TWENTY-TWO
“I guess I was wrong.”
Opening her eyes, Zara blinked to see Art standing over her in a brilliant white suit. “You… what?”
Sitting up, she looked left and right. This was the manor kitchen, except it wasn’t, everything was the same, but not quite right. The windows were whited out, and the place was immaculately clean and everything was brand new. Everything except the couch she was lying on, it was the same one she’d sat on while talking to Art on her first trip to the manor, old, worn, and comfortable.
Art sat down next to her extended legs. “I told you to look after him,” Art said.
“You’re… how are you here?” she asked, launching herself forward to wrap both arms around his neck.
“Oh,” he chuckled and returned her hug for a few seconds. Patting her back, he took her shoulders to ease her away. “You are the one who shouldn’t be here.”
That didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense. Shaking her head, she pulled up her knees to bring both of her legs around Art. Twisting, she leapt to her feet to rush for the door. “Where’s Brodie? He’ll want to—”
Yanking open the door, she was met with brilliant white light and nothing beyond. Slamming the door, she squeezed the handle as tight as her closed eyelids.
Game Time. Cuckoo. One day. The end.
“I told you to look after him.”
Spinning around, she backed up to the door. “I’m dead. This is…” She’d never believed in an afterlife; she’d never given it much thought. But it was the only conclusion that made sense. Why they were in this familiar place that wasn’t the manor. Why she was looking at a dead man.
Glancing down, she saw a loose silk white dress hanging on spaghetti straps to the floor. Curling her toes, she knew her feet were bare, but when she touched her hair, it was fashioned into some fancy up-do.
“I didn’t say goodbye to him,” she said. “He needs us, he’ll never make it through this. He has no one left.”
“Should’ve thought of that,” Art said, rising to his feet and sliding his hands into his pockets. “You let us all down. You were supposed to be his normal.”
“You think I wanted this?” she demanded, shoving away from the door. Moisture stung the corners of her eyes. “I didn’t want to leave him. I love him.”
He grew stony, and an icy breeze swept around her calves. “Not enough,” Art said. “I sacrificed my life for you to have each other, and this is how you repay that?”
“You’re mad at me?” she asked, edging over to him. “I did everything I could, everything I could for him.”
“I told you to be normal. I told you to give up all the macho bullshit.”
“We had to find out, had to know what Kahlil knew about Future’s Hope—”
“You think that matters?” Art asked. No longer cool or accepting, this man was angry and his scowl hurt her heart… if she still had one. “You think one incident twenty years ago was enough to lose your life for? He’s all alone, Zara. You left him alone!”
“No!” she said, slamming her hands onto the back of the couch. “I supported him! The Kindred is his life! He needed me!”
“He still does!” Art said, rounding the couch. “You think he’ll survive alone? He lost his parents! He lost me! You’re all he has left!”
She knew that, and the skidding tears wouldn’t slow. Falling against Art, he took her into his arms and soothed her by stroking her hair. “It’s ok,” he said, soft again, more like the Art she needed. “I told you he needed you. I told you to be with him. That you weren’t like her.”
“Cuckoo,” she said, pushing away. “Is she here?”
If the Atlas warehouse had claimed Mischa’s life, Zara could face her murderer. “I haven’t checked the newest residents,” he smiled, touching her cheek bone, stroking her as Brodie would.
Getting the chance to talk to Art again made this transition easier. “Are you happy?” she asked. “Is this a good place? You get to be with your sister, your brother-in-law. You know the truth. You know every truth.”
His smile grew warm. “I do.” He nodded and turned her to lift her onto the back of the couch where she’d once sat. “I know he will make it if you are with him. I know he needs you. I know I left him in your care.”
Trembling, she sucked her lips around her teeth to chew on the lower one for a second. “What if I’m not enough? What if I can’t get him through?”
His confidence didn’t waver. “You can get him through anything,” Art said. “But you can’t do it from here. You need to go back to him. You need to make him see that his priority one is you.”
Heavy sorrow made her crave her love. “He’s lost everything. I thought I would lose him, too, when he grieved you. I worried that Grant’s death would push him over the edge, that I might lose him for good.”
Art cupped her chin and tipped her head up to look her in the eye. “You’re doing just fine. That door needs to stay open. Without you, he’s lost.”
Her head began to spin, and she closed her eyes to try to regain her focus. Her ears were pounding. “Tell Grant I’m sorry.”
Art frowned. “Grant?”
Zara opened her mouth to ask questions, but a heavy black cloak fell over her consciousness again, and her mind was erased.
TWENTY-THREE
It was warm. Whatever was over her body was clamping her down tight, and she didn’t appreciate being restricted. Picking up one leg, she attempted to kick but found herself sluggish and slow.
“Art,” she croaked, trying to seek the answers the celestial ambassador had. “Art…”
“She’s awake.”
The words were filled with anticipation and hope, and as she forced her eyes open, she was met with a flurry of movement, though it took her a few seconds to realize the formless shapes encroaching on her were bodies and none of them were Art.
After a few more blinks, she saw Thad nearest, Brodie behind him, and Tuck at his back. “Where’s Art?” she asked, and the men shared a frown. “He was just here.”
Thad tipped his head toward Brodie to explain in an aside. “Hallucinations are common in near-death experiences. People often see dead relatives, bright lights, sometimes it’s a familiar place. Typically, patients mention a feeling of euphoria or despair.”
Hallucinations. Was Art just a delusion created by her dying mind? Standing at the end of the bed, Zave drew her eye, his brow was furrowed in what had to be concern.
That made her attempt a smile. “Xavier,” she whispered. “Were you worried about me?” She got a kick out of that because he rarely looked at her and spoke to her even less.
“I’m not usually present when the women wake up,” he said.
She had no idea what that meant or if she was even supposed to know. Given what she’d just been through and this family’s penchant for cryptic, she didn’t waste time sweating it at this moment.
Taking in her environment, she recognized the ceiling and the bed, but couldn’t figure out when their bedroom had become a common room.
“Beau, why are there so many people here?”
Tuck answered. “We had a pool going about whether Thad was shitting us about his day job. But he came through and patched you up good.”
“I feel heavy,” she said when she tried to push up and failed to sit.
Brodie pushed Thad out of his way with a forearm and sat on the bed beside her. “You’re gonna stay right there.”
“You’re doped up,” Tuck said. “You’re probably feeling pretty high.”
“This close to my beau, I always do,” she said, turning her smile to Brodie, who leaned over her to squeeze her shoulders. “Why am I doped up?”
“The bullet sliced through the periphery of your liver and lodged in a rib. It will need a few weeks to heal. But you’ll be good as new,” Thad said.
“The bullet.” Events were still jumbled. It took her some time to put the disparate pieces together. “You saved my life,” she sai
d, flashes of what had happened in the warehouse crossed her mind’s-eye. She’d believed that she was going to die. She’d said goodbye to Brodie and everything, which might explain the grimace on his face and the negativity radiating from him now.
“You bastards clear out of here,” Brodie said, smoothing his rough fingers along her cheekbone.
The others left them alone in the bedroom, except when the door closed, Brodie still didn’t speak. She wanted to know why he was brooding but was so tired that she doubted her ability to probe him.
“You saved my life too,” she said, her eyes closing again. “If you hadn’t found me when you did—”
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to get the image out of my head,” he said, flattening his palm on her cheek. “The explosion, the fire, all that smoke… we were still half a mile away, but…”
“You knew it was Atlas. Going back there must have been difficult.”
“We got your message… I didn’t give a fuck where it was, I gave a fuck that you were alone. What the fuck were you thinking—”
“Caine told me that she was there and that she had someone meeting her, someone with a boat,” she said. Digging her nails into his arm, she pulled and forced him to help her into a seated position.
If she remained lying down, she would fall asleep again. The exertion of sitting up was enough to make her rest on the pillow Brodie adjusted behind her. If her rib was damaged, she was pleased Thad had loaded her up with painkillers, otherwise getting into this position may have hurt a lot more than the dull throb she felt around her diaphragm.
Brodie wasn’t finished chastising her. “You should’ve waited.”
“It all worked out.” Maybe it hadn’t ended without a hitch, but it had ended. “Have you seen her, I mean… did she… make it?”
Zara had taken life before. Though killing Elvis was self-defense, she could probably argue the same about Cuckoo. But it had to be a head fuck for Brodie that his current girlfriend had killed his ex.
“Tuck did a drive-by, there’s nothing of the device left, and we already made sure that the van wasn’t traceable. Kraft says there’s nothing in the police system. They’re not gonna waste their time tracking down something that far away from anything worth protecting. I don’t think anyone even saw or reported the fire.”
That worked out in their favor because if Art’s blood was still there, then the blood of the goons Brodie had killed would be too. They didn’t need anyone sniffing around. It paid to have a cop keeping an eye on things for them.
Cuckoo would most probably have been taken out by the blast, but even if she made it out alive, she wouldn’t last long without medical attention. The remaining Game Time devices were under lock and key in the manor weapons room, and the viruses untouched in cold storage. The world would carry on oblivious to how close they’d come to annihilation, yet again.
“Is Kahlil dead?” she asked, rubbing her hand down Brodie’s forearm then locking their fingers together as he nodded. “Caine?”
He shrugged. “He’ll live to fight another day… we think.”
That kind of ambiguous answer made her nervous. “You think?”
“Thad says it doesn’t look like there was enough blood loss to suggest Caine had died.”
She’d tied off his leg, and he’d said he would take care of himself. “No body?” she asked.
“No sign of him,” Brodie said.
Caine wasn’t the most imposing threat. “Sikorski will want to know where his device is.”
“He can want all he likes,” Brodie said. “You were right about the suitcase. It was empty… We think Sikorski pulled out of the deal, leaving Kahlil high and dry. He was the banker, wasn’t he? Don’t know what happened to Leatt, probably scurried away when Sikorski pulled the money.”
“Man, you’re thorough,” she said. “How long was I out?” That they had time to return to the scene, check everything out, and clean up suggested they hadn’t been pacing by her bedside.
“A day. Thad kept you under because we knew you’d be a terrible patient.”
A terrible patient, but she was a better one than he would be. She sighed, instead of picking a fight. “This isn’t over?”
“It is for you,” he said.
She didn’t expect him to say that and certainly not in such a decisive tone. He pulled the blankets from her body, kicked off his shoes, and slid in beside her. “You’re taking me off the board? I proved myself, didn’t I? I can be a valuable member—”
“Our most valuable members are alive ones,” he said, taking her hips to slide her downward. He coiled an arm around her head, giving her cheek something to rest on as he gazed down at her. “You’re gonna get better, and when you’re up to it, I’m taking you away. Out of the country, just like I promised.”
She didn’t know what had brought this on now, but she didn’t like it. “You can’t. There are too many variables. We have to find out what Sikorski is up to. Caine is still out there. Leatt too. There are people who want to take us down and—”
“Enough,” he said, stern and impatient. “Let it fucking go, Zar. You almost died. Do you get that? If we hadn’t found you or that bullet had been an inch any other way…”
“I risked my life because it’s right. I risk my life to do what has to be done. I risk my life to make you proud.”
His expression changed. Anger morphed to intrigue, but he was still frowning. “You think that’s what you have to do to make me proud? I’m proud when you come home without extra holes in your body. I’m proud when you’re smart, level-headed, and have plenty of backup.”
“I couldn’t let her go,” Zara said. It would’ve been too much of a risk to just walk away or wait while Cuckoo’s cohorts got closer with every passing second. “Someone needed to take responsibility and… you loved her once, in your own way. I wouldn’t put you in the position of having to take her down.”
“You didn’t think I’d do it.”
When he left the bed, she lost his support so flopped down. Her vision was lost in the mound of pillows she fell into and the hair that fell over her face. Brushing them aside, she turned her head to see him standing near the end of the bed with his back to her.
“You would do whatever needed to be done, I know that,” she said, sorry that he thought she’d doubted him when that wasn’t the case. “But I love you, and it’s my responsibility to protect you from pain, and not just physical pain. Killing her yourself, after all you’d been through with her, the guilt could’ve eaten you alive.”
Spinning around, he wasn’t consoled by what she’d said if his expression was anything to go by. “Do you know how many people I’ve killed? How many men, full of potential, with their lives in front of them that I’ve taken away from their families and kids? You think I couldn’t put a bullet in one dumb bitch who—”
“Your dumb bitch,” Zara said. “She wasn’t a stranger. She belonged to you once. She loved you.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” he said, moving in her direction. “To protect you, I wouldn’t blink. I’d put a bullet between my own damn eyes if it made you happy and kept you safe.”
“A man will do almost anything if you threaten the thing he loves,” she muttered his words to herself, and the possibility that she could be used to hurt Brodie terrified her. “I want you to live forever, that will make me happy.”
“I’ll get our team working on that,” he said, sinking onto the bed again. “I would’ve done it.” He took a section of her hair and let it float through his fingers. “I’d have killed her and I’d have been proud of doing it if it kept you safe.”
He wasn’t the only one who felt that way. “That same drive that you have in you, it burns in me. As much as you want to protect me, I want to protect you. It’s not a weakness, it’s a byproduct of real love.”
“Real love,” he said.
She smiled. “That’s what we have, baby,” she said. He left the bed and went into the walk-in, so she guessed t
hat part of the conversation was over, and he wasn’t in the mood for mushy. “There’s still one thing you haven’t told me.” Since he was out of the room, she raised her voice, but she had to get an answer to her burning question. Something she had to know before her next near-death experience. But Brodie didn’t respond, so she just called out, hoping he’d find it harder to avoid answering while he wasn’t distracted by physical contact. “What did you and my dad talk about when you went inside with him?”
Brodie didn’t reply. She guessed he was ignoring her and probably hoping she’d pass out again. Except when he came out of the walk-in and started toward the bed, she recognized his determination, he was intent on something.
“I haven’t looked at this for twenty years,” he said, focused on his closed fist that had something inside.
She felt like an idiot for not checking how he was doing after learning what had caused his parents accident. “Oh, God, beau, I’m sorry.”
She tried to sit up again but couldn’t. He didn’t help her up when he came to kneel at the side of the bed. Leaning against the bed, he rested his upper arms on the mattress. With both hands clasped around something, he put his closed fists on her abdomen.
“What is it, baby?” she asked, running her hand over the top of his head. “Is it about your parents?”
“Yeah, I guess,” he said, focused on his hands. “And yours.”
Opening his hands gradually, he kept them hovering over the item he had left sitting on her stomach for half a second before pulling both hands away. Resting on top of her was a small, red leather box.
“What is that?” she asked, but she knew what the cube shape looked like.
“It was my mother’s,” he said. “And I went in to talk to your father to tell him I intended on giving it to you. Open it.”
Her hands were shaking, but it was contrary to her nature to refuse his orders. So with the bottom in one hand, she pulled until the hinge gave, and she was looking at the most beautiful vintage ring of diamonds set in platinum with a single princess cut diamond in prominence at the front, held in place by four corner prongs.
Cuckoo (Kindred Book 3) Page 28
