Death Knell

by Hailey Edwards

  The barb struck home, and he knew it, which meant he knew Miller had a—crush wasn’t the right word, interest maybe?—in Maggie.

  “Or maybe you’re being a prick because you’re not used to sharing Portia, and now you’ve got to deal with having a part-time bestie.”

  He tripped over the curb. “Bestie?”

  “Best friend. As in the thing that Portia is to you.”

  “We aren’t humans,” he sneered. “We don’t paint each other’s toenails or book spa days together.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “I tell her every time her ass looks fat in jeans. I laugh every time food gets stuck in her teeth.” We reached the SUV, and he popped the locks. “And one time she gave me a magazine with hairstyles and let me pick hers. I had the stylist shave her bald. She cried when she saw, and I filmed the whole thing.”

  And it ate at him. It must if he had a prepared list of small cruelties lined up in his head, ready to fling out like a defense against anyone who challenged what he felt for her.

  “Forget I said anything.” I threw up my hands. “Clearly I misread the situation.”

  “Hell yes, you did.”

  The drive to the hospital was short thanks to Santiago working out his aggression on our fellow motorists. The upside was, if Wu had spotted us leaving and got suspicious, there was no way he could have tailed us without planting trackers on the SUVs. And Santiago swept for those and added each one he found to his collection for later dissection.

  With a purposeful stride, I headed toward the front desk. Santiago almost popped my arm out of the socket yanking me back.

  “What the hell?” I wrenched free of his grip. “What was that for?”

  “You can’t waltz up there and demand his room number,” he condescended to me. “You have no authority.” I opened my mouth to contradict him, and he shushed me. “No authority they would recognize.”

  “What’s the plan?” I folded my arms across my chest. “You’ve got one, or you wouldn’t have come.”

  “I’m going to hack their system.” He settled into a chair in the waiting room, removed a tablet from his pack, and passed me a dollar. “Go buy me a Coke. This is thirsty work.”

  “Anything else?” I packed as much sarcasm into the question as it would hold.

  “I wouldn’t say no to crackers, but I’m light on cash.” He shook his head. “Who carries paper bills anymore? Honestly? It’s ridiculous. Tattoo barcodes on our wrists or implant chips in our palms. Much more effective.”

  Much more invasive too. “I thought you were anti-chip.”

  “I’m anti-NSB tracking my bowel movements. A cashier’s chip would be—”

  “Just as simple to track. Each of your transactions would be catalogued through your bank and the merchants’ banks. Anyone could peek at your receipts and know which shops and restaurants you frequent or if you’re traveling.”

  “That Coke ain’t getting itself,” he grumbled, sinking into his work.

  Poor baby. I hated to burst his bubble. Actually, no. I didn’t. The occasional pop was good for his ego.

  Leaving him to his subterfuge, I scouted the ground floor in search of a vending machine. This hospital was as sterile as every other one I had ever visited. The smell was the same too, like someone canned the air in old hospitals then sprayed it like air freshener in new facilities.

  Eventually, I stumbled across a cafeteria. It would have to do. It was a nice one. Meant to be shared with patients’ family members. Parents and spouses were easy to pick out. Full plates and empty eyes. Even without the scrubs, staffers were just as easy to spot. They laughed, read books, or played on their phones while shoveling in food. You could look at them and hear the clock ticking on their breaks.

  Gooseflesh tickled my spine when I pictured Dad sitting in a place like this, waiting on me to be released any one of the dozen times I’d been admitted for testing after he found me. Neither of us talked much about those stays. Not about the clinical trials for drugs without names, not about the surgeries that removed samples of the metal from under my skin, and not about how he was the only thing that had saved me from being turned into a bonified lab rat.

  Shaking off those super-pleasant memories, I approached the cashier and paid for a fountain drink. They were out of Coke, so I stabbed the button one flavor down. After backtracking through the facility, I stood over him, waiting. When he ignored me, I sat the cup on the screen of the tablet braced across his knees. That got his attention, and the rumble pumping through his chest as he clenched the Styrofoam turned heads in the lobby.

  “Ah-ah.” I tapped the end of his nose. “Behave.”

  “Did you just . . . ?” Jaw slack, he rubbed the end of his nose. “You booped me.”

  “You deserved it.” I sank down beside him. “Did you get what we need?”

  “Ten minutes ago,” he groused, hunching his shoulders like I might boop him when he least expected.

  “We were barely here ten minutes ago.”

  “I was digging through their records earlier, remember?” He made a disgusted noise when he took a sip of his drink. “This is not Coke.”

  “You’re telling me you knew Lambert’s room number when we walked through the door, but you’re just now getting around to telling me?”

  “I was thirsty,” he enunciated clearly.

  While he had one hand full of tablet and the other wrapped around his drink, I very slowly reached between us and pressed the tip of my index finger against the end of his nose.

  Boop.

  “I will end you,” he snarled.

  “Hey,” I joked, “that’s my line.”

  Proving he had zero sense of humor, Santiago didn’t even crack a grin.

  In grumpy silence, we crossed the lobby and rode the elevator up to the fifth floor. He indicated Lambert’s room then took up position outside the door. I entered, eyes adjusting to the darkness. The teen slept flat on his back, his skin ashen but for the multitude of tattoos sleeving his arms.

  Tubes and cords snaked out his pierced nose and mouth to slither across his bed. Equipment hummed and beeped in a steady rhythm, and beside him, a machine breathed quietly for him. His seizures must have been more severe than the news reported. Conversation was out of the question.

  Part of me wondered if Wu had known about his condition, if that was why he had dismissed the idea of interviewing Lambert out of hand. He couched it as a waste of time, that anything a human had to say was banal, but I didn’t believe he was so close-minded. But it wasn’t like I could call him out without admitting I’d done exactly what he told me not to do in coming here.

  On a sigh, I exited the room and brushed past Santiago. “Let’s go.”

  “That was a quick interview.” He caught up and kept pace. “He asleep?”

  “He’s intubated.” I smacked the down button on the elevator hard enough to sting my palm. “I can’t question him.”

  “You can always try the next time you’re in the city.”

  That sounded almost . . . nice. I narrowed my eyes on him. “What do you mean ‘next time’?”

  “Portia and Maggie are staying here in Vicksburg for a few days while you and Wu go visit Sariah.”

  “Okay.” I cut him a look. “You’re staying behind too?”

  “Miller and I volunteered to keep an eye on them, yes.”

  The ride down left my stomach hovering up around my ears. It had to be that and not the question burning a hole through my tongue. “Thom’s working a case. Will that keep him here? Or will he have to return to Canton?”

  Santiago, as usual, saw right through me. “Cole will remain here. His contact has information we need, but she’s skittish. She knows you’re here. She knows you traveled together. She’s not going to dial down her paranoia until she can get him alone.”

  The hit landed, and I exhaled like his words had been a fist to my solar plexus. “So I go alone.”

  While Cole stayed here and cozied up to his contact, w
ho he had been buttering up since we arrived.

  “Sometimes I really hate you,” I murmured to Santiago’s back.

  “Sometimes I do too,” he said and kept walking.

  The worst thing about Santiago was not his cruelty but his honesty. What he said wouldn’t hurt half as much if it was a lie. He had an uncanny knack for seeing the smallness in a person and exploiting it. Cole wasn’t mine. I had no claim on him. What he did with his time, and who he did it with, was none of my business. But Santiago knew I wanted it to be. And that’s why he made certain I understood it wasn’t, and that might never change.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Cole didn’t return to the hotel that night, or if he did slip in, he didn’t make it back to our suite. To say I woke on the wrong side of the bed was too mild for the snit brewing in me. I felt turned inside out, like I was a suit put on wrong. I missed Cole like an amputated limb, and the sensation only worsened when I emerged from the bedroom to find the rest of the coterie looking anywhere other than at me.

  Santiago lounged on the couch, buried under three tablets, a laptop, and a phone. Miller sat in an accent chair too small for his height and held a book in his hands. It wasn’t upside down, nothing so obvious, but his eyes kept straying from the words to the blonde staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  The longing I glimpsed there made me grateful when a knock on the door announced Wu’s arrival.

  “Come in.” I didn’t have to raise my voice. His hearing was phenomenal, the same as the others’. “I have clothes to last another twenty-four hours,” I told him when the door opened. “After that, we’ve got to stop long enough for me to hit a dry cleaner.”

  Wu crossed to me and waited until I gave him my full attention. “I was curt with you yesterday.”

  “You did seem to have your tighty-whities in a bunch,” I allowed.

  “I’m not used to having a partner to gut-check myself against, but I am trying.” His peace offering was a chai latte and an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink bagel. “Have patience with me.”

  “You’re bribing me.” I confiscated said contraband. “I like it.”

  His smile was a hesitant thing that made me think he was being earnest. “Am I forgiven?”

  A sip of the latte made me sigh happily. “Bribe me again around noon, and I’ll give you my answer.”

  “Are you leaving?” Maggie turned from the window. “When will you be back?”

  I set down my goodies, crossed to her, and wrapped my arms around her. “Yes, and soon.”

  Hugs used to be awkward affairs. They still required coordination on my part to make sure everything fit where it ought to go. Casual affection was getting easier, but I still had a ways to go before it came naturally.

  Balance was required to maintain a healthy coterie. I was learning that, remembering it maybe, and it reminded me of being a kid. When Dad planted his food plots for deer in the spring, I would help myself to his wildflower seeds. I sat in the grass cupping the small kernels in my palm for hours on end, hoping one of the birds interested in us might trust me enough to land. None ever did. I had to hope my odds were higher with the coterie than the wild cardinals.

  Chin propped on my shoulder, she whispered, “Miller is staying?”

  “Yes,” I promised her. “He’s staying. Santiago too.”

  “Okay.” She withdrew, nodding to herself or maybe to Portia. “That works.”

  “You’ll be fine.” I willed her to believe me. “Both of you. Call if you need anything or if you just want to talk.”

  “We have your number.” After a quick glance at Miller, their gazes connecting and snagging, she turned back to the window. “Be careful, Lucey-goosey.”

  “That goes double for you, Magpie.”

  I caught Wu staring at us when I turned and gathered my things. “Problem?”

  “No,” he said thoughtfully. “Have you said all your goodbyes?”

  “The others won’t take long,” I promised. “Santiago, don’t be an ass.” I sipped my latte and burned my tongue. “Miller, don’t let him be an ass.” I raised my eyebrows at Wu. “Good enough?”

  “Yes.” His gaze touched on each door in the suite. “Good enough.”

  We exited together and stepped on the elevator. The doors rolled almost shut before a broad palm speared through the gap and pried them open. Cole stood in the hall. A short woman with black hair cascading to her waist stood behind him. Her coloring reminded me of Santiago, but she read about as predatory as a baby bunny to me. Granted, my charun power scale was skewed thanks to the coterie and Wu, but I sensed none of that killer instinct in this woman.

  I didn’t like finding them together, him wearing yesterday’s clothes, so early in the morning.

  What Santiago implied—that she couldn’t wait to have him all to herself—I liked even less.

  Hands framing the doors, forcing them wide, Cole asked, “You were just going to leave?”

  “All signs point to yes.” I met the woman’s wide-eyed stare, and she flinched. Huddling closer to Cole, she hid behind his back. “You weren’t here.”

  “I had business to attend.”

  “So I see.” I flicked my gaze to her then back to him. “You should probably get back to it.”

  Faster than I could track, he fisted the front of my shirt and hauled me from the elevator, slapping the button to close the doors for good measure. Cole loomed over me, his favorite trick, but I kicked my head back to hold his stare. Where I had expected anger, his meltwater eyes glimmered with . . . amusement. He was laughing at me.

  “You don’t know who she is, what she is, or why she’s here.” He flattened his palm against my sternum, a tiny smile forming. “You’re also growling.”

  There was nothing human in the noise reverberating through me, and that ought to worry me more than it did, but only Cole brought out these instincts in me. “I’m not a morning person.”

  He buried his face at the point where my neck met my shoulder and inhaled, filling his lungs, pressing our chests together. “You’re jealous.”

  “You’re not mine.” I gasped when his hot breath hit my skin. “I don’t get to be jealous.”

  “Luce,” he breathed my name. “How could I want anyone else?”

  That list stretched longer than I was tall, starting with how Conquest had slaughtered his people and razed his homeland and ending with the fact she had enslaved him and hauled him from his world and beyond.

  No, that wasn’t right. It ended with the bone-deep fear that despite all those things, he might view me as a watered-down version of her, an echo of what drew them together in the first place.

  As much as my name on his lips warmed me, I had to get out the words. “You’re free to choose someone—”

  “No.”

  “Cole—”

  “No.” He straightened enough to put us at eye level. “You’re mine.”

  “I want to be.” I sagged against him, the wind taken from my sails. “Yours.”

  “Call me when you finish.” The rhythmic vibrations through his chest melted my knees. “I’ll keep my phone on me.”

  “You’re purring,” the woman, who I had forgotten, yelped and stumbled back.

  An instant of blinding rage that she had heard, that she might have felt, clouded my vision.

  I sucked in oxygen then blasted it through parted lips. The urge to rake my claws down her face eased. A skosh. Not much, but enough.

  This would be the other side effect of coterie bonding. The touch aversion they were healing had gone deeper, unlocking facets of my inner charun. Mostly my protective streak where they were concerned and my possessive urges toward Cole.

  I wasn’t convinced it was an improvement, but it was done. There was no going back. If we had any hope of me learning to tap into the power at my core, this was a firm step down that path.

  “Okay?” Cole asked, understanding how close I was to losing my temper all over his informant.

  “Yes,” I hi
ssed, words more difficult to form when I was this riled.

  “This is the difference between you and her.” He drew a scarred knuckle across my jaw. “You’re fighting your instincts. You’re choosing to walk away and leave me here when you could order me to follow. You’re giving me my freedom and trusting me to honor you with it.”

  I wrapped my hands around his wrist as far as they would go. “I don’t own you.”

  The reverence in his expression shifted into a bittersweetness I could almost taste.

  “Yes, you do.” He took my hand and placed it over his heart. “For the first time since my world fell, I’m proud of that fact.”

  “Go take care of your business,” I told Cole, and this time I sounded like myself, not petulant or scorned or seconds away from committing homicide. I nudged him back so I could step around him. “I’ll call with an update as soon as I put the visit to Sariah behind me.”

  Cole leaned over and mashed the down button on the elevator. “I’ll wait with you.”

  “That’s okay.” I pivoted on my heel and started walking. “I’ll take the stairs.”

  Better I pound the steps to cool my temper than his informant’s pretty face.

  CHAPTER SIX

  We flew commercial, which surprised me. I would have thought the taskforce kept its operatives separate from the general population, but apparently not. Wu explained the private jet and, more often, helicopters, were deployed only during missions. Not for the sake of comfort or expedience.

  For once, I didn’t mind being flown. The ride was much smoother via machine than charun.

  Our ultimate destination was Butte, Montana. I had never been this far west, and the scenery was breathtaking. Right up to the point when the plane landed, we got shepherded into a waiting SUV, and Wu blindfolded me.

  In hindsight, I should have expected something along those lines. I had no doubt he wouldn’t have clued me in at all if he could have avoided it, but plane tickets and check-ins made it impossible for him to conceal our location entirely.

  “How very cloak and dagger of you.” I mourned the loss of my view more than anything. “How far . . . ” I let the sentence trail into nothing. “You can’t tell me. It would give me a means of pinpointing the location.”