21. Chapter 21
As Kate walked with Caige away from Ziegler’s office, she dropped her arm from his and beelined to the main door—the only way out. Adrenaline lacing her bones, dread weakening her stomach, she strode through the masses. Caige stayed at her back, the prickling discomfort creeping up her neck.
Caige grabbed her elbow and steered her toward the closest bar lined with shots. Probably a peace offering to keep the crowd calm as Ziegler sorted out the situation.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Let’s not make a run for it,” Caige said. “Our ride isn’t here. Do you want to explain what happened back there? You know Matsuda far more intimately than you let on.”
Anger clogged her throat. She took a glass and tossed it back. Vodka burned from her esophagus to her stomach but did nothing to calm her mood. “You’re one to talk, Jack. Just how far up are you?”
“I’m only a general.”
Considering Matsuda only kept six at a time, he was high on the food chain with only four people above him. Did he ever cross Midnight’s path? Her soul stung. Surely not, or he wouldn’t have let the team believe Kate was her.
“But I’m not the one the team needs to worry about.” His heated whisper stung her neck.
“Lay off her, Caige,” Raz snapped across the Micron Ear.
Something brushed her ear, and she flinched. Caige muted her Micron Ear without her ever seeing him move again.
“Seriously?” It came out near a shriek as a bubbling fear rose up in her. This was Mirage—the most hidden assassin.
“Who the fuck were you?” he asked.
She brought up a shot glass between them and tipped it back, the liquid choking her already burning throat. Coughing, she snatched another to keep her hands busy.
She said, “I’m someone who knows Matsuda well enough that I just risked discovery to help you climb the ranks.”
“Why would you do that?”
“If I fucked that up for us, at least you’ll have a shot at getting close enough to take him out.” She lifted the shot to finish it.
Caige grabbed her wrist more gently than he had before, stilling it. “We’re on your side, Kate.”
Her heart thudded in her chest with surprise at his genuine tone.
He released her. “But you need to tell Raz the truth.”
Her stomach protested, but she finished the shot and slammed her hands on the counter. “I’ll take that into consideration.”
Kate blended into the crowd and made her way to the elevator, through the lobby, and outside.
As she walked away from the entrance, a black SUV flew toward the curb and stopped with screeching tires.
The driver’s side opened, and Raz ran around the front.
Seeing him in person—a reassuring force—a sob choked at the back of her throat. Fuck tonight.
Facing Matsuda and Caige’s confrontation, even if he was right, was a nightmare. Raz waited at the open passenger door. The adrenaline left her in a flush, and she wobbled on her stilettos as darkness and dizziness closed in.
“Damnit,” Caige said from behind her, his steps closing in.
But Raz beat him to grabbing her. “You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. His steady grip on her arm flushed her fears away, if only for the time it took him to walk her to the SUV and help her into the seat.
“Get another ride,” Raz whispered heatedly to Caige, slamming the door shut.
Caige nodded and walked down the sidewalk.
Raz jumped into the vehicle and left with as much gusto as he’d arrived with, tires screeching.
Hands shaking, Kate stared out the window, feeling everything within her colliding.
The SUV’s interior closed in on her like a coffin.
Her lungs ceased once more, and her stomach twinged from alcoholic abuse.
“I need…” She swallowed the building saliva as she tried to suck in air. “Pull over.”
“Not yet.” He gripped the back of her neck. “Put your head between your legs.”
She let him push her into the position he recommended.
“Take deep breaths.”
She closed her eyes, blood rushing to her head, and did as he asked.
Inhaling for three, she released it for the same amount.
He rubbed her back, and she centered herself on his rough yet calming ministrations.
You’re okay, Kate. Everything’s okay. She slid forward in her chair, nearly colliding with the glove box, when he stopped quickly. She jerked back as he sped off again.
“You risked everything picking me up,” she said. “They might have your face on video now.”
His touch withdrew, and he skidded around another corner, nearly drifting the vehicle off the road. A bright light flashed in the car. She raised her head. The steering wheel’s glowing?
More specifically, Raz’s hands. She made out impressions in the blaze as if his hands were lengthening. What the hell?
“Raz! What’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry,” he grated out, face contorted with pain. A searing fire arced down her spine along the link. Her own fear had blinded her to it before. Heart in her throat, she grabbed his bare arm and the glow dimmed, his appendages returning to normal.
“Thanks.” He sucked in a breath. “The worst part about being Rogue is our inability to shift often, if at all. I can’t remember the last time…and your fear…nearly ripped it out of me.”
“You mean…the dragon? You almost transformed in this SUV?”
As the glow ceased, he glanced down at her hand touching him. “Almost. Thanks to you.”
“You weren’t going to pull over?”
“I was waiting to get somewhere a little more secluded.”
“Where?”
The SUV slowed. “Here.”
He parked. A dark lake stretched out before them. The single lamplight and the headlights reflected off the black, choppy surface. Feeling at ease with Raz away from the gala, she slipped her feet from the stilettos and hugged her knees to her chest.
The leather squeaked as Raz sank into the chair. “What happened back there? Why did you react to Matsuda so strongly?”
Lingering panic caused her fingers to shake, but she pushed it down. You can trust him. She stared down at her legs and plucked at her fingernails. “He knows me. Just not this face luckily. But I could have blown it.”
“One thing at a time, please. How well does he know you?”
She ducked her head into the gap between her knees, trying to keep the guilt floodgate locked.
“When I first met Matsuda, I was young and na?ve. Naomi and I were living in Japan, working small thieving jobs to make it by. He came into my life. A mentor. A confidant.” A lover. She let the thought hang between them.
When Raz put it together, his surprise strangled the link. “You and Matsuda?”
Heat flushed her cheeks. “He wasn’t who he is today.
Though I guess that was just a con. He taught Naomi and me how to steal from the rich.
Give back to the poor. Naomi never liked him, but I chalked it up to jealousy.
All I knew was the other Matsuda. I trusted him with everything. Even that part of me.”
Raz stilled. “That you’re a Fallen?”
She nodded. A deep weight warred with a wave of heated anger.
“He’s a liar. A manipulator. He encouraged me to use my abilities for some greater purpose.
During a heist for supplies we’d give to Vietnam during war time, Naomi had a hunch about what we were stealing.
They were weapons.” Kate snorted. “To this day I don’t know how I was so blind.
He knew his power over me was slipping, but when we tried to steal the weapons back, he turned the tables on us.
I escaped, but Naomi…” Her breath hitched.
That night ran through her head. Naomi’s searing glare of betrayal flashed through her mind as Matsuda only had to lift one finger to stop her. And Kate turned the gun on herself to stop him from controlling her too.
Tell him. Just tell him.
She opened her mouth but didn’t have the strength to force the words out.
Raz wouldn’t understand why she left her friend behind, and then she became…
Midnight—a killer. Naomi would never forgive her for what she did, and she couldn’t face losing a loyal man with a heart of gold she was beginning to fall for.
“He took her from me without blinking an eye,” Kate said. “And that kind of person…the power he had over me terrifies me.”
“Fuck.” He rubbed a hand over his growing beard. “Is that why you defend Midnight? You feel like she’s somehow stuck like you were?”
“I just—I just. He…I—“ She paused to catch a steadying breath, unsure if she could tell him who Midnight was without exposing the full truth. “He made me do monstrous things.”
“You and Midnight aren’t the same person, Kate. You’d never purposefully kill innocent people.”
The finality in his voice ripped her in half.
Of course, that’s how he saw Midnight’s murders, because that’s what Matsuda wanted everyone to see—especially Kate, who feared Naomi would become an Archfiend if she kept killing.
But she couldn’t argue with him without telling the truth, so she ducked her head. “You’re right.”
Raz sighed. “How can you trust anyone after that? Trust me?”
“You don’t try to be good. You are good. I saw that when I touched your spirit.”
He stared at her for a long moment before slumping back into his seat. “So why can’t he recognize you now?”
Guilt settled in the pit of her churning stomach at what she’d done in the past, and the alcohol was making her slightly woozy.
She turned to the window, watching a tree sway in the breeze.
“My Influence isn’t as strong as Caige’s.
I can’t keep a different face for more than a few hours, so I forced my family line into different nationalities rapidly through four generations. ”
“How? Wouldn’t you have had to die?”
Nausea burned at the back of her throat.
She pressed her head against the window, and the seeping cold pushed away the darkness of the past. Her sigh fogged the glass.
“I stayed Dormant, or in my dead body not reincarnating, while I trusted Bonnie to deal with my family and get them away from him. I couldn’t trust that if I reincarnated too early, he’d hunt me down.
But if he recognized me today, he’d know something was up. And he’d ruin our mission.”
Raz’s hand on her back startled her, but she didn’t move. Gentle fingers tickled up and down her spine, offering a distraction, as calming reassurance flooded down the link, wrapping her in a security blanket.
“We still have the upper hand,” Raz said. “If you trust Clyde’s programming skills, then there’s nothing to worry about.”
She trusted Clyde as she trusted Raz. “Have you heard of the Illumine?”
“I’ve heard of the group in passing—only that they have hands in powerful pockets and are very secretive.”
She nodded. “They’ve been on Earth for generations…many different faces and bloodlines. They hunt the Fallen and the power we possess.”
“Power?”
“Our species must really have just come into contact,” she murmured, grabbing his hand and holding it between hers as she lay back against her seat. “We can leave our human body into another physical form and cast Influence. We also perform miracles, but it costs feathers to do so.”
“The ones you need to collect to return to heaven?”
She nodded.
“So what kind of miracles can you perform?”
“We can’t perform them on other Fallen, but they’re anything a mortal would desire, including a longer life.”
“Immortality?”
“In a nutshell. Matsuda knew about me before we met. Had been tracking me, playing with me the entire time. Now, he’s built an empire and has stolen the Lucifer’s Bell from the Illumine.”
Raz brushed the back of his fingers against her cheek. “I’m sorry you fell into his dangerous web.”
“I’m still finding my way out.”
“And now you have the Dragon SEALs to help you.”
Her heart melted. “Do you mean that?”
“Yes, I still need to verify with the team, but most were in your favor already, including Sid. Speaking of which, we’d better head back before they think something’s wrong.”
If this is going to be one of our last nights together…
“Or…I have another idea.” She climbed over the console. Raz froze as she straddled him and whispered against his lips. “Let me ride the dragon.”
“Fuck me,” he growled in that inhuman sound that sent shivers down her spine.
“Yes, please.”