Caretaker

by Laken Cane

  Heavy chains hung from the collar around his neck and the cuffs at his wrists and ankles, but he seemed almost unaware of them.

  Angus was cuffed only at his wrists. The giant’s chains had been mainly to make him seem fiercer to the audience who’d watched him.

  From the other side of the prison came distant sounds of continued fighting, but they were unimportant. At that moment, the only thing that mattered was standing right in front of me.

  I stepped toward him, my hand up, as though he might be spooked and run. “Angus,” I said, again, more calmly. He didn’t move when I slid Silverlight through his cuffs, releasing his wrists.

  Silverlight dimmed, and when I touched her tip to the sheath, she shrank obediently. I holstered her, because my left arm wasn’t working and I needed my right one to touch the bull.

  He stood stiff and silent, his shadowed face all sharp hills and deep hollows, his eyes dark and somehow…different. “Trin?” he asked, finally. “Trin?” He shook his head, hard, as though to clear it.

  “I’m here,” I murmured.

  I was there, and he was free.

  His eyes blazed suddenly and he leaned forward and grabbed me, snatched me into his arms, and I didn’t care that my arm screamed in agony or that my face was a mask of blood. I didn’t care that we would still have to fight our way off the island, that I had no idea where Al, Clayton, Rhys, or Amias were, that Angus might be taken once again.

  All I cared about was at that moment, he was safe.

  Free.

  But I’d forgotten something.

  “I thought you were dead,” Angus cried, his voice full of rust and horror. “I thought you were dead.”

  “No,” I whispered, into his skin. “It was only a moment.”

  “I was here,” he said, almost viciously. “I was here and you were dead and I couldn’t do a fucking thing about it.”

  He was close to breaking. I could feel it as surely as I could feel his flesh. But close was as far as he’d let himself get.

  I wrapped my good arm around his neck and buried my face against his heat, my blood mixing with his sweat, my lips pressed against the rapidly beating pulse in his throat. I inhaled, searching desperately for his familiar, irresistible scent.

  And I found it, buried far beneath prison filth, brutality, and a change so extreme I wasn’t sure the old Angus was really there—but he was. He was. So I pressed my lips to his warmth, and I drew in that scent, as though I could rip it from beneath the tons of shit hiding it and make everything okay again.

  But there was no time. I pulled away and he let me slide down his body. “We have to go,” I said. “We have to go right now.”

  He shut his emotions down. He flung them into a metal box and slammed the lid shut and I could see it in his eyes, that sudden blank coldness.

  The huge man with him shifted from foot to foot, his chains clanking with the movement. I drew Silverlight once more and advanced upon him, and even though he didn’t know—or trust—me, he trusted Angus. He knew Angus wouldn’t stand there and watch while a stranger gutted him.

  Therefore he only flinched once as I whirled Silverlight through the air and cut him free. His neck was raw, he was covered with gashes from the whip, and just like Angus, he sported burn marks all over his muscled body. Neither man was clothed, except in blood.

  “The mask,” Angus told me. “He can’t free his power with the mask. Can Silverlight break it?”

  Yeah, she could. I knew she could. I felt her power inside me, traveling up my arm and into my shoulder.

  The giant dropped to his knees so I could better reach the mask, and I rushed behind him, lifted all that power, and brought it down on the back of the awful iron mask.

  Silverlight cut through the iron, and the seam of the metal glowed, flaring yellow and red, and with a groan of futile resistance, the mask cracked into pieces and fell to the ground.

  His hair was plastered to his face in long, tangled strands, and when the mask fell away the first thing he did was curl his fingers into claws and almost viciously scratch his head, then scoop away handfuls of hair from his face.

  I could only imagine how agonizing it must have been for him, trapped inside that metal for God knew how long.

  Then he began digging into the base of his skull, growls of furious pain slipping free as he dug.

  I looked at Angus, horrified as blood gushed from the giant’s self-inflicted wound, covering his big hand in a crimson wash.

  “Angus,” I said.

  Angus shook his head. “He knows what he’s doing.”

  And at last, the giant grasped the end of a sharp sliver of silver and pulled it from his flesh. He flung it away with a rage-filled roar, a roar that held a slight tone of heavy tears.

  His features were thick, his hair long and dark. His eyes were such a light brown that they were almost like lightly tinted glass.

  “Words are not enough to thank you,” he told me, his voice low and gravely. He looked at Angus. “This is your Trinity?”

  Angus smiled. “Yeah. Trin, this is Leo. He helped keep me sane in there.”

  “I’m glad to meet you, Trinity,” Leo said. “He knew you were coming. The whole time, he knew you would come for him. Even when he thought you were gone.” He shrugged, as though he couldn’t understand it.

  I blinked against the sting of tears. “Of course I was coming.”

  Leo dropped to his knees in front of me—and still, he was nearly as tall as I was. He bowed his head. “You’ve saved my life. It belongs to you now.”

  I gaped at him, then at Angus, who only stared impassively back at me. “Your life belongs to you, big man,” I said, finally. “You’re free. Go home.”

  He lifted his face. “I have no home. I’ll devote myself to you now. Along with the others at your back, I add myself. I will protect you with my life.” He leaned forward and pressed his lips to my chest, right over my heart.

  I looked helplessly at Angus, unsure, but he gave me nothing.

  Leo climbed to his feet, smoothly for such a big man. “Now let’s get out of here. I’ve heard whispers the island is rigged to explode before the night is over, and we don’t want to be here when that happens.”

  I clutched Silverlight’s hilt, unable to breathe as ice slid down my spine. Finally, I understood what Jamie Stone had planned—and why he’d warned me to get the hell out of Dodge as quickly as I could.

  “Clayton and Rhys are here,” I said. “Alejandro and Amias are here. There is an entire prison full of supernaturals locked up and helpless.” I glared at them both. “And I am not leaving them here to die.”

  Angus’s smile was slow and hot. “That’s my girl,” he said, and then he put himself in front of me, and Leo took my back.

  We strode toward the Byrdcage, preparing to set our people free before the prison, the island, and everything it contained was blown into oblivion.

  I had a sinking feeling that was an impossible task, but we would try, and we would hope, and then, we would go home.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I pulled my cell out and called Clayton, but it went straight to his voicemail. The same with Rhys, though I hadn’t really expected him to answer.

  My left arm throbbed and ached and distracted me when I needed total concentration, and my attempts at ignoring it were getting harder to do.

  “What happened to your arm?” Angus asked, noticing.

  “I think it’s broken,” I told him. “Guards jumped me.”

  Rage flared in his eyes and his face hardened. “The guards have a lot to answer for.”

  Indeed they did. My injuries were the least of it.

  I expected the prison to be on lockdown, but not only was it not locked, the double doors were all wide and gaping, and the side doors were unlocked.

  And as we slipped into the prison, the first bomb exploded. The sound was a distant boom, and I stood still, squeezing Silverlight, as I waited to see if more followed.

  None
did.

  “There are sections,” I said, as though they wouldn’t know. “We’ll have to go through each one and free the prisoners.”

  “Each section is controlled by a panel in a locked room,” Angus said. “The place is old and the sections are the weakest, but it’ll take too long to get to all four control rooms.”

  “Then we’ll need to hurry,” I answered, almost running to keep up with Angus, my arm screaming with each step. Leo stayed at my back, silent and quick.

  We saw our first group of armed—but terrified—guards five seconds later. We rounded a corner and spotted them at the end of the corridor, heading straight for us.

  “Leo,” Angus said, calmly, “you got your mojo back yet, my friend?”

  Leo cracked his knuckles. “It’s trickling in. Stand aside, puny werebull.”

  Angus hooked an arm around my waist and pulled me against the wall as Leo clenched his big fists and then charged the oncoming guards.

  I yelped as they fired off a few wild shots, fearing Leo would be shot down before he could so much as taste his newfound freedom.

  But Angus tightened his arm around me. “Watch, honey.”

  The giant dropped suddenly to his knees and with a roar that caused plaster and dust to trickle from the ceiling, he punched the floor with one massive fist.

  The floor began to crack. The guards yelled and turned to run, abandoning their guns as the cracks in the floor raced toward them.

  The floor didn’t open up and swallow them, but the cracks were like fingers of electricity, sort of, like vines of killing power. The long, lightning cracks slid under the guards’ feet, and they climbed up their bodies in fast spirals of gold, then seemed to cut through them like thin, lethal wire.

  And when the guards lay scattered across the floor, sliced into pieces, the lightning flew back to its master. To the giant.

  His fist turned golden and bright, lit from the inside, as his power dived back inside him. Then he turned to look over his shoulder at Angus and me, and his face, for one brief second, was lit with a beauty so bright and wonderful that I nearly fainted to see it.

  My head buzzed, dark spots danced in front of my eyes, and I swayed—had not Angus held me so tightly, I would have fallen to my knees. I blinked, my breath whooshing from my lungs, and when I looked at him again, his face was once more the plain, thick face of his people.

  “Did you see it?” I asked Angus, my voice a squeak of awe.

  He nodded, swallowing hard as he stared down at me. He said nothing, but astonishment was in his eyes. Yeah, he’d seen.

  How long, I wondered, had that light been hidden? How long had he been masked, thrown into the darkness to wither and suffer with a silver spike in his skull?

  I hoped the island would be destroyed. It needed to be destroyed.

  We just needed to get off it first.

  We rushed down the corridor once more, and when we finally reached the first section—Bsec—I cried out with relief. Every barred cell door was open. Every cell was empty.

  Jamie—likely with the help of a few friends—had freed the inmates. All of them. He was giving them a chance, even if getting off the island was an impossibility.

  “They’re all gone,” Leo said, amazed. “They’re free.”

  “Just as we are,” Angus said. “Let’s get the fuck out of this cage.”

  I was all for that.

  We weren’t the only ones rushing toward the exit doors. The blast we’d heard earlier had most likely clued everyone in on the fact that the island was wired, and the closer to the front of the prison we got, the more people we saw.

  Guards and supernaturals alike, all racing toward freedom.

  But the supernaturals weren’t going to let their tormentors escape. The guards were taken down, one by one. The chances of anyone human escaping the island were slim.

  Which made me worry even more for my friends. Clayton wasn’t human, but what power did he have? He could shoot a gun and fight and wield a blade, but up against supernaturals like Angus and Leo, he wouldn’t have a chance.

  And Alejandro was straight up human.

  Rhys, I didn’t worry about Rhys. Or Amias.

  We burst through the front doors and found ourselves in a world of chaotic confusion. Supernaturals milled, not sure where to go or what to do. CERT lifted their guns and made a last-ditch attempt to control the situation, as did the RVPD, but then another boom sounded and the prison began to crumble.

  “Run,” someone screamed.

  I looked desperately for Clayton and Alejandro, but I could not see them in the throngs of yelling, hysterical people.

  “I can’t find Clayton,” I cried. “Or Alejandro! I can’t leave them here.”

  “Get her on your shoulders,” Angus roared.

  Leo grabbed me, lifted me into the air, and settled me on his shoulders. “Lift your sword. They will see the light.”

  I pulled Silverlight and she exploded with a viciousness that nearly knocked me off the giant’s shoulders. I lifted her high. “Clayton,” I screamed.

  People paused to stare, despite their desperation, at the awe-inspiring power of Silverlight.

  I didn’t see Clayton or Al, but I saw the occasional group of vampires feasting on downed humans. Silverlight fought to go to them, to kill them, but I reined her in.

  And then I saw Crawford.

  He herded guards and his cops in the direction of the docks, and I could only hope he’d make it to his helicopter before the entire island exploded. I had no doubt that Jamie had wired the docks, as well.

  “Captain,” I yelled, and he glanced up.

  His stare sharpened and he smiled, maybe, then he gave me a quick salute and turned back to his people. I hoped it wasn’t the end of our story.

  I liked the captain. He was one of the good guys.

  But then we passed another knot of vampires, and they cringed away from my sword’s light, looking away from their meal and up at us as we jogged by. I saw a familiar face, his mouth smeared with blood, his eyes slightly crazed from deprivation and torture.

  Gordon Gray.

  “Son of a fucking bitch,” I whispered.

  Then Rhys was there, just Rhys, because it no longer mattered that the guards might recognize him. He eyed Leo with a bit of trepidation. “This is going to hurt,” he muttered, then, “Follow me!”

  I kept Silverlight aloft all the way to the docks. The crowd became a trickle, and another bomb exploded somewhere on the small island—closer, that time. Debris was flung through the air, and sparks like tiny, hot coals rained down on us.

  Rhys pointed toward Dock 6. “Don’t wait for me,” he told Angus. “Don’t wait for anyone. Get her off the island.”

  Angus gave him a terse nod and then Rhys was gone, flying through the night, ignoring my shouts for him to come back.

  But when we made it to Dock 6, a large, sleek, black canoe waited, and I knew we wouldn’t be leaving Rhys behind.

  Leo set me on my feet and one by one, we boarded the boat. I stood, Silverlight aloft, hoping with everything inside me that at the last second, Clayton and the others would appear.

  They did not.

  And with a movement no one questioned, the black boat cut through the water, taking us to safety.

  Taking us home.

  We’d almost made it to the other side of the lake when bombs began to detonate, one after the other.

  The lake was thick with ferries, but I knew countless lives would be lost. Not everyone would have escaped. Not even most of them. I couldn’t think about the ones I’d left behind, because it hurt too much and I was already overwhelmed.

  The night was lit up with pulsing police and ambulance lights, the sky seemed alive with helicopters, and crowds of bystanders and reporters stood in crowds and watched the ferries come in.

  “What will happen now?” I whispered. “What will this change?”

  No one knew.

  The Byrdcage exploded as we climbed off the bla
ck boat. We stood safe on the other side, watching. Worried.

  Our ride slid away, and only I watched it go.

  “Trinity!”

  I looked around at the voice, my stomach easing a little when I saw Shane walking gingerly toward me. His head was still wrapped and his face was pale, but a spark of pure relief lit his eyes.

  “I saw on the news,” he said, then grabbed me, pulling me into his arms. “Fuck you, Trinity. Fuck you.”

  I pressed my lips against his and wrapped my good arm around his waist, my eyes dry but my throat full of tears I could not shed. I didn’t ask him if he was okay—obviously, he was not. But he was there.

  “I see you finally won over your hunter,” Angus growled.

  I pulled away from Shane but he snagged my hand. He gave Angus a nod. “Good to have you back. Sorry I wasn’t there.”

  “You look like you shouldn’t be here,” Angus said. He pointed his chin at the giant. “This is Leo Trask. He’s…” He shrugged. “He’s one of us now. Leo, this is Shane Copas, Trinity’s hunter.”

  I expected Shane to glare at being called such. The old Shane would have stomped and growled and argued. But he only smiled ruefully and gave the giant a nod.

  Leo held out his hand. “Good to meet you.”

  Shane released my fingers so he could shake the giant’s hand, and then he glanced around the dock. “Clayton and Alejandro?”

  “I don’t know,” I murmured. “In the end, I couldn’t find them.”

  No one said anything for a second, then Angus broke the silence. “One thing at a time. Shane, back to the hospital. Trinity, you need to get to the ER and have that arm looked at. We need to stay under the radar as much as possible, and this guy,” he jerked a thumb at Leo, “isn’t helping with that. I’ll get him home.”

  I walked with them to the captain’s little car, unsure how Leo would actually fit inside it. “We’ll figure it out,” Angus said, taking the keys. He looked at Shane. “Snag an ambulance to transport you both to the hospital.”

  Shane nodded, then swayed, his face paling a little more. I gripped his arm. “Go home, Angus. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  He stared at me, and for a second, the air was so full of thick tension I could taste it. There was a deep promise in his eyes, and I trembled when I saw it.