I wasn’t going to ask him why he agreed. I’d have to have been blind to not see exactly why a male, alive or dead, wouldn’t want Whitney Lake to leave.
“Whatever it takes. Buy me time.”
Dante nodded. “You’ve got it, Zero.”
9
Whitney
Nick wouldn’t look at me. Brandon seemed paler, if that was possible, and Carson kept his gaze fixed on something outside. Eventually, Nick and Carson left us alone. The rain pounded, and it seemed after a while we’d have no choice but to leave the dry place in search of somewhere else to stay for the night.
When we’d left Dante’s workshop, Brandon had led me through a series of hallways and tunnels until we finally emerged outside. Rot and decay had filled my nose as I took in the smoldering piles of Controlled. Gagging, I’d hurried after Brandon. Eventually, he’d brought us here, to an older squat building with windows.
When we entered, we’d happened upon Nick and Carson. The two were deep in conversation, but as soon as they saw us, they’d fallen silent.
Argh! I’d completely bumbled the confrontation with Nick. This heavy, awkward tension was my fault, but for the life of me, I didn’t know how to fix it. Why had I gone on about the people I’d seen die? With one sentence, I’d turned the conversation away from Nick’s death and made it all about me.
I stared outside, wishing I knew how to apologize in a way Nick would accept.
It was still night, now very late, but the storm had cleared and the moon was out again. The weather seemed all over the place. The storm and battle had left a swath of destruction across the place. Trees had shattered from lightning strikes or been uprooted by the wind.
Gathering my courage, I took a breath to speak. None of Brandon’s friends had said it outright, but the source of the angst in the room began and ended with me. I was making a mess of this, but I had to fix it.
Before I could say a word, however, the door opened and Dante came in, clearing his throat. Our eyes met, and he smiled at me. My muscles slumped, and I smiled in return.
“I don’t want you to leave just yet,” the tall man said. “I think you might be concussed. So—one night. Let me keep you under observation. You can’t go running around with the Controlled so close. You’ll be Controlled yourself in no time. And as you may have noticed, there are no women here. We’ve yet to have a woman wake up. So—yeah. No going back to Roanoke tonight.”
It took me a moment to make sense of his rambling explanation. I was concussed and couldn’t go home—got it. Dante had given me an excuse to stay an extra night with Brandon, which I truly wanted more than anything. My father’s presence hung like a cloud of doom over my head, and my massive guilt urged me to get going. But Dante was right. It was too big a risk to leave.
Also, if I was bitten and woke up Controlled, I probably wouldn’t be like them. Now, that was interesting. “Why is that?”
“I wish I knew.” Dante squeezed my arm, signaling that he’d said all he had to say on the subject. It left me decidedly unsatisfied. “Take a break in one of the back rooms. Go to bed. We’ll be waking you several times during the night. Tomorrow morning, we’ll talk.”
Alarm bells began to ring in my head. I’d grown up with a master liar. My father said one thing to the world and another at home. And Dante was a bad liar.
Oh, he’d done a good job throwing me off with his random comment about my future as a Controlled. I’d been so focused on that, I’d sort of skimmed over the whole, “I don’t want you to leave just yet.”
I wasn’t sure he was going to let me leave in the morning. My head throbbed. I wasn’t in any shape for much of anything, let alone reasoning and figuring out the intentions of near strangers.
Still…“Okay.” There were things to say to Brandon. I wanted to tell him how I felt, how I’d always loved him. I needed him to understand how he had been my entire world. I’d take the night to say to him all the things I hadn’t ever gotten to say. I glanced around the room. “Is there a chair or something?”
Nick threw his hands into the air and blasted a sigh, but Dante pointed to an open door. I found a tidy, put-together bedroom. The bed was made, but the curtains were drawn tight. Did someone sleep back here? I turned to ask and collided with Bran. He put his hands on my shoulders. “You should consider yourself lucky. Dante doesn’t let just anyone sleep in his room.”
“This is his room? Where will he sleep?”
Brandon shrugged. “He wouldn’t have told you to come back here if he didn’t want you to stay here. He may not sleep. Sometimes we don’t. Our need for it comes and goes.”
The door was just out of reach, but if I stepped closer to Brandon, I’d be able to get the edge. One step brought me into his chest and my fingertips touched the door. Flicking them, I managed to shut the door closed. At the same time, I stood on my tiptoes and kissed Brandon straight on the mouth.
I’d always wanted to. I wouldn’t miss another chance. He didn’t seem Controlled to me. No. He was my Brandon, and he was here.
I had no skill. This was my first kiss. Not only that, it was the kiss I’d been dreaming about since I’d decided the universe had made Brandon just for me.
Beneath my lips, Brandon was motionless. He didn’t try to kiss me back, and I settled back on my heels. “That bad?” Was I supposed to move my lips more? Use my tongue? I wasn’t just supposed to dive in, tongue waggling like a deranged Labrador.
Brandon made a noise, a sort of groan, and then I was in his arms. Before, I’d been too nervous and excited to notice his temperature, but his body was cool, verging on cold. I wrapped my hands around his biceps, embracing the chill.
And his lips. They were drier than I expected, like he’d been out in the wind and heat, but were so soft against mine. I let myself relax into his body, and my fears drained away.
With Bran, I didn’t need to worry about what to do, we figured it out together. Our teeth clacked, but he only chuckled and changed his angle. When I lightly skimmed my tongue along his bottom lip, I accidentally licked his chin, and he bent his knees to better fix his mouth to mine.
As we kissed, he walked me backward until the mattress hit my knees. Thrown off balance, I sat on the mattress, and the entire bed frame squeaked.
“Get some, Bran!” Nick yelled.
Heat raced up my neck and into my cheeks.
“I’m going to kill him,” Bran muttered. “Again.”
I’d once had a little brother, so sibling rivalry was something I was familiar with. And, Nick’s tone, while sarcastic, also held a bit of amusement. “I think he’s trying to get a rise out of you.”
“I know he is,” Brandon said, and I glanced up. His smile was wide and happy, and I forgot my embarrassment.
Gripping his hand in mine, I lifted it to my face. The skin was scarred: different than the last time I’d held it. Brandon worked construction, so he’d always been calloused, but these marks were unfamiliar. They looked fresh but weren’t the red of healing skin. The blood was old and a blackish purple. When he saw me looking, Brandon gently extracted his hand from mine.
“We don’t heal.”
“Bran…” It was easy to forget he was dead when he stood right in front of me. The time for hesitation and self-consciousness was over. Standing quickly, I used his shoulders to brace myself and leaned over to be nose to nose. “I love you.” His eyebrows drew together in the way they did right before he launched into an argument, so I plowed on. “I love you, Brandon, and I always have. I don’t care that you’re dead, or that I have to go home. I don’t care that we can’t be together. I just love you. And I’ll love you until I die. Or until I decompose. Since I might become Controlled.”
He put his hands on either side of my face. “You can’t know how much I wish we had done this years ago.” He sighed. “All of Nick’s teasing aside, we can’t… do what I want to do with you. The desire is there in my mind. But the ability has left me. I can’t perform that way anymore. It�
�s a side effect of death. Not that any of us have had a lot of opportunity to try but…” He looked down. “This is uncomfortable, but jerking-off doesn’t work anymore. I used to look at you and just be hard all day. Now, I’m afraid nothing is happening down there.”
I swallowed. He used to look at me and be hard all day? I kissed his chin. “We had years and we wasted them.”
“We didn’t. Not really. I know you better than I ever had the right to. You should have been miles above me and yet you never noticed. No time spent in the presence of someone with your heart could ever be considered wasted, Whit. I promise you that.” He crawled onto the edge of the bed. “But we can do something we’ve never done before. I could hold you all night. One last thing to take with me for eternity. Or until I rot. And, you, Whitney, my love, you’re never going to, because I’m going to take you out of here—with your eyes open, not blindfolded—and make sure you get home safely.” His gaze held mine like we were glued together and only the other existed in the world. “I was selfish to ask you to come, but I couldn’t have done any differently. I had to see you again. One last time.”
I smirked at him. “You know how I hate to disagree with you.”
“Oh, please.” His laugh moved through me like a warm bath after a cold night. “You love to disagree with me.”
“Be that as it may…” I batted my eyes dramatically. “I have to tell you there is no way this is the last time you’re seeing me. Now that I know you’re out here? Dead or not or whatever? I’m coming back. A lot.”
He shook his head. “I want you to have a life. I don’t want you mourning me.”
I couldn’t have this argument right now. What kind of life did he think I was going to have without him? We couldn’t have sex? Fine. We’d gotten along without it so far. I still needed him—he was my best friend—and I loved him. “I think you said something about holding me?”
Brandon nodded once and crawled into bed next to me. “I’m actually tired. Like I told you, it comes and goes. Tonight, I could sleep.”
Thunder shook the building, and I winced. That storm was back again. What was it doing? Circling this place in an endless loop? I sighed. I never could sleep through a storm. I lay with him in the bedroom, listening to the storm rage outside. Brandon was very still. Cold and unmoving, even with his arms around me. I stared at his face in the low light of Dante’s room. He could be dead for as motionless as he was. He didn’t breathe; he had no pulse, no heat in his body. Yet, I knew if I shook him, he’d rouse. That was something. I’d hold onto the fact that deep inside of him there was still the spark of life.
Maybe it was my head injury or just everything being too much, but I closed my eyes and practically begged sleep to take me. Anything to reset the way my existence had tilted left and become unrecognizable.
I dreamed I stood in the center of a circle. The world was a vivid green I only saw in the springtime when the leaves were newly unfurled and the grass had sprouted from a dry, winter ground. Rain pelted the earth around me, but I remained untouched.
Above me, storm clouds gathered, and I lifted my face toward the sky. Inside the dark rolling clouds, lightning flashed like a warning, but I wasn’t afraid. Thunder cracked ominously and the lightning struck, a blazing white, into the ground.
Once. Twice. Lightning hit the ground over and over. Six distinct strikes. The smell of ozone was thick in the air and the hairs on my arm stood up.
Realization hit me suddenly—I wasn’t alone. Fearless, I studied the faces of the men regarding me. They’d never hurt me. That was a given. Somehow, I knew that.
Brandon. I knew him as well as I knew myself. His expression was passive. He’d never say no to this. His friends all loved him. That wasn’t surprising. Everyone always had. In a real sense, I was here in this moment because of that love.
Isaiah. He watched me with curious eyes. Would I be as accepting as he had been to the strangers who were now as close to him as brothers? He held his hands loosely at his sides, but he wasn’t relaxed. He waited for my decision. What was the question?
John. Dark-eyed, devil-may-care attitude. But he cared. He didn’t fool me. Every move he made, every decision or judgment rendered had been one he agonized over. He frowned and side-eyed Isaiah before returning his gaze to mine. I see you, I wanted to say. I see what you try to hide.
Carson. He stared at the ground while I stared at him, waiting for him to meet my gaze. Constantly measuring himself against a world that didn’t exist anymore, Carson found himself lacking in every possible way. He needed to realize his worth. I’d show him, if he gave me the chance. I’d show him he was perfect no matter what.
Nick. His gaze was hard, and he was world-weary. Well, I was, too. He and I had more in common than perhaps I had with anyone here. Maybe even more than Brandon, because we’d been hurt by the same man. We lived in a world filled with liars but tried to make our way. We were survivors, he and I. But our hearts were vulnerable and exposed.
Dante—
“You don’t think you belong here,” I said.
He smiled sadly. “I don’t, Whit. Look at me. And look at you.”
The clouds parted, and the sun came out. He winced, but held my gaze, and I looked at him, really looked at him. His chin was covered in a metal plate, and one cheekbone was sewn with ragged, uneven stitches. That must have been his first injury, the one he had to do with no one to guide him. The metal set off the hue of his skin. No. He wasn’t classically beautiful, but every scar on his skin told his story. It told me he’d never give up, not on me, and not on any of these guys. Ever.
I smiled at him. “I am looking at you, Dante.”
Thump. My eyes shot open, and I sat up, my hand on Brandon’s chest.
“Are you all right?” he asked. “I had to wake you. Time to check the concussion.”
That made sense. I was disoriented. The dream was so real; I expected to feel the grass beneath my feet.
Brandon put his arm behind his head. “Whit?”
“I’m okay,” I answered, patting his chest to reassure him.
Holding out his arm, he looked at his chest and then at me. “Then come back. It’s early yet and I’m not ready to move. Let me hold you a little longer?”
He didn’t have to ask twice. I snuggled into him, breathing in his scent. “You smell like you.”
“I shower,” he said. “Dante keeps us up, does maintenance.”
“Like you’re a car.”
Brandon laughed, and the sound rumbled in my ear. “An old car with a rusty undercarriage.”
I pushed his shirt away with my hand to rest my hand on his stomach. “You don’t feel rusty.” I curled my fingers to tickle him, wiggling them against his skin, and he laughed.
I was made to be held in his arms.
Brandon yawned and it made me yawn, too. “Go back to sleep,” he whispered and began to stroke my hair back from my face.
I closed my eyes, exhaled, and fell right back into my dream.
The sky was bright blue, and I blinked in the sunshine. This was weird. This wasn’t how people dreamed. In dreams, if you were chased by a clown and woke up, when you fell back to sleep you landed in a bubblegum field. You didn’t begin the same dream exactly where you’d left off.
But here I was again, standing in front of Dante like I’d never woken up.
Anticipation bubbled in my stomach, and I looked up at the sky. The sun wasn’t what we needed. We needed a storm. Only an electrical storm would work. Immediately, the clouds rolled back in as if I’d conjured them.
Power replaced my anticipation. Lightning flashed in the sky, and I felt a tickle in my fingertips. Each zigzag built up the power inside me. I itched to release it, but I needed permission. I could use it to help them, to help Brandon and his friends, but I wouldn’t without their permission.
“Dante.” He seemed the most unsure, so I addressed him first. “I can’t do this without free will. I won’t. You have to all want it. If you don�
��t, tell me now, and it can stop.” The electricity inside me didn’t like that. It was churning and roiling like the clouds above us. Gritting my teeth, I forced it back.
“I won’t go back,” Isaiah spoke. Resolve came out of every pore in his body. He would be the first to acquiesce, the first to reclaim himself. “We lose more and more people every day. But I won’t come without Dante. I won’t come without my friends. I’ll fade away first. But Whit, you’ll be just as bound as us. You’ll be tied to our survival.”
I nodded. But his warning only strengthened my decision. Even knowing them this short amount of time, I’d do anything for them. I wanted to save them and somehow, maybe, I would end up saving myself.
I put out my hand, offering them the choice. I wanted them to take it, but in that moment, I wasn’t sure if they would. Dante. Isaiah. Nick. Carson. John. Brandon. They had free will, and I had no desire to control them.
Lightning struck the ground in front of me, blinding me for a moment. It was a warning. Mother Nature was running out of patience, and we were running out of time.
All or nothing. All or none. “I can’t make the decision for you.”
I blinked against the bright white flashes of light. Part of me wanted to wake up. The dream felt too serious, too real. What was I even talking about? Free will? All or none?
Still…
My entire body tingled, and it was getting harder and harder to hold back the power. I gritted my teeth against the rising pain.
I needed to release it. The power yearned for the men standing in front of me. It wanted to arch out of my body and connect to them.
Connect.
If any of them took my hand, it would be Brandon.
But it wasn’t.
Carson took it, and the power surged into him. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Carson understood what needed to be done. It must have been painful, the first jolt of electricity, but he held my gaze steadily.
Lightning Strikes: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (The Storm Book 1) Page 5