Chapter Twenty
Birds sang in an uplifting chorus, joyously announcing the day. A vehicle drove by a few miles away with a muffler-heavy sound, then faded into the general hum of life at a distance. Another day dawned.
Leading to another night…
Breen sat slumped against the cabin wall, his useless arms tucked in close to his sides. Sweat sheeted over his eyes. The long hours of hanging by a chain with limited circulation two nights in a row had repeatedly torn the muscle fibers in his arms. And now that his blood-need was somewhere out in the far reaches of the next galaxy over, his accelerated healing powers weren’t really fixing things up so well anymore. At least he wasn’t like…
He glanced at Dev, and an epileptic violin started playing inside his head, the bow wrenching across the strings in shrill shrieks and whines, rising to its highest note until a string would break on a hyper-discordant screech. The noise would dip, then rise once more, beginning the process again. There weren’t many undamaged strings left.
Sanity was a funny thing, wasn’t it?
His was effectively being eroded by watching Dev slowly die.
Because here was the thing about death, it meant gone. Forever. No coming back. An inarguable absolute in the cycle of life…yet Breen’s mind couldn’t grab hold of it.
How could there be life without Dev?
The man was too much of a solid presence in community life, too much a part of Breen’s world ever since he’d joined the Spec Ops Team. Before then, Breen and Dev had worked a lot of years together dealing with Om Rău problems, fighting side by side, watching each other’s backs, but now Breen was part of an even tighter, more cohesive brotherhood—and Dev was the glue. It just wasn’t possible for Dev not to be around anymore. It just wasn’t.
He rasped a breath and choked on his words. “We have to do something.”
Gábor didn’t respond, didn’t even move. Not exactly a problem-solver on a good day, he was currently lost in a terrible place.
Thomal cranked his head up. His eyes were hot and red, so red it looked like lesions had ruptured along his optic nerves. But then Dev was his best friend, and if watching Dev being skinned alive by a bullwhip was making Breen’s brain squeal like a violin played by an untrained hack, he could only imagine what was going on inside Thomal’s mind.
“Do you think,” Thomal said evenly, “I’ve just been sitting here tugging my dick about this? I’ve analyzed this from every conceivable angle, and all I can see is nothing’s changed since yesterday. We’re still minus weapons and comms, and we’re never left unbound. No. I take it back. Something has changed since yesterday—we’re weaker.” He leveled a stare at Breen. “If we managed to steal a knife today, do you have the arm power to fight with it?”
“Maybe with a shit-ton of adrenaline.”
Thomal glanced aside, jaw tight, and shook his head.
Okay, maybe not. Which meant night three was coming their way… Breen closed his eyes as the violin in his head whined. “Dev’s not going to make it through another night.” He kept his eyes closed. Whatever expression was going to come over Thomal’s face over that, Breen didn’t want to see it.
“I don’t know what the fuck to do,” Thomal croaked. “We need help, but unless you have a means of comm tucked up under your nuts, we’re still at yesterday’s telepathy option.”
Breen opened his eyes, but looked down, staring at the duct tape binding his wrists under the shackles. Threads were fraying off the borders, and some of the sticky stuff was gummed up in spots along turned-back edges.
“Dammit.” Thomal massaged his radar. “On top of everything else, Pandra is very much not a Jolly Rancher right now.”
Both Gábor and Thomal’s radars had been paining them on and off during the—
Breen bolted his eyes up. “Holy shit.” Pandra. “That’s it.”
Thomal frowned. “What’s it?”
“Telepathy,” Breen breathed out. “That is the answer.”
* * *
The underground community of Ţărână
5:17 p.m.
Charlize rapid-fire chopped celery at Marissa’s kitchen island, helping her friend prepare Dev’s favorite soup for “when Dev comes home.”
Yeah.
Sure.
For when Dev comes home.
Charlize would go along with it if that was what Marissa needed to believe in order to survive her terror. Cooking was providing Marissa with a much-needed distraction, and maybe busy hands would also help Charlize not think about everything she didn’t want to think about. How Jacken, Nyko, and Arc scoured the streets of San Diego every night, Wilson and Ty every day, and none of them had found a single clue about where the Spec Ops Team might be. No warrior had ever gone missing this long, and the unspoken opinion was now—
“They’re dead.” Chelsea swung her juice glass around the group of them. “You all know that, right?”
Chelsea and Pandra were sitting at the kitchen island, Pandra drinking wine, Chelsea, juice, both of them solemnly watching Marissa and Charlize cook.
Marissa whirled around from the stove, tight-lipped and defensive. “I absolutely do not know that. Our husbands are highly trained warriors, and they know how to take care of themselves. I personally believe in Dev’s abilities.”
“Gimme a break.” Chelsea blurped her lips together, making a raspberry noise. “Da Nile ain’t just a river in Egypt, Marissa.”
Marissa scowled. “Would you please not be negative, Chelsea?”
“Why the fuck not? If there was ever a time to get real, it would be now, Gábor lying dead in a ditch somewhere.” Tears gathered in Chelsea eyes. “God, but I wish I was like her”—she flung a gesture in Charlize’s vicinity—“Little Miss Couldn’t Give Two Shits About My Man.”
“Chelsea!” Marissa rebuked.
Charlize exhaled sharply, her body temperature spiking. Last thing she needed was to be made to feel like more of a freak of unwifely nature than she already did around these three real wives. What she needed was Breen and the calm assurance he always brought with him.
Yeah, somewhere along the way, his stillness had stopped being strange to her and turned into something comforting to be near. Ironic, wasn’t it, that she needed Breen to get over Breen? Pathetic, too, that her resolve not to think about him was such a total fail.
Pandra picked up a piece of celery and crunched it. “People deal with stress differently, Chelsea. Not everyone’s a saddo about it.” Her voice darkened. “I’m not.”
“You’ve been going to the gym every day and demolishing a punching bag,” Chelsea countered. “That shows you at least feel something.”
Anger formed a ball of hurt in Charlize’s chest. “You know what, Chelsea, maybe you’re right. Maybe I don’t give two shits. And if not, then good for me for not sitting around slurping wine and making myself crazy imagining Breen in a ditch, hurt and bleeding…” Her throat jerked her sentence to a stop. Bleeding… The mere thought of blood let slither out of her mind the image she hated most, the one that curled her soul into a fetal pretzel and stripped her down to a bare, vulnerable framework.
The diesel truck.
Tires smoking.
Locked-up, shrieking brakes spewing splinters of metal.
Blood smearing across the sky as if by giant, unearthly fingers…across the grill…the windshield, the road… The kind of dark purple blood that still stained the asphalt when a friend’s mother accidentally drove by the same spot a month later…
Charlize tossed her chef’s knife onto the counter. “I used to spend all my time worrying about the people in my life, like my mother and my brother—who are a couple of bona fide bunny boilers—and it just about ruined me. So I stopped caring. And if that makes me a bag of dirt in your opinion, then so be it. I’ve also never been in a relationship before in my life—hell, I’m not even really in one now—so I have no idea how—”
“What, never?” Chelsea’s mouth twisted in a look of disbelief. “Not even a high school boyfriend?”
“Never,” Charlize returned flatly. “I use up men and throw them away like trash.”
Pandra’s brows arched. “My, my, my,” she drawled. “This is beginning to feel like peering into a long-ago mirror.”
Charlize glanced at Pandra. A lot of rumors flew around about this woman, the gossip describing her in shades of both black and white. What was true and what was legend? Charlize didn’t know, having avoided Thomal’s wife out of loyalty to her roommate, Hadley. But the more she found out about Pandra, the more she wanted to get to know her. She sensed a kindred spirit in her.
Marissa scooped up the chopped celery. “You can’t just throw away Breen, though,” she said to Charlize, dumping the celery in the soup. “I know your situation is complicated, and I don’t pretend to understand what you’re going through. But maybe this is your chance to reevaluate your relationship with him, make some changes.”
“Why?” Charlize countered. “Because Breen might be dead? Because if he’s not, I’ve had a good scare, and I should realize what I’ve got and grab it?” She started to shake her head, but Marissa just gave her a steady look.
“Yes,” she said. “Breen is perfect for you.” Marissa set the lid on the soup pot. “His calm nature is an ideal counterbalance to your wild side.”
Charlize’s jaw went earthquakey on her. Perfect for you… What the hell was she supposed to do with that concept? Back when Breen was a kabocha squash, the thought of pulling off a relationship with him had been a joke. Now that he was actually a man of depth, the thought of a relationship still made clawed beetles crawl up her spine.
Poor guy was damned if he did, damned if he didn’t, and Charlize had no idea why she was so intent on setting him up to lose. It probably had something to do with what she just said to Chelsea. She’d stopped caring.
Charlize went back to shaking her head. “It sounds good, Marissa, but it’s the kind of stuff that only happens in books and movies. I’m too fucked up to make those kinds of changes for real.” A pampered and sheltered woman might’ve been able to indulge in the fantasy that with dedication and discipline, marital bliss was possible. But Charlize’s view of the world was too realistic for her to have faith in positive outcomes.
Pandra chuckled. “This is becoming right uncanny.” She cocked her head at Charlize. “Has anyone ever suggested that you have a gab with Karrell?”
“Who’s Karrell?”
“The community therapist.”
“Therapy?” Charlize made a face. And have a stranger crawl around inside her private thoughts?
Pandra’s mouth tipped into a half-smile. “I know, I know. I wasn’t too keen on the idea at first, either, but therapy turned out to be a bloody corker for me. The work I did with Karrell allowed me to take on roles I never would’ve been able to do well if I hadn’t found peace—wife and mother and teacher. It gave me—Shite!” Pandra flung her hands up to her head, knocking over her wine glass as she clutched her temples.
The glass shattered, spilling wine.
“Pandra!” Marissa exclaimed. “My God, are you okay?”
“I’ll be buggered,” Pandra breathed. “I think I just heard Thomal’s voice inside my mind.” She massaged her temples with her fingertips. “His actual voice.” She grimaced at the mess she’d made. “Sorry about your goblet. But hearing that startled the bleeding pants off me.”
“Forget the goblet.” Marissa threw a dish towel over the broken glass. “What’s this about Thomal?”
Pandra dropped her hands, and small frown lines appeared between her brows. “For lack of a better way of putting it, the doorway into my Fifth Element was rattling. I think the hubby is trying to communicate with me along that pathway.”
Marissa’s eyes widened. “Can he do such a thing?”
“We’ve never done it before. But he was with me when I performed the ritual to stop Videon from stealing souls, so I’d wager he and I are connected along that realm to some degree.”
Fifth Element? A ritual to stop soul stealing? Charlize thought back to the manual—none of those things were in it.
“So our men are alive?” Marissa asked, speaking fast with excitement.
“It’s sounding like it, but…” Pandra rose. “I need to go home, get into a trance, and see if Thomal and I can do this. Would it be all right if I leave Lucca here?”
“What? Of course, of course.” Marissa flapped her hands. “He’s fine having a sleepover with Randon. Just go.”
Slumping on her stool, Chelsea rested her palms on her swollen belly and cried quietly.
Charlize took over the job of raking up the broken glass. So our men are alive? Was that even remotely possible? Was Breen about to pull off a miracle and actually come back?
Charlize’s hands shook, and she cut her finger.