Chapter Twenty-Seven
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
...for the first time in history, there will be a shield against these creatures who wield emotions like weapons. The Dead Man is, as his moniker implies, dead inside, and the change appears to be as permanent as corruption itself.
—NOTE FOUND AT [REDACTED], TEXAS
Grayson’s brain came scrambling back online too late, catching up with his lips just as he felt Reece’s mouth go slack and slip away.
He stared down at Reece, whose eyes were now closed, his head lolled against the backseat of the truck cab.
“Did you just—” Grayson cut himself off. Reece couldn’t hear him and it was a stupid question in the first place, because obviously he had just knocked himself out by kissing Grayson.
Oh, but they’d just done plenty more than kiss. Done enough that Grayson’s head was still fuzzy and spinning. It was his head, wasn’t it? Or was it his heart, beating too fast? Adrenaline or the afterglow, maybe, still thrumming through him.
Reece’s face was relaxed, unusually vulnerable, his grumpy outer shell gone so that he looked every inch the gentle empath he was inside. His lips seemed extra soft without their perpetual frown. Grayson licked his own lips without meaning to, unexpectedly sweet, because of course Reece tasted like the sugar he loved.
“Care Bear—” He cut himself off again, half because talking to an unconscious Reece was pointless, half because he’d been distracted by Reece’s hair where it was damp against his forehead. Grayson had made him sweat. The thought sent a ripple of want over him, a spark compared to the fire that’d been burning moments ago, but with the potential to become a conflagration all over again.
He shook his head to clear the thought, trying to focus. Why was he dizzy still? There was no time for that. He needed to clean up, needed to figure out next steps. He wasn’t going to think about how easy it would be to dip his head and brush his lips over Reece’s cheek or temple, where his skin would be warm and silky. Definitely wasn’t going to let himself get anywhere near Reece’s lips again.
This wasn’t a fairy tale—or if it was, Grayson wasn’t the prince who’d wake up Sleeping Beauty; he was the poison apple who’d cast the spell.
“I am gonna call you Care Bear forever,” Grayson informed him, Reece’s words caught in his memories like a photograph. “You’re gonna be Bad Decisions Bear for life.”
But Grayson had made the same bad decisions, hadn’t he? Let his body take over, found a way to touch Reece, had kissed him back. Still wanted to kiss him, even now. Wanted to stretch out on the backseat and pull Reece all the way on top of him, wrap arms around him and let himself doze off.
Maybe if Grayson held him long enough, Reece would get used to the touch and he’d wake back up, and they could run away together to the safe house on Salt Spring Island, just the two of them, and forget the rest of the world.
He blinked.
What memory had caused that thought? Grayson had slept with plenty of people, but it had always been casual. A lot of people wanted his size and strength in bed, but even before he’d been the Dead Man, he’d been too different from anyone else to ever find someone who’d want him long-term. There’d never been anyone serious, someone he could run away with.
How had his mind come up with a memory able to influence him into a thought like that?
He shook his head again. No point in even answering that question because it was out of the question. Being able to knock an empath out with his touch was one of the Dead Man’s weapons. Grayson could not risk losing it when it came to Reece.
And right now, he needed to handle this situation. Get them back on the road. Pull on a shirt without bloodstains.
Find a towel.
And probably burn Reece’s gloves.
A few minutes later, the backseat held no signs of their moments together, and Grayson had the passenger door open. He leaned through the door frame, awkwardly reaching in to get his arms under Reece’s knees and upper back. He lifted him off the seat, bridal style this time, and pulled him out of the truck’s backseat.
Snow had started to fall again, tiny spots of cold on the back of Grayson’s neck, the big, soft flakes catching in Reece’s dark hair. An occasional car could be heard on the highway, but the forest’s edge was quiet, and everything was cold and wet, but Reece was warm and the air was clean and bright, the scents of ocean and snow mixing with cedar and pine.
He set Reece carefully on the passenger seat, just as he had the day before. As he bent over to buckle him in, his gaze stole to Reece’s face again.
Maybe in another universe, Grayson wasn’t the Dead Man, and people left empaths the hell alone. Maybe in that universe, he’d be capable of being what someone like Reece deserved, and their moment in the truck would become more than a memory that occasionally surfaced—it would be the start of something amazing. Maybe in another universe, Grayson was still capable of happiness.
Because none of that was true in this one.
He straightened up and shut the passenger door. But as he climbed into the driver’s seat, his phone began to ring. He closed his own door and picked it up from the console to see Holt Traynor on the caller ID.
Grayson palmed the phone for a moment, then answered. “Grayson.”
“Why didn’t you tell anyone you were going to Vancouver?”
So EI had figured out where he was. Stone Solutions probably knew by now too. He cleared his throat. “Director—”
“Someone took a picture of you at the auto show and posted it publicly on Eyes on Empaths . Apparently you have fans ,” Traynor said, with an edge. “Unacceptably careless, Evan. You’re a classified weapon; you know full well there should be no pictures of you.”
The snowflakes were landing on the windshield and hood, melting away into water.
“I don’t know if you were involved in the fight that broke out in the Stone Solutions Canada building today and got everyone sent home,” Traynor went on, “but those questions are going to have to wait. We have a situation.”
“What kind of situation?”
“The kind where we need Agent Grayson to be the goddamn Dead Man.”
Grayson sat back against the driver’s seat. “What are you—”
“Your brother is alive.”
Grayson blinked.
“Your brother, Alex Grayson, one of the deadliest corrupted empaths we have on record, is alive,” Traynor repeated. “You said you pulled the trigger. You assured us he was dead.”
Grayson watched the snow fall for a long moment. “I guess I was mistaken,” he finally said.
“I guess you were,” Traynor said tightly. “Alex Grayson has thralled a police officer and an ex–army major. He set a fire at Stone Solutions. He’s responsible for multiple murders in Seattle, and if reports are to be believed, he’s just getting started. The entire city is in danger, so I repeat: Are you ready to be the Dead Man?”
Grayson’s gaze darted to Reece, then back to the windshield. “Yes, sir. Tell me what I need to know.”
Jamey hadn’t counted on breaking into Polaris at the same time the place was crawling with empath thralls, but at least she didn’t have to worry about stealth.
The empath thralls out front had been raging at each other, letting her sneak past to the mine’s entrance. The front door must normally be formidable, but it had been wide-open, the thralled scientists apparently rolling out the welcome mat before turning the forest into a cage match.
Had Cora escaped and done all of this? One of the other empaths, perhaps?
Back in Prince Rupert, Aisha had drawn a rough map of Polaris from memory and given it to Jamey. She followed it now, making her way across what looked like a lobby of sorts. It was empty, but bloody footprints tracked across the carpets in several directions.
There was a door at the back, and this one was closed. Blood was smeared on the handle. Jamey held the Magnum at the ready, then smashed the door with her booted foot, hard enough that it flew off its hinges.
The small room behind the door was also empty, save for a desk at the far end, where the corpse of a woman in a bloody lab coat was sprawled unmoving, her eyes staring blankly at nothing. A pink lanyard was draped around her neck with a card on it like a pendant.
Jamey winced, but she couldn’t afford to be squeamish. She stepped forward, and gingerly pulled the swipe card off the woman’s body.
Jamey.
Jamey straightened. That wasn’t an empath thrall screeching with lethal levels of rage. She strained her ears, trying to pick out the words.
Jamey, are you here—Jamey—
It was coming from beneath her feet. Jamey darted out of the room and found stairs tucked back in a short hall off the lobby. She shouldered the door open, sprinting down to the next sublevel and kicking open that door too, gun at the ready.
“Jamey!”
“We’re down here!”
Aisha and—was that Diesel ? The McFeely’s bouncer?
“I’m coming!” she called back. She sprinted forward and nearly slipped when her boot skidded in liquid. Oh, she wasn’t going to look at the floor, no sir, didn’t need to see what she’d just slipped in, she could guess just fine.
At the far end of the hall was a cell with glass walls. The glass had splintered like a windshield struck with a giant rock, except there was red threaded through the cracks and Jesus, whatever empath was behind this house of horrors was not fucking around.
But behind the glass were two beds, and Jamey’s breath left her in a rush of bone-deep thankfulness to see Aisha, alive, and Diesel in the other bed.
“Jamey.” Aisha looked like she might cry from relief. Her ponytail was a mess where it was wedged against the pillow, her eyes glazed behind crooked glasses. She looked secured to the bed by zip ties, an IV in her arm.
“St. James, thank God.” Diesel also looked drugged to the gills, skin glistening with sweat, similarly restrained and hooked up to an IV. “Can you get me loose? I can help you.”
“I don’t think either of you is going to be in shape to do much of anything but stumble around,” Jamey said grimly, “but we’ll work with it.”
A scanner stood just off to the side, and Jamey tried the swipe card. A moment later, the door beeped and sluggishly slid open.
“Jamey,” Aisha said again.
“Hey, doctor,” Jamey said, pushing Aisha’s glasses into place as she leaned over the bed to get her loose. “You know what they gave you in these IVs?”
“Expensive shit,” Aisha said, sounding hazy. “Gonna take a while to burn off. But, Jamey, the empaths who lived here. They’re gone.”
Jamey cursed as she snapped the tie on Aisha’s closest wrist. “Escaped?”
“Dead.” Aisha shook her head despairingly. “Even Marie and her sister.”
“But this place is crawling with empath thralls.” Jamey yanked the tie off Aisha’s other wrist. “Who made them?”
“Cora,” Aisha said. “And Alex.”
“ Alex? As in Alex Grayson ?” Jamey raised her eyes heavenward. “Evan told me he was dead. Hell of a mistake to make.”
“Alex must have come to find the empaths but only Cora was left.” Aisha met her eyes. “They were here. Alex and Cora. They spared us.”
They’d what? Jamey had questions, but they’d have to wait; Aisha sounded like she was still half-under. Aisha was already reaching for her own IV to pull it out, and Jamey quickly stepped over to Diesel’s bed and his bound ankle.
“Did you just—rip that zip tie off? With your bare hands?” Diesel said, his voice thick but shocked. “Goddamn, St. James,” he added, with admiration. “What do you do on arm day?”
Jamey snorted. “I’ll tell you, assuming we get out of here. Let’s find a place I can set off my bat signal and just pray the empaths leave us alone.”