by Anna Durand
He shifted his gaze to the ground. His mouth twisted into a grimace. "Yes. I mean that conversation. You said it wasn't over, and I realized you were right."
"Great. Let's talk on the plane."
"No. We need to talk now. Alone. Please."
Ominous, she thought, but since Amador had no need to hear her misgivings, she said, "Sure. Give me a minute, though, okay?" She nodded toward Amador. "I need to have a chat with him first."
David's mouth compressed. "Why?"
"Because I'm trusting him with our lives and I need to make sure he knows how angry I'll be if he screws us over. His jet is our ride home."
"I've got a better idea." His lips quirked in a near smile. "Let's tie him up, steal his jet, and chuck him out over the Plains."
"Ha-ha." She skimmed her fingers over his cheek. "Trust me. I can handle Amador."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"No, it's a statement of fact." Christ. She prayed it was a fact, and not a self-inflicted delusion. "'Wait here."
She turned away from him.
A shiver of knowledge rattled through her.
She whirled on David, seized fistfuls of his shirt, and hauled him toward her. The force of her hold bent him over, his face inches from hers. Panic frosted her skin, iced her veins, and accelerated her pulse to mind-numbing speed. His own fear coursed into her, stronger now thanks to the physical contact. Her jaw trembled. Tears burned her eyes, tightening her lids.
His face blanched. He knew she knew.
"I can feel it," she said, her voice strained and rough. "Your fear, your anger, your absolute conviction that you're about to do the right thing. Did you think you could hide it from me?"
"No." Emotion roughened his voice too, though his expression was unreadable. "No, I — that's why I wanted to talk to you alone. To explain."
"Explain what?" She tugged him closer. Spittle sprayed his face when she spoke. "That you're abandoning me?"
"I'm not. I wouldn't."
Anxiety rippled through her from all around, not just from David, but from their friends too. Everyone worried when Mom and Dad fought. And weird as it was, that's what she and David had become. The parents of this dysfunctional family.
She released his shirt. Dragged in a long breath. Straightened her blouse. Cleansed her face of all emotion, and locked her gaze on David's, firing every shred of her anger and terror and adoration into him down their link. His eyes widened a hair, just enough to expose the fact her message had hit him, loud and clear.
"You're not coming with us," she said, careful to speak in a hushed tone, so no one else would hear. "You're staying, to fight Tesler."
"I have to." He matched her soft voice, his face as empty of feeling as hers must've been. She wasn't calm, not on the inside, but it felt like someone had poured concrete over her to contain her emotions.
"Grace, I'm sorry. I have to stay."
"Okay then."
She tromped toward Amador. David's gaze tracked her, pinned to her back like a ray of concentrated sunlight heating her flesh. She focused on Amador, and his bemused expression. The bastard enjoyed seeing her and David argue.
"I need you to listen," she told Amador. "Agree with everything I say and mean it. Then I'm going to ask you a few questions, which you will answer without hesitation — and you'll tell me the truth." She barred her arms over her chest. "Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Good. You're taking Sean and this other guy away from here on your plane. David and I are staying." He opened his mouth, but she raised one palm to silence him. "No questions, no arguments. I speak, you agree. Understand?"
"I do. And yes, of course, I will take your friends to a safe location. I know of one — "
"Uh-uh. You're taking them to my grandfather."
His brow arched. "Edward McLean?"
"He'll protect them." She recited her grandfather's cell number. He was their backup location — their emergency hideout, a old farmhouse in Kansas, purchased under a false name with cash. Grandpa would take care of them, but he wouldn't trust Amador, a stranger. "Have Sean make the call and do whatever my grandfather says. Got it?"
He nodded. His lips moved, as if he wanted to speak.
She dangled her arms at her sides, trying to look nonthreatening. If he needed to tell her something, she probably ought to hear it. "What is it?"
"You should know the entire story. About me." He ducked his head, shoulders quivering, and croaked, "My wife. She couldn't handle Evander's death. She — " He jerked his head up, his eyes intent on hers and gleaming with tears about to spill forth. Yet his voice emerged in a hardened tone. "She cut her own wrists while I was away on business. After that I… " He clutched Grace's hands, lifting them to his face. His breaths flared over her skin. "I lost my mind, Grace, which I imagine is no surprise to you."
"It's not too late to come back from it."
"For me, I fear it is. Vengeance has eroded my soul."
Vengeance. She gulped back a swell of nausea. Amador was obsessed with the same goal as David — with the same target, Karl Tesler — and his compulsion toppled him over the edge. If David couldn't relinquish his quest, would he tumble off the same cliff?
Amador and David were different men, with different temperaments. David could survive what destroyed Amador.
The lunatic in question pressed the backs of her hands to his cheeks, shut his eyes, and sighed. A tear trickled down his face, oozing onto her skin. "I long to be as good as you, as strong and compassionate. But I'm weak." He nuzzled her palm. "Please try to understand. What I've done, I believed these were right things. You've shown me I was wrong."
"You need to understand something too." She took one step toward him, cupping his face in her hands, forcing him to meet her eyes. "I can help you, Biel, if you'll let me. You can reclaim your life."
He shook his head, pulling away from her hands. "No. I've gone too far. After my wife's death, I poured all my wealth and connections into hunting down Tesler. But when I found him, he took me prisoner simply to keep me from reporting what I uncovered about him." He averted his gaze. "I stole files from the Siberian facility, and that's how I learned of you. I prayed your powers could bring Tesler's world crashing down on his head."
"They still might." She glanced over her shoulder at Sean, Nkosi, and David — whose gaze drilled into her, though he watched without expression. Her attention glued to David, she told Amador, "Take Sean and Nkosi."
"You know the other man?"
"Huh?"
"Nkosi. You must know him, since you spoke his name, but he looks at you as if he's not met you before."
"I haven't met him."
"Then how do you know his name?"
The Golden Power. That was how she knew. Tiny blades dug into her heart, nicking and scraping at her soul. "Just do as I say. Please."
"You have my word." He fidgeted, his gaze darting left and right, up and down. Finally, he drew two objects out of his pocket and held his hand to her, palm up. "These may be of some use to you."
A glass vial rested on his palm. It contained pale yellow liquid. "The serum you gave me."
"Yes."
She took the vial, and poked the other object with her little finger. It looked like a pen with no writing tip and little button on one end. "What's this?"
"An autoinjector. It holds the counteracting agent. There is a single dose left, and it will last fifteen minutes at most."
"Thanks." The serum might prove useful, somehow. She palmed the autoinjector along with the vial and slipped them into her pocket. "Time to go our separate ways."
"Where will you go?"
David's energy infused her, warm and sweet and spiced with desire. Every iota of her being called out to him. "Where I belong."
Grace watched Nkosi and Sean stride off i
nto the woods with Amador. Then she let David take her hand, leading her into the cabin. A fire crackled in the hearth. She inhaled the musty scent of dust and stale air, but the earthy aroma of burning wood overpowered the other smells. David tugged her toward the sofa, an overstuffed number with flower-print fabric. She sank into the cushions beside him.
He scooted away.
"What is wrong with you?" she asked. The instant she spoke, coils of ice unfurled inside her. What if he said he couldn't stand the taint of the Golden Power that lingered in her? What would she do then? What could she do? Wringing her hands, she bit her lip and waited.
The distance between them measured in inches, but it gaped like a vast canyon. She swore she could hear her words echoing back to her. Do not cry.
An emotion she couldn't puzzle out darkened his expression. She yearned to smooth the lines from his forehead with her fingertips, to brush away the tightening of his lips, to caress the tension out of his shoulders.
He slipped a hand over hers, his arm stretched across the gap between them. "It's not you, Grace. You're… perfect." He sucked in a ragged breath. "But I have to tell you the truth, and you won't like it. I don't expect forgiveness, I won't ask for it, but you need to know the truth."
His voice had quieted to a whisper, his tone bleak and fraught with pain. When he raised his chin, revealing his face, his expression unleashed a torrent of sympathy inside her. Never had she seen him so anguished, so defeated, so repentant. She lifted a hand, desperate to touch him, but pulled it back. Her hands trembled. She tried to rip her gaze away from his, but the connection between them imprisoned her. Their psychic link. It smoldered within them, between them.
His fingers tightened on hers. "You asked if it's true. If I killed someone."
Everything inside her froze. She stared at her fingers, at his laid atop them, at the creases of his knuckles. Oh God oh God, she'd changed her mind. She did not want to know. Her muscles went rigid, her heart pounded, and her lungs stopped functioning. David would not commit cold-blooded murder, but what if he'd been forced to kill in defense of himself or another? She could handle that. But what if Tesler pumped David full of drugs and coerced him into murdering someone? Suck it up and be here for him, like he's done for you. Yeah. She could do that. She must do it.
David retracted his hand. In a voice devoid of emotion, he said, "It's true. I am a killer."
"I — "
He pressed two fingers to her lips. "Shhh. Let me finish."
She swallowed, nodded, tried to smile but failed miserably.
"It was self-defense," he said, refusing to look at her. "Another traveler broke into my room and tried to coerce me into telling him who Janet Austen was. He thought if he found you, and delivered you to JT, then he'd be released unharmed." David withdrew his fingers from hers. Stiff and impassive, he stared into the shadows past her shoulder. "He gave me no choice, tried to strangle me. I grabbed a lamp and hit him over the head. End of story."
She reached for his hand. He yanked it away.
"David." She slumped against the sofa, deflated inside and out. "It wasn't your fault. Why would you push me way because of that? I don't get it."
"I was answering your question. But that's not the reason I… " He rubbed his hands on his pants, as if struggling to cleanse them. "Listen to me. Amador was right. There is something I've done, something unforgivable."
"You don't know what I can forgive."
His eyes had gone glassy, his demeanor so remote she wondered if he'd dispatched his mind to another world. A psychic knew how to literally let his mind wander. She lifted a hand to touch him, but drew it back. Foreboding weighed down on her, so heavy it immobilized her.
Then he turned his gaze on her. Those distant eyes, their color somehow faded, drilled into her. He spoke with a detachment that chilled her. "You've wanted to know how JT found you. Who told him your real name. Who's responsible for the torment he inflicted on you, and that Tesler wants to continue inflicting on you. You need to know who to blame, right?"
She hesitated, then said, "Yes."
But she wasn't sure at all she wanted to know. Her skin crawled. Her throat went dry. She could not tear her gaze from his, though, or stop herself from hearing what he told her next.
"It was me. I told Tesler who you were and exactly where to find you." He shut his eyes for a second, then opened them again. "I betrayed you, Grace. I am responsible for the hell your life has become. All the people who died because they got in the way of JT capturing you, I'm the one who set him loose on them."
She shook her head, unable to comprehend.
His mouth twisted into a sad, sardonic smile. "Can you forgive me now?"
Chapter Twenty-One
David cringed the second he uttered the words. He flattened his hands on his thighs, then dropped them to the cushions and dug his nails into the padding. He couldn't breathe, didn't dare glance at her. Adrenaline pumped through his veins, electrifying his nerves, scouring away thoughts. The impulse to drag her into his arms swelled and crashed against his willpower. Don't touch her, don't do it, let her process this.
How could she process it? He just confessed to betraying her in the worst way and ruining her life. No one could forgive that.
Grace's hand crept across the sofa toward him, her fingers crawling ever nearer. When the tips bumped his hand, she slid her fingers over his skin. He tried to pull away, but she clamped her hand firmer around his. The warmth of her flesh leeched into him. Her scent wafted over him, and the urge to plunge into her tempting mouth, to bury his pain and fear in her kiss, exploded inside him.
He would not do it. Not unless she gave him a sign she wanted the contact.
She was holding his hand. Wasn't that a sign?
It might be pity, nothing more.
In a soft tone filled with tenderness, she said, "I don't believe it. I will never believe it."
"You have to."
"No I don't." Her thumb caressed his palm. He longed to accept her reassurance, but steel claws scratched at his soul. Her love pulsed down their connection, warm and gentle and fueled by empathy. A piece of her burrowed into him, overpowering the shame and guilt. He could not let her do this. He could not let her forgive him.
"Go on," she said. "Tell me everything."
Once she knew, she'd hate him. She must. He deserved it.
"I wasn't strong enough then," he told her. "I — I didn't expect what they did to me. The drugs made it hard to focus, and then they'd start in with the cutting and the beating. I could deal with pain, but the chemicals, they messed with my head. I fought as long as I could. It wasn't enough." He slung his head back against the sofa. A tightness in his throat roughened his voice. "I made a horrible mistake, and I wound up giving Tesler and JT exactly what they wanted. You."
Her hand went stiff — but only for an instant. She drew his hand to her chest and clasped it between her breasts. He focused on the carpeting, obsessed with the loop of loose thread.
She kissed his fingertips one by one.
His heart wrenched. She was so much stronger than him, so much better, and he loved her with a passion he'd never known before. He would do anything to protect her.
Not quite anything. Her parents died to shield her from JT and Tesler. And what did he do? Crack.
She nuzzled his hand, guiding his fingertips over her mouth. He felt his body lean toward her, and his head slide across the cushion, ever closer to her shoulder. God, he needed her touch, her kiss, her supple flesh. To lose himself in her. To scrub away the stain inside him. But it wasn't right. He couldn't accept comfort from her after what he'd done.
"It's okay," she said.
"No." He yanked his hand away, straightened, and riveted his gaze to the knob on the front door. "It will never be okay. I should've let them kill me. That's what I swore I'd do, to save you. But I was too damn wea
k."
A gust of wind buffeted the cabin. Wood creaked. A tree branch grated across one of the windows.
Grace wriggled her butt, jostling the cushions and him. "I don't understand. You've only been acting weird for a couple months. Before that, everything was good, relatively speaking."
"I must've repressed the memory. I had no idea until — " He sank his forehead into his palms. "Until I found the video. Irrefutable proof I — "
"Wait a minute." Her voice had taken on the suspicious, no-nonsense tone he knew so well. It usually made him smile. Tonight, he couldn't bear to hear it. Though he raised his head, he watched her peripherally. She folded her arms over her breasts and studied him with squinted eyes. "The night I found you in the living room, staring at the computer like it was sucking the life out of you. That's when you stumbled onto this so-called evidence."
"It's not so-called. The video is ireffu — "
"Baloney. Videos can be doctored, or faked altogether." When he opened his mouth to protest, she silenced him with one finger jabbed upward, her arms still crossed over her chest. "Tell me exactly what you saw. I want the blow by blow."
"Grace."
"Don't Grace me. Describe the video, in detail, just the facts."
He heaved himself off the sofa, stalking to the window, and glared out at the darkness. "The file was damaged, I think. There was too much static at the beginning to see or hear what was happening. But then the picture cleared and I saw… me. Strapped to the old dentist chair. Tesler was hovering over me, the way he does, gloating about how he'd finally broken me. He thanked me for giving him Janet Austen." He squeezed his eyes shut, ducking his head. "He said JT would be very pleased with me."
He spat the last phrase, but the sourness of it coated his tongue.
From the rustling behind him, he knew she was getting up off the sofa. Her footfalls were light and quiet, almost imperceptible. Her arms encircled his chest, her warm, soft body flush against his back. Her cheek rested on his shoulder, her hair tickling the nape of his neck.
"You don't know what you saw," she murmured. "The file was corrupted, possibly tampered with. If you were drugged, Tesler might've been lying to trick you into exposing me."
