Chapter 60
Raine
We spend another full day in bed, sleeping, eating, and touching each other in all places everywhere, making up for lost time and taking advantage of being safe …
For now anyway. It’s a twisted kind of heaven, but it's ours.
By the time night falls again, the lakehouse is cloaked in darkness.
We lay in the tangled, black sheets after making love for the third time today.
“C’mon,” Soren murmurs, rolling onto his side and looking at me with that half-lazy expression that still does stupid things to the pulse between my legs. “I wanna show you something.”
“I’m naked,” I say, pouting.
He ignores the complaint, slides out of bed, drags on his sweatpants and a black hoodie (still with the hot-guy shit), then grabs the wool blanket from the chair in the corner.
He holds it open for me. I step into it, and he wraps me tight.
He scoops me up in his arms, and I hate how many butterflies my stomach produces.
I’ve never been the swoony type, but right at this moment?
I’ve got heart emojis as eyes for fuck’s sake.
He carries me through the house, which is totally unnecessary because my legs aren’t broken.
“Hey,” I say. “I can walk, you know.”
“Didn’t you say you couldn’t feel your legs earlier?”
I glare at him. “Figure of speech. You were railing me, Soren.”
A low snicker rumbles from him. He continues walking, Prince Charming cosplay still in full force.
As he carries me through the lakehouse, I take in how stunning it is.
Built from dark wood and decorated with lambskin accents I never really noticed earlier.
Out the back, he treads softly down the slope of the lawn and to the edge of the water.
A long jetty stretches out into the dark lake and at the very end sits a classic country-style deck chair.
Soren settles into it and pulls me onto his lap beneath the blanket.
The water is glassy, almost black, save for the moonlight rippling across its surface. The forest engulfs us on every side, leaves lightly bristling in the gentle breeze. There’s absolutely nothing out here. No lights or noise. No people. Just us.
“This is my favorite spot.”
My eyes rise to the moon. It’s hauntingly beautiful shining over the dark body of water.
“It feels like we’re the only two people on Earth.”
“Yeah.” His forehead rests on my shoulder. “That’s the idea.”
I settle back into him further. “Let’s stay like this forever.”
If only we didn’t have the giant problem of being enemy number one and enemy number two to the most powerful shadow organization in the world.
“I’m worried,” I admit after a while. Being concerned is not something I am used to openly admitting.
Soren’s arm tightens around me as he sighs heavily. “I know.”
“O will find out.”
“He probably already has.”
The honesty of it lands cold in my stomach.
“He’ll come for us, you know.”
“Raine.”
“And Carson’s still a giant pain in the ass too,” I say, words vomiting from my mouth. “You owe him. I owe him. He’s not the forgive and forget type. He will come to collect his favors at some point.”
“Carson’s a self-serving cunt.” Soren huffs out a dry laugh against my skin. “But I’m not concerned about him.”
“Why?”
Soren pauses to collect his thoughts. “He was there when everything turned to shit. When it mattered, he helped get you back to me.”
The simplicity of it surprises me. He makes it sound like slaughtering the Raptors was nothing. When in fact, it was everything.
I trace one finger over the back of his hand. “Yeah, because it served him, Soren. He saw a chance to have two dangerous people in his back pocket. Now we’re both in debt to an underworld kingpin.”
Soren kisses the side of my neck. “We don’t need to worry about him right this second.”
Soren’s right. I need to slow my roll, calm my racing mind. At this moment, Carson isn’t a concern, even though he is a future problem. I drop it and move on to the information I've been wanting to tell Soren ever since I got here.
“I found out what happened to her,” I say quietly.
Soren stills behind me, but doesn’t interrupt. He knows I'm talking about my mom. He waits for me to muster the courage to continue.
“The Agency killed her.”
Even now, saying it feels unreal. No, not unreal. It feels worse than that. It feels wrong and backwards, inside out and upside down. I have to force myself to keep going.
“She created PARM-17. Not for what they want to use it for though. They wanted to enhance their operatives; she wanted to use it to heal people. She was a good person, Soren.” My throat tightens, but I keep talking because if I stop, I don’t know if I’ll be able to start again.
“When she realized what they wanted to use it for, she tried to shut the whole thing down. She stole the vials and sold them to one of her sources.”
I pause, the only noise is our combined breathing and the rhythmic croaking of insects, acting as the chorus to my revelation.
“It was Senator Wilson.”
Soren’s hand stills completely on my hip. “He was her source?”
“I think so.” I stare out at the black water. “I'm certain he is the redacted name in her case files.”
“Shit.”
I nod.
"All this time, I had him in my sights. God, I even flirted with him once."
Soren's body stiffens. "I don't wanna know that shit."
I huff a small laugh before continuing.
“She threatened O,” I whisper. “Took the serum, which is what he wanted most. And he killed her for it.”
The silence settles in as the monster in Soren stirs. I know because I’m tethered to the darkness within him; it’s the same that festers within me.
“O told you all that?”
I nod. “Right before more sedation kicked in. Pussy ass bitch.”
Soren exhales slowly through his teeth.
"I don't know why I didn't know mom was a scientist … or geneticist or whatever. Why would she keep that a secret from me?"
"Maybe to protect you."
I purse my lips. "Maybe. Either way, I want to find the Senator ... ask him what he knows about her. Mom obviously trusted him."
I need to hunt him down and find out what he knows about my mom. Sure, I know the truth of her death, but I have so many other questions now. All I have to do is find the Senator … but will he talk to me?
A few moments of silence pass, with nothing but the sound of the water lapping softly against the jetty. Even the hum of the insects has gone quiet.
“Do you still want revenge?” Soren asks quietly.
I continue to stare out over the water. Revenge. The word that’s defined my whole life.
“Yeah.” I admit. I drag in a slow breath. “But wanting something and doing it … those are different things. And I’m so tired, Soren.”
His mouth brushes my shoulder. It makes the hairs on my arms stand up. “I know.”
And I know Soren would help me if I wanted to hunt down every motherfucker who has my mother’s blood on their hands.
If I asked Soren to swim into the jaws of a great white shark for me, he would.
He already has. That’s what the Agency is, you know.
A fucking apex predator, sitting fat and smug at the top of the food chain.
“O’s taken everything from me,” I say, turning slightly in his lap so I can see his beautiful face. “And now he’s taken you. He’s stolen every version of a life that might’ve made me happy.”
His gaze locks onto mine, dark and unflinching.
“He hasn’t taken me from you.”
“Yes, he has.”
“He tried.”
“He’s made you swear your life over and to never see me again.”
“That deal is off.”
“We can’t hide here forever, Soren.”
“Says who?”
I frown. “They’ll come for us.”
It’ll arrive without so much as a warning. That’s how they operate. And I should know, because I dealt the very punishment coming our way once O finds out I’m here with Soren.
“Yeah. Probably.”
“And when they do? What then?”
His hand comes up, rough thumb tracing the line of my jaw. “Then we do what we do best.”
My pulse begins to kick, hard and fast.
“Which is?”
His eyes shift into that colder, meaner version I’ve seen many times now. “We get rid of the first one they send. Then the second. Then any other dumb motherfuckers who think they stand a chance against you and me. We'll tie bricks to their bodies and send them to the bottom of the lake.”
I can’t explain why that turns me on, but it does. I wonder if he knows he actually is the savior he claimed to be that very first time he backed me into the dresser and fucked me into another dimension. I think I already knew, way back then, that he was my north star, my holy grail.
I rest my forehead briefly against his. “You wanna start a war with the most powerful secret society in the world?”
“If starting a war protects our peace?” Soren’s gaze doesn’t leave mine. “Then, yeah. I’ll go to war for us.”
He goes quiet again, and I don’t need to look at him to know what’s happening inside him. I know that darkness. I sleep with it. Wear it. Feed it. Fuck it. Love it.
I nestle back into his chest and gaze out at the dark lake.
“Do you think we'll have a happy ending?”
He presses a kiss into my shoulder. “Is that what you want? A Hollywood ending?”
Not really. Hollywood lies. It tells you good triumphs over evil always, that love conquers all, and bad girls get redeemed in the end.
But bad girls like me don’t get redemption, we get consequences.
I’m already proof of that. There is no white picket fence bullshit, no soft-focus fade to black. No killer soundtrack to match.
There’s nothing but more destruction, more death, waiting for people like us.
Deep within my core, I know this lakeside peace is borrowed. The darkness is coming for us, as it always does, but the big difference this time?
I’m not alone anymore.
I’ve got the baddest motherfucker on the planet by my side.
When they come, we'll be ready.
It's forever us against them all.