“Fuck,” Elijah mumbled. “And-”
“His team is in shambles,” Vincent sighed. “Three dead, two in critical condition, one MIA. He’s the only one who came out unscathed from the parking garage. I’m going after him alone. This is between him and I.”
“Are you sure?” Elijah stood back up, and Vincent held up a hand.
“I’m thinking of taking Quinn as backup, but, Quinn, I expect you not to get involved unless I say.” Vincent finished, turning to Quinn for confirmation.
“Of course,” Quinn growled, bowing his head in Vincent’s direction.
“Then we have work to do.” Vincent gave him a small smile, and Quinn’s responding grin was dangerous.
With that, Vincent and Quinn both walked out.
28
SAWYER
Is this what being dead feels like?
Sawyer stood in the abyss, only seeing the inky blackness of nothing in all directions. There was no sound, no light. Nothing to help her identify what her afterlife would be like.
“Maybe this is it,” she whispered, her chest tightening in pain. She began walking aimlessly, trying to see anything.
A giggle caught her attention, and she spun.
Dark curly hair and olive-green eyes, but smaller than the man who had hunted and finally killed her. All of five years old, Henry was standing in a piece of light and smiling at her.
“Henry,” Sawyer sobbed, covering her mouth.
“Sawyer!” He threw himself at her. She caught him and spun with him while tears fell down her cheeks. “I missed you!”
“I missed you, too!” She held him tightly and sank to her knees. “Oh, baby, I missed you too.”
“Will you play a game with me?” He smiled at her, and she nodded. “Rock, paper, scissors!”
“Alright.” She grinned, sitting with her legs crossed and keeping him in her lap.
They played, and Sawyer desperately wished this was her eternity. Just this.
Henry was always a light in her dark world, and if this was her afterlife, she would take it. She didn’t deserve it, but she would fucking take it.
29
QUINN
Quinn followed Vincent through the hospital. Jon was somewhere inside, and they were going to find him. He didn’t know how Vincent came to his suspicion about the man, but Quinn trusted Vincent’s intelligence and judgement.
They found him in a dark room, smoking a cigarette as he stared at his critically injured team members. Magic could do wonderous things, Quinn knew that, but no healer could fix everything. What Zander had done for Sawyer had been miraculous and risky.
“Vincent,” Jon’s voice was rough. Quinn noted the smell of alcohol in the room as well as the smoke from the cigarette. “Red- Quinn.”
“Yes,” Vincent hissed. “Now might not be the best time for your nicknames.”
“No, it’s not,” Jon sighed, shaking his head. “I don’t need to guess why you are here. Tell me, how do you deal with being exactly like him?”
“I try my best to…” Vincent trailed off. “It doesn’t matter. We have to talk.”
“Ah, here he is. Vincent Castello, the boy responsible for the downfall of the Castello crime family,” Jon sounded bitter, “telling me what I have to do. You know, it’s not like you did that out of some sense of justice. You did it because your brother asked you to. You might fool our bosses, but you never fooled me.”
“Thank you for the reminder.” Vincent didn’t sound thankful. “Tell me, did you betray our organization for a sense of justice or was it just arrogance?”
Quinn could only watch the exchange. Jon was going to call him Redskin, and normally, Quinn would have been in his face over it; but Vincent wanted to do this without Quinn’s interference.
“Go to hell,” Jon snarled. “I didn’t betray the IMPO. I betrayed you. There’s a difference.”
“I don’t really see the difference,” Vincent stepped closer to Jon and leaned down to look him in eye. “No one else will either.”
“You and your little pieces of shit will never be real IMPO agents.” Jon stood up, causing Vincent to take a step back. “You have no idea how insulting it is to see you five running about with our fucking hard work and reputation at your disposal.”
“I’m going to see if I have this timeline figured out.” Vincent gave a dark chuckle. “We caught Sawyer. You have always been jealous of our success, and you hate our team on principle. You don’t like that the spare heir for the Castello family created a rag-tag team of Magi to chase down the actual heir to the Castello family. None of us were even close to IMPO-worthy, in your opinion. Having Sawyer would bring us closer to catching Axel than anyone had ever thought possible, and that pissed you off. Once we cracked her secrets or used her for bait, we would have him. So, you hatched a plan.”
“You little shit,” Jon growled. Quinn looked the drunk, older man over. He didn’t like that Jon was still armed, a pistol in his holster.
“I’m not done, so be quiet,” Vincent snapped. “You were going to get Sawyer into your custody, and you contacted the Ghosts. You contacted him. What were you thinking? You were going to convince him you were handing her over in good faith, and then you would betray him. You probably thought he bought it and would gain allies in the IMPO that he’d never had before. Could have worked if you kept your location a secret, but you didn’t. You told him you would have her in Atlanta, once you convinced the IMPO to schedule the meeting.” Vincent took a deep breath.
Quinn crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. Humans. Deceiving, lying humans. He couldn’t keep up with all of it, but he didn’t need to. Vincent knew the human condition like Quinn knew the mind of his wolves. He could plan around it and adjust his ideas as people reacted and gave him information.
“So, you get us to the meeting,” Vincent growled, clapping his hands slowly. Quinn had never seen him this angry. He was a little concerned. “And you underestimated my brother and his intelligence. You didn’t realize that he’s always several steps ahead of you. We sat in our pointless little meeting, and he had one of his flunkies set up the bombs. He’d already proven that he would kill dozens to get what he wanted, and he wanted Sawyer. He already had the deaths of one IMPO team under his belt. What was two more?”
“If you know everything, why-” Jon was beet-red with fury, and Quinn was a little disgusted by the spittle flying out of his mouth.
“You got half your team killed! Innocent and good men!” Vincent roared. “You did this! I have a team member missing a fucking leg! You think I’m arrogant? I understand him. You didn’t. You have no idea the kind of monster you were playing this game with, you piece of shit. And if those two don’t make it, that’s on your head, too. And you can live with that guilt in prison.”
“I am not going to prison,” Jon snarled. Quinn grabbed Vincent to protect him as Jon pulled the gun from his holster and fired.
Into his own temple.
Quinn was shaking a little. Vincent’s eyes were wide in shock.
“Oh fuck,” Vincent mumbled, staggering back into Quinn and away from the blown-out head of Jon Aguirre as the body fell to the floor. Agents rushed into the room, magic and weapons ready, only to stumble at the sight of Jon’s body.
“He killed himself.” Quinn was still a bit in shock.
“Why?” An agent lowered his gun and looked horrified.
“Because I figured out he betrayed us to Axel.” Vincent tried to regain his composure, but Quinn could still hear the quiver in his voice. “Tell Ken and James. I’m…”
“Go,” the agent mumbled. “You two go back to your team mates. We’ll… figure this out. Stay close.”
“Thank you,” Vincent mumbled. Quinn followed him out, and, once they were down the hall, he grabbed Vincent and pulled him into a hug.
He held on as Vincent, for the first time in years, broke down.
“I just…” Vincent cried softly. “I just wanted to beat Axel. None of this wa
s supposed to happen.”
“I know,” Quinn whispered. “I know.”
“I wanted Jon to respect us, and look at what that led him to do.” Vincent’s voice was hoarse and emotional. “I wanted people to look at me and stop seeing him. And I drove Jon to killing himself… God, I’m exactly like him.”
“You didn’t do that,” Quinn rubbed Vincent’s back. He needed Elijah there. He wasn’t sure he could even comprehend what he’d just witnessed. Suicide was such a human concept, and Quinn had never encountered even the idea of it before. He didn’t know there could be such a strong emotion that would lead to such an awful end.
He pulled Vincent along, all the way back to Jasper’s room, where agents were guarding the door.
“Jon killed himself,” Quinn whispered. “You don’t need to stand guard. Tell the hospital to get off lockdown.”
“Roger that, Special Agent Judge,” the low-ranking agent nodded and ran off to attend to something else.
Quinn told Elijah, Jasper, and Zander the same thing when he got Vincent sitting down. Vincent looked distraught, lost. Quinn didn’t think it would last long, but he didn’t know how to snap Vincent out of it.
“I think we should take the rest of the day just to relax,” Elijah mumbled. “Fuck.”
“Yeah,” Jasper sighed.
30
SAWYER
“Henry!” Sawyer laughed and cuddled the boy to her. “I’m not sure what I can do!”
“But, Sawyer!” Henry laughed, trying to escape her. “You promised!”
“I know, but I’m not sure what to do about that now.” She’d promised him that he could have his own cat, like her Midnight, a long time ago.
“Please?” Henry pouted up to her, and she put her forehead to his.
“I’ll see what I can do,” she whispered, a smile plastered to her face. She ruffled his dark curls and kissed his forehead.
If this was her heaven, then there had to be cat somewhere for Henry. She stood up and lifted him as well.
“I can walk!” Henry laughed, and she lowered him back to the ground. He grabbed her hand and grinned up at her. “There!”
“Good, I don’t want to lose you.” Sawyer blew him a kiss.
“You’ll never lose me,” Henry laughed. “You’re stuck with me, Sawyer!”
She hoped so.
31
JASPER
“I’m not getting in the fucking wheelchair, Elijah. Find me some fucking crutches,” Jasper growled, eyeing the chair with disgust. He was never getting in one of those things again.
“It’s just until I make you a prosthetic. There’s no reason for you to be stuck with crutches. They fucking hurt,” Elijah groaned at the side of Jasper’s bed. “If you want to go see Sawyer, you will get in the wheelchair.”
“You will go get me crutches, or I will fucking crawl there,” Jasper hissed. “Try me.”
“Fine,” Elijah threw his hands up and looked to Zander. “Will you fucking make him listen?”
“He’s not getting in the wheelchair,” Zander sighed. “Nothing will ever get him in one of those.”
“Why the fuck not?” Elijah growled.
“Uh.” Zander looked at Jasper, who glared at him and then back to the chair.
“I was stuck in one for six months when I first arrived at the orphanage,” Jasper spat bitterly. “Torture for an eight-year-old.”
“He’d just lost his family in the car accident.” Zander whispered quickly to Elijah. Jasper could still hear him, and he wished he couldn’t. “His leg was all mangled up; because his parents were non-Magi, they had sent him to a normal hospital. A healer volunteering there found him a couple days later, realized he was a Magi, and healed him as best she could. She got in touch with the WMC about a new Magi orphan but… the damage had been done. He was stuck in a wheelchair until he finished physical therapy and healing from the surgeries they had done on him.”
“I’ll get crutches,” Elijah mumbled. “Why didn’t I know this?”
“I don’t like to talk about it,” Jasper muttered darkly. He didn’t. Zander and Sawyer were the only people who knew the full extent of it. He’d lost his parents and two older sisters, and then he was trapped in a hell of not being able to walk. He was teased and bullied his entire life, thanks to what happened.
“Where’s Vincent?” Quinn asked softly. Jasper groaned. They hadn’t seen him all day. After what happened with Jon the day before, he’d been off.
“I don’t know,” Zander grumbled. “No one does. James might, but I haven’t tried him yet. He’s busy with the WMC about Sawyer.”
“We need to find him,” Jasper sighed. He felt a little guilty now. Here he was, bitching about a wheelchair while their friend was dealing with a crisis. Jasper had gotten flashes of Vincent’s dream the night before, but hadn’t been willing to walk in and confront their leader. He’d been too scared of causing even more damage to Vincent’s psyche.
Vincent was afraid of becoming his brother. They all knew it, had all seen the moments of self-doubt Vincent sometimes had when he got too far into the mental trench of trying to outdo and catch Axel, or any other criminal.
“Let’s get Jasper up to Sawyer’s room,” Elijah growled, walking back in with crutches, “then I’ll go after him.”
It took nearly fifteen minutes for Jasper and Elijah to get the crutches sized correctly, and it took another five minutes for Jasper to start moving with them around the room naturally.
“This fucking sucks,” Jasper mumbled, “but I’m not limping. So, there’s a bright side.”
“Bright side,” Zander chuckled, nodding. “Yeah, keep looking on the bright side.”
“I can make a dick joke about now only having two legs,” Elijah chuckled. “Does that count?”
“God damn it,” Jasper groaned with a small smile. Count on Elijah to bring dicks into it.
“You can still nail a chick from behind, since you have your thigh and knee,” Elijah pointed out, grinning.
“Please,” Jasper laughed, feeling his face heat up. “Please stop.”
“Let’s go,” Zander chuckled, grinning at them.
They made the long walk to Sawyer’s room, and Jasper sighed sadly at what he saw inside the room.
“Found Vincent,” he whispered, looking through the small window at the door.
None of them opened the door yet, all taking peeks at the man lost in his nightmare.
Vincent was just staring at her, his eyes red and swollen. He sat in a chair at the end of her bed and just watched the unmoving Sawyer.
“Come on, guys,” Elijah murmured, opening the door.
Jasper went in first as Elijah held the door for him. He muttered a quick “Thanks,” as he violated the deep thoughts of their leader.
“You’re moving around.” Vincent coughed, wiping his eyes. “Good.”
“Yeah,” Jasper said cautiously. “You okay?”
“I will be,” Vincent sighed. “Just…”
“Why are you in here creeping on her?” Elijah said lightly.
“Because I think she’s the only person who knows my brother as well as, if not better, than I do,” Vincent said, taking a deep breath. “And she’s in a coma, and I want her to wake up.”
“Pushy,” Elijah sighed. “Stop that. She’ll wake up when she wants to.”
Jasper eyed Sawyer’s sleeping form. He frowned and crutched closer. She was dreaming, something that made her happy as hell.
“What’s up, Jasper?” Zander raised an eyebrow at him, and Jasper shrugged.
“I don’t know,” Jasper said thoughtfully. “If she’s not awake in a couple more days…”
“Why not try whatever you’re thinking now?” Vincent asked, standing up. Jasper looked over his shoulder to Vin.
“Because she’s dreaming… and she’s happy,” Jasper replied hoarsely. “Happier than she’s ever been while asleep.” He didn’t want to take that away from her. He wanted to curl up next to her and absor
b some of that beautiful, golden warmth radiating from her dreams. He closed his eyes and focused on it for just a moment. “Just… a couple of days and if she’s not up by then, I have an idea.”
“You do know about her nightmares,” Quinn growled softly.
“I’ve known about them, yes,” Jasper sighed. “Blood and pain. Despair. Heartbreak. If she’s dreaming something happy, I’m going to let her keep doing it for as long as I can. I can’t… I can’t ruin this for her. Not after everything else.”
“Fine.” Vincent sounded choked. “Fine. Two more days. If she’s not awake on her own in two more days, you will do what you can to wake her up.”
“I’ll try.” Jasper inclined his head to Vin and crutched towards an empty chair. He sank into it and rubbed his… leg. His knee hurt a little, and that actually annoyed the shit out of him. His knee had no right to hurt anymore. There was nothing attached to it, and it didn’t have to do any work.
He looked at her, trying to ignore the mild ache. He eyed those lips of hers and remembered the kiss in town. The stupid, foolish thing he’d done. And his mind went to the same thing it did every time he thought about her since Vincent told him her… secret.
Axel had scarred that beautiful lip. Axel had scarred her toned and hard body. He’d filled her dreams with nightmares.
Axel had once kissed those lips and had that body in his hands.
Fury curled in his stomach. Not at her. Never at her, but at the entire situation. At him.
Axel had taken his fierce best friend, just walking into womanhood when he and Zander had left, and turned her into a cold, hard creature capable of unspeakable things. A woman who killed a man with no emotion in her eyes. A woman whose body bore the scars of a long fight against whatever the world had thrown at her.
The Redemption Saga Box Set Page 29