CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Rike is promoted to QG.
Mara, Timo and Hiru are elevated to Captain status.
After the meeting, Kade tries to talk to Seth, but he walks swiftly away before Kade can even get close.
Luca hangs around Kade, seems concerned. ‘How are you doing?’
‘Uh, not great,’ Kade tells him honestly as they head out to make rounds.
‘I’m losing time. Blacking out. I think…
’ He has to swallow to say it. ‘I think the bodyguard is right. I was that rich boy before or whatever.’ Kade glances around to ensure they’re alone.
Luca has been here for five years. He’s one of the people Kade has known the longest and he’s never questioned it, has never really questioned anything about Iron Star, his life, his friends, his boss.
‘Can I ask… how did you come to work here?’
‘I heard about this place through a friend,’ Luca tells him. ‘I needed work.’
‘Right, yeah. I’m sorry. You’ve told me that before, I’m sorry.’ Kade scrubs a hand over his eyes. ‘I’m just tired.’
‘You did great in there. Really pulled it back.’
‘You think?’ Luca nods. ‘I don’t know. It didn’t feel great.’
‘Which part?’
Lying, he wants to say but won’t. ‘Asking people to accept that he’s gonna be walking around the Tower. What the boss said to Seth—’
‘We know the risks and so does Seth. And anyway, he’s just using this whole thing to justify his fucking metaphobia,’ Luca points out darkly. ‘Boss was right to shut it down hard.’
‘Yeah, I guess.’
‘You brought everyone around. You’re the good cop,’ Luca says with a smile, dark mood vanished. He nudges Kade. ‘We couldn’t do this without you.’
‘It doesn’t feel that way.’
‘How does it feel?’
‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’ve never felt like this.’
‘No, it’s a lot,’ Luca agrees. ‘I’m still stuck on the eyeball feelers, to be honest.’
Kade laughs weakly and Luca pulls him into a hug.
‘It’s gonna be OK,’ he whispers.
Kade tries to trust it. ‘Yeah.’
They run a few more sweeps together, making sure the Tower is locked down properly. Once that’s done, Luca heads off to grab some sleep before his night shift. Kade steps out into the grounds.
The sun will set soon.
He slept through morning.
Outside, he can breathe easier.
‘You might as well come out,’ he says. ‘I know you’re there.’
Lachlan comes to join him from whatever puddle of shadows he was lurking in. ‘Meeting with Blaire is a mistake,’ he says right off the bat.
‘It’s what Riley wants.’
‘What do you want?’
‘To be a good second.’
‘You’re second to no one,’ Lachlan informs him with all the tone of one discussing weather. ‘I heard your speech.’
Kade rolls his eyes. ‘Oh yeah?’
‘How much of it did you believe?’
‘All of it.’
‘I can tell when you’re lying.’
‘Go fuck yourself.’
They move closer to the trees.
‘I don’t want you seeing her. I’d rather keep you out of it.’
‘But she helped you. She gave you the book. You trusted her.’
‘I trusted her to help me because I didn’t care if it backfired. Both of them were using me right from the start. If Blaire and Jolene are really sisters, and you’ve known Jolene—’
‘Lee.’
‘—for a while like you said, then Blaire must have known you were alive this whole time. She gave me the book when I asked for help. She gave me the photograph back. Not once did she tell me you were alive.’
‘So… what? You think she wanted me dead?’
‘The Blaire I knew would have died to keep you and Mimi safe, but I don’t know if I ever knew her, not really. I don’t want her near you. She can meet with Harker, that’s fine. I don’t care about him, but I don’t want her near you.’
‘Better guard my body then, huh?’ Kade sighs, meant to break the tension but all it does is remind him of how it felt to kiss Lachlan in that alley.
That was his first kiss, although it didn’t feel like his first when his body took over and knew exactly what to do, how to make it good, settling into the euphoric rush like something vast and tidal finally coming home to him.
He clears his throat. ‘How did you contact her?’
‘She gave me a number.’
‘Is she coming tonight?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t have a phone. Your techs sent it asking her to come.’
‘So what happened last night? I remember the… the stuff in the alley, but after that there’s nothing.’
‘I think you had a seizure of some kind. Your body went rigid. You passed out. I carried you to the van, drove you back here. Your friend Luca let me in.’
Kade falls into step with him, walking deeper into the trees. There’s no Hush Line now. No PTTCD. He could leave. Go anywhere.
It still hurts that Riley did that.
Trapped him here.
Lied by omission.
‘You know my life was completely normal before you showed up, right?’
Lachlan snorts. ‘Oh really?’
‘All right, fine.’ Kade scowls. ‘Not normal, but not this. Did I lose time before? When I was…’ He can’t say it. ‘Y’know. Him.’
‘As far as I know, you never lost time before.’
‘Great.’ He seethes for a few seconds, seeking ways to blame Lachlan for the bad feelings inside. ‘Do you know about Lee? What she runs, who she is?’
‘I think,’ Lachlan says, conversational and calm, ‘I could know them both in a dozen lifetimes and never know who they really are, either of them.’ He looks over at Kade. ‘But tell me anyway.’
‘Lee is the boss of Last Light, and you don’t fuck with them or Lee. That book Blaire gave you was Lee’s, so now it’s Riley’s responsibility to get it back, not to mention she was very clear about no one interfering with her sister.’
‘So then why’d your boss order you to—?’
‘Because he’s doing his best to clean up your fucking mess! To keep us all safe! To… to do the best he can and work with what he’s given.’
‘Kade.’
‘He’s trying his best! He’s doing everything he can to—’
‘It’s all right. You’re OK.’ Lachlan’s rough, warm hand cups his cheek when tears make it wet and Kade wants to die rather than cry in front of this prick, but he can’t stop it. It’s so much, it’s too much. ‘You’re fine, I promise.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘I know you.’
‘You know nothing about me. You knew him!’
‘I know the song your cells sing,’ Lachlan says with soft, apologetic certainty, dark grey eyes moving between Kade’s own. ‘I know you no matter what name you wear or how time has shaped you. You’re all I have left to care about in the time I have left to care at all.’
Time.
Kade hisses under his breath and pulls away, lifting Lachlan’s t-shirt to expose the gothic tattoo no longer drawn around a VI, but a V.
Tonight it’ll become IV.
‘Fuck,’ Kade mutters, angry.
‘It’s all right.’
‘No. No. The book. You were going to give me the book so I could…’
So he could what? Riley needs the book to give to Lee but Kade could read it before he hands it over, couldn’t he? Find a loophole somewhere.
There has to be a loophole.
Lachlan says, ‘I still will if you want.’
‘Show me now.’
‘I don’t want to leave the grounds.’
‘Why not? You drove me here.’ Kade has one bitch of a headache coming on. ‘Your van is close by, right?’
‘You need to eat something,’ Lachlan says with flatline certainty.
It irks Kade enormously, irrationally. ‘Why is all this happening?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘This fucking mess that used to be my life! Nothing seems right anymore. Everything feels weird, like. Like I can’t unsee how fucking weird it is that nobody has a last name here,’ he tells Lachlan in a breathless, quiet rush.
‘And everyone’s names are only four letters, and I just don’t get why Riley doesn’t want me to leave.
Why? I’m not weak, I can take care of myself.
’ Kade’s throat swells with thick, jagged things he doesn’t want to admit.
‘His knuckles were red like he’d been fighting but it was me who fought last night.
Why was he resting? What happened? My life was perfect before you.
I understood it. But now…’ He trails off.
Lachlan says nothing.
Somehow that hurts worse than anything else.
Kade wipes his eyes. ‘Whatever. Just cascading failures, I guess.’
‘You’re not a failure.’
Embarrassed for breaking down, Kade shuts off hard.
‘So, what else do I get from you? The languages thing? Might as well tell me while you’re still here, right?’
‘You were already multilingual before we met, but I did teach you both some sign language.’
‘What else?’
‘Kade—’
‘Come on, you said you know the song my cells sing. Tell me what else about me has your fucking fingerprints all over it, Bodyguard.’
‘I know you’re angry with me.’
‘Yeah, no shit! You broke in here, gunned down eighteen members of my fucking family, and you turned my world inside out! Yeah, I’m fucking angry with you, you prick!
You never tell me anything, but you tease everything.
You keep saying you’ll be honest but you’re not.
You and my boss are having whole conversations behind my back.
You make me feel like a child whose life has been a play!
I fucking hate you, and if you expect different from me just because of a kiss, then you can fuck off. ’
Lachlan looks genuinely hurt. ‘Do you think it’s easy for me?’
‘I don’t care what’s easy for you! You’re the one who ruined everything in the first place!
You let those kids get taken, you let her die, you let him…
’ Kade steps away, hand in his hair, clutching, ‘become this… whatever the fuck I am. Brightling, broken glass, I don’t fucking know anymore but I was the best until you got here and tore my whole fucking life apart and now I’m nothing, and you…
you’re just gonna die anyway so what was the point? ’
‘God, you’re still so selfish.’
‘Selfish?!’
‘Selfish!’ Lachlan snaps for the first time, and it flashes angry and bright in his eyes, tone sharp. ‘You’re a selfish brat and you always were. Do you have any idea how many lives were ended, ruined, stolen because of—’
‘How fucking dare you make that my fault?’