by Jen Blood
“I told you not to marry Michael.”
“Because?”
“Because he’d gone home with his best friend’s wife, and he was a womanizing prick who didn’t deserve you.”
“Exactly,” I said. “And we kissed.”
His eyes darkened. “If that’s all you remember, your memory’s even fuzzier than mine. We did a hell of a lot more than kiss that night, kid.”
I felt my cheeks warm. “I was getting to that part, kid. We had sex.”
“We had bone-melting, burn-the-house-down, once-in-a-lifetime sex,” he said. Images from that night blew past me in a way I hadn’t expected: my body pressed to his; the things he’d whispered and the way he’d whispered them. The heat of his mouth on my… everything. The way it had felt afterward, wrapped in his arms, like all the pieces of my life suddenly, out of the blue, fit.
He watched me like he knew exactly what I was thinking. My cheeks got warmer. I persevered.
“Remember what I told you, after?” I asked.
That regret flickered in his eyes again. “You told me you wouldn’t marry him. If I was serious about you and me—if I wanted to give us a shot, you’d tell Michael it was over.”
“And we fell asleep in each other’s arms,” I said. I was still surprisingly calm. Maybe I was having a breakdown. A very, very Zen breakdown. “And when I woke up in the morning…”
“I was gone,” he said. He wet his lips. He wouldn’t look me in the eye.
I stood up, too tired to fight anymore. “And the next thing I heard, you’d moved to Kentucky and married Ashley Durham.”
“I know.”
“So you don’t get to act like this is all my fault, Diggs. Like I’m some stone-cold bitch when I’m not ready to jump back in bed with you just because—right now—you think it’s what you want. I was protecting you last summer. I’m still protecting you. But also? There’ve been way too many times when I’ve thought we were about to ride off into the sunset together, only to wake up and find a note on the pillow and a fucking twenty-dollar-bill on the dresser.”
He sat there, his eyes burning a hole through me. Regret and fatigue warred on his face, but behind that was that intensity I’d never trusted in the way he looked at me. Historically, whatever it was—love or lust or some combination of the two—had been too easily forgotten the moment I began to trust it might stay.
He nodded. I started for the door. I was almost there when he spoke again. I stood there, my hand on the doorknob, and didn’t turn back.
“I know I’m not perfect, Sol,” he said. “But you talk about evolving… What the hell do you think I’ve been doing for the past four years? There’s something between us. I’m through running from it. Juarez is a good guy.” I heard him get off the bed and start toward me, his voice low now. “He deserves better than being your security blanket because you’re too scared to take a chance.”
When he spoke again, he was directly behind me—his hand around mine on the doorknob, his body warm against me. His breath on my neck.
“Tell me I’m wrong, and I’ll drop it. No harm, no foul.” His mouth brushed against my ear with the words. My knees turned to mush.
“You’re wrong,” I said. I couldn’t turn around, and I couldn’t quite say it with a full voice, but at least I got the words out.
Diggs kept his hand on mine and turned the knob. Opened the door for me. “Liar,” he said, low in my ear.
At that point, I should have turned around, looked him in the eye, and told him he was full of shit. Instead, I jabbed him in the stomach, hard, with my elbow—partly because he deserved it, and partly because any ability I might have had to come up with some kind of intelligent retort had flown out the window the second his lips hit my earlobe.
He let out a sort of oof and pulled back, but he was smiling when I looked back at him. It was an evil smile, too. No wonder half the people in Justice thought he was the antichrist.
“I’m going back to my room now. To sleep. With my boyfriend.”
“You do that,” he said, all cool and arrogant and stupidly…hot. I walked away. He closed the door.
Private Abbott nodded his head in an impressively military fashion as I made for the stairs. I passed the vending machine again on the way back to my room. Still not working. Twenty candy bars mocked me from behind the glass.
Stupid apocalypse.
◊◊◊◊◊
Juarez was in bed when I got back to the room. He rolled over when I slid in beside him, naked beneath the sheets. His hand found the hem of my t-shirt and pushed it up, his knuckles brushing against my stomach.
“Sorry—have you been back long?” I asked.
“A few minutes. It’s all right. I knew you’d be along.”
Usually, Jack is a pretty straightforward guy, but there was something cloaked, sad, about the way he looked at me now. I traced the line of his jaw, thinking of the nights we’d spent together over the past three months.
“Something’s wrong,” I said. “You’re not happy.” He kissed my fingertips, pulling me closer. His hand slid down my thigh and wrapped around my knee, draping my leg over his hip. I could feel him, naked, hard, pressed to me.
“I don’t want to talk right now,” he said.
I nodded. “Okay.” I kissed the corner of his lips. His right hand was in my hair, his left burning trails of fire along my side, tracing the line of my breast through my t-shirt. “We don’t have to talk now,” I said.
He leaned in, taking my bottom lip between his teeth as his hand moved to the small of my back, holding me still. He drew back and watched my face, his dark eyes nearly black, as he pressed inside me—just barely, hardly moving. My breath hitched and my eyes sank shut, heat coiled tight somewhere low in my belly.
Since we’d started dating, I’d learned some things about Jack Juarez: the way he liked his eggs (over easy); which part of the paper he read first (international headlines); how he took his coffee and which sweets he couldn’t pass up and the few things in life that would make him postpone (but never skip) his morning run. I’d also learned that there were parts of Jack that he never quite unleashed—even when we were in bed together. I always got the feeling he was holding himself back, maintaining control at all cost.
Now, his fingers curled into my side. That tenuous control was slipping; I could see it in his eyes. Feel it in the way his body tensed beside me, nearly shaking with some kind of need he wouldn’t give into.
I hitched my leg up higher, pulling him deeper. Leaned up and took his earlobe between my teeth.
“You don’t have to be so careful with me,” I whispered. I kissed his neck, dragging my teeth along his sweetly salted skin. “Take what you need, Jack.”
His fingers twisted in my hair. Another second passed, taut and silent, before he gave in. His kiss was rough, nearly bruising, as he rolled me to my back and we began to move.
Chapter Twenty-One - Diggs
9:45:00
I was sure I wouldn’t sleep after Solomon left. I was wrong. I woke at quarter past two from a light coma, sore and still tired. My file on Mitch Cameron was still on the bed. I thought of Solomon again. There were things I could have said to her, pushing the issue of the two of us a little further: I’d changed. She’d changed. It was written in the stars. Maybe I was full of shit, but I actually believed some of that. But at the end of the day, it didn’t change the fact that Jack Juarez was waiting for her—a good guy who would give her everything she deserved: less scars, less turmoil, less heartache.
Assuming we all survived, I should just go back to Costa Rica when this was all over. Surf and write and, maybe, meet someone else.
Put all this shit behind me.
I opened the file on Cameron and stared at his beady eyes. He was proof positive that Solomon truly had turned over a new leaf. Not once in the past few days had she asked to see the folder.
I was more disappointed by that than I cared to admit—it didn’t say good things about me. I sh
ould be happy for her and her new life. A new life in which she was no longer a woman hell-bent on getting answers. Instead, she was some stranger who patched people up and listened to everything her boyfriend said. I thought of Juarez’s words on the subject: If you think anything just slid off Erin after last summer, you don’t know her as well as I thought.
I knew that—I did. I was beside her while Rainier tracked us like dogs, after all. I watched while he whispered God only knew what in her ear, touched her in ways he had no right, that belt looped around her neck the whole time. If Cameron hadn’t killed the son of a bitch, I think I would have done the job with my bare hands once I’d gotten free.
Solomon and I had both known for a long time that the world is a scary place, but I don’t think either of us ever had a clue just how dark it got until Black Falls.
Maybe it really was for the best that she was moving on from all that.
And maybe if I told myself that story enough times, I’d start to believe it.
I went into the bathroom and set my shiny new gun and my virtually useless cell phone on the counter, then turned on the shower. The water was cool, but I’d had worse. I stripped down and stood under the spray, letting the cold wash over me.
I thought of Solomon kneeling over the little boy who’d almost died today. That thought led me to Jessie Barnel’s terror-filled eyes as she wielded a shotgun and defended a grandfather whom, I suspected, she didn’t even like. Why? And what the hell was Barnel’s endgame in this? What did he honestly expect to accomplish? Or did he really believe he was getting orders from on high, as Jessie had suggested. He’s goin’ back to the beginning... Back to where it all went wrong.
It seemed a safe assumption that Barnel wasn’t going all the way back to Eden. It had to be something more personal than that. Billy Thomas seemed like a safe bet: the psychopath who’d raped and killed those three girls before allegedly killing himself and—according to legend—stapling the inverted cross on his own chest. It didn’t seem presumptuous to assume that Billy hadn’t, in fact, done that at all. Which meant someone else was behind the killing and the stapling.
Jesup Barnel wasn’t a man to be trifled with—I’d learned that the hard way almost thirty years ago. As a young man just starting out on this path, what would he have done if one of the boys he’d supposedly purged of demons turned around and did the unthinkable?
I had no doubt that Barnel would exact revenge for that.
So, all I needed to do was figure out where Barnel considered the beginning to be, where Billy Thomas was concerned.
Before I could continue with that line of thought, I heard something in the other room—a shuffle, then a bang like something had fallen. My heart skipped in a way I’d become accustomed to since Black Falls, that breathless moment of blind panic before I got my wits back.
“Solomon?” I called out. “That you?”
I turned off the water and wrapped a towel around my waist. Reached for my Glock, waiting on the counter.
Except that it wasn’t.
Neither was my cell phone.
I swallowed past the rush of distant thunder in my ears. “Juarez?” I called.
No answer. The bathroom door was ajar, just as I’d left it. I pulled on shorts without bothering to dry off, biding my time.
In the other room, I heard the door open and close softly.
I pushed the bathroom door open all the way.
The room was empty. Cameron’s folder was still on the bed. My dirty clothes were on a chair in the corner, right where I’d left them.
My cell phone and gun were on the dresser now, though. I looked around the room. There was no one in sight. The sound of my racing heart in my ears reminded me that just because I couldn’t see them didn’t mean they were gone.
Still on the lookout for someone in hiding, I went to retrieve my gun and phone. There was no one, though. I saw no sign that anything had been taken, but it was obvious after a cursory look around that something had been left behind:
A Latin cross in red lipstick, on the full-length mirror mounted on the closet door.
My heart stuttered. I picked up the Glock, then reached for my phone and hit number 1 on speed dial, already on my way out of the room. I’d pulled open the door a quarter of an inch, no more, before someone kicked it the rest of the way and pushed me back inside. He was well over six feet tall, in black from head to foot, with broad shoulders and a hard, lean body. I whirled with my gun raised, but a second man—this one built like a fire plug, short and hard and barrel-chested—came at me from behind. He smelled like cheap aftershave and sweat, and when I moved to take a swing at his buddy he hurled himself at me, drilling me back against the wall. The big guy jammed a needle into my neck, deep, and I heard myself shout as my knees went out from under me.
The room swam.
“Repent,” The Giant whispered to me. He smiled through his ski mask with gleaming white teeth.
I fought harder, trying to keep my head above water. My gun was empty—I pulled the trigger and it clicked. They laughed. Fire Plug took the gun away and dropped it to the floor. I still had my cell phone. All I had to do was hit Send.
The Giant took my phone before I ever got to the magic button, dropped it, and smashed it beneath his behemoth black boot. Then he pushed me down and followed me to the ground, where I swayed on hands and knees. I couldn’t feel my body. Couldn’t make sense of anything.
“Your time has come, Daniel,” Fire Plug said. He knelt in front of me and looked me in the eye, still smiling. I thought of that summer at Barnel’s camp, at twelve years old. Water gushing over my head. The smell of sackcloth over my mouth and nose while I tried to get free. The sizzle of my flesh and the rush of searing pain as the world went dark.
“Repent,” Fire Plug said, echoing the Giant. His voice was a million miles away, like the buzz of ants underground.
“Fuck you,” I said. I slammed my head down on the bridge of his nose, then used his body for leverage to stand, my hands curled around his meaty shoulders as I pulled myself back to my feet. I stumbled, slamming against the wall as I tried to reach the door. It was like I was made of liquid, a store of molecules with no way to contain them.
The Giant caught me and pulled me back before I could get away. He was pissed—his hold tighter now, Fire Plug’s mask wet with blood. He wrapped his forearm around my neck and held on tight while I thrashed, gasping for air.
My legs went out from under me again.
Everything went bright white for an instant, and I thought of Solomon and of Danny and of Wyatt.
I closed my eyes, and fell.
Chapter Twenty-Two - Solomon
09:00:42
I woke at three o’clock, surprisingly refreshed considering I’d had an hour and a half of sleep in the past thirty-six. Juarez was already up and dressed.
“What did Blaze have to say when you met with her?” I asked from the bed.
He came in tying his tie and shook his head, both pups on his heels. Einstein hopped up on the bed. Grace sat politely on the floor and waited for an invite.
“She’ll brief us when we meet up. We’ve got another few minutes. I figured I’d hold off as long as I could.”
I sat up and rubbed my eyes, scanning the room for some sign of my underwear. Juarez found them under the bed and handed them to me with a sheepish grin.
“Looking for these?”
“As a matter of fact, I was,” I said. He kissed me lightly, then went back to the bathroom to finish dressing.
“I already walked the dogs,” he said, raising his voice to be heard from the next room. “I know you usually like to.”
“No, that’s good. Thanks. How long have you been up?”
“Half hour, maybe,” he said. I got up and joined him. He stood in front of a full-length mirror mounted on the bathroom door, mangling his tie. I turned him toward me and pushed his hands away. I perfected the art of the Windsor knot with my father when I was a kid. Later, being m
arried to a stodgy professor for six years kept me in practice.
Despite the domesticity of the scene, there was something off about Juarez again—a kind of coolness that was totally out of character for him. I started to call him on it, but there was a knock at the door. The dogs went nuts.
“I’ll get it,” he said. Which was good, since I was standing there in his t-shirt and nothing more. I took care of business while he went into the other room. When he came back, I was just pulling my jeans on.
“What is it now?” I asked over my shoulder. My hair was a catastrophe. “Locusts? Streets running with bile and viscera?” I turned when he didn’t answer. “Jack?”
He didn’t say anything.
“What happened?” My adrenaline had already kicked in, just at the look on his face.
“It’s Diggs—” he started.
Those two words were all I needed. I ran from the room and up the stairs with Juarez and the dogs on my heels.
I stopped at the head of the hallway. The world slipped out of focus. Private Abbott sat in the exact spot where I’d left him, his head tipped back against the wall. The only difference was the blood spilled across his shirtfront and the way his throat gaped open. I walked past him, slower now, and only stopped when I reached Diggs’ door.
The room was in shambles: a full-length mirror shattered, a dresser overturned. His clothes were still on the chair, Cameron’s file on the bed.
“How did they get in here?” I demanded when Juarez caught up to me. Buddy Holloway and half the National Guard were with him. “The place was supposed to be guarded—it’s like a friggin’ fortress here. How the hell did they get in?”
“There’s another guard dead in the back,” Juarez said. “They came through that way—we were already stretched thin because another fire was called in about an hour ago, but we had the place covered. They knew exactly what they were doing. Where our weak spots were, who was stationed where... The whole process of taking him was carried out with the precision of a military operation. We never thought they’d attempt something like this considering the police presence in the hotel.”