“You want to see Alex.”
“Bingo,” George called loudly. The cashier stared.
“Tara—” Wes began.
“George wants to see him too,” I blurted.
“I do?” Even George looked surprised. I resisted the urge to wrap my hands around his throat.
“Yes,” I said.
“How do you know?” Wes asked.
“I read it in his mind. A few days ago, when I first told you he woke up. You were mad at me for wanting to leave, remember?”
George’s head cocked sideways while he thought it over. “Huh. Okay, maybe the thought crossed my mind. But obviously not for the reasons you do,” he said. “I want answers.”
“So do I.”
Wes and George both rolled their eyes. I pretended not to notice.
“I’m not asking to go alone. And I’m not sneaking away or doing anything stupid. I’m asking for everyone to agree,” I said.
Victoria walked up. “Agree on what?” she asked around the straw in her mouth.
“Tara wants to go see Alex,” Wes told Victoria.
Astor and Emma joined us, both sucking their icy-sugary concoction from neon green straws.
“So does George,” I added.
Victoria shrugged. “Let’s go.”
“We can’t exactly walk into the hospital,” Wes said.
“Maybe you can’t,” she said. “I can go where I want.”
I stared at her. “She has a point.”
Wes sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. “What are you thinking?”
“The simplest solution is often the best. My mother used to say that to me,” Victoria said.
“What does that mean?” George asked with Emma’s drink halfway to his lips.
“Well. Can he walk?” Victoria asked.
“Uh. Guys?” Emma cut in. “Should we maybe discuss this somewhere else?” She pointed to a flyer taped to the window behind me and we all turned to look.
“That’s a horrible picture of you,” George told Wes.
“Shut up,” Wes said. We all eyed the desk clerk, who was obliviously ringing up a customer for lottery tickets. Wes turned to Logan. “Give me your hat.”
“So you know, this is my favorite hat,” Logan said, reluctantly handing it over.
Wes took it and shoved it on his head. “If it gets ruined being on my head, we have bigger problems than your hat.”
***
The late afternoon sun slanted across the grass where it spilled over the corner of the hospital’s roof across the road. We couldn’t wait until daylight disappeared entirely. Darkness was for the hybrids. The rescue. According to George and Wes, this was nothing more than recon. And I suspected they didn’t much care if Alex got caught.
While we waited for Logan and Victoria to appear with the patient, we wandered the park across the street. The very public park. Emma and I had claimed an abandoned playground. Wes was not far behind us on a bench with George. The chasm had reopened between us, an old scab torn open again. It hadn’t been there since we’d left Virginia. And Alex.
I climbed onto the monkey bars and sat atop them, letting my feet dangle loosely below. Emma followed at my heels, quiet inside and out.
“What are you thinking about?” I asked her.
She looked up at me, startled. “You don’t know?”
I smiled. “I’d like to hear you talk.”
“Oh. Um.” She picked at the ends of her hair and looked away. I’d given up on her answering at all when she finally said, “You and George used to date, huh?”
“Yes,” I said. “Why?”
A couple of dog walkers passed by, their smiles polite and small, but otherwise we barely got a second look. Even Astor, walking slow circles around our mulch enclosure while he whispered to himself, drew hardly any attention. Maybe it was because of the crowd.
The best place to hide is plain sight.
Where had that come from? I found George sitting on a bench, listening to Wes, but he was watching Emma. And his thoughts were centered completely on her.
“Well,” Emma said, bringing me out of my thoughts. The way she drew out the word, I didn’t need a bond to tell me where this was going. “Would it be weird if— I mean, I know you guys used to be, you know …”
I couldn’t take the stumbling or stuttering any longer. I reached out and put my hand on her knee. She smiled sheepishly, her cheeks reddening.
“Em, George and I are just friends. And as long as he doesn’t keep eavesdropping on this conversation …” I paused and sent George a pointed look. He ducked his head and went back to talking to Wes. “We will remain friends. But that’s it for both of us, trust me.”
“Really? Because if you’re not sure or if it’s weird …”
“It’s not weird,” I said firmly. “And I can tell he likes you so stop worrying.”
She smiled, transforming her face from shy and quiet to radiant. “You think so? I mean, did you, you know, read that?”
I laughed. “You’ve both got it bad. Trust me, mutually bad. Go talk to him.”
She glanced over her shoulder where Wes and George still huddled on the bench. “Now?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. There’s all this stuff going on. Dangerous rescue missions and sneaky meetings in the park. Maybe I should wait for when things are calmer.”
“Sweetheart. I can promise if you stick with me, things will never be calmer. And we aren’t promised tomorrow. You should tell him now. In the present. Live this moment.”
Her eyes clouded with unshed tears and I realized too late what my words had done. We shared a mental image of Janie between us before it faded away again.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean …”
“It’s okay,” she said, wiping a stray tear from her cheek. “You’re right. We aren’t promised tomorrow. I need to seize the day and all that.” She sniffed once. “Janie was better at this sort of thing than me.”
“What?”
“Spontaneous decisions. Proclamations of love.”
I smiled. “She would tell you to do it.”
Emma nodded.
“I think that means you have to.”
I watched as George rose from the bench and made his way toward us. He didn’t pay me a single bit of attention. His eyes were so fixed on Emma, he almost tripped over the wood-trimmed border. Emma giggled.
“Hey,” George said.
“Hey,” Emma said.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m going to talk to Wes.” I don’t think either one heard me.
Astor stopped me before I could reach the bench. “You know she’ll have your hide for this.”
“What? Who?” I looked back at Emma, but she was intent on whatever George was saying.
Astor wagged his finger in my face. “You know exactly. Edie, that’s who.”
The entire trip, I’d waited for him to press me about Grandma’s willingness to let us leave, but he hadn’t said a single word about it. Until now. “Astor. Do you know something I don’t know?”
“I know lots of things. Like the fact that your boyfriend over there is afraid to be tested, afraid he won’t be like you. And he isn’t.”
“Isn’t what?”
“Like you.”
“He’s not immune? How do you know?”
He shrugged again and tilted his head as if he couldn’t care less.
“What else do you know, Astor?”
“Your jock-friend is better at this than you are.”
“Better at what?”
He walked away, resuming his circle around the playground. I moved to follow, determined to make him tell me what he meant, but Wes called my name.
“Tara. They’re here.” His voice was nothing more than a raised whisper, but it sent a flood of nerves through me and I had to force my muscles to work.
I turned around slowly.
The sun dipped completely behind the hospital, casting the three bodies into full shadow
. They were nothing more than silhouettes as they stepped off the crosswalk and entered the park. But I didn’t need to see faces or even hear their voices to know which one was Alex. I recognized him by the way he moved.
I remained frozen to the spot as I watched him approach. My hands were clammy. I opened and closed my fists and worked my throat, but there was nothing to swallow. My mouth felt like Astor’s backyard. Dry heat.
Three more steps. I’ll wait until he’s closer. Wes is watching me. I can’t run and hug him. Dammit, I really want to. It’s not like I want him. Wow, he’s lost a lot of weight. I did this to him. But he’s going to be okay.
Who needed a pack to have jumbled, insane thoughts?
Out of the corner of my eye, I watched Wes. His jaw tightened and he looked tenser the closer Alex got. Ah, hell. He was going to be pissed either way.
I met Alex’s eyes—their chocolate-brown depths spoke of so many things I couldn’t wait to understand—and closed the distance between us. My momentum drove him back a step. I wrapped my arms around his neck and squeezed. He recovered his footing and squeezed me back, chuckling.
“Hey, stranger,” he said, his breath tickling my ear.
The sound of his voice—here in front of me, solid, whole, real—made me want to cry. Or laugh. Or do jumping jacks. Something. But I couldn’t seem to remove my hands from around his shoulders.
“Godfrey. I’m not going to run away. You can let go.”
I did so reluctantly and then cocked my head. “Did you know I was thinking that?”
“What?” He blinked back at me, clearly confused.
“Never mind,” I muttered.
Wes, George, and Emma crowded around. Astor hung back at the edges of the group, alternating between squinting at Alex and sniffing the air. I could not deal with that right now.
“You made it,” George said.
“Piece of cake,” Victoria said. Logan looked at her like she’d lost her mind. I wondered what I’d missed in the process of them sneaking out here.
“Will they know you’re gone?” I asked Alex.
“Eventually,” he said.
“Soon,” Logan corrected.
“They’ll send the cavalry when they figure it out,” I told him.
He opened his mouth to answer, but Wes cut him off. “Which means we should cut to the chase.”
Alex’s eyes glinted as he regarded Wes. “Which chase is that?”
Wes shrugged. “Take your pick. How about why you sold us out to Kane?”
“I was hoping we could start small, work up to that.”
“Fine. What did you do to disable the bond between Tara and me that day?” George asked.
“Wow, another zinger right out of the gate.”
Wes threw up his hands. “What the hell? I thought you came here to talk.”
“I came here to show a certain she-wolf that her attempt to chew me to death didn’t work so she’d stop feeling guilty.”
“Can’t say she didn’t try,” Wes muttered.
“This is stupid. Both of you stop,” I said. “Wes, go sit down. Logan, Victoria, go with him.”
“Why does George get to stay?” Victoria pouted. She’d clearly been enjoying the back and forth of testosterone. Bully.
“To get his answers,” I said.
“I’m not leaving you,” Wes said.
“What do you think is going to happen in the park?” I asked.
His hands tightened into fists. “He betrayed us all. We should all get to hear—” Wes began.
I rounded on him, hot anger bubbling too close to the surface to contain. “You should, but you don’t. Because you can’t act like a grown up about the fact that I’m happy to see my friend. Notice I said friend, not anything else. Because you’re my boyfriend. When you can get that, you can stay for the conversation. In the meantime, my friend and I are going to talk this out.”
“Whatever we’re doing, can we do it before the next century, or, you know, before Edie rolls up in the Hummer and caps all of us for our stupidity?” Logan adjusted his hat, which he’d stolen back from Wes, claiming he needed it to remain inconspicuous inside the hospital, and stared at the passing traffic.
“Caps us?” I repeated.
“You know, shoots, kills, whatever,” he said.
“Obviously. Yes, of course, let’s hurry,” I said with a laugh.
Wes grunted and stalked off. Logan and Victoria followed him to the bench.
“Edie doesn’t know you’re here?” Alex asked. He glanced behind us at the open view of the street, looking nervous for the first time since he’d arrived.
“No, and you don’t get to ask the questions here. I do,” I said.
“How is that fair?”
I lifted a brow.
“Okay, fine, it’s fair.” He turned to George, who had Emma tucked close beside him as if protecting her. From Alex? That was funny. “I owe you an apology,” Alex told him. “I shouldn’t have knocked you out and I’m sorry. I needed to disable your ability to communicate with Tara until I could get to her, but I didn’t mean to put you out for more than a few minutes. If I could go back …”
“You’d what?” I asked.
I remembered Kane’s words the day I’d seen him in Vera’s room. He’d said if Alex could go back, he’d do it all the same in order to protect me.
“I’d do it differently,” he finished.
“How?”
“I’d … I’d trust you,” he said quietly.
“I don’t believe you,” George said.
“I mean every word. If I could go back—”
“No, not about that,” George said, waving a hand. “About disabling the bond. You knocked me out and when I came to, it took forever to get Tara back inside my head. I know you did something.”
“I didn’t.”
“Tell me everything from the beginning,” George said.
Alex sighed but he didn’t argue. “After the vote at Jack’s, the plan, Tara walking straight into Olivia’s territory waving a white flag … it ate at me. It went against everything I knew to walk in there like that. No weapons in hand. No strike team nearby. I panicked.”
“Uh-huh. That’s obvious,” George said. Wes would’ve been proud of the ferocious glare he gave Alex. “Then what?”
“I called Kane.”
“Didn’t he think you’d deserted him after being with us so long?”
“I didn’t desert,” he said. “Most kids my age graduate and spend the summer with their families before reporting for duty. I didn’t have that, so he let me join up early but then benched me for more training. I got restless. Then Edie called and I did some recon work for her on the side. It got a little sketchy so I asked for the leave after all and he gave it.”
“So you really are working for both sides?” George asked.
“I protect humans from monsters. Whatever side that puts me on.”
It made sense. Showing up in the limo with Grandma. All the clandestine talk of spying and internal takedowns and a war coming. Alex really was playing both sides. The problem was, he’d played me too.
George scowled. “You can’t be on both sides,” he said. “Sooner or later, you have to pick one. Oh, wait, looks like you did.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Alex asked.
“It means you called Kane and told him about a jackpot of hybrids, armed everyone to the teeth, and stormed the castle,” I said.
“Dammit, Tara, you make it sound so cold. Like it’s all about killing things.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No.” His nostrils flared as he exhaled. “It was about you. Getting you and Cord out. I needed you to be safe.”
I could’ve argued all day about his motivations—George looked like he was about to—but I needed to hear the rest. I put a hand up to silence George. “Fine. Me safe. Got it. Go on.”
“I gave Kane the location, explained the situation. He set up the team. It was only supposed to be an extractio
n, Tara, I swear to you. That was the agreement.”
“An extraction,” I repeated. He nodded. “Tell me again why you had to knock George out.”
“I knew he was tracking you through the bond and I didn’t want him and the others walking in on the strike team. I was trying to control all the variables.”
“Control all the variables? I’m not the one making this sound cold.”
“So, you snuck into camp, clocked me, and left?” George asked before Alex could respond.
“Basically.”
“What did you use?” George asked.
“Huh?”
“The weapon that you hit me with, what was it?”
“The blunt side of a metal stake. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Where did you get the stake, soldier?”
We all turned to look at Astor. He hovered a few yards away, hands in his pockets. He leaned forward, suddenly very interested in the conversation he’d been ignoring until now.
“Uh. It was in a bag they had at their camp. Why?”
Astor shook his head and swatted a hand through the air.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Unbinilium,” he said.
“Unbi—what?” Alex said.
George and I shared a look. “Explain,” I said to Astor. “This time for real.”
He took a step closer, then another, shuffling awkwardly as he stared at Alex. “What are they feeding you?”
“Who?”
“In there,” Astor said, gesturing to the hospital. “What sort of concoction do they have you on?”
“No idea. Antibiotics and fluid, I think.”
“And before?” Astor asked.
“Before what?”
“Before she bit you.”
“Nothing. I take a vitamin. That’s all.”
“Where does it come from?”
“Kane hands it out. All the recruits take it.”
“Of course they do.” Astor looked at me. “Placebo,” he stage whispered. He turned back to Alex. “And how do you feel right now?”
“Um, good?”
“Right, right. Tara, how does he feel right now?”
“How should I know?”
“Ugh.” Aston grunted and walked away.
Blood Rule (Book 4, Dirty Blood series) Page 20