by Tiya Rayne
“Malia, stay down,” Grams shouts. “Emory can handle herself.”
Is she crazy? Emory is eight she can’t… my words die in my head as I watch my eight year-old-daughter twist the head off Mr. Rabbit and pull out a hunting knife the size of her forearm. She charges at the man moving toward her.
Then she drops to her knees as she reaches him and slides between his legs with her knife slicing him as she goes. The man screams as he falls to the ground clutching his penis which I am sure is sliced in half. Emory springs to her feet, this time running toward another man.
He, learning from the guy before him, goes to grab her low. This time she stays up straight, lodging her blade into his shoulder. As she uses the dagger like a saddle on a horse, she swings her body up and over to straddle his neck.
That’s when she takes the blade out of his shoulder, holds it over her head and drops it into the back of his neck. Right where his skull and spine connect. He drops to the ground like a sack of potatoes.
I’d never seen anyone move so fluidly before in my life. My daughter just took down two grown men in less time than it takes me to wash my hands. She steps over his body and charges toward another guy.
This one holds out a gun, but before I can gasp, Emory disarms him by taking off the hand with the gun still clutched in it. She wields a knife like a third limb.
Finally, being able to fight the pain of my initial attack, I get to my knees. Which is when the man coming up behind Grams comes into view. He must have slipped past us and come around through the kitchen. She doesn’t see him.
I scrabble for the first gun I find lying on the floor. Trenton wasn’t the only person Grams took to the gun range. I’ve been going ever since I could hold a gun steady.
I grab a gun and shoot, hitting the guy in the chest. He drops and Grams turns to see what I did. She turns back to me with a smile.
“That’s my girl,” she calls out over the noise.
Then it happens. A bullet flies through the air and strikes Grams in the shoulder. It feels like it happens in slow motion.
Her eyes widen as she looks at me. I scream her name and then another bullet flies through the air hitting her again, knocking her into the wall behind her where she slides down.
“Damn, Wolf, took you long enough,” someone says as the sound slowly seeps back into the room.
“Shut up, Shep. I’ve been wanting a piece of that bitch ever since she shot me.”
I can barely register their words as I crawl on my hands and knees to my grandmother’s body. The only family I ever had is lying on the floor in front of me. I can’t seem to catch my breath as a silent sob wracks my body.
Ever since her fall and stay in the hospital, I’ve thought about her death. I even thought I prepared myself for it, but you can’t. You can never prepare yourself to say goodbye to someone you love.
I wrap her in my arms and cry so hard my vision blurs. Slowly, she lifts her hand and wipes at my tears.
“Stay with me please. Don’t go,” I plead selfishly.
She smiles and opens her mouth to speak, but then her hand falls away and her body slumps. A horrible sound comes out of my body as I hold onto her and sob.
“Playtime is over,” the one they called Shep says. “Grab the kid and the chick and let’s get the fuck out of here.”
I’m grabbed from behind. They try to pull me away from Grams, but I won’t go. With a heavy tug, I’m ripped away from her and dragged to my feet. When I turn around, I see my sobbing daughter tied up like a rotisserie pig, lying on the floor. I try to run to her, but the asshole holding me won’t let me go.
“Hello again, baker,” Shep says, standing in front of me as another guy holds me in place.
When I focus my blurry vision, I recognize him. He came to my shop a while ago and ordered an apple pie. I remember getting a bad vibe from him, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. I guess I know now. “I have to say, the apple pie was scrumptious.”
I spit in his face. It lands right on his eye and slides down. He glowers at me before wiping it off. He then backhands me so hard, the man holding me loses his grip and I collapse to the floor.
“I’ve been nice to you. Gave you that nice little warning the day you bumped into me on the street. I’ve even been keeping an eye out on your little home, but that little stunt changes everything. You fucked up.”
He pulls out a funny looking gun and points it down at me. “These rubber bullets are going to hurt like a bitch tomorrow.”
The last thing I hear before he pulls the trigger is the sound of my daughter crying my name. It’s the sweetest last words I could ever hear.
Chapter 47
Without Question
Lucien
* * *
I pound my fists on Priest’s door until they’re sore. The door swings open to a furious Priest.
“Are you out of your fucking mind, Twin?”
I don’t reply but push my way in because I am out of my mind. I’m so far out of my mind.
“We’re out of our mind,” Seth growls in my head.
My need to let him free is clawing at me. Seth wants to act, the thought of not having her is causing him to get restless and for the first time, I don’t blame him. I haven’t been the same since she stormed out two hours ago.
My rational side said to give her time. Allow her to process all she found out, but the rational part is getting drowned out by the part that needs her here with me.
“With us. We need her here with us,” Seth snaps, correcting me.
“Twin, you better have a good got damn reason to be here.”
“She’s gone. She left and she won’t answer my calls. I don’t know what to do.” I don’t even stop to breathe between those sentences.
Priest stares at me, watching me in silence as I pace the floor. “She found out about Seth, didn’t she?”
“Yes.”
He doesn’t reply, just goes over to the bar in his den and fixes himself a dark drink, before taking a seat on the couch. “What do you want from me?”
“Help me get her back.”
“Help you?” He chuckles. “Don’t you have an app for this? Hell, you have an app that allows you to set a timer and send a prerecorded message to your alternate personality. Surely, you got something in your computer bag that will help you get your girl back.”
“I’m serious, Priest.”
“So am I. Am I not the one who told you, you couldn’t have her in the first place?” I stop my pacing to glare at him.
“What’s the point in me helping you out anyway? You’ll lose her all over again within a month because you’re still suppressing your other half, causing him to bubble over and act out. And I’m not doing this shit with you every few months. I’d rather talk to Many and Ari about their weird ass relationship.”
“Are you going to help me or be a dick?”
Priest’s eyes widen and he leans back in his seat. “Nice of you to join me, Seth.”
“I’m not Seth,” I shout. “I’m just Lucien. I am only one man. A man who’s dying without her.”
A slow smile spreads over his face as he sits up in his seat and places his cup on the coffee table.
“Well, I’ll be, you figured it out. Only took you twenty-five years to do it.”
He’s right, this is the lesson Priest has been trying to teach me all these years since he first recruited me. As much as I want to deny it, I have a dark side—Seth. He was created out of years of abuse and neglect.
Seth protected me, taught me to be brave, and to stand up for myself, but he is still a part of me, a part I control. When I need him, I can call on him, but he doesn’t consume me.
“I need her, Priest. I can’t be as strong as you.”
He snorts. “You think I’m strong?” He downs the entire content of the whiskey in his hand. “The last memory I have of the only woman I’ve ever loved, is me kicking her out of my bed because my head got all fucked up when I spotted the blood on my s
heets.
“She didn’t tell me she was a virgin beforehand. All I see is her watery eyes as she tried to get me to understand how she was always saving herself for me.” He shakes his head. “Who gives someone like me that kind of gift? Albany deserved so much more than I could ever give her. Which is why I had to break her heart and kick her out of my house. All the while I was ripping my own heart out too. I’m not strong, Twin. Not even a little.”
I feel his loss even more now since Malia. I can’t imagine what he’s going through. And I pray to God almighty I never have to. It’s then I realize something.
“I have to find a way to get her back, and then I have to get out.”
Priest’s eyes bulge. “Woah. Those are some pretty big plans there.”
I nod. I’m talking about running. Something I’m not even sure Malia and Emory are willing to do with me, but I know if I get her back, I’ll never risk losing her again.
“Maybe I can spark up a deal,” I say, turning over ideas in my head. “I did kill Takar for them. Something no other agent has been able to do. Maybe that will win me some brownie points, like Angel did for Hawk.”
“You killed Takar?” Priest asks.
I forgot he and I haven’t spoken. I give him a quick rundown of all he missed from the attack at the diner, to the five weeks of searching, to the take down.
Priest rubs his chin. “What magic trick was he talking about?”
“Some stupid lighter trick,” I briefly breakdown the trick. “He kept going on and on about being distracted by one hand while the other hand was moving.”
Another one of Priest’s quiet, thought-filled moments passes. As soon as he opens his mouth to speak, my phone goes off in my pocket and I quickly pull it out. It’s a Facetime request from Malia.
I don’t hesitate as I slide my finger over the screen to answer the call. The smile on my face fades when the bruised and tear stained face of my heart comes into view.
“Lucien,” she calls out my name through swollen lips.
“Baby, where are you? What’s going on?” The phone is snatched from her and when the next face appears, I have to count to ten a few times to control Seth.
“Hey, Twin,” Shep’s cheerful voice comes over the screen.
“What’s going on?” Priest asks. Instead of answering, I cast my call to the big screen TV hanging over his fireplace.
“What the fuck are you doing with her?”
Shep laughs. “It seems your girlfriend adopted a Church runaway,” he says, putting Malia’s battered face on the screen.
There is a bruise near her eye and her lip is split. The camera moves over to Emory lying on the floor unconscious with her arms and legs tied together. Her little body looks small and fragile. The camera goes back to a smiling Shep.
“Apparently the Church is recruiting a lot younger than they used to, like from the womb. I guess they figure why wait eight years to find a special kid, when you can make your own.” He laughs at his own joke.
I twitch my fingers at my side. I’m fighting to regain the control I’ve recently found. Malia and Emory need me to be level-headed, not blinded by rage.
“What do you want, Shep?”
That’s what this is about. He wants something, but I’m not going to play this bullshit game with him to find out what. He chuckles.
“Okay, you want to get straight to the point, fine. The puzzler has a pretty big sum on her head, she’s a big project at the Church, one of the first of her kind. Yet, her price is nowhere as big as the recognition I’d get for bringing Hawk in.”
So that’s what this is about. Not only is there a big price for Hawk, but the clout and notoriety of bringing him in will push whoever up the ladder in no time. Most Deacons wouldn’t even dream of advancing that way, but we already established Disciples aren’t shit anyway.
“As it stands, whoever helped the little demon child break out did a damn good job. It took me forever to find her. And at the moment, the Church still doesn’t know where she is.
“Now, I can simply tell them I never found the kid. Then you, the seed of Chucky, and the lovely baker can slip away into the sunset. All you have to do, is bring me Hawk.”
I grit my teeth together. “You know I can’t fucking do that.”
He makes a tsking sound with his teeth. “Well, in seventy-two hours, I’ll turn the kid in and then put a bullet in your girl’s head, and trust me, it won’t be rubber.”
He places a gun to Malia’s head, and she starts to cry. I have never felt so helpless in all my life as I stand here watching the woman I love, so far away from me, crying for her life.
“Don’t touch her,” I say coldly, my teeth clenched together so tight my jaw hurts.
“She’s a scrap, Lucien,” Shep sneers. “And you know what we do with scraps on our plates.”
It’s in that moment, with the threat hanging in the air, I turn to Priest. He turns his head to the side popping his neck. As he looks at me, he nods. I sigh, slumping my shoulders.
“Seventy-two hours?” I need his word on it. I need to know he will keep her alive for seventy-two hours until I bring him Hawk.
“Seventy-two,” he repeats. “And Lucien, before you try to come through here with that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde bullshit, I want you to know I have friends. More than you,” he warns. “I’ll text you the drop off location one hour before your time is up. See you then.”
Shep hangs up and I want to toss my phone at the wall, but I don’t. Instead, I send the video I took of the call to my private laptop. I turn to Priest, fighting the rage inside me.
“If we do this, it changes everything. Is she worth that to you?”
I look him in the eyes as I reply, “Would you do it for Albany?”
“Without question.”
“Then you know how I feel.”
He nods, then rolls his eyes. “Fuck. That means I have to deal with that woman again.”
Chapter 48
Have to Go
Lucien
* * *
“Kill who?” Brooklyn asks, her hands on her hips.
“My lifeline,” I reply, causing Hawk to turn back to me.
“Your lifeline?” They both repeat at the same time.
I called in another favor to my buddy for the use of his private plane. From the time we got that phone call, it only took us six hours for me to be sitting in this living room, talking to Hawk and Brooklyn.
“It seems you aren’t the only one who’s found love,” Priest announces as he walks in with Many and a recently cleared for action Zel. I begged him and the others to wait outside. Brooklyn doesn’t always do well with others and Priest has the ability to sidetrack her. I need to make every minute count.
Brooklyn immediately goes to Zel and hugs him. When she steps back, Many goes to her with his arms out, ready for a hug. I can tell by the look on her face she doesn’t want to give him one. However, she does, but quickly releases him.
She looks to Priest and folds her arms over her chest. “Priest,” she greets dryly. “I see you still haven’t figured out how to knock.”
Priest closes his eyes briefly and sighs before opening them back up. “Painter,” he returns her greeting with the same enthusiasm. “I see you’re still testing my restraint.”
“This is taking too fucking long,” Seth sneers in our head.
“Stay calm. We still have time.”
“Can we focus, please?” I beg out loud.
All eyes turn back to me. They are still seeing me as either Seth or Lucien. They view me as two different people, not one.
And because I look like Seth right now—with all my tattoos uncovered and my contacts in—it sounds odd to hear me say please or ask for anything. I’m still in control, but Seth is really fighting hard to take over. However, now is not the time, but soon.
“Let me get this straight,” Brooklyn starts. “You want to take my husband back to New York and turn him in so you can get your girlfriend back?”
“Hell no. Have you lost your mind? Do you know what they will do to him if you take him back there? I’m not risking that.”
“I have to go, Brook,” Hawk says, turning to his irate wife.
“No, you don’t. Remember that test? If you think I’m about to raise a baby without you, you are out of your mind.”
“Oh hey, you’re knocked up?” Zel asks. “That’s cool. Congratulations.”
“Thank you, Zel,” Brooklyn says with a smile, before turning back to Walker.
“Can I speak to you in the other room, please?” she grits out before spinning around and storming out of the room. He listens for her exit with a grim look on his face.
“Give me a moment,” he says before following her out of the room.
For the next few minutes, we can hear the shouting muffled voices of Brooklyn and Hawk. I can’t help but think about all the time we’re wasting with this. I look down at my watch.
“Relax, Twin. Hawk won’t let you down,” Priest says, easing my fears.
Silence falls over us again in this room, still Brooklyn and Hawk have yet to stop arguing.
“Do you think Ari will allow us to fill her belly with a child, like Brother Hawk has done with New Porsha?” Many asks in his nasally voice and we all turn to him.
“I fucking hope not,” Priest grumbles.
I shake my head. The door to the back room opens and a very angry Brooklyn stomps out followed by Hawk.
“Okay, here are the rules,” Brooklyn says, glaring at all of us. “Number one, you take him out of here, you better bring his ass back. Number two, nobody and I do mean nobody, better let a single hair on his head get hurt. And number three.” She stops to place her hands on her hips. “I’m going too.”
“No,” we all shout at the same time.
“I wasn’t asking,” she replies before walking out.
“Fucking kill me now,” Priest growls.
“We need to leave here in the next thirty minutes,” I say, looking down at my watch again.
