“<
With a supreme effort of will, Alexei got his eyes open, blinking blearily at the blurry circle of faces surrounding him. The sheet and blanket covering his body weren’t his own, the rough material itching his skin. Alexei absently scratched at his chest with his right hand as his eyes drooped shut again.
“Ah, Dvorkin. Don’t go to sleep on me just yet.”
Whenever Alexei dreamed about his family, Dr. Gracie Gold was never there. Cracking open his eyes again, Alexei stared up at Gracie’s smiling, dark face and promptly freaked the fuck out.
The sensors on the biobed went haywire as he lunged into a sitting position, the lack of pain from remembered wounds making him gasp loudly. The noise started up again in his ears, but the buzz was drowned out by the chilled panic suffusing his entire body.
Firm hands grabbed his shoulders and held him in place. Alexei reacted instinctively, lashing out with less coordination than he was used to. Someone knocked his wild punch aside before pushing him firmly back down onto the bed. Alexei weakly fought against the hold, but couldn’t dislodge the attacker.
“<
Alexei blinked, and suddenly Kyle was leaning over him, green eyes wide with worry.
“<
Alexei opened his mouth, but found that he couldn’t speak. The taste on his tongue was like dull metal in his mouth, the last remnants of all the blood he’d swallowed over the course of his time with—
Alexei grabbed Kyle’s arm with desperate fingers, the sound of his heartbeat ratcheting up over the biobed’s sensors. “<
“<
“<
“<
“<
“<
The reason why he’d woken up in Medical hit Alexei like a self-driving semi-truck, all explosive force as the memories cascaded through his mind. The sudden bout of nausea was impossible to hold back. Luckily, Gracie knew the signs, and she quickly pressed her hand to his forehead, her power washing through him like a soft wave of coolness. The churning in his stomach immediately eased and Alexei took a deep, careful breath through his nose.
Nothing hurt, he realized, as he stared blankly down at his right forearm. The skin there was pink and new, regrown through a regen process he hadn’t been awake for. Alexei slowly curled his hand into a fist, fingers moving as they should, not broken and left at an angle by his time spent beneath Cillian’s brutal attention. He pressed a tongue against his teeth, finding them all there, every last one, whole and in their proper place again.
“<
Alexei startled, looking up from the healed-over skin on his right forearm to meet his little brother’s gaze. He blinked, finding the room empty of everyone except Kyle and Gracie. Alexei didn’t know when his family had left, nor how he had missed them going.
“<
“<
“<
Alexei couldn’t stop the flinch that caused his entire body to jerk against the bed at the mention of his knee. A flash image overlaid itself on the room—dark, except for the overhead light, unable to move as Cillian hammered his knee into pieces with a smile on his scarred face.
The memory receded, overtaken by a kinder reality. He swallowed thickly, staring through Kyle rather than at him. “<
He didn’t know what time it was, but the room was night-dark, every hint of light dimmed low and he couldn’t stand it. In seconds, Kyle had the lights up above turned to the brightest setting and the plas-glass windows clear of shade. Alexei blinked rapidly at the change in how the room looked, with its white walls and ceiling, as far away from that underground hellhole as he could get.
Alexei relaxed against the bed in stages, watching their every movement. He hated that he felt like he had to do that, but the unease creeping beneath his skin had everything to do with what he’d endured and not having Sean within easy reach.
“<
Kyle hooked his foot around the nearest chair and dragged it closer to the bed, out of the way of Gracie so she could work, and sat down. Alexei didn’t pay much attention to Kyle, more focused on the way Gracie expertly flipped the thin blanket and thinner sheet aside to reveal his left leg. He made a questioning sound in the back of his throat, eying how pale his skin was from the lower thigh on down.
Gracie placed one hand on his knee, the other on his shin, eyes closed as she concentrated. “We had to amputate and regrow your leg. We’ll do some nerve testing a bit later, but as far as I can sense, you’re healing nicely.”
Her touch was warm this time, heat blooming through his leg as she used her power to accelerate the body’s ability to heal. Alexei’s leg twitched, and he curled his toes as his nerves tingled from the odd sensation of her power.
“<
“<
Alexei chewed on his lip. Kyle was right. He wouldn’t have wanted his family to see him like that. He shifted on the bed, careful not to dislodge Gracie’s hands, not that she would let that happen to begin with.
No one had answered his most pertinent question yet, and Alexei needed to know. “<
“<
“<
“<>”
Alexei knew when his brother was keeping information from him. They could lie to most people with a straight face, but not each other. Alexei grabbed Kyle’s hand, where it was curled over the edge of the bed, and tugged at him.
“<
Kyle hesitated a moment, but whatever he saw in Alexei’s face made him start talking. “<
Alexei’s fingers reflexively tightened around Kyle’s wrist. “<
“<
“<
“<
“Is Sean okay?” Alexei asked, this time in English, hoping he’d get a better answer out of Grace.
Gracie tapped her fingers against his leg, the gentle drumming almost ticklish. “Physically he’s fine. Mentally…well, there’s a lot of work to be done for him.”
Kyle sighed. “He’s not talking.”
The chill that went down Alexei’s spine felt like it started in his teeth. “Not talk?”
“The telepaths can reach him and there’s nothing wrong with his voice. The trauma is stopping him,” Gracie explained.
Alexei went quiet at that, staring up at the ceiling as he tried to process what they’d just told him. He could guess what had caused Sean’s sudden muteness, and his heart ached for being the cause of Sean’s pain.
“Can you tell us what might have caused the block?”
Gracie’s question
came out quiet, but it still made Alexei tense up. He stayed silent for a minute or two, gritting his teeth and hating the way the biobed’s sensors tagged his quickening heart rate.
“You don’t have to answer,” Kyle told him in a low voice. “Save it for the shrinks.”
If he did that, then it might drag out Sean’s ability to heal, and no way in hell did Alexei want to be responsible for that.
“Bastard made Sean watch,” Alexei said through clenched teeth. “Said if Sean make sound, hurt me worse.”
The quiet in the medical room was eerily tense. Alexei couldn’t look at either of them, not wanting to see the pity in their faces. He’d followed his SERE training, and it got him through that mess alive, but the worst of it hadn’t been what he’d endured. It was knowing that Sean had to watch, that he probably blamed himself for Alexei’s suffering, when it wasn’t his fault and never could be.
The sound of Kyle’s chair scraping over the floor startled Alexei back to himself. He blinked at the rabidly murderous look on his little brother’s face. “Kilyusha?”
“I should’ve made it last,” Kyle growled as he headed for the door.
“Huh?”
Kyle looked over his shoulder, the rage on his face disappearing as he prepared to let their family back inside the room. “I killed Cillian. Gutted him like the fucking coward he was, then shoved a grenade inside him and blew him up.”
The sheer and utter relief Alexei felt at those words brought unexpected tears to his eyes. Alexei blinked the wetness back and somehow managed to dredge up a smile. The fear buzzing away at the back of his mind—that Cillian was still out there, capable of coming after them—abruptly faded away.
Trust his brother to always have his six.
Alexei cleared his throat. “Lots of pieces, da?”
Kyle’s smile was absolutely vicious. “So many pieces, Lyosha.”
It made Alexei laugh, the sound coming out a little rough, a little wet. He was tired, still raw over what they’d survived, but for right now, Alexei was alive and so was Sean, and Cillian was dead.
“Can see Sean soon?” Alexei asked hopefully through a yawn as his family tumbled back into the room, trying to keep quiet through their excitement of seeing him awake.
“Eventually,” Gracie said as she pulled her hands away.
Alexei knew better than to push—Gracie could be more stubborn than the entire team combined when it came to her patients—and Alexei only wanted what was best for Sean right now. That didn’t stop him from wishing he could fall sleep with Sean in his arms, because some part of Alexei still thought this might be a dream. That the safety, the lack of pain, wasn’t real, and he’d wake up in that basement room again, ready for another round.
Then Phaedra leaned over the biobed and threw her skinny arms around him as much as she could in a tight hug. “I’m glad you’re back,” she mumbled into his shoulder.
Alexei held her close, kissing the top of her head. “Me, too.”
Kyle parked on the street in front of the Callahans’ Washington, D.C. mansion Sunday morning, engine idling for a few seconds longer before he turned it off. The Secret Service had closed off the street on either end of the block except for residents, their guests, and those cleared by the Callahan campaign, which included Kyle.
The media had embedded themselves at the police line, intent on chasing down every detail they could about the rapidly falling Callahan campaign. Since Thursday, Richard Callahan’s position in the polls had tanked, putting him in fourth place in the Republican race and eighth overall. Not even a week ago he’d been holding the lead and was favored to win the early primaries set to start in the new year.
“Come inside with me,” Jamie said from the front passenger seat.
Kyle turned his head and stared at Jamie. They’d left base after two full days of meetings and reports, and in Kyle’s case, more dressings-down not only from the director and deputy director, but a few from the Joint Chiefs as well. Apparently blowing up an internationally wanted source wasn’t going over well with the brass. The only reason he wasn’t being drummed out of the MDF was due to his status as a metahuman.
“You realize we’re no longer in a public relationship, right?” Kyle said quietly.
With the current aspect of the Pavluhkin mission officially ending, the roles they’d played for the past eleven months were over. They could no longer appear as a couple in front of the cameras, could no longer have dinner alone in an intimate setting.
Could no longer hold each other close where other people could see.
Kyle didn’t realize how much that loss would hurt until it was staring them in the face. Going back to how things were before—living together and loving each other in secret—felt inadequate after the false lives they’d lived this year.
But it wasn’t enough for him to walk away, and it never would be.
Kyle was only supposed to drop Jamie off so he could brief his parents in person on what the MDF was doing to help control the narrative currently running out of control across the media. The political ramifications of Richard keeping his Boston campaign rally on the calendar after the assassination attempt at his speech wasn’t going down well with the public. It hadn’t before the Splice bombs went off, and it definitely wasn’t now. Three days out and Richard was being eviscerated by rival candidates, countless talking-heads on news shows, and across every aspect of social media.
Most of it, Kyle conceded, was the senator’s fault, but the direction Richard had taken in regard to his campaign, some of that blame could be placed on the MDF. Jamie’s muddled background had come up off and on during the campaign, with the press trying to dig up answers on him even though he wasn’t the one running. But he was Richard’s son, and that would always be cause for attention.
Kyle wanted to lean across the space between them and kiss Jamie for everyone to see, but he didn’t. Instead, he opened the car door and got out, code-keys in hand, and Jamie did the same.
The cold November wind snaked through every opening in Kyle’s wool coat. No snow in the forecast yet, but rain was on the horizon, and he could almost smell it in the air. Tucking his hands into his coat pockets so he wouldn’t inadvertently reach for Jamie, Kyle matched his stride on the walk toward the mansion.
The stone wall surrounding the front of the mansion was taller than Jamie, with security cameras mounted on every support pillar in plas-glass spheres. The Secret Service patrolled the property and the street, along with the Callahans’ private security, none of whom stopped their approach.
The mansion was located in a wealthy neighborhood of the D.C. megacity, where houses hadn’t given way to residential skyscrapers and came with actual front yards. The massive oak tree out front had lost all its leaves, the bare branches swaying in the wind. They walked quietly up the stone walkway to the front door being guarded by two agents, who only nodded in greeting.
They entered the home and stepped into a hurricane of activity.
For a moment, they just stood there, taking everyone in, from the aides furiously typing out communications on their tablets in the parlor to their left, to the people conferencing in the hallway and others monitoring polling in real time in the living room.
Kyle shared a look with Jamie before they cut through the scattered crowd for the stairs. They took the steps two at a time to the second floor, where it was less crowded in the hallways, but just as gloomy and tense. Jamie led him to a crowded wood-paneled office where Richard and Charlotte were holding court with their top aides. The moment Jamie entered the room, conversation quieted down.
Richard was the one to break the silence. “Give me ten minutes alone with my son.”
Kyle stepped aside as the office emptied of everyone working on the campaign. He was about to leave as well when Jamie shook his head. “Stay.”
Kyle glanced over at Jamie’s parents, who were watching them, before he palmed the door shut after the last person had left and locked it. Jamie pulled out an
electronic jammer and activated it, hiding their conversation from prying ears.
“The MDF is closing out our mission. Our covers were burned in Boston and the enemy knows we’re metahumans,” Jamie said, cutting right to the chase.
Richard sighed heavily while Charlotte had to take a seat. “What does that mean for us?”
“At the moment? More security. The director of the Secret Service has been read in on the situation by the MDF, so he is aware of my classified identity and will allocate agents to you accordingly.”
“And you? How are you safe in all this if the enemy knows who you are?” Charlotte wanted to know.
“I’ve never been safe, Mother. The risk comes with the job.”
“We have his six,” Kyle couldn’t help but say.
Speaking up drew Richard and Charlotte’s undivided attention. Kyle had only been in their presence half a dozen times in the past year and a half. It never stopped being uncomfortable. The difference in their social status was starker with Jamie’s parents than with Jamie. They embodied their inherited wealth far more than Jamie did and Kyle always felt like he never measured up to them.
“We know you do,” Charlotte finally said.
“I’d ask if this means you’ll have more time to help with the campaign, but I think I know the answer to that,” Richard said.
“The MDF has heard rumors of a Congressional investigation against you,” Jamie told him.
Richard smiled wryly, though there was no humor in the look. “We have quite a few of those going on right now. Not to mention The New York Times.”
“Another exposé?”
“Apparently the Times didn’t appreciate us excluding their reporter from the press pool. They’re retaliating.”
Kyle didn’t think it was retaliation so much as following the clues to the detailed lies the MDF had used to build up their background for the Pavluhkin mission. Like the rest of the team, Kyle had a feeling everything they’d done while undercover would come back to bite them in the ass at the worst possible moment.
In the Blood (Metahuman Files Book 4) Page 29