A growl. “It’s not the same.”
“No, it’s not. None of us wanted to leave her behind, but if we didn’t, none of you would be here. She sacrificed everything for you all. She deserves our forgiveness. But we can only pray for hers in return.”
“Has she given you any information we can act on?” Envy asked. The shuffle of papers sounded like maybe he had notes in his hands. “What about these?”
“We haven’t had much time to chat,” Mary admitted. “But I’ll ask about the sketches as soon as she’s awake.”
“There’s something else,” Envy added. “I had another dream. This time, there’s another face... well, see for yourself.”
Mary gasped. “It’s Daisy’s face. Are you saying she’s at risk, just as much as Misha, or Liza?”
Despair’s heart palpitated. A hidden fear she’d long since repressed tried to break through. Growing up, she never knew her family had survived the fire. Julius failed to tell her. She’d feared that if she wasn’t perfect, then he wouldn’t want her anymore, and then use her for spare parts.
Silence.
A sound something like a chair scraping along the floor as it moved. Footsteps.
Despair hurried back into the bed, climbed beneath the covers, and rolled to the side away from the door. She shut her eyes and feigned sleep. Perhaps she dozed off because when she next opened her eyes, the house was silent. All except light footfalls in the bedroom.
When she looked over, Mary carried a small plant in her hands. She placed it on the side table.
“You’re awake,” Mary said. “How are you feeling?”
“Like I’ve been shot.”
“We’re grateful for your sacrifice.”
It was Despair’s turn for silence.
The small plant was an old and gnarled bonsai. Mary touched its leaves.
“Do you remember this?” she asked.
Despair focused on the plant but shook her head.
“You were carrying it when we escaped the laboratory. You left it behind when you ran back for Gloria.”
Vague memories washed back. There had been a plant Despair cared for in their locked observation room. It was the only plant they had in the entire suite. The only plant they’d ever seen. Despair sat up and reached over to lift a leaf. She found a flowering bud. Somehow it had managed to grow beneath the shade of the top leaves.
“It’s a daisy bonsai,” Mary said. “We kept it alive, but it belongs to you. You should have it.”
Despair didn’t know what to say. They had left her. They’d thought she was dead, just like she had thought they were dead. But they’d kept her plant alive. Her throat dried.
“When you’re ready,” Mary said. “There’s food in the kitchen. It’s just Flint and me now, so take your time. We want you to feel comfortable.”
Despair watched Mary leave and rubbed the ache in her chest.
She took the flower bud gently and leaned close to inhale deeply. A nostalgia she couldn’t describe entered her body, and she quickly sat back.
“What do I call you?” came a strange, disembodied female voice.
Despair surveyed the room. The door was closed again. Mary had left. So who spoke?
“Who are you?”
Her head tilted up and found a white speaker in the ceiling.
“Who are you?” Despair snapped back.
“I’m AIMI. The Lazarus’s Artificial Intelligence Management Interface. I manage this household. Usually Sloan or Parker update my system, or I scan relevant databases using facial recognition software to find an identity match for house guests, but you are listed with multiple identities. Are you Daisy, The Falcon, or are you Despair?”
The truth was, she wasn’t sure. Before the computer had the chance to ask again, Despair left the room.
15
Butterflies fluttered around knots in Liza’s stomach as Joe followed her into the elevator that would take them up to her apartment level. This was the first time she’d invited anyone up, let alone a potential—
Her mind shut down. She couldn’t let herself entertain the thought of intimacy. Not yet. Not when she wanted it so badly. Not when she still felt the residual effects of battle riding her system. It was more than adrenaline and more than her recent training session. It was the flashes of horror behind her eyelids, more terrifying because she hadn’t just served and protected, she’d ended lives. Dead. Gone. No judge. No jury.
This was her future.
She could kill with her breath. And she could do it without even knowing it, blacked out in a berserker rage.
She punched the button to her floor and leaned against the cool wall as the elevator doors closed. Her gaze shifted to Joe and immediately softened at his familiar face. Once again she was struck by how it had changed. There had always been a hard edge to him, but now it was razor-sharp, honed by the same sort of trauma that she dealt with. Gone was the hope, the glint she’d seen in all rookies, the dream of making a difference. She knew the kind of work he’d done at the bureau was soul-crushing work. He faced the worst humanity had to offer, and he still showed up to work the next day.
When he’d come to the basement door and demanded entry, there had been a wildness to him. This was not the boy she’d grown up with, not the youth she became friends with, and not the man she came up in the Force with. There were things about him she was still discovering, just as he was learning about her. How much did one really know the other? The notion sparked another round of anxiety. Memories of the battle.
Foaming mouths.
Face masks sliding off.
The fear in eyes as death came. Then seeing her reflection in their eyes.
Heat swarmed her palms. She looked down. Yellow. It was pooling in her pores.
“No,” she gasped. “Not now.”
“Liza?” Joe reached for her.
She shut her fists, avoiding him. “Don’t, Joe. You can’t touch me.”
“Why?”
She held her palms out. “I’m oozing toxin! I’m panicking. I can’t… just stay back. You should go.”
Shit. She couldn’t even touch a button without leaving a poisonous residue.
“Liza,” he said, voice eerily calm. “Your hands look normal. There are no yellow stains.”
She blinked. “What?”
“Take a deep breath and look again.” He touched her shoulder.
Inhale. Exhale. Look down. Gone. He was right.
“I could have sworn…” Her heart thumped in her chest. “It was there. I felt it.”
His eyes turned stark. “I know that look. Seen it in the mirror too many times to forget. You’re replaying the crime scene, seeing the bodies. Try not to see them. Think of something else.”
Liza hugged herself. She should be better at this, but Parker was right. She was rusty. The years she spent training to master her emotions was a distant memory.
“How do you do it?” she asked.
“How do I think of something else?”
“Violent Crimes, right? I mean, you worked in that department for a while. You must have seen some shit. I’ve never been like this before. I’ve seen a frickin’ murderous plant, but this... How do you block it out?”
His eyes skated to the instrument panel and pointed. “Luxury building like this has a pool on the roof, right?”
She nodded.
“Good.” He punched the button for the roof, and then he met her eyes. “I swim.”
Her first reaction was to shake her head. She’d already worked out and wasn’t in the mood. But he was right. A swim might be good.
The Shaolin Monks had taught her to run her body ragged so that when they fought, there would be no emotion or anger causing mistakes. Sometimes they’d wake at dawn, do chores at the abbey, and then practice martial arts until dinner time. And then there would be more chores, and then meditation before bed. The quiet in Liza’s mind during that year had been incredible.
The doors opened on Liza’s level.
She hit the “close” button and stayed in the lift.
“A swim would also dilute my toxin in the water until I have it under control.” Meeting his eyes, she added, “Thank you. For understanding.”
He shrugged. “I just want to talk. Makes no difference if it’s on a couch or the poolside. And for the record, I think you’re doing just fine.”
The honey warming her chest was a shock to her system. A compliment from Joe. She felt like a damned schoolgirl, and completely out of her comfort zone. Any time a guy complimented her, she was usually ready to beat him back with snark to avoid the punch of lust to her gut. She fidgeted with the baseball in her pocket.
It would be so different with Joe.
The elevator opened to the roof and Liza stepped out. The sun was getting low, and the sky darkened with impending rain, but the Olympic sized lap pool was heated. A wide oak deck surrounded the pool, and a glass fence provided a barrier to the Cardinal City skyline. The boys used a broken pane as a launching spot for base jumping in their wingsuits at night. She’d never worn her suit, so hadn’t tried the wing function. They kept telling her it was the easiest way to move around the city.
Vines crawled up pergola columns that surrounding the pool and provided privacy from the neighboring city buildings. Wooden tables with chairs tipped over showed a lack of use. Next to the pool area, a vacant helipad stretched over the rest of the roof. No one was up here. They wouldn’t be brave enough in this weather. The air had a bite to it, and when the rain eventually came, it would cut like blades.
But Liza needed this. She kicked off her sweat pants and was folding them when she caught Joe’s attention and froze under the weight of his gaze. She’d never censured herself around him before. In her mind, he’d never been someone she had to worry about. He’d never leered. He’d never propositioned her. And she’d never worried about propriety but, now, seeing the smokey heat in that gaze, it hit her. All those times she’d stripped down to her underwear in the locker room, or when they used to go to the lake as teenagers, or… God, she’d even teased him for being a prude when he’d excused himself to dress in private.
Her entire view of their relationship shifted.
Had he hidden from her because he’d been aroused?
It was too much to contemplate. Tearing her gaze from his, she dove into the water. Warmth embraced her like a hug. Sound dissolved. The world ebbed away. It was so calming. So peaceful. The turquoise mosaic tiles glinted and sparkled with the waning daylight. Soon the clouds would take it away, and it would be a dark, gaping abyss. Would it be as peaceful then?
Just like her brothers, Liza had trained with military units around the world. Part of their education required them to remain underwater for extended periods, both with a breathing apparatus and without. A SEAL could hold their breath for two to three minutes. Liza and her genetically modified family could hold for up to five.
It was the advantage she took now. She needed a moment to collect herself, for when she surfaced, Joe would want to talk, and she wasn’t sure she was ready for that. His very presence threw her mind and body into a tailspin. The right way up was now upside down.
Her uncertainty caused a bloom of frustration to take hold of her nerves, and that made her even more annoyed. This wasn’t her. The Liza Lazarus the public knew dominated, but when it came to matters of the heart, she was weak, a fucking rookie.
A splash jolted her out of her thoughts. Before her mind registered the blurry image fizzing before her, sturdy hands scooped under her arms and propelled her to the surface. She broke with a spluttering gasp.
“Joe?”
Wet, dripping, and still in his shirt and tie, Joe scowled at her.
“Are you okay?” he asked, voice deep. “Do you need to get out?”
She wiped hair from her face. “What?”
“I thought…” He frowned at her, fury flashing in his eyes. “You were down there for so long, I thought you were drowning!”
Oh. She stopped treading water and sank until her feet touched the bottom and the surface hit her chin. “I was hiding,” she confessed.
“Hiding. Why?”
Panic tripped her heart into overdrive, and the very thing she’d been thinking about from the safe underworld cocoon blared in her face. Here’s Joe. Your mate. The one man you can screw and not feel sick. And he’s soaking wet, looking at you. Waiting.
Short dark hair stuck to his forehead. His lashes spiked with moisture. But it was the concern in his eyes that caused the biggest reaction within Liza. Her stomach flipped with anticipation. Her blood sang for her to join him. She wanted, and she’d never felt that way before.
Like a coward, she turned and started swimming. One hand over the other, stroke after stroke, until she hit the end of the pool, somersaulted, and propelled herself back in the direction she’d come. She didn’t want to talk. She got halfway across the pool when Joe took hold of her hand and dragged her to the surface. The fury hadn’t left him. It tightened his jaw, stretched his shoulders, and left him a hardened rock.
“I thought I could wait,” he snarled. “But I can’t. I jumped into the pool because I had no idea what you’re capable of, or what you’re built for. You need to start talking before I lose it.”
“The poison…”
“Is fine. The water will take care of the rest. Talk.”
This was it. She had to change, to open up, or she’d lose him.
“I’m a genetically modified weapon,” she blurted. “My family was born in a lab. Mary and Flint rescued us, but the people who created us are still trying to create weapons of mass destruction. They want to destroy the world and create something free from sin. It’s impossible. Innocent people are going to die because of their antics.”
Joe jerked as though hit. “What organization?”
“The Syndicate.”
“Were they the masked terrorists you fought?”
“You mean the ones in the white robes? The Faithful?”
He nodded solemnly. “I’ve seen pictures of them, but nothing else.”
“Figures.” She snorted and started paddling circles around him.
“What does that mean?”
“They’re Syndicate fanatics, and since the Syndicate has their hand up the ass-puppet of law enforcement, it’s no wonder you’ve heard nothing about them.”
A coldness entered Joe’s gaze, darker than the encroaching clouds. “Are you accusing me of something?”
“No!” she splashed him. He dodged. “I’m not talking about you. I know you’d never willingly work for them.”
Joe was a saint. Loyal and moral to the core. But after her words had come out, there was no taking them back. A chain reaction of doubt started to swirl in her head, and suddenly, she wasn’t swimming in a heated rooftop pool, she was in shark-infested waters.
Why was Joe back in town? Because it certainly wasn’t to bone her. The Special Agent was high profile enough to be put on the plant-monster case, something that seemed incredible but wasn’t. Liza didn’t remember anything in the news about a plant that came to life and ate people. So did that mean Joe was in on a cover-up? Or had they come to a different conclusion? Maybe they’d reasoned that attack away as something more plausible.
But now he was in town chasing a serial killer, something so sadly human and depraved that it wasn’t on the same level as a Syndicate crime. He wouldn’t skip from one sort of case with higher clearance and then be demoted to something with less.
She didn’t buy it.
God, she was dumb. How could she miss this? She’d been so hopeful, so desperate for attention that she’d ignored all the warning signs. Her breath solidified. She swallowed and paddled to the side of the pool where she kept her back to him while she sorted through her mind. If he read the suspicion on her face…
Hairs on the back of her neck lifted.
Was she in danger? Had she let the wolf into their home? They’d all been worried about Daisy, but maybe it was Joe. Some
one she couldn’t read. Someone her family had treated poorly. Someone who, up until a few days ago, had wanted nothing to do with her.
She tried to let that settle in, but her mind raced.
A while ago, they’d established that even though those mated in the Seven couldn’t sense sin around their partners, it didn’t mean their partners weren’t feeling sin. Misha still felt wrath. Bailey still felt gluttony. Their bond triggered when they had none. Since Liza had never sensed Joe’s lust, their bond had half-triggered in their youth, only now releasing her powers upon a time in their adulthood. But between that first time and this last time, Joe had grown. He’d become someone else, perhaps someone who would reject their bond.
Water splashed gently behind her.
He’s coming.
She tensed. Did she have it in her to take him down? Tears stung her eyes.
No, she didn’t.
If he was the trojan horse sent to take the Lazarus family down from the inside, then Liza was the one who opened the gates with welcoming arms. She wanted him too much. She needed him. To hold. To hug. To be there.
The line of his body pressed hotly against her back. He braced one hand on the pool’s edge. The other landed on her shoulder and squeezed. For a bated breath, she feared the worst, but then he traced his touch up to her ear and tucked her hair affectionately. Shivers danced down her spine.
“I’m sorry.” Joe’s voice came out a hoarse whisper. “I shouldn’t have snapped.”
She tensed, but he didn’t move. He pressed his body harder against her back. She ached at the closeness, craving the bodily connection she’d missed her entire adult life. Above the chlorine of the pool, she could smell his masculinity. Salty, sweaty, and a hint of aftershave still clinging to his skin. Her eyes fluttered closed and, God help her, but she pushed back into him. Her rear found a hardness that sent her hormones rocketing.
The hitch of his breath.
The burst of an exhale.
The softness of reverent lips on her shoulder.
“Liza,” he groaned, teeth scraping, turning his touch wicked. “The five years we spent apart were torture.”
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