Chapter 23 #2
The guard glares at me, as if a look from him is enough to intimidate me.
Maybe a year ago, it might have been. But I’ve seen more violence and evil in the last year than I thought I’d see in a lifetime.
This guard hasn’t broken me. He hasn’t assaulted me or threatened the people I love.
He has no hold on me, and his censure has me grinning for real.
“See, so much fun. He tried to intimidate me.”
Falk catches my eye in the mirror, and I can see him piecing it together. He doesn’t know why I’m taunting this man, but he’s going to let me do it. “Ms. McElroy, I need you to stay buckled. Mr. Westerhouse would be upset if you got hurt,” he says, playing along as best he can.
“Oh, pish-posh. You’ve been trained in war-level defensive driving. I’m fine.”
Now he, too, is trying not to laugh while my victim is shifting in his seat, my steady gaze fraying his nerves.
“Do you think he’d scream?” I muse.
“What’s your plan?” Trips asks.
“Hmm.” I tap my finger against my lips, Trips’ hands warm on my thighs. “I think I want something bloody. It’s just been so long. Guns are too…clean, you know?”
“Fists?” Trips asks.
“Falk, do something,” the other guard whispers.
He glances at the other man. “They’re just words. If you can’t take them, you won’t last long here.”
“Ooo! Do you think I’d get to be the one to, you know, fire him?” I ask, finger guns aimed and let loose at his forehead.
Falk pulls into the parking garage at campus, the sudden dark giving me a chance to lunge toward the other guard, who flinches away by instinct.
Trips and I laugh while Falk parks.
“No, not fists,” I say, continuing the conversation. “If I want it bloody, a knife’s the way to go.”
“Paint me a picture,” Trips says as we unload, wrapping his palm around my waist, his coffee in his other hand. I take a long sip of mine, letting him keep me close while the guards take their places behind us.
Walking confidently ahead like the guard isn’t worth keeping an eye on, I do what Trips suggested.
“I was thinking I’d go slow. It’s been so many months since I’ve really had a good time.
And I’ve always wanted to see how long someone’s intestines are when they’re free and floppy, you know?
Do you think they’re stretchy? Like those balloons clowns use for balloon animals? ”
“Oh God,” the guard mutters from behind me.
“In my experience, they’re not like balloons,” Trips says, and I realize I should be more upset that I don’t know if he’s playing along or answering my question.
“Darn. But I bet they’re really long. If I cut it just right, I bet I could stretch it pretty far before he bleeds out.”
A student next to us on the sidewalk steps around us, and I can practically see them wondering if we’re lost theater kids or legitimately crazy.
“I bet you could.”
“Would you spin for me while I jumped rope?” I ask, tugging on Trips’ arm and blinking up at him, the picture of childish innocence.
“Of course,” he says at the same time the guard whispers to Falk and rushes ahead of us into the building.
We’re in the atrium before I spin to face our remaining guard, and he’s shaking his head, soft chuckles I wasn’t expecting coming from him. “He’s going to lose his breakfast after the show you two just put on.”
“Good. Is it possible—” I start when he turns his back to us.
“I’ll let you know when he’s coming back.”
I’m practically skipping as I scan the lobby, looking for Walker where he usually waits.
Then I’m sprinting, flinging myself into his arms. “Oh God, I’ve missed you so much,” I whisper into the crux of his neck, his familiar maple and pine scent making my eyes water.
A moment later, arms band around us both, the scent of clean laundry and something earthy I can’t quite name tickling my senses, and my giggle comes out a near sob.
Walker sets me down, pressing a kiss to my lips before turning me toward Jansen.
Only the guy there isn’t the Jansen I remember.
The same green eyes smile down at me, but they’re surrounded by smudged black eyeliner, his cheekbones sharp against his pale skin, the newly shorn black hair making him look like a ghostly, puckish vampire prince.
The addition of a nose ring and a lip ring has me raising my fingers to his face, and he burrows his cheek into my palm.
“What the fuck are you wearing?” Trips asks from beside us, breaking the trance.
Jansen’s grin presses against my hand, but his eyes stay locked on me. “Your dad is looking for a blond hippie dude. I’m not a blond hippie dude anymore. Ergo, I get to come out of hiding. I’ve been watching from a distance for about a week, seeing if your guards would recognize me.”
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” I whisper, my other hand trembling as I place it against the center of his chest. Against the point where so much of him flooded out that I was sure I’d lose him.
Walker presses against my back, his lips soft against the side of my neck, and I lean against him. “How did you two lose your guards? How long do we have?” he asks.
Jansen presses his lips to my palm, and I feel a childish urge to close my fist to keep the kiss safe.
“Clara scared the one not on our side away. The other one is keeping watch,” Trips explains.
“Clara scared him away?” Jansen asks, lifting his chin as I slide my hand down the side of his neck, feeling the pulse there, steady and strong.
“She threatened to jump rope with his intestines. He ran off to vomit.”
Walker’s laugh jostles me, and I don’t mind one bit. “He believed her?”
“I’m intimidating,” I say.
The three of them stay silent.
“What?” I ask, finally turning away from Jansen and spearing Trips with a glare. “You were there.”
“You weren’t exactly intimidating. You sounded like a ten-year-old with no respect for human life and a strange infatuation with balloon animals.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
Jansen’s about to ask us to clarify, but I press a finger to his lips, the moments slipping away too fast. He quiets, his posture turning rigid as I keep him from speaking.
It affects me too, for all that I can’t act on it right now.
“It’s not important. What is important is two things.
” Removing my finger from his lips, I shiver as he licks them.
“One: I have a phone now, but it’s monitored.
I’ll use it to reach out to you guys, but it’ll have to be in simple code and about nothing particularly important.
Two: I found a way for either RJ or you, Walker, to come to the wedding, but it’s not the best deal. ”
“You made a deal with my father?” Trips asks, while Walker asks what the deal is.
I ignore Trips.
“I promised him a liver.”
Once again, I’m surrounded by their silence, but this time, there’s a lot less humor in it.
“Whose?” Jansen asks.
I shrug. “Someone who deserves it.”
They share a look, and I don’t know what else I can tell them. “I said it wasn’t the best deal.”
“What are the chances Bryce is a match?” Walker asks nobody in particular.
“Is he back?” Trips asks.
I turn so I can see all of them, but bunch my fists into Jansen and Walker’s shirts, tugging them so our sides touch, not able to let go now that I have them.
Jansen drops his head on my shoulder, the newly short hairs prickling against my cheek, while Walker bands his arm around my waist. Then Walker nods, his face grim.
“He knows about you and that guard who, you know…” he goes to motion slicing a throat, but stops before it’s done, concern across his face as he glances at me.
Swallowing down the weight of the life I took, I stay on topic. “But how?”
“We don’t know. There’s nothing on his phone or on his computer that would explain it.”
Terror and grief flood me, and before I can get my emotions back under control, Falk rounds the corner, his grin fading when he sees my face. “You’ve got thirty seconds, give or take,” he says, turning his back and giving us a moment of privacy.
Turning first to Jansen, I press a kiss to his lips: simple, sweet, and so much less than I want to give. “I’m glad you’re okay.” He smiles, and I can’t help but tease him, avoiding the weight that’s settled in my gut. “Be good now, Trouble.”
He leans forward, nipping at my lip, and I can’t help but laugh.
“I’m serious.”
“I’ll try, beautiful. For you.”
Turning to Walker, he bundles me against him, and this kiss is nothing sweet, so full of want and grief that it leaves me reeling.
When he pulls back, I say what I’ve been thinking about for more than a day.
“I’m sorry I missed your birthday. But I made a list in my mind of things about you we can celebrate once this is done. ”
His smile is something between a smirk and a broken plate. “I’ll hold you to it.”
Trips must have been keeping watch, because I’m yanked from between Walker and Jansen, pulled flush to his chest. “Scatter,” he whispers, and I know the other two are gone.
But before the hole in my chest gets any bigger, he tilts my chin up, his lips claiming my attention. When he pulls back, I’m panting.
“Jealous?” I whisper.
“Nah. Just wanted my turn, too. Trust that they’ll figure out the things you can’t while we’re stuck here. I’m going to.”
“Mr. I-need-to-know-everything-all-the-time-and-control-it-otherwise-it-might-go-tits-up is trusting his team?”
“I’ve done a lot of thinking these last few months. They’ve more than earned my trust. And we’ve got enough problems on our side without adding to them.”
The guard I scared earlier stalks up next to me and goes to wrench us apart, ready to prove that he’s bigger than his fear. Before he can, Trips snatches his wrist, squeezing it hard enough for the man to wince. “Hands off,” he says without looking at the man.
Then he kisses the top of my head, the both of us separating to go to class. I spend the time barely listening. Instead, I add to my plans, trying to figure out where to push and prod so all my dominoes will fall one after the next in perfect synchrony.