Singe

by Casey Hays

  Casey Hays

  Whispering Pages, LLC

  Copyright © 2019 by Casey Hays

  Editor: Anna Faulk

  Graphic Designer: M.A. Phipps

  We Got You Covered

  BeSpoke Book Design

  Published by Whispering Pages, LLC, an independently owned company.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Publisher Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Singe, bk 3 / by Casey Hays

  382 p. 22.86 cm

  ISBN 978-0-57853079-6

  1. Paranormal Romance - - Fiction. 2. Urban Fantasy - - Fiction 3. Fantasy - -

  I. Hays, Casey, 1972-

  PZ7.H3149176 SIN 2019

  [FIC]

  Books by Casey Hays

  The Firebloods Series

  Firebloods

  Scorch Song

  Singe

  The Arrow's Flight Series

  Breeder

  The Archer

  Master

  The Arrow's Flight Novellas

  The Scent of Lilac

  A Heart of Flesh

  About the Author

  Casey Hays lives on the Eastern Plains of New Mexico and has been writing professionally since 2008. She has a deep love for God, music, and a good cup of coffee. Contact Casey at www.facebook.com/authorcaseyhays

  Prelude

  I stand barefoot in front of the silent grand piano in my den, my breath caught in my chest. Ghostly light filters in through the tall windows, leaving a gray pall over the entire scene. The furniture hunches under the shadows, resembling night beasts waiting for the perfect moment to attack. The large clock ticks. The cool, wood flooring pressed into the bottoms of my feet makes me shiver. I take a quick step and stop.

  I don’t touch a single key—not yet. Still, the notes fill up the inside of my head, the tinny sounds formulating on the edge of silence. My hands stay pinned at my sides, fists clenched.

  It’s my brother’s mantra that calls to me, reaching right out of the folds of a dream and planting itself up against my soul.

  Play it.

  The urge taunts me, and slowly, my resolve melts. A few days ago, I didn’t even know I had a brother. Tonight, his presence screams loud and strong, even in his absence.

  I settle on the stool and stare at the keys, black and white accomplices to every piece of music I’ve ever played. For a second, my dad is in the room—inside my memories. His shoulder bumps against me, a solid and real touch. I breathe in, and the memory of his scent freezes me to my spot in the shadowy stillness.

  My fingers move, and after another beat, I play. Sonata Gallagher fills up every bit of air in the room.

  I didn’t pick up on the significance of Jarron’s mantra—not at first. Inside his cell at Cedar Hills, it was too heavy, too full of emotion and desperate sadness. I’d never recognized these elements in the song, but they were there all along.

  I get it now. Sonata Gallagher isn’t just a representation of my mantra. It’s a combination. Mine. Jarron’s.

  I play the arrangement like it was meant to be played, my fingers flying across the keys. The music resonates off the walls, flowing back toward me, mixed with longing and joy and sorrow. Blue skies and harsh rain. A part of me wonders if Dad intended for Jarron and me to find each other one day through this song. Is that why he did it—with that thought in mind? Was it truly his desire to one day bring us together? Is that why he took my suggestions and tweaked them just a little, carefully crafting them enough to make me fall in love with this song as if I’d truly had some part in its creation? His way of easing the road so that when I did meet Jarron face to face, it would be as if I’d always known him?

  It worked.

  Of course, I now understand that my contribution to the songwriting process was small, almost nonexistent. It scares me, you know? To see just how little I actually knew about my life. Oh, I had my own perception of it. I thought I knew who I was and what I was about. I had it all figured out. I’ve never been more wrong. And I want to be mad. No—I am mad. Jarron needed me, especially after Dad died. Keeping us apart was unfair. To all of us, really.

  More than anything I wanted to bring Jarron with me when Rylin and I left Cedar Hills, and I have to give Rylin credit for trying to make it happen. I didn’t think it would work, not after the story Mom told me. I was right.

  You see, there was a time when just as he did with me, my dad was able to camouflage Jarron. And if you look closely—right inside a clump of feathers on his right wing, you just might catch a glimpse of the source. A small gold band of thread weaved in tight. For a while, Dad was successful. It wasn’t easy, not with how unstable Jarron is physically, but until he was five years old, Dad had decent control over compelling the thread to camouflage him for short periods of time. A couple of hours at most. Mom told me that for a while, they thought Jarron might be able to live a fairly normal existence. He was smart, able to communicate with Dad. There had to be something to that, right?

  But where Jarron’s mind was intact, his body was equally unstable, on the verge of explosive. It grew worse each year until my parents couldn’t even take him out of the facility at night any longer when they visited.

  The day after Jarron’s fifth birthday, they knew for certain they would never be bringing him home. As diligently as Dad tried to camouflage my brother, he just couldn’t anymore, not even when he used every bit of his energy to get the job done. It was never enough, and all it did in the end was leave Dad depleted and fully exposed.

  By then, I was two years old and beginning to exhibit some Fireblood qualities, minus the wings. My parents knew they had to make a choice. Dad couldn’t camouflage us both and keep his own identity hidden. And so…

  He chose me.

  Wow.

  I’m not sure how I feel about that, but it’s done. And now, I have a chance to make things different. It’s exactly what I plan to do.

  One

  “Ouch! Watch it, punk!”

  Kane leaps from the very rusty, metal chair—the only piece of furniture in the large empty warehouse—and shoves poor Darren hard in the chest. Again. It’s Darren’s twelfth attempt, and by the look on his face when he shoves off the safety goggles, he’s growing more wary about this whole ordeal with every passing second. With an uneasy lift of his blond brow, he clutches the instrument in his hand more tightly and looks at Rylin.

  “I’m not sure this is getting done, man,” he shrugs.

  “It’s getting done,” Rylin responds. His own irritation crowds in, ruffling his brows. “Just—give us a minute.”

  Darren shrugs again as if it doesn’t matter to him one way or the other, and wipes his hand down the front of his Bon Jovi tank. Kane, a clear scowl implanted on his features, tosses Rylin a glare. He rubs at the incision behind his ear, and storms off, his footsteps echoing across the wide open and very empty floor. Rylin glances at me and takes off after him. With a deep sigh, I cast an upward glance at the dirty, yellowing skylights intermittently peeking through the exposed insulation and follow. Frankly, I’m with Darren on this one. It’s not gonna happen.

  “I told you it was goin’ to hurt like hell.”

  “Yeah, well.” Kane halts, his voice hard. “You lied. Because it’s worse. A lot worse.”

  “Obviously. You can’t seem to keep yourself in the chair long enough for Darren to make the first cut.”

  “What’s the problem, exactly?” I ask. Kane rubs at his ear again, a red smear of blood dressing his fingertips when he pulls his hand away.

  “The tracker was create
d with some sort of biological technology,” Rylin explains. “Once implanted, it interweaved itself into Kane’s nerve endings at the base of his brain, making it extremely difficult to remove. Unlike most trackers that lie just beneath the skin’s surface and can be cut out with a small amount of pain, this one virtually sends a painful electric shock through Kane’s body every time the laser hits it.” Rylin’s voice goes cold. “The Contingent never holds back when it comes to torture.”

  Wow. I glance at Kane. “Really?”

  “Really,” Kane grumbles. “I guess if a certain somebody had mentioned this extraction business a week ago, we wouldn’t be having as much trouble getting it out.”

  “Why?”

  Rylin sighs. “The tracker is designed to embed more deeply over time, making extraction near impossible.” Guilt riddles his expression. “Darren didn’t have as much trouble extracting mine.”

  “Are you saying it didn’t hurt?”

  “Oh, it hurt. The pain was just more tolerable.”

  “That would have been good to know, Rylin,” I quip.

  He doesn’t say anything. His tracker is tucked safely in his glove box, pretending to be him like it has been for the past two weeks. Kane has been pissed about that since we learned the tracker could be extracted, but I didn’t realize the repercussions for waiting too long until now. It doesn’t matter. We still have to get Kane’s out. But I let my anger stew for a few minutes. Kane bends at the waist, breathing deep.

  “I don’t think I can do this,” he whispers.

  “And I can’t take you to the safe house if you don’t.” Rylin doesn’t spare one ounce of compassion for Kane as he says it.

  “Can’t we just knock him out?” I ask.

  Rylin’s amused laugh clicks off the end of his tongue. “Have you ever tried to knock out a Fireblood?”

  I smirk at his snarky remark. Boy, am I tempted.

  “So what do you suggest?” I snap. “We can’t keep doing this.”

  Kane wipes his hand across his jeans and moves back toward Darren. “Let’s just get on with it.”

  Rylin and I hang back a minute, watching Kane settle into the metal chair with a creak. He motions for Darren… and attempt number thirteen begins. Thirteen is a lucky number. Maybe it will be the charm.

  Kane’s trail of curses as he leaps to his feet proves me wrong.

  “This is awful,” I wince, focusing on Rylin’s hazel gaze. Behind him, dust floats on a ray of sunlight. I unzip my jacket. I’m not sure if it’s this tin can of a building that’s making me sweat or my own nerves.

  “The worst.” Rylin crosses his arms and watches as attempt number fourteen begins. A screech. A curse. And… number fifteen.

  “It’s okay to remove this thing, right? I mean, it’s not going to damage him? Or kill him, is it?”

  “No.”

  When I look skeptical, he keeps talking.

  “It’s almost impossible to injure us permanently, Jude. And even harder to kill us.”

  “Something killed my dad.”

  All the air freezes around us. He looks at me.

  “And they obviously knew what they were doing,” he says quietly.

  “They? So you don’t think it was an animal.”

  He doesn’t answer, instead electing to work his way back to Darren and Kane, who looks green with misery. The blue-beamed instrument of torture is poised and ready for attempt nineteen. Kane grits his teeth, clutches the underside of the chair until his knuckles whiten, and pinches his eyes tight.

  “Okay. Go!”

  Another fail, and another sigh flows out of me. This just isn’t working.

  “Let’s take a break,” I say, making a beeline for Kane.

  “We don’t have time for that, Jude.” Rylin spins on me, his brows narrowed. “The disciplinary hearing is hours away.”

  “Yes. And we have time for a break.”

  “Not at this rate, we don’t.”

  “We’re taking a break.” My words are final. Rylin throws his hands up in the air and walks away. I smile at Darren. “Thanks for your help, Darren. I know how frustrating this must be.”

  He simply nods. “I need to take leak.”

  He sets the instrument on the low bench next to the chair, cuts off the monitoring screen, and tugs up his sagging shorts, stepping over the extremely long extension cord that crosses his path on his way out. I slide my fingers over Kane’s hand and drag him to his feet. Blood trickles from the wound on his neck, which grows larger with each cut.

  “Let’s get some air,” I whisper.

  It’s early Sunday evening, exactly sixteen hours before Kane, Rylin, and I are expected to appear before the Contingent to account for our actions, behavior, and in my case… for why I’m alive at all. No pressure.

  It’s also been nearly fourteen hours since Kane and I decided to run. But how far we get is dependent on whether or not we can get this tracker extracted. And getting my brother out of Cedar Hills is all tied up in that. I’m not gonna lie… I’m really beginning to lose hope.

  We step outside; Kane lets the door fall behind us with a thud. The sun is still bright and hot in the late summer sky. We’re in the middle of nowhere in some place called Lovelock, exactly one hour and fifty-one minutes northeast of Carson City, and in the complete opposite direction from our destination. And so far, it’s been a complete waste of time.

  Gema explained this tracker business to us a few days ago. It works like a GPS. So if the Contingent’s surveillance operators check in on Kane’s location—which is a real possibility in light of how soon the hearing is—then they’ll know that Kane is here. Rylin too. That shouldn’t raise too many alarm bells, unless the tracker doesn’t start moving toward Vegas. So, if we can ever get the damned thing out, we plan to take them both with us halfway to Vegas. We’ll ditch them in a random dumpster somewhere along our route, and hopefully, by time the Contingent realizes the trackers have stopped moving and send people to find him, we’ll be at the safe house. It can work.

  I cross my arms and look out toward the horizon. All around us, dusty fields stretch in every direction, the soil too dry for planting in this area. There’s dead silence. Miles and miles of it. I watch Kane, waiting for him to speak. At first, he just paces, running a hand through his hair. When he leans against the side of the building and kicks up a leg behind him, I finally say something.

  “I hate this for you.”

  He weighs my words, not answering. I kick at the dirt, and a cloud of dust swirls up around my ankles. I don’t look at him. A few seconds pass; he sighs.

  “Come here.”

  Hand extended he tilts his head. When I don’t move he waggles his fingers, motioning me to come closer. And when one dimple comes out to flirt with me, I break. I let him pull me against his chest, his damp-with-sweat tee shirt the only thing separating me from his searing hot skin. His musky vanilla scent swarms around us. He kisses the top of my head.

  “I’m sorry I’m not tougher.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” I tease. His chuckle bounces against my cheek. “You’re such a disappointment.”

  “It’s getting to be ridiculous. I mean, all I have to do is hold still. That’s my only job.”

  “That thing is embedded into your nervous system, Kane. You can’t help that.”

  “No. But I should force myself to tolerate the pain. Each time, I gear myself up with that thought, but the minute that laser hits, I’m done.” He sighs, his breath mixing in with the breeze. “I can’t even begin to describe how much it hurts.”

  “I get it.” I tug on the hem of his shirt. “And you are tough. One of the toughest people I know.”

  He just looks at me, and I read his disappointment. He doesn’t agree. Especially in this moment. In fact, I’m guessing he’s feeling like the biggest failure.

  “I suggested that we knock you out,” I offer. “Rylin said that wouldn’t work. Is that true?”

  “Yep.”

  “But, what if you n
eed major surgery someday?”

  He peers at me, amused. “And why would I need major surgery?”

  “I don’t know,” I shrug. “Things happen.”

  “Jude, have you ever seen me sick a day in my life? Or injured?”

  I think. You know, I really haven’t. Not even a sniffle. He squeezes me, my elbow cupped in his palm.

  “I’m never going to need surgery.”

  Fine. But that doesn’t solve our immediate problem. My desperation explodes. We have to figure out something, or we’re dead. Literally.

  “I wish I could help you.” My dusty fingers find his cheek, leaving a smear. “I’d take all that pain away if I could.”

  “I know.” He pops me on the nose with his finger. “You’re cute.”

  Cute is not what I was going for. Brave maybe. Generous. Sacrificial. Still, the way he looks at me when he says it makes me feel like all of the above is what he really meant. He’s about to kiss me, and I’m all prepared for it too, when Rylin heaves open the door, letting it slam up against the metal siding with a harsh clang. Kane and I both jump.

  “What the hell, Rylin?” Kane growls.

  “Break’s over. I’ve got an idea.”

  Irritation washes over me.

  “An idea.” Doubt laces Kane’s voice. “Kind of like your idea to hire this amateur to slice me open? Nope. I’m out.”

  “Darren is a professional, Kane.”

  “A professional what?”

  “All right.” I jump into the conversation before things can get too heated. “What’s your idea, Rylin?”

  “You.”

  I shade my eyes against the sun and peer up at him. “Excuse me?”

  “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before.” He gestures toward the door. “Come on, then. We’re short on time.”

  The glint in Kane’s skeptical eye is heavy, and I don’t blame him. But I’m curious. With a shrug, I follow Rylin. After a few seconds—and one long exasperated sigh—Kane follows me.