by Faulks, Kim
“How does everything sound to you?” Pitch murmured and lifted his arm.
Her smile widened and there was a nod of her head. She fell in step, sliding under his arm…just as she’d curled around my body.
This…whatever this was, wasn’t love. Not yet. But it was real and roaring like a freight train through my veins. She turned and held out her hand for me.
Whatever feelings I had about the guy, I pushed aside. We were in this together. She needed us…all of us. He wanted less hate?
I stepped closer and caught her hand in mine. “Looks like one of everything it is.”
Spark
We piled into the car, this time with Finley at the wheel. My belly was full and warm with sausage, egg and hot coffee.
But there was a difference with the guys, an easiness that hadn’t been there before. Pitch gave Finley as many details as he could, markers he caught from snippets of conversation as we pulled out of the gas station driveway and back onto the highway.
Finley was nervous, glancing behind us at the traffic, and then watching the steady stream of oncoming cars. Three hours passed slowly, too slow.
I tried not to think about what they were doing to Dad, tried not to envision the Hell he was in right at this moment. He was strong—I closed my eyes—and he had me to fight for.
I’m coming, Dad. Just hold on.
Green crops were spattered with the glinting steel of industrial yards. Car mechanics, and tractor sales, and slowly as the hours slipped by the vibrant green of farmer’s fields slipped by.
“Here it is, Orphic City,” Finley snarled.
I lifted my gaze to the horizon. The sun glinted off towering buildings in the distance, casting the hard glare back into my eyes like a second sun.
But there was no warmth about this place.
A shudder coursed, sending goosebumps across my arms. I clenched my fists, staring, as slowly, mile after mile, the harsh glint became brighter.
“First opportunity, we’re getting rid of this thing.” Finley glanced at me in the rear seat. “So get ready.”
Airplanes climbed the sky to our left from Orphic City airport. Residential houses filled the right, stretching out into the distance. Finley stopped at a gas station, and left the car, running outside on the street.
We waited in the vehicle, watching him run inside and then return moments later with a map. He climbed back into the driver’s seat, splayed open the edges and then pointed up ahead. “There’s a rental agency about fifteen minutes away. But I have to tell you, I got this feeling…I mean, does this all feel a little too easy to you?” He turned, glanced at Mavi, Pitch and then me. “I feel like we’re walking straight into the middle of a damn trap. They can’t have travelled all that way to hunt you down and then just leave you in the middle of nowhere. It doesn’t sit well with me.”
I winced with his words and felt pressure at the base of my skull. He was right. There was no way they’d leave me, not unless… “Either, they think I’m no longer a threat, or I was never one in the first place.”
“On your own, maybe you weren’t,” Pitch murmured, his gaze boring into the back of the headrest. “I mean, think about it. Your Mom had just died. Maybe they considered you broken?”
“What are you saying?” Finley murmured.
“What I’m saying is—” He met Finley’s gaze. “They hadn’t added us into the equation.”
The car was silent for a second, until Pitch glanced at the pack at my feet. “Sixth, Oleander…Shadow and Tex. Sound familiar?” Blue eyes sparkled as they met mine. “What if…what if there’s more to this—to us. I’ve heard you almost all my life. Finley and Mavi have felt the same. Something’s bought us together, and I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“Neither do I.” Finley nodded.
“This Doctor Bishop made copies of his notebooks, and in doing so he pissed them off. I’m willing to bet he did a lot more things that pissed them off as well. Things they didn’t know about…things they still might not know about.”
“Jesus.” Finley pressed back against the seat. “We were never part of the equation.”
“Exactly,” Pitch murmured. “This whole thing feels easy, because she’s no threat to them.”
“But together we are,” Mavi said. “We’re gonna shake their fucking tree and see which nut comes lose.”
My breath raced as rage flared, and for a second I felt like I was standing on the outside and looking in. I needed them, and they understood that. It was more than the driving, more than the rescuing. I needed them like a flower needed the sun…I lifted my hand and reached out, sliding the tips of my fingers across the stubble on Pitch’s cheek.
He turned at the touch, brows narrowed, a twitch at his lips. “You okay?”
I nodded and then turned to Mavi sitting in the passenger’s seat in front of me and lifted my other hand to do the same. His deep brown eyes glistened as I curled my arm around the headrest to touch his face.
I dropped my hand from Pitch and moved to Finley. Just a simple touch, a skim of my fingers against his cheek…and drifted to the smooth skin of his lips.
Warm breath against my fingers, and my palm as I curled my hand against his mouth. Something inside me trembled, excited…urgent. I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to close this space between us and press my lips against his. I wanted to feel the softness, feel the stubble…feel him.
I didn’t know them, and yet there was part of me who did. I knew their spirit, their desperation and their pain. I knew the call that hummed through their soul—because the same one hummed through mine. “Thank you. Thank you for being here, thank you for risking everything to do this.”
I caught the rush of warmth as Finley’s lips parted under my hand. He reached up, grasped my fingers, deep eyes sparkling with a mixture of hunger and need. “I’m in this for the long haul, Spark…wherever that takes us.”
“Me too,” Mavi murmured, watching Finley turn his head and press his lips against my palm. “There’s no leaving for me.”
“Or any of us.” Pitch glanced at Mavi, and then Finley. “We’re going to do this. We’re going to get your dad out, and then we’re going to decide what to do next.”
What to do next…I dropped my hand from Finley’s lips. “We find the others—those like us. We find the girl with the purple hair and Sixth. Then we fight. Win or lose, we stay together and we see this through.”
My hand hit the top of my pack on the seat. Hard edges of the notebook pressed against the fabric. “We finish what Mom started, and we leave no goddamn stone unturned.”
And as the heat of rage and retribution bubbled to the surface I realized, maybe Mom was right. Maybe I was more like her than I realized. I held onto her, held on tighter than I’d ever held on before.
“Then we’re out of here.” Finley started the ignition. “Let’s burn these mutherfuckers down…for the Senator, and for us.”
We were moving before I knew. I was trapped by the past, by some awareness that hadn’t been there before. Why of all days had Mom given me the key to her safe now? Did she know this was going to happen?
The question haunted me long after we left the gas station behind and slipped into the shadow of Orphic City.
“Up here.” Mavi pointed to the rundown, seedy looking blue shop with Rentals splashed across the front in white peeling paint.
Finley swung the wheel, nosing us into a carpark at the end of the street and pulled up under the shade of the outstretched arms of a massive Fig tree. “You guys clean up, and I’ll be right back with a new ride.”
He yanked open the door and stepped out. All eyes were on the store in the distance. My heart raced, pushing through my chest as the sharp sound of a siren cut through the air.
Finley stiffened as he walked away from the stolen car. The black and white pulled up to the curb and slowed. Windows rolled down on the police cruiser. An officer stuck his hand out and motioned forward.
No…no…no…
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nbsp; A group of kids sitting at the edge of the parking lot moaned and one slowly climbed to his feet. I watched it all, every goddamn terrifying second as Finley calmly turned his gaze to the rental place and then casually crossed the street.
I watched the cop car, and the kid who turned from the officer at the open window. The kid’s shoulders slumped when he walked back, and the rest of his friends slowly climbed to their feet and walked along the pavement in front of us, then kept on going.
The cop car waited for a second, and then the indicator flashed as they pulled out and performed a U-turn before driving away.
“Shit,” Mavi murmured and then exhaled. “That was goddamn close.”
I lifted my gaze, catching a stranger walking into the rentals. This guy was short, balding, stubby legs see-sawing to keep the momentum. He yanked open the door and then slipped inside.
I grabbed my things and stuffed my jacket back into the top of my pack before doing it up. Pitch climbed out and yanked open the driver’s door, popping the latch for the trunk.
Mavi gathered the rubbish in the front of the car as I yanked open my door and stepped free. I kept an eye on the door to the rentals, until I realized I’d caught my breath.
“He’s going to be fine,” Pitch murmured and lifted a dirty shirt. “Here, wipe down everything you touched.”
I grabbed the cloth and worked my way along the hard surfaces of the door and then the seatbelt. Movement caught my gaze as I straightened. The short, older man crossed the road with his head down. He lifted his gaze at the last second, striding to step up onto the pavement as he met my gaze. Electricity raced as we connected, and then in a second the air around him seemed to change. Gone were the short, sturdy legs, gone was the glistening brow on his bald head. In the second it took to stride from the pavement to the front of the car he’d changed.
Long legs ate the distance. His hard, muscled body rippled as he moved. I stared…drifting my gaze across his chest, and the way his t-shirt stuck against his skin.
“You good?” His brow furrowed, confusion flared. “Need a hand with your stuff?”
I shook my head and lifted the dirty shirt in my hand. “I’m all done.”
“The driver’s bringing the car around. If everyone’s ready, then I’ll just wipe the steering wheel and we’re good to go.”
“Do you think we can get close?” I handed over the shirt.
Finley straightened, lips parted. He took a step, closing the distance, and lifted a hand to brush my hair from my shoulder. “Yeah, I think I can manage that. I mean if the others don’t mind.”
I shook my head. “I mean to the compound.”
“Oh.” He dropped his hand and took a small step backwards. “Right, yeah.”
“Lol. You thought—” Mavi sniggered as he strode past and snatched the cloth from Finley’s hand.
A dusty forest green Jeep pulled around the corner and parked on the side of the street. The damn thing was old and scratched. Gouges ran the length of the body, but it was perfect.
“First we get a location on this compound and then we find a place to hole up. We can’t just storm the building, not if it’s anything like that place where they kept us. We’re going to need weapons to start with, and a good goddamn plan. Deal?”
I swallowed hard and nodded.
“We’re going to get him out.” Finley moved close and wrapped his arms around me. “I swear to you, we’re going to get him out.”
Pitch
The silence inside the car was deafening.
Spark stared out of the window, hiding her face from me. Mavi was slumped down in the passenger’s seat. Finley got colder, stonier, the closer to the compound we came. I gave directions, watching the sparkling high-rise buildings of Orphic City slip away to the east.
My entire life had been spent running from the voices.
Love, sadness, hate and pain, I suffered it all in stereo, every second of every day—there was no escaping it.
Until now.
Now there was only an emptiness. Now, all I wanted was to hear was inside her head. I wanted her pain. I wanted her hate and her rage. I wanted her…all of her. Instead I sat here, waiting…listening…always goddamn listening…
“There it is,” Finley murmured.
He hit the indicator and turned onto the street. The dank grey compound rose up from behind three towering evergreen trees. The mammoth building consumed most of the block. A seven-foot fence ran around the perimeter. Razor wire glinting in the sun as we neared.
“Jesus,” Finley snarled as he glanced at the guard hut by the boom gate.
Three heavily armed officers stood sentry. Semi-automatic weapons rested on their shoulders. They stared at the car as we drove past. Finley broke the stare, turning to focus on a point at the end of the road.
There was no way we were getting in there. Not by brute force at least. An ache flared through my chest, and the heavy thud of my heart followed.
Spark clutched the end of the seat, nails embedded deep into cloth and closed her eyes as Finley turned at the end of the street. We made our way back onto the main city streets, without a word.
The neon lights of a motel sign flashed in the distance. Finley slowed the Jeep, nosing us into the driveway and then into the parking lot. “I’ll organize us some rooms.”
“I’ll come with you,” Mavi muttered.
Doors closed with a thud as they bailed, leaving me alone with her.
“There’s no way we can get in there.” She turned her head, staring me straight in the eye. “Is there?”
“Yes, there is, and we’re going to find it.”
Strands of her hair scattered as she shook her head. “Then you’ll be walking to your own death.”
And there it was…the mortal tug-o-war.
I pressed my spine against the seat. “Then what are our options? We run, leave your father behind, knowing what they’ll do to him. Or we find a way inside, make it as far as we can. Get him and then get out.”
“Kill or be killed,” she whispered. “That’s what it would come to.”
“If you’re scared for me, then don’t be.” I reached for her hand. “I plan on surviving. In fact, I know Finley believes he has a damn future by your side. All I can say is he better like sharing, ‘cause I’m not going anywhere.”
Blush raced to fill her cheeks.
“We’re here because we want to be here, and it’s not just for you. Your Mom exposed them, and they didn’t like it. But that was just one step, we can’t let what she did for us be in vain. We have to keep fighting. We have to be relentless. Because there is only one way out of this for us…and it’s not good.”
“So we fight.” Tears slipped down her cheeks. “We fight and we stay together.”
“And survive any way we can.” I reached for her hand.
The door opened to the motel reception. Finley and Mavi strode toward us with two room keys in one hand.
Finley rounded the front of the car and climbed back in behind the wheel. He wasn’t happy. “They only had two rooms left.”
“I don’t mind,” Spark murmured.
“We have to wait for night before we make a move, anyway,” Pitch cut in.
There was no arguing about who shared with whom. We had bigger things at stake, still it didn’t stop the sting of jealously as Finley pulled up outside the two rooms and parked.
“Hey,” Finley growled, reaching out to grasp my shirt as I passed. “Keep the interconnecting door open. I don’t like you enough to trust you…yet.”
I just smirked and shook my head, tearing my shirt from his grasp as I made for the rear of the Jeep and my bags. He didn’t trust me…yet, well that was a damn improvement.
Spark shoved the key into the door and pushed it open. It wasn’t high-end, that’s for sure. But it was clean.
“I need a damn shower,” Mavi muttered and then glanced to Finley. “And so do you.”
Finley lifted his arm and sniffed before I turned fro
m the comedic duo and followed Spark into the room. She dumped her pack on the bed nearest to the bathroom and then turned to me. “Do you mind?”
“Go ahead.” I motioned toward the bathroom, dumping my own packs onto the single bed nearest the door. “Take all the time you need.”
“You’re going to regret those words.” She dug for fresh clothes and yanked them free before she disappeared through the bathroom door.
The hiss of the shower filled the room as I turned and locked the door. For a second it was just us…in the room. I glanced at her belongings ripped from the pack and splayed on the end of the single bed and tried to imagine how it’d be with just us.
Lonely.
The word echoed. I glanced to the interconnecting door and listened to the muffled voices on the other side. It’d feel damn lonely and, kinda weird.
A long sigh came from the bathroom as a hard tap echoed through the door at the end of the lounge.
I cut across the beds and made for it. One flick of the thumb latch, a slip of the chain and the door was open. Finley stood on the other side. He glanced in, and then motioned toward the bathroom. “She in there?”
“Yeah, and going to be a while by the sounds if it.”
He nodded, and motioned inside his room. “Good, there are things we need to discuss.”
I followed him inside as Mavi pilfered the chocolate bars in the refrigerator. “You know they charge you double for that stuff.”
“Who cares,” he muttered and gnawed the plastic before chomping down on the damn thing. “If this is gonna be my last night I’m going to eat everything…”
Finley just stared and then shook his head. He motioned to the end of Mavi’s bed and perched on the end of his. “Getting in there is going to be damn tricky, but the problem is we have no idea where they’re keeping him. That’s where you come in. I need you to be the ears of this whole thing. Can you do that, narrow down on a specific location?”
“If he talks I can, or if someone talks about him.”
“And you’re prepared to go all in? I mean I can’t have you turning squeamish at the last minute.”