Prologue #2
“I was kidnapped by a cult—along with Grace, one of my closest friends—locked in a shed the deranged leader thought would break me down to nothing, and had to bust my way out with a rusty metal bar while my partner, Nate, along with Grace’s husband AJ, his twin brother Jasper, and Connor—a friend with more connections than God—broke a whole mess of laws to find us.
After I escaped, I set the cult leader on fire and then drove a flaming torch into his eye before AJ put a bullet through his heart to save Grace’s life.
Oh, and then we had to skedaddle right quick before two rival cartels tried to kill each other on the cult’s lands. ”
Morris would’ve had me committed on the spot.
So I made up a bullshit excuse about taking down a suspect with a baseball bat studded with rusty nails. She knew I was lying. But she treated me anyway.
Now, the streetlights blur outside the window of Nate’s Chevy Impala. The car’s old enough to collect a retirement check, yet still smells like he drove it off the lot yesterday.
“You’re doing it again,” he says as we stop to let a train rumble by. “You keep trying to scratch through those bandages and I’m gonna make a detour for a pair of boxing gloves. Then spend the next hour learning the most complicated knots on the planet.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Gotta live up to my nickname.” Nate smirks as he eases off the clutch.
Even at the pitifully low speed he takes them, the train tracks jostle my brain hard enough, nausea slams into me. I force slow, deep breaths until the sensation passes, then try for a glare. If Nate’s eyes weren’t glued to the road, he might have been impressed.
“You’re my partner. Not my mother or my doctor. And as we’re both on leave pending an investigation into”—I gesture vaguely with my left hand—“well, everything, Lieutenant Last Nerve is off duty until AJ can work some magic with the chief.”
“We’ll see about that.” He doesn’t say another word until he pulls into the lot of my apartment building.
I should call 911 and report the lack of sarcasm.
I’m out of the car before he shifts into park. If I’m lucky, he’ll get the hint and go home.
His door slams, boots scuffing the pavement as he sidles up next to me. “You forgot your meds. And your bag.”
Shit.
Nate hikes the borrowed duffel higher on his shoulder. It’s not my bag. That’s in an evidence locker at the Ranger Station, along with my broken laptop and gun.
He nods toward the stairs. “After you, Lieutenant Loose Cannon.”
I manage the first two flights without much issue. But the third… My body isn’t lining up right.
My foot lands a half a second too late on the seventh step.
I can’t feel the railing under my bandaged palm.
My head throbs in a steady, pulsing beat that hasn’t stopped since Marvin—fucking traitor—tried to split my skull open with the butt of his gun.
At least the sun set a while ago. I had to keep my eyes closed for the drive from Grace and AJ’s house to the medical center. It was too bright.
The key misses the lock. My fingers don’t want to cooperate, and my vision shimmers around the edges. I try again. Miss again.
“Your lock’s staging a protest. I could teach it a lesson.”
Frustration focuses me enough to get the key to slide home, and the deadbolt gives way with a quiet thunk.
I don’t get a chance to revel in that tiny victory before my foot lands on a pile of mail. I skid, and the world drops out from under me. I grab for the doorframe, but my shoulder slams against the wood, and I start to go down.
Nate’s hand cups my elbow, stabilizing me, and he guides me over to the couch. “That’s enough upright for today.”
“I’m fine.” The words are sharp enough to cut glass, but Nate doesn’t even flinch.
“You just lost a fight with junk mail. That’s no one’s definition of fine.”
I should rail against being “handled.” But as soon as he lifts my mom’s old quilt from the back of the sofa and drapes it around my shoulders, I settle deeper into the cushions and close my eyes.
Nate’s footsteps echo on the thinly carpeted floors, a bag drops next to the coffee table, another down the hall in my bedroom.
“Thai or deep dish?” he asks when he returns to the living room and sinks onto the cushion next to me.
“I’m not hungry.” His snort is enough for me to force my eyes open. “I’m not.”
“You’ve barely eaten in two days. Connor made enchiladas, Parker. Enchiladas.”
“I had some.” My voice doesn’t sound like me. Too hollow. Too pathetic. Maybe he won’t notice.
“You moved pieces around your plate for twenty minutes while the rest of us all had seconds.”
“That’s not what happened,” I mutter, closing my eyes again.
“Parker, I was there.”
A sigh heaves my shoulders. “I wasn’t hungry then, either.”
“Which is why we’re not using that as a baseline. Choose or I choose for you. And you know what that means.”
“I swear to God, Nate. If you bring cheesesteaks into my apartment, I will kick your ass.” The headache pulses in time with my heartbeat, and I burrow deeper under the blanket.
“Thai then. Two pad see ew, extra vegetables, one with tofu, one with chicken. Spring rolls. Four-star spicy for you, zero for me.”
I should argue. Should point out that I’m perfectly capable of ordering my own food and that he’s being overprotective and annoying.
But the quilt is warm. The couch is soft. And I don’t actually want to be alone.
“Forty-five minutes,” he says, setting the phone on the coffee table. He leans back, arms crossed, and tips his head against the cushion. “So we've got time for you to tell me to leave again. Get it out of your system.”
“I can take care of myself.” There’s no strength to the words. Even I don’t believe them. Not tonight.
“If you trip over your electric bill, I’m gonna be the one who has to explain it to Cap. Or worse—Chief Harris. I’m staying. Besides, my couch isn’t this comfortable. You want tea?”
“No.”
“Good. That would’ve required effort,” he says, somehow managing to adopt all the tension of a wet noodle. “I’m pacing myself.”
I turn my head enough to glare at him. “You’re really earning that nickname.”
“Consistently.” His chest puffs out like it’s a point of pride. “A lesser partner would have abandoned you to fight the mail alone.”
“I wasn’t fighting anything.”
“You absolutely were. It was a close match, too.”
The sound that slips free almost passes for a laugh before the headache reminds me not to get ambitious. “Fine. You can stay. But I need a shower.”
He starts to get up, but my glare must be on point, because he drops his ass back to the couch. Standing slowly, bracing myself on the arm of the sofa as the dizziness swells then ebbs, I head down the hall, every joint, muscle, and bone in my body bitching about the effort and how movement sucks.