Isabel’s eyes go wide, no doubt at the prospect of keeping close company with Townsend for any prolonged period of time. When I look back, Townsend’s plopped himself on the couch, head back, eyes closed, feet propped on the table, like he intends to stay that way awhile.
Isabel and I clean up quickly. With Townsend claiming the couch, we find privacy in the bedroom. I come up behind her as she changes out of her clothes. Her movements are jerky, like she’s still working off some of her anger. She tenses a little before relaxing into my embrace.
“Hey,” I whisper against her ear, marveling at how natural she feels in my arms every time. “Don’t let him get to you. We’ll work this out. With or without Townsend.”
“If he’s not going to help, I really wish it could be without.”
“You’re setting the bar too high. You can’t expect friendship when we’re traveling this road. Alliances, yes. He may be a chronic pain in the ass, but he brings his own assets to the table.”
She doesn’t acknowledge this, but I take her silence as frustrated acceptance. When we crawl into bed, I tug her close again. I kiss along her shoulder and nibble at the sensitive spot just below her ear. Goosebumps break out on her skin, and her nipples pebble through her tank top. The responsiveness of her body only adds fuel to this never-ending fire that burns for her.
When she releases a soft sigh, I roll her to face me. She seems distracted, though. Her eyes don’t reach mine, so I tip her chin up, hoping to force a better connection.
“What’s going on? This can’t all be about Townsend. Something’s been off since you saw Landon. Did something happen in there?”
She tries to roll away, but I won’t let her. I need her eyes on me. Need to read the expressions that are beginning to form a language all their own.
“Isabel. Transparency.”
“Jesus, Tristan, it’s nothing. It’s stupid and couldn’t be more unimportant next to everything else we’re dealing with.”
She turns her head away from me like she’s afraid to show me what’s hiding behind her eyes. I brush my lips down her neck, desperate to soften her or at least take her mind off whatever’s bothering her.
“If it’s taking up space in your thoughts, it’s important,” I say softly. “I’m not great with feelings, but you don’t have to hide anything from me, okay?”
“I just had so many dreams for us, Tristan. And I locked them away when you left. I tried so hard not to think about them, but sometimes they rush back and I can’t help the way it makes me feel.”
Her eyes gleam when I lift my gaze to hers.
“Tell me.”
After a long moment, she finally speaks. “Landon’s wife is pregnant. I saw them together as I was leaving. It’s why I didn’t press him after he said no. He has too much to risk.”
I don’t understand the relevance right away. But then it hits me. When it does, I’m frozen, seemingly unable to respond or move until Isabel laces our fingers together. Somehow I can feel her pain holding space in my chest as if it’s my own.
“The way he looked at her and touched her. Everything hit me all at once,” she says. “I couldn’t help but wonder what it would feel like, you know? To have something like that with you one day.”
And just like that, her vision seems to sail right into my own thoughts. Then the intoxicating and equally alarming possibility of her carrying a child. My child.
I swallow hard and concentrate on her fingers sliding back and forth between mine. I’m too overwhelmed to respond. I know I’ll say the wrong thing, because her dream is impossible. I’m not going to pour salt on the wound and tell her that.
When I brave a look into her eyes, a tiny tear journeys down the side of her face. Something happens in my chest. A tightening. A spear of determination, as if somehow I might have enough power to make one of her dreams come true.
I lean down to capture the salty drop with my lips, letting myself taste her sadness.
“I love you,” I whisper.
I can’t save her from the truth. This is the life we’ve committed to. But I can be here for her. I can love her as much as I know how to.
She folds her arms around me, and we stay that way a long time. Breathing each other in. Kissing and feeling and falling into the intimate rhythm we know well. Except when I make love to her this time, the dreams she’s held tight are infused in the act. The regret and hope and sorrow swirling between us inspire me to love her harder and hope that on the other side of the crest, those dreams can fade away. That this can be enough.
ISABEL
Trying not to make a sound, I take my spot in the window seat and warm my hands with my mug. The snow outside has melted, and pedestrians are in motion again, making short, fast strides up and down our side street. A part of me despises them in their dark jackets and side-slung bags, with jobs and friends and bills. I resent their simple problems.
The click of Townsend’s lighter interrupts my quiet survey of the street below, but I refuse to look at him. I hate him more than the morning commuters walking toward the rest of their blissfully normal days.
“So I was thinking last night,” he starts, his familiar British rasp like a bristle across my nerves. “I was thinking about you worrying over all those unsuspecting degenerates ready to inhale Felix the first minute their insurance companies clear the payments.”
“They’re not all degenerates.”
“Course not. But that doesn’t mean I care about them any more than the next person.” Of course he wouldn’t. He’s a murderer. Not the kind who’s on the path to a better life, either. “But you care, don’t you?”
I finally face him, if only to match the hint of thoughtfulness in his voice to the condescending look I expect to see on his face. Except his crooked smile seems oddly genuine.
“Jay is like that, believe it or not,” he says.
“You must be joking.”
“She did some good work at the Trinity House.”
I wince, disgusted at the suggestion. “That was a cover. Hitman brainwashing disguised as veteran rehabilitation.”
He frowns. “Wasn’t all like that. Every sorry fuck who wandered through those doors was someone she wanted to help. Maybe not in the traditional sense. But Tristan’s life would have been over when he reentered society. Discharged. Dumped back into his shitty life.”
“I was part of that shitty life, you know.”
“No you weren’t. You were in Rio fucking Boswell’s nephew.”
I grind my teeth and clutch my mug tightly. The steady simmer of hatred I feel for Townsend threatens to go into a full boil. He doesn’t seem to care.
“You don’t know a fuckin’ thing, with your privileged life,” he keeps on. “You think everyone’s got a fighting chance, don’t ya? Everyone’s got the same opportunities to live a cushy life like your parents gave you, right? News flash. The world ain’t fuckin’ like that. The life he was coming home to… Hell, he’d be better off dead anyway. Jay saw his potential and knew it’d be wasted if she hadn’t done what she did.”
“She ruined him. You ruined him.”
He jumps to his feet and goes to the kitchen, slamming the cupboard after retrieving a mug and filling it to the brim with coffee. He stands there a long time, his back to me. My heart hammers in my chest, and my eyes sting with emotion that never has anywhere to go lately. There’s no justice for the past. No stealing back what was taken away—the memories of our life together before Townsend drained them.
He finally turns and walks my way. Defensive, I swing my feet to the floor and set my mug to the side. His expression is hard. I don’t trust him. He stops several feet in front of me. His lips are pulled tight in an unpleasant wrinkle.
“You know, most of the time we do the job and walk away. We don’t have to face the ones we’re paid to deal with after the fact.”
“That’s touching,” I mutter, risking more of his anger.
He takes a harsh drag off his stub of a cigarette and
points at me with it. “Nolan Mushenko. You think you want to save the world? Maybe figure out if it needs saving first.”
“What are you talking about?”
“All the big guys have someone like him. They keep him on the books for ‘research and development’”—he emphasizes the title with one-handed air quotes—“but they’re just shady lab rats cooking up potions for people like me. If Felix isn’t what they’re promising it’ll be, that’s who will know.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“I just fuckin’ told you,” he snaps. “I’m not going to war for you, but if you want to put your life on the line for a bunch of junkies, maybe do your research first.”
My thoughts whirl, but I don’t move, wary of every morsel of information that leaves Townsend’s lips.
“Tristan says men like you never give anything up without wanting something in return.”
He laughs. It’s brittle and reeks of truth. “Maybe I’m holding out for a favor that counts, cupcake.”
When he says it, I believe him. But I don’t know what we could possibly offer him, short of Crow’s head on a plate, which seems unlikely—at least according to Tristan.
Regardless, Townsend’s given us a new lead, one that may make it worth keeping him under our roof for a little while longer. After what he told us last night, I’m just as worried about the cure as the wave of overdoses that will put it into the spotlight.
“Where do we find him?”
Just then Tristan emerges from the bedroom, any signs of the passion and understanding we shared last night erased from his features. With Townsend around, I can’t do anything to change it. Besides that, his man-on-a-mission mood suddenly matches my own.
Townsend turns his body toward him. “You got a car?”
“Yeah, why?”
“I was hoping to introduce Miss Foster to a friend of mine.”
We’re at least twenty minutes outside of Boston when Townsend signals Tristan to take an exit off Route 1. We drive a few miles past well-kept neighborhoods with tidy yards, grass deadened from a long winter. As the streets narrow, the houses look more like rundown apartments. Busy convenience stores are positioned on nearly every corner.
“I thought you said Mushenko was on the books,” I say.
“Left up here,” Townsend says, pointing toward a more promising downtown. “Chalys headquarters is in the city, but since there’s nothing regulation about what Mushenko does, they have him set up at a warehouse in Lynn. It’s right up here.”
Minutes later we’re parked on a street shadowed by a graffitied wall that supports train tracks running parallel to it. Like almost everything else I’ve seen here, new abuts the old and dilapidated. We stroll past a condominium complex advertising brand-new two-bedroom apartments on our way to an adjoining building with no signage. Several of the first-floor windows are shattered and backed with plywood.
I glance around. “This is it?”
“It’s not so bad. Don’t let the curb appeal fool you.” He bangs on the door loudly.
“Hey, man.” A young man in shabby clothes crosses the street toward us. “Can you spare a dollar?”
Townsend grimaces like the man’s presence revolts him.
After a brief hesitation, Tristan pulls a dollar out of his wallet and hands it to him. “Here you go.”
The man smiles, revealing gaps where several teeth should be. “Thanks, man. I just need like five dollars to get the bus, though. I got an interview. You’d really be helping me out. Could you spare a five, man?”
“Heaven help us all,” Townsend mutters.
The glaze in the man’s yellowed eyes and his dirty clothes betray the lie. Wordlessly, Tristan peels a twenty off his wad of bills and hands it to him, prompting the man to thank him profusely. His words seem genuine, if not his intent, but I look away. His desperation is painful to watch. Townsend rolls his eyes as the man wanders down the street out of sight.
“Felix’s first customer. Fuck me, they’re going to make a fortune.”
“I doubt he’ll be able to afford it,” I say just as the heavy metal door grinds open a few inches.
Townsend props his hand against the building and leans his face toward the opening. “Hey, Mush. It’s me.”
“Who’s with you?”
Tristan takes my hand and casually guides me behind him so his body is between me and the source of the sound.
“Got a case study for you. Don’t worry. They’re friends of mine.”
The door doesn’t move.
Case study. Friends.
Townsend’s odd words ring through my head, trying to latch on to meaning and then vanishing when the door opens wider. Mushenko is short, barely my height. His hair is a wiry brown mass that hangs unstylishly over the tops of his ears. His lab coat is more gray than white and speckled with visible stains. His eyes jitter back and forth between Tristan and me as we file inside and into the darkness.
I jolt against Tristan when the door shuts behind us with a loud clang.
“Come in. This way.” Mushenko shuffles ahead, leading us to a metal staircase illuminated in harsh white light from the second floor. “What brings you to town?”
“Thought I’d see what you were working on,” Townsend says, his tone friendlier than normal.
Mushenko laughs and rushes up the last few steps.
The windows to the outside are covered with huge boards, but the second floor is bathed in light thanks to the dozen or so large fluorescents beaming down on the space.
“I have some new things I think you’ll like,” he says, navigating between rows of crowded tables, each one covered with laboratory equipment. Some look active, others not.
When we reach his desk, he pushes notebooks and papers across the surface until a handful of test tubes are revealed. They all seem the same, with strips of masking tape and handwritten scribble. I recognize the labeling system from Townsend’s bag and shudder with the memory of being introduced to it for the first time.
Mushenko’s smile grows broad. He holds one vial lengthwise between his finger and thumb and gives it a little shake. “I call this one the Abyss. A few drops of this will increase your lung capacity by twenty-five percent. Average lung volume for an adult male is about six liters. Bump that up to seven and a half. Makes a big difference on those long swims. Navy is showing some interest in that one.” He gives it another shake before grabbing the next one. “Okay, and this. I think you’ll like this. It’s a lot like Sleeping Beauty but with some fun new twists.”
Townsend glances over his shoulder at us. “Gives all the appearances of death without, you know, death.”
I nod with a tight smile, like any of this is normal. But something about Mushenko’s unfiltered enthusiasm almost makes me want to share it.
“Right. Same effects. Dramatically reduced heart rate, breathing becomes undetectable, subject goes limp as a ragdoll. The difference—” He punches his free hand into the air, pointer finger firmly extended. “Full consciousness.”
Townsend’s eyebrows lift up his forehead. “Interesting.”
“I thought so. Just in case you want to fake it but still be part of the festivities.”
He and Townsend share a laugh. When Tristan and I remain silent, Mushenko seems to break out of his show-and-tell trance, shifting his focus to us.
Townsend follows his gaze, landing on Tristan, a secretive look in his eye. “Remember Elysium Dream, Mush?”
Mushenko nods vigorously. “Of course. Was it useful for you?”
Fresh fury vibrates through me, but Tristan wills me silent with another wordless grasp of my hand.
Townsend pitches his thumb toward him. “If you ever wondered how it works, this one’s living proof. Knocked out twenty-some years of memories. Blank slate except a few flashbacks from time to time.”
Mushenko pauses a moment, seeming to take in this surprising new information. Then he springs forward. Eyes wide, he looks Tristan up and down like a museu
m artifact. “Fascinating,” he says under his breath.
Tristan’s tense grip on my hand spreads to the rest of him. His muscles are taut. His palm is hot against mine. Except what rolls off him feels more like panic than rage. “I’d like to talk to you, if you don’t mind,” he says.
His voice is deceivingly calm.
“Sure, sure. I’d love to take some samples if you don’t mind.” Mushenko waves him toward a nearby room. If Mushenko knew what the rest of us know about Tristan’s abilities, he’d be wise to be concerned. But there’s nothing but childlike curiosity awash on his features.
Only then does Tristan release me and follow behind the man who could be our only chance at bringing back the past we lost.
CHAPTER FIVE
Tristan
My blood floods the tube, filling it in seconds. My normally steady, patient heart is racing. No amount of mental fortitude will slow it down being this close to the man who designed, or at least manipulated, the drug that wiped my memory. He seems harmless enough. So detached from the gravity of what he produces that he can hardly be blamed for the results. At least that’s what I’ve been telling myself since we walked into this sad excuse for a lab.
“You say you get flashbacks?” Mushenko flickers his gaze up to mine a moment before removing the needle and capping the tube. “Here you go.” He hands me a patch of gauze to hold against the pricked skin.
“Every once in a while. Nightmares usually. Except for one time, several of them hit me all at once. Back to back over a couple of days.”
He frowns thoughtfully. “Was there something you did to trigger such a rush of them?”
“I was injected with a heavy dose of SP-131 after getting shot by a tranquilizer dart. Got me telling the truth. Also unlocked a shit ton of my memories.”
He lowers onto a nearby stool. It squeaks under his weight. I can faintly hear the murmur of Townsend and Isabel in the other part of the lab, but I’m too eager to hear Mushenko’s theories to let them distract me.
The Red Ledger: 7 Page 5
