Bastion: O-Men: Liege’s Legion

by Elaine Levine

  Bastion looked back at the shadowy tunnel. He couldn’t see where he’d just been. If Selena’s team brought out their search dog, they’d find him fast.

  I said we have you. You are hidden from all threats. Liege sounded irritated as hell. Bastion would have laughed, but his blood loss was making him sick.

  Thank God for friends. Bastion leaned against one of the vehicles and shut his eyes.

  Merc rolled him over. Bastion looked up at the man he loved to hate. Merc had to be everyone’s conscience. Fucking sucked that it was he who’d saved him. “Oh, it’s you.”

  Merc smirked. “Sure, don’t thank me for saving your life, mate.” He looked at Acier. “We need to stabilize him and send him back, then deal with the ghouls.”

  Through Merc, Guerre sent Bastion a wave of energy, warm and fortifying. Bastion let it roll through him. He couldn’t help the tears that came to his eyes as his friend eased his deepening shock.

  Merc checked Bastion’s legs. Bastion barely felt his not-so-tender ministrations, thanks to the pain block Guerre provided.

  He’s lost a lot of blood, Merc said to Guerre. Get his transfusions ready. Merc gave Bastion a narrow-eyed glare. “If you hadn’t been following your dick around, this wouldn’t have happened and no one would need to save you. Where’s your Jeep?”

  Bastion let his eyes roll shut. Merc was at his bitchiest when he was scared, which was a little unnerving right now. “I was following my heart, not chasing my dick.”

  “You’re always chasing your dick.”

  “Non. It is not true. I was searching for my heart. I have found it here. I told you, she is my light.”

  “The fucking Jeep, Bastion,” Acier said.

  Bastion sent him and Merc a mental image showing his vehicle’s location. Merc stood, then grabbed Bastion’s arm and hoisted him up over his shoulder. Catching an arm through his leg, he lifted him and jogged over the lawn to the helicopter that was still running.

  20

  Selena was standing at her window when excruciating pain ripped into her lower legs, dropping her to the floor. She cried out in agony. What was happening? She dragged herself over to her nightstand and flipped the light on, yanking up the cuffs of her yoga pants to check her legs.

  Nothing was there. No injury. No bruising or blood. Her legs weren’t sensitive to touch, and yet the pain was throbbing and terrible.

  And then it stopped.

  Bastion was hurt. The pain had been his—somehow she just knew it, like she knew his humor and his anger. What was happening? God, was Bastion okay? Who could have hurt him, mutant that he was? Another wave of pain cut through her shins, this one so intense that she wanted to vomit. A cold sweat broke out across her face and neck. She had to pant her way through the torture.

  God, what was happening? Bastion was suffering.

  She reached up to her nightstand and fumbled around the for the phone. She punched in Jax’s number.

  He answered fast. “Sel, ’sup?”

  “My legs are broken.”

  “Fuck.” The line went dead. Barely seconds later, she could hear him charging down the hall. He slammed into her room. “Sel! Selena! Where the fuck are you?”

  The pain had her tucked into a tight ball, making it impossible to respond. He came around the bed and saw her, then dropped to his knees beside her. He brushed her sweat-dampened hair from her face. She looked up at him, but was unable to stop her controlled breathing long enough to get any words out.

  And then it stopped again. She went limp. It was going to come again, she knew it. Jax was checking her legs out, feeling from her hip down to her ankles, watching her the whole while. When she didn’t flinch, he pushed her pants up past her knees and ran his thumb down her shin.

  “Sel, your legs aren’t broken.”

  “I know that. I was just standing there and then I couldn’t stand. I feel like they’ve been cut in two.”

  Jax reached for the phone and dialed Nick’s number, then the Ratcliffs’, ordering them both to Selena’s room.

  “I think it’s Bastion,” Selena said.

  “That bastard’s hurting you?” Jax was furious.

  “No. I think he’s been hurt. The pain keeps coming and going…like…maybe he’s going in and out of consciousness. Call the guys. I need to know what they’re doing to him.”

  Jax lifted her to her bed. Nick rushed in. “What’s going on?”

  “Bastion’s hurting her.”

  “No. Bastion is hurting,” Selena corrected Jax, not that either man listened to her.

  The Ratcliffs were the last in. Selena wished she’d just suffered in silence. There was nothing any of them could do. Except maybe Jax could get her team to stop whatever it was they were doing to Bastion.

  Jax was on the phone with them now. Nick was getting the Ratcliffs up to speed. Joyce sat beside her on the bed just as another wave of pain bit into her legs. She folded her legs and wrapped her arms around her knees, unable to stop herself from crying.

  Joyce rubbed her back.

  “Where does it hurt?” Nathan asked.

  Selena showed them where on her shins the pain was. Nathan pushed her yoga pants up and, of course, saw nothing. “It’s not me. It’s him.”

  Nathan and his wife exchanged glances. “I can give you a sedative,” Joyce suggested.

  God, that sounded good. Except Bastion was hurt and needed Selena. She had to go to him and couldn’t do that drugged out of her mind. “No.” She threw the covers off and pushed her way through the crowd beside her bed.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa—where do you think you’re going?” Jax asked.

  “I have to go help Bastion.”

  “The fuck you do.”

  “Jax”—Selena glared at him—“if you don’t get out of my way this instant, I will relocate your balls into your throat.”

  Jax didn’t move. “No. That bastard has found a new way to get to you. He’s sneaky as hell. The team at the house can deal with him just fine.”

  “Do they know what happened? Do they have him? Are they helping him?”

  “No, no, and no. They’re looking for him. They think he got away.”

  “Then I’m going.”

  “It’ll take the helicopter an hour to get here, then an hour and a half or more to get you there. By that time, who knows what the situation will be. You’re staying here.”

  “Take the sedative,” Nick said. “If you’re asleep, he can’t keep doing this to you.”

  “So you think,” Selena said. She got back into bed—reluctantly. Jax was right. In a couple of hours, anything could happen. She’d be no more help to Bastion there than she was here, if he’d found a way to escape her team—something a normal man wouldn’t be able to do, but he wasn’t a normal man. She just wished she knew what had happened to him.

  She looked around at the crowd in her room. “I think it stopped. It hasn’t hit me in a few minutes.”

  “Nathan’s gone for the sedative,” Joyce said.

  “I’m not having a shot.”

  “It’s a pill,” Nathan said, rejoining them. “I’ll leave it with you in case you change your mind.”

  Selena was suddenly exhausted. She nodded. “Thank you. I think I’m going to sleep now.”

  Everyone left. Jax looked back before stepping into the hallway. “Don’t fall for this new game, Sel. Don’t reach out to him.”

  “Night, Jax.”

  “Call if you need me.” He stepped back into her room. “I can stay if you want.”

  “No need. I’m just going to sleep.”

  “Right.” He shut the door behind him.

  When she could no longer hear anyone in the hall outside her room, she reached out to Bastion.

  Can you hear me? Where are you? Tell me so I can help you.

  Those were the same things he’d said to her while she was here. Maybe the pain had been a ruse, as Jax feared. But maybe it hadn’t been. She was so torn.

  Bastion, talk to me.


  No response. She sat up in bed, glad to not be in pain any longer but disliking her inability to reach him. Did her lack of pain mean he wasn’t in pain either? What the hell had happened tonight?

  She reached for her cell phone and called Greer. The sound of wind came over the line before Greer spoke. “Yo. Sel. ’Sup?”

  “You tell me. What’s going on over there?”

  “Who told you anything was happening?”

  “Greer. I swear, I’ma fuck you up, feel me? Where’s Bastion?”

  Greer’s sigh was loud. “We lost him. We had him, and we lost him.” He paused. Selena waited for the rest of the news. “Aaand it looks like the search was just called off. Shit, Eden just got the dogs here, too.”

  “Tell me. Please. What’s happening?”

  “For real, how did you know anything was happening?”

  “I had an inkling.”

  “Did Bastion ask you to call us?”

  “No. Bastion’s not talking at all. I had the weirdest pain in my legs. I mean, a crippling pain.”

  “Christ. We caught him in a bear trap.”

  Selena choked on a huge wave of emotion. “Greer. God. How could you?”

  “He’s an enemy, remember, Sel? He still managed to knock us back. When we came around, he was gone, no sign of how he got out or where he went.”

  “You’ve got to find him, Greer. Promise me. Get back out there and find him. He can’t be alone wounded as he was.”

  “We’re done. We didn’t find him. It’s over. Gotta go.” Greer hung up.

  Selena pressed the cool screen of her phone against her jaw. It wasn’t over. Bastion was out there somewhere, terribly injured. She dropped the phone and leaned over her lap, covering her face with her hands.

  A memory slipped into her mind of the night Greer had sent them out to fetch Max and Hope. She’d breathed on the glass of the French door. Bastion had been there, outside. She saw him now, saw the warm breath he blew on the pane by hers. His dark eyes were so sad, so intent that night.

  Quick on the heels of that memory came another. Bastion was in her room, lying crosswise on her bed…kissing her. He’d made her ceiling come alive with an illusion of a summer evening. She’d thought that was just a dream.

  He was who she’d been hungering for all those months when she’d felt him nearby but didn’t know who or what was the source of her yearning.

  Now she did.

  Another memory crashed into her. She’d thought she was alone in the attic during Max’s wedding, but she hadn’t been. Bastion had been there, holding her, humming to the tune coming from the old record player while they danced.

  Memory after memory poured through her mind, unordered and fast, a lifetime flashing through her consciousness.

  Bastion was standing in front of her, cut up and bloodied. He made the wind stroke her face. She’d asked him to show himself. He refused. What the hell? Who had he killed to be covered in blood like that?

  She lifted her knees and dropped her head to her hands, fisting her face between her wrists. A whole slice of life she’d been missing had just unpacked itself in her mind. How was that possible? How had he stolen her memories? How had he returned them?

  They kept coming, each shoving the previous aside as all the details of every encounter filled her mind, hours of them in mere seconds.

  And then she came to the worst of all—the night he’d come to visit after Addy’s bachelor party. He’d been with her in her room, naked, starting to make love to her, until she’d stopped him. She’d sunk against the wall, feeling more broken and isolated than ever before…and he’d sat next to her. But he hadn’t stayed there. No, he’d followed her into the bathroom…he’d seen what she’d done to herself.

  Selena covered her face and cried, remembering everything about that horrible night. She saw him, in his astral form, straining to stop her from cutting herself, his ghost hands like smoke against her physical self. He couldn’t stop her. And then he was gone. Gone. He didn’t watch her draw blood, but he was there seconds later. It was him, his physical self. Where had he come from?

  He put her in a trance. That was the piece of the night she thought she’d forgotten, the bit that led her to wonder if he’d taken advantage of her that night.

  How wrong she’d been. He hadn’t. Her underwear was on the floor because he’d taken them off her to search for more scars. He’d kissed the ones he found on her hips, on the sides of her breasts, all the spots she hid from everyone.

  Bastion. Talk to me. The man, the mutant, knew her secrets. All of them. And still he’d wanted to be with her.

  He’d covered her with a T-shirt that night, then sat up with her in the shadows of her room, crying. When morning neared, he’d written something. He’d torn the page from her notebook. Odd; she’d never found a note from him.

  And then she knew exactly what he’d done. He’d put his note with her box cutter. She hadn’t looked in that pocket since that night. In fact, everything in her bathroom had been tidied—she assumed she’d picked up after herself and had blocked out the memory, as she often did after an episode. But that night it was Bastion who’d straightened everything.

  She scrambled out of bed and rushed into her bathroom, swiping her tears from her cheeks as she flipped on the lights. Her hands were shaking as she opened her toiletries bag. There was one pocket she hadn’t unpacked yet—the one she reserved for her box cutter.

  She unzipped it. The box cutter was gone. In its place was a folded piece of paper, white fringe still lining one edge. She took it out and opened it up. His handwriting was neat, small, and all in caps.

  * * *

  If you were wind, I’d be leaves to feel you brush against me.

  * * *

  If you were water, I’d sink my fingers into your cool depths to see you curl around me.

  * * *

  If you were the stars, I’d be the night to show you how you shine.

  * * *

  If you were a soul, I’d be your shadow so you’d know you were never alone.

  * * *

  If you were mine, I would love you forever.

  * * *

  Selena read it twice, three times, then stumbled from the bathroom and sat on the foot of her bed. This was the truth of what she’d felt about Bastion. He might have been the one for her, but she’d never know because he’d stolen her memories of their time together.

  And now it was too late.

  Bastion! Please!

  Nothing.

  It couldn’t be too late. He had to be at the house somewhere. What was it that the Ratcliffs had said about Bastion belonging to a legion of mutant fighters like him?

  Selena. Her name was spoken by a different voice. A rumbling baritone that wasn’t Bastion’s. Strange how she could know that even through a telepathic link.

  Who are you? she asked.

  I am Liege.

  Bastion’s hurt.

  I know. We have him. He’s healing.

  I need to see him.

  He needs to heal. I’ll send for you when you can come.

  But he’s all right. He’s safe?

  He is.

  Okay. Selena sucked in a breath, hoping her sob didn’t go across their telepathic link.

  Tell me, are you safe? Liege asked.

  She nodded. Then realized he couldn’t see her. I am.

  Good. Watch for a sign. You will know when to come to us.

  21

  Bastion squinted at the bright sunlight streaming in through his bedroom window. The first thought that came to his mind was Selena. The second was his total lack of pain. He sent a look around the room and saw Liege lounging in his armchair, staring at him. Acier and Guerre were there, too.

  How long had he been out?

  Yeah, I’m here too, Merc chimed in telepathically.

  “Why were you hiding her from us?” Acier asked before Bastion could say anything.

  Bastion pushed himself up into a sitting position. “
I told you before—it was complicated. I thought I could take some time to let her warm up to the idea of us.”

  Merc laughed. Stalking’s more like it, mate.

  “Was the Matchmaker involved in this?” Guerre asked.

  Bastion nodded. He caught the looks the guys shared. “She wouldn’t yield to the Matchmaker either. She is a stubborn woman. She suffered for it.”

  “How so?” Guerre asked.

  Bastion tapped his forehead. “Migraines. She had them when I wasn’t sending out pain signals. It had to have been him.”

  Liege looked at Acier. “Bring her here.” He mentally provided the lat and long of her location. He didn’t have a magic skill that let him divine those instantly, but once he felt an energy signature, he could always locate that on a map.

  “How did you find her?” Bastion asked. “I could not.”

  “While you were out,” Liege said, “she opened herself to you. I followed that link from you to her.”

  “Merde.” Bastion leaned into his pillows. “How long have I been here like this?”

  “Ten days,” Guerre said. “If you’re up to a shower, I can help you. You have to keep your walking boots dry.”

  “How bad was the damage?” Bastion asked.

  Guerre reached out to help him up. “Your tibia and fibula were crushed on your right leg, only bruised on your left.”

  Bastion moved to sit on the edge of the bed. “And Selena’s team? Did I—did I harm them?”

  “Shook them, for sure,” Acier said.

  “What has become of them? The ghouls were swarming that night.”

  Liege came over to help Guerre with Bastion. They hoisted him to his feet, then let him settle a minute. “Nothing. I was able to keep them inside while Merc and Acier took out the ghouls. After that, her team went looking for you but never found you. But because they’ve now come to Flynn’s attention, they’ll have to be briefed on the danger he poses.”