The Archer

by Abigail Roux

  “No, no todavía,” Thiago admitted with a frown. “What sort of drink do they keep out there?”

  “Come on,” Shawn sighed as he hefted himself back into a standing position.

  He reached down and took Thiago’s hand and pulled him to his feet. Thiago wavered but Shawn held him tight until the world stopped spinning. “Let’s take a walk, shall we?”

  Thiago allowed himself to be pulled along, partly because he was curious

  about what Shawn had to say to him, but mostly because he knew as drunk as he was he had no hope of resisting the other man’s efforts.

  They walked the grounds in what felt like circles, but finally they came upon

  the stables. Thiago watched Shawn warily as he saddled one of the horses and then started on a second.

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  “Do you know what you’re doing?” Thiago asked finally.

  “Aye. You end up acquiring skills you never thought to acquire when you

  spend too much time with Remy,” Shawn answered wistfully, sounding as if he was

  mentally reliving a past experience. Thiago shifted uncomfortably at the mention of Remy’s name. “Do you?” Shawn asked with a little smile.

  “Do I what?” Thiago asked he shook off the memory of Remy’s blood on

  Shawn’s hands.

  “Do you know how to ride a horse?” Shawn asked in a slow, deliberate

  voice.

  “Of course I do. I grew up riding horses,” Thiago said with a touch of pride

  in his voice. He realized his mistake seconds later when Shawn grinned widely and led the horse from the stall, all saddled up and ready to go.

  “Gettyup then, mate,” Shawn said with a grin.

  Thiago offered him a weak smile, but he couldn’t see how the other man

  could be so cheerful after all that had happened. Thiago had genuinely believed that Shawn loved Remy. If Thiago felt like eating a bullet to rid himself of the memory of the hurt he had caused in Gray’s eyes, how could Shawn be Mister Beignet Sunshine after stabbing Remy to death?

  “I’m drunk, Shawn,” Thiago supplied dubiously as he took the reins and

  eyed the horse warily. “I can’t ride.”

  “But you grew up riding, Thiago,” Shawn cooed indulgently, and with a

  cheeky grin he led his horse out of the stables and into the blinding sunlight.

  When Thiago finally got himself on the horse, Shawn watched him intently

  from atop his own mount. At least, Thiago thought he was watching him intently. The sunglasses made it difficult to tell.

  They set off on one of the trails that led through the grounds without another

  word, and Thiago frowned as he tried to decide whether to broach the subject of the other men. Several times during their ride, he opened his mouth to ask the question, but each time he changed his mind and remained silent. After over thirty minutes of riding, Shawn pulled ahead and stood his mount in front of Thiago’s, stopping him in the middle of the path.

  “Why don’t you just go ahead and say what’s on your mind, Thi? They can’t

  hear us out here,” Shawn said as he gestured to the trees around them.

  Thiago stared at him unsteadily, wondering if he would regret this when he

  sobered up completely.

  “You killed him,” he finally said in a hoarse voice.

  Shawn actually had the nerve to look stunned. He pushed his sunglasses onto

  the top of his head and his green eyes pinned Thiago with an amused stare.

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  “Thiago,” he sighed in exasperation. “Is that why you’ve been ducking into

  shadows every time you see me coming?”

  “You said you loved him,” Thiago said as the anger inside him grew. “You

  spent an entire month trying to kill yourself because you thought you’d killed him, for Christ’s sake!”

  “Aye, I did,” Shawn said with a little nod as he tugged at the reins and

  brought the horses side by side. His thigh came to rest against Thiago’s knee and Thiago leaned to the side in order to better see him.

  His world tilted and he would have completely fallen off his horse had

  Shawn’s arm not shot out and grabbed him by his shirtfront to steady him. Thiago

  swallowed with difficulty and met Shawn’s piercing green stare.

  “I want to show you something, Thi,” Shawn said pleasantly, and he reached

  beneath the jacket he was wearing.

  Thiago’s hand immediately went to the spot where his gun would normally

  have been, but there was nothing there to grab. “Easy, Shawn,” he said as his horse stepped to the side nervously and jostled him.

  “It’s just my knife, mate,” Shawn responded in a soothing voice, as if that

  were supposed to make Thiago feel better. He pulled the knife out slowly, letting off that unique metallic gliding sound that only a knife coming out of its sheath can make, and Thiago noticed that Shawn had the sheath attached to his belt. Thiago

  didn’t remember him ever having carried a knife during the previous months. Why

  would he start when they were safer than they had ever been?

  “What are you doing?” Thiago asked suspiciously.

  “Do you recognize this?” Shawn asked instead of answering. Thiago glanced

  down at the knife and back up at Shawn, but then he looked closer and realized that he did recognize it.

  “It’s Remy’s,” Thiago said in surprise. “I thought Carl walked out with it,”

  he added as an inadvertent shiver ran through him.

  “He did. This is mine. Actually, it’s one of my backups, mine got lost in the

  explosion at the cabin. But it’s the same as the others. I had them made several years back. They’re special, you see,” Shawn said with a small smile. “Care to have a

  look?” he asked as he flipped it into the air and expertly caught it by the blade.

  Thiago gave him another suspicious look as he took the proffered knife by its

  handle and examined it. He bounced it a little in his hand and turned it over to look at the other side. He quirked his eyebrow at Shawn as he handed it back.

  “I don’t understand,” he said in frustration. He really shouldn’t have been

  drinking as much as he had.

  “Look,” Shawn said patiently as he pointed to a little catch in the side of the

  handle. He pressed it down with his thumb and then pushed the tip of the knife into

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  Thiago’s saddle horn. He exerted a slight pressure and the knife dug into the soft leather cover, but he kept pushing and the blade began to slowly retract into the handle. Thiago watched in fascination as Shawn pushed the knife all the way to the hilt, and then slowly pulled it back, letting the blade reappear.

  “Jesus,” Thiago breathed as he met Shawn’s sparkling eyes once more. “It

  was all an act,” he said as a vague idea of what had happened began to form.

  “You didn’t really think I could kill the lad, did you?” Shawn asked with a

  small smile.

  “I… yeah, actually. So wait, all that blood? It was fake?”

  “No, unfortunately,” Shawn said sadly as he looked off into the distance and

  put the knife back into its sheath. “The blade retracts, but it needs a little pressure first.”

  “So you did stab him?”

  “Only a little,” Shawn answered indignantly. “It probably went in a ways,

  but not enough to kill him. Believe me, I’ve had it done to me,” he added with a wink.

  “I saw him spit blood,” Thiago insisted disbelievingly.

  “He had one of those blood capsules in his mouth. You bite it and it bursts,

  sort of thing,
” Shawn explained with a vague gesture toward his mouth.

  “I can’t believe Remy went along with that,” Thiago said doubtfully.

  Shawn clucked his tongue and urged his horse to circle around Thiago’s and

  start forward the way they had been heading.

  “He didn’t exactly have a choice by the time he figured it out,” Shawn said

  regretfully as they cantered along easily. “I told him I wouldn’t allow him to come back. I told him I didn’t trust him to keep himself alive. I told him I’d resort to dirty tricks, but he insisted on playing the martyr and giving himself over. I couldn’t have that. He was supposed to kill me, you see. That’s what we had worked out. But I

  switched it up on him. He couldn’t exactly call me on it, it would have gotten us all killed.”

  “So when you kissed him, you were transferring the blood capsule,” Thiago

  reasoned. “And you had Carl and Brandt blow the train to cover the deception.”

  “You’re right about the capsule; I pushed it into his mouth when I kissed

  him. Almost bit the fucking thing myself when that wanker hit me,” Shawn muttered thoughtfully. “But the others didn’t know what we planned,” he continued as they

  rounded a bend in the path that indicated the trail was almost at its end. “We didn’t have time to tell them. Carl dropped that grenade because he’s spent too damn much time with Brandt. It wasn’t planned, but it allowed them to escape and caused enough chaos that no one had time to ask why either of us did what we did.”

  “Why did you do it? What purpose did it serve?” Thiago asked as he tried to

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  wrap his brain around what Shawn was telling him.

  “You heard Thierry in that first meeting. He never would have believed I’d

  done it had someone he trusted not witnessed it. Remy’s safe now, for the rest of his life, if he keeps his head down,” Shawn said with a touch of melancholy.

  They stopped at the tree line and Thiago examined Shawn closely. “You

  sacrificed yourself for him,” he finally said sadly.

  “Not so much,” Shawn said with a grin as he looked at Thiago finally. “I get

  you out of the deal, right?” he asked with a cheeky wink.

  Thiago smiled gamely and looked up at the stables they were heading for.

  “You brought me out here to tell me something aside from this,” Thiago said as he looked at the security cameras that lined the roof of the main house. “You thought I knew about Remy.”

  “Aye, I did, I would have said something earlier if I’d known you thought

  me a cold-blooded killer.”

  “You are a cold-blooded killer, Shawn,” Thiago said flatly.

  Shawn turned and looked at him again and grinned widely. “Can’t argue

  with that,” he said happily. “But there was nothing in particular I wanted to say, really. I was lonely. And restless as hell,” Shawn admitted candidly. “Needed to get out of that house for a spell.”

  “When do we start looking for the others?” Thiago asked as he allowed

  himself a small smile.

  “I don’t even know that we should,” Shawn answered with a frown. “We’ll

  be watched closely for the next year and a half, Thi. After that, they’ll set us free, supposedly, and we’ll be on our way. But if we did track the others before that, we could be undoing any good we may be able to do for them here.”

  “Right,” Thiago said quietly.

  Shawn turned in his saddle and looked at Thiago. “I say all of this assuming

  that you’ll stick with me, mate,” he said seriously.

  Thiago smiled and nodded. “Don’t know what I’d do without a grumpy old

  bastard around to make me look good,” he responded lightly.

  Shawn eyed him and growled playfully. “I may be grumpy, but we’ll need a

  fuck of a lot more than me to make you look good.” He sat smiling for several

  moments before saying innocently, “Speaking of grumpy bastards, did you make

  things right with Gray before it all went down? Is he out there somewhere waiting for you?”

  “No,” Thiago answered in a hoarse whisper as a wave of nausea suddenly

  swept over him. Shawn looked at him in concern and Thiago shook his head. “But he is out there somewhere safe. That’s all that matters.”

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  LXXVIII.

  Shawn stared up at the dark ceiling through the canopy of the four-poster bed. His talk with Thiago had disturbed him more than he cared to admit, and he couldn’t find sleep.

  He missed Remy. He missed all his former companions. Even Gray. He

  wondered if he would ever see any of them again. He had done what he had to in

  order to get Remy out of the Organization’s crosshairs. He and Thiago together would be able to put up a smoke screen for the others until they all went under permanently.

  They were safe, and Shawn could rest easy knowing that.

  So why was he so fucking unsettled?

  A tap on the door jolted him out of his thoughts, and he sat up in bed and

  cocked his head at the door. It cracked open and Thiago peeked inside quietly.

  “Hey,” he whispered when he saw Shawn sitting up. “I didn’t wake you, did

  I?”

  “No,” Shawn answered curiously as he looked at the other man.

  Thiago stepped into the room and closed the door with a muffled thump.

  They stared at one another quietly through the darkness, and Shawn grinned slightly.

  “My bed’s cold,” Thiago finally said miserably.

  “So’s mine,” Shawn whispered, and he pushed the bedcovers off his legs and

  patted the mattress beside him.

  Thiago’s shoulders sagged slightly, and he padded over to the bed and

  crawled in beside Shawn with a grateful little sigh.

  Shawn settled back under the covers and was slightly surprised when Thiago

  snuggled up next to him and rested his head on Shawn’s shoulder. Shawn held him

  close and waited for Thiago to say whatever was on his mind.

  “These are the old model cameras, right?” Thiago whispered, indicating the

  camera mounted into the ceiling in the corner of the room.

  “Yeah,” Shawn whispered back. The old cameras had no microphones on

  them. Shawn had already swept the room for other bugs, and found none. The camera he had taped over, simply for peace of mind, if nothing else. “We’re free to talk in here, if we whisper,” he added as he turned his head and nuzzled against Thiago’s hair.

  “I miss them,” Thiago said in a barely audible voice.

  Shawn closed his eyes and smiled sadly. “Me too,” he admitted.

  “You’re going to find them, right?” Thiago asked desperately. “They’re

  letting us out in eighteen months, and then we’ll find them?”

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  “Yes,” Shawn hissed forcefully as he pulled Thiago closer.

  “You know where they are, don’t you?” Thiago said accusingly as he lifted

  his head up and looked down at Shawn.

  “I know they split up,” Shawn admitted. “Carl and Brandt went one way

  together, Gray and Nikolaus another. I can’t be certain, but I think they separated after a couple days together. Remy, I couldn't find. We’ll find them, though. All of them.”

  “But they’re alive. Gray’s still….”

  Shawn looked up at Thiago sympathetically and lifted his hand to trail

  slowly down the side of the other man’s face. He knew how Thiago felt. They had

  both lost lovers, if only temporarily. They had both lost companions and friends.

  Shawn uttered a surprised little sq
ueak when Thiago lunged forward and

  pressed their lips together desperately, but soon he warmed to the idea and wrapped his arms around Thiago’s body.

  As the two men took comfort in one another, their soft moans mingled with

  the gentle rustling of the curtains that covered the doorway to the balcony, and later that morning, when Shawn finally remembered he’d left the doors open, he was much too tired to care.

  LXXVIV.

  WHEN Thiago awoke, he was wrapped tightly around the pillow Shawn had shoved

  against him when the other man got out of bed earlier. Thiago raised his head

  groggily and found Shawn sitting on the floor of the room in the doorway that opened out onto the balcony. The long white curtains fluttered around him in gauzy swirls, but he paid them no mind as he sat and stared out into nothing.

  “Shawn?” Thiago called out in a hoarse voice. “¿Está bien? ” he asked

  roughly as he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

  “Look at this, Thi,” Shawn said with difficulty.

  Thiago immediately tensed at the tone of the other man’s voice. “What?

  What’s wrong?” he asked as he struggled to disentangle himself from the sheets and limped over to where Shawn was sitting cross-legged near the doorway. In front of him was a nondescript little brown box. “¿Cuál es? ” Thiago asked uneasily. He eased himself into a sitting position beside the other man. “Jesus, this floor is cold,” he muttered.

  “It’s his box,” Shawn whispered as he smiled at Thiago’s complaining.

  “What?”

  “From Sydney. Remember? The one he had when he drugged us all?”

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  “Where… how did you… have you kept it all this time?” Thiago asked in

  disbelief.

  “No,” Shawn said with a little shake of his head. “It was here when I woke

  up. I haven’t touched it.”

  Thiago stared at the box, realizing that someone had managed to get past

  every foot of security in the Estate and sneak into the bedroom of two Class One

  operatives, without leaving a trace of his presence, save for a little brown box.

  Someone they both knew very well.