by Selena Scott
“I mean that I’ve known Celeste for a long time and I know how she has a way of sticking in your head. She says one little thing and it bothers you for a month. I’ve been there.”
“Right.” Sasha’s brow came down and he kicked at the dirt again. A long minute passed. Jesse watched the others inside the gas station, purchasing snacks and drinks. “I guess I was just curious about her, is all. And you, actually.” Sasha scratched at his head. “Back in Salt Lake, well, my whole family lives there, all my friends, most of whom I’ve known since elementary school. I guess I don’t meet many new people, and you and Celeste, I don’t think I’ve ever met anybody like either of you.”
“Hmm.” The gas tank clicked and Jesse went forward to put the nozzle back and twist the gas cap closed. Generally, Jesse didn’t go around talking about his past to just anybody, but Sasha had a good vibe about him. There was something innocent and sweet about him. It made Jesse want to shock him, just a little, with the truth.
“I met Celeste when I was sixteen and she tried to steal my wallet at a concert.”
“Really?” Sasha’s eyes were twice their normal size. “No way.”
“Yeah. I caught her red-handed and she talked her way out of it. I thought it was funny, really. I’d never met somebody like her. I mean, has anybody?”
“I haven’t,” Sasha mumbled.
“Anyway, she followed me around for a couple hours and after that, we were friends. Neither of us had much. So, after a while, we started to steal stuff together. First it was small, then it was bigger. Cars. And then I got caught for being a shifter and was thrown in the camps. When I got out, when the camps fell, well, pretty much everyone from my old life had scattered. Except for Celeste. She was there. She was there for me. She got me back on my feet.”
“Wow,” Sasha said quietly, obviously lost in thought. “So, you’re, like, really good friends.”
“Family is more like it.” Jesse scratched at his chin, thinking of a way to describe it. “We’re both loners. Kind of weird, I guess. We fall in and out of touch. But she always makes sure I know how to find her. She’ll always be there for me. And vice versa.”
“What do you mean she always makes sure you know how to find her?”
Jesse pursed his lips. “She’s got her ways.”
“What does that mean?”
Jesse laughed and clapped Sasha on his back. “Don’t worry about it too much. Either you’ll find out or you won’t.”
“You’re as bad as she is,” Sasha mumbled as Jesse walked back around the SUV and climbed into the driver’s seat, chuckling the whole way.
***
Eight Hours Later
Quill pressed his fingers into the wound at his side. It wasn’t deep. But it was bleeding like hell. Everything was silent and dark. It wasn’t cold because this was fucking Florida and it was never cold.
He thought of a story he’d read once, about a guy who froze to death. It had sounded like a nice way to die. Uncomfortable for a while, and then just peace and calm and sleep. But, yeah, that wasn’t in the cards for Quill. Either he was going to bleed out right now or the Director was going to come back and finish the job.
Dawn had gotten out. That was all that mattered right now. He’d done the best he could. She was free. The Director didn’t care about her anymore. Her life would be lived in freedom. And what more of a gift could Quill really give her?
He heard footsteps in the dark, on the other side of the wide, lightless room where Quill was currently lying.
His heart rate didn’t even kick up. Because he didn’t really care. He’d done what he’d been put on this earth to do. He’d had a good childhood, been loved deeply by his family. He’d met with pain and hardship. He’d made mistakes. He’d become a better man. He’d rectified those mistakes. He’d made true friends. Ones who’d cared enough about his life to try to save it tonight. He’d fallen in love. He’d loved hard and unabashedly. He’d fought for that love. He’d given and given and given for that love.
He was proud of himself for that. And that was one of the greatest gifts of all, he figured. That after so many years of shame, in a few moments, the Director would find him, end his life. But Quill would die proud of himself. He never imagined he’d be so lucky.
It wasn’t that he wanted to die, it was just that he’d never been much of a dreamer. More the practical sort. And he could read the writing on the wall. Especially when it was as clear as it was right now. He was shot in the side, lying in the dark, and the footsteps were getting closer. Those footsteps belonged to man with a gun who’d already shot him once, and was going to do it again.
He could almost count out the remaining seconds of his life based on the steady beat of the footsteps. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty. They were much closer now. Louder, but still quiet. It wouldn’t be much longer.
If there had been any hope at all, Quill would have fought. But it took all his effort just to keep his palm against the wound in his side. There was a toxin in his veins that burned sluggishly and cruelly. It wasn’t the kind of tranquilizer that would put him to sleep, but rather, a paralyzing agent. He’d tried for the last fifteen minutes to move his legs, his toes, his knees. Even to sit up. But nothing. Nothing at all.
Half an hour ago had been a very different situation. But now, Quill was almost at peace.
He couldn’t move, couldn’t shift. Death had walked twenty more steps. Almost upon him. He was going to die and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it. The end. Game over.
Try again next time.
If reincarnation was a thing, and Quill got to return to this earth, he hoped to be a grizzly bear. None of this shifter crap. He’d just be a grizzly bear who loved a wolf. He sighed. An equally impossible situation. Even in the next life.
The steps were almost upon him now. Quill used all his power to tip his head to one side, wanting to at least make the Director look him in the eye while he shot him dead. But it wasn’t the Director who stepped out of the darkness.
For a moment, Quill was completely disoriented. Because a man whom he recognized stood there. A man who was not a friend. A man with a gun.
But it wasn’t the Director. And he didn’t pull the trigger.
***
Three Hours Earlier
He couldn’t believe they were there. After all these days, all these hours, all these moments, they’d finally made it across the country and to the Director’s doorstep.
The car idled just outside the complex where the Director and his men dwelled, worked, hid. It was as depressing as one might imagine. Stubby, jungle-ish brush grew up the barbed wire fence that surrounded the compound. The gate was askew and ajar, the cracked, weedy concrete road scraped to shit in a half circle where the gate had been opened and closed a great deal.
Quill knew, from the Director’s intel, that it was an abandoned military lab. But jeez, this place was sure a fixer-upper.
“This is it?” Dawn asked, squinting through the windshield. “It looks completely deserted.”
“That’s the general idea,” Quill said with a sigh. “It’s not like anything the Director is doing is actually government sanctioned anymore. He needs facilities but he doesn’t need oversight. If it was abandoned at some point, it only benefits him if it still seems abandoned.”
“You think he’s living here?”
“Of course. He always lives on site.”
Dawn wrinkled her nose and peered again at the broken-down compound. “That’s depressing. Kind of sounds like this guy needs to get a life.”
Quill laughed. “I’ll make sure he receives your input.”
“All right,” Dawn said, turning to Quill. “Let’s go through the plan one more time.”
“It’s simple, baby. We drive in, park, and surrender ourselves. Some goon or another will take us to the Director. Once we’re there, I’ll make a
big deal about how you’re the second coming. Then, when it comes time to show off your skills, you’ll fudge on all the tests. Misidentify scents, have trouble with your shift. Just like we practiced. I’ll talk to the Director, probably privately, and it’ll become clear that I made a mistake when I was assessing you. You’re not what he’s looking for. He lets you go because he’s uninterested in your skills, he lets me go because I’m fired from my job and he’s uninterested in me as an employee anymore.”
Dawn leaned across the seat and threw her arms around his neck. “You called me baby.”
Quill burst out laughing. “That’s what you got from all that?”
“It was really something. No one has ever called me baby before.”
“Well, that’s a shame. Because you deserve to have a pet name.”
“I always thought they were silly when I read them in romance novels,” Dawn said, leaning back into her seat and pretending to stare thoughtfully off into the distance. “But now I totally get the appeal.”
“Dear Sasha never called you anything special?” Quill realized that now that he knew Dawn on such an intimate level, now that he’d loved her and held her and confessed his heart to her, Sasha was no longer the cell-deep annoyance he’d once considered him to be.
She stuck out her tongue at Quill, something he himself had taught her to do less than a year ago. “Sasha and I were young. We didn’t take the relationship seriously enough to give each other pet names.”
Quill’s eyebrows rose but he bit his tongue. The fact was, Quill would put a hundred bucks down right now on the fact that Sasha had taken that relationship seriously enough. And given half a chance, he’d take it seriously again.
But Sasha wasn’t here, was he? In fact, he wasn’t even in the next five states. The guy was across the country and Quill was the one who’d held Dawn as he’d slept last night.
Besides, when Quill really thought about it, didn’t he want Dawn to be with someone who cherished her? Who would obviously put her first? The odds were that even though he was going to walk into that complex side by side with Dawn, he wasn’t walking out of there side by side with Dawn. This was likely his very last sunset on this earth.
Didn’t Quill want Dawn to have somebody to turn to? Didn’t he want her to have someone to investigate strange noises in the middle of the night? To drive when she got sleepy? To make her that ginger stir fry she liked so much? To give her presents and a foot rub on her birthday?
The rest of Quill’s residual annoyance at Sasha just kind of dried up and blew away. Sasha was a good guy. And if he could be good for Dawn, then there was no reason to bad-mouth him. Anything that was good for Dawn was good for Quill at this point.
“He seems like a good guy, Sasha.”
Pleased surprise crossed Dawn’s face. “He is.”
“Makes good sandwiches.”
“He does.”
“Seems to really care for you a lot.”
“Sure,” Dawn said carefully, obviously trying to read Quill’s mood.
“Maybe you should visit him more often after this whole thing dies down.” He inwardly winced at the word “dies”.
“Okay…” She was eyeing him like he was tiptoeing toward lunatic territory. “Or maybe we could go visit him together. Or have him visit us in Portland.”
So far, Quill hadn’t had to outright lie to her about his intentions inside that compound. That he fully intended to never see the light of day again. He’d been able to dance around her question about whether or not he was planning something crazy. Just like he’d been able to duck her references to the future, their future. He didn’t want her to look back and think that he’d been intentionally lying to her. But he also needed to shield her from the truth. Because he knew her. And if she knew that he was about to give up his life for her, she’d be dragging him by the ear all the way back to Portland. Leaving everything with the Director open-ended. Putting herself in harm’s way again, just for him.
Nope. Not gonna happen.
Luckily, Quill didn’t have to lie because just then there was movement up ahead in the compound. A jeep was pulling up to the half-open gate, a guy in fatigues standing up out of the open top, eyeing their car through a set of binoculars.
“Look,” Quill said, his heart kicking up a notch. “They spotted us. It’s showtime.”
Dawn let out a long breath.
“You ready?” he asked her.
She nodded, her fingers automatically threading with his.
He pulled the car forward up to the gate that the guy with the binoculars was currently prying all the way open.
“This is private property,” the binoculars guy shouted.
“We’re here to see the Director,” Quill shouted back.
The driver and Binoculars looked at one another. “State your business,” the driver shouted.
Quill tightened. He’d been hoping not to have to do this part. Alas. “Radio up to him. Tell him Q17 came home. And he brought a requisition.”
The two flunkies sat in the jeep and radioed back to the Director, eyeing Quill through his windshield the whole time.
“Q17?” Dawn asked.
Quill sighed. “The name the Director gave me when I came on board. He only uses our real names every once in a while. He likes the code names because they remind us who our real family is now. He wants us to identify as part of his army, not with our pasts.”
Dawn’s fist tightened where it rested on her knee. “What a piece of shit,” she growled. “What an utter waste of oxygen. New plan. I’m going to shift as soon as I see him and tear him in two pieces.”
Quill laughed and dragged a hand down his face. “Don’t even joke about that. His people would have you tranqed and caged before you even got two steps. And then the Director would know that you were a competent shifter with a rage problem. His favorite kind. He’d never let you loose.”
“I’m just saying, this guy deserves… something. I don’t know. A swift kick to the sensitive area.”
“I don’t disagree. But just try to remember that he’s kind of holding our lives in the balance right now so maybe we don’t antagonize him?”
She crossed her arms and stared darkly ahead. “Fine.”
He chuckled again and resisted the urge to kiss her fingertips. Not while the flunkies could see.
He realized with a horrid sinking in his gut that he hadn’t kissed her goodbye. Their last kiss had been hours ago in the front seat. He’d still been inside her. Seconds before that state trooper had caught them. Jesus. It had been an absolute hell of a kiss. One for the record books. But maybe not the most romantic memory for her. He wanted to give her romance. But now he doubted they’d be alone together again before he was carted off and dealt with.
This hand-hold they were doing was going to have to suffice.
Suddenly the binoculars guy was standing up and waving them forward. Apparently they’d gotten word that Q17 and his requisition were invited inside.
As Quill drove down the long, overgrown driveway, he felt like Little Red Riding Hood on her way to Grandma’s house. Only he already knew for a fact that Grandma was actually just some psycho wearing her clothes. The Director was going to pretend to play nice. He was going to pretend to be proud of Quill for bringing Dawn in. But he was the exact same guy who’d been sending assassins after him for a week. He was the same guy who’d lock Dawn up in a cage and perform medical experiments on her for the rest of his life, given half a chance. He was the same guy who was going to exterminate Quill in a few hours for having failed so badly.
So. Yeah. Definitely not Grandma.
They parked where the guys told them to and even though Quill turned quickly to Dawn, wanting to tell her he loved her one last time, the flunkies were already there at the car doors, yanking them open and escorting them into the main building. Leaving him no time to say anything.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Dawn resisted the urge to yank her arm out of this strange man’
s stranglehold. But Quill had been extremely clear with her: she was not to show temper or strength or spunk or instinct or smarts or any interesting characteristics of any kind. She needed to be as docile and uninteresting and dull as possible.
So she let herself get dragged along behind him, allowing her feet to tangle once or twice so that the man had to hoist her up, casting disdainful looks down at her.
She could scent that he was not a shifter. She bet she could have made him pee his pants if she shifted right now. She could definitely make him regret the bruises his grip was leaving behind.
The men dragged Quill and Dawn into what looked like a main building. The compound was arranged in a U, with the main building at the bottom edge and all the outbuildings extending back toward the entrance they’d driven in through. There were very few windows in these buildings, she noticed. They were flat boxes with kudzu growing up the sides, each one blanker and more decrepit than the last. They sent shivers down her spine. They were unassuming and evil. What a creepy combination.
The two guards brought Quill and Dawn in through the front door and down a series of hallways. They passed no one that Dawn could see, but she could smell them. They were behind doors and different hallways. They were watching them, she could feel it down her spine.
Finally, they were dumped into a room with no windows. No furniture either. It was a fluorescent-lit concrete box. The breath stalled in Dawn’s lungs. This was the opposite of the mountain where she’d grown up. This was the worst humanity had to offer. The door locked behind them and she was almost instantly drawn into Quill’s arms.
“The room is probably bugged,” he whispered almost imperceptibly into her ear. “So, don’t speak.”
