CHAPTER ELEVEN #3
‘I woke up the next day convinced I’d imagined the whole thing.
I trashed the place I was staying in, tore my hands bloody wrecking furniture and punching through walls, but then I noticed everything was already healing.
Closing. Stitching itself back together.
So I tried something worse. That healed in minutes too.
When I shot myself, I knew it was real.’
‘You shot yourself?’
‘In the hand.’ His gaze drifts briefly towards the sunrise.
‘The demon told me I had until the full moon, so I got organised. Gathered supplies. Set charges. EMPs. Your generators were easy enough to hit from a distance, and I planted backups too in case I got caught early.’ The newly risen sun drizzles his face in warm ribbons of gold cutting through the trees around them.
‘My friend gave me intel of an incoming attack on your Tower, so I waited it out and then yesterday I came up through your disposal chutes. Made my way inside. Killed anyone who raised a weapon at me.’ He pauses, smiling faintly.
‘Then I saw your face,’ Lachlan says quietly. ‘And you shot me in mine.’
Fucking hell.
‘Maybe it’s some kind of newly developed drug,’ Kade ventures slowly. ‘Like, axolotls can regrow limbs and jellyfish are technically immortal, maybe it’s something Helixx cooked up. People are always saying we don’t really know what they’re—’
‘It’s magic, Jules. You don’t have to believe me but that’s what it is.’
‘I don’t believe you. I can’t.’
‘Then shoot me again.’
Kade doesn’t want to.
He looks away, jaw working.
‘So, what’s the catch?’
‘The demon said… well, it said a lot of shit, actually, but the part that sounded like the catch was this. I’ve got until the full moon to finish what I started. Once it wanes, if I didn’t kill everyone I set out to, then my life’s forfeit.’
‘So because Troy Harker is already dead,’ Kade says, playing along, ‘you think you technically can’t get revenge now?’
‘It seems like it.’
‘I won’t let you kill Riley.’
‘I’m not even sure he’d count. He wasn’t involved.’
‘Then you did all this for nothing.’
‘It’s not for nothing if I can make you remember.’
‘I’m not him.’
‘You were once.’
‘My name is Kade.’
‘Did you choose that name?’
‘That’s my name. I knew it. I’ve felt it always.’
‘Do you want me to tell you why?’
‘So you can fill my head with more confusing bullshit?’
‘I’m gonna make you remember.’
‘You’re the one who let them down. You let them get taken. You were the bodyguard, after all. Maybe the person responsible is you, ever think of that?’
‘Every minute of the day.’
‘Then maybe you dying is justified after all.’
‘J—Kade, your life, everything you experienced before this, it can’t just be gone and it’s not. It’s in there. You remembered Mari. Look.’ He pulls his borrowed shirt sleeve back, showing Kade the rainbow fox. ‘Mari.’
Silence falls again, and this time Kade resents it.
Something about this man keeps him on edge, instincts sharpened despite the growing pull to stay close, ask questions, understand more.
It’s too much to process at once, and Kade is cynical by nature, wary as a default setting, but some of the things Lachlan said are impossible to ignore.
The sun is almost fully risen on this brand-new day in Varrow City.
‘What are you gonna do now?’
Lachlan’s gaze stays fixed on Kade. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘As if you’ll just do it?’
‘Of course I will.’
Dangerous warmth stirs inside.
Kade locks it down, cuts it off.
‘I’m just supposed to believe that? This could all be a trick.’
‘To do what? I had your boss and I let him go. You are my focus. If you tell me to leave, I’ll go. Tell me to stay, I’ll stay. Tell me—’
‘Get on your knees.’
A flash of softness brushes across his features, ripple effect of some affection Kade can’t fathom because anyone else would be angry, offended, refuse, but Lachlan doesn’t refuse.
He drops to his knees atop leafy mulch and cold earth, patiently awaiting what else Kade might say.
The temptation to touch him, to trace his face with fingertips is nigh upon overwhelming.
Kade resists. ‘If I have to trust that you mean what you said—’
‘You can trust me, Kade.’
‘Don’t interrupt me.’
Lachlan smirks. ‘God, I missed you.’
His heart does a weird backflip, mouth gone dry. ‘If you mean what you said, then prove it. Leave now and don’t hurt anyone else.’
‘All right, I’ll leave.’
‘Thank you.’
‘But I’ll be back tomorrow.’
‘What?’
‘I’ll use the front door this time.’
‘Lachlan,’ Kade says very clearly. ‘You killed eighteen people.’
‘Your people all gave as good as they got.’ Lachlan gets up again, glances around, getting his bearings. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, or… today.’
‘What if I don’t want that?’
‘Then your friends can use me for target practice from your Tower. Did you name it that, by the way?’ he asks, gesturing to the concrete and titanium heights behind them, the top drenched in the fresh morning sun.
Annoyed, Kade doesn’t answer.
This fucker probably already knows he did.
‘Get lost.’
He waits for Lachlan to leave, won’t turn his back on an enemy.
And Lachlan is his enemy.
Kade’s almost sure of it.
Lachlan gives a mock salute and heads off into the trees until he’s gone. Only then does Kade release a deep, long breath, hand on heart to calm it.