by M. Malone
I could hear the quiet conversation between Noah and Ian. Rafe was still glaring at Ian as if he wanted to cut the other man’s throat out, but Noah was at least getting on with it and focusing on the task at hand. “Okay, so I have Max meeting us at the airstrip. If anyone can get to Matthias, it’ll be him.”
Ian sat back. “So now you’re contacting my agents without checking with me first?”
Electric charges skipped between the two. The corner of Noah’s lips ticked up in a slight smirk. “For starters, I know that you’re perfectly well aware that Max is meeting us. After all, he’s the logical choice. He’s an agent, well trained for the field, but also an excellent psychiatrist and I know that Max doesn’t believe in deception unless necessary, so he’s already called you. And see, if you hadn’t approved it, he wouldn’t be there because he is still your agent, so you can stop the posturing and being pissed off now. I didn’t go behind your back. I asked a friend for a favor. Besides, don’t you think you owe me by now?”
The muscles in Ian’s jaw ticked, and his lips twitched slightly. The thing was, I couldn’t be sure if he was pissed or if he wanted to laugh. From what I’d heard, Ian had been the one to recruit Noah, or rather, Noah had saved his life and Ian hadn’t returned the favor.
Becoming an agent was one of those gifts or favors one could probably do without. And from all the stories, I knew Noah was responsible for making Ian the new head of ORUS, the new Orion. So their relationship was complicated at best.
Rafe turned on the projector map on the plane and focused in on the areas surrounding the landing strip. The airstrip was just a stone’s throw from Toronto.
“Okay, I’ve mapped all of his likely exit points, given everything we know about him. The problem is the kid has been all over the world. So his hidey-hole could be anywhere, but hiding in the city makes sense. There’re lots of exits and easy ways to blend in. And we all know the kid is good at blending. It’s easy to get lost in the world right off-the-grid when you’re in the city. He obviously has experience living underground and going undetected. He’s going to be really difficult to find. Noah, you know him best. What is his favorite city? I think we all know that Toronto is just a jumping-off point.”
I wasn’t sure I agreed with that. I spoke up tentatively. “Actually, all Matthias ever wanted when we were kids was to get back to his gran. I know I’ve been gone for a while now, but I think he’d go somewhere quiet. I also think he doesn’t want to hurt anyone, so very likely he’d sequester himself somewhere far away from people where nothing would be able to trigger him. The city is too dangerous for everyone around him.
“The chaos, the noise… I honestly doubt he’s going to head straight to another city right away. You saw him. Something triggered that, breaking him. And even though he hurt Noah, you saw the look on his face. He was torn up. He wouldn’t want to do that to anyone else.”
I stood up and walked to the map. “I think a wooded area is the first place to look for him. Like an isolated cabin or something.”
Ian pondered for a moment before speaking. “Well, we could get another team up here, do a sweep outside the city and look for evidence that he’s gone to ground. I mean, it is Canada. It will take a while to get to the woods. It would be easy to get lost.”
Rafe shook his head. “Look, I get what you’re trying to say, but experience has taught us well. Every ORUS agent has a number of safe houses. They’re all designed to be in the city with easy access to weapons and backup. That will be his first move until he’s had enough time and distance to set up identities, passports, and people that will help him find a way out.”
I shook my head. “I’m telling you, he’s not himself. I don’t think he’s going to settle in to his training. That’s what he would do if he was in his right mind, which stabbing Noah clearly indicates he’s not.” I nodded toward the map again. “If I were him, I’d be in the woods.” I pointed to the most likely area. “Not too far in because he’ll want access to weapons. And let’s face it, it’s Matthias, so he’ll want internet access. I’d suggest this area to start.”
Noah studied us all. His shrewd gaze settled on each of us, assessing what we’d said. Finally, he said, “Ian, get a team up here. We’ll chase on this potential lead, but in the meantime, we stick to the plan assuming he’s going off his trail. Only then, the doc might be able to tell us more.”
I knew it was Noah’s show. After all, thanks to whatever I’d done, he’d been stabbed. But I knew they were wrong, all of them. And they were going to waste valuable time in getting to Matthias.
Matthias
My eyes popped open.
Something was wrong. Slowly, I reached under my pillow for the smooth handle of my knife. On the bedside table sat my gun. I strained to listen, but I heard nothing. It was quiet. Too quiet. As if someone had shrouded my cabin in a sound barrier. It was never this quiet.
Birds, animals—they liked to talk at night, so something was disturbing them, scaring them, making them be quiet. Slowly, I shifted out of bed, weapons at the ready. Someone was here. The question was were they friend or foe?
Well, let’s not wait and find out, shall we? It was dark inside my bedroom, except for the alarm clock. It was a new moon tonight, so there was no light. It meant I’d need my night vision.
Or, you’re overreacting because normal people don’t think about night vision goggles.
Though, normal was overrated Even as I deftly avoided the loose board in the floor that always creaked, I strapped my knife to my leg. Maybe I was overreacting, but I’d been well trained for a reason. It had kept me alive for years. So I’d just go ahead and listen to the hairy eyeball instinct that was basically trashing the hotel room of my brain right now.
Something was off. I could feel it. The hairs on the back of my neck were telling me something was out there. Someone was out there.
And then the light on my alarm clock flickered. What the hell? Okay, someone was here, and they were fucking with my electrical grid. Considering that I had solar panels and a generator, that shouldn’t happen.
So it was going to be like that? I could take it. Quickly, I tossed on a long-sleeved shirt and jammed my feet into my tennis shoes. Under my pajamas, I strapped another knife to my ankle. As much as I enjoyed knives, they were close combat tools. For unwelcome intruders, I’d need guns. They were faster.
And simple rule of thumb was that you didn’t play with your food, unless you had endless amounts of time. And as I didn’t know how many people were here for me, now was not the time for playing. Now was the time for getting shit done.
I palmed the piece on the bedside table. Over the doorframe, I silently grabbed my TAC-338A rifle and set it on my shoulder. My second piece was already on the waistband of my pajama bottoms. That would cover me if the trouble was closer than expected. Long range and short-range capabilities would do the trick. At least until I knew the lay of the land.
I opened my door as silently as I could. The average person wouldn’t have heard the door. But if ORUS, Blake Security, or the Family were here, they would have felt that. A subtle shift in the energy of the air, and they would know I was coming.
Fair enough. Let them know. They’d made the mistake of coming after me, so it wasn’t going to end well for whoever it was.
On the balls of my feet, I silently treaded down the hallway. On the other side of that door was a wall covering the length of the hallway, which was perfect for situations like this when I needed a moment to decipher what I was dealing with. I went left toward the front of the house. From that vantage point, with my night scope on and the large open windows, I could see clear into my front yard. I could see who was coming for me. I could see who was out there.
As I walked, it was still way too silent. Was it Rafe? Had he come after me for what I did to Noah? I only remembered hitting him in the shoulder, but my memories weren’t reliable. Had I stabbed him more than once? My gut soured and cramped at the thought of my friend being go
ne.
You did that. Deal with it.
Or maybe it wasn’t Rafe. Maybe ORUS had come after me in retaliation? Maybe they’d decided I was too dangerous? They’d come to put me down and all that, or to take me alive and force me back in.
Yeah, they could feel free to piss off. That would be a fight to the death. There was no way in hell they were taking me alive.
The other option was the Family, though they weren’t as well trained as ORUS, and definitely not as well as Blake Security. Unless they had contracted out. If they’d gone the hired assassin route, I had no idea what was waiting on the other side. It was likely they’d want me alive so they could torture me first, because that’s how they rolled.
Yeah, real nice blokes.
At the end of the hallway, with my night scope on, I saw nothing though. Not a thing. No car, no evidence of someone outside—nothing was disturbed. I pressed the button at the side of the goggles that gave me heat signatures. Save what looked like maybe a deer and a couple of smaller animals, maybe squirrels, there was nothing.
Or are you hiding from the ghost of your past? Maybe there was nothing to be afraid of. Maybe there was nothing out there.
No. My instincts were screaming. Something was wrong.
Or are they in the house already?
Motherfucker. My head had been so fucked up since a couple of days ago. Was it possible I’d slept through the original breach?
No, you’re better trained than that.
Yeah, I was better trained than that, but I also knew better than to attack my best friend. The one man who had given me family, who had shown me real love.
Yeah, you knew better, but you still did it. You are not in control right now.
Fuck. And if I wasn’t in control, that meant I might have woken up late. The danger was already in the house. Quickly, I spun and adjusted my footing to bring me back toward the rear of the house, the kitchen, the dining room, and the living room. As I approached the end of the hallway, my heart beat a hundred miles an hour. The thud, thud, thud sounded like a cannon in my ears. Had I fucked up?
There’s no point crying about it now. Get on with it, mate. Waste these motherfuckers and then we can get on with another day.
As I tiptoed into the kitchen, I frowned. There was no one in the dining room. No one in the kitchen, which only left… I rounded the corner and sure enough, there were the heat signatures I was looking for. Two of them in the middle of my living room. They smelled familiar. Quickly, I tapped the button at the side of my goggles again. Damn it, the night vision didn’t allow me to see enough.
I pressed the button on the side of the goggles once more, bringing my vision to normal. I snapped my fingers twice. And that brought the lights up, naturally dimmed to reading level.
Yeah, I had a clapper, so what? I’d always wanted one when I was a kid. I remembered seeing those commercials when I’d been at my gran’s on those late night shows she’d like to watch.
The moment the lights flickered on, I knew. I knew why it had been so silent. A ghost and a shadow were in my cabin. And the ghost had a knife to the shadow’s throat. I didn’t even think. I just reacted. I fired a shot. It went right by Rafe’s right ear. Rafe’s eyes went wide as he jerked Gemma to my left.
Then I was on the move. I didn’t think. I didn’t blink. I just had to get her away from him. I learned once, long ago, just how fast Rafe de Marco was. And from that point on, I’d been working to make myself faster, better, stronger.
Rafe had more experience on his side, but I was deadlier. Rafe had no choice but to let Gemma go as I went for him.
I let the pent-up irritation and anger from the last couple of years flow through my veins. And now I was letting it all out. Fists, elbows, knees. We traded them back and forth. All the while, Gemma said nothing. She just kept the hell out of the way. Rafe blocked most of my hits, but then I got a good, clean jab to the face. His head snapped back, and his curse was low. “Motherfucker.”
And then he came for me.
A fist landed in my gut. I’d seen it coming. I had tightened my muscles, but fuck all, Rafe could deliver a punch. I countered it with an uppercut, and he staggered back but stayed on his feet.
Kicks, punches, more elbows. I had the perfect elbow number two lined up, but Rafe blocked it. I countered and then we were rolling right to the ground.
Enough was enough. I was done fucking around. I was going to put this motherfucker in the grave now. I reached for the gun in my waistband, and Gemma screamed at me, “Matthias, no.”
Rafe put his hands up. The weird thing was the fucker was barely breathing hard. My finger twitched on the trigger.
Rafe’s expression was half snarl, half grin. “Do you feel better now that you’ve gotten that out of your system?”
I blinked at him. “What the fuck are you on about? Shut up and get on your knees.”
Gemma’s voice was soft. “Matthias, listen to me. We’re not here to hurt you. Rafe isn’t here to hurt you.”
I could hear her voice, and it sounded soothing and believable. But Rafe had had a knife to her neck. I’d had to help her, even though she was a liar. Even though she’d hurt me. I had to help her. I had to.
“Noah, Doc, Ian, come on out.”
Noah?
What the fuck? The sliding glass door opened, and three men walked in. I scooted back, keeping the gun pointed at Rafe. Two of the people were familiar to me. The other one, I didn’t know.
Noah held his hands up. “Listen to me, kid. You don’t want to do that.”
I shook my head. “Nah, mate, you’re dead. I killed you. Didn’t I? I stabbed you myself.”
Noah smirked. “Rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated. You know I’m a tough bastard to kill.”
“No, you’re dead. You’re dead.” The memories were swirling in my head, and I couldn’t tell what was real.
Next to me, Rafe spoke, his voice low, soothing. “Yeah, you did stab him. But I get the impression you weren’t yourself. You’re not the only one in the penthouse who knows how to provide medical care. And at the end of the day, I don’t think you really wanted to kill him. You barely stabbed the guy. You didn’t go very deep. I had the doc come by and stitch him up. He’s in pain. I mean, there’s a reason why he wasn’t in here mixing it up with you, but he’s fine. Look at him.”
I shook my head. “No, you’re fucking with my head… the lot of you. And who the fuck is that?”
Gemma spoke, slowly approaching me, and her voice was soothing. “He’s a doctor. I think something I said to you the other day set you off. It’s not your fault what happened. And like Rafe said, Noah is fine.”
I still didn’t believe them.
Ian was here. I knew what Ian wanted from me. To bring me back, to drag me back to the darkness. I wasn’t going.
“You’re trying to trick me.”
The other guy in the room slid a glance to Gemma. “Gemma, say it again.”
She frowned. “I don’t think I can. I don’t know what’s going to happen. He has a gun on Rafe.”
The doctor repeated again, “Say the line.”
And then Gemma said, “From the shadows come the sun.”
The pain started in my head again. My finger twitched on the trigger, but I fought it. I kept glancing at Noah and then Gemma, back to Ian, Noah, down at Rafe, back at Noah, and then Gemma. I always went back to Gemma. And as I looked at her, watched her, I wanted to bury the longing I had for her. My finger eased off the trigger.
Before I could think to do anything else, Rafe had my trigger hand twisted around and then applied just the right amount of pressure to my wrist to force me to drop the gun.
“I should have killed you when I had the chance.”
Rafe just smiled. “It’s good to have you back, kid.” And then he popped me in the face. “That’ll teach you to respect your elders.”
Matthias
“How are you feeling, Matthias?”
“Like shit,
mate. How the fuck do you think I feel?”
I glared at Max. Noah had spoken about the shrink before, but I’d never met him. I always wondered how a doctor dedicated to do no harm could do work for an organization like ORUS.
ORUS isn’t the same place it was.
The doctor nodded. “I imagine this all feels very disorienting. What was the last thing you remember about the penthouse?”
I braced myself. “Not much.” I wasn’t looking forward to the onslaught of pain between my eyeballs.
The doctor inclined his head. He narrowed his eyes slightly as if to give me warning that he wasn’t going to let me off the hook. I was going to have to talk about this. And then the doc sat back, folded his arms, and waited.
I rolled my shoulders. “Fine. I remember stabbing Noah. I remember the way his blood felt on my hands. I remember watching the pain, the horror, and not being able to do a damn thing about it. So if you’re asking if someone took over my body or something, you’re barking up the wrong tree, bruv. I’m not possessed just a psychopath.”
The doc nodded and wrote something down then shifted his gaze back to me. “So, you feel remorse?”
I glared at him. What the fuck kind of doctor was he? “Of course, I feel remorse. Noah, he’s more than my mate. He’s my bloody brother, and I was able to do something like that to him. He trusted me with his family, his wife, his baby, and I literally stabbed him in the bloody back, mate. Well, the shoulder. Of course, I feel remorse.”
The doctor just nodded. The corners of his lips shifted as if listening patiently to a child having a tantrum. I sat back, my jaw clenching and then grinding. That was when the doctor spoke.
“If you were a psychopath, you wouldn’t feel remorse. You wouldn’t feel anything, at least nothing beyond your own desires.” He studied his notes again briefly and then asked, “Tell me how you feel about Gemma.”
