Eden fell forward onto his knees, Homer and Jessie, let alone the other survivors, all doing the same.
There were screams – male, gut-wrenching screams in the split-second gap between, no doubt from the last second of life of whoever had survived in the front seat.
When he looked back, Pummel was being dragged back from the smoke by Chemist and Savage. Dice was fast approaching Homer – Homer who still had a tight grip on Jessie. Jessie who was staring with glazed eyes and smoke-stained skin back at the van.
‘He’s in a bad way,’ Dice told Homer as Chemist and Savage dragged their unconscious leader over to join them.
Eden stared down at Pummel’s scathed face, the blood pouring down his head, his ripped jeans exposing red-raw wounds beneath.
‘Get him in the car,’ Homer said to Dice. He looked back at Eden. ‘You get his bike.’
‘I can watch the girl,’ Eden said.
‘You’ll fucking listen to me until Pummel’s back in charge,’ Homer declared.
Eden glared at him but knew he had no option – that he may have revealed too much already. He needed to remember that first night when he’d first turned up. When he’d barely looked at her. When he’d kept his attention purely on the endgame.
They’d come too far for him to blow it now.
Blow it for him and for Jessie who now yanked her arm free from Homer, taking her cue that she was to join the others in the car.
He needed to play the game as smartly as she did. He needed to get used to the routine.
As car doors slammed and bikes revved back into action, one by one the others swept back into the distance.
He marched over to Pummel’s bike, past the crew members who hadn’t made it.
He stared across at the front of the burning van. Confirmed he’d been right in what he thought he’d seen before skidding to a halt.
The front was smashed in as though it had plunged into an iron barrier or solid brick wall.
Only there was no wall there.
In fact, there had been absolutely nothing for it to hit at all.
Nothing but air.
24
Eden knocked back his fourth drink in a row as he sat at the kitchen table.
Though he’d only arrived back minutes behind the others, they hadn’t let him in the lounge. More to the point, Homer hadn’t let him in. It had been reinforced by Chemist and Dice marking the door – albeit Chemist with an edge of apology.
Jessie was in there though, he knew that much. He’d caught a glimpse before he’d been blocked.
He glanced at his watch. They’d been in there near on two hours, but he wasn’t budging from his prime visibility spot.
Now that the adrenaline had subsided, now that Jessie was back, the prospect of what could have happened curdled with even more impact in the pit of his stomach. And it wasn’t just because he could have lost what he had come there to do, but because of what could have happened to her.
He knocked back another shot and wiped the back of his hand across his dry mouth.
His jaw clenched again at the thought of that con – of his jeans around his knees, of what he’d intended to do to her. Amidst that, his thoughts continually looped back to what the fuck had stopped the van. It had to be something to do with her; would explain why she scoffed at him whenever he mentioned setting her free.
He slammed his glass down and poured himself another.
It made it complicated. It made her potential freedom – his only leverage – complicated.
More complicated though was he knew he hadn’t slept with her purely out of strategy, or because it had been on offer. He knew he hadn’t been playing some familiar sex game like he had with Tatum.
From the second Jessie had slipped into his bedroom, he’d tried to harden himself to that resolve. What he’d convinced himself was about edging closer to his target had become about her, about them, about a shared moment of trust in surroundings that were void of it.
At one point he’d forgotten where he was; hadn’t seen anything beyond her. Hadn’t thought about anything beyond that moment.
Worse, he’d felt the pain in his chest when he saw the scars on her back, when he thought someone had hurt her. And when he’d looked in her eyes as he’d come, he knew something had changed.
This was what he couldn’t afford to let happen – to let anything detract his purpose. But he knew the sickening feeling he’d experienced when they’d returned to find her taken. He knew how much he’d wanted to hold her before Homer had dragged her from his arms. He knew the fury he had felt at what the con in the van had intended. He knew he was already wading into depths he needed to avoid.
His heart leapt as he saw movement at the lounge door. The feminine form that exited wasn’t Jessie’s though, but Tatum’s.
She sauntered down towards him and leaned against the doorframe, her arms folded. ‘Hero – you’re wanted,’ she declared, cocking her head back up the hallway.
Eden abandoned his glass on the table and stood. Despite the gut-wrenching feeling this wasn’t going to be good, he followed behind her.
Knowing what he already did about Jessie, he wasn’t expecting to be presented with the news that Pummel hadn’t made it, but neither was he expecting to be met with such a bright-eyed Pummel either. He was sat upright in his usual place, his face still scarred down the one side from his fight with the tarmacked road, but healing rapidly.
All the others were in their usual seats too. Tatum, having followed in behind Eden, took her seat beside Pummel. And there, between Pummel’s spread thighs like some kind of pet, knelt facing Homer, was Jessie.
Her jaw was tense, her glossy gaze meeting Eden’s only fleetingly before she looked back at the floor – certainly not long enough for him to read what this was about to entail.
Because there it was – her healing ability finally openly exposed, Pummel clearly having resolved he had no choice but to reveal his miraculous, or on the way to being miraculous, recovery.
Now it was a question of what Pummel chose to do about it.
Eden tucked his hands in his jacket pockets, checking the blade was still there.
‘Take a seat,’ Pummel said, indicating at the only available one, next to Homer.
He either did or he hightailed it out of there, kissing goodbye to Honey’s only hope and, new to the equation, Jessie’s hope too. But he was not hightailing it anywhere – not without her. And now, looking at her again, only reinforced it more. He just had to survive long enough to work out what the fuck he was going to do next.
‘Someone get Eden a drink,’ Pummel said. ‘He looks like he needs it.’
Homer filled his shot glass, sliding it across to him with a painfully steady motion as Eden sat beside him.
‘You’ve done it again,’ Pummel announced. ‘You’ve impressed me, Eden. Chemist has told me all about your quick thinking. It was smart heading the van off like that. Reckless but smart – very smart. It took some balls to attempt what you did.’
‘It was the only option or lose her.’
‘Which is why I like the fact you were one step ahead.’ He sighed. ‘But, at the same time, that’s what worries me about you.’ He knocked back a mouthful of his own drink. ‘Still, Homer told me what he saw you do in that van – you taking out that con like that. I was starting to worry you didn’t have it in you. Credit where credit is due, you told me what you were going to do and you did it. You were right there with the crew tonight – willing to take one for the team. I like that.’
Eden knocked back what he decided was his final shot that evening before he looked back at Pummel – directly in his eyes. ‘Then why was I shoved out like some kind of runt?’
‘I’m not going to fuck around with this, Eden,’ Pummel said. ‘You would have seen by now, looking at me, that Jessie here is no ordinary woman. You’re smart; you’ve worked out that’s why I keep a close eye on her. Homer knew I’d need time to recover so I could work out what to do abo
ut that, how comfortable I am with you knowing this information.’
‘What is she, some kind of vampire?’
‘It would be easy to assume that. But no, Eden, she’s not a vampire.’
And he had the feeling Pummel would have told him if she was. No, Jessie was definitely something entirely different. ‘She had something to do with that van stopping though, didn’t she? Because it sure as fuck wasn’t me.’
Pummel smiled. ‘And there they are: the inevitable questions.’
‘But your answers aren’t. So I’ll limit it to asking why I’ve been brought in here.’
‘How about if I tell you she can’t leave a five-mile radius, Eden? Something that keeps her well and truly within my reach; which keeps anybody who wants her well and truly in my domain. You know what I’m saying, don’t you?’
Eden knew exactly what he was saying – that whatever he might have been thinking, to forget it. That if he even thought about turning Jessie’s abilities to his own advantage, had already thought about kidnapping her for himself, that he would hunt him down and kill him.
His suspicions were confirmed – she wasn’t there by choice. Now he knew she wasn’t able to leave by it either.
It was the news that should have had him accepting defeat, especially as he was willing to bet that was the real reason Sirius’s men hadn’t burst in and taken her – somehow they already knew they couldn’t. That’s why they sent him in to find out how to do it. They hadn’t just set him a tough challenge; they’d set him a near-on impossible one.
But looking at Jessie kneeling there, her eyes still downturned as if she expected his prompt departure to be the inevitable outcome, made going anywhere the last of his intentions. For her, and for Honey.
If he survived that room.
‘Why don’t you just stick a property tag on her, Pummel? As if the rules weren’t clear enough already. I still don’t see what this has to do with me.’
Pummel held his gaze steadily on Eden’s. He smiled. ‘Nothing fazes you, does it, Eden?’
‘You’ve got yourself the golden ticket in Blackthorn. I’m also willing to say credit where credit is due.’
Pummel smiled again. He leaned past Jessie, her tense recoil resonating bitterly through Eden. Pummel poured himself another drink, albeit it with a wince from the motion. Clearly, as it had with him, the healing still took time.
‘You must understand my suspicions, Eden. You turn up here out of the blue, on the night there’s an attack on my row and, less than three days later, there’s an attempt to snatch my prized possession.’
Eden glanced back at Jessie, noticed the renewed tension in her jaw – no doubt from being referred to as such. He looked back at Pummel. ‘You think this was something to do with me?’
More to the point, he was worried Jessie did.
Even more to the point, he was worried that, if she did suspect, she might have said something. But he refused to believe she would be so callous as to drop him in it.
Pummel steadily held his gaze, his calm disposition as unnerving as the steeliness in his eyes. ‘Is it?’
Eden didn’t flinch. ‘No.’
‘You’re convincing.’
‘Because it’s the truth.’
Pummel leaned back in the sofa and knocked back his shot. ‘Savage knows you.’
Eden’s stomach flipped. His heart skipped a beat. A rarely incited light perspiration coated his palms.
But there was no way of them knowing – not since he’d joined the TSCD, more specially, had become a Curfew Enforcement Officer. They were all unknowns, concealed behind helmets and uniforms on the streets so their identity remained that way. No one spoke of what they did – never to anyone on “the outside”. Besides, Sirius would never have sent him in undercover if there was even an inkling of someone recognising him.
‘He knew you as a kid,’ Pummel explained. ‘Said you were the memorable type. When I said your name, he knew for sure. Says he can remember what a reckless, smart-mouthed little bastard you were. That you got something of a reputation for yourself around Lowtown. I’m sure if I start asking around, more would have heard of you too. He said you disappeared. Presumed dead. I’m guessing that’s when you did time.’
‘That’s right,’ Eden said, playing along. Only now there was something different in Pummel’s eyes – something more appeased than he had ever seen.
‘Savage also tells me he heard your mother died when you were a kid. Your father did himself in not long after, leaving you to pick up the mess, to fend for yourself and your brother alone. He tells me your brother took after your old man – being a waste of space, I mean.’
Eden tightened his grip on the knife as he leaned back in the sofa.
‘You fought for everything, didn’t you?’ Pummel continued. ‘Literally. Savage tells me of some of the stuff he heard you got up to. Even as a kid people were wary of you – for all the right reasons. You’re a survivor, kid,’ Pummel declared, only this time it was with sheer admiration in his eyes. ‘You’re my kind of survivor. No wonder they sent you to a pen in another locale; I think I’d be fighting for my position here if they hadn’t.’
For once, for the first time, it seemed like his past was working for him, not against him. But he still needed Pummel to get to the point quicker. ‘So why am I feeling like my luck’s run out?’
‘On the contrary. I have another job for you.’ He lit his joint, the seconds trundling past as he puffed a couple of smoke rings into the air. ‘I want to put you in charge of her.’
Everyone’s attention snapped to Pummel, even Jessie’s. Only Jessie followed it with a swift stare back at Eden, the shock clear in her eyes.
‘What the fuck?’ Homer asked.
Pummel held up a placating hand to him. ‘I believe that you weren’t involved in any of this,’ Pummel declared, addressing Eden again. ‘And if someone is attacking this row, trying to take what’s rightfully mine, I’m bringing them down. Unfortunately, I’m going to be out of action for the next few hours. Until I’m back, Homer and Chemist are going to be out on the streets finding out what row those fuckers were a part of. Dice is going to be in charge here. That means I need someone to watch Jessie – someone who will see trouble coming, who can think on their feet, who can handle things single-handedly. I now know you’re the man for the job. You wanted in, I’m offering it. Permanently. Do you think you can handle it, Eden?’
His heart beat a little faster. It screamed set-up. But it also screamed the most logical action for Pummel, in his current position, to take.
‘I don’t need anyone watching me,’ Jessie cut in, her voice breaking through the silence.
Pummel caught hold of her hair, tugging back hard enough that she flinched, her hands coiling by her sides.
But she didn’t retaliate. Again, she didn’t retaliate.
Eden’s stomach twisted. He glared back at Pummel, heat pumping through his veins as he again stepped into an emotional territory that was as dangerous for him as it was for his opposition.
He had to remain focused. He had to keep his eye on the target. And the quicker he agreed, the quicker Pummel eased up on Jessie.
‘See why she needs watching?’ Pummel said. Despite what he’d said, he was still assessing him, searching for the slightest nuance in Eden that would indicate anything other than what he wanted to see. ‘She thinks she’s invincible. Which is why she fucked up tonight.’ He tightened his grip on her hair to the point she winced, his gaze not leaving Eden’s the whole time. ‘Which is why I’m very upset that she fucked up tonight.’
Eden didn’t dare shift his gaze from Pummel’s, not least because he knew that if he looked back into Jessie’s eyes he would snap. And there was no way he was giving Pummel that satisfaction.
‘She takes some stern keeping in line sometimes. Like tonight – putting herself in a situation where she allows herself to be taken from me,’ Pummel declared with another yank to her hair. ‘But you won’t do it agai
n, will you?’ he said into her ear. ‘Because you know what I’ll do to you if you ever put yourself in that situation again – if you ever lose it.’
‘Lose it?’ Eden asked, as much an attempt to detract Pummel’s attention from her as an instinctively curious response.
Pummel grinned a dead-eyed grin. ‘She’s no good to me, no good to any of us, unless she stays pure,’ he said, his tongue lingering over the last word as if tasting it. ‘If she’s touched, this magical ability she has will be gone. Then we’ll just be having an entirely different kind of relationship.’ He kissed her lightly on the cheek, making her wince more. ‘Won’t we, sweetness?’
There it was: the true reason why she panicked over Pummel finding out about her liaison with him.
But it was a lie. And as he stared back at Jessie, as her gaze guardedly met his, she knew he knew it was a lie.
Suddenly what she had allowed to happen between them, the extent of the trust she had extended his way, wrenched at his heart even more. If he’d felt protective of her back at that van, now it was a full-on desire to shield her.
‘So, do you think you can keep your hands off her, Eden?’ Pummel asked. ‘Because obviously I’ll know if you don’t. Just as you need to know that if you agree to take this responsibility on, then you’re equally taking on the responsibility should you fail.’
Always the condition. Always the chance for Pummel to pull it back.
But not this time.
Eden rested his gaze steadily on Pummel. ‘Nothing will get near her,’ he said. ‘I guarantee it.’
25
From home invader to prison guard. Jessie had underestimated Eden Reece more than she would have thought possible.
Her prison guard who now had the ultimate advantage over her: knowledge of the truth behind the secret she had maintained, protected and reinforced for decades. Just one night where she had been driven by passion, by lust, by anger, by need, by loneliness and, above all else, an unforgiveable attraction, had now left her weakness exposed. An act that, if Eden chose to disclose it, could end any semblance of humane treatment she’d managed to sustain in her life.
Blood Deep (Blackthorn Book 4) Page 26