Kev took the stairs three at a time, boots thudding heavily down the corridors, following the sounds of the explosions. The smell, too. Hot, stinking sulphurous. The smell of the pits of hell. Smoke poured from under one of the doors in the corridor. He yanked it open.
Ronnie was tied to the bed. The canopy was on fire. He ripped it down, stomping it. Cut her loose, shoving her off the smoldering bed.
She yanked out her gag. "Edie!" She pointed toward the window, coughing and spitting. "Edie! She took her! Out there!"
The third-floor window was shoved open. Outside the gabled window was the steep, pointed roof of the three-story high solarium.
Ava was perched on the apex of the roof, her back to the very edge. Her face was black with soot. She'd dragged Edie out with her.
Edie's legs dangled limply down against the roof, her pale, filmy dress snagged on the wooden shakes. Her dirty feet were bare. Her eyes fastened on his. She wore a crown. Not a muscle moved in her face. She'd been dosed with X-Cog, and crowned, but Ronnie and the rest of them were still alive. So Ava hadn't mastered her. Behind the heaving ocean of terror, he felt fierce pride. So tough. Sweet and modest, but inside, where no one could see, the woman was tempered steel.
He heard Ronnie's gasp behind him. "Edie," she whispered.
"Get back." He pushed her away from the window. "Don't watch."
But Ronnie popped back up. She wouldn't be pushed away.
Ava laughed. "The amazing Kev McCloud. He defies death, spits at an X-Cog crown, laughs at weapons-grade explosives. But he's not laughing now." She cradled Edie against her chest, a sickening semblance of affection. "Go ahead," she urged. "Shoot me. Dr. O used to get nostalgic about how brilliant you were. You could probably calculate the position her broken body would land in, if I let go of her right now."
"I know," he said.
She tittered again. "So?"
"So let me come out there and get Edie, Ava."
"Oh? Are we on a first name basis? Don't get fresh with me, dog. I'm holding her. I have the power, remember? I have the power."
"You have the power. You have the power to stop this, too."
A strange light blazed from her eyes. "Don't condescend to me."
"I'm not," he said. "Let me come get Edie. It's over. Des is dead. All of them are. The cops are coming. See the lights? Hear the sirens? They're surrounding us. If you cooperate, Edie and I will explain to them what Dr. O did to you. You'll get the help you need. I promise."
Her laughter wheezed out. Tears streamed from her eyes. "You think this promise of life in a locked psych ward is so appealing?"
"Consider the alternative," he said.
"Oh, but I do," she said. "I've considered it every fucking day of my fucking life. You have no idea."
They stared at each other. "If you hurt Edie, I will rip you to pieces," he said, but he could feel the slack emptiness of the threat.
Ava felt it, too. "Whoo! I'm so frightened, I'm simply shaking. Shaking so hard I just might...oh my God! I almost dropped her!"
"Ava." He forced himself not to yell. "It's over. The cops are--"
"It's Larsen!" a voice on the grounds bawled out. "In the window!"
Running, shouts. "He's got them trapped out on the roof! Hurry!"
Ava looked down, then back at him. A bloody smile split her blackened face. A searchlight was trained on the women, then on Kev.
"Drop your weapons, and put your hands in the air!" a man blared, through a megaphone. "Or else we will shoot!"
Oh, Christ on a crutch. But what the hell. His gun was useless anyway. Kev lifted his gun, dropped it. Held his hands in the air--
Thwhangg. A bullet ripped out a piece of window frame. He stumbled back, reeling, and shoved Ronnie to the ground. "Stay down!"
Ava shook with laughter. "We're surrounded by cops, yes, but they're on my side! It's so funny!" she gasped out. "Oh, Kev, you mean, bad boy. Trapping us poor helpless girls out here on the roof!"
"Let me get Edie," he repeated, desperately. Thwinggg, a bullet dug into the roofing material. He flinched back, cursing.
"You and your girlfriend are just alike." Ava struggled onto her feet, dragging Edie's body up. "The one thing I can't stand is for someone to feel sorry for me. So this is what I have to say to you."
Thwanggg, another bullet carved out wood chips, made paint chips scatter. Kevin jerked back. "What?"
"Fuck you," Ava said. "All of you."
The hand clutching Edie's chest did a graceful farewell finger flutter. She fell back, taking Edie with her. Over the edge. Out of sight. She made no sound, but Kev's howl of anguish accompanied her down.
CHAPTER 40
Six weeks later...
Kev got out of the car, checking the address on the scrap of paper, though he'd memorized it the second Ronnie dictated to him. Forty-two Lake Circle Road. The paper was limp and creased from being carried around in his pocket like a love token. It wasn't. It wasn't even a message from Edie herself. But it was all he had. He clung to this fragile link to her.
He hadn't seen her in weeks. At first, he'd been arrested, locked up. He'd spent the better part of twenty-four hours writhing in the flames of hell before someone finally took pity on him, and informed him that Edie Parrish was still alive.
Ava Cheung was dead. She'd broken her back and neck on the boughs of the oak tree outside the solarium--and in the process, she'd broken Edie's fall. Edie had broken her leg, cracked some ribs, knocked her head, had some organ damage. She'd spent some dicey time in the ICU. But her family had whisked her away before he was free to go to her. To hide her from the glaring light of the press to convalesce. A decision he understood perfectly. He approved of it, too. Except that they had hidden her from him, too. And that sucked ass.
It had taken tedious days of hashing out the details before the police were convinced that he was innocent of any wrongdoing. Ronnie's testimony, and that of Evelyn Morris, her daughter Tanya, Dr. Katz and Yuliyah, the Latvian girl, had freed him. Richard Fabian, the only one of Bixby's team to survive the battle in the forest outside Sandy, had led the police to the place where Yuliyah's companions had been held captive, so all six girls were safe, and free.
They'd let him out just in time for Tony's funeral. That had been hard. But no one would tell him where Edie was, or even how she was. He begged, bullied, guilt-tripped in vain. By now, the Parrish staff wouldn't even take his calls anymore. They'd sent a big bouquet to the funeral home for Tony, though. Gee. How very fucking nice of them.
The weeks crawled by. He began to try, in agonizing bits and pieces, to wrap his mind around the possibility that Edie'd had enough of the crazy shit in his life. Improbable, deady, disgusting things, like X-Cog, like Des, like Ava. She'd had a belly full of it, and she was done.
He could hardly blame her. But she could find the courage to tell him to his face. She could cut him loose. Just let him just fall out of the fucking airplane, and be done with it. Not dissolve him in acid, inch by goddamn inch. Tortured by conflicting doubts and hopes.
He wouldn't have thought that she could be so cruel.
A wooden walkway snaked around the rocky lakeside, forming bridges over huge fallen logs, swampy areas. The air was bitterly cold. Snowflakes drifted down to dust the dark rocks. He climbed the stairs to the glassy house perched on stilts right on Franklin Lake. No security staff was in evidence, though he was sure he was being watched.
Christ, he was so scared.
Ronnie opened to his knock. She looked thin, pale. Taller, too, if that was possible in only six weeks. She'd made the jump from girl to woman since he'd seen her last. She gazed at him. "Thanks for coming."
"Thanks for calling me," he replied.
Tanya appeared in the foyer, her eyes bugged out in alarm. "Ronnie? What's he doing here? How did he find this--"
"I told him, Tanya," Ronnie said quietly. "I invited him."
"But Mother told you to wait! You know Edie's fragile right now! The last thing she n
eeds is for some crazy--"
"It's time," Ronnie raised her voice and cut her cousin off. "I can handle this, Tanya. Thanks. You can go."
Tanya subsided, sputtering protests. Kev followed Ronnie's slim, straight back through the house, impressed. Huh. The chick took after her sister. Not to be messed with.
"How is she?" he asked.
Ronnie led him through a glassed in porch along the side of the house. "Not great," she said. "She's healing, physically. She doesn't use the crutches anymore. But she can't sleep. She can't stop shaking. She can barely eat. She has stress flashbacks, bad ones. She feels awful."
"Did she ever..." He stopped, afraid to hear the answer.
Ronnie glanced back, her gray eyes shrewd. "Ask for you? Only in her sleep. When she manages to sleep. Which isn't often."
"Ah." He had no idea what to make of that.
"That was why I called you," Ronnie said. "I figured, in your sleep, you don't lie. When you're awake, you can fool yourself, or chicken out, or spout all kinds of bullshit. But not when you're asleep."
"I see," he said. "So she's spouting bullshit by day, then?"
"No," Ronnie said crisply. "She's having a hard time by day. And by night, too. And you better be careful."
Or else was the silent addendum. Not necessary, though. He'd be careful. Oh, God, yes. It was only his whole life hanging in the balance.
Ronnie opened the door out onto the back deck. A set of stairs connected to another wooden walkway that led to the lakeside.
Sharp wind blew across the dark, slate-colored water, ruffling it into chopping whitecaps. Dead white skeletons of tree trunks and white tangled root systems snaked around the shore.
Edie sat on one of the huge dead logs. She wore jeans, a thick down coat. A fur-trimmed hood was pulled up over her head, but her long hair streamed out of the hood, fluttering in the wind like a flag.
His knees were so weak, he felt like he'd sag down to the ground. His stomach churned. No more wondering. Christ, he wasn't ready.
Ronnie gestured for him to go. "Don't make me regret having called you," she warned, again.
Kev tried to respond, but his voice wasn't working. He set off in Edie's direction. The wind was roaring in her ears off the water, and he made no sound as he walked. It was second nature to him, after Dad's training. And still, she heard him. She turned when he was thirty meters away. He stopped, transfixed by her gaze. Heart thudding.
He was astonished again, by how damn beautiful she was. She was translucent. Deep, endless. Light shone through her. His angel. And her eyes, God. He wanted to fall to his knees.
At least, he hoped she was still his angel. No man could claim an angel for his own. It was greedy, selfish. Too much to hope.
He hoped anyway. But he couldn't move. He was scared stiff.
And now? He had no idea if he was welcome. He would do any desperate thing, if only he could figure out which. Should he kneel, beg, prostrate himself? Take charge, embrace her? He didn't have the nerve.
She looked like she might shatter like glass if he touched her.
One thing was sure. The message better be nonverbal, because if he tried to talk, he was going to burst into tears, and who knew when he'd stop crying. A guy had his limits, his poor dignity. Such as it was.
He had to get closer. Closer and closer to her ethereal beauty. Those bright eyes, so beautiful. So faraway. Infinitely far.
But the closer he got, the more faraway they seemed.
Edie rubbed her eyes, looked again. It was him. But she could be dreaming. Or hallucinating. Wouldn't be the first time. Though she'd found that waking hallucinations were always horrible, violent things, not the good happy ones. Which was freaking unfair, in her opinion.
She'd been struggling to separate dreams from reality. The stress flashbacks kept her zinged, which killed sleep, which drove the whole cycle deeper into a bottomless downward spiral. She'd be stirring a spoonful of honey into a mug of tea, and suddenly feel Des's pistol jabbing into her throat. Or dressing in her bedroom, and whammo, there was Ronnie, tied and gagged on the bed, flames dancing around her. She'd actually feel the knife, clutched in her shaking fist.
She had attacks of violent cramping. Her wrists felt chafed and burned, even though the scrapes from the plastic cuffs had healed. Her head hurt all the time. She was dizzy, disoriented, depressed.
And the dreams of Kev. Striding toward her over a blasted landscape, his long coat billowing behind him. Wind in his hair, light in his eyes. Love in his face. Then he disappeared. Vanished, which instantly turned the beautiful dream into an aching nightmare.
She blinked experimentally. He didn't disappear. He made her eyes sting. Since it happened, the world had been mostly in black and white. A dull gray pall over everything. Even the lake, which she loved in every season, seemed dead, lifeless. A sere wasteland where nothing would ever grow again. But not Kev. He was in full, vibrant color.
He was waiting for her to speak, but her voice was locked in her throat. She had no idea how to unlock it, so she did the only thing she could think of. She held out her hand.
His eyes flashed. He approached in a few wide leaps, grabbed her hand, and clutched it, like he was afraid she'd pull it back.
"Hey," he said hoarsely. "How are you?"
She wiped away more tears. "I pretty much suck," she admitted.
"But you're alive." His voice was rough.
She gave him a little nod. "Yeah," she whispered. "So are you."
"So am I," he echoed. "Couldn't tell from the way you've been acting, though."
She gulped. "What do you mean? How have I been acting?"
"Like you're dead," he said harshly. "Like I'm dead."
She shut her eyes against the anger blazing out of his eyes. "Oh, God," she whispered. "Kev. Please. Just don't."
Kev muttered something, in that strange, harsh dialect. "Sorry. I didn't mean to come at you like that. I promised Ronnie I wouldn't."
Her eyes popped open. "Ronnie told you where to find me?"
"It was about time someone told me something!" His hurt and anger punched through again, making her flinch.
"I'm sorry," she said, miserably.
"Me, too. Again. Fuck it. I can't help it," he said savagely. "Six goddamn weeks. I could understand it at first. You were unconscious, in the ICU, whatever. I was locked up. Everybody had more important things to worry about than my poor hurt feelings. I know that. But six weeks? Why did they all stonewall me? Did you ask them to do that?"
"Kev--"
"Because if you want me to disappear, I will." He pushed on, determined to get it all out. "If you want me to fuck off, I swear to God I will respect your wishes. But just this dead silence, shutting me out..." He turned away, looking out over the water. His throat worked. "I'm sorry," he said. "Let's try this again, from the top. I asked you how you're feeling. You said you feel like shit. Where do we go from there?"
"I could ask you how you feel," she suggested, timidly.
He slanted her an eloquent look. "Don't."
There was an awkward silence, and he looked away, digging in his jacket. He passed her a folded piece of paper. "This is for you."
She stared at it, nervously. "What..."
"From Jamal," he explained. "I've been keeping an eye on him."
Tears sprang into her eyes as she unfolded the page and read the almost unintelligible note. "Thank you," she whispered. "How is he?"
"He's OK," Kev said. "He misses you. We bonded over that."
"Oh." She swallowed. "So. Um. How is Tam doing?"
"Better. She cut it close. One bullet punctured a lung, another almost nicked her femoral artery. One more milimeter, and she would have bled out on the ground in thirty seconds. But she didn't."
"I'm so glad," she whispered.
"Me, too," he said. "Even though I had to watch her man, Valery, hanging around her hospital bed. You know, combing her hair. Rubbing her feet. Trying to make her eat. Annoying the living shit out of
her, in general. You can just imagine how that made me feel."
"Oh. Ouch," she murmured.
He shook his head. "Here I go again. Oh, by the way. Tam told me you were tough. She said I should hang on to you, before she fainted. Could have been her final words. Hell of a compliment, considering."
"Wow," Edie said faintly. That jarred with her current self-image. It almost made her laugh, but that would make her sob. Bad idea.
"I'm trying to hang on to you," Kev said starkly. "I want to, so badly. But you're like a curl of smoke, Edie. I can't get hold of you."
She looked at her hand, enveloped in his big one, and gave his fingers an encouraging squeeze. "You've got a hold of me now."
"Do I?" He turned the force of his bright, challenging eyes on her.
She looked squarely back. "Yeah."
"Then you won't mind if I do this." He cupped her face, kissed her.
The kiss was gentle, but not timid. It was intensely intimate, knowing. His hot, tender mouth slowly, mysteriously sought out her response, calling it forth with his slow, patient, irresistible magic.
And out of nowhere, ah, God. There it was. That rush of heat raced through her body. She leaned into him. The kiss got deeper, sweeter. Their embrace tighter, hungrier. His energy flooded through her. Filled her up. Sweet, sweet relief. Her chest started to shake.
They hung on to each other, swaying, while the wind whipped and swirled her hair around their heads, while the water sloshed and gurgled on the rattling pebbles of the lakeshore.
After a timeless interval of perfect bliss, Kev kissed her cheekbone a few dozen times, and spoke. "My brother Sean, and his wife, Liv. They had their own run-in with Dr. O, a few years ago."
"Yes?"
"I won't tell you the details, because it was awful, as you might imagine. But they lived. Afterwards, Sean freaked out. He ran away."
"From what?"
"Liv," he said simply. "He was afraid he might hurt her. Because of being crowned, compelled. Possessed. The stress flashbacks scared him to death." He brushed his knuckles tenderly over her jaw. "So, I just wondered if maybe something like that was happening with you."
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