Chapter Eighteen
“You’re sure she’s there?”
Drake looked through binoculars at the big house located on the outskirts of Winchester, Virginia. The small, sleepy town was peaceful at this time of the night. The moon was out but it was in a half phase, and the woods around him were dark.
Cooper was sure there was no peace tonight for his future wife. Did Kala even know she was back at the place of her original trauma? Had she woken up and looked around and screamed in despair?
Check that. His baby wouldn’t freak out. She would wake up and plan how to slaughter her enemies.
He hoped she knew he was coming for her. Well, he hoped she knew they would do anything to find her. She slept through meetings. He was pretty sure she had no idea what Lou had created.
“Her tracker places her there, and I have zero doubt it does everything Lou says it does.”
Big Tag had been quiet on the plane. They hadn’t even used their own plane. Big Tag was worried that Huisman had people watching the team, so they’d all gone into the MT building as though headed in for a long meeting, and he’d slowly gotten them all out undercover. A few years back, he’d found a tunnel that led from their building to one two blocks over. No idea why it was there, but they used it when they needed to.
They’d gone to an executive airfield where a Bond Aeronautics jet was waiting. It was owned by Big Tag’s brother and sister-in-law and wouldn’t show any of them as passengers. Cooper had flown the jet with quiet precision, happy he had something to focus on during those hours.
“She’s in there,”
Lou insisted. She’d changed into all black, while TJ was in dark fatigues. “They moved her from one side of the house to another.”
“Well, at least we know where they’ll keep her,”
Charlotte said. She sat in the back of the van Drake had picked them up in, checking her guns.
“We have a go from Langley if you’re sure,”
Drake informed them.
“I wish you hadn’t told them.”
Big Tag sounded irritated. Drake had met them at the DC airfield with two vans and all the equipment they would need.
“You know I have to,”
Drake argued. “This is an op on American soil. If something goes down, we’ll need an umbrella. The good news is this place is isolated. The nearest neighbor is two miles away.”
Drake should know since it used to be his house. Or rather his mother’s. At least some of this was the boss’s fault. “Well, I kind of wished you hadn’t decided to sell it. Or maybe you could have checked and seen who the buyer was.”
“Coop,”
Kenzie began.
He wasn’t having any of it. “Nope. I’m kind of done with the older generation telling me I should be more careful. I have a brother I didn’t know I had and a bio mom who likes to blow shit up because they thought my father was close enough to the Taggarts to protect me. No one vetted them because apparently I was a cute baby and they didn’t want to ask questions. And now Kala’s in a place where she’s already been tortured once because Drake here couldn’t be bothered to read a contract.”
“In my defense, my mother sold the place.”
Drake was in the passenger seat, staring at the house down the hill. “We couldn’t go back after what happened. We held on to it for almost ten years before she retired and decided it was time to find a new place. I’ve never even taken my children here.”
“And technically it’s not Big Tag’s fault you have a weapons forward bio mom and a brother who should be more open emotionally and informationally,”
Tris quipped from behind his laptop. “Technically that’s your bio dad’s fault because of the way semen works. See, this is why Big Tag is such an advocate for condoms. Should we be looking for him? Is this all going to be some weird family reunion?”
He might punch Tristan. They were getting nowhere. “If we have a go, why aren’t we going yet? Tell me we’re not waiting for Theo and Erin.”
Devi’s parents were on their way back from their trip, but it would take them hours to get there, and those hours would likely cost Kala an enormous amount of pain. He wouldn’t allow it.
“We have to have a plan, Rambo,”
Big Tag said with a long sigh. “Unfortunately, we don’t think we can move in the same way we did last time. Last time we used a set of tunnels that lead from about a half a mile away to the basement. Huisman has to know about the tunnels.”
“Well, he’s definitely got some security up and running.”
Tristan’s face was ghostly behind the lights coming from his laptop. His partner, Aidan, was in the van waiting a half a mile down the road. Tasha was driving a backup van in case things went bad.
“Can we cut the electricity from here?”
Lou was supposed to be in the van with Tasha, but she’d shut down the notion of being support in this case. She was going in to save her best friend and wouldn’t be talked out of it. TJ hadn’t even argued with her, merely told her she would be by his side the whole way.
“We can, but then he’ll know we’re coming,”
Tris argued. “I kind of wish we had Parker with us. No one knows this asshole better, and quite frankly, he’s proven good in a fight.”
“I wish we had Ben here, too, but he might have questions about how we’re rescuing me.”
Kenzie had her hair hidden under the balaclava she would soon pull down to mask her face. “Believe me. I wish I hadn’t been forced to leave him. We were really talking. And now he’s talking to Dare.”
It had been the plan to extricate Kenz without making it too obvious to Ben that something was going on. Dare had joined them and asked to speak to Ben. The good news was that Dare had definitely softened on his former friend and was actually ready to talk to him. Kenzie had set them up in a private room at Top with expensive Scotch and cigars, and according to Tash they’d stayed until about thirty minutes before.
Kenzie had told him she’d meet him for a late lunch tomorrow.
If she was still alive and not in mourning. If they lost Kala, all bets were off, and it wouldn’t matter anymore if Parker or everyone else figured out they were twins. “We should think about letting him in on the secret. I don’t know that it’s fair that Huisman knows and he doesn’t. It gives Huisman a weapon to use against Parker and us.”
“I’ll think about it,”
Ian returned.
Kenzie let out a deep breath. “Good. We’ll talk about it when we get my sister and Devi back.”
“I still think we should have brought Daisy,”
TJ said in a hushed tone. “I know y’all think bringing a civvie in is wrong, but she foils bad-guy plans all the time. We would just have to have her, like, walk by the house and it might fall down.”
Cooper wasn’t sure that TJ was joking. After all, the last time Devi found herself in a shitty situation, Daisy had handled it, and she hadn’t even needed a gun. Not that she would have been able to hide a weapon since she’d walked out and distracted the bad guys with her nudity.
Cooper was absolutely sure it wouldn’t work on Huisman. Nothing would except the element of surprise. “What’s going on with the cameras? Can we take them over?”
“I can patch on to them, but it’s going to be a while before I get control,”
Tris said with a frustrated growl. “This software is very complex. It’s almost like he knew someone would try to take over.”
This guy was always prepared. He was always one step ahead. “Do we have any idea how many people he has with him?”
“I’m going through the feeds.”
Lou had a laptop open as well. “I’ve got ten armed guards, I think. They’re all dressed alike, so I might be off by one or two. He’s got them patrolling a half a mile area around the house, and he’s got one on the tunnels.”
“Can you see the basement?”
Charlotte asked. “It’s almost surely where Kala will be when they’re not…”
Torturing her. Charlotte might not be able to say the words out loud, but it didn’t change what was likely happening to the woman he loved.
“The basement is one of the rooms they have blacked out,”
Tris admitted. “I can see there’s a camera there, but it’s offline. Same for a couple of the rooms upstairs.”
“That’s where she’ll be,”
Ian said firmly. “We need to access those rooms. The ones with cameras on aren’t important beyond letting us know where the bad guys are. But you have to consider that the blacked-out rooms will have potential threats in them.”
“Like more guards?” TJ asked.
“Or traps,”
Charlotte replied. “Don’t trust anything in that house at this point.”
“My wife found a bunch of medical equipment being shipped to this address within the last three weeks,”
Drake said, staring down at his tablet. He was in touch with his wife, Taylor, who also worked for the Agency. “It appears they’re trying to show this as some sort of clinic on paper. That’s disturbing. He’s done a good job. He had the whole area rezoned as a mental health center. Like a rehab for wealthy people. It allows him to legally ship drugs in without gaining the eye of law enforcement.”
“He did all of this for her,”
Kenzie said, not quite able to hide the horror in her tone. “He bought the house because it was attached in a way to our family, but he prepped it after he took her the first time. We have to think he’s got some kind of fascination with Kala. What’s happening to her? I wish we had that twin thing where we can feel each other.”
“He won’t kill her right away.”
Ian’s tone had gone stony. It was how he talked when he was in focus mode. No sarcasm. No emotion.
But the emotion was there. It simply didn’t control him. Like Cooper was learning to do with his own. Kala didn’t shut down because she couldn’t feel. She did it so she could focus on the problem at hand and not give the enemy information they didn’t need to know. He felt a steely resolve harden in his gut. “She’ll survive. No matter what he throws at her, she’ll survive it, and we’ll all be there for her.”
“I don’t know if my sister can,”
TJ said, for the first time sounding a little on edge. He’d been a soldier for a long time and he’d had to fight for his teammates, but Devi was his baby sister. And she didn’t have the training the rest of the family had. “Survive, that is.”
“Kala will do everything she can to make them look at her instead of Devi,”
Cooper promised. He knew his girl. She would take the pain so her cousin didn’t have to.
And she thought she was some kind of villain?
“Devi’s tougher than you think,”
Kenzie added. “She’s got a core of strength inside her. She won’t break.”
“We have movement to our left,”
Drake said. “About a hundred feet away. There’s someone out here moving through the trees.”
He pulled his comms unit. “Tash, are you seeing what I’m seeing?”
The radio crackled and then Tasha’s voice was heard. “Yes. I see him. He’s roughly six and a half feet, and he’s wearing fatigues but not the ones the guards wear. He seems…familiar to me. It’s something about the way he… I think it’s Zach. Don’t shoot. He’s making his way to the van. Are you out of camera range?”
It was precisely why they were parked where they were. Cooper stared out the window and then opened the door.
“Hey,”
Ian began.
“He’s here to talk to me,”
Cooper replied, hopping out of the van. In the moonlight he could see the shadowy figure moving toward them. Every few seconds he would stop and ensure the guards weren’t on their rounds to his left and then he would move again, gaining ground.
It was definitely Zach. Tasha was right. The man moved with predatory grace, clinging to the trees like a shadow. And then he was simply striding toward the van.
TJ had gotten out and stood behind Cooper, obviously lending his support. His hand was on the M16 on his chest.
Zach’s hands came up. “Hey, brother. I’m not here to hurt anyone on this team.”
Big Tag now stood at the front of the car, his eyes staring out at Zach. “I’ll decide that.”
Charlotte had other thoughts. She got out of the van and walked right up to the man, throwing her arms around him. “Are you okay?”
“Charlie,”
Ian barked out.
“You know damn well he’s not here to hurt us.”
Charlotte stared up at Zach and gave him a maternal once-over. “Are you all right?”
Zach’s eyes closed, and Cooper thought he was trying hard to not get emotional. He was dressed for battle, but Cooper noticed he didn’t have a holster on him. If he was carrying, Cooper couldn’t tell. Zach opened his eyes again and gazed down on Charlotte. “I’m as best as can be expected. I miss you. I miss everyone.”
“Then why don’t you come back in?”
Big Tag offered.
“I’m going to pretend like I see nothing.”
Drake kept his head down. Probably because he was supposed to arrest Zach on sight. “I know nothing. You were never here.”
“I appreciate that,”
Zach replied before looking to Ian. “And you know why I don’t come in. Until I have something solid the Agency wants, they’ll toss me in a cell somewhere. Or worse. They’ll get rid of the problem. The problem being me. I’m close. When I have some leverage, you’ll be the first to know. Hey, Lou.”
Lou gave him a wave. “Hey. Do you know anything that could help us save Kala?”
“I might have a plan,”
Zach said mysteriously.
“How do you know she’s here?” TJ asked.
Cooper rather thought he knew. “He had someone watching Devi. He told Kala he was worried about her. I didn’t actually hear that convo because he shot me, but it’s in Kala’s report.”
Zach had the grace to wince. “I’m sorry, but you were a little heated, and I was worried we were going to throw down.”
Yeah, he was working on it. He was willing to do anything if he could get Kala and Devi out of that house alive. “What’s your plan and I’ll tell you if I’m going to talk to you the next time I see you or take your head off.”
A ghost of a smile played at Zach’s lips. “Good to know.”
He got serious. “I do have someone watching Devi, but he’s one guy, and he didn’t realize what was going on until they were taking her and Kala out. He’s a friend of mine. A mercenary who’s worked with my mother from time to time.”
“And he followed her here?”
Big Tag asked. “Because I’m unsure of how you figured out where she is. Unless someone on this team is talking.”
Well, that wasn’t even vaguely disguised as non-threatening. “No one on the team is talking to him behind your back. Kala talked to him and immediately reported what happened. You’re pissed Charlotte hugged him and is acting like she’s twelve kinds of fine with him showing up, but I’m pretty sure she was checking him for weapons.”
“He doesn’t have any,”
Charlotte agreed. “But he is carrying something. I don’t know what it is, but it’s taped to his waist. Small. It might be a detonator. If they don’t carefully inspect him, he might get in with it.”
Yep, Kala had come by her suspicion honestly.
“It is a detonator, and it’s taped to my body with specifically colored adhesive that blends with my skin,”
Zach admitted.
Ian’s lips curled up. “I should have known, but don’t tell me you weren’t worried about him.”
“I was. I am. And so are you. Let Drake be the angry boss right now,”
Charlotte advised. “Zach should understand we’re ready to talk when he is, and we’ll withhold judgment until we know the full story.”
“What she said, but none of that explains how he knew where we were,”
Ian agreed. “If he’s got eyes on us, we have to know.”
“No eyes.”
Cooper knew what happened. “Zach didn’t know the tracker didn’t work last time. He was on the run before we figured it out. He would have looked for her tracker. Now, I don’t know how he got the new login, but that’s how he wasn’t confused.”
“I couldn’t get into Tris or Lou’s system, but all operatives are also tracked by the Agency.”
Zach put his hands on his hips, staring out over the road that led to the house. “I know some people who still let me in, and no, I won’t give them up. But I will give myself up when it’s safe to. I promise. Everything I’ve done since the day Tristan found out I was involved with the bombmaker has been about protecting the people I love and hunting down Huisman. Now the person I love the most is in his hands, and I’m not going to leave her there. He wants me, he can have me.”
Cooper didn’t want the well of feeling that rose inside him. He wanted to stay pissed at Zach so he didn’t have to examine all the shit between them. He got the feeling that wasn’t going to happen. “You can’t go in alone.”
“Fuck, yes I can.”
Zach’s shoulders went back, his spine lengthening. “I’m not handing him someone else I care about. I’ll put you out again if I have to, little brother. You’re not bait. You’re going to focus on getting Kala to safety. You get your girl and I’ll get mine.”
“Or you can do the bait thing and I’ll get my sister,”
TJ countered.
“I would if I thought for a second that you can handle her.”
Zach stared down TJ. “You’ve all proven you can’t. She’s been in danger, and no one has tried once to rein her in.”
“Do you think I haven’t talked to her?”
TJ sounded flustered. “We got her a bodyguard.”
“Who she ditched,”
Zach replied.
“I think Cooper should go in,”
Big Tag said suddenly.
“What?”
Zach asked.
“Yes,”
Cooper said at the same time.
Big Tag looked them over and then seemed to focus on Zach. “What’s the detonator attached to?”
Zach’s shoulders slumped. “Some bombs out here on the grounds. The places I could hit without setting off the alarms or getting caught on camera. I had to be careful. I don’t have a team behind me.”
“You do now,”
Lou offered.
“Babe,” TJ began.
Lou shook her head. “No. He’s our best shot at getting our people back, and I don’t give a crap what the Agency thinks about him. I’m going to help him get Kala and Devi back, and then I’m going to help him get away. If anyone wants to fire me over it, do it later. I’ll face whatever consequences I have to in order to get my best friend and your sister back.”
“Me, too,”
Kenzie said. “One of us needs to go in with Zach so we have two people on the inside when he blows the bombs. It’s a distraction since it won’t actually hit anyone inside the house.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,”
Zach hedged. “When my mother makes a bomb, she really makes a bomb.”
“Are you in touch with her?”
Ian asked.
“Not exactly, but she proved today she knows how to find me. She left me the bombs and the detonator a few hours ago. I rented an Airbnb under an assumed name so I would have a small base of operations. She found me. At least I know I’ve got a shot at reaching her if she still cares,”
Zach said. He shook his head. “Anyway, the bombs should take out most of the windows at the front of the house, might even take out the front walls. But then Kala’s going to be in the basement. I would assume that’s where he’ll keep her. I read the reports.”
“Yep, those reports are classified.”
Drake started to hum as though he couldn’t stand to hear anymore.
It wouldn’t matter. Zach had been careful. Zach had wanted all the knowledge he could get.
“I’ll go,”
Ian said finally.
Everyone erupted. Tasha started arguing over the walkie. Kenzie pointed out her father was the ultimate prize, and that Huisman would kill him then and there. Charlotte offered to take his place.
Cooper looked at the man who shared his DNA. Zach was standing stoically as they all argued, Drake getting in on the scene.
There was no way he was letting Ian do his job. Ian had risked everything for his woman. It was time for Cooper McKay to do the same. “You ready?”
He kept his voice down.
Drake decided he had to call in if he might lose such an important asset as Ian Taggart, which caused Big Tag to threaten some medieval torture methods.
Lou walked up to Cooper, and he expected her to plead for him to stop the arguing. Instead, she put a finger to his shirt, pressing in on the fabric. “It’s an ultra-thin camera. I brought a couple in case we managed to get someone on the inside. Thank god everyone wears black. It should work because he doesn’t have a jammer on. He thinks he’s safe here. Let’s prove he’s not.”
Damn, but he loved Lou. Kala’s best friend had been a little nerd girl when he met her, shy and so smart but awkward. She was still awkward and weird and one of the best humans he’d ever met. “Will do, Lou. Get them to stay out of the line of fire until the bombs are done, and then send in everyone. I’ll get our people. You get the bad guys.”
Lou nodded. “Yes.”
“Guys, this isn’t helping Kala or Devi,”
TJ was arguing. “I’ll go.”
Everyone wanted to sacrifice. Too bad. This was his place.
Big Tag started to turn toward them.
Kenzie got in her dad’s face, like she knew he needed the distraction. “I’m going. I’m going to save my sister.”
“Like hell you are,”
Ian started in on his daughter.
“They’re totally dysfunctional at times,”
Zach said, watching them. There was the slightest grin on his face.
He did miss them. Coop was going to have to give his…brother…some slack. “Ready?”
Zach sighed. “I can’t talk you out of it. It was stupid to try. Let’s get our girls.”
They turned and jogged into the darkness.
* * * *
Kala knew she was dreaming, knew that somewhere outside this quiet place inside her own brain, her body was going through torment. He’d strapped her down again, forced an IV into her arm, and asked her over and over where Zachary Reed was.
After a while she knew he didn’t care about the answer. It was all just play to him. A means to deliver his torture. Perhaps a way to pretend she deserved it.
Didn’t she deserve it?
At some point she’d passed out, and her brain hadn’t done a great job of disassociating since she found herself in the kitchen again. The same one where she’d faced down Julia Ennis all those years ago. Where Julia had told her how much she reminded her of herself at a young age.
She’d carried those words for so damn long.
She’d also had this dream about a million times.
The door came open and Julia entered wearing the same slacks and blouse she’d been wearing the day she’d found Kala with her head in the refrigerator, hiding the knife she’d stolen.
In the dream, Kala was always fifteen again, vulnerable and aching at the thought she was like the monster who’d tried to kill her cousin Kyle and his awesome wife, MaeBe. In the dream she was scared and stubborn, and she listened to what Julia had to say.
“Hello, Kala. It’s been a while,”
Julia said.
Oh, Lena would have a field day with this. She knew she was dreaming, and now dead Julia understood the passage of time from the afterlife.
Or perhaps these were all parts of her soul she had to mend so she could be the best Kala she could be. The best person, best friend, best lover, best mother someday. It was odd but she got a bit misty as she sat down at the kitchen table. “Hello, Julia.”
Dream Julia stared at her. “You’re not a child.”
“No, I’m not. It’s funny because at fifteen I would have told you the same, but time and experience changes our perspectives. I’ve started to wonder why you’re the one who haunts my dreams. When I think about it, you weren’t violent toward me. I’ve started to suspect nothing happened to me on the plane.”
Julia stared at her. “I told you I wouldn’t hurt you in that fashion.”
She had. Kala simply hadn’t believed her. “Oh, you violated my person. You wrecked me for years. Don’t expect me to thank you for not raping me.”
Julia’s eyes narrowed. “You know you wouldn’t be the first. You should be grateful.”
“I’m going to stop you there. No. I am not grateful I wasn’t raped. I’m mad that other women are. You don’t get brownie points for sparing me something absolutely no one should ever be forced to endure. And don’t give me the whole my generation had to deal with it shit. If I go through something terrible, I’m going to try to make sure no one has to suffer through it again. I’m not looking at women younger than me and turning a blind eye when they’re harmed because I had to, so they should too.”
She was getting emotional in a dream. So weird what could happen when she asked the right questions and was honest about the answers. So many doors opened.
“Well, you won’t have to endure. You’re a predator.”
Kala’s eyes rolled. “Shut up. You’re mostly meaningless here. I think I’ve found out what I’m truly afraid of. You see, it’s hard when you’re a twin. You wonder at times if you share a soul, and if you do, how did it split? I suppose I saw you as something of a shadow version of my mother. When I was fifteen, I heard all the stories. She loved Dad so much she did everything she could to get him back. I thought it was romantic.”
“Yes, I rather know that story myself.”
Julia took the seat across from her, intelligent eyes studying her. “I did what I did for love.”
“You killed a lot of people. Screwed a lot of people over. Fucked up lives. Betrayed your country,”
Kala pointed out. “All for a man who never really loved you.”
For a moment it looked like Julia was going to argue. Then her face twisted and changed, and it became Lena sitting in front of her. “Like you did. Have you considered that your fascination with Cooper McKay is about trying to save yourself from your own worst instincts?”
She stared at Dream Lena for a moment and knew she would follow through with those therapy sessions. With a real therapist this time and not one who took on the face of all the dark voices in her head. “My instincts aren’t wrong. They’re quite good. The more violent impulses I shut down.”
Lena leaned forward, and Kala would swear her normally perfect teeth had cutting edges now. Like a piranha about to feast. Her eyes seemed darker, too. “Do you? How many have you killed? Maimed? Destroyed? Do you ever wonder why Kenzie got the cutesy, sweet name and you are an acronym for kick a little ass? Your father did that to you. He saw what you were from the very beginning. He knew Kenzie was light and you were dark.”
This was something important she’d learned. “We need the darkness, too. We need it to find rest and peace and sleep. The dark can be a beautiful thing. Just like too much light kills.”
She shook her head. “You’re not that darkness. You’re evil. There’s something wrong with you. Cursed. It’s why bad things happen to you.”
Yes, there were the voices. Intrusive and invasive. Sometimes they shouted. Sometimes they started as whispers of good that slowly turned into self-hate and anxiety. Sometimes she couldn’t shut them off, but she was going to find a way. She deserved to find a way. “I am not you.”
“No,”
Lena replied. “You’re her.”
And she was Julia again, except this time Julia was in an elegant dress. The kind her mom favored. She wore her hair in a very Charlotte Taggart style.
Darkness to her mother’s light.
“We’re the same, you and I,”
Julia insisted. “I’m the other side of your mother’s coin, the same way you are with your twin. She’s your mother.”
How long had this idea dragged on her soul? Now that she was facing it, she could see how silly it was. Her mother wasn’t some beacon of light. She had darkness, too. Everyone did. Kenzie had her own. She was more like her mom, but Kala wasn’t Julia.
“No, I have my father’s soul and many of his problems.”
He’d told her about them, how he needed a checkup every now and then. How stubborn he’d been as a young person, and it had almost cost him everything. How he didn’t want it to do the same to her. Her father had those dark voices. The ones people sometimes called depression and anxiety, and he’d found a way to be happy. And so would she.
If she lived through this. Damn, but part of the problem with figuring out she didn’t hate herself was kind of wanting to live. Completely wanting to live.
“Your father is evil, too,”
Julia insisted.
Her father was the awesomest asshole to ever exist. Tears filled her eyes as she felt a hand on her shoulder and knew without a doubt who it was. Another smaller hand grasped her other shoulder. Her parents. Always behind her even in her nightmares. “I don’t need you anymore. I never did, but now I’m ready to let you go.”
Julia stood, looking wilder now, like she was ready to strike.
But this wasn’t a war she would win with a knife or a gun. It wasn’t a war where she could slaughter her enemies to claim victory because this was a war inside her. These were pieces of her soul she needed to tame, and she’d learned she couldn’t do it with anger. She couldn’t fix it with discipline and being the best at what she did.
No, this war wouldn’t be won with bombs but with the decision to lean into the love she’d been given.
Kala shifted back against those hands on her knowing there were so many more, but these hands were there from the very beginning. “Leave now.”
She would always be difficult. Stubborness was her middle name, and it would stay that way. She wasn’t going to eschew violence, become a vegan, and live off the grid for the sake of the earth. No. Her change was far gentler.
She would be kind to herself. She would give herself grace. She would accept that she deserved the love and affection she’d been given and take her place in her family without another question.
“I’m not about…”
Dream Julia began…but she was already fading, her voice so soft against the other Kala now heard.
I love you. It’s you and me. Cooper.
You’re my best friend. Lou.
I’ve got your back. Kenzie.
I am so glad to have you as my sister. Tasha when she’d still had that Russian accent. When she’d been young and scared.
You are the best mistress a sub could have. Really, that was a lot of voices when she thought about it. She was good. So much better at topping than the boys.
It’ll all be alright. She was pretty sure that was Kacey Musgraves because there was some music behind that one.
I’m here if you want to talk. Or I could play a song for you if you’re sad. Seth was a weirdo. She loved him.
You’re going to be the best aunt. He’s going to love you. Travis.
Those voices meshed together, and she suddenly couldn’t hear the others anymore, like a grand symphony of love taking over. The dark voices were still there. Would always be, but she could silence them with help. She could be stronger.
Stay alive, Cooper whispered. I’m coming.
She didn’t need to see him. Didn’t need to hold him to know he loved her. They all loved her.
And she would survive.
A blast of pain went through her system, and she was suddenly awake again. The world was filled with harsh light and jagged edges.
She couldn’t move. Ah, yes, the paralytic. He used an experimental paralytic drug. It kept her still, but she could feel everything the man did to her.
“I thought you were better than this.”
Huisman was a shadowy figure beyond the lights. Surgical lights.
Fun times. “I’ll try to be more focused, Doc.”
“Why are you smiling?”
Huisman sounded a bit disturbed.
Was she? Maybe she was perverse. Or maybe she’d figured out something so big that the torture didn’t seem as bad as it had before. “I guess it’s because you hurt so good, Doc.”
She wasn’t giving him a damn thing.
Huisman stepped in, his dark eyes hovering over her. “I haven’t truly begun. This is all merely for fun. A warm-up. I haven’t even given you the real drugs yet. Just a new concoction that elevates the pain of basic wounds. I’ve been using a violet wand on an extremely high setting. It should feel like I’m cutting you deep. You’re covered with beautiful burns now, but I think we’ll go more old school. Bring me the torch.”
If she’d been able to move, she was sure her body would have stiffened. This was going to hurt.
And she would take it. She had a family to get back to, after all.
“Tell me where Zach Reed is,”
Huisman demanded.
“Fuck right the fuck off,”
she replied. If she passed out again and did the conscious dreaming thing, she was going to top Cooper in so many nasty ways. So many.
“He’s in the hallway, sir,”
another voice said.
Huisman stopped and turned. “What?”
“Reed is in the hallway with some other dude. Says it’s his brother.”
Kala tried to lift her head. He wouldn’t be this stupid. Couldn’t be. Cooper wouldn’t walk in and try to exchange himself for her.
If he died, she was going to kill him.
Although he did seem to have spared her the torch. For now.
“What an interesting surprise. I suppose my network is up to date since he found his way here so quickly. Send another patrol out. Tell them to expand the radius and get those cameras focused on anyone coming near the house. Also, get the helicopter ready in case. Let’s go see what’s happening,”
Huisman said. “Take her back and throw her in with the other.”
“Uhm, sir, the paralytic is still in effect. She should be monitored. We know it can cause heart trouble,”
another voice said. It was good to know he had helpers.
“She’s strong. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
Huisman turned and walked away.
And Kala prayed she got to see her love one more time.