CHAPTER THIRTEEN #4
Lachlan is absolutely filthy, covered in earthy mud.
He’s not armed, has no visible weapon beyond what he’s holding; a knotted ball of copper guts and veiny wires, wrapped around some broken tech Kade can’t identify, but has a sneaking suspicion of what it is.
‘Is that the Hush thing?’
‘Seems to be, yeah.’
‘I think he dug it up.’
‘What gave that away?’
Half of Iron Star has weapons trained on Lachlan, voices overlapping as they order him to his knees, but he ignores every command, just stands there waiting, and after a few moments his attention shifts towards the staircase, turning like he sensed Kade approaching before he ever saw him.
Dark eyes land with precision and don’t let go.
Kade feels a weird rush of things inside, all of them warm and confusing.
‘Alright, enough!’ Kade snaps, because Riley never would.
‘Everybody back off!’ He moves forward, gun raised and aimed directly between Lachlan’s eyes, not that it would do much beyond dropping him for a few seconds.
‘Back up,’ Kade orders sharply, working his way through the parting crowd. ‘Thank you.’
Lachlan’s expression is pleasant. ‘I’m early, I hope that’s OK.’
‘What the fuck is that?’ Kade asks, tone clipped. He clocks Seth farther back, who has his gun trained on Lachlan just like Kade. ‘You look like you crawled out of a shallow grave, and what happened to meeting later?’
‘I didn’t want you to have to feel it,’ Lachlan explains, showing him the knotted ball of mechanical death, ‘so I waited until it was on for confirmation and then I tore it out.’
‘You tore it out?’
‘Yeah. See?’
‘Yes, I see, Lachlan, but what the fuck is that meant to prove?’
‘Ah!’ the former bodyguard says, brightening. ‘You can’t really tell, but I moderated the flow and rerouted it for a brief burst.’
‘Meaning?’
‘I made it handheld, to demonstrate.’
‘You could have showed me this outside!’
‘Look, do you want me to demonstrate or not?’
‘No!’
‘Too late now.’
He turns and aims the device at Rike, whose eyes widen, mouth parted to ask what he meant, but then something in the air twists violently. Kade’s blood runs cold as that same horrific feeling manifests right in the middle of the Tower, a crushing wave of agoraphobic dread.
Rike lets out a strangled groan and drops to his knees, hands clamped over his ears. The people nearest to him recoil almost instantly, affected as well, though nowhere near as badly as he is.
‘Tell him how it feels,’ Lachlan instructs evenly. Rike, to his credit, says nothing, holds fast in a shaky ball on the floor, hands firmly over his ears.
Riley steps forward and shoots the device.
Sparks fly, something sizzles and pops.
The sickness vanishes at once. The feeling disappears so suddenly Kade nearly buckles from it, his body flooded with the same desperate relief he’s only ever felt after stumbling back inside the Tower.
‘It’s the Hush Line,’ Riley confirms calmly.
He aims his gun at Lachlan next. Kade has a distinct feeling he’s going to shoot him just to prove a point and for some reason, he can’t allow it.
So instead, he steps forward and punches Lachlan hard.
The mangled device falls to the floor. The lobby of Iron Star falls briefly silent.
Bloodshed at the bottom of the main staircase.
‘Basement,’ Kade snarls at the older man. ‘Now!’
?
The moment they’re inside one of the holding rooms, Lachlan starts shouting while Riley answers in that same calm voice somehow, guaranteed to make things worse.
Luca, Seth and Kade came down with them, crowding the already cramped concrete space, but Seth seems rattled by how casually Lachlan carries himself after everything that happened, and Kade can practically see the urge for retaliation simmering under Seth’s skin, along with the open confusion over why Lachlan’s presence is being tolerated at all.
Kade posts him outside on guard instead.
While Lachlan and Riley argue, Luca asks what exactly a Hush Line is.
‘That’s why you got sick when you tried to leave?’ he follows up when Kade has explained under cover of the argument unfolding behind them in varying shades of complicated male anger.
‘I don’t know.’ Kade’s insides are cold with doubt that creeps like damp.
‘But, I mean, it seems like a really effective defensive measure,’ Luca points out. ‘Maybe you were just especially reactive to it or something?’
‘He let me think it was some kind of… disorder,’ Kade says very quietly, eyes on his boss.
Luca gives his hand a brief squeeze. ‘You want me to stay?’
‘No. Stand guard with Seth. Keep an eye on him for me, yeah?’
Luca nods, pats his shoulder. ‘Heard.’
He closes the door and Kade steps forward. He ignores most of the argument with a strange, almost protective disinterest. There’s a shadow living deep inside Kade, something vast and dangerous moving far below the point sunlight can reach underwater, and if he chooses, it stays there.
He’s always been good at compartmentalising. ‘Stop it, please.’
‘You deserved to know what was being done to you.’
Riley rolls his eyes. ‘I’d already told him.’
‘Before or after he asked you outright, Little Harker?’ Lachlan throws a heavy look towards Kade. ‘You’re no better than his fucking father.’
‘Oh, but you are?’
‘The fuck would you know, huh?’
‘More than you think, Tanner.’
‘Yeah? Try me. Because from where I’m standing, you’re just a cowardly little bitch hiding in his Tower and letting my boy guard your sorry ass!’
‘Lachlan, don’t!’
‘No, Jules, this piece of shit could have done anything but use the Hush Line on you, including telling you the fucking truth but he didn’t! You’re a prisoner here, just like you were in the Estate. The only difference is that I knew not to implement such a vile fucking tool!’
Riley has the grace to show an ounce of regret when he looks at Kade, whose throat closes up, eyes stinging. His heart feels waterlogged, drowning.
‘You don’t understand,’ Riley tells Lachlan, but he’s looking at Kade.
‘I’m not the one who needs to understand, Harker. Your “issue” is one thing; this was just shy of psychological warfare.’
Kade says, ‘Stop.’
The walls are closing in.
His head swims.
‘You let him think he had a fucking disorder, one that’s not even real!’
‘Please… stop.’
‘I did what I had to.’
‘He protects you, defends you like you hung the fucking moon when—’
Riley moves suddenly toward Kade, who sways to the side. All Lachlan’s anger drains like water through a sieve, focusing on whatever is wrong.
‘Kade,’ he says gently, a warm hand caressing his face as Riley catches him.
‘Are you OK? Are you dizzy?’ When Kade doesn’t answer, Lachlan reaches down, takes his wrist and presses two fingers into the centre of his star, blossoming instant relief.
‘It’s all right. It’s gonna pass, and this time you’ll let it, because I’m going to tell you the truth, and so will he. ’
‘I d-don’t understand,’ Kade says, eyes closed, doesn’t want to see either of them, this room, this place, the Tower.
He built it.
Oh God, did he really build his own prison?
Lachlan carefully guides him three steps to the left and lowers him into an interrogation chair.
Once Kade’s seated, Lachlan keeps a steady hand on his knee, the pressure easing into slow, rhythmic strokes that bleed some of the ugly fire from his nerves.
‘I know, that’s why I’m going to tell you everything. ’
Kade opens his eyes.
‘You ordered the kidnap, didn’t you?’ he utters, throat still tight, seeking to strangle what shouldn’t meet air, but some things cannot be contained, and truth is like a virus. ‘To get the kids out, but it… it went wrong?’
Lachlan swallows.
There’s such unknowable sadness in him then that Kade wonders what it tastes like. The sole container of such sorrow, how would it feel to kiss him?
It’s so fucked up.
Beside the chair, Riley kneels opposite Lachlan, but the moment Kade asks the question, he rises again and turns away. His shoulders tighten beneath the leather of that jacket he’s had forever. Silence follows.
Riley won’t volunteer this willingly.
Kade will have to ask.
‘Tell me who hired Iron Star seven years ago.’