much, that you’d enjoy this. Bet you only want what’s best for him.”
Prophet turned his head from Tom and looked up at John, who dipped his mouth to Prophet’s. And then Prophet was kissing John and Tom wanted to unsee it, wished he could look away but for Prophet, no. This wasn’t enjoyable—it was about dominance—and Prophet’s kisses told Tom he was desperately trying to gain that dominance.
He blinked—hard—to stay conscious, because he had to. For Prophet.
John was whispering to Prophet, telling him that he loved him, he’d kill for him—all the normal, romantic ways to Prophet’s heart. Tugging Prophet’s pants off, tying his legs down to match his arms, even though Prophet appeared to be so drugg
ed he could barely move. Or maybe he was faking.
Tom prayed that he was just faking it. That he was just wasting time. Buying time . . . and still, he couldn’t help but shake the feeling that they were also running out of it and fuck, they were never getting it back. Everything that happened tonight was important.
Irreversible.
Bad loque, Tom.
He tried to shove his thoughts into Prophet’s brain before Tom lost it completely, until something niggled. Instead of forcing it, he stopped. Listened for Prophet’s thoughts and knew that Prophet would tell him that he wasn’t bad luck. That Tom needed to hold on and fucking trust him. That he hated what he was forced to do. How it was all a means to an end.
Hold on and trust. Because right now, that’s all he could do.
Mal wiped sweat from his eyes as he traced his steps back around John’s building, checking the wires and blasting caps. Nothing too sophisticated, which made them both easy to disarm—and yet that much more unstable.
Cillian was watching his six from a higher perch that covered the front (and only, besides the windows) entrance. John’s bodyguards were all camped out inside, and in the dark, Mal was able to avoid the cameras and clip wires surreptitiously. And that was a good thing, even though he had a sinking feeling that the bombs inside were far more plentiful and probably much harder to dissemble.
His phone buzzed in his pocket as he made his way down the street toward Cillian. He answered it by tapping a code, so King knew it was him, and heard, “Mal, we’re good. All three triggers have been disabled and the bombs detonated safely. I repeat—all three triggers have been disabled. How do we proceed?”
The phone line crackled on King’s end, letting Mal know it was a shit connection, but relief coursed through him just the same. He tapped the phone three times to let King know he’d gotten the message loud and clear. This was where being unable to speak got frustrating, but he’d learned that letting the frustration win wasted too much time. Handing the phone off to Cillian wasn’t an option. This was about his team, and he needed to push all the anger down and deal, so he continued tapping the phone—his location in Morse code—until King repeated the coordinates back to him.
“We’re about three hours out, by plane,” King told him.
Too long, Mal tapped.
“We’re still headed your way,” King insisted. “Don’t turn your damned phone off.”
Cillian was watching him. “Tell me it’s done.”
It’s all done, Mal mouthed and, even in the dark, Cillian read him. That might worry Mal more than anything, but he pushed that thought aside for the other one crowding his brain.
Too easy. Too fucking easy. And he’d learned early that easy meant fucked. Yes, thousands of innocent lives had been saved—the sarin gas bombs had been rigged to blow, so crisis averted, and thank fucking Christ for that.
But there was a bigger crisis unfolding. And he’d lived shit like that one too many times for the hairs on the back of his neck not to prickle.
“Blue’s trying to disable the bombs inside but they’re not high tech—just dangerous as hell,” Cillian told him. “Still, he managed to get us a way in that’s not rigged.”
A way in’s a way out, Mal signed.
This isn’t happening.
Prophet was pretty good at living in reality, but now he was going to pretend none of this was real, that this was all some fucking flashback from hell . . . that John wasn’t climbing on top of him while Tom was in the room.
“Come on, Proph.” John’s voice was gentle. “Like the old days.”
He wanted to say, In the old days, you’d never do this to me, but that would be a lie. This—all of this that John had meticulously set up for him—was a callback to the night before the mission with Hal. But back then, he hadn’t been drugged and tied and hurt—he’d told himself that he’d given in to John because it was easier than fighting, that letting John get him off hadn’t done any harm . . . but it had.
This would as well. “The old days were a fucking lie, John.”
John smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “You’re finally getting it—I haven’t changed. This is who I always was—and you knew it. Everyone tried to tell you that. I’m flattered you still believed in me, but you shouldn’t have. Not after the night before that mission. You knew then, but hell, you’ve got a sentimental streak a mile wide.” John leaned in to kiss him again, open-mouthed, intense, demanding.
If I have to fuck someone else, it’s to save lives . . . and not mine.
Prophet closed his eyes as he repeated the words he’d told Tom in his head . . . and gave in. Between the drugs and the bindings, there wasn’t much else to do, and he knew it wasn’t going to stay this gentle.
“One for the road,” John murmured.
“You’re not taking me with you? Isn’t that what this is—you wanting me back? You got me.”
John stilled, and the spell was broken, irrevocably, the way it’d been since the day Prophet had killed Hal. “Give it up, Prophet. You’re letting me fuck you in front of him to prove your loyalty to me. I’m fucking you in front of him to prove you’ll never forget me. We’re definitely not on the same page.”
“You don’t have that much power over me,” he said as if breaking it to him gently.
“Easy to say now.”
Nothing was easy, but Prophet? He was done pretending. He turned his head away from John’s kiss, but John grabbed his chin roughly and forced Prophet to meet his eyes. “I guess the game’s up, right? No more playing nice with John?”
“Right. No more.” Prophet made out the shadow of John’s smile.
“Ready to watch the world blow up?”
“Show me what you’ve got, John. ’S’what I’m here for, right?”
John pushed off him and headed toward the computers, giving Tom a vicious kick on the way. Tom groaned and cursed John, and John just laughed and began typing once he reached the computer.
“’S’all right, Proph,” Tom managed to slur and Prophet nodded, staring at his mismatched eyes more from memory than from actual sight.
“Shut the fuck up,” John told him, obviously agitated. Prophet heard him hitting several more keys, then pausing . . . and then the same thing, hitting the same sequence over and over four more times.
Job’s done. Triggers dissembled. Bombs disarmed. Go motherfucking team.
He forced himself to keep his mouth shut, to let John’s being distracted happen so he could try to fucking free himself . . . but breaking his wrists, again, wasn’t going to work. The cuffs were too tight, and when he was younger, he’d probably do it and risk the inherent nerve damage, but he was older and supposed to be wiser.
He’d find another way.
Glancing over toward the computers, he saw a light—a screen flickering—and he could make out a man. A video call, and one John wasn’t bothering to hide. Prophet heard the all-too-familiar sounds of someone being beaten and then a yell.
John froze as another voice on the screen said, “I guess the guy’s not a mute after all.”
Then the feed was cut off and John’s rage lit up the room, slicing through Prophet’s triumph like a knife through butter.
“Guess time really is up,” Prophet said, more to Tom than to John.
Tom snorted, and then Prophet heard the kick, followed by Tom’s angry howl that sounded far stronger than it probably should, given the drugs, as John shadowed past before leaning in and telling Prophet, “You think you’re so smart. So Mal escaped and he’s probably lying in wait, right? I’ll blow the shit out of him along with you.”
“And yourself too? You’re dying for your cause now? Identifying with all those suicide bombers? Because altruism isn’t something I normally identify with you.”
Prophet caught the movement and braced himself as John slammed him across the cheekbone. Prophet’s teeth vibrated and he prepared for another kind of onslaught. He turned his head to stare at Tom, who refused to turn away. He
ignored the pain (the whole pain is weakness leaving the body theory was surprisingly accurate, he’d learned early on) and because he couldn’t stop it, he let it happened. Because the only way to go through hell was to keep going.
John walked away again, but when he came back, Prophet heard the slushing of water in a bucket.
Fuck.
Before he could take a full breath, John covered his face with a towel and began waterboarding him. Prophet had been through this countless times, both during training and in real-life situations. It taught him not to panic but it never, ever got easier. In some ways, it got harder, because he knew just how bad it was. Holding his breath wasn’t enough—the water went into his nose, down his throat, and mere breath-holding did shit.
Prophet forced himself to count. Got to fifty before the water stopped and he coughed his goddamned lungs up. Said, “That all you got?” which, of course, earned him another round of water torture, and never let it be said that he took the easy way out.
After John stopped, probably because he ran out of water, he ripped the towel off his face. Prophet blinked and coughed and choked while John watched him.
Finally, when he caught his breath, he looked over at Tom, who appeared to be thrashing furiously. And when he turned his head back to John and knew what he had to do to end this. It was going to hurt like a bitch, but hey, so did life. “Just fucking do it, John.”
“You want it, Proph—that what you’re telling me?” Something flashed in John’s eyes that even Prophet’s blurred ones caught.
For the briefest of seconds the old John was with him—at fourteen and seventeen and twenty-two in boot camp, both of them scared and exhausted and exhilarated all at once, their bodies aching in unfamiliar places, their minds swimming with so much new intel about battles and ammo—the words swimming . . . but words they both knew would save their lives if they let them. Their shared time of being beaten, threatened with rape . . . of being stripped and tortured and still those words from boot camp running through his mind, telling him he could get through anything. That he always had.