by Ava Gray
Need a weapon. With shaking hands, she hefted a big-ass can of peaches. Then she remained still and quiet, listening for the approach. Most likely they would split up once they realized she was hiding. Wonder if they’ll kill Tom. He’s sound asleep so there’s no need. But with the Foundation, you could never tell.
Quiet footsteps. The tracker didn’t click the light on. Tanager tightened her grip on her makeshift weapon; she would only have one shot at this. The next thirty seconds would determine if she lived or died. He flung open the doors and she struck, slamming the can against his temple with a two-handed grip. Full strength.
The guy wavered and went down, dazed but not wholly unconscious. Her breath coming in terrified rasps, she bent and pulled the plugs from his ears. While he stared up at her blearily, she gave his instructions. “You will tell the others the kitchen is clear. When you find the rest of your team, you will kill them. They’re a threat to both of us. We can never be together as long as they’re alive. As soon as you can stand, go. I’m counting on you now. Don’t fail me.”
It didn’t matter that she’d powered up again. Kestrel—for it could be nobody else—had already tracked her here. She didn’t have the ability to triangulate room by room.
Within a few seconds, he stumbled away and she scrambled back into the pantry, the pain in her thigh increasing exponentially. This was going to cause all kinds of trouble for Tom. If he didn’t wind up dead, the police would never believe he hadn’t seen or heard a thing. They’d demand drug tests and then wind up utterly mystified when the guy came back clean. Despite the dire situation, she had to grin at that. There was nothing more fun than fucking with people in positions of authority.
For a little while, there was only silence. And then the shooting started. Because she had given him the goal of getting back to her, her warrior would fight harder than the others. He would be more careful and cunning. He would snipe them in the dark. Endless moments, she listened to men dying, and it didn’t trouble her at all. After all, they’d come to execute her for being different.
According to the glowing face of her phone, it took him ten minutes to complete her command. She limped out of the pantry to watch his progress. He shuffled toward to her, bleeding in five places. Only willpower and her compulsion kept him on his feet.
“You did well,” she told him softly. “Rest now. Rest.”
And he fell dead at her feet.
She stepped over his corpse in a pained motion and gimped to the front room to claim her bag. Sirens screamed in the distance; if not for the snow, the cops would have been here sooner. Time to get the fuck out. But this complicated her life considerably. Tan had used her power twice in a relatively short time, and the dark urges built in the back of her brain. If she didn’t pay the piper, the sitch would get ugly—death by bloody aneurysm. And nobody wanted that.
Well, a few people did, actually. But they didn’t count, and most of her enemies were dead. More to the point, how the hell would she find somebody willing to fuck her in the midst of a blizzard, while she was bleeding from the thigh? It would take a special kind of freaky to make that shit work.
Mockingbird was going to be so pissed.
CHAPTER 10
Taye was gone when she woke.
At first Gillie wondered if it had been a dream, but she smelled like him this morning, so it couldn’t have been. When she rolled over, she saw the indent of his head on the other pillow. Like a sentimental idiot, she drew it to her and pressed her cheek to it. She didn’t kid herself that this meant something permanent, but it had been so good to sleep in his arms that she couldn’t bring herself to get out of bed just yet. Doing so would mean acknowledging the night was over.
But eventually, she had no choice. The only bathroom was down at the bottom of the stairs. This was a small house, which was convenient; it wouldn’t require tons of gas to heat the place. After she used the facilities, she went back up to the bedroom. Walking around naked didn’t seem like the way to spend the day. Maybe there was something in one of the dressers, clothes left behind.
To her astonishment, she found sweats in small, medium and large, still with the tags on. No underwear, but this was nice planning on someone’s part. Maybe Mockingbird assumed anyone who wound up here had a sad story to tell, a halfway house for fugitive weirdoes. But then, this wasn’t his first rodeo. He had gone down this road before with other recruits, and he had to understand how the Foundation operated. If he had never been captured, he was a powerful and worthy ally.
Though she’d been fucking with Taye when she first told him she’d work for the resistance herself, by calling Mockingbird, she had committed to the idea in earnest. If she did it of her own free will, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. If she chose to help instead of having someone else’s filth and disease forced on her . . . well, it still gave her a cold chill. But maybe she could fight past that reaction.
Whatever, she had time to acclimate. It would take a day or two to get these back roads cleared, though the snowfall had tapered off. Going commando, Gillie dressed in the small tracksuit, but the fleece was soft enough not to itch. Then she went to find Taye.
He too had snagged a pair of clean pants, and that was all he wore. The sweats hung low, revealing the curve of his hipbone. Heat filled her, but from his expression, he didn’t want a repeat of last night. His eyes were sad and distant, his jaw bristling with morning-after scruff.
“So here’s the bad news. The roads won’t be open for a couple of days, which means we’re stuck here.”
“But this is the right place?” It had to be.
He nodded. “Our contact is late. She was supposed to be here by now.”
“Maybe she got caught in the storm.”
His shoulders lifted in a shrug, drawing her attention to the movement of his muscles. “Could be. I don’t like sitting and waiting, but I don’t know what else to do.”
“You think we’re not safe here?”
“We are. At least, as much as we are anywhere. We can’t move without risking arrest.”
With that, he clicked on the TV and turned on the VCR. Outdated technology—even Gillie had a DVD player down in her dungeon cell. But he’d recorded a news broadcast from early that morning. She watched with growing trepidation.
The handsome, dark-haired anchor read from the tele-prompter. “These two are armed and dangerous, responsible for a multiple car bombing in Detroit. As yet, no terrorist organizations have come forward to claim credit for the act, but they are believed to be working with the IRA. No information at this time as to why they have moved their activities to American soil. If you see them, please notify local authorities at once or call this national tip line . . .”
Her breath went in a rush. “So we’re wanted criminals? It’s not just the Foundation after us, now. Mockingbird can’t scrub all these records. He can’t wipe the memories of everyone who saw this broadcast. What are we going to do?”
“I’m working on that.” He paced the length of the living room and back to the windows, where he gazed out at the white field stretching toward an endlessly gray sky. “They can probably find a doctor willing to change your face. You can color your hair and get some contacts. It’s not impossible.”
“Would that work for you, too?”
He hesitated a fraction too long before saying, “Sure.”
Gillie fought with the urge to ask again for his secrets. By now she knew he wouldn’t surrender them. The wall between them hadn’t come down last night; he had just scaled it for a little while, and now he stood again on the other side, peering at her through cracks in the mortar.
“Don’t lie,” she snapped. “If you don’t want to tell me the truth, fine, but don’t insult me with bullshit. I’d like to think you respect me a little.”
“More than a little.” But there was nothing personal in the words; he wasn’t the lover she’d known last night. Taye might have been observing the quality of a basketball player’s jump shot. “But this
doesn’t change our plan materially. I still go to work for Mockingbird, and you get a new life. It’ll just take a little more effort on your end.”
“I don’t want a new face.” It was stupid to protest anything that would grant her freedom. Stupid. But she didn’t have anything that was her own. Changing her looks, her hair, her eyes . . . who would she be then? She had always been Gillie Flynn. But she’d lose her name, too.
“I hate the idea, too,” he said, as if he were personally responsible for the newscast. “You’re just so goddamned beautiful, it’s a crime to consider messing with how you look.” From his stricken expression, he hadn’t meant to add the last part.
A smile lightened the tightness of her chest. “You never said that before.”
“What does it matter if I say it or not? It’s always true.”
Gillie laughed softly. “Idiot. It only matters if you say it.”
“I’m not gonna survive you,” he said, so soft and low that for a few seconds she wondered if she’d imagined the words.
“I don’t understand.”
“Never mind.” He obviously regretted the momentary lapse, and that lit her up.
Anger provided a welcome boost; it was past time for her to protest—and not with yesterday’s provocation. That, he could dismiss as an emotional response. So she kept her voice cool, belying the words she spoke. “I don’t want a new life without you in it. We have to figure out some way to stay together.”
He flinched. And when Taye hurt, he lashed out. “Don’t say shit like that. I mean it. It only makes me think you’re a brainless fucking romantic who can’t be trusted.”
But as she had told him countless times, she was tougher than she looked. “Aw. Is this where I cry and ask why you’re being so mean? You saw how I lived, but I don’t think you get it. Not really. Not even you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I remember, Taye. I remember my parents. And I remember the endless hospital visits and blood samples and feeling too weak to lift my head. I recall my miraculous recovery and bewildering the doctors. My folks were so happy that I’d finally get to be a kid. Play on the swings and fall in the mud and scrape my knees. But the Foundation took an interest. Instead of normal, we had to move and move again. They tried so hard to keep me safe.
“Then, of course, I remember being taken. After that comes a blur of drugs and torture. Then it gets crystal clear again—my years with Rowan, and all those days where I played the good girl to avoid something worse. It was like living in a minefield.” She slammed a fist into her palm. “Do you get that? Twelve years. Half my life. And I had Rowan watching me. Lusting. Plotting. Nobody gave a shit what I wanted . . . I wasn’t a person to them. I was a thing to be used and put away until some rich fucker needed me.”
He put out his hand in a placating gesture. “Gillie—”
“Don’t. When you came along, I thought I finally had someone who cared about me. But now here you are, treating me like I don’t deserve a say in my own fate. Making decisions for me. You’ll stop that—and right now. We’re equals, or we’re nothing at all.”
She glared at him from a distance of five feet, fists balled up and ready to fight. This wasn’t a game to her. He was the most important person in her life, but she would cut him off without a qualm if he didn’t get past this notion that she was some china doll. Fuck, she probably would make mistakes and missteps, but they’d be her own, and she would learn from them. Though he might be a bit older, he sure as hell wasn’t her dad, and she wasn’t looking for paternal input. In another five seconds, she would go upside his head with something heavy.
Instead of escalating the argument, he stilled. And then, with his gaze locked on hers, Taye dropped to his knees. “I am so sorry. I told you before, I don’t remember how to deal with people. But that’s not an excuse . . . I need to listen when you speak. Can you forgive me?” He bowed his head, like a penitent in search of absolution.
Her hand hovered above his hair, and then she twined her fingers in the shaggy chestnut strands, tilting his face up. “I can. Just don’t do it again. Don’t dismiss me. This is my life. I appreciate your help but you don’t make my choices. I do.”
As if he couldn’t help himself, he knee-walked to close the distance between them and rested his head against her abdomen. He wrapped his arms around her waist, and a tremor rolled through him, a man in tremendous pain. Taye, humbled and uncertain—in their months together, she had never seen him like this. Gillie stroked his hair with deliberate motions.
“Then why the hell would you choose me?” he whispered at last.
She recognized the power of the question instinctively. “I want you, partly because you’re hot.” At the way his chin tilted in indignation, she smirked. “Right, like I’m too pure to notice. You have a super-fine ass and shoulders that don’t quit. But it’s not just that. You get me, where nobody else could. I don’t want to be with someone where I have to lie. Where I have to pretend constantly and invent memories to cover those lost years. I can be who I am with you. And some days when I am totally, unreasonably angry, and I break dishes . . . when I scream and throw stuff at you when you haven’t done a damn thing, well, you understand that, too.”
“I do,” he admitted. “You have a right to be furious with the world.”
He turned his cheek slowly against her stomach, the bristles prickling even through the fleece of her sweatshirt. It felt as though he were paying homage or worshiping her. The thought unsettled her; he couldn’t possibly think he was so unworthy, no matter what secrets squatted in the midden of his past.
“Most of the time, it’s not so bad. Up, now. I’ve forgiven you.” She tugged him to his feet, but he didn’t step away.
Instead his hands slid upward, resting lightly on her waist. “Is it wrong to admit I like it when you yell at me?”
She cocked a brow. “Why?”
“Means you trust me not to hurt you, no matter what.”
A grin curled the corners of her mouth. “I bet you like it even more when I throw things at you. Crockery. Vases. Bowls.”
“Aw, yeah. Now you’re just trying to get me hot.”
“How’s that working out for you?” She leaned into him, and was astonished. “Never mind. Empirical evidence provides the answer.” That revelation opened the most interesting doors in her head. “That’s your button? You like when I’m mean and angry? What would you do if I ordered you to go up and get naked?”
His cock jumped against her belly.
Pure temptation. It would be the easiest thing in the world to let her take charge of him. Maybe too easy, because it was exactly what he wanted—his heart’s desire while being absolved of all responsibility. Yes, I’m aware she was a virgin, St. Peter, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. Somehow Taye didn’t think that defense would hold much weight in heaven. Not that he thought he was going there—and did he really need another sin on his soul? He could too clearly picture the devil roasting his entrails, while whispering, She was too good for you, asshole.
Gillie wasn’t meant for him. He’d known that from the beginning, even before that first, enchantingly clumsy kiss. He couldn’t repeat last night’s weakness, or he’d never be able to walk away from her. But even knowing he stood on shaky ground, it took all his willpower not to obey her playful command.
“I’d say, ‘not today.’”
“You have something better to do?” Her smile said she already knew the answer.
“I’m not ready.” He could’ve kicked himself when he saw the light in her expression, because with those words, he implied he would be, someday. And who was the inexperienced one here, anyway? But in a sense, they both were, because he couldn’t remember anyone else. Sex wasn’t new to him, but for the life of him, he could find no past lovers in his head. Just Gillie. Only her. He might have been born with her face imprinted in his brain. The first thing he could remember—after Rowan began the second round of experiments—was being
wheeled past her apartment as Silas brought her out, probably to heal someone.
“That’s better than no,” she said softly.
Not like she would believe it if he claimed he didn’t want her. Just feeling her against him, savoring the clean soap and woman scent of her, drove him crazy. And she knew, dammit. She displayed new confidence, new seductive strength, in every gesture. Gillie had been dangerous enough to his equilibrium when she wasn’t sure how he felt, or what he wanted.
Amusement got the better of him, and he fell into his role with a growing sense of appreciation. “Just give me a little time, okay? I don’t want to rush into anything.”
“I’ll still respect you in the morning.”
The next part, he meant, serious as a heart attack. “But I won’t, if I do this now.”
Gillie didn’t know that, for him, the future was a mythical creature, like a griffin or a unicorn. If he could stall her long enough—without losing her affection—then maybe he could manage the situation. It would become a moot point.
“I don’t claim to understand, but I won’t press either.”
“Thank you.” He leaned down and touched his forehead to hers.
She wrapped her arms around his waist, and he hadn’t realized until that moment how much he’d missed simple human contact. Though he had become a terrifying creature, portions of him still longed for comfort. She felt like the last tether holding him to this life; if she ever gave up on him, if she ever let go, then he’d morph fully into the monster he feared, the one that fed on fire and death. Simply put, Gillie held the silver cords to his soul.
He realized his mistake a few seconds later when she cupped his face in her hands and drew his head down. Taye had no ability to resist her at this distance, no secret well of strength. Instead he responded helplessly, hungrily. She had learned too much in a short time. Her lips toyed with his, playful and luscious.
“Gillie,” he bit out, feeling ridiculous. “No means no.”
“I’m not unfastening your pants, am I?” Her not-so-innocent blue eyes laughed up at him. “It was just a little kiss.”