He would have sacrificed himself without a second thought for a member of his family. For his wife? He would have signed any deal, made any trade, agreed to any bargain, if it meant healing her.
This explained so much. Her fatigue, her loss of appetite, her headaches. Signs I had misinterpreted as proof she had been taken as a host were, in hindsight, evidence of her illness. No wonder Famine had risked claiming my uncle even though playing his role within the community, within his family, was daunting compared to the relative ease with which she could have assumed Aunt Nancy’s identity. Famine’s parasitic nature required sustenance, and Aunt Nancy’s body had nothing left to offer.
“Let’s get you inside.” Mo-Mo stroked Jamal’s back. “Come on, sweet boy. That’s it. Almost there.”
Cole edged around me, accepting the crumpled burden from Mo-Mo, and hauled Jamal upright. When he kept weaving on his feet, Cole lifted him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry and trundled Jamal into the living room, where he deposited him on the couch.
Unable to suck down enough oxygen to keep my lungs pumping, I bowed out while everyone focused on Jamal. I jogged out onto the porch, and when that wasn’t enough, I kept going through the yard. I broke into a run at the edge of the road, fleeing the miserable scene, and hit my stride as the graveled drive turned to asphalt. I kept pumping my legs until all I knew was the burn, and I didn’t stop until I turned my ankle and took a nasty spill. Palms out to catch myself, I scraped them as raw as hamburger meat on impact.
“Let me take you home,” Cole said from behind me.
Of course he had followed me. He hadn’t even broken a sweat pacing me.
“I don’t have a home,” I said miserably. “It’s gone, like everything else.”
“You still have your father,” he reminded me. “You still have us.”
Head hanging low, I shook it side to side. “For how long?”
Heavy boots marched around until they faced me, and Cole squatted, waiting for me to find the strength to lift my head and meet the steely determination in his gaze. “For as long as it lasts.”
“Mmmrrrrpt.”
Thom walked under me, his tail tickling my nose, his wings tight to his spine, and proceeded to bat at a loose thread on my shirt sleeve until I pushed myself back, sat on my ankles. The boxy tomcat must have swallowed a chainsaw to make so much racket, but his purrs soothed me, and they revved higher as I stroked him ears to tail.
“Let me take you home,” Cole repeated. “Come home with me.”
“Okay” was what he wanted to hear, so that’s what I told him.
I don’t know how I got to my feet. I couldn’t feel them anymore. All I knew was the cat kept nipping me, and if I didn’t get my butt in gear soon, I would start losing chunks of flesh to his wicked sharp teeth.
A black SUV rolled to a stop beside us, and a distant part of my brain wondered when Cole had called Santiago for a pickup, but he was riding shotgun. Maggie was behind the wheel. I could tell it was her and not Portia by the tears leaking down her cheeks and the way she flung open the door and her arms, offering whatever level of physical comfort I could withstand. I walked into her embrace, dropped my head onto her shoulder, and hung on until my weight dragged us both to the ground. The guys formed a circle around us, protecting us while I splintered, and it made me sob that much harder.
“We have to end this,” she murmured against my hair, long after my tears had dried, but the tone was pure Portia. Maggie had already lost her hold on their body. “The NSB told you to keep playing human. I get that. I really do. You’re spot-lit here in town. There was no clean way to extricate you from this situation without raising suspicions. But it’s time to circle the wagons. It’s time for you to cut ties to this life. It’s the only way to protect the family you have left.”
“It’s time for you to figure out how much of Conquest’s power you can tap without waking her,” Santiago said from behind us. The cadence of his speech was off, stilted, like he was forcing out each word or wanted to call them back as he spoke them. “You’re fast, and you’re strong. There has to be more in your arsenal than that. She’s in you, a part of you, and if we can figure out how to access —”
“It’s too dangerous,” Miller interrupted. “She could fracture if she starts digging around in her psyche.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Violence throbbed in his voice, an unmet need that demanded satisfaction. “I don’t want this. I never wanted any of this. But this is where we are, and this is what it will cost to stay alive.”
I withdrew from Portia, leaned against the rear wheel, and tucked my knees against my chest.
“Santiago is right.” I threw my lot in with his, and Cole recoiled on my periphery while I pretended not to notice. “I’ll talk to Wu and see if he’s got any suggestions. None of us know what we’re dealing with here. I’m an anomaly, but he’s got access to all the health records and laboratory findings on the charun in the NSB’s program. There might be help there.” I linked my arms around my legs. “Kapoor hinted they have an Otillian on the team. I think his exact words were that ‘all our information on you and your kind comes direct from the source’. He promised me access, so I’ll press for a meeting.” Five sets of eyes locked on me. “What?”
“An Otillian on their team, other than you, means trouble.” Portia checked with the others for confirmation. “Only the cadre and their offspring are allowed to ascend to Earth.”
“Any Otillian who has been around long enough to earn their trust would be a remnant,” Miller agreed.
“And that means Kapoor lied, that they’ve tried converting cadre before you.” Santiago glowered. “You might be the most recent in a line of experiments, maybe the only successful one, but still not the miracle he would have us believe.”
“We need more information,” Cole allowed. “Set up the meeting.”
With a game plan solidifying, I found the resolve to stand and dust off my pants. I reached for the SUV’s rear door, but Santiago beat me there. He wrenched it open, glaring at me as he slid across the bench seat in the back, like it was somehow my fault he’d surrendered his prime spot up front. Or like he was daring me to comment on the fact that maybe, just maybe, he wanted to be close enough to comfort me in his own way. Mostly by growling at me or hurling insults, but still. It was the thought that counted, right? I climbed in beside him, and he grumbled when I brushed his hip while fastening my seat belt.
“I almost forgot.” I reached in my pocket and withdrew the thumb drive Bruster had compiled on Famine. “I got you a present.” I passed it over. “Merry Christmas.”
“You must have hit your head harder than we thought in that wreck.” He accepted what I was offering with a frown. “That or you’ve got a Santa fetish no one needs to know about.”
Leave it to Santiago to ruin my favorite holiday. “Ho, ho, ho.”
“This is one of Deland Bruster’s thumb drives.” Santiago lifted it to his nose, eyes widening. “I can smell him on it.” A grin threatened to split his cheeks as he rubbed the stick between his fingers. “Maybe I do hear a sleigh bell or two.”
Learning the coterie was aware of Bruster didn’t surprise me given the fact the guy had been loitering in town. That was the kind of thing territorial charun tended to notice. But it stung that they hadn’t warned me about him.
“Aww.” Portia piled in beside me, sandwiching me between them. “Santiago likes you.”
“I do not,” he snapped. “I tolerate her. That’s different.”
She drilled the nail on her pointer finger into his forearm. “Is l-i-k-e how all the cool kids are spelling tolerance these days?”
“I hate you,” he grumbled.
“You do not,” she admonished, a teasing glint in her eyes. “You tolerate me.”
Wedged between the world’s most annoying pair of bookends, I met Cole’s gaze in the rear-view mirror as he settled behind the wheel. The look we shared settled me better than a warm bath and
a glass of wine even before I reached for where his bracelet circled my wrist to feel closer to him.
Miller claimed Santiago’s abandoned seat, and Thom, back on all fours, leapt through the open door. He strutted across the console and planted his furry butt on my lap, angling his chin up for scratches. Surrounded by my coterie, another type of family, this one near-indestructible, I embraced the role I had never wanted but destiny seemed determined for me to fill.
For Uncle Harold and Aunt Nancy, for Dad and Rixton, for Sherry and Nettie, I would grant Wu his wish. I would delve into my darkest, coldest places, trusting love to anchor me in this skin. For Miller and Thom, Santiago and Portia, Maggie and Cole, I would leash what lied within. For all those who would view this war through the lens of late night news broadcasts, I would bleed so they remained innocent of the horrors of my new reality.
And above all, I would not break.
EPILOGUE
Special Agent Farhan Kapoor shoved through an unmarked door into a sterile room decked out with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of medical equipment designed with charun biology in mind. The adjustable bed on wheels, silver rails flashing, was about the only staple this place had in common with a civilian hospital room. The patient, dressed in black silk pajama bottoms, propped up with a book older than dirt open on his lap, did nothing to humanize the space.
Now that he thought about it, the guy might be the least mundane item in the room.
Kapoor dropped into an empty chair positioned under a window, closed his eyes for a moment to block out the harsh fluorescence beating down on them, and waited to be acknowledged. The next thing he knew, his chin was bouncing off his chest, and his number had been called.
“I asked you a question.” Adam Wu bookmarked his page with a red ribbon sewn into the binding.
“I got three hours of sleep last night.” Kapoor rubbed his face with his hands. “That’s on top of the two I got the night before.” His eyes stung from the effort. “Protecting your girl is running me ragged.”
The book snapped shut and was set aside. “How is Luce?”
“Running on autopilot.” A lesser woman would have shut down hard after last night, but Luce was about as human as the man staring at him through predatory, golden-brown eyes that reminded him of a hawk. “Harold Trudeau was family, and she pulled the trigger. That leaves a mark. Losing her aunt is going to scar too. She’ll blame herself for both deaths.”
Wu had no ready answer for that. “Are the security measures in place for the rest of her family?”
“We have units assigned to Mrs. Rixton and Mr. Boudreau. We’re pulling strings with CPD to get one of our guys paired up with Detective Rixton so he has backup while on duty.” Kapoor crossed his legs. “We’re going to keep tabs on the Trudeau boys while they’re in town. We’ll coordinate with local LEOs to arrange for nightly drive-bys once they return to their homes. Their distance from the nexus ought to take care of the rest.”
“Excellent.” He reclined on his pillows. “Are there any other updates?”
Kapoor let the other shoe drop. “There’s a new addition to the zoo.”
Wu titled his head, the angle six degrees past human. “Who?”
“Sariah broke into the farmhouse this morning and threatened Miller. Luce stabbed her with a poisoned blade, the same make as the one Famine used on you.” Kapoor had double bagged and tagged the thing after the medics pried it from her gut. The lab had it now, and he wished them luck isolating the venom used so that a stronger antivenin might be created. “Sariah is an independent operator. War might not notice her absence for a few days to a few weeks, but when she realizes what happened, she’ll go nuclear.”
Wu began peeling surgical tape from his hand and arm. “Tell the doctor I’m ready to leave.”
“Are you sure that’s smart?” Kapoor winced as Wu removed the IV then started on the leads stuck to the bare expanse of his chest. “You couldn’t breathe on your own yesterday.”
Hands spread wide, he inhaled until his ribs creaked then gusted out an exhale. “See? Good as new.”
Nothing on this guy had been new since dirt was invented. “Are you sure you ought to be cozying up to her?” Luce Boudreau might be good people, but the thing under her skin was an apocalypse waiting to happen. “I figured you’d take on a more administrative role in her care.”
Kapoor had done as he was told by insinuating the NSB had an Otillian agent who could open Luce’s eyes to her culture, to her past, to the legacy handed down to each charun who took up the mantle of Conquest. But clearly, he had underestimated the depth of Wu’s fascination with Boudreau.
Their new recruit would want to meet their “Otillian” agent, and how the hell did he explain she already had?
Never in a million years had he expected Wu to twist their predicament into an excuse to partner up with her. That had been his first mistake: underestimating Adam Wu. A consultation, a quick Q and A, would have sufficed. Now they had an extra alias in the mix, another cover to maintain, and all for what?
So Wu could play with the toy his father had broken? Gods forbid the old man find out what junior was up to these days. What he was up to. Then it wouldn’t matter if Boudreau was pissed enough to end them over their deceit, odds were good they would already be dead.
“I don’t tell you how to do your job.” Muscles fluttered in Wu’s cheek. “I suggest you show me the same courtesy.”
The splash of violence over his face confirmed Wu was too invested to remain objective, a recurring theme where Boudreau was concerned. Too many folks wanted a nibble, just a little taste, but there was only so much of her to go around, and that was before Wu cut himself a bigger slice of the pie.
Kapoor had considered putting a bullet in Boudreau’s head to end the problem before it got started. Some days he still considered pulling the trigger. History set a precedent for targeting Conquest first, and for good reason. Without her, the cadre could climb no higher. Their ascension would dead-end. The upper terrenes would remain intact, unblemished by the Otillian blight, and that was all the man doctoring himself ought to care about.
Earth was a battleground, and Kapoor was too damn young to be so tired of fighting.
“How do you deal?” He hadn’t meant to ask the question. It popped out all on its own. “You’re stone-cold over there, and I’m burning up with fever thinking about what’s coming.”
Wu remained quiet for so long Kapoor figured the guy wasn’t going to answer.
“I have no home, no people, no…” The thought trailed into nothing. “What is there to fear when you have nothing left to lose?”
Bleak. That was… bleak. “You could die.”
He gestured to the room at large. “Apparently not.”
“That’s why you’re fixated on Boudreau,” he realized. “She’s a fighter.” Fate had steamrolled her, but she kept popping up like one of those hinged targets on a midway game. “You like that she’s got teeth.”
The man smiled, and it was a cold, vicious thing. “You have no idea.”
Skin prickling, Kapoor excused himself from the room under the guise of flagging down a nurse. The truth was, he could only handle so much quality time with Wu before his inner monster started nodding its head in agreement. There was a reason Kapoor had made a great hunter, and it was the same reason driving him to make a more permanent mark on society before the beast at his core gnawed through his gut and burst out Aliens-style, snapping the fragile threads of his fraying humanity.
The predator in Adam tracked Kapoor’s hurried exit with interest. He wasn’t hungry. He had eaten six forty-eight-ounce rib-eye steaks raw and sopped up the blood with the buttered rolls on his plates. And, he reminded himself when his stomach attempted a half-hearted growl, Kapoor was an asset.
Expanding his lungs to full capacity made his chest burn, and the rest of his body was riddled with aches and pains too. After lowering the bedrail, he swung his legs over the edge of the mattress and let his feet
brush the cold tile before allowing any of his weight to settle on them. His knees cracked against the floor before he registered them buckling, and he hissed out a vicious curse.
All too soon War would discover her daughter was missing, presumed dead, and heads would roll.
Call him sentimental, but he preferred Luce’s exactly where it was.
A quiet knock preceded a nurse dressed in pale yellow scrubs. The smile she wore screamed I can do this. I am a professional, but her heart hammered against her ribs, her instincts warning her to keep her distance even as her training demanded she rush to his side and attempt to wedge her shoulder under his arm.
“Thank you,” he said, polite though her heave-ho routine was making him twitchy, “but your assistance is unnecessary.”
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