Chapter 29
Daniel wanted to jerk away like a guilty schoolgirl but with superhuman effort she continued to swallow.
Prevent one disaster and then the other Schwartz. You can do this.
“I’m not getting an answer?” Colt snarled. She didn’t need to see him to know he was fucking livid. She needed to act fast. She pulled back, tucked John’s briefs over his semi-hard cock and shot to her feet. “Okay, what are we dealing with here?”
Colt, still in his board shorts and dripping seawater and sand all over the floor, ignored her completely. He pointed a heavy knuckled finger at John. “You fucking dared to touch her behind my fucking back? And then you call her a…” He took a deep shuddering breath. “I’ll ask the question again. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you.”
“Okay there is no need for death threats.” Daniel moved forward, arms extended, as though she possessed the ability to keep Colt from John. “He didn’t mean what he said, he just likes rough sex.”
Colt didn’t even look at her. “Just likes rough sex huh? Let me tell you something, I’ve fucked more women than I’m proud of with this asshole and he’s never, ever said anything like that in front of me.”
“Well if this is how you react I’m not surprised,” Daniel said looking over her shoulder.
Why wasn’t John defending himself? He was just sitting there like a stunned mullet.
“Princess you should go upstairs.” Colt said his eyes still fixed on John.
“No I shouldn’t, if you were going to beat someone up it should be me. I started this.”
Colt finally looked at her, his liquid brown eyes full of fury. “Really? You weren’t say, in the middle of eating a muffin when an asshole who’s been ignoring you all week came into your kitchen and told you some asshole thing?”
Daniel glanced at the muffin, resting beside her undrunk coffee like a smoking gun. “I…”
“Exactly.” Colt growled. “You need to leave.”
Daniel’s groaned. She’d known one of the boys might show up before she and John were finished but she’d hoped things would escalate into a goodbye orgy not a smack down. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Darlin’?” Seb appeared in the doorway, hair tousled from the wind and sand. “What’s wrong?”
“Colt’s being a—
“Blackwood made Daniel suck him off while he called her a worthless whore. No wait, a worthless bitch.”
Until that moment Daniel never really understood how Seb had been in the armed forces. He was almost pathologically gentle. But when Colt dropped that little piece of news his jaw hardened and his eyes went blank. He looked like a robot, every part of his body projecting a cold readiness for violence. “Why’d you do that John?” Robo-Seb asked. “Why’d you wanna hurt her?”
“He didn’t hurt me!” Daniel insisted. “I don’t feel pain remember?”
She turned to beg John to open his fucking mouth and explain but when she saw his face she knew it was no use. His skin was waxy, his eyes like two chips of granite. Forget Dead Eyes he had a dead face
“Daniel,” Robo-Seb said in his calm robot voice. “You’d best leave darlin’.”
“This is my jail slash house, why don’t you leave?” She wished her voice didn’t sound so high. So feminine. She wanted to be big and strong and angry but she wasn’t. She was little and missing pants and without shoes she barely came up to anyone’s navel. She felt her own helplessness so acutely, like a sharp little thorn between her breasts. “I don’t want you to fight.”
“I’m sorry,” Robo-Seb said. “But it’s just how we’ve gotta do things, now please go up to your room. I’ll come get you once it’s over.”
“No! Fuck you, listen to me.” Daniel grabbed Seb’s right arm and forced him to meet her gaze. “There’s no time for this shit, John and I figured out something massive and—”
“What is it?” Colt demanded.
She glanced up at the cameras, the red eye was blinking furiously, capturing every moment. A sticky rush of mirth flooded her system. “I can’t say right now but you can’t waste time kicking John’s head in when there’s more important shit to sort out.”
“He hurt you,” Colt growled. “He insulted you”
Daniel’s mouth was dry as sand. “I asked him to, we were saying goodbye.”
“Saying goodbye. Do you mean…? Colt turned to John. “You booked us for another job didn’t you?”
John’s face was a mask. “I told you I would. I told you we needed to leave.”
“You arrogant asshole,” Colt said in an almost gentle voice. “You can forget whatever you signed me up for, I’m done.”
“No!” Daniel shouted artificial happiness lurching through her. “Colt you don’t understand you can’t stay with me. You and John have been through everything together. You need to stay together. You need to be okay, if you’re not okay I won’t be okay.”
“We’re already not okay,” Robo-Seb announced. “He lied to us Daniel.”
“Only because you don’t understand why Middlebend wanted you here.”
“Daniel,” John said sharply. “Shut up.”
“Fuck.” Daniel slapped a hand to her mouth. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
This was bad. This was really bad.
“Don’t you speak to her like that!” Colt bellowed and John said something back but Daniel didn’t hear it. She’d realized what she had to do. She had to go upstairs, take the NEMP from under her mattress and use it. Here and now. Hurt all three of these men and escape. Their last moments together wouldn’t be tender or fond or sexy they’d be painful. She watched Colt and John and Seb moving around the room shouting and grabbing on another’s shirts.
God this was all her fault. God she fucked everything up. She’d wanted pleasure more than she’d wanted to keep them safe. More than she wanted to use her fucking brain and realize what Middlebend had been doing. They’d expected her to act like some dumb, sex-crazed teenager and she had. Now she’d dragged Colt and John and Seb down with her. She’d had dozens, maybe even hundreds of chances to prevent this and she hadn’t. And now she’d ruined everything. Everything. Jesus everything.
As though determined to capitalize on this window of self-hatred her mind was suddenly teeming with memories of Cynthia lying dead on a bed in Paris, of her sister telling her she’d never see her niece and nephew again, her parents graves, her twins face staring out at her in photographs, the way Seb and Colt looked as they slept and John’s face, John’s crumbling, miserable, broken face. She felt the end of the world bearing down on her as she never had before, all that weight pressed into her lungs and pores like sticky blackness.
God she’d ruined everything.
Hot tears spilling down Daniel’s cheeks. She’d forgotten what it felt like to do this, to let your fear trickle out of you in a warm steady stream. It was nice. Achingly nice. Less nice were the starbursts twinkling behind her eyes. The fact that her hands and feet were ice cold and tingly that the world was swinging in and out of focus
“Daniel?” Seb said from far, far away. “Daniel are you…”
“Unnhhhh.” She grasped her head as chemicals blared through her like a ten tonne truck.
Hurry up dipshit, some un-buzzed corner of her brain insisted. They’re not going to understand…
“Seb… I need…” But before she could say ‘jellybeans’ her brain was sucked up the nozzle of some internal vacuum cleaner, taken away to another land while her body collapsed on the floor.
When she came to Daniel’s chest was tight, her ribcage aching. She could only make out snatches of what the boys were saying between fits of hot hysterical laughter.
The last time she’d done this she’d been eleven. She’d stayed balled up on the grass of Waikumete cemetery for almost an hour, terrifying everyone with her high hysterical laughter. Twice Melody slapped her so hard her ears rang but that only made it worse. She’d just laughed and laughed until her throat sucked tight and her face went purple and an ambulance was called. Once she was stuck full of flunitrazepam the EMT told Melody that her blood pressure was so high she’d had almost had a pre-teen heart attack right next to their dead parents’ graves.
“How did it—”
“Why is she—”
“She’s having a panic attack.” John said as warm hands flopped her against someone’s equally warm chest.
Panic attack? Daniel thought indignantly. Heart attack more like. I’ll show him, I’ll show him by dying.
But her plans to die out of spite were ended as a thousand nitrogen-cold needles struck her in the face and shoulders. Her eyes flew open to find she was sitting on John’s lap, her nails dug deep into his clavicle. They were both soaking wet.
“Fuck,” Colt said, standing over them with an empty jug. “Sorry man, looks like she hit bone.”
“It’s fine,” John said weakly. “Her hands…?”
Someone, Seb probably retracted her nails from John’s shoulders. “Is she okay?”
“No. Why the fuck did you… unhh.” Daniel’s stomach cramped and she began to laugh again. God she just wanted them to stop looking at her. She tried to say as much but Colt just smoothed a palm down her back. “Princess we’re here for you we don’t care that you’re laughing like a horror show clown.”
“You only like me because of computers!” Daniel shouted.
“Huh?”
“Don’t listen to her.” John seized her chin. “Dani you need to count down from five. Now.”
“Can’t,” she wheezed. Her chest tightened painfully, rubber bands contracting around her throat and ears.
“Yes you can.” John’s eyes bored into hers. “You’re just having a panic attack. It’ll pass. They always do.”
He said it without a trace of panic, or urgency. He said it as a matter of fact. Then he cupped her cheek. “I’m going to count for you, five, four, three, two, one.”
Daniel burst into another fit of helpless giggles. “You’re. Touching me.”
John’s thumb brushed over her skin. “I know.”
“Maybe. You’ve got. A hero complex.”
“Maybe,” John’s eyes floated in front of her. Green and soft. “Listen to me; five, four, three, two, one.”
He counted down again. Then again. Slowly Daniel began to anticipate the numbers. She was laughing but she was also counting. The surges became slow gasping sobs, then heavy breathing. Five, four, three, two, one. Her frozen muscles began to slacken. Five, four, three, two, one. She yawned widely.
“That’s it,” John said as he rubbed her back in circles. “That’s it. Deep breaths. You’re doing so well.”
And there it is, Daniel thought. The first real compliment he’s ever given me.
She swallowed, her nose and mouth heavy with phlegm. Without thinking she wiped her face on John’s shoulder but instead of freaking out he laughed. “Everything’s okay Dani.”
“What about Middlebend?” She mumbled.
“I’ll deal with it I promise.”
“I think I’m falling asleep.”
John stroked a cold hand across her scalp. “We’ve got you.”