The second oddity was that Jasper was not present.
Just him and dear old Dad—the old Payne family connection. The worst part of that connection was Chase was almost positive that if anyone could reach in through his shield and get a handle on his vibes, it would be Richard. There was something different about the energy around his relatives, and it made him nervous. He’d spent the last few minutes holding himself still and concentrating on a memory of his childhood torture chamber when keeping his shield up had meant life or death.
Not that this wasn’t life or death. He’d been invited to the phone conference, but he still had no idea where he stood.
“This story is so convoluted it sounds like bullshit.”
A snicker popped out of Chase’s mouth before he could bite back on it. Richard cast him a baleful glare, and he spread his hands with a helpless smirk. No one ever talked to his father like that but him, so Michelle Hale was already his favorite person.
“What part of the story is confusing?” Richard asked, icicles hanging from his voice. “The part where my son turned on the Community after being brainwashed by Ex-Comm, the part where they invaded the Farm to abduct my wife, or the part where they tried to kill me?”
“Yeah, I got all that, Richard,” she said with an edge. “But what I’m wondering is how this all came to be. Why would Holden do this?”
“He’s been brainwashed by Ex-Comm.”
A loud sigh made it through the speaker, and that sound caused Richard to sit up straight. He tensed, hands balling up, and an expression of rage filled his face that Chase hadn’t seen in a long time. Since childhood, when Richard had treated his wife like a brainless doormat whenever she rejected his version of reality. Kind of like what Hale was doing now.
Chase was struck with an overwhelming desire to end the call before his father could go nuclear, but he stopped himself. Instead, he slumped further in the chair and made a big show of scowling at the phone.
“Richard, this Ex-Comm obsession of yours needs to stop.”
Oh shit, Hale was going in.
“Ever since Jessica relocated to the Farm, you’ve been fixated on this idea that everyone who slips away, drops membership, or whatever other thing, is banding together to turn against us all.” Hale’s headshake was almost visible through the phone. “You’re paranoid. And I know it’s likely because of the deaths and the disappearances that have been happening for the past few years—”
Chase sat up straight. “What?”
Richard frowned at him, and Hale paused. After a beat she said, “I didn’t think you would speak, Chase.”
“I didn’t have much to say until right then. I thought the shit that went down at Evo was an isolated incident.”
“On the contrary,” Kyger finally butted in, his voice nasal and impatient sounding. “We’ve had rashes of these incidents at various Community nodes in the tri-state area. It started several years ago and pops up every so often. So far, we haven’t figured out what’s happening or why, but the commonalities are that involved parties are exceptionally talented, troubled, and in or associated with the Community. So there was something to the theory that a member was involved.”
Chase looked at his father, unable to speak.
“My theory is that Ex-Comm is involved,” Richard lied stonily. “They’re abducting members of the Community and brainwashing them. Nothing else makes sense.”
Nothing else. Right.
Because it wasn’t entirely possible that Richard was sending out his flunkies like Will and Kyra to procure rare psys, some of whom were conveniently “troubled,” to the Farm. For research. It definitely didn’t seem likely that he’d planted Beck at Evolution to spot rare psys for him, and that he hadn’t anticipated her fucking eating them.
There was no way he was involved at all.
Bull. Shit.
It all clicked together so beautifully that Chase had to strain his face to raise an eyebrow and look like a smart-ass. He felt like throwing up.
“Yes, you’ve told us this theory before,” Kyger said after a long silence. “In any event, I imagine you want us to organize a group to find Holden and Jessica.”
“To find them all. It’s time we stop waiting for people to attack us.” Richard clenched his jaw, staring down at the phone, and added, “These people hate us, Lukas. Michelle. You have no idea what plot they have to expose the Community to the rest of the world. It’s completely within their power to destroy our discretion and everything we’ve built over the past few years. Whether you think I’m paranoid or not, the fact remains that we’ve accepted responsibility for the protection and care of thousands of vulnerable psychics. If some former members with a grudge ruin that, we will all be doomed.”
There was something about those words, regardless of how masked they were by his real intentions, that rang true for Chase. That fact was emphasized when he pressed his mental ear up against his father’s shield. Chase heard a resounding thought: They’ll kill us all.
People could say a lot of things about Richard Payne, but Chase had no doubt that his father believed what he said. As twisted as his ideas were, he genuinely thought he was doing what he had to do.
It was fucked up. Even more fucked up because a concern drifted back to Chase. Ever since he’d learned of the existence of Ex-Comm, he’d wondered what their intentions were. Their plans. They wanted to take down the Community, but how? And what would happen to the people who were in fact supported by it? What would happen if this little showdown resulted in more attention landing on them than they’d ever considered?
Chase had zero doubts that his father’s propaganda speech was accurate in at least one way: if the government knew about people like them, people like Chase, he’d end up in the same kind of research chamber as he’d been in as a child.
“What do you propose, Richard?” Hale asked.
“Members of our security task force headed by people I hand select will go after them, return Holden and Jessica to me, and then I’ll bring the rest here for questioning.”
“Questioning.” The word held weight, but Kyger didn’t follow up on his unspoken skepticism. “Do you have leads as to where they could be?”
“Yes,” Richard said, and Chase’s heart stopped. He had to hold himself very steady, and focus on the memory of that room to not give himself away. “I have reason to believe they’re in or around Poughkeepsie.”
“What is your reason for believing that?” Hale asked.
Richard’s eyes shifted to Chase and, in that moment, Chase knew his father was trying to penetrate his shield. Root around for any traces of the panic that had set his heart galloping, or the fear that made his stomach tighten into a thousand knots.
The first image that crashed into Chase’s mind was one of Nate being dragged through the Farm and into the silo. Of Jasper getting his hands on one of the infamous full-breed Black psychics . . .
Before Chase could stop himself, his mind sent out a frantic shout aimed at his brother—wherever he was. Richard didn’t look at him twice, and Chase inwardly sighed with relief. The Black family bond was freakishly strong if he could send a frantic directionless mental message without his father picking up on it.
“They managed to evade the guards,” Richard said finally. “But they were tracked far enough to get an idea of their general direction.”
“I see.” Hale didn’t sound thrilled with this development. Maybe she wasn’t as gung ho on the idea of chasing down rogue Comm members as Richard, or maybe she just wasn’t keen on anything he suggested or said. There was definite tension between them. “Fine. Assemble a team of people to investigate this and see whether Jessie truly did not leave of her own accord.”
Richard’s lip curled.
“Do you need anything from us?” Kyger asked.
“No. I’ll use my people here for this operation.”
Richard hung up but continued to glare at the phone. His face was etched into a cold mask of hatred and disgu
st that Chase could only imagine was aimed at Hale and her beautiful skepticism.
“I take it you two don’t exactly . . . get along,” he drawled.
“I fucked her and now she hates me.”
Richard smirked, and Chase tried not to let his snarl of disgust become too apparent.
“Sounds like the story of your life, Daddy-o. Must be bad at laying the pipe.”
The comment didn’t seem to register at first, but when it did, Richard’s face hardened again. His ability to take a joke was right up there with his ability to take criticism. Nonexistent.
“You’ll lead the search for your brothers,” Richard said, cutting back to the chase. “You, Will, and Kyra, and a couple others.”
“Why me?”
“Because something tells me you’ll be able to find Nate easier than anyone else. And something also tells me that they’ll hesitate to run from you. They won’t know you’re working with me.”
“If that’s the case, then I’m bringing Elijah.” Chase nodded toward the door as if Elijah were on the other side of it. “They’d never think he switched up on them, and he has a better face for a con. Also, I need to fuck at least twice a day, so I need to keep him handy.”
Again, Richard gave him one of those blank stares, but it slowly morphed into a douchebag of a smirk. If there was anything that could bring two similarly fucked-up psychics together, it was the comradery of being dudes who talked about banging bitches and whatnot. Chase wanted to punch himself in the face but wiggled his eyebrows instead.
“We’ll see. I don’t know if he’s ready.”
“He will be.” Chase rose to his feet and rolled his shoulders, cracking them. “Elijah was always one of us. They just managed to manipulate him after he watched your freak show of a spotter get one of his friends mauled and murdered, and then you dragged me off and kept me here for months to have the obedience tortured into me.”
For the first time, Richard didn’t deny that it had been torture. He just slipped his hands into his pockets and said, “So you blame his defection on me.”
“Pretty much, yeah. When you made it clear that you found the queer psys at Evolution to be expendable. You acted like they didn’t matter. Then when several of Elijah’s friends had vanished or died in a short period of time, you showed no real concern other than finding a scapegoat, and opened up the door for defection. He was primed for it by your dereliction.”
Richard nodded, his hazel eyes slit and face cast in seriousness. For a second it seemed like he would lash out at the criticism like he so often did, but then his mouth turned up in the barest hint of a smile. A proud smile. The kind that had always been reserved for Holden, never for Chase.
“Every day you prove that I really did bet on the wrong horse all those years ago. You’ll make a good leader.”
“Leader,” Chase repeated. “Of what?”
“I won’t be around forever, Chase. You need to be ready to take my place.”
“What about the board?”
Richard shifted to look out the window, his hands clasped behind his back. “They won’t be around forever either.”
He found Elijah sitting in the cottage surrounded by zombies.
Some of them had only a trace of cloudiness in their eyes, but others were in full-on just-had-my-brain-realigned mode complete with glazed eyes and vacant stares. There was no doubt in Chase’s mind that they were all medicated, which begged the question as to why he and Elijah were not.
Elijah. Who was sitting pretty in one of the stark-white sweat suits the staff provided all their detainees. Although, his pants seemed to be child sized. They were so tight that Chase’s gaze automatically strayed to the heavy curve displayed between Elijah’s thighs.
Getting to touch Elijah again had done nothing more than jumpstart Chase’s addiction for him. When he finally managed to look up again, he found Elijah’s big brown eyes trained on him. They were narrowed, and Elijah was biting the full swell of his lower lip. Fucking leave it to them to want to smash in the middle of a goddamn horror movie.
“Can I help you, Mr. Payne?”
Chase focused in on the dude, Kier, leading the meeting, therapy session, meeting of the minds, or whatever the hell it was supposed to be. Despite his calm voice and what was likely supposed to be a serene smile, his eyes were sharklike.
“Not really, but I’m gonna need my boy.” Chase jerked his chin at Elijah. “Time to put that ass to work.”
Kier’s brows drew down and there was a subtle curl of his mouth, but he just gave a curt nod. “I’ll see you this evening, Elijah.”
Elijah ignored him and zeroed in on Chase like an eagle. He crossed the room, face lit up but still carefully vacant as he pretended to be as medicated as the others, and went into lamprey-mode. Sliding his slender arms around Chase’s neck, standing on the tips of his toes, and drawing him into a slow kiss complete with a hum of pleasure. He’d probably meant for it to be a chaste show of devotion since he was supposed to be in beta kitten mode, but Chase couldn’t help the way his hands fisted in the back of Elijah’s shirt or the way he slanted his mouth to taste the inside of Elijah’s.
The rest of the room disappeared, and for a good ten seconds, there was nothing but Elijah’s tight body against his own, and the hungry sliding of their tongues. It felt so good to touch him again. And doing it out in the open where it made other people nice and uncomfortable made it even fucking better.
“Mr. Payne . . .”
Chase ripped away with a wild-eyed glare aimed at Kier. He snarled, breathing harder, and slid his hand down to grip one of Elijah’s round ass cheeks.
“You got a problem?”
Kier’s eyes flashed, but he shook his head. “We’re in the middle of a session.”
“Yeah, I see that.”
Chase gave Kier the mean stare down for a moment longer before turning away and dragging Elijah behind him. To his credit, Elijah ignored his likely natural impulse to kick the shit out of Chase for being so demanding. Instead, he gripped at his hand and trailed behind him like a puppy as Chase led him to his room.
All the other doors were still shut, but Chase caught a glimpse of Shelby at the far end of the hallway. She was pushing her cart into one of the rooms, but glanced over at them before going inside. Chase held her gaze for a beat before she entered the room. He had to find a way to have words with her. She’d been carefully distant for the past two weeks, not speaking much and not making a ton of eye contact, but it was time. Now that Elijah was back to full strength and his arm was mostly healed from the flesh wound, it was also time to start focusing on a plan.
Instead of figuring it out now, he burst into Elijah’s room, kicked the door shut behind him, and shoved the slighter man onto the bed.
“Get your fucking clothes off.”
Elijah’s lips parted, damp and pouty and so damn irresistible that Chase found himself drawing Elijah into another scorching kiss instead of allowing him to comply. With his fingers tangling in Elijah’s curly hair and Elijah moaning against him, Chase lost his ability to make any executive decisions beyond refamiliarizing himself with the body pressing against his.
He broke the kiss just long enough to rip off Elijah’s white sweatshirt, then pushed him back on the bed with his legs hanging off the side.
“Tell me you missed touching me,” Elijah whispered. “Please?”
“I just got you off yesterday.”
“But we haven’t had sex. Haven’t really fooled around except quick-and-dirty blowjobs or jerk-off sessions . . .”
It was clear Elijah was getting at something in particular, but Chase wanted no part of it right now. He was always too paranoid about someone bursting in while they were talking about something sensitive, which was the only reason he’d kept their interactions brief.
“Shut the fuck up and take your clothes off.”
Elijah paused, searching Chase’s face, and a flash of something crossed his own. His cupid-bow lips turned down a
nd his jaw tightened, which automatically led to the tightening of Chase’s chest. How many times could he get away with protecting his own heart at the expense of Elijah’s before Elijah walked away for good?
Chase stalked toward Elijah, undoing his jeans, and didn’t stop walking until he was standing between Elijah’s spread thighs.
“I said to take your clothes off.”
Elijah closed his eyes. “You take them off.”
The words heated Chase’s blood and managed to further harden his cock. He yanked Elijah up, loving the gasp of anticipation that left his mouth at the roughness, and manhandled him until the smooth satiny stretch of his back was pressed against Chase’s tattooed chest.
Chase dropped his hands to Elijah’s white pants and jerked them down so violently that he heard the seams of the too-tight fabric rip. He’d wanted them off completely, but once his fingers grazed the protruding length of Elijah’s erection, Chase couldn’t bypass it. He yanked the band of Elijah’s briefs down and wrapped his fingers around that thick cock. The plan had been to squeeze it, just enjoy the heaviness of a dick in his hand, but it was impossible to leave it at that.
Chase tightened his grip and pumped Elijah with long, sure strokes, pressing his thumb against the slit that was increasingly damp.
“Oh . . .” Elijah tilted his head back against Chase’s shoulder, lips parted and eyes closed. “Fuck . . .”
Chase’s hips jolted against Elijah’s round ass and began a steady grinding motion. Elijah’s dick was dripping like a faucet by now, and Chase’s hand made a wet sound as he glided over the length.
“You hard up for a dick in you?” Chase rumbled in his ear. “I know you’re used to getting fucked on the regular.”
Elijah whimpered, but savaged his lower lip to muffle any other sound. Chase used his free hand to drag Elijah’s abused lip away from his teeth. He smoothed the pad of his thumb over it.
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