If I Ever

by SE Jakes

  Always would.

  Let the words save your life. “Yeah, John, I want you. You’ve made me wait too long. Never found what I needed. So don’t hold back now.”

  John entered him raw and fuck, it hurt like hell, but he bit down and refused to show any reaction. The rest of his body was numb anyway, from whatever drugs John had made him ingest, and his eyes still blurred as he tried to look at the entire scene dispassionately. Fucking for intel. Fucking to save lives. He could live through this. He would.

  John began to jack him as he pumped and thrust, anger fueling him. “Just like before that mission, right, Proph? Made you enjoy it then.”

  “That was different.” Much different, because Prophet wasn’t hard this time, and it was pissing John off.

  “It’s never different with us. Same old shit,” John panted in time with his thrusts.

  “Four weeks, John. Four weeks, three days, two hours and forty-six minutes.” His breath came in small hitches as he spoke of their time in captivity together. “After we got through that together, we should’ve been able to get through anything.”

  “Shut the fuck up, Prophet.” John grit his teeth and continued his assault, but his rhythm faltered.

  “They tied us up. Stripped us. Drugged us. Beat us. And you did the same thing to me. You’re no better than them,” Prophet goaded.

  John went at him harder, although he was losing his erection. He put his palm around Prophet’s throat and began to squeeze.

  “Guess you and Lansing have a lot more in common than I realized,” he managed, his voice rough and barely there.

  In the background he heard Tom yelling. Thrashing. Fighting.

  Neither of them knew any other way.

  Prophet flailed, attempted to buck John away but only succeeded in getting him to ease up on his throat, and his voice was hoarse when he told John, “It’s not going to happen.”

  “Maybe this isn’t, but something is, Prophet . . . something bigger.”

  “You won’t be around to see it.”

  “Funny, you talking about me seeing,” John said, his hand going up to Prophet’s throat again. He started to squeeze but his mouth suddenly froze, mid-smile, half-open and with a gurgle, and Prophet blinked at the sudden clarity.

  Tom. How the hell he’d gotten out of his restraints, Prophet had no idea, but Tom was free, twisting a knife into John’s armpit, pointing it downward, and then John stopped fighting and collapsed, dead. Tom had popped his heart with the knife, an impressive move.

  Prophet put his head back down and struggled to breathe as a sudden panic filled him, until Tom yanked John off him, the body hitting the floor with a heavy thud. Prophet breathed, lay there, refusing to assess the damage. It was too fucking great at the moment to deal with. “Fuck. How, T?”

  “Thanks to piercings that double as handcuff keys . . . and Mal’s list,” Tom muttered as he worked feverishly on Prophet’s cuffs, trying to be quick and gentle at the same time. Prophet’s arms were stretched overhead and they were numb. Tom rubbed the circulation back, and it hurt, but it was necessary pain. “Can you see?”

  “A little bit. Fucking waterboarding was good for something.” He shifted when Tom freed his hands, then tried his free wrist and shook his head at how badly the thumb had swelled. He tested the other, still in the cuff, gingerly.

  Broken too. Again.

  Tom freed his legs, did the same massage to get his blood flowing and then brought his pants over, helped shove them up and on, because hell, this wasn’t over. Prophet ignored the stickiness between his thighs as he zipped up and thought about the easiest way to break the hell out of this place.

  Except, at the moment, even though he was seeing better, it was just clearer shadows.

  It won’t be as bad as this, he consoled himself. The drops were worse than his final sight would be. He knew that because he’d asked his eye specialist to simulate it for him, and this kind of drop was the best he could do.

  Of course, it could be worse, Dr. Salen had reminded him, and Prophet nicknamed him the Angel of Death.

  To his face.

  Now, he sat back and fought a sob, because this was far from over, and waited for the sense of relief that would wash over him soon enough. He wasn’t sure he’d taken a full breath since John grabbed him at the airport. He’d been keeping it together for so long that he wasn’t sure what the fuck would happen. When he finally allowed himself to let go.

  So he didn’t.

  Instead, he did what he could, by rote. “I’m an old man,” he muttered.

  “But you’re my old man. And you’re far from helpless,” Tom told him angrily. “Can you stop feeling sorry for yourself before we blow up?”

  Even as he said that, Tom was next to him, holding him. Cradling both wrists. Cradling Prophet, until Prophet pulled back. “I can’t, Tom. Not now. Can’t fall apart yet.”

  And Tom, as always, understood. “Then let’s go.”

  Prophet let himself be tugged up off the floor, but then something somewhere beeped. Both men froze as the loud sound continued, echoing in the cavernous space.

  “Is that a bomb?” Tom asked.

  “He said the place was wired to blow.” Prophet scanned the room and saw the box on the wall. “Shit—he’s got a check-in system, and it’s not just for the disabled triggers—it’s for inside here too.”

  “He was ready to blow himself up too, the asshole. What am I looking for?”

  “He kept going over to the computers—check for a place to scan his fingerprints at certain intervals or the bombs detonate,” Prophet explained, but Tom was already up and no doubt looking for the box.

  “Found it,” Tom called out seconds later, and then he ran back over, put a phone in Prophet’s hand and then grabbed John. “The touch pad needs John’s fingerprints. He’s still warm—we’ll get a little time, but it looks like this is set at shorter intervals for the rest of the night.” Prophet heard him dragging John’s body across the floor. “Okay, it worked. But shit, we’ve only got five minutes.”

  “Asshole,” Prophet grunted. He fumbled with John’s phone several times, squinting, then he took a deep breath, unfucked himself, and hit the keys by rote. He’d been trained to dial and activate calls without looking. “I’m calling Mal. I’m hoping he’s close.”

  As he spoke, there were explosions from below, making the entire building shake.

  “Are we dead?” Prophet asked.

  “It’s gunfire. Flash bangs. Think it’s our guys?”

  “Fuck, hope so.” He dialed the number again and then again when it went to voice mail. Finally, the call went through, as evidenced by Prophet hearing the explosions echoing directly into his ear. “Mal? Mal—it’s me—stop trying to blow us the fuck up,” he said, and held his breath until Mal began to tap. “Okay—we’ve got it. You’re trying to get the bodyguards to come out so you can pick them off. But we need to come out. Place is wired to blow in five minutes.” He waited again, listened, then said, “Got it.”

  “Three minutes.” Tom input John’s fingerprints. “Five again.”

  “We’ve got to get the hell out of here. Mal’s driving John’s men back in.”

  “To where?”

  “Mal said there’s a crawlspace on the first floor—takes us out into a window well. He’ll keep John’s men occupied.”

  “Hopefully they don’t realize John’s dead,” Tom said as he helped Prophet out the door and down the stairs. They were both armed but thankfully only met with two men on the way down, and Tom took care of them easily with two quick and well-placed shots. At least Prophet figured they were, because people stopped shooting at them after that.

  “I’ve got the crawlspace,” Tom told him. “It’s small, but doable. We’re going to have to crawl through. It’s about twenty feet.”

  Might as well be a million, but hell, he was already partially in the dark anyway. “You go first. If I get stuck, it’s easier to pull than push,” Prophet reasoned and Tom d
idn’t argue, which was good. They were out of time for that.

  Tom shimmied in and began to commando crawl, dragging himself along by the strength of his arms and upper body. Prophet’s momentum was halting since his wrists were damaged, and it was a slow, painful drag of his body.

  He counted down the seconds in his mind.

  Fuck, he was tired, but then Tom’s voice echoed inside the enclosed space. “C’mon. For me. For Remy, dammit,” and Prophet pushed onward, his wrists numb, his body like lead, and then he hit concrete and strong hands were yanking him up out of the window well he’d been dumped into and he was being carried—fast. The explosions hit behind him and pushed him forward—and Tom and Mal, who’d been holding him up, and the ground came up fast to meet him. He felt the heat first and then the rain of debris cutting his skin, the onslaught like a thousand needles, and squeezed his eyes closed out of habit.

  When he opened them, he was half buried under Tom, and he barely made out Mal, who was leaning over him worriedly. The fire burned hot enough for him to still feel it, and he managed, “We need to get the hell out of here.”

  He could practically hear Mal rolling his eyes and fuck, he was never so grateful for that. Mal and Tom got him up and into the waiting truck, with Cillian in the driver’s seat. For a long moment, they all stared at the burning warehouse.

  If only fire could burn away the memories too.

  As they drove to a new safe house, Tom sat with Prophet and Mal in the back as Cillian drove, with Cahill, Elvis and Xavier leading the way. Of course, Prophet continued to fight any sort of help they tried to give him, arguing that “Tom’s in worse shape than I am.”

  “Way to throw me under the bus,” Tom told him as Mal tried to force an oxygen mask over Prophet’s face and ended up compromising by just holding it close enough for blowby. And the only reason Prophet allowed even that was because Tom said, “C’mon—you do that and I’ll call King and let him know we’re okay.”

  “One piece, both of you?” was the first thing King asked after hearing Tom’s voice.

  “Both of us,” Tom told him. “Say hi, Prophet.”

  Prophet yanked Mal’s hands—and the mask—away from his face. “Hi Prophet.”

  “Still an asshole,” King said fondly. “So . . . it’s done?”

  “It’s fucking done,” Tom assured him as he watched Prophet and Mal literally wrestle over the O2 mask.

  King muttered something in Gaelic that sounded suspiciously like a prayer. “We’re meeting you at the newest safe house. Keep in touch.”

  “We will.” After he hung up, he glanced at Prophet’s messages. “Proph, you’ve got a message from LT.” He scanned it quickly because he couldn’t help himself, and then he went to hand the phone to Prophet, who said, “Read it, Tom.”

  His eyes. Right. Shit. They were better, but when Tom looked closely, he could see that they were still slightly unfocused. “LT said that he got intel about the specialist. He’s got her, Proph. He says she’s safe.”

  “Jesus. More than I could’ve hoped for,” Prophet mumbled, and, from the driver’s seat, Cillian let out a harsh breath.

  “I guess I have to hate him a little less.” Tom leaned his head back, because he was just starting to notice that his entire body was one giant ache. Prophet’s legs were on his, his upper body was on Mal, the three of them crammed back here “like idiots,” according to Cillian.

  Cillian kept talking to him though, like he thought Tom had a concussion and didn’t want him to sleep. And when Cillian wasn’t talking to both him and Prophet, Mal was hitting both of them. But finally, they were at the safe house.

  Both he and Prophet needed a doctor—and both of them refused. Still, Tom allowed Mal to check him over once inside only because he knew then Prophet would let him do it too. Because Prophet was still attempting to micromanage and Mal was bitching silently, which was damned impressive.

  Mal pointed out, by literally pointing, that Tom needed to put his piercings back in.

  “So does Prophet,” Tom added. He grabbed the baggie from his go-bag and Prophet reached into his pocket and pulled out his.

  Mal continued cursing both of them, first as he cleaned Prophet’s nipple ring and then signed to Tom, Do you want to put this back in?

  As much as Tom wanted to, his hands were still shaking from the earlier ordeal, all the adrenaline pouring off him. He shook his head and Mal smirked and signed, Guess I’ll be doing yours too.

  “Fuck that, Mal. I’ll do them,” Prophet said loudly, stood, and then groaned and sat back down. “Fuck it. Touch his dick. See if I care.”

  Tom watched Mal put Prophet’s ring back in, cleanly and efficiently. He put his own tongue ring back in, and his own nipple rings, mainly to cut down having to watch Prophet watch Mal put in his cock piercings. The hiss of pain invigorated him and, to Mal’s credit, it was fast. Professional.

  Except for Mal’s smirk once he was done. Nice piercing pattern.

  “Fuck off,” Tom told him, but even those short moments of exertion tired him out.

  They were both in bad shape. Beyond the cuts they’d sustained from the blast, which Mal stitched up before too much time passed, Tom also had a huge bruise on his abdomen that Mal indicated was a bruised spleen and no doubt broken ribs to go along with it. Prophet had those too, along with a matching concussion to Tom’s.

  “God, we’re fucked.” Prophet took shallow breaths, sounded like he was pushing words out painfully now that the adrenaline had worn off. Mal came toward him with a wrap for his ribs but Prophet backed away and begged off. “I need to shower first, man. Please.”

  Such a goddamned baby. Mal looked between him and Tom. Both of you, clean up. Then I’ll finish here. But first, he wrapped the places he’d stitched and signed, Don’t let these get soaked.

  Prophet nodded. Mal left them and it was so damned quiet . . . and Tom wondered if he should’ve found an excuse to keep Mal in the room with them. Neither man made a move, toward the shower or otherwise, like they were both realizing the magnitude of what had happened. And Mal probably knew that instinctively, which was why he’d tried to hang around.

  Tom finally broke the silence. “How long will we stay here?”

  “Till dark, I’m guessing. And then we’ll get out of dodge. For all I know, the CIA thinks we’re dead.”

  “Fuck ’em. That’s not an entirely bad thing,” Tom grunted.

  “Something’s bothering me, though.”

  “Besides the busted ribs?”

  “Yeah.” He shook his head. “It’s just . . . this was . . . easier than—”

  “Easy?” Prophet’s voice was dangerous as he cut him off and moved to stand so they were face to face. “Eleven years, T, and none of it’s been easy. It may be anticlimactic for you—and that’s good. But I spent my last sighted years stopping this man from hurting people . . . and hurting himself more than he already had. I caught him because he was ready. Because it was the end. I have to live with years of failure.”

  “Proph . . .”

  But Prophet was backing away like he didn’t recognize Tom. His face was pale, his eyes stunned.

  “Proph, I only meant that . . . why would John let his guard down so easily?”

  “Because I did the same damned thing,” he practically yelled, then grabbed his side and glared at Tom.

  It was Tom’s turn to take a step back, Prophet’s words pushing him as hard as a physical blow. It was nothing he hadn’t known, that Prophet would have to let John in to catch him, but knowing it and seeing it happen? Two different things entirely.

  He turned away, needing another second to just breathe and separate before they unintentionally hurt each other more, and so he headed toward the bathroom.

  “If you walk out now . . .” Prophet called.

  “What? Don’t come back?”

  “If you fucking run because things are hard, you’re always gonna run.”

  Tom looked over his shoulder. “I’m not running
, you asshole—I’m turning on the shower. What the fuck are you doing?”

  Prophet stared at him. “I’m standing here, Tommy. Forcing you to look at what’s here. To acknowledge what you heard me and John talking about. What you saw us doing. To let it go.”

  “You don’t think I didn’t know what you and John . . .”

  Prophet’s next words were halting. “You didn’t know. Not all of it. Because I didn’t tell you—on purpose. Maybe even selfishly. But if you can’t handle this . . .”

  “Don’t you dare try to make this a reason to push me away, Lije.”

  At the sound of his nickname, spoken in Tom’s soft drawl, Prophet started. Blinked. “Don’t, T.”

  Tom felt Prophet’s pain pouring off him in waves that threatened to pound them both and drag them under. “I’ll fight dirty if I have to. All those years with him versus our short time together. But I will make you forget him.”

  At the growl in Tom’s voice, Prophet’s chin rose. “Then make me.”

  “I did it once. I can fuck the ghosts out of you again and again.”

  “Do it.”

  Jesus. That was all Prophet wanted. It was all Tom wanted too. He grabbed Prophet and tugged him close. Held Prophet against him. “I know it was the hardest thing.”

  “No. Losing you would be the hardest thing,” Prophet corrected him. “Trust me. Everything else pales in comparison.”

  “What you did—”

  “Tommy—”

  But Tom put a finger over Prophet’s lips and continued. “What you did . . . we have to forgive each other. You for doing that and me for not being there.”

  “You were there, helping me. Besides, I planned it.”

  “You can’t even accept a goddamned truce? I know you did, Proph. But why you had to hurt yourself like that in the process . . .”

  “Just pain, T. I can live with pain. Always have.”

  “If you add ‘always will’ . . .”

  “It’s the truth,” Prophet protested stubbornly. “Guess your curse is really gone. Or maybe I’m your curse now.”