Chapter 18 Zane
ZANE
Kaye’s cheeks are ashen by the time Eko asks the question, an effect of the power washing over her. I remember that anxious, nauseous feeling from my own test under Eko’s powers. It’s the price they ask, the protection they use, and I can’t fault them for that.
They like Kaye. They treated me with a polite sort of suspicion when we had our first meeting, but the myth of Checkmate has allowed her a sort of legitimacy I’ll never bear. Not in New Malcolm.
And their reluctance is warranted. It has served them well, kept them safe.
They lead normal lives, stepping in only where they can, focusing on people rather than the more sizable entities at large in the city.
They stay off the CCP’s radar. They would have stayed off mine too if it hadn’t been for luck, circumstance, and a chance encounter.
Pressure prickles on the lower left side of my rib cage.
The old ache has been coming on for days now, a telltale sign of trouble to come, of another dose needed just to keep myself from falling apart.
The pressure turns sharp and hot. I wince, hope no one notices, but Fulton’s eyes are ever-watchful.
“If Eko says she’s okay, that’s good enough for me.” She reaches into her pocket and withdraws two folded up bunches of black cloth. I take mine and begin tying it in place over my eyes.
“You said you trusted me,” Kaye protests.
“Eko’s never wrong.” Her answer is calm and dry, no-nonsense or coddling. “But it’s safer for all of us—my team, the people we are helping, and you—not to know everything.”
Kaye sighs, but the sound of fabric rubbing shushes in my ear. Then strong fingers tug at my arm, leading me forward at a considerate pace.
It took months of this before the members of Angelis trusted me enough to let me see their sanctuary.
Months of darkness and disorientation. This kind of vulnerability has a way of touching the deepest fears inside you.
It brings things up that are better left in nightmares, hopefully forgotten in the bright light of morning.
“I’m here with you, Kaye.”
“I’m alright.”
I hate the idea that this could be bringing those things up for her, that she could be thrown back into the hell she went through with the CCP.
And Jaspar. Kaye played it cool, but he’s a kind of asshole I am very familiar with.
Charming. Sarcastic. Dangerously beautiful.
I have always been jealous of anyone who could get under Checkmate’s skin, especially if they could make her blush like that.
It made me want to mark her, claim her as my own.
“Fulton’s got Kaye.” Adeon’s voice echoes despite his attempt to be discreet. “Jas is with you.”
“Are you a mind reader now?” Still, the tension in my chest loosens.
I didn’t react nearly as well the first time Jaspar greeted me. He had already dropped to the floor, firmly in dreamland, before Adeon’s influence veiled my vision and everything calmed.
“What did you see?” I tilt my head slightly in the asshole’s direction.
His response is a purr in my ear. “Pain. Determination. Loss. She’ll stand by you, but it’ll exact a heavy toll from her. The rest is unclear.”
“If there were more, would you tell me?”
Jaspar’s silence stretches out between us. I’ve come to realize the magnitude of responsibility he feels with his power, maybe even more than the rest of us. He looks but doesn’t pry, and he only shares what is necessary. He may be a shameless flirt, but he’s not a gossip.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” he says.
With nothing left to say, nothing to look at except for the black of the fold, my awareness is drawn, as always, to Kaye.
The signature of her presence is so much a part of me, so branded into my subconscious I’ll always know its shape.
She feels it too. I’ve seen it in the way she carries herself.
Our awareness of each other’s presence is magnetic.
After those nights spent holding her hand and hoping it would be enough, that my will alone could keep both of us going… relief is too gentle a word. The urge to touch her and assure myself that she is still here, still okay, is almost palpable.
I reach blindly forward, just to see if I can.
“You look stupid,” Jas hisses, grasping my wrist and pulling my arm down. Fulton snickers somewhere ahead. “Besides, we’re here.”
I don’t feel the blindfold, tied as it is over the contours of my mask, but my eyes still sting at the sudden brightness even as the tech in the mask quickly compensates.
Fluorescent bulbs burn overhead with a sterile glow.
Concrete surrounds our party on all sides, the walls closed in so we have to walk two-by-two in a line not to be packed like sardines.
Kaye is two rows ahead of me, blinking away the brightness from her spot at the front of the group with Fulton and Adeon. Standing directly in front of me, Eko’s dark eyes level a harsh gaze over his shoulder.
“Keep your hands to yourself.”
I give him my most flirtatious grin, cocky and sure. “Just keeping things friendly.”
Fulton rolls her eyes. “Men.”
She pushes open a gray metal door and I can’t help but notice the contrast to this tunnel from the cathedral we first entered.
The room, if it even can be called that, is little more than a continuation of the hallway where we stand.
A row of cots takes up the space along one wall, stuffed almost end to end to make the most out of the meager quarters.
And yet, despite it all there are signs of home.
Blankets and pillows. Artwork and pictures taped to the cement block walls.
And people talking. Playing card games and music on makeshift instruments.
Eyeing news reports on an old, hulking cube of a TV set.
Not as many as there were that first day after I saved Kaye, and though Fulton has kept me updated on those moving in and out of our safe-houses, the visual confirmation is notable.
Kaye moves without thought, shifting closer on instinct. Fulton bars the doorway with her arm, marking a clear boundary.
“Rest and recovery are the goals,” Fulton tells Kaye, her voice barely above a whisper so as not to disturb the people within.
“New Malcolm’s Supers seem to feel a unique sense of obligation to the city that has forsaken them.
We’ve done our best to find other places for them, other cities that don’t have the same attitudes toward our kind. Almost everyone wants to stay close.”
And we’ll need them if Kaye and I fail. I’ve been careful in my planning, made sure that our eggs aren’t all in one basket. I would keep them from this danger if I can. The CCP, my old friend C, and Rose.
“Most of the people still here are recovering from injuries or PTSD. They need care and attention. We do our best. Milo’s here about ten hours a day right now. I don’t know when he sleeps with work,” Adeon says.
“This is amazing,” Kaye finally says. “I don’t quite know what to say.”
She turns to find me through the wall of muscle between us.
Our eyes lock, and there’s a glisten there that I never expected to see from my hardened rival.
When I offer my hand, she reaches for me too.
Our fingers touch and it’s not a spark that passes between us but a current, electric and alive. I let myself bask in it.
For so long I thought it was hatred. My body responded to her, sure.
Whose wouldn’t? She’s beautiful. Brave. Funny.
She runs into danger without a second thought.
She was everything I wanted and could never have.
Then I thought it must be the sheer challenge of her.
That it was the game more than anything that excited me.
Things are beginning to change. Knowing not just Checkmate, but Kaye. I can admit that I admire her. I’ve always admired her.
And C wants her. Will I be able to do what is necessary when the time comes? A month ago I would have said yes without a second thought.
A shadow of dark curls streaks across the periphery of my vision.
“Milo!” I call out, ignoring Fulton’s glare shooting like needles to prick my skin.
Milo, a tall Black man in his mid-twenties and more patience than all the saints combined, waves in greeting over the throng of patients surrounding him. Exhaustion weighs his long, but muscled limbs. Still he smiles, continues to give just a little more.
“I told you no.” Fulton hisses at me, but she’s too late. He has seen Kaye. He darts forward, wrapping her in a light embrace.
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited to meet you, Checkmate.” He pulls back, gracing her with a disarmingly brilliant flash of teeth instead.
A new emotion fills my very being. Something hot and tight and undeniably male. I want to pull her away. Mold her to my side again and make her blush with all the dark, delicious things I whisper in her ear.
I shouldn’t have let her go last night. I should have shown her how dearly I coveted her all these years, how quickly desperation for her brings the monster in me to the surface, if only to watch her revel in the darkness.
And I am a monster. I hadn’t lied about that.
When I devour my beautiful little prey, it will be mind, body, and soul.
I should have let her ruin me.
Instead, I take her wrist and tug her gently away, placing myself at an angle between them and echo words she had said not so long ago. “Kaye isn’t a hugger.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you though,” Kaye says. Her eyes are a hot iron on my skin.
What the hell is wrong with me?
“Can I have a moment?” I lean toward the taller man, pulling his attention away from her. His dark eyes meet mine and I see only goodness inside, and yet this new… thing inside me insists that I could take him.
Stop it.
“Privately,” I finish. I try not to look at Kaye. I don’t want her to think this is yet another thing I’m deliberately keeping from her, even if that’s exactly what I’m doing.