Community Watch looked the same as it always did, which meant there wasn’t exactly high-profile security. They encountered a couple of guards and the receptionist at the front desk, but it didn’t appear as though anyone had set the alarms to wait for them. Then again, nobody would have thought them stupid enough to storm the fort head-on.
The receptionist’s eyes widened at the sight of them, and the guards immediately stood up straight. Whether it was because their identities had been spread around or because they looked like a band of troublemakers was hard to tell.
“Hello,” Jessica said, no smile in sight. “I’m here to see Michelle Hale.”
“Is . . . is she expecting you?”
“No, but tell her Jessica is here. With my boys.”
Chase glanced at her and refrained from arching a skeptical brow. He kept his comments and his observations to himself as they waited, and they were eventually led upstairs. Kyger and Hale were waiting, and they weren’t what Chase had expected.
The conference room they’d agreed to meet in was Richard’s style. Floor-to-ceiling windows, long glass table, high-backed leather seats—it was more fit for a corporate office than a psychic youth group, and that was always how he’d viewed this place. As a corporation. Kyger and Hale didn’t fit that corporate mold.
Kyger was a chubby dude with shoulder-length hair, oversized glasses that covered half his face, and he wore a Star Wars T-shirt beneath an open sweater. He was much younger than Richard, but maybe that was because he looked like someone who actually enjoyed his life and had other things to do besides contemplating the dissection of other psys.
Hale was another extreme. She had bleached-blond hair buzzed short, wore a black skirt and jacket, but had a distressed gray T-shirt beneath that was more Chase’s style than the CW’s. She also had on heels with spikes on them.
How the fuck had these people ever lowered themselves to befriending a stiff like Richard? Especially since they fit the Community origin story way better than he did. The legend was that a small group of friends had met in IRC chat rooms, seeking other psychics, and had decided to form a support system. And, over time, it had grown into something larger.
Chase had never been able to reconcile Richard with someone who wanted to help others, but now he could see where the initial spark of that idea might have come from.
“Kyger,” Jessica said, sitting opposite them at the head of the table. She placed her palms on the glass and lifted her chin, looking for all the world like she belonged in that spot and had never left. “Hale.”
“Jessica . . .” Kyger stared at her as though she were about to sprout another head. His expression stayed that way even as he shifted his gaze from her to Chase, Six, Holden, then Elijah. “We were told by your raving husband that you’d been kidnapped.”
“I was,” Jessica said. “By him about ten years ago. I went to the Farm to work, and he drugged me into a stupor and held me captive instead.”
Kyger and Hale exchanged glances. There was a beat of silence, and Chase wondered if they could communicate. Telepathy was supposed to be a rare talent, but maybe it wasn’t. Or maybe they were both incredulous and had no idea what to say.
“Let’s get to the point.” Jessica smoothed her palms over the glass, her gaze steady. There was no sign of the shakiness that sometimes seemed to plague her after years of being medicated and kept in a bed. “Can I trust you to hear me and my boys out, or has the staff already notified Richard?”
Hale’s lip curled. “I’m not sure where you got the idea that Kyger and I consult with your husband—”
“My abductor.”
“—before speaking to someone.”
“I assumed all Community staff consulted with him before taking a shit,” Chase said.
Elijah looked at him in exasperation. “Chase!”
“What? Just being honest.” Chase glanced at the two again. “He also makes it sound like you won’t be around long anyway. Is there a CW benefit package? Do you get to retire in Key West on a yacht?”
Kyger leaned forward, forearms braced on the table. “We let you up to hear your side of this ridiculous story, and to start the process of covering the tracks of a very messy and very public series of events. Embellishing or lying—”
“He’s not lying,” Hale cut in, dark eyes trained on Chase. “I can see it.”
Kyger’s face shuttered, and Chase tried to do the same to his talent. His mental shield was wavering, though, even with Six supposedly keeping them safe from outside interference.
“Your control over your talents is faltering,” Hale said, reading him again. “Likely because the telekinesis is distorting your ability to handle them. Your brain can only handle so much.”
Well, that was ominous. He tensed, and Elijah grabbed his hand. Chase squeezed and didn’t let go.
“So,” Jessica said. “Are you aware that Richard intends to take full control of the Community?”
Hale pursed her lips, and Kyger said nothing. Neither looked surprised.
Jessica nodded once. “I take that as you at least having had an idea about it. Do you also know he thinks you prevent him from fully carrying out his vision, and that he’d likely be willing to arrange your convenient disappearances and permanent relocation to the Farm rather than debate?”
When Kyger and Hale remained silent, it was enough of an answer. Either they knew now, or they’d known all along. Judging from the way Kyger’s gaze slanted away, he’d been a little slower on the uptake. Hale’s expression might as well have been carved out of stone.
“Explain your perception of the Farm,” Hale said after a beat. “I’d like to know what you claim to have endu—”
“No, you explain your perception of the Farm,” Jessica said. “Of everyone in this room, you two are the only ones who have never been there. Who’ve never been held there against your will.”
Kyger sat back in his chair, fingers interlocking as he folded his hands in front of him. When it became clear that Hale wasn’t answering, he said, “It’s where we shepherd psychics who don’t respond well to intervention here at the CW. Like you . . .” Kyger nodded at Chase, then Six, who sneered. “And you.”
“Richard’s original vision,” Hale said, her voice frozen, “was that it would be a safe space away from the city, where psychics who were traumatized, who don’t have enough of a handle on their gift to remain discreet, or who may be a threat to us remaining a secret, could retreat.”
“I know what Richard’s original vision was.” Jessica raised her eyebrows and looked so much like Holden with that skeptical smart-ass face of hers that Chase did a double take. “Do you think it turned out that way?”
“No,” both Kyger and Hale said at once.
“Why?” It was Holden who shot out the question. When Kyger and Hale looked at him with open dislike, he stepped closer to stand beside his mother. “Listen, I’ve not been on the same page as Richard for years, but I’ve always believed in the Community. It’s why we’re here and not . . .”
“Not with Ex-Comm,” Six filled in. “We want to work with you. To fix shit.”
Hale stood, in all of her over-six-foot glory, and walked closer to their group. Kyger remained where he was, but he’d taken to flipping a pen between his fingers.
Chase chose that moment to tap into their thoughts, and heard an almost simultaneous: Ex-Comm is real. It’s not one of Richard’s delusions.
“What we think the Farm really is,” Hale said, voice lowering, “is primarily Richard and his staff there being on a power trip as they try to mold and groom young, susceptible psys, and to brainwash the more established Comm members into thinking they’re doing some version of God’s work by staying there indefinitely.”
“We also think it’s become some sort of psychic puppy mill.” Kyger flipped the pen faster. It was nearly a blur in his fingers. “We have no proof, but we know he has a very creepy obsession with the Black family, and the idea of manipulating genetics.”
“‘Breeding,’” Chase said with a rough laugh. “That’s what you want to call it? Pairing up psys who’ve been convinced that they’re doing the work of some higher power, or people they kidnapped like Six and Jessica, and convincing them to sleep together after some nice thorough brainwashing? Or people like my mother, who . . . he’s been raping while she’s drugged and incapacitated.”
Behind him, Nate sucked in a breath. “Are you . . .”
The little boy with the white hair and gray eyes flashed into Chase’s mind. “I’m sure,” he said from between gritted teeth. “And you people can try to spin it however you want, but I’m calling him what he is. A kidnapper, a torturer, and a fucking rapist.”
The color drained from Hale’s face, but she didn’t speak. Her eyes flew to Jessica.
Six stepped up then, crossing his muscular tattooed arms over his chest. “He enslaves us. That’s what they did to me, Chase, and Elijah. To Lorelei and Jessica. Even his guards, who aren’t above killing to keep us quiet and contained, are essentially his slaves. You have no clue how bad it gets. How far Richard and Jasper are willing to go to keep control and to hide what they’re doing. Including breeding psy kids to become brainwashed drones, and permanently silencing anyone who tries to leave.”
Kyger released a low sharp whistle, but Hale looked toward the window, smoothing a hand over her blond hair, and pursed her lips. She looked strained under the weight of what they were saying, but was still trying to keep her composure.
Chase glanced at Holden, and saw his brother watching Hale carefully. He was probably reading her emotions and evaluating whether they matched her body language. After a beat, he said, “I’m sorry we’re telling you this all at once.”
“Thank you, but I can’t help but wonder how this has never come up before. Has no one escaped before?”
Jessica put her hand on Chase’s arm. He started, but didn’t pull away. “Who would have told you, Michelle?” she asked. “I went there willingly, hoping to make a difference, but was incapacitated for years. I was helpless. It was only later, when the people who now call themselves Ex-Comm infiltrated the Farm, did I have the capacity to think clearly.”
Jessica squeezed Chase’s arm then. “And as for escaping? We’re the first people to escape with our lives. Chase and Elijah almost didn’t manage that.”
“They shot me.” Elijah’s words rung out clearly in the quiet room. “And then Richard intended to use me as sexual reward for . . . whoever. I’m sure I’m not the only person to get that treatment.”
Kyger sat up straight. “We send children over there. Teenagers. If he’s doing things like that—”
“I already fucking told you that your boy is a rapist,” Chase snapped. “There’s no if.”
“Show me.” Hale strode closer to them and didn’t stop until she was right in front of them. “All of it.”
Jessica looked up at Chase. “Are you ready for this?”
Ah, that explained why she’d touched him. He could take their memories and put it on full blast for Kyger and Hale. Although, judging by the way Kyger was shutting down and sinking in his chair, he didn’t have the stomach for it. Chase didn’t have those same concerns for Hale.
So, he opened himself up to Jessica, and let her horrors wash over him. Then he took from Elijah, more than what he’d already seen of his time in the silo. It was a cluster of his worst fears, of any normal person’s worst nightmares, and it took every ounce of Chase’s control to keep his brain from tearing the room apart.
He had to wrench his attention from Elijah and redirect it to Hale, who now looked like she was bracing for a full-on assault.
“You ready?” he asked roughly. “It ain’t gonna be fucking pretty.”
“Show me,” she said again. “If you want our help.”
So he did.
Fragments of memories from Jessica started years ago, before she’d gone to the Farm.
“He’s just a child,” she shouted, following Richard across the room. “What right do you, and the rest of the board, have to sentence him to go to that Farm? You’re not a judge. You’re not God.”
The smack that followed was vicious, but Jessica never flinched. She didn’t look away. She just stared at her husband with a promise in her eyes.
The Farm spreading out beneath a gray sky, less developed but still ominous in quality. Jessica wearing all white and seeking out Six, who was already wearing a guard uniform.
“You can trust me, Sixtus,” she whispered. “I’m not like them. I want to help you leave this place.”
Six regarded her without emotion. “They’ll never let me leave.”
Jessica waking in the middle of the night to find someone dressed in white towering over her. Richard standing nearby. The prick of a needle, and then the building fear and realization.
“Aren’t you sorry you decided to meddle?”
Jessica watching, drugged, from her window as a young man in white shorts sprinted to the gates. Six chasing him and then, after several vehicles followed behind them, a gunshot.
Hale leaned against the table, her dark-brown skin going ashen.
“Had enough?” Chase asked. “That’s only a fragment.”
“Keep going.”
Chase, as a child, strapped to a table.
“You’re incredible,” Jasper was saying, his voice distantly breaking through the medicated cloud surrounding Chase. “Everything I’ve always wanted to explore.”
“Fuck you . . . Jasper.”
Then the pulling. The feeling of his mind being ripped apart. But no screaming. Even medicated, Chase had gritted his teeth until his eyes streamed but he’d never released a sound.
“Is you not letting Jasper actually kill me supposed to satiate my concern that you were still sitting there watching him try to suck me dry?” Chase demanded.
Richard looked out the window. “I apologize for that.”
“You apologize? He’s been doing this to me since I was a kid, Dick. And . . .”
“And what?”
“I didn’t know you knew,” Chase said, his voice rough. “And I never told you because I know how informants and snitches get treated here. But I didn’t know you gave the okay for me to be a science project.”
“You were never a project.”
“So what the fuck was I? Research?”
“Yes.”
“She feared what would happen if the government knew we existed,” Richard was saying, “so to reassure her, I told her I’d show her the Farm. I’d show her . . . our plan.”
“The plan to study people like her?” Chase asked. “Powerful raw psychics?”
“Yes. At first she was excited, just as I expected. She was born into a family just as obsessed with remaining strong, and after I met her, I realized the value in breeding psys.” Richard shook his head as if thinking back to that time. “She agreed to stay and participate in Jasper’s study. But then she changed her mind. Something spooked her, and she vanished.”
“‘Something spooked her’ . . . More like Jasper spooked her. Did it ever cross your mind that the man is a fucking psychopath?”
“Over time it has, but I’ve also realized he’s a necessary evil. With his help, we’ve crafted so many powerful psychics.”
Elijah being dragged away from the lake by Kyra and Will, who were dressed in full-body armor. Blood smearing across the grass.
Elijah being tossed into a cell in the silo as he clutched his arm and cried. Will slamming a booted foot into his stomach for good measure.
Elijah standing in the middle of an all-white room, shaking, his eyes lined with dark circles. “Please let me use the bathroom.”
The man who stood in front of him smiled. “You can once you make the choice to tell me about Chase and his brothers.”
Will and Elijah in the back of the SUV. Will ripping at his clothes as Elijah twisted away and fought. The driver flicked a glance behind him, cringing.
“We’re dumping the freak right now, slut,” Will whispered in Elijah’s ear. “And once he’s dead, Jasper said you’re mine.”
Hands pressed onto Chase’s shoulders, and it was only then that he realized he’d started shaking. His eyes had closed, his head tilted forward, and he could feel the pressure building again. The sign that things were about to go very wrong.
He sucked in a breath, clenching his hands into fists, and tried to pull it together.
“Calm down,” Elijah said in his ear. “The table just cracked.”
“Fuck.” Chase stepped back from Hale, looking around wildly and found everyone staring at him. He reached out automatically and found Elijah’s hand, closing it in his once again. “Sorry,” he croaked. “I don’t have a good handle on it yet.”
Hale nodded, but the shared memories appeared to have shaken her too much to care about a cracked table. Another look, this time without bleary panicking eyes, and Chase saw that Kyger had come to stand next to her.
“So,” Jessica said, talking as though Chase hadn’t just destroyed the conference table and no one was traumatized. “There’s only one option here.”
“Which—” Hale cleared her throat. “Which is?”
“You support us in destroying Richard and everything he’s created at the Farm, then we dismantle this entire organization and rebuild it from the ground up.”
“What?” Kyger demanded. “What does that have to do with anything? Richard is the problem here—”
“It’s not the only problem,” Elijah jumped in without hesitation. “The culture of silence in this entire community is awful, and it had to have come from the top. So many people went missing or were killed or . . . whatever by Richard and his creepy fucking vampires, and nobody was allowed to ask a question without fear of being iced out and blackballed. And labeled as . . . a defector or a problem.”
“As someone who needed realignment,” Six said. “Which would send them right to the Farm, and right to Richard and Jasper.”
Jessica nodded, unflinchingly staring at both board members. “It’s a cycle that you helped to feed into, and because of that, your roles have to change as well. It’s not just cutting off a couple of dead limbs. The whole tree is rotten because the infection has been spreading this entire time.”
Hale inhaled with a slow nod. “And would we be outcast, then?” A cold smile touched her lips. “You, Jessica Payne, would be in charge?”
“No. God no. But we could have a larger board with a nuanced voice, and then we can make some changes.”
Nothing was said at first, just a bunch of psychics all staring each other down and waiting for one or the other to cave. Six looked impatient with all the waiting, and he’d begun peering at the ceiling as if searching for a camera.
“Fine,” Hale said after a full minute had passed. “You want to take him on? Okay. But it’s going to be solely up to you.”
Elijah rubbed his hands together, seemingly unable to stop fidgeting. “Do you think we should have stayed at the CW?”
Lia shot Elijah an incredulous look. “No way in hell would I ever stay in that building, let alone sleep in it. They could have Richard and his boys on us when we least expect it.”
Six nodded from where he stood by the window. “Same.”
Elijah drooped onto one of the armchairs, and Chase shifted to stand beside him. Holden had unearthed some cash he’d had stowed away in the city, and had sprung for a hotel suite uptown, but everyone was too tense to relax. Holden had gone into the other bedroom with his mother, and everyone else was restless in the extravagant room.
It was the classiest joint Chase had ever set foot in. He’d never been more aware of how much the word uncouth really described him.
“I’m just worried,” Elijah admitted. “And scared.”
“So, you thought we should stay in the enemy’s headquarters?”
Chase shot Six a withering look. “Hey, Terminator. How about you chill the fuck out with the Judgment Day shit? He’s just worried that once we’re out of sight and out of mind, they’ll say fuck the deal and sell us out.”
Trent choked on a laugh and pretended to be really into the television listing card as he sat slumped on the couch. Nate elbowed him.
“It might as well be Judgment Day if we don’t get ourselves together and come up with a plan.” Six didn’t respond to the sarcasm or the Terminator comment. “We should be planning, not resting in separate rooms like we have all the time in the world.”
“Okay, never thought I’d say this, but Chase is right.” Lia rolled her eyes at the words and slid a vape pen out of her pocket. She was the only one among them who didn’t look a total hot fucking mess, so she’d gone to the store to snag supplies. Including cigarettes for Chase, not that he could smoke them in the room. Life would have been easier had he been born in the fifties, when nobody gave a damn about their health. Good health likely wouldn’t matter to him in a few hours, anyway. “Jessica is still recovering from seven years of sedatives and being locked in a room. It takes a lot out of her to be this active. And that standoff at the CW drained her.”
Six seemed to digest this, observing her as she exhaled something that smelled of candy apples. “So, why don’t you come up with a plan that we can present to her?”
Lia raised an eyebrow while taking another long pull from the pen. She propped her leg up on an ottoman and leaned on her knee. “Why me? So I can take the fall when this all goes wrong?”
Trend discreetly nodded, and Nate gave him another glare. Nate combed a hand through his hair and seemed to chew on whatever he wanted to say. Those pale-gray eyes flicked between Six and Lia, to the door joining the two bedrooms, and back again.
“It’s because Jessica trusts you. Implicitly.”
Surprise washed over Lia, which she tried to cover by examining her vaporizer. “She barely knows me.”
“True, but I barely knew Trent when I met him, and somehow I knew I could trust him.” Nate looked painfully awkward while explaining this, like he’d rather be doing anything other than discussing his big fat love for the smart-ass next to him. “Sometimes you can just tell, and you have no doubt. I know it sounds crazy—”
“Babe, I’m in a room full of X-Men,” Trent muttered. “I’ll let you know when something sounds crazy.”
Nate rolled his eyes, but there was no mistaking the dorky fondness in his face. He was so unlike his twin, Theo, that it was a little jarring sometimes. When Chase had first come face-to-face with Nate, he’d expected the same brand of manipulation he’d experienced with Theo. But . . . Nate was earnest and naïve to a fault despite his defensive outer layer. Although, the California air seemed to have chilled him. Or maybe he’d started smoking pot with his boyfriend.
“Anyway,” Nate continued. “I can feel it when you guys are talking, Lia. Jessica trusts you more than any of us for whatever reason. Maybe because you were never in the Community, always doubted it, and yet never fully committed to Ex-Comm. Maybe because you were the calm center in her chaotic escape from the Farm. Or maybe because of some weird fate thing, like with me and Trent. Either way, she’ll listen to you, and we all trust you.”
Six nodded. “Yeah, all that.”
Chase shook his head and instantly regretted it. The pounding in his head seemed to grow with every word spoken, but Jesus. What a bunch of fucking characters. “That’s all well and good, but then what’s the plan?” he asked. “Just saying, last time we went in all hot to trot, my boy got shot, and I’m not really compassionate enough to tend to him twice.”
“You didn’t tend to me the first time,” Elijah said, rolling his eyes, but there was a hint of a smile on his face. “But he’s right. How will this be different than before?”
“Well, for starters,” Six said flatly, “Chase isn’t a basket case this time, and he can blow people up with his brain. Basically, if we use you as bait, we guarantee he gets angry enough to fuck everyone up.”
Everyone stared at Six in horror. Lia patted his shoulder and shook her head.
“All right, let’s think about this. Together.”
Elijah didn’t seem comforted by the conversation, and sunk deeper and deeper into the back cushion with his arms crossed over his chest. The wit and sass that usually exploded out of him in a flurry of hugging and fast talking when around groups of people, was dormant. He huddled there like he was waiting for his number to come up and the Grim Reaper to march him to his doom.
Chase dropped his hand to tickle the back of Elijah’s neck. Elijah looked up, clearly startled. Chase nodded at the door leading to the bedroom they’d later share, and relief danced across Elijah’s wan expression. He stood, hesitated, then glanced at the others.
“I’m going to go lie down for a few before we do this. I can barely think straight, and I still feel like shit from our trek in a blizzard.”
“You should rest,” Lia agreed. “We’re not going anywhere right now. Even if we had a plan, we have no supplies. There’s a lot to figure out.”
Elijah nodded and began edging to the door.
Lia pointed at Chase. “And take him with you. He’s glaring more than usual, which means he’s either tired or sick.”
Or suddenly getting migraines after a few days of being Master Telekinetic. Maybe his brain really was about to explode.
“I’m fine,” Chase said shortly. “But I may fuck the hell out of him before we all potentially die.”
Elijah hit his arm as he headed to the room, and Chase responded by smacking his ass. They went into the large bedroom, shut the door, and then Elijah collapsed on the bed with a groan. He rolled over into the fetal position and gazed at Chase with big brown eyes.
“I expected Nate to get a little squeamish about the idea of me dicking you out right now.”
Elijah rolled his eyes. “We’re not actually gonna fuck. I just needed time to, like, process all this.”
“What?” Chase walked over to the side of the bed they’d claimed earlier, and held up a small bag from Walgreens. He dangled it obnoxiously in front of Elijah’s face. “I even got supplies.”
“You mean Lia got supplies?” Elijah was trying to make judgmental faces but could not seem to stop his wide mouth from turning up into a smile. “Chase Payne, we’re in the middle of a massive . . . a totally fucking . . . like—”
“A clusterfuck?” Chase kept dangling the bag. “A disaster waiting to happen?”
Elijah wrinkled his nose.
“A comedy of errors or whatever the fuck that phrase even means?”
Elijah kicked out at Chase this time and rolled his eyes when Chase effortlessly caught his foot. “Vete pa’l carajo, puto.”
“Mmm.” Chase knelt on the edge of the bed and kissed his ankle. “I love it when you speak Spanish to me. Tell me to go fuck myself in all the different ways.”
“Save your fetish for the next bitch.” Elijah tried to tug his foot away. “I’m terrified of what’s going to happen in the next twenty-four hours, and all you can think about is your dick?”
Chase bent his head to press a kiss to Elijah’s ankle. The soft touch stilled Elijah and quieted him down.
“What should we be doing if not fucking?” Chase asked, kissing a little higher up. “Doing amp-up speeches? Trying to use our extra special powers to figure out what dear old Dad is doing?”
Elijah nodded vehemently. “For starters, yes. I’m convinced the board has already sold us out, and Richard—”
“They haven’t,” Chase interrupted. “And he doesn’t know where we are yet. I got into their heads while Holden was getting this place, and confirmed that Kyger and Hale are worried about us failing even though they’re also unsure of the agreement they made with Jessica. They don’t want the Community to collapse because Richard is a sociopath, but they also don’t want to give up their roles as top dogs.”
“Okay . . . so what about Richard?”
Chase pulled off one of Elijah’s socks and tossed it to the side. “My telepathy is still on the fritz, and a lot of it was garbled frustrated ranting about killing me, you, and Holden, but he definitely didn’t know where we are.”
“Yet.”
“Yeah. Yet. Or never if we go to him first.”
Elijah lapsed into silence, watching Chase take his socks and shoes off. It was only when Chase went for his pants did he scoot away. “It’s not a good time, Chase. And it’s pretty discouraging that you won’t take this seriously.”
“Take it seriously?” Chase scoffed and watched as Elijah curled in on himself again, trying to hide from the Big Bad in the world as if making himself small would help. “Dude, what the fuck do you think we should be doing right now? Giving motivational talks or working out to a musical montage? This is going to be a shit plan regardless of what we do. We went to the board so they’d give us some manpower, and it looks like they’d rather pretend to not be involved just in case we fail.”
“Stop talking about failing!”
Chase bit back another sarcastic comment and kept his voice level. “Elijah . . . there are eight of us and a whole lot of them. With guns and whatever kind of freak psychics they’re stowing away in their arsenal. There’s no way we can plan for that in a way that’s gonna make you fucking feel better.”
Elijah flipped onto his back. “That’s really helpful, Chase.”
Chase ran his tongue over his teeth, rolled his eyes up at the ceiling, and then straddled Elijah. “You want me to baby you or be honest?”
“Dumb question.”
“All right, then don’t get uptight when I tell you the reality, sugar tits.” Chase braced his hands on either side of Elijah’s head and leaned down. “You knew you were taking a risk when you started asking questions about where I was. So did Nate when he came to the Farm to get me.”
“Yeah, and it worked. We found you.” Elijah’s eyes opened a fraction, mostly hidden by long fluttering eyelashes. “So now . . .”
Chase arched a brow.
“Now maybe we should just run,” Elijah blurted. “Like Nate and Trent did. Leave the state, start over, and disappear. Don’t worry about anything but each other.”
Chase straightened, watching Elijah from narrowed eyes. “Are you serious?”
Elijah pushed himself up on his elbows, desperation sending his words rushing out of him. “We could go to somewhere random. Somewhere people would never expect. We could go back to Wisconsin. Even after everything that happened, I think my family would help us. They could hide us. Help us blend— Well, you could try to blend in. They don’t accept me being gay, but I don’t believe they’d hurt me. I mean, maybe. I don’t—”
Chase pressed a finger to Elijah’s lips, hushing him. “You need to stop.”
“But—”
“No, I’m serious. Shut the fuck up.” Chase exhaled slowly, trying to reorder the confusing mix of thoughts and reactions rioting for attention in his already pounding head. “Look, if you wanna go to Wisconsin and chance it, I get it, but to be honest, you should just write those people off for the rest of your life. We all have some fucked-up families, and there’s nothing in the world that should ever send any of us scraping back to them.”
Elijah tried to speak again, and Chase pressed his finger down harder.
“Just let me talk, man. I’m being serious here.” Chase planted his hands against the mattress, fingers pushing into the comforter, and leaned down so their faces were once again close together. “Do I want to grab you and bail? Maybe go to Cali with Nate and his man, and learn how to find some chill? Fuck yeah. I want to blow all this off, but I especially want to keep your ass safe. You mean more to me than anyone else, if you haven’t figured that out yet with the staggering hint of my goddamn telekinesis only activating when you’re in distress.”
Elijah’s brows shot up. “I knew, but I still keep expecting you to deny it or take back the fact that you told me you loved me.”
“Yeah, well, I’m a little done with pretending. Like I said, we have a shit plan and we’re going into a dangerous situation. If I’m going to be real with you, now’s the time.”
“It is the time.” Elijah swallowed so hard his throat bobbed, making a clicking sound. “So then why can’t we just . . .”
“Because at the end of the day, I still think the Community is worth saving. Parts of it, anyway. I think the people on the Farm need to be rescued, and they won’t be without us because Kyger and Hale aren’t willing to risk their own selves by going up against Richard.” Anger rushed through Chase at the thought, and a flash of something in his mind: Jessica and Hale facing off, raised voices, and a lingering whisper that sounded a lot like You lied. It could mean nothing or anything, but it was far enough in the future to imply at least Jessica had made it out. “And I’d hate myself if I let my brother go in alone. Either of them. And you’d hate yourself if anything happened to Lia or Holden.” When Elijah opened his mouth to speak, Chase pressed their lips together in a brief kiss. “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain your feelings about him.”
“Why? Because you’re still telling yourself I love him and not you, and you think I was lying when I said it wasn’t true?”
Chase nearly said yes, because it was what he’d been telling himself for years, but it no longer rang true. “I don’t think you’re lying.”
“Then why does it keep coming up?”
“Because . . .” Chase glanced at the door. “When we were in Rook’s truck, you said his name in your sleep, and it fucking reminded me of all those times you used to wake up after having some sex dream about him right before jumping on me.”
Elijah blanched. “You thought . . . Chase, it was probably a vision. About us finding the house where they were. I told you before, on that first day on the Farm, that what I thought I felt for Holden was some . . . immature puppy love. Infatuation. Because I thought he had saved me, and I was beholden to him. Like a kid with a crush on an upperclassman who used to tutor them.”
“Oh, so now he’s your senpai?”
Elijah scowled. “Chase. Can you acknowledge what I’m saying?”
“I am. And yeah, that makes sense now.” Chase groaned and thudded their foreheads together. “Dude, it wasn’t rational. Nothing was rational. Do you know how long I’ve been bitter and angry about you and him? Knowing you worshipped him even though I was the one—” Chase cut himself off, because it didn’t matter what he’d done for Elijah. The last thing he ever wanted was for Elijah to have been beholden to him.
“No, I didn’t know anything,” Elijah snapped. “Because you never mentioned it. In fact, you just teased me about fucking other people and made it sound like you didn’t care what I did one way or the other.”
“Because I didn’t know how to deal with wanting you. And . . . I didn’t want to make it obvious that I had feelings at all, let alone hurt ones,” Chase said dryly. “The point is, I don’t believe it anymore. If you didn’t love me, you wouldn’t have just begged me to run off with you to live like cowards in Wisconsin.”
A laugh popped out of Elijah’s mouth, and his eyes crinkled at the sides. “Leave it to you to make me laugh at a stupid time like this.”
“Seems like perfect timing to me. I want to enjoy this one fucking hour while we have it.” He hesitated a moment longer before rolling to the side and spooning Elijah. “No sex. Just sleep.”
Elijah sighed, content, and practically melted in Chase’s arms. “I want this every night, Chase. I hope it can happen.”
Chase kissed the back of his neck before whispering, “Me too.”