Before the End (Beyond Series Ultimate Glom Edition)

by Kit Rocha

  But the door would open.

  He reached the far side of the basement and slammed into it, sagged against it, pressing his forehead to the cool steel. If he had a light, if his head hadn't been swimming, he could have tried to pry the panel off this side, struggled to figure out some way to force it open.

  All he could do now was believe. Put his faith in O'Kane hands.

  Empty space opened up in front of him. Light flared, hurting his eyes, but he was already falling, not toward the light but away from it, dizzy and weightless--

  Strong arms caught him, and Bren's familiar voice rumbled, "Fucking hell."

  The light swung back, illuminating Dallas's face as the man dragged him down the tunnel, his growled words chasing Mad into a different kind of darkness. "Let's get the fuck out of here."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Rachel woke to the sound of screams. Terrified, horror-stricken screams that raised goose bumps on her flesh and made her bolt upright in bed. "What the fuck is that?"

  Cruz had snapped to instant alertness, but Ace was the one who rolled from the bed with a muffled curse, diving for his pants. "I knew I should have stayed with Doc."

  Mad. Cruz had told them about the explosion and the resulting cave-in, but nothing he'd said would explain the barely human noises echoing through the walls. "Is he--?"

  But Ace was already gone. Rachel reached for her discarded dress, dragged it over her head, and followed him.

  Mad's room was only two doors down, a vast suite that encompassed almost as much space as Ace's did. The door to the hallway was hanging open, and Rachel could hear Ace's voice already.

  "Está bien, 'mano. Estas bien. Estas a salvo en el Sector Cuatro."

  Mad answered in Spanish, the panicked, pleading words spilling from him so quickly that Rachel couldn't understand a single one.

  Then she reached the open door and got a good look at Mad, backed up against the wall, face twisted in horrified terror, and she was suddenly, selfishly glad. Whatever hell he was caught up in wasn't a place she ever wanted to go.

  A disheveled Doc stood by the bed, a rumpled blanket tangled around his feet as he dragged open his black bag. "I tried to calm him down, but it's like he can't even hear me."

  "No drugs." Ace shoved Doc to the side and knelt on the bed, covering Mad's white-knuckled fists with his own. "Come on, Mad. Don't make me break out more Spanish. You know my accent sucks." When Mad continued to shudder, Ace twisted and found Rachel. "Lights. Turn on all the lights."

  She hit the switch beside the door, then rushed into the bathroom and did the same thing. Every light she could think of, even the open closet and the small lamp on his bedside table. "What else can I do?"

  "Wait." Ace hauled Mad away from the wall, ignoring the flash of anger and the dangerous snarl. Rachel's heart shot into her throat as Mad twisted fast, slamming Ace onto his back and grabbing his throat in a brutal grip.

  Ace flung out one hand, palm toward the door, and Cruz froze, body rigid with tension. "Ace..."

  "Not you," Ace rasped, and she wondered how close Mad was to choking him. "Not Doc. Talk to him, Rachel."

  She hesitated, torn between complying and tearing Mad's fingers away from Ace's neck herself, even if she had to break them. Then she moved slowly, sinking to the edge of the mattress.

  She took a deep breath and focused on the pulse throbbing at Mad's temple, but her first words were for Cruz. "Go get Dallas and Lex. Hurry."

  He held for another few seconds, his breathing as rough and unsteady as Mad's. It wasn't until Ace said, "Brother, go," that she heard the whisper of footsteps behind her.

  Mad was oblivious, his bare, bruised chest heaving with every breath, his dark eyes seeing nothing.

  Rachel struggled for words. "I don't know what happened," she said softly, "or what you're seeing right now. Where you are. But I know you'll never forgive yourself if you hurt Ace. Let go, Mad." She gingerly brushed a lock of hair behind his ear. "You have to let go."

  A shudder. Mad turned his face. Just a little, his cheek brushing her palm, his breath skating over her skin. Ace squeezed her leg, silently urging her to continue.

  She did. "Poker. You promised to start up a game with me, remember? Let's make Ace and Cruz play with us, take all their money. Doc, too. I bet you'd like that."

  The fingers around Ace's throat loosened. Ace sucked in a breath, but he didn't roll away. Instead, he grabbed Mad's hand and held it, clutched it tight even as Dallas and Lex spilled through the door. "If you want to stay lost in the dark, you're shit out of luck, brother. O'Kanes don't play that game."

  "Fucking hell." Lex climbed onto the bed and wrapped both arms around Mad with no fear, no hesitation. Exactly like she did everything else. "Honey, are you okay?"

  "No." The word creaked out, low and raspy, and Mad moved like his whole body ached, lifting off of Ace one careful inch at a time.

  Cruz snatched Doc by the shirt. Ignoring the man's grunt of protest, he dragged him to the side of the bed. "Check Ace out."

  "Cruz, I'm f--"

  "Now."

  For once, Doc seemed completely sober. He examined Ace quickly, then shook his head. "Bruising. Nothing's broken."

  "Clear out," Lex said firmly, and Rachel realized others had begun to gather in the open doorway and the hall beyond.

  Ace opened his mouth to protest, took one look at Lex's expression, and eased from the bed. "Come on," he said, holding out a hand to Rachel. "Dallas and Lex have this."

  The roughest thing about Ace wasn't the grave, worried expression he wore, or the angry red marks on his skin that would soon deepen to a vicious purple. No, it was the sadness lurking beneath it all, a desolation that made her chest ache anew.

  As soon as they'd retreated to the safety of Ace's room, Rachel slid her arms around him and buried her face against his shoulder.

  "It's okay," he whispered, leading her to the bed. He didn't even kick off his pants, just rolled onto the mattress with a groan and held out one arm to her.

  "Adrian Maddox," Cruz said as she slid under the covers beside Ace. Cruz remained next to the bed, his gaze fixed on empty air. "Adrian Rios. I knew he was Gideon Rios's cousin, but I never connected him with the civil war in Sector One."

  "It was a long time ago," Rachel murmured. And a time best left forgotten--except when it reared up to snatch Mad in its jaws once again.

  "Not long enough," Ace countered. He shifted closer as Cruz stretched out on his other side, but for once he was sheltered between them. Protected. "It's easier to snap him out of it if someone can understand him, but my Spanish has always been shit. It drove my mentor crazy. Like it should be in my blood or something."

  "You did good." Rachel rubbed her knuckles over the reddened skin of his throat, a featherlight touch meant to soothe. "Better than anyone else could have. You knew what he needed."

  "I guess." He closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. "It's happened a couple times before. Never this bad."

  Cruz laid his arm across Ace, settling his hand on her hip. "He hit his head pretty hard. It probably made the disorientation worse."

  "He'll be all right," Rachel told them. Sure, certain, because it had to be true. Seeing Mad in this kind of pain hurt too much.

  "Yeah he will." Cruz tightened his fingers on her hip, his palm a comforting weight as he carefully changed the subject. "I think my mother was from down south, across the old border, but I never learned to speak anything but English. Didn't fall within likely mission parameters, and I had other aptitudes."

  Rachel had been separated from her family in adulthood, after spending her entire life basking in their attention and love. She couldn't imagine growing up knowing they were out there, but not knowing them. Not even definite details. "I'm sorry, baby."

  "It wasn't that bad," he said quickly. "I was in the most comfortable position on the Base. One of the elite soldiers, but not..."

  "Not what?"

  He stayed silent, his fingers stiff until
Ace slid a hand on top of his. "It's okay if you can't tell us."

  "Not can't. Shouldn't, maybe." Cruz stared at the ceiling. "They trained me from birth, almost literally. My mother probably lived on the Base. She might have known who I was, but she never let on. That's how strong the loyalty is. You have your place, your orders, whether you're a soldier or a child or a cook or a whore. The mission comes first."

  Even worse, to suspect his mother was that close and never know for sure. "What's the mission?" she asked carefully. "What could be that vital? To protect Eden?"

  "That's what Eden thinks. Maybe it started out that way. But I'm not the most dangerous kind of soldier the Base created."

  Flat words, matter-of-fact, but they sent a frisson of warning shivering up Rachel's spine. "What does that mean?"

  "The spooks," Ace said. "He's talking about the mindfuck spooks. Didn't you have those stories in Eden?"

  "Never."

  "They can read your minds and make you disappear out of your bed." Ace snorted. "My uncle used to tell me the spooks would know if I stole from his cashbox. Because if I had some psychic warriors, that's what I'd do with them--send them after punk teenagers who'd pilfered beer money."

  Ace was joking, but Cruz was so still. So very still. "They're not psychic. But their brains function on so high a level that the difference can seem negligible."

  That was something she had heard, rumors that no one believed but that refused to die anyway. "Genetic modification," she mumbled. "Engineering super soldiers. The city abandoned that project before it even got off the ground."

  "The city did," Cruz agreed. "The city forgets it doesn't control the Base. In fact, it started the other way around."

  The military coup was a fact of history, either a glorious victory or a tragic abuse of power, depending on who you believed--schoolbooks, or the old timers who would only talk of such things in hushed whispers at the tail end of boisterous parties, when they thought all the children were already asleep in the other room. Even now, there were those in the poorer parts of the city, the areas that weren't supposed to exist, who maintained that the Council was little more than a sham, a pretty lie to keep everyone complacent while the men with the guns and tanks ran the real show.

  Cruz seemed to be implying something else entirely. "If they're not under city control..."

  Another endless pause. Cruz rubbed his thumb over her hip in small, endless circles, as if the touch grounded him. "You don't know what it's like to leave the base and see Eden for the first time. We lived in barracks, without families, without luxury. We went on missions to other cities in the area to destabilize threats and steal resources. We fought and we bled and some of us died, and Eden burns through resources like the flares never happened."

  The waste was enough to drive anyone mad, even if you hadn't spilled and shed blood to secure it. But there were no words, no comfort she could offer that she hadn't already, so she squeezed his hand.

  Ace found the words. He always did. "It's fucking bullshit. You know how many of us never got to have parents? And you could have, and they just... What, thought they'd make you too soft?"

  "Families divide loyalty," Cruz replied, not sounding upset about it. "All relationships do."

  "Not here," Rachel said. "Family is loyalty. That's what being an O'Kane means."

  "When things are going well," he agreed easily. "And when they're not? If you had to choose between Lex and Dallas? Or Dallas and Ace?"

  "That wouldn't happen." She met Ace's gaze and held it. "Sticking together is the most important thing. It's bigger than any of us. I get it now, what you've always tried to tell me. You have my back."

  Ace's eyes were normally dark, an unrelieved brown a few shades deeper than his hair, but in the shadows of the room they seemed swallowed by blackness as he touched her cheek. "In all the ways I can, no matter what."

  She trapped his hand against her cheek. "What about you? Where do you come from, Alexander Santana?"

  "Seven blocks southeast." His lips curled up. "Unlike the rest of you, I'm a Sector Four native."

  As if she'd been talking about geography. It was a deflection, pure and simple, and it cut through Rachel like a rusty blade. All this time, everything they'd shared, and here it was again. The part of Ace he held back.

  A part she could never touch.

  Maybe the pain showed on her face. His hand slipped away and he turned his gaze back to the ceiling, and more words came. "I did my time in Eden, though. Not as much as you two, but probably softer living. I even had an apartment for a while, one of those nice ones on the river. Couldn't really leave it, since I didn't have a bar code, but it was swanky."

  Rachel swallowed hard. "You don't have to tell us."

  "It's not a secret. It's just..." He laughed, tight and a little pained. "My poor ego. Ultimate hero lover boy here is hot as fuck, but he's a tough act to follow."

  Cruz frowned, lifting himself up on one arm to study Ace. "None of what I did took thought or initiative. I followed orders, for the most part, sometimes very unheroic ones."

  "Same here." Rachel shrugged. "My family had plans for me. I never embraced them, but I never fought them very much, either."

  "I guess." Ace's sudden smile held the wicked edge she loved, the one that said, I'm about to be bad, and you know you want to be bad with me. "I do have one secret. Only Jared knows the truth. You know about the home-wrecker paintings?"

  Who didn't? Ace had acquired his reputation for sin long before becoming an O'Kane. "Sure. There was always gossip about your patrons in Eden."

  "Yeah, well, there are a hell of a lot more paintings floating around than I ever had patrons. Once or twice a year, Jared helps me sell one to some nitwit with more money than brains. You wouldn't believe what they'll pay to own a piece of the scandal."

  It was just ridiculous enough to be brilliant. Rachel stared at him. "You're kidding, right?"

  "Nope. I did one for a patron--my first patron--and it really did cause a huge damn scandal. But after that..." He shrugged. "My mentor told me not to repeat that mistake. But plenty of Eden's finest fancy ladies like to pretend I did."

  Even Cruz laughed as he relaxed back to the bed. "That's incredible."

  "I know," Ace replied. "I'm amazing."

  Flippant words, an easy match to their laughter. But something about the way Ace looked left a tense knot in her belly that refused to ease. His usual charm had been subsumed by an intensity that seemed out of place, even on a night like this.

  Only maybe it wasn't. Mad had almost died, and witnessing his resultant trauma had been painful enough without his hand around her throat. Everyone was on edge.

  So she snuggled closer to Ace, tucked her face into the hollow of his shoulder, and told herself things would be better in the morning.

  Ace didn't know how old he was. He had vague memories of a mother who had died when he was young. Old enough to walk and talk and love drawing, but not old enough to understand why his mother hadn't come home to slap a meal on the table, or that she was gone for good.

  It was a nice, juicy sob story. Better when he omitted the uncle who'd swooped him up off the streets before he'd been there more than a week, and Ace had never been above a little creative license.

  Words had never been his thing, but he could use them for that much. Hair falling over his forehead, eyes big and sad. He spun out the story of little orphan Alexander drawing on his cheap sketchpad with his chubby fingers, oblivious to the fact that his mama was never coming home, and panties melted away like snow in July.

  Fuck, he was a piece of work.

  He hauled another oversized portfolio folder off the shelf and tossed it onto his desk with enough force to send the cup holding his colored pencils rattling to the floor.

  "Hey, now." Emma stood in the open doorway, one eyebrow raised. "You want to not trash the place, Santana? What the hell are you doing here this early, anyway?"

  Good fucking question, especially since he'd left
Rachel and Cruz curled up together in his own damn bed. Not that it had been possible to crawl out from between them without waking Cruz--the man snapped to high alert at a whisper--but Ace had simply tilted his head toward the bathroom. Cruz had nodded, rolled over into the empty space Ace had left behind, slung an arm over Rachel, and gone back to sleep.

  Of course he had. Cruz could roll into any empty space and fill it up just fine, because he was fucking perfect.

  "Ace." Emma's brow plummeted into a frown as she stared at him. "Are you all right?"

  "I'm fine," he grumbled, slapping open the portfolio. The top sketch fluttered toward the floor, and he caught it with one hand. A half-formed design for a tattoo stared back at him, sketched with adolescent clumsiness but clear emotion. A grim reaper, his scythe dripping blood, his skeletal face twisted in a chilling laugh. "I'm just looking for something."

  "Bullshit."

  He finally gave her his full attention, fixing on her worried expression. "Shit, what are you doing out of bed? I figured Noah'd be burning through adrenaline for half the night."

  She propped her hands on her hips. "Don't change the subject. What gives?"

  Emma had been easier to deal with in the beginning. So bright and eager, but sweet, too. Already a damn good artist, showing up with a stack of beautiful sketches, most of them better than Ace's uncle had ever dreamed of being, but she hadn't been pushy about telling him what to do.

  Sometimes he missed those days. "You're a pain in the fucking ass, you know that? If I want to ransack my studio for no goddamn reason, I will."

  She snorted. "Get pissy with me if you want, but I still think you'd be better off using your words."

  The hurt and anger pulsing in his chest found a focus--if not a target. "The only words I've got are the filthy ones. I've never fronted about that, so I don't know why in hell you all expect better."

  "You've always been hardest on yourself." Emma tossed her bag on the desk with a sigh. "How can you be so damn generous with other people, and then treat yourself like such shit?"

  Because he deserved it. Because Rachel had asked a soulful question about Ace's past, and for a second he'd actually imagined trying to say it all.