by Angel Payne
Goal one? Don’t give him another reason to try to find out.
The thought blasts through me, at once alarming and exhilarating. Never again will I be able to laugh at a zombie joke after actually being one for close to thirty minutes. Brains are friends, not food. And now, mine spins up to full mission mode again, locking down the coordinates of all the prep that still needs to happen before Dad sets his goons back into motion.
“All right.” I add a definitive nod to my rasp up at Emma, communicating that I’m taking the reins back on this plan, even if it’s from flat on my ass. “You want to be helper girl here?”
Despite biting the inside of her lip, she barely contains her answering grin. And there’s nothing she can do about the eager sapphire gleams in her gaze.
“Good. Then kiss me.”
The sapphire shards turn to steel. “Excuse me?” she seethes from locked teeth.
“You want to be on the team, you follow orders. Kiss me, goddamnit—and as you do, pretend you’re easing the agony of my paralysis by loosening my tie.”
At once, understanding flashes across her face. “Your tie.” She already starts in on yanking at the knot. “You’re freaking brilliant.”
“Kiss. Me.”
I’ve never issued a command that sounds more desperate, more demanding, or more asshole.
I’ve never been kissed by a pair of more entrancing, erotic goddess’s lips.
Jesus. Christ.
It’s all I can do not to moan—or let the pure power of her passion sizzle all the way down to my groin. Paralyzed captives aren’t supposed to have raging erections. At least I don’t think so. Accurate or not, I’m not about to give Dad pause for doing a double-take in my direction at all. Too much of this made-up-as-I-go strategy depends on staying inconspicuous.
And stockpiling the lightning.
As much of it as fucking possible.
Emma makes short work of pulling my tie free and laying it against my side. As she pulls her hand back in, I lift my head to capture her fingers beneath my lips…
Until she winces out loud.
And I pull focus on my vision.
To take in the red, blue, and purple mangles of her fingers.
“What the fuck?”
Emma gulps. Works her lips together.
Tyce rolls to his side. Spears me with a questioning glare.
“What. The. Fuck?”
Dad whips around, handing me my nightmare of a double-take. His expression has already bypassed curious for a full facial DEFCON alert. I’m beyond caring. And yeah, that includes any shred of careful strategizing now. The sight of Emmalina’s fingers—the beautiful, creamy tapers custom-made by God for my kisses, my adoration, my clasps, my partnership—now battered and bent because of this fucker’s evil, is the final click in the circuitry of my reborn rage, my unthinking vengeance.
My stockpiled lightning.
Driven by my stockpiled pain.
All of it.
The horror of my captivity. The mire of being an escaped mutant. The grief for my normalcy. The shock of Tyce’s truth. The loss of my friend, Mitch Mori.
The loss of my father…the man I always, desperately, tried to be.
No more.
No more.
“No more.”
I’m beyond regulating even the words from my throat, so it’s no shock when their echo is like a cannonball on a gong along the high walls around us. The cacophony jerks Chase out of his stupor, at least enough to try to look around, wondering where the cigar room went. But he’ll be no use for another hour, at least. This shit is going to be up to Tyce and me.
I’m ready.
Tyce pops to his feet along with me, his version of a high sign. He’s ready too.
“No. More!”
I just hit the gong with the whole cannon. And it feels fucking good.
I release a wicked grin from the victory. I spread it even wider as Dad’s shock makes him drop the magic remote box.
And as long as everyone’s trying out new toys…
I wind my necktie once around my right fist. Grit my teeth, focusing a pulse of energy down from my shoulder, through my fingers—and straight into the threads that blaze to life, turning my mild-mannered accessory into a sizzling, snapping weapon of raw electric power.
“Fuck!” Chase and Tyce shout it together.
“Wh-Whoa,” Emma stammers at the same time.
“No!” Dad roars as they’re all catching their breaths—at the same moment I sweep the lightning rope out with a low, fast, scorching crack, hooking the flaming tongue right beneath the magic clicker. With another flick, again just following my instinct on how this damn thing is going to work with me, I send the device flying into the air, over everyone’s heads, deep into the broad brick tunnel beyond the lift platform. “Don’t stand there, you morons,” he yells at the henchmen. “Go get that damn box!”
Only he’s already short by a superhero and behind by twelve steps—the dozen strides of a head start Tyce has already gotten on the walking lumps of bread dough. And counting. My former lacrosse player of a brother sprints even farther into the tunnel, disappearing from view as Dad bellows again at his lackeys.
As thoroughly as my gut churns, knowing Tyce has half a dozen pachyderms stomping his direction, I take a second to fully acknowledge my newfound respect and admiration. I can’t give him an ounce more of my love, because he and Chase have always had that, but the giant neon sign reading Tool over his head has been shattered now. The guy’s more than capable of holding his own now.
I can’t say the same thing for Emmalina—or for Chase, who’s now gotten to his feet but looks like a frat boy on a bender about the whole thing. Fuck. The observation, made with lightning assessment skills that come back as easily as riding a bike, forces me to realign my priorities between one breath and the next.
And in doing so, to chuck the fantasy of putting my father out of everyone’s misery.
“Wh-What the h-hell?” Chase grates it while slamming a palm to his forehead, using his other hand for balance. “What is this place? What’s going on?” He peers over, blinking as if clearing his vision—a very real possibility. “D-Dad?”
“Wouldn’t call him that if I were you, C.” I send a new jolt of energy down to the rope, cracking it in warning at our asshole sperm donor.
“Reece? What the fuck? Why are you all—what’s going on?”
Emma sends my brother a supportive look, eyes soft and lips compassionate. “We’re beneath the hotel. The aperitif you drank was spiked.”
“What?” Chase bunches his brows. “Spiked? Why? By who?”
Dad sucks in a breath as if prepping some lame explanation. I snap the lightning rope with twice as much force. “By our fun-loving paternal unit, who thinks our ‘use’ to the Richards family legacy hasn’t been fulfilled yet.”
“Huh?” Chase stumbles forward, heading for Dad. “What’s he talking about? Does somebody want to tell me—” But he skids short, jetting his brows back toward his hairline, upon sighting Mitch’s still form. “Holy shit. Isn’t that the waiter from upstairs? Is…he—”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. Yes, Chase. He’s dead, son.” Dad explodes with it, causing both Chase and me to flinch for two seconds. Even now, our father’s I’ve-had-it-with-you snarl reverts us back to duck-and-cover-he’s-on-a-rampage mode, even if we’re only doing it mentally.
And fuck me—that’s what the bastard has counted on.
Because in those two seconds of my distraction, he gets the chance to sweep a hand up to his ear—and visibly slam on a comm dot of his own.
And from his opening words, sends a freezing rain into my blood, mixing in sickening ways with the lightning that already carries my loathing for him. “Buenas tardes, mi bonita Faline.”
And for her.
That woman.
The only person on this planet I’d love to kill more than him right now.
“Yes. I know. We’re still on our way, but th
ere’s been just a slight hiccup in the tunnel. You’ll need to be on standby with the pods, darling.”
“The pods of what?” Chase interjects then. “And who the hell is Faline? And where the hell is Mom?”
“Still upstairs,” I bark. “And probably still asleep from that shit in the drinks.” Just having to form the words causes a brushfire in my blood, completely canceling out the ice. Thank fuck. I send a solid flow of it into the lightning rope before whipping the length out and wrapping it around Dad’s legs. As the heat sears through his pants, he goes down in a screaming, steaming heap. At once he rolls into the fetal position, clutching his ankles where I’ve branded him with the fiery length. “You’d better thank Emmalina for being here, cocksucker.” I lean over him, practically spitting it on him. “Otherwise, you’d be clutching your sorry dick.”
“The dick he’s been putting into someone besides Mom?”
I chuff at Chase, who really does spit on the man—though I’m cleaved about how to take his arrival at the big wake-up-your-dad’s-a-prick party. “Didn’t need that visual, C—but we can cover that in debrief.”
He glowers. “Debrief?”
“After we get the fuck out of here.”
With timing I couldn’t have coordinated better—thank Christ something finally meshes tonight—there’s noise and movement from the darkness of the hallway again. I seize Emma by the shoulder, thrusting her behind me just in case Tyce hasn’t been successful with the hoard of henchmen.
I release a huge breath when my brother’s two-sided face comes into view.
“Tyce!” Emma yells, adding a little jump of joy.
“Tyce?”
Chase’s echo is drenched, understandably, in confusion. I clap a hand around his shoulder. “I’ll tell you in—”
“Debrief.” Chase nods. Sort of. He’s past looking like a deer in headlights about all this. Right now, he’s more like a vampire in the daylight—a strange but fitting metaphor since our half-fried brother remains on one hell of an approach, covering the last twenty feet before the lift like a goddamned puma—
Being chased down by blood-thirsty game hunters.
Christ.
Somewhere in that darkness, the henchmen have actually secured rifles. The only reason they haven’t fired them is the obvious. Tyce has outrun them—only now that he’s reached a point where he has to slow down, the goons have time to stop and line their shots up.
We all drop to the platform as the first rounds crack the air. With Chase’s profanity in one of my ears and Emma’s scream in the other, I’m amazed I keep my head up to keep track of Tyce—but I owe it to him. I owe it to him.
He beams his finest asshole grin and then circles the air with a fist. “Bet your sweet ass, Cheesy Reecy.”
Only then, he’s not waving that fist anymore.
Or calling me shit-tastic boyhood nicknames anymore.
Or running anymore.
He’s grimacing as blood sprays from one leg and then the other, the hits taking him all the way down…
And making him lose grip on the magic remote he’s just raced into the darkness to retrieve…
A box he lifts his head to watch arcing through the air, a fly ball of our fatality, lobbed with such excruciating perfection…
Back into our father’s grip.
“No!” Emma shrieks. I think I roar the same thing but I’m not sure, since all my cells burst like that glass in the old stereo commercial, splintering and surrendering, preparing themselves for the vast, awful zombie palsy again. I’m numb, only I wish I were more numb—especially as I watch Dad hover over the damn thing like Gollum with his Precious, working fingers over the dial on top, clearly cranking the settings higher for the next pulse he’ll punch into Tyce and me. He isn’t deterred even as Emma lunges down on him, scratching and biting and snarling like a harpy. Before I can toss aside the lightning rope and yank her away, Dad’s already thrown her off like an asshole chucking a puppy onto the freeway, uncaring where she rolls or how she’s hurt.
And even then, my stunning, alarming little fool of a Team Bolt beauty scrambles right back to all fours and goes after him with even more vehemence.
“Enough!” I bellow, plummeting to force her back. “Emma, damn it! He’ll kill you without thinking twice!”
“Damn right I will.”
As soon as Dad growls it, Chase releases his own unhinged roar—and rushes in to take Emma’s place on the attack. Now this, I will support. Even in his half-sauced state, Chase has seven inches and at least sixty pounds on Emma.
But more importantly, as of this second, he now has Tyce.
Our astonishing, unyielding brother has somehow regained his feet and has stumbled to a spot just beyond the platform. He stands there in a puddle of his own blood, his skin pale and his stance swaying—but his gaze still drilling hard at Chase as he lifts an arm and wiggles the tips of his fingers.
“Here, C,” he orders. “Send him out here.”
“What?” Chase’s bafflement is real and understandable. He slept through the entire opening chapter of this horror story.
But I didn’t.
And now, the ending Tyce wants to give it is unfolding like a seriously shitty spoiler. “Fuck,” I mutter. “Fuck,” and then I shout, while rushing over to rip at the back of Chase’s neck. But I only end up with a handful of his hair as Dad kicks at him and Chase throws several solid, furious punches in return. He’s even grunting in satisfaction, finally able to unleash his own growing gall at all the evidence of all the bullshit Lawson Richards has fed to us and the world throughout the years.
“No!” I turn and snarl at Tyce. “Goddamn you, Tyce! I won’t let—”
“Shut the hell up,” he yells back. “This isn’t your decision anymore.”
“And it’s not yours!”
“No.” The sudden dip of his volume makes me angrier than his asshole-like shouts. Because it terrifies me three times more—especially when he shucks his thousand-dollar Prada jacket, exposing the dress shirt underneath. “No, it’s not my decision either.”
“Oh.” Emotion robs Emma’s voice of any volume past her gasp. “Oh…my God.” Now it’s just a series of sobs. Bursts of grief that echo through me as well, bombing the fuck out of the chasms and canyon in my chest and heart, turning my system into nothing but a wasteland as I struggle to keep standing, to keep seeing, to keep breathing…
Because Tyce’s entire right side is nothing but a bloom of bright crimson.
“Fuck,” I rasp. “Damn it, Tyce. Goddamnit.”
The asshole shrugs. Shrugs, like the hero that I never can or will be, before shivving my soul even deeper with his bullshit by kicking up one side of his mouth in his classic rogue’s grin. “Hell doesn’t pick favorites, brother,” he drawls. “But I promise you, I’ll make sure those demon dickwads give Papa Bear Richards some extra special attention.”
And with that, his smirk vanishes. Watching his grimace take over, conveying the extent of his true pain, wastes whatever’s left of my heart. Now I’m running only on instinct and adrenaline, watching him shuffle a couple of steps over, fists balled as he screws together the courage to do what Chase still can’t wrap his head around.
He drops to the edge of the platform, leans in, and grabs Dad by the ankle.
With one swoosh of astonishing strength, he hauls our father off the platform.
With one determined jab at the remote box, he powers up the lift again.
“No!” I roar, scrambling to the edge of the rising platform. “You asshole! You asshole!”
But the fucker just cracks a grin that’s so defiant and brilliant and insolent, I’m stripped of words. He’s ripped every single one of them from me with this act and drives his goddamned point home by giving the remote a huge, defined twist, pegging the needle into the red on the thing’s power output.
Just before rolling himself all the way atop our father’s prone form.
And detonating the Consortium’s version of
a grenade between their bodies.
I know this because I can hear it. Because I know it. Because as fast as the platform’s gears and pulleys work around us, they’re not laboring hard enough—ensuring that I’m a sobbing, choking, heaving witness to my brother’s last seconds of mortality. Of humanity. Of bravery.
As we rise back into the shaft of black rock and dark silence, I plummet my head down to my crumpled knees…whispering a desperate prayer for the soul of that arrogant, brilliant dickwad of a hero.
And in broken, spurting snarls, pray that my father is screaming in a hell just like the one he nearly sold us into.
EMMA
Five days after we’ve returned to LA from Paris, exactly a week after the most awful night of my life, Reece and I are spending our first night back in bed at home. Okay, so anywhere I’m with him is truly home, from the Brocade’s penthouse to an apartment on the Hudson to a little walk-up near the Seine, but when I think of a forever home with this man, it’s up on this bluff north of Malibu, with the Pacific in the distance, the smell of night jasmine in the air, and the whisper of wind through the wildflowers and sage scrub down through the valley. Just by walking in the door, I can feel my psyche sloughing off layers of tension. I listen to the evidence of the same as Reece releases a long, mellow sigh.
Sometime in the middle of this week’s scourge of shock and grief and comprehension and recovery, we’ve turned our new routine into a nightly tradition. With him settled against the bed’s headboard, I nestle between his legs and lean back into the solid plane of his chest. Our phones are off, the windows are open, and we rest together in the peace of simply existing, silent and sublime with each other for long minutes, until one of us feels the compulsion to whisper…
“You still here?”
Tonight, the words come from him. Doesn’t really matter, since my follow-up is the same. With a full sigh, I tug at his left hand with mine—my only option, since my right is still encased in the cast that’s helping my three mangled middle fingers to heal—and then press tender kisses to the backs of his knuckles, confirming that I hear everything he’s saying. That here doesn’t just mean “here.” That it means I’m present not just with the proximity of my body. That my heart is still beating with every throb of his. That my spirit still hears the call of his. That my soul still reaches for every special spark of his.