It was a game. A game Sloan would win, or go mad trying.
That was exactly the point, Parker had pointed out. Daisy wanted Sloan insane with her power, ending sinners all over town.
Sloan wanted to hate her sister. A dark cruel twisted feeling inside wanted to smother the woman, but it wasn’t all Daisy’s fault. She was a product of their evil twisted makers. It could have just as easily been Sloan causing the trouble. Sliding doors, and all that.
The closest they’d come to catching a lead was Daisy’s game of peekaboo, and it frustrated the living daylights out of Sloan. The woman wanted Sloan out in public. She wanted Sloan causing havoc with her unbalanced powers. Daisy was back in the city, though, and that’s why on the second computer down at her desk in the living room, she searched the city’s feeds—CCTV footage, local news networks and so on. Lilo, Griffin’s mate, worked at the Cardinal Copy, and was doing her best to use her contacts to chase down any information, but Sloan had better access than anyone. If Sloan couldn’t find Max, then maybe he couldn’t be found.
Rolling to her back, she stared at the ceiling for precisely the count of three, then pushed out of bed to find something to do. The longer she stayed still, the more her thoughts derailed toward dreadful outcomes and she kept hearing Max’s voice in her head, Leave no stone unturned. Without him, they’d never have broken the lead that brought them to Barry. Also, Max would have never been kidnapped. Liza said kidnapping victims rarely remained alive beyond a few days from their capture.
Shut up.
She wasn’t going there. Not today.
Moving from the bedroom to the kitchen, Sloan went to the box Wyatt had delivered weeks ago. The box still sat on her kitchen bench. It still had his ex’s belongings in there, including the little velvet red box. Unopened.
The box glared bright in her dimmed room.
Red. Angry red. Blood red. Love red.
Her chest constricted. Max had said he’d bought her a ring, and she knew the ring was inside. She’d seen it, but she didn’t have the heart to open the box. It would be a glaring symbol of her failure.
With trembling fingers, she picked up the red velvet box and opened it. It creaked and resisted. Old, unused and discarded, she had to use force.
There it was.
The ring.
The polish seemed to have lost a little shine. The diamonds were lackluster. A lump in her throat formed. She snapped the lid shut, the sound of it echoing darkly in her mind. It was the sound of a door slamming closed, for the second time.
A bird warbled through the open window at her fire-escape. Placing the box down on the kitchen bench, she jogged back into her bedroom and growled the Bluebird away from the pizza box sitting on the sill. She lifted the lid to search for a slice, not caring the box had been delivered the previous night. Nothing but picked off pineapple pieces were left. It was probably what the bird was trying to get, but Sloan didn’t want anyone touching those pineapple pieces.
No one.
Tears welled in her eyes, burning. That lump in her throat wouldn’t move and her throat closed up over it. She sniffed, wiping her nose with the bottom of her ratty pajama sleeve, but the sleeve couldn’t hold back the hot tears that spilled, the snot that clogged her nose, and the puffy eyes.
The cat meowed beneath her bed.
Sniffing, Sloan wiped her nose again. “I’m sorry Luna. I’ll—”she fanned her face with her hand and gulped in a breath“—I’ll manage my emotion. I will.”
While she took deep breaths, her gaze darted around her apartment, looking for a distraction. Weeks ago, it was a filthy mess. Now, apart from the pizza boxes, everything was spotless. She’d exhausted all her cleaning efforts, and she’d spent any other available moment in the gym or searching for Max. There was nothing left for her to do. She supposed she could clean herself. She was a mess, after all.
Luna meowed and crawled out from beneath the bed. She blinked up at Sloan with her yellow eyes and then made a weird mewling sound as she reclined and rolled, using her claws to pluck at the fallen blanket draped half off the bed, half on the floor. If Sloan didn’t know any better, she’d say Luna was moping. Just like her.
Sloan also supposed she could use this time to get better at controlling her ability.
Get more lethal. Get invincible.
She wanted to be on her A-game when that computer pinged Max’s location. And it will find him. She’d already honed her body, now it was time to work on her power. She went to stand at her computer station to watch the three monitors as they searched the city for her mate.
Tony answered after two rings.
“Ye-es?” He drawled, voice smooth and deep.
“Are you home?”
He paused, then responded again with another suspicion-laced drawl. “Ye-es.”
“I need your help.”
“You’re not going to retaliate, prank wise, are you? Because I’m not in the mood.”
“No. I’m done with that. I need your help to control my emotions.” She thought about it, then added, “Please.”
“Oh.” Another long drawn out pause. “You want my help?”
“Yes.”
“Oh.”
“Pretty please?”
“I mean, sure. I don’t know how I can help, but sure.”
“You’re an actor, Tony. A good one. If there’s anyone who knows the ins and outs of emotion, it’s you.”
“Oh.”
“You keep saying that. Are you all right?”
“I’m good,” he mumbled. “When do you want to do this?”
She walked over to her computer and checked the time. It was still early. Nine a.m. “I need to clean myself up. How about in ten minutes?”
“I can give you a few hours. See you in the training room.”
They disconnected, and while she was at her computer station, Sloan checked the screen that displayed the keystroke program she’d installed on the Syndicate’s black site servers. A search of the server database had turned out to be frustratingly fruitless. When mentioned to Barry, he had pointed out that none of the research was stored on the administration computers. Julius was extremely secretive, and he kept research cells isolated.
That was good information.
Sloan should be happy that she’d followed her instincts to rescue Barry, but without Max, she was fast becoming lost in nothing. No, that was wrong; she wasn’t lost in nothing. She had Tony, her family, and she had hope—something Daisy sorely lacked. It was something.
Twenty-Four
Sloan showered and dressed into workout attire. Puma joggers, black leggings and a sports bra that strapped around her shoulders and stomach. She tied her hair into a ponytail and gave Luna a kiss. Just before she left her room, she spotted the red jewelry box sitting innocently on the kitchen bench.
A beat.
Another.
Then she rushed over, opened it, and stuck the ring on her finger. Not on the wedding ring finger, but on her right hand. The diamond winked at her as though happy to get out of the box, to be free. Smiling, she replaced the red velvet box back in the container of other belongings and noticed the cell phone that belonged to Wyatt’s ex. Reaching in, she pulled it out. It was dead as wood, but if she went down to the workshop after her training session, she might find a way to restore it. If Flint was down there, even better.
With a renewed sense of purpose, she left her apartment. She was ready.
She arrived in the basement and found the entire floor empty. Her mother and father, who were usually in the workshop, were also absent. The rest of her family were most likely at their day jobs or homes. She couldn’t help feeling a little peeved at that.
Max was missing.
Logically she knew there was only so much to do without a lead to move on and they had exhausted their options. Their investigation into Max’s whereabouts had stalled. Life went on in the mean time. Parker and Evan had a business to run, Griffin and Liza had day jobs, Wyatt was with Misha, Tony…
/> Oh shit.
Tony had not been well during their mission to the black site. He’d been erratic, irritated, sick. His dependency on alcohol and substances had taken a hold of him. She knew as well as anyone that if not kept in check, their sin had a way of sneaking up on them and her heart went out to her brother. With so much going on in their lives, she wondered if he’d had time to talk to anyone about his situation—besides Parker and his bossiness.
She’d been so intent on finding Max that she’d failed to think about Tony’s plight. Only a few short months ago, she’d admonished Wyatt for selfishly abandoning their family, for abandoning her, when he knew she needed him.
She owed Tony more. He didn’t have a mate to balance his sin out. Like Parker and Liza, he was fighting a silent battle—alone. That was fucking hard.
Sloan searched the large training room for Tony. Gym equipment, mirrors, and a central rubber mat for sparring. No windows. A bench on one side. Boxing bags on another. Parker had recently installed a huge flat screen on one wall that was connected to AIMI so they could monitor anything they wanted while keeping themselves fit and fighting ready.
No Tony.
Unconsciously, she tugged on her ponytail with the intent of stuffing the end into her mouth. She was still frowning at her hair in her fingers when Tony entered the room. Honed to perfection, his movie star body was the epitome of buff and a lot of hard work. She knew he kept regular personal training sessions, separate to his time here at Lazarus House. His appearance was picked apart by the tabloids. He had a stylist, a nutritionist, an agent, a publicist, and personal shopper. But he had no entourage, no assistant, no friends. Only brief hook-ups. Their life prohibited close connections and Parker was the first to remind everyone of that commitment.
The Deadly Seven were often vilified in the media. Nobody liked vigilantes taking the law into their own hands, but the lowering crime rates spoke enough. It was just coming to Sloan’s attention that the media also crapped on Tony in his personal life. If gluttony was knocking on his door, he couldn’t eat—he would put on weight and the media would have a field day. She felt bad enough about letting herself go without the paparazzi watching her every move. So if he couldn’t satisfy the urges of his sin with food, he was left with sex and substances, and since being in a relationship where the partner was not his mate seemed counterintuitive, he had to get his sexual kicks from different sources, often.
“Sloan,” Tony greeted as he dumped a water bottle on the side bench. He wore a pair of loose shorts, and a navy blue singlet that hugged his ripped torso. He swept his short, brown hair off his forehead as he flicked his gaze her way. “How’s the search going?”
“Same as before. No leads.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah, but I have Sara’s old cell. I’m going to try to bring it back to life after this, so hopefully I’ll find something on it.”
“You don’t sound convinced.”
“If I was, I wouldn’t be standing here.” She sighed. “The truth is, it’s a Hail Mary, but I have to keep trying.”
Tony strode to a wall that housed gym supplies. Towels, weights, and a water station. He pulled a towel from a folded pile and returned. “And what about the Nightingale Securities team?”
She frowned. Keeping Nightingale Securities cool about Max’s disappearance had been tough. As professionals, they knew Max would notify them before going anywhere. Parker had told them he’d been tasked with a top-secret assignment and will explain when they get back. They’d retrieved Max’s cell from the side of the road it was discarded and faked a message to his team. It was enough to keep them satisfied. Just. But if Max never—
Don’t go there.
“Sloan?”
“Sorry, was thinking about our excuse with the Nightingale team running into an expiration date. We’ll have to think of something else to tell them soon.”
“What if we bring them into the fold? Can they provide assistance?”
“What can they do that I can’t?” she scoffed.
“I heard one of them was CIA in a past life.”
“She’s not now. Besides, we’re not supposed to know that and I don’t want to go over there. I’m not a good liar and they’re getting antsy.”
He rubbed his chin. “Yeah, Tom-Tom and Daymo served with Max for many years. They won’t last much longer.”
“It’s the woman. She’s the one who’s been hounding us.”
Tony perked up. “A woman?”
Sloan rolled her eyes. “That’s the one who was in the CIA.”
“I didn’t know that.” He frowned. “Is she old?”
“God, you’re hopeless.”
That earned Sloan a sly smirk. “I volunteer as tribute to go over and update them on our fake story. I can say Max has been reassigned somewhere else.”
“Keep your pants on. I just want to get better at containing my powers so I can go out and physically search for Max.”
“Fair enough. Where do you want to start?”
Sloan blinked and realized she’d been completely rude. The moment Tony had mentioned something he was interested in—who cares if it was a woman—Sloan had changed the subject. Damn her.
“I’ll start with an apology.”
“Sorry?”
“I’ve not been fair on you. The pranking, and… well… you’re going through something and I’ve not even asked how you’re handling it.”
“I’m not going through anything.”
“Tony,” she admonished. “You almost puked during the mission to the black site from lack of alcohol. Maybe you did. I never asked.”
“Can we drop it?”
She couldn’t force him to speak about it. “If you want, I’m sure I can get you introduced to the woman on Max’s team. Her name is Bailey.”
“I was kidding.” He narrowed his eyes as if he suspected her words were another prank.
“I’m serious.”
“And I said drop it. So… where are we starting? What do you want, acting lessons?”
She sighed. Okay, she supposed she deserved his hesitance. Onward and upward, she guessed. “So, I’m having trouble conjuring the memory of the right emotion during periods of elevated stress.”
He nodded, eyes glued to her.
She continued, “As you know, I can recall the feeling of sleep the best, but sometimes, like with those wild beastie-animals, I couldn’t call forth a feeling on purpose in a rush. The only time I could was when I actually got hurt or if I had time to concentrate. I want to be able to do it on command, during stressful moments, and I want to be able to pull up a variety of helpful emotions.”
“Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Yeah, I think I know how to help.” He gestured for her to come closer. “First, come stand next to me and face the mirror.”
Feeling awkward, she shuffled next to him and stared at their reflections, side by side. Immediately, she felt inadequate next to the perfect specimen standing next to her, but then she looked harder. She hadn’t looked much since she’d resumed her training, and now that she was, it was easy to see how much she’d changed. Her crop top only covered her chest, but left her midriff free. She had abs. There was not a layer of fat on her body. Her curved hips fit snuggly into her leggings. Her legs were toned—not the cracking nuts kind of toned like Tony’s—but still, toned. Seeing that for the first time sent her eyes roaming over the rest of her body. Flexing her fists, the small muscles in her arms bulged. Nice.
Tony caught her self admiration and smirked. “And they call me conceited.”
“Shut up,” she laughed. “It’s just that… I’ve not noticed my body in a while.”
“I’ve seen you down here for hours every day. You worked hard and now you look good, sis.”
She smiled at him. “Thanks.”
They shared a moment of mutual connection, then a shadow flickered over his gaze and he turned back to the mirror. “Okay, so this method is called the Chekh
ov Acting Technique. Basically, to recall an emotional memory, we act it out. Then the idea is that through repeating physical actions, your recollection will come stronger, and with little effort.”
“Not to point out the obvious, but how will I find time to act out an emotion if I’m in the heat of battle?”
“We start with acting out the gestures here, then we internalize them. With enough training, you’ll be able to recall that earlier physicalized emotion. So, act, internalize, act, internalize. We do it until you can recall that emotion without effort.”
“That makes a lot of sense, bras. I should have come to you for help a long time ago.”
His lip twitched. “What have I told you about calling me a ladies undergarment?” Then he folded his arms and held his chin between his forefinger and thumb, watching her. “Okay. Start.”
“Just like that?”
“Once you got this down, we’ll spar at the same time. Go.”
So she had to act out an emotive memory… then learn to internalize it, then learn to do that while getting beat up by this big burly real life action hero.
Sloan caught her reflection’s eyes. Okay. She’s got this. Think of a feeling. What feeling? Pain, was her obvious first choice. Making an opponent crippled with that feeling would come in handy. She was tempted to use her nails to bite into her palms, but shook her head. What if she was incapacitated and couldn’t hurt herself? She wanted to do this properly. No more cutting corners.
That thought promptly brought up feelings of Max and she had to shut her eyes.
Soon, baby. Soon.
Seeing her hesitance, Tony suggested, “What about a strong feeling you can recall from a recent event. What about how you felt when you knew Max was leaving you in that car with Beatrix.”
Her brows snapped together and she glared at him.
But he wasn’t fazed. He turned to his reflection, took a deep breath and… simply became someone else. His face crumpled his eyes glazed, and he collapsed, hands covering his head as it shook in denial. He acted distraught for another moment, and she believed it! Then he straightened, reset, and said, “Or maybe it was like this.” Then his eyes darted about the room, struggling to find purchase. He muttered “no” multiple times and paced listlessly.
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