Chapter 5 Zane
ZANE
It has been almost five years since I had a guest in my house.
My great-grandfather built the French Provincial-style mansion for his bride so she could take a little bit of France with her when they came to the “Land of the Free.” New Malcolm was mostly Polish and Slavic immigrants then, but they welcomed their new neighbors as if they were their own.
My great-grandparents never forgot the favor.
Kaye’s face reveals nothing as she takes in the mammoth structure and acres of land attached to it.
Modern features like the French doors that line the front terrace on the second story mingle with original features that are more than a century old, like the iron rails covered in several generations worth of orange campsis blossoms from the gates of my great-grandmother’s garden.
The scent of honeysuckle rides on the breeze from the bushes that line the south and western borders of the property.
Her gaze wavers from the cobblestone front steps to the city lights beginning to glow in the distant twilight horizon.
“I can carry you again,” I offer. “If you want.”
“I would rather die.”
I could have found a safehouse somewhere to hide her instead, but there wouldn’t have been enough time to take the proper precautions, to find just the right person to ensure her safety. No, better to bring her here, where I can keep an eye on her myself.
Having Checkmate here carries its own kind of risks, of course. Risks I’m not sure I fully considered before this moment on my family’s ornate front stoop.
“Are we still in New Malcolm?”
A tremble courses through her lithe fingers as they brush up and down her arms. Her attention is trained on the tall fence some distance away, and the road beyond it.
I can almost see the calculations running through her head, tabulating the amount of time we were in the car into a distance she might have to travel on foot.
“There are two ways to do this, Kaye. Just this once, choose the easier one.”
Her attention flickers. “Is that a threat?”
“A request.” I move closer to her, drawn as always into her orbit. “I can offer you somewhere safe to lay low. You’ve wanted to find my hideout for a long time, Checkmate. I’m giving you the key.”
“Why are you doing this, Charade?”
I’m not arrogant enough to believe anything I could say right now would make her trust me, and she honestly wouldn’t want to hear the truth—that I don’t totally understand it either.
That I have no explanation for the panic that gripped me the moment I decoded that message.
I couldn’t let that happen to her. And maybe that worries me too.
“The easy way, or the hard way?”
Her gaze drops to my palm, just a finger’s breadth away from her forearm, her throat clicking as she swallows. “I’ll follow you.”
The door opens to foyer walls covered in pale cream paint with gold filigree decorating the trim’s ivy detailing.
Twin staircases curve upward like an embrace, wooden banisters polished to a gleam.
Rooms separate off to either side. A pair of double doors continue under the stairs straight ahead.
The scent of cinnamon and brown sugar wafts lazily from the kitchen beyond.
She takes tentative steps inside my domain, her muscles tensed. The door closes behind us with a note of finality, and still, I don’t move from my post, weary of any quick movements that would shatter this spell.
“How have the New Malcolm police not discovered this place?” Kaye breaks the silence. “It’s not exactly low profile.”
“People see what they want to see. As long as you keep up appearances, no one looks too far beyond the facade.”
And the NMPD are buried so far in Vanall’s and the CCP’s pockets they can’t see their own heads stuck up their asses.
How else could they ignore the people disappearing off the streets and businesses burned?
New Malcolm used to be full of Supers just begging for a chance to save the day.
The smart ones fled, and the others have been hunted down by the CCP.
They seem fine with the villains though—we don’t interfere with business.
Until now.
“It’s so quiet here.” She shakes her head as she looks toward the tray ceiling some fifty feet over our heads. “The city is always loud. Full of life.”
She wanders closer to the large oil painting that covers the majority of one of the walls.
The artist’s rendering of the manor has an almost romantic, dream-like quality to it.
Commissioned not long after construction completed, the image is missing the wings that were added that extend to either side of the original building.
“Does your family know about your double life?” There’s something off in her expression. Distant. Whatever she’s seeing has nothing to do with the art. “Are they proud of what you’ve done?”
“My parents passed away when I was a child.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks flush.
“What about you, Checkmate? Corruption and vigilantism in one year,” I tsk. “I’m sure your family is thrilled.”
“Fuck you.” Her expression immediately clears, like a wall slamming down between reality and whatever vision she saw. Only then do I realize what I have done, the opportunity I missed in my rush for a callous response.
The carpeting in the manor goes from a deep forest green to a sandy hue.
The wood panel that decorates the walls in the main section gives way to a calming mid-tone blue with white accents.
The hallway dead-ends to our right with two doors on either side of an expanded common space.
The moon is just rising outside the picture window at the center wall, its light casting an ethereal glow.
As we move closer, a pond comes into view.
“I’m sorry about your parents,” Kaye’s whispers, so softly I almost miss it.
“Thank you.”
“I think I get why you’re so fucked up now. You’ve been alone your whole life.”
My temper rises, warm and fiery. “Did you ever think that maybe the reason I do what I do might be you?”
“Of the two of us, I’m the one without the criminal record.”
“Not anymore.”
Her expression crumples, and the anger I felt before is once again replaced with regret. Then the expression is gone, hidden behind the wall in her eyes. A new mask sliding into place to hide her vulnerability.
“I’m sorry, Kaye. That was uncalled for.”
“Don’t. I don’t know why I expected anything else.”
Great job, Zane.
Taking a deep breath, I open the door on our right.
Off-white walls with just a hint of gold suffuse the room with warmth from the sconces lining the walls around us.
Oak floors and large windows with views of the overgrown fir trees outside make the space feel open and airy.
It was the last room my mother decorated.
A favorite of mine. It feels good here. Safe.
Kaye takes it in with an unreadable expression. She examines decorations and pictures on the walls, wandering into the walk-in closet and ensuite bathroom before facing me again.
“I had the horrible thought that everything would be purple,” she admits, her eyes still not meeting mine.
I gesture toward the bed, overflowing with a fluffy, new down comforter that looks like it was made of actual clouds. She pulls the covering back, and amethyst-hued sheets greet her on the mattress.
“I couldn’t resist.” I smirk.
She shakes her head, her arms wrapping around her torso. “No more games, Charade. If you’re going to kill me, just do it. Isn’t that what’s you bought?”
“You’re too valuable for that.”
“Then what?”
She wobbles on her feet a little. I dart forward just in time to catch her arms and guide her to sit on the edge of the bed. She flinches even as I release her. Then I see the patch of crimson blooming in the tattered blue material on the leg of her jeans.
“You’re bleeding.” The shadow of her gasp ghosts across my lips, and I realize how close our faces are. For the first time, I can see the flecks of gold glinting in her irises. Purple shadows sinking into the skin just below. The swell of broken blood vessels mar her cheekbone.
I forget for one moment exactly who we are.
What we have done to one another. The tips of my fingers graze over the soft, heated skin at her neck, her pulse dancing a frantic pace against the pads.
Her tongue darts out to wet her lips, and I swear my whole being narrows down to that one movement and its arc across her full lower lip.
My hold shifts so that my thumb can follow it.
Her palm strikes the pressure point in my arm, a dull numbness quickly following. Son of a—
She rears up, counting on the momentum to help swing her knee into my ribs. Too bad I’ve recovered by then.
I let her momentum carry us until she’s straddling me, and then I roll us again, limbs tangling as I end up on top.
Her elbow slams into my sternum. I groan at the sharp pain, but it doesn’t faze me.
My legs find purchase on either side of her hips.
She bucks, but she’s weak. Too little to dislodge me.
My good arm grips one wrist then two, and I pin them above her head.
“Don’t. Touch. Me.” Her face is red, tears leaking down her cheeks.
Scowling, I release her, pressing my palms instead to the mattress on either side of her head. “If I wanted to hurt you, we both know I could have done it a long time ago.”
To my surprise, her hands stay where I left them and she stills below me. Her eyes close as I brush the moisture from her cheek, her throat bobbing as she swallows.
“Every mark they put on you, every scar—I’ll make them suffer tenfold.”
“Why?” Her voice is shallow, hushed. She opens her eyes and peers into the depths of my mask. I feel it then, deep in my bones—she could be the one to finally understand what’s beneath.
My phone buzzes against my thigh, and I withdraw before pulling it from my pocket.
STOP MOONING AND HELP US. -F
“Stay here,” Sighing, I pull a white and red box from a drawer in the bathroom. “And don’t do anything stupid.”
“Charade.” She looks up at me, still lying in the place our scuffle left her. “You can’t keep me here forever.”
The first aid kit bounces as it hits the cover beside her. “That’s the best part.”