God, the look on Brandon’s … It would haunt him forever, or so it seemed. “My parents moved us to Alaska to escape the heat, because Brandon’s parents were intent on hunting us down. After we got settled and my parents thought I was over it and stopped watching me like a hawk, I called the police and social services and turned them in.”
The police came, because he’d called them. He’d thought about it before, had stood, receiver in hand. One time, he’d even waited outside a police station for a few hours, but had ultimately gone home.
Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree … No one’s going to want you anyway.
Beyond his parents, he didn’t have anyone. They never talked about their families, and he never found any pictures or letters or any kind of connection to relatives. And he’d begun to hate being in his parents’ company, had only taken the job of attending the out-of-state fancy boarding school so he could escape them. Although it turned out it had probably been the worst—and best—mistake of his life. It was the last time he’d seen either parent, although they’d attempted to contact him since.
He’d spoken to them exactly five times since he turned fifteen. He didn’t know how they’d gotten all the information they had about him, although really, it shouldn’t have surprised him. If they’d been normal, they would’ve been great covert operatives. But having no soul did not make for a good op, or even a good merc.
“I was put in a temporary juvie place for a few weeks before I went into my foster mom’s home. She was nice, but I didn’t make any friends after Brandon, because I never again wanted anyone to hurt that badly because of me. If I was cold and calculating, like my parents said, no one could touch me. And for a time, no one did.”
He stared down at his knuckles, still raw from where he’d punched Reid. “Reid gave me back a humanity I’d thought I’d lost.”
“He’s a good friend,” she said softly. “He understands a lot more than you think.”
“I don’t deserve good friends like that,” he said, his voice hollow, thinking about how they’d sent him in to collect his things and face Brandon alone, telling him not to screw up getting out of the building or they’d leave him behind for the police to deal with. “I’ll never forget the look on Brandon’s face after he learned how I’d screwed him. I will never forget that.”
“That’s what worried you most of all.”
He didn’t answer and she continued. “You’ve been trying to make up for past mistakes … and for the sins of your parents. But you don’t have to repent for their mistakes.”
“I’ve made plenty of my own,” he said.
“Please, Kell, you can’t do this to yourself. It’s no way to live.”
“I guess you’d know about living with guilt.”
“Yes.”
“Reid doesn’t know my whole story. No one does.”
“Kell—”
“Don’t, okay? It’s part of my past, I know.”
“I think you’ve done enough. I also think you had nothing to repent for. You were doing what you were told, what you were taught, listening to the people you were supposed to trust. They should’ve protected you, not hurt you like that.”
“I have that inside of me, somewhere,” he whispered, barely able to get the words out. And he was glad he couldn’t look at Teddie as he spoke.
“No, you don’t.” Her voice was urgent and he wanted to tell her that she was being too nice or naive or a combination of both, but he didn’t want to talk about it any longer. “Please, Kell, don’t shut down on me.”
“Forget I said anything.”
“I can’t. You can’t let yourself believe you’re anything like them.”
“I already told you, I got my team made and captured last year. Because I was working alone, looking for vengeance. I let it get too personal.”
“How could you not?” she asked as the storm raged—both outside, and inside Kell.
“I’m not supposed to.”
“Not supposed to what? Be human?”
“Pretty much.”
She paused. “It was hard for you to tell me these things. Hard for me, too.”
“To tell me things, or to hear them from me?”
“Both, I guess,” she admitted, and for the first time since he’d been shoved in this basement, his face held a trace of a smile.
Reid hadn’t stopped moving since he’d left the hospital—and Grier behind the curtain—because if he stopped, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be moving ever again. The weight on him was just too heavy and he’d do whatever he had to in order to get closer to Kell.
Finally, he made contact with Dylan, because he needed to know where they’d set up base in Florida.
“Where are you?” were the first words out of Dylan’s mouth.
“Just tell me where you are,” Reid said, in no mood for anyone’s questions. When Dylan gave him the address, Reid told him he’d be there in half an hour, hung up and turned off his phone.
When he got to the house, it was obvious that Dylan had been pacing the floors, waiting for him. Cam looked equally pissed, although he was slightly better at hiding it.
Riley was sitting quietly by the back window, her gun at her side.
“What the hell happened to you?” Dylan demanded when Reid walked in and dropped his bag by the front door of the small rental house three hours away from where the worst of the hurricane had hit. “I’ve been calling you for the past ten hours, and when you finally get in touch, you hang up on me?”
Reid ignored most of the question. “I drove part of the way.”
“Must’ve driven like a bat out of hell,” Cam commented.
“I grabbed a private plane outside of El Paso.” He’d paid a pretty penny for it too, especially since they’d had to land in some godforsaken place because no airport near Riley’s house would take them. And he’d walked for a few miles until he got cell reception. “And then I called you.”
“What. Happened,” Dylan repeated, but Reid shook off the question again, was so tired of replaying it in his head.
“Where’s Kell?” he asked instead of answering. “Something’s happened—I know it. Chambers and Crystal are both MIA.”
No one argued with him, and finally, Dylan said, “I’ve been in contact with Crystal. He’s got Kell and Teddie.”
“What does he want?”
“I don’t care—but I know what he’s getting. Me.”
Reid stared at him, saw the impossible decision there, the struggle in Dylan’s eyes. The man could give himself over easily, and would too, but there was no reassurance that Crystal wouldn’t keep picking them off, one by one. “I can’t believe how fucked-up this got,” Reid said. “Kell waited six months to come back, until he felt he was ready to handle this shit, and now he’s been captured.”
“You can’t blame yourself. Blame me.” Dylan put a cup of coffee in front of Reid, and Reid heard Cam talking about making him something to eat.
“Don’t bother,” he told him, not willing to blame Dylan for any of this. “I want to go see the house.”
“We’ve combed over it,” Dylan told him. “I’ve got Kell’s phone—with Crystal’s picture and his number. There’s nothing in there to give us a clue about where he’s taken them. They could be anywhere. With the curfews in the city, it’s going to make finding Kell that much harder.”
“No one’s heard from Chambers?” Reid asked, and Dylan paused for half a second before shaking his head no. “Fucking tell me everything, D.”
“Crystal said that Teddie’s not his responsibility.”
“Meaning that even if you turn yourself in, she won’t be spared?” Reid asked, not expecting any answer but yes.
Teddie was the one for Kell—Reid had never been so sure of anything in his entire life. If he could do something to save them both—anything—he would.
“Reid, we’ll take care of this, we’ll find them. Kell will find a way out too. He’s damned good,” Cam reminded him.
He didn’t give them any room to argue, strode out of house and down the walk. The wind hit his face, the smell of sand and beach, and he ambled on for about two blocks. As soon as he got to a place he could hide, he dialed the number he’d taken off Grier’s phone. He figured he had about twenty minutes before someone noticed he’d been gone too long.
When Crystal picked up, Reid went ahead and allowed himself to become the sacrificial lamb, because it made the most sense to him. “Take me instead of Dylan, and leave the others alone.”
“So Kell’s the real love of your life.”
“Don’t be an asshole. Kell has someone to live for. You and I don’t. We’ll make a damned good team.”
“I like the way you think. And the way you fight.” There was a long pause, and then, “I’ll consider it.”
“I’ll work off Dylan’s debt—the money you had to pay the Albanians.”
“And kill me in the process?”
“I’ve got everything to lose. I fuck up, I could get court-marshaled,” Reid pointed out. “I’ll work for you, you leave them alone.”
“Why should I do this?”
“Because you and I are a lot alike … but you knew that already. I’ll come over right now—if you’ll let both of them go.”
“Like I told Dylan, Teddie’s no longer my responsibility.”
Fuck. Reid rubbed the back of his neck and waited, until Crystal asked, “Why now?”
“Safer for everyone involved. Except maybe you.”
Crystal laughed. “Start walking toward the park. I’ll give you directions from there. And if you don’t come alone …”
“I’ll be alone. One thing,” Reid said. “You don’t tell Dylan any of this.”
“And where will they think you’ve gone? You know they’ll suspect me.”
“Let them suspect. Don’t confirm. That’s my condition.”
“Before you get any ideas about screwing with me, just know your marshal’s been very busy, running from motel to motel,” he said, and Reid’s gut clenched. “I think we’ll work just fine together, Reid.”
Reid had a sneaking suspicion they would as well.
Jack hadn’t left her side for more than a few hours at a time. Grier told him he’d have to go back to catching fugitives soon, but he systematically ignored her.
Instead, they’d already moved around to several different places, until Jack figured they’d lost Crystal’s tail.
For the moment anyway.
But when Grier’s phone started ringing, she jumped in spite of herself. Jack stared down at it. “It’s Reid.”
“Answer it.”
Jack did, started talking and then stopped to listen. His expression paled and he handed the phone to her. She tried to wave him off because, hello, she was supposed to be dead.
“He knows” was all Jack said.
Her hand was shaking as she took the phone. “Reid?” she asked softly, and there was a long pause, enough to make her wonder if the connection had been lost.
Finally, Reid spoke, his voice gruffer than she’d ever heard it. Colder too. “Grier, you need to get out of there. Find someplace safe and don’t tell anyone you’ve moved. And don’t use the car you’ve been driving, it’s probably bugged.”
“Reid, how did you—”
“Crystal knows where you are.” Reid gave her the address—and the room number—where she was staying, and she felt like throwing up. “Do you understand? Get out.”
“I will.” She paused because he didn’t hang up. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t, Grier.”
“I couldn’t tell you.”
“Yeah, you could’ve. You didn’t. Now just get the hell out of there or else the blood will be real this time.”
Teddie wasn’t keeping track of the time. Although the storm was ebbing and excess water was still seeping into parts of the basement, she ignored that in favor of listening to Kell. He was telling her stories—of him and Reid, in the foster home, on the Bering Sea—and for part of it, she closed her eyes and pretended they were back at Riley’s before they’d been taken captive.
“You and Reid have really lived,” she said after she’d stopped laughing at one story. Laughing, in the middle of all of this.
“No regrets,” he told her.
“No regrets,” she whispered back, her cheek against the wall. She imagined that he was lying in a similar position on the other side.
“Did you get some good photos today?”
She thought back to the abandoned film and realized that it didn’t matter it got left behind—the act itself was the most important thing. “I did.”
“It made you happy.”
It had. “Before that, it was easier for me to pretend my photography didn’t exist. Giving it up … well, it wasn’t just a job to me.”
“I saw your work. It’s beautiful.”
“I thought it was all I had. All I was. It felt so good to have the camera back in my hands, but it made me realize that everything up until now has been … a warm-up. A practice. But meeting you has been like a true beginning. Because it was so real and stripped down. No pretense. No lies.”
“No more lies,” Kell said, but there was no rancor, only truth in that statement.
“I never lied about the way I feel about you. But it came on so quickly. We’ve gotten down to brass tacks a lot faster than most.” And it had been fast and furious and totally unexpected, given the circumstances. “What if I’d never met you?” she whispered. “The night I ran away from Samuel … things could’ve gone so many ways, and so many of them for the worst.”
Just the thought of her running so close to Juarez, at night, alone … the men who’d killed her family would’ve grabbed her for sure if not for Reid and Kell.
They were mercs themselves, and yet they were unlike any men she’d ever met.
And Kell … the way he’d gotten her to open up … the way he’d opened up to her.
“The past doesn’t matter,” she said, finally believing that. “We’ve done the best we can—and we can’t let the past eat us alive, Kell. That’s what I’ve realized, especially now, with time boiled down like this.”
She heard the doorknob squeak behind her. “Kell, someone’s coming in.”
She turned toward the door, saw Samuel, gun tucked into his jacket.
“Remember what I told you,” Kell said.
She tucked the metal piece into her sleeve, held the edge in her palm. She’d been practicing pulling it out the entire time she’d been talking to Kell. “I will.”
She swiveled toward the wall for a second. “I just want you to know, for the record, the good in you far outweighs any bad. I may not know much, but that I know. You need to know it too.”
She faced Samuel. “What do you want?”
“Your time is up,” he told her.
She turned back to the wall. “I love you, Kell.”
She was met with silence and Samuel laughed. “I told you that you couldn’t trust him. Now get up.”
She did, sliding up the wall, careful to keep her palm semi-closed so she didn’t drop the thin piece of metal Kell had passed to her. But she didn’t walk in Samuel’s direction at all, stayed where she was, as if being next to the wall, as near to Kell as possible, would give her the strength she needed.
Samuel began to walk toward her and she fought the urge to move, to try to outrun him in some way.
You’re going to have to let him get close.
The thought made the bile rise in her throat. She steeled herself, waited until he’d closed the distance between them. Allowed him to reach out to grab her, pull her close—and then she struck.
She let the metal piece slide into her palm completely and went for it, jabbed him in the neck with
its sharp point, but he was too quick for her, blocked her and yanked the metal out. She hadn’t hit hard enough, not in the right spot—she’d ruined her chance.
“Bitch,” he spat. Threw the makeshift weapon to the ground and bared his teeth as he circled her. She kept moving but the room wasn’t big enough.
He was coming at her and she felt helpless.
She thought about Kell in the next room, handcuffed and chained to the wall like an animal. He didn’t think he was helpless.
She would fight with everything she had—and pray for a miracle. When Samuel finally managed to grab her as she went for the door, he pulled her to the floor. She was screaming—clawing—running on pure fear and adrenaline, but Samuel was far bigger, stronger, his thigh shoving hers apart, his hot breath on her neck …
She almost vomited when he unzipped his pants.
The total destruction of her family—and now this, the final desecration. How could one man hate so much?
“Don’t bother to fight, Teddie. You’ll like it. Your mother did. So did your stepmother. I know how to take care of women.”
She struggled harder but he simply smiled.
“Maybe I will keep you for myself. Given a little time, I’m sure you’ll be up to performing under me. You’ll have no choice, of course.”
There was always a choice. She finally understood that. And she did the only thing she could—she screamed as she attempted to gouge out his eyes.
CHAPTER
19
Kell had his ear to the floor, was listening to muffled sounds from Teddie’s room, and pulled at the chains around his wrists, frustrated. The sounds got louder, he heard a scuffle—and then something that chilled his soul.
Teddie started screaming at the top of her lungs, long and loud, close to a howl, and it burned in his gut, made him jump off his feet and jerk at the chains in the wall as hard as he could, not caring if Crystal heard it.
He turned, put his feet up on the wall and used his legs’ strength to pull, didn’t care if he broke his wrists—he had other ways he could be deadly.
All he knew was that he had to get to Teddie.
Slowly, the chains began to pull from the old floor. The water that had been leaking in, wetting the already damp concrete, helped a hell of a lot. He strained and pulled, had no doubt the adrenaline boiling his blood made it possible.
Night Moves: A Shadow Force Novel Page 26
