He gasped at his name and looked at me. “You’re not Sir…”
“My name is Fischer. We’ve been looking for you.”
He started crying. “Oh, no…”
I sat up, scooped him up and swung him onto my back. “Legs around me, arms around my neck, we’re getting the hell out of here. Hold on tight.”
Ben listened to me, but he was crying hard. I knew he thought I was taking him from one bad place to another. I didn’t have time to disabuse him of that idea as I ran through the house.
I could see the building was burning down now, the smoke rolling along the ceiling. The flames would follow in a few minutes, and I made my way down the stairs.
Barry had disappeared from the hall. That was concerning but expected. Expected because the house was on fire, concerning because I didn’t know where.
It took only a minute to find out.
The cast iron pan swung at me from around the corner. It was aimed directed at my neck, and I barely managed to duck back.
“You’re not taking him,” Barry growled.
He had a belt around his elbow, cutting off the blood to the open wound at the end of his arm. Casually flipping the pan with the other hand he came at me.
“Child, come here,” he snapped.
I grabbed Ben’s legs and held them fast on my waist. “No. He’s not yours. He’s ours. Our son. You’re never going to touch a child again.” I had to get downstairs and make sure that Wren and Lily were able to get out, and this guy was in my way.
He came at me with the pan again, swinging up and trying to catch me in the stomach. Again, in the ribs. Again, across the knees. I kept backing up. He kept trying to use the hand that was laying upstairs on the floor.
Ben’s hand slipped off my neck as I ducked away again, and then slipped back. I dodged again, this swinging at my head.
“Give me the kid! He’s mine!”
“I’m not!” Ben screamed.
His other hand joined the first and he had the gun I had tucked in the back of my pants aimed in Barry’s general direction.
“You are mine, you brat! Sansom is dead, you’re mine!”
I closed my eyes and turned my head, whispering to Ben, “Do it.”
I hoped that the hearing in my right ear would recover after a few hours. The bang sent the bullet flying at Barry, and the screech from the man was much, much higher than the one he’d let out when I took his hand off.
Turning and looking, Barry had dropped the pan and hand his hand over his junk.
Ben had shot him in the dick.
I liked this kid.
I grabbed the gun out of his hands and kicked Barry out of the way, running for the basement door.
“Wren?” I screamed.
“Here!” She screamed back from the door. “We’ve got most of the kids loaded! Did you—”
She was standing in front of me, staring at the little boy ducked behind my shoulder, and her eyes went wide with tears.
“Ben?”
He nodded without lifting his head.
“He’s a great kid,” I said, swinging him on to my hip. “He shot Barry in the balls.”
“Fantastic!” Lily called. “Get him in the second van! That roof is coming down soon.”
Running to the open door of the second van, I lost my footing when I saw two dozen or more terrified faces looking at me from the filthy floor. Some of the older ones held the younger ones, and packed against each other, as if they hadn’t had human contact in years.
I stood Ben on the running board. “Get on in. We’re getting everyone out of here.”
“Mister?” he said quietly. “You don’t want to—” His lip trembled as his eyes filled with tears.
“No!” I gasped and ran a hand over his head. “Never. You’re all safe now. Let’s get the fuck out of here. Sit. We don’t have to drive far.”
Ben sat and pulled the door shut.
“Drive it out!” Lily screamed. She was screaming because the fire was loud above us. “You and Wren! Get out of here!”
“And you?”
“I’ll meet you outside,” she said.
I saw the hellfire ignite in her palm.
There would be nothing left of this place.
Or of Gutierrez and Cora.
Wren put her van in reverse and backed out of the sunken garage. She sped up the incline and made a fast turnaround at the top, disappearing down the driveway. I put mine in drive to pull out—
As the roof collapsed above and dropped flaming beams across the exit of the garage. I caught Lily’s horrified look, but I wasn’t letting that stop me. I didn’t care about this vehicle. I’d drive it on the rims if I busted the tires. I put it in reverse and looked over my shoulder.
“Hang on, kids. This is gonna be a little rough.”
I hit the gas and backed into the cages behind me. They weren’t secured so they slid back across the cement with a massive ripping and tearing sound. I got myself an extra twenty feet of distance.
Dropping into neutral, I revved the engine lightly. Nothing too extreme. Holding my foot on the gas, and tapping the brake a bit, I dropped it into drive. The wheels spun for a moment, and I released the brakes.
The van charged forward, slamming through the flaming debris, tossing it mostly out of the way except for a piece of wood, on fire, that got tossed up on the wipers.
I kept my foot on the gas and sped up the ramp. Flicking on the wipers, I flung the wood out of my way as I pulled the van hard to the left and curved around the driveway and out to the main gate. I could see the other van idling just beyond where Lily had parked the Tesla.
In the next moment I was eternally grateful for panel vans.
Sebastian
Barry stumbled out the front door, missing one hand and using the other to cover his junk.
I watched as he limped forward toward the fountain, cursing, swearing, covered in blood. Ten points to Gryffindor for the shot to the sack. And twenty more for the removal of the hand.
Once Wren, Fischer, and Lily had disappeared into the house, I climbed a tree down the street. The rifle that Lily had lent me wasn’t quite as nice as the one I’d had in the service, but it was still a good piece. It had a scope, but I had no spotter. A disadvantage, but not a big one. I wasn’t shooting a half mile out. Just a few hundred yards.
I followed Barry’s stumbling steps as he tried to get to the car parked in the lot to the side. Waiting patiently in my tree, I allowed him to get all the way to the door.
Then, I shot the door handle, making it impossible to open.
He stumbled back and looked around. I knew he wouldn’t see me in the tree. Taking a second to regroup, he headed for the entrance to the estate. One of the cars on the street behind me were probably set up for a clean escape.
These traffickers weren’t stupid or sloppy. We’d lucked into most of this information.
I was right—he headed for a black Taurus sitting on the side of the road not far up from the estate. This time, I waited until he was in the car and shot the front tire. When he climbed back out, I shot the back tire. As he looked around for what was going on, in the wrong direction, I put a slug in the engine.
“What the fuck!” he screamed.
I chuckled.
He started down the sidewalk just as a panel van tore around the house, through the gate and down the street, screeching to a halt about twenty feet beyond the Tesla. The door popped open and Wren looked back, worried.
While Barry was staring at the panel van, and stumbling toward it, I shot his left foot. He screamed in pain, but didn’t go down.
Excellent.
He limped forward, as fast as he could. I let him pass under me without making a sound.
Another panel van tore up the driveway, and I knew that was Fischer. I kept my eyes on Barry, though. He was limping faster as the panel van sped past him and pulled in behind Wren’s.
He staggered into the street and was going for the passenger door on
the van, probably to hijack them.
I whistled at him.
He spun and found me in the tree. His face lit with anger.
I grinned at him and called, “Enjoy Hell, motherfucker.”
Pulling the trigger, I planted the bullet right between his eyes and watched as his brains exited through the back of his skull.
Thank God for panel vans.
Wren
Ellie just clung to Ben, silent tears tracing down her face.
“God, I missed you,” she said.
He put a hand on either side of her face and studied her. “I remember you. You used to feed me and make sure I was dry and warm.” He nodded, satisfied with his inspection. “You’re my sister.”
“I am. Do you remember my name?”
“Elliephant.”
Ellie covered her mouth with her hand in shock. “Oh, God, you do remember.”
The six year old made trumpeting sound, and my daughter burst out laughing.
Fischer held his hand out to Ben. “Come on, kiddo. We have some doctors who need to see you before you can come home.”
“Home?”
“You’re going to live with us, Ben,” I said. “You’ll have your own room next to Ellie and you’re going to have another brother and sister.”
“I am?” He looked up at Ellie, hopefully.
“You am, kiddo,” she said, smiling and giving him a hug. “Let the doctors look at you, make sure that everything is working and in the right order, then Fischer and Wren will take you shopping to decorate your own room.”
“No door,” he said, suddenly terrified. “No door on my room.”
Lincoln nodded. “That’s what you want, that’s what you’ll have. No door. I’ll help Bastian take it off when we get back. But you have to respect other doors. Deal?”
Ben nodded, satisfied. “Deal.”
“Come on, we’ll go in and see the doctors,” Fischer prompted. Ellie wanted to stay with her brother, so she followed them, and Lincoln was going to set up the payments and he trailed behind.
Lily was still wrangling with the FBI, which left me and Bastian. Everyone else would meet us back at the house.
“Do you think Ben will be okay?”
“He and I will have a few sessions, or discussions about what happened. I want to make sure that he’s going to handle what happened as well as he can. He’s got all of us, and he can talk to any of us. But…”
“You’re the sex therapist.” I smirked.
“I am.” He nodded.
“I’m the regular therapist, so…how are you doing?”
He stared straight ahead on the road. “I miss my wife, and my kids. But after everything that’s happened, I am beginning to understand that what she and I had wasn’t meant to be forever. We were meant to be, but who we are—Fischer, Linc, and I—was always going to be the bigger facet of destiny.” He tapped his chest, then his head. “She’s still here. I hope you don’t mind sharing.”
I let out a hardy laugh. “Not if you don’t!”
Bastian chuckled. “It’s so strange, but I don’t. I don’t feel a drop of jealousy. Should I? It’s very clear that Fischer is the leader of the pack, but we…all get along. I don’t know what to think.”
“We’ve only given you the bare bones of what was going on before we went sprinting after the kids,” I said. “There’s a lot going on here. Seeing the sins? Because you are one. Lust. I’m meant to balance you all, weighing the good of the sin against the bad of it.” I swallowed. “I mean, Lucifer is my twin brother.”
He turned his head slowly. “We’re serious about all this?”
“The swords we were given? Were forged by Hephaestus,” I said. “You saw Lily conjure the hellfire. You saw what it did for my hand…”
Holding up my unmangled hand, I flexed it a few times, watching it. There was no pain. There was a full range of motion. I had a strong grip, and the skin was perfect. Not a single scar.
“I’m scared,” I whispered.
He tossed a glance at me as we merged into the mess that was the Sckuykill. “Why? About what?”
“Lily swears that we were friends in our lives before this…but I don’t remember her. God, that we even had lives before this. That I’m as old as time itself? How is that possible? I’m just me. I’ve always just been me.” I could feel tears in my eyes. “I like my life, Bastian. It’s not perfect. It can down right suck sometimes, but to think there was once more? That I didn’t have a job but roamed the universe, seeking balance, bringing hope and despair?
“And what happened? How did I end up here? Was I punished? Were we punished? I know that I spent my time in the company of all of you. But…what happened?”
He tapped on the wheel as we moved through the surprisingly light traffic. “I don’t know. I can’t even start to guess. I do have the feeling we’re going to find out though.”
“I can’t disagree with that…”
We were quiet on the ride and I realized he was heading back to the townhouse when he got off at Green Lane.
“The mansion, Bastian,” I said.
“What?”
“We live at Fischer’s mansion, the townhouse is going to be our offices.”
“I live…”
I covered his hand with mine. “At the mansion. With us. All of us. You have your own room.”
“Wren…”
“Look, we’re all in this together, and since I like having all my men near me, Fischer offered his place. Lincoln was going to sell the townhouse, but it makes sense that we can have offices there. No one needs to know I’m living with three guys and four kids. And with the way we’ve been attacked lately, I’d prefer to keep people out of our house.”
After a moment at the stop light, Bastian made a left instead of a right, and we were on our way to the mansion. It was a slightly uncomfortable drive, but I knew that Bastian was trying to figure things out.
When we finally got to the house, I motioned him in through the back door. I closed the door and pointed to the wall next to the entrance. “There’s a set here for you. I know you haven’t been told the whole story yet, but we really do all feel better when we’re in the same place.”
Taking his hand, I led him into the house. I pointed out the kitchen, the pantry, the laundry room, the back staircase. The sitting room, the family room, and farther down the library, and the formal living room. I showed him the formal stairs, and walked up them with his hand in mine.
Once we were on the second floor landing, we wandered down the main corridor. I pointed out Ellie’s room, the twins’ room, and the room that Ben would have.
“I’d set up a second bed in Ellie’s room for now,” he said. “He’s not going to want to be in his room for a while to sleep. Not until he gets used to everyone.”
“Good point.” I smiled and moved us down another hall. “This is Lincoln’s room. There are seven more bedrooms down here. You can choose any of them. They all share bathrooms.”
“Pass throughs?”
“Yes,” I said, and chuckled. “Lincoln’s has two.”
“I’ll take that one, whichever one is attached to Lincoln,” he said without hesitation. He stopped and pulled me around to him. “What are the rules here? Was the other day a one and done deal? Do we have to schedule time with you? Ask Fischer permission? Can we have you to ourselves, or do we always need someone else there?”
I tugged him along to the door to our room. “This door is, figuratively, always open. We haven’t had to come up with rules, because Lincoln usually just shared the bed.” I pushed the door open and led him in. “I don’t need Fischer’s permission for anything, but…this is his bed as well. He always sleeps here.”
Bastian nodded. “Do we pick days of the week?”
I laughed. “You think I can’t take all of you in one day, Sebastian? Everything you all are, I am too. Fischer is Sloth, Lincoln is Greed. If you are Lust, I am part of that.”
“So, no scheduling days?”
“Honestly?” he whispered, “I’ll fuck anything that wants it. It’s insane since meeting you, Linc, and Fischer. All I want to do is…” He shook his head.
I slid my hand around his waist and turned him to look at me. “Just because Fischer and I share that bed doesn’t mean I can’t use it by myself, too. Or with someone.”
“Mm. Show me where I’m sleeping?”
I grinned and held his hand as we walked through the massive linked bathroom that Fischer and Lincoln had insisted we needed. There were no shower curtains. There was a tiled wall, with glass doors on either side and inside were two benches. I tapped the wall. “Shower head is here, and sprays into the room. There are also shower heads in the ceiling and against the back wall if you hit all the buttons correctly.”
“I’m sure you need all of them if you hit the buttons correctly.” The devilish grin on his lips wasn’t helping my sudden bout of lust.
I pushed through the bathroom door and into Lincoln’s room. “We keep the doors closed between the rooms. For the kids. Well, for the twins. Ellie’s not unaware of what goes on.”
Lincoln’s room had become more his in the past few weeks, which was a relief, but he also hadn’t even pulled the covers up on the bed. I shook my head and clucked. “Like a child.”
“Always pull the covers up. For a fresh bed in the evening and to hide any cum stains,” Sebastian said.
I choked a bit, but laughed. There were definitely a few stains we couldn’t get out.
The door to the other bathroom, the original one for Lincoln’s room, was pulled shut. We all just used the new one. But I pushed it open and popped on the light. It was clean and neat and slightly cold.
Walking through the other door, I flipped on the light to the next bedroom. It was done in neutrals, and maple furniture, and I’d always kind of like the pops of navy and yellow in the room. Fischer had put king beds in all the rooms—mostly because they were all enormous.
“I like this,” Bastian said. “But I feel like it’s missing something.”
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