He managed to push the weight three more times before leaving it for another round of sprints. His team trailed behind, no longer attempting conversation but neither leaving him to his suffering.
She’d called for him; asked for him. He’d gone, surprised they’d even allowed it.
Those long steps to her apartment were filled with conflicting thoughts. Elation and disgust. Excitement and fear. Confusion and hope. After the fiasco on the plane, he was sure he’d be removed from the team. Possibly executed. Allowed to visit her was never something he’d considered. Ever seeing her again had been so far down the list of possibilities—
Then he was, walking down the hall to her room, eyes scanning the Soldiers who’d taken that first shift of guarding Zibanitu’s special guest. Soldiers he recognized, who he nodded to as he passed, ignoring the questions so evident in their expressions.
So many words he’d thought of on the walk there, erased when he saw her.
He’d lain there through the remainder of the night.
She should be dead.
The words poked at him. They pushed him faster until there was nothing to feel but the burning of his thighs, his calves, and his lungs deprived of oxygen.
Kanchi did brief them. Amrae had attempted to kill Dee. There were probably more involved. Security would be tight. They would all be individually debriefed.
Despite the lack of details, Daniel’s strange behavior was explained. His teammates pointed glances said as much.
Whatever embarrassment he’d burned off came back with a vengeance. Still, he sat with practiced calm, arms folded over his chest, attention only for the commander.
The popular theory was that The Ophiuchus had somehow infiltrated their ranks with sleeper agents. This most popular theory pulled a storm of angry murmuring from the room. But not from Daniel. He cocked an eyebrow, not buying it. Amrae had been with Porrima far longer than it made sense to think she’d been lying in wait for something like Dee to come along. And The Ophiuchus had never threatened to kill Dee. Even when his people failed to kidnap her, they’d accepted their failure rather than risk her life. It was impossible he was the only one who’d noticed that.
Daniel dismissed Porrima as the culprit, as much as he’d love a reason to have her booted from Zibanitu’s House. She wouldn’t risk her position, and wouldn’t act without Zibanitu’s blessing. Not once did Daniel consider Zibanitu was behind it. His master had put too much energy and resources into Dee to kill her like this.
The teams were released, but Daniel remained in his seat, ignoring the glances of those filtering out. He’d wait to be the last out, then head back to the training room. More energy he needed to burn off had swelled. It was lucky no one spoke to him.
He felt his team behind him, still in their seats, waiting. But he could wait too. There was nothing they could do. Acknowledging his problem would only make it worse.
But casual stillness was difficult. Over time, it grew harder to maintain. Their patient quiet poked at him. The longer they waited, the longer he had to wait. He didn’t want to wait. He wanted to move. He needed to work off this energy quickly turning dangerous.
Your feelings…you need to temper them. It’s what he’d told Dee about Hamal. It was fantastic advice he needed to accept for himself. The girl was nothing to him, a giant complication he didn’t need.
He leaned forward, head falling into his hands.
“You were on the plane. You were there.” Nathan’s voice held too many questions Daniel wouldn’t answer. “You were there. Right there, when Amrae attacked her.”
He was surprised it wasn’t Lēza voicing their hypothesis, but after his threat in the gym, maybe they figured Nathan was the better one to address him. It was never going to be Hamal.
“I didn’t see it coming. I wouldn’t have gotten there in time.” Daniel bit his tongue, indignant when the words fell from his mouth. He hadn’t meant to speak. Hadn’t meant to say a damn thing about any of it. She wasn’t dead. He was still on the mission. End of story.
But his insides had yet to get that message. His emotions hadn’t fallen in line.
“She’s alive. What’s the problem?”
Hamal’s question cut him. Cut through the weak shield he’d pulled around himself.
Daniel stood fast, startling the trio seated behind him. “The problem is that she should be dead. I didn’t get there. Boots didn’t get there. She should be dead.”
His hands clenched and unclenched in quick rhythm. Lēza stared at the motion, posture stiff, unsure what to say. Hamal stood with Daniel, tense, ready for a fight while Nathan, still seated, held a hand for Hamal not to move. Daniel laughed at that hand holding Hamal back from a fight they both wanted. Laughed at his own absurdity.
Hamal stiffened at the sound, eyes narrowing, but stayed on the other side of Nathan.
“What’s the problem, Daniel?” Nathan kept his tone low.
Daniel’s eyes darted to him, expression hard. He warred with himself not to speak, not to react to this intervention, to hide the vulnerability that leaked like some infected wound inside him.
“She saved herself. It wasn’t us. Amrae got to her. Amrae got to her, and the next one might too. How can we protect her from our own?”
Lēza’s eyes lit in understanding. “You care about her.”
Daniel’s response was vicious. “Why would I care about her? I care about fulfilling my mission.”
“Which you did. She’s alive, regardless of the reason. Next time, you’ll be better. More aware. We all will.”
Daniel spun from the understanding lighting their faces. On Hamal’s face. A look Daniel knew would change when the Soldier regained his memories. Another reason Daniel’s irrational infatuation needed squashing.
25
Never be ashamed of what you don’t know.
They were Daniel’s words. Advice that had gotten her through a few situations when she might have given in to despair or frustration.
But, this was different. Amrae trying to kill her had opened a new door on the level of danger she was in. A door that showed her something that left her changed.
Sure, others had come for her, but that was before she knew what was going on. It was before they knew what was going on. This whole crazy adventure had started with a strike against her, but this was different. As messed up as it all was, those first encounters had been a test. Amrae’s attack was personal.
A subtle nuance clicked in her head and Dee went still. A point long known but never interpreted except in the hind part of her brain. Brought to the front, it hit her like new information.
Zosma and Regina admitted to sending the first Revenant after her as a test, but those next ones were still a mystery. They had come to kill her. To really kill her. Not like the first Zosma claimed wouldn’t have harmed her in any long-lasting way. This plot had been set in motion before Zibanitu’s involvement, maybe even before Zosma located her. Until now, she'd wrapped all the Revenants together in her mind as related. She hadn’t had time to allow these finer points to sink in and change her misconceptions about what else might be going on.
-Let’s not kid ourselves, you’re still clueless.-
She was clueless. She trusted Zosma hadn’t tried to kill her and in so doing had relinquished responsibility for everything to him. He would figure out the threads of the web, use his resources to pull each one until all points were explained. He would protect her until the nameless were named and fight for her to have her life back. Not only did she not know if that were true, she was now no longer under his roof to receive such defense.
Zosma wasn’t the only one she could rely on, or so she’d convinced herself. If she had to decide right now, had to pick a team that would rally behind her, Sabik would be on that short list, along with Amalthea. The Twins? She didn’t know. Pollux clearly wanted her to further his own twisted agenda. That she’d chosen Zosma over him might have spun his opinion. He might want her dead.
Th
en there was Zibanitu. She knew little of him and his House. What she did know centered around the hard-to-like Porrima and an assassination attempt that had almost succeeded right under her nose. Sure, Hamal and Daniel had come from Zi, but Hamal had been forced to act outside said House to garner assistance from Amalthea while Daniel never pretended to be anything but a cog in the wheel. If it was Zibanitu manipulating all of this, she’d finally been maneuvered right into the lion’s den.
Her eyes went to the Soldiers in the room, still as shadows, their only movement eyes that continually swept the crowded space. At any moment one might decide to act on some hidden agenda—
But, it had been Zibanitu who’d agreed to let her stay with Amalthea because of the danger of moving her. She struggled to see how that might be in line with some nefarious plot.
-Zibanitu hadn’t wanted to lose you. This point does not prove good will.-
The agreement to send her to the Twins surly alleviated Zibanitu’s suspicion.
She relaxed. It wasn’t Zibanitu who wished her dead. At least, not enough to have her murdered before he even met her.
Porrima, on the other hand, was a different case. Would she have staged this stunt on her own plane, by one of her own people, to hide in plain sight?
Dee didn’t know, but it didn’t feel right.
Of course, Amrae might have acted alone.
Worked into a new frenzy by the questions surrounding her safety, Dee stepped across the marble floor of the bathroom, hurriedly toweling dry. When the bedroom’s thick carpet met her feet, she dropped the towel, ignoring the lingering glances of the Soldiers stationed in the room, too wrapped in her thoughts to remember modesty.
While one hand rung water from her hair, the other ripped wildly through the large armoire stocked with clothes, pondering who she could corner and force answers from. Zibanitu still hadn’t deigned to speak with her but there had to be someone. That she was in another room stocked with clothes all in her size didn’t matter. These semantics no longer blipped her radar of weird or creepy. It was too late to wonder about, just as it was too late to disengage from this madness.
Black bohemian style pants followed a tight, three-quarter sleeve shirt. Over the shirt, a sheer shawl-like top flowed to mid-thigh. Comfortable and confident, she strode from the bedroom, bare-feet dancing across the smooth floor of the living area. With purpose, she headed towards the exit of her prison, explaining her plan to the Soldier positioned by the door as she approached. “I mean to leave this room and I will. Please move or I will go through you.”
The guard didn’t respond except to loosen his stance in readiness for a fight.
Dee smiled. If he wanted a fight, she was more than happy to oblige. It’d been less than a week since her last training session with Pollux, who was a far superior sparring partner than this Soldier could be.
Confidence quickened her steps. Excitement kept her grin radiant.
The worst way to start a fight, Dee used the rush of energy to distract the Soldier. She didn’t want to assume he would underestimate her, but coming at him like this, she bet on it. One side of his mouth turned up and she matched his expression, knowing he’d done what she wanted. He thought she was under-trained; that he would end the fight before it began.
At the last second, she dropped, sliding into his legs so he tripped. Trusting her strength would handle his toppling weight, she pushed up and behind, catching him in the torso as one of her feet hit the door, allowing her an anchor to move his greater mass with more force.
Not waiting to see how far she’d launched him, knowing the other Soldiers would be on her, she was through the door. Using the mere seconds she’d given herself to bypass her interior security, she met the surprised expression of the exterior guard with a smile she hoped hid her overwhelming terror.
Tapping the hallway earlier had given her the layout, including the positioning of the Soldiers. Never relying on this skill before, she allowed visual confirmation of what her senses gave her before committing to the information.
Three guards were stationed within arms distance of her position, one standing so close she pushed him back when she exited the room. Four others spread along the hall to the archway that led from this corridor into the main body of the house. As that was the direction they didn’t want her to move, the opposite end if the hall where three other doors led off into other apartments, remained unsecured. If nothing else, this section might give her room to maneuver.
“I think your friends need a hand.”
She moved to the side to let the Soldier pass, letting out a quiet breath that one had been dispatched so easily. Now, she just needed to get through the hall in the next few seconds before the subterfuge toppled around her.
The door behind her opened and her plan was ruined before it launched. It had been a shot in the dark, an experiment of sorts, but this initial failure didn’t keep her from attacking. She’d just have to pay more attention with the odds stacked even higher against her.
The first one out of the door found his face smashed into the wall, head propelled by her hand buried in his hair. He was still crumpling to the ground when she spun to the next one, cursing herself for not grabbing some weapon, while also praising Hamal for teaching her hand-to-hand skills she’d thought pointless at the time.
It seemed lifetimes ago she’d had her first sparring session with the stranger who’d appeared in the woods, saving her from an attack by blowing a Revenants head off with a shotgun blast that had echoed through the night.
-You didn’t kill him, but let’s kill these guys and get the hell out of here.-
Two came at her from opposite sides. She went for the one on her left, surprising him when she stepped into his grab rather than pull away. Her smaller stature allowed her to step under his arm, pushing her mass up into his armpit, arm latched across his chest and neck before dropping and spinning. His pivot sent him into his partner, but they wouldn’t be down for long, and the others were coming.
The next attacker swung, his punch aiming for a knockout. But none of their speed could compare to the Twins. None could compare to what she’d learned to pull from herself.
Dee had all the time in the world to tilt her head out of the punch’s path. Grabbing the arm at forearm and bicep allowed her to press it back into its socket and force the Soldier backward. When his other arm shot forward, she spun with it, using his own momentum to turn him into the wall. He slid to his knees, a head-sized hole where his face had planted through the sheetrock. A large picture dropped from its place, glass shattering adding a new layer to the texture of sounds around her, but her focus kept on the Soldiers inhibiting her progress down the hall.
She sensed the hand grab for the back of her neck. Stepping under the arm with a half-pivot, she pushed a palm to the chest of this next attacker to send the Soldier flying.
Her quick response to those closest to her paused the others. She sensed the wave that carried over them, the shift in their perspective. The tension thickened and she didn’t need any extra senses to know the situation just became more dangerous.
“I just want to see Zibanitu.”
The Soldiers she’d dropped were already getting up. Anxiety shot along her nerves. She’d hoped to have gotten free of the hall by now. Assuming they wouldn’t kill her, she also didn’t want to kill them. That was an escalation she hadn’t planned for that hurt her chances of convincing Zibanitu she didn’t need to be a prisoner.
“Desiree. We’re not your enemies.”
She let him come closer, the brown-haired Soldier who matched her height. She let him think she’d calmed down, that she would let him wrangle her back to the room.
He reached for her and she pounced, deftly turning his hand into a painful latch she used to control him. Pulling him towards her, she swung the arm behind him so the wrist and shoulder lock might work in tandem.
The others halted, assessing and reassessing. Still, they didn’t call for backup, a fact Dee wa
s more than glad for.
The one locked in her grip tried more reason. “Just because we can’t take you to him doesn’t mean we won’t. Let us set it up for you.”
She heard the truth in his words, knew that this plan of hers to sprint through the palace and storm into Zibanitu’s space for answers was far from ideal. But she needed to prove she could get away. Needed to prove she wasn’t in danger, that she could take care of herself.
The Soldier’s words reminded her of words that should have taught her this lesson already. What could you have done if you’d only just asked?
But the fight in her wanted release.
A kick to her captive’s back sent him tumbling into two others. Dee used the precious second to sprint farther down the hallway. She lost ground but gained space to figure out how to turn this debacle to her advantage.
An antique table displayed against the wall made a great makeshift weapon once smashed to basic parts. She swung a leg in each hand to test their weight while the gang watched her.
The tension that had settled into her soul since Porrima’s arrival at Zosma’s, amplified by Amrae’s attack, washed away as her world narrowed to the fight in front of her.
When fighting multiple opponents, don’t linger. Strike fast and hard, then run.
Pollux had trained her extensively on this point. Everyone being after her would mean she would always be at a disadvantage, regardless of how well trained she was. She would rarely step to a one-on-one fight.
Fight dirty. Do whatever is necessary. This isn’t a sport. This is survival.
With no warning, she flung herself two steps forwards at a diagonal from the center of the hall, running up and across the wall to come at the closest of the three attackers. Bashing the side of his face with both table legs, she pressed all her strength into the crushing blow to force him to the ground.
He didn’t move after thudding hard to the floor, but Dee knew he wouldn’t be down for long. Any human would have been killed by such a blow, but she was dealing with things much more than that.
We Are Forever (Rishi's Wish Book 2) Page 17