For the first time in his life he believed Tanya’s hype. He was the monster everyone thought him to be. Power surged through him, waiting to be called on. All it took to hold it in check was the memory of what she had done to Sybil. To Cross.
To him.
Kale felt no fear, no hesitation. He did exactly what Tanya had taught him to do. Exactly what he knew she always wanted him to do. With one small push, the men and women surrounding him dropped their weapons. They were lucky he didn’t tell them to put the barrels to their heads and pull the triggers.
It didn’t matter. She could believe she’d won. She could believe Kale was still her puppet.
Hell, maybe he was.
The wide, empty entrance to the building was full of shadows. He sensed her there, but he couldn’t see her until he crossed the threshold. At the sight of her, all his plans, all his anger dissolved. Even in the shadows her blond hair glowed like gold in firelight. He had always loved her hair. The way it smelled like flowers and the way it flowed like warm silk as it swept across his body when she took him.
“I missed you, Kale.” She held out her arms.
He closed the gap between them and fell into her embrace. As she wrapped her arms around him he sighed in contentment. He held on to her tightly, afraid if he let her go she would disappear. Afraid he would.
Tanya pulled back just far enough to kiss him. For a moment he forgot why he was there.
“You came to me. I wasn’t sure you would,” She caressed his face. “Why did you leave me Kale? How could you do that to me?”
He had an answer to that. Didn’t he?
He fought to remember what had seemed so vital only moments ago. She was a drug to him. He forgot everything but her when she was near. Then his brother’s voice sounded in his head, begging him to wait. To stop. Telling him they could do this together. Utah, Jude, Maizey, and all the people who were counting on him. His friends.
His friends.
He moved away from her, squeezed his eyes closed briefly. Despite wanting her, he took a step back. He needed to do this quickly or he would never do it at all. “You brought Cross in. You planned on using him like you used me all these years. That wasn’t the deal. Cross is off limits. You changed the rules. I can’t let you do that.” Kale never felt braver than he did with those few words.
She undid him with a giggle. “Oh my. You can’t let me? Since when do you tell me what to do Kale?” Her smile vanished replaced by an ugly sneer. Gone was the woman he lusted for. There was only a vicious viper poised to strike. “You have no rights here. You never did.”
Tanya walked a small circle around him, as if judging his worth. “Let me tell you exactly what is going to happen here, Kale. You will either help me bring Cross back in, or you will help me kill him. The choice is entirely yours. You are mine, Kale Delancey, since the time you took your first breath to the time you take your last. I will dictate how you live and how you die, and you should thank me every day for that privilege.”
Kale had heard variations of the same speech all his life, but this time he wasn’t locked in a cell. This time she couldn’t make good on her threat to kill Cross if he didn’t cooperate. This time Kale had a choice.
But standing there in front of Tanya, he found it more difficult than he had imagined to make that choice.
He couldn’t think! There was too much noise in his head, too many people crowding his thoughts. The world was so very big and so terribly intimidating. Not at all like he’d imagined it would be. He almost wished for his small windowless room, if only for the quiet it provided.
“Why do you always make it so difficult Kale?” Tanya took his chin in her hand and held it. He looked into her eyes. A small predatory grin played upon her lips. “Tell me what I want to hear, darling, and everything will be all right. Just say the words and Tanya will make it all better.”
“Was any of it real?”
It clearly wasn’t the answer Tanya wanted. “Was what real? What are you talking about?”
“I loved you. I still love you. Did you ever love me? You’ve said the words, but did you ever mean them? Did you ever feel them? Was any of it ever real for you, or was I nothing more than a thing to you. No more important than that girl you slaughtered in front of me.”
Tanya made a face, annoyed with him. “For God’s sake, Kale there isn’t time for this. If I didn’t love you, why would I be doing any of this?”
“I’ve asked myself that very question almost every day for the last ten years. I’m not sure what you feel for me, Tanya but I’m beginning to understand it’s not love. It never was.”
“I’ve had enough. I was going to forgive you. I was going to be lenient with you when we got back. But if you insist on making this more difficult than it has to be, fine. We can play it that way.
“I wanted to take Cross alive, but you need to be taught a lesson. You just killed your brother, Kale. Robert, take him and let’s get on with this.”
Kale knew Robert was there, hiding in the shadows. He could’ve pushed him, he could have killed him, but he had wanted to trust Tanya. He had needed to know.
He understood now.
The soft spit registered in Kale’s ears, and then with a thought and a small flick of his hand there was nothing.
He took a moment to enjoy the silence in his mind.
Tanya stood exactly where she had been. Her unmoving eyes were focused just behind where Kale had been. He turned to where Robert stood, tranquilizer rifle aimed at where Kale had been and a dart with a red tassel suspended in mid-air. The bright orange explosion that had propelled it out of the firing chamber was frozen just behind it.
“That’s new.”
Kale turned. Cross and Maizey were framed in the doorway. His brother walked slowly toward him, apparently unaffected. Maizey, however, halted in mid-stride, with her wild red hair around her face like a fiery halo. Frozen in a moment of time.
“You just stopped time, Kale. How did you do that?”
“I didn’t know I could do that. Why didn’t I stop you too?”
“Same reason you can’t push me, I guess. Can you unstop it?”
“Yeah, I’m not sure how I know that, but yeah I can. I thought I told you not to follow me. She means to kill you Cross. I didn’t come here to be with her. I came here to stop her.” Kale touched the dart meant to incapacitate him. It moved. He turned it around so it was aimed at Robert.
“You can’t stop her,” Cross said. “She’ll kill me when she figures out I won’t do her bidding. She’ll never let you out of that cage again. You have to know that. This will never be over if she lives.”
“I know.”
“I can do it if you want. I know this can’t be easy for you.”
Kale passed a hand in front of his brother’s eyes. “You can’t see.”
Cross caught his hand. “Everything has a price. But for the first time since I lost my sight, it’s all perfectly clear. I’m not letting you do this alone. We finish what we started ten years ago, or we go down trying. We are stronger together.” Cross gripped his hand.
Kale felt the power that coursed through him. Through them. “I’m not as brave as you,” he admitted.
“You don’t need to be. You saved me all those years ago. It’s finally my turn to return the favor.”
“I don’t want more people dying because of me. Because of us.” Kale wanted it to be over. He wanted to go someplace quiet and just be. Cross understood that. He was the only one who ever understood.
“I know.”
“I can push her. I can tell her to forget about us. She can’t look for us if she doesn’t know we exist.”
Cross shook his head. “Would that balance the scales? Bring justice to everyone Tanya has hurt?”
“Would killing her do that? It won’t give you back your eyes, or me the last ten years. Why do we need to kill her, Cross?”
“Because she deserves it!” Cross yelled and his voice cracked.
Kale felt the emotions his brother had tried so hard to keep hidden come to the surface. They were like a raw wound, open and bleeding.
“She deserved it when we were fourteen and she tried to keep us in a cage. She deserved it when she used our mother, just to make us. God, Kale I’m trying like hell to understand you. I get that she was all you had all those years. I get the feelings you have for her, but are those feelings stronger than what we have? Are they worth the people in those tunnels who think of you as family now?”
Kale watched Tanya as Cross spoke. He was right, Kale knew that, but Cross was wrong about why. “No, she’s not worth all that.”
“Then kill her. Now. Or I will.” Cross scooped the ambient energy surrounding them into his hands to form a glowing, surging ball of deadly light. The temperature surrounding them dropped as the ball of light in Cross’s hands grew. All his brother needed to do was direct that lethal force toward Tanya. It was exactly the same way he had killed all those people when they tried to escape ten years ago.
It was the power Tanya craved when she tortured Cross.
“No! This is why. This! No more death, please. She’s made me hurt so many people. Made me kill them.” The memory sickened Kale. “I’m not like you Cross, I never was. I don’t understand how you could kill her, as if her life means nothing. You’re more like her than you know.”
“I’m nothing like her.” Cross stepped toward Tanya, still frozen in time.
“She uses people. I always knew she used me. It’s who she is. She doesn’t care who she hurts as long as gets what she wants. She killed Sybil King right in front of me. Put a gun to her head and blew her brains all over me, just to prove she owned me. To prove I would do anything for her.”
“And you think I’m like that?”
“You’ve killed people to get what you wanted, to get out. Most of them never hurt us. Now you want to kill Tanya when there’s another way.”
“I killed them because I knew if we stayed we would end up dead, sooner than later. You knew that too. I don’t kill because I like it, I killed to stay alive. I would still kill to stay alive, to keep the people I love alive. Pushing Tanya won’t change her, Kale. Can’t you see that? If she lives she will still hurt others like us. Other innocents like Sybil King will die because we didn’t do the right thing now. Like you said, it’s who she is. Some people don’t deserve a second chance.”
Kale heard the truth in Cross’s words. If he didn’t want more innocent blood on his hands, he knew what he had to do.
“I can do it,” Cross said. The power seethed in his hands, waiting for him to call on it. “We can do this, just like we tried to do before. She doesn’t get to win this time.”
“No. It has to be me. But not like this. She needs to know it was me.” Kale nodded toward Maizey as he took the knife from the sheath on Robert’s hip. “Go to Maizey and hold her still. She’ll keep moving when I start time again. You need to be prepared for Tanya’s people in the courtyard. I pushed them. If something happens to me, the push will stop.”
“Nothing’s going to happen to you, Kale.” Cross didn’t want to, but he did as Kale asked. He let the energy still pulsing in his hands scatter above them. For one moment the abandoned warehouse, with its decay and neglect, was beautiful in the starry fallout. Cross wrapped his arms around Maizey protectively.
Kale embraced Tanya, with the knife positioned between them.
Get ready, he thought to Cross. Then he leaned in close and whispered in Tanya’s ear. “I have loved you since I was sixteen. I will always love you.”
With his thought, time returned. Tanya surged forward, only to be held in place. Her face registered confusion, and then anger. Kale heard Robert collapse behind him as the dart meant to sedate Kale found its mark.
“How? What did you do?” Tanya fought against Kale but he was stronger. He whispered to her and she calmed. He then moved away just enough so he could place the knife in her hand.
“I can’t kill you, But Cross is right there is nothing good inside of you.” Tanya stared at the knife, as if trying to figure out what it was she held. Kale knew her confusion wouldn’t last long. He had mere moments to do what he had to do. The right thing, despite what his brother thought.
“You’ll use me to get to them. You will always use me. I can change that.” He stepped back and raised his arms out from his sides.
And then he pushed her.
“Kill me.”
“No!” Cross screamed.
Kale kept his eyes on Tanya as the push took hold and her face went blank. She brought the blade up and down again in a deadly arc. Agony stabbed through Kale’s chest at the same time he heard a single gunshot.
Tanya’s face creased in pain and surprise. She teetered forward, pushing the knife deeper.
Kale fell on his back, with Tanya on top of him. After the first shock, there was only numbness.
He sensed Cross calling out to him. He felt his brother’s grief but most of all he felt Cross’s life. He had kept his promise. Cross would be safe now from Tanya. Everyone would be safe.
After all those years of being terrified Tanya would kill him, he finally understood death wasn’t something to fear. It was to be embraced.
Kale struggled to take one last breath, and then he gratefully embraced his death.
Chapter 43
SEARING PAIN IN Cross’s head crippled him. His chest was on fire as he tried to breath. Not his pain.
Kale’s.
Kale!
The pain dissolved and the connection between them was severed.
Kale? Talk to me!
Someone’s hands were on him helping to stand. Maizey.
Gunshots and screams from the courtyard.
“Kale’s hurt.” Maizey’s voice was a forced calm Cross couldn’t begin to feel.
“Where?” His hands searched frantically in front of him. “Where is he?” A soft unmoving shape. His hands found his brother’s face. “Kale? God, Kale?”
A familiar energy appeared in Cross’s mind.
“Vic? Oh thanks the gods, we thought you were dead!” Maizey’s voice sounded relieved, but all Cross could think about was Kale so still beneath his hands.
“Not yet, sweetheart. Not yet and I would like to keep it that way.” Vic’s deep voice held no trace of its usual humor.
“Vic? What’s happening? Kale won’t wake up. What about Tanya?” Cross tried to contain his anxiety. “Where the hell did you come from?”
“First things first. We still aren’t out of this. Maizey, can you handle the company coming in hot from the front courtyard?”
“My pleasure,” Maizey said.
Cross felt a flicker in his mind. Kale. On the floor. He found his brother’s limp hand and clasped it. Like a ghostly touch, the faint burning in his chest told him Kale was still alive.
As suddenly as it began, the battle in the courtyard stopped. Everything was calm. Quiet. That didn’t make him feel safe. It scared him.
“What’s happening Vic.” Cross was having difficulty concentrating, despite the quiet.
“I shot Tanya. But not before she got Kale. We need to get him some help and fast.”
“He’s not dead. Just tell me he’s not going to die, Vic.” Cross sensed Vic kneeling on the other side of Kale. Felt his ghost touches in his head as he examined Kale.
“Why did he do that? Push her to kill him?” Vic said.
“He believed if he was dead, Tanya couldn’t use him to hurt anyone, anymore. Particularly me. The idiot.
“I told him we could do this together!” Tears spilled down his face as anger dissolved and grief took its place. “I just got him back, Vic. He can’t die now. He can’t.”
“I’m not about to let that happen. Not if I can help it.” Vic pulled Kale into his arms.
“I can help,” Cross said. “I can take some of his pain, share his injuries.”
Maizey burst in, breathless. Energy radiated off of her in great spiking waves. “You�
�re in no shape to share anything, Cross. He’s near death.”
“Do you think I care about myself?” The fourteen year old boy who didn’t care who he killed surfaced. Rage bubbled through him, and for once he did nothing to dampen it. It right, it felt good. It felt powerful.
“Cross,” Vic’s voice made it through his wrath. “What are you doing? We aren’t the enemy.”
Energy seethed and whirled between his hands like a living thing. It wanted to be used. It wanted to be set free. And Cross wanted that too. He longed for it.
Maizey laid a gentle hand on his arm. “If you do this, love, then Tanya wins. None of us will walk away from here. No one but you. This won’t save Kale. You will have made his sacrifice meaningless.”
Cross flinched from her touch. “I don’t care.” But his words held no conviction. The energy between his hands lessened a bit in its intensity.
“Yes you do.”
“After everything he’s done for me, after all these years. Now, when he needs me most, I can’t help him?”
“He’s not dead yet, love,” Maizey said. “If you take on his injuries you both might die. If you release that energy you’ve gathered, you will prove to all those people at the Department you are just as dangerous as they believe you to be.”
“If he dies, I don’t think I could live with myself. Maybe I deserve to die. Maybe I am dangerous.”
“We need you Cross. Those people in the tunnels need you.”
She was right. He hated it, but she was right. As his hatred and frustration drained away into defeat, the energy dissipated, leaving Cross groundless. He staggered and Maizey was there, her hand keeping him steady. “I don’t know what to do,” he admitted.
“Yes, you do. Choose life, Cross. Choose us.”
He gulped down tears, fear and raw pain. Vic shouldered his way past them carrying Kale, Cross let Maizey take his arm and help him follow them down into the dark.
The dark, where hope and fear existed side by side.
* * *
KALE OPENED HIS eyes. Just little slits against the light. His mind was like a blank slate. No memory. He blinked and rubbed the grit from the corners of his eyes. His hand felt heavy, as if it didn’t belong to him. He let it fall back to his side. He didn’t know where he was and it didn’t occur to him to be bothered by that. This wasn’t his room at the department. To big, to light and airy.
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