26. MADOC
MADOC
“She’s in shock.”
Jax looked at me like I’d spoken in tongues. Then he looked back at Olivia, who had screamed herself hoarse and was now staring at nothing. Feeling nothing.
Apathy. My familiar foe.
It was strange seeing it on someone else. All the color had drained from her face. Her mouth was soft. There was blood on her lips, and that made the sickness inside me rattle.
“Liv.” Jax was shaking her. She shook and shook. “Liv. Come on. Use words.”
That wouldn’t work. She was too far gone. Her mind had built a fortress, an automatic defense against whatever trauma she’d just experienced. If she was lucky, it would last a few hours. If she was super-duper lucky, it would last a lifetime.
Jax grabbed her face again, then her shoulders.
His expression hardened. “Fuck this.” He swung her up into his arms and carried her back to the suite.
I followed the blood, casting my eyes over any passenger who dared intervene.
None did. Enough strange things had happened on this flight that people were resigned to it.
In the suite, Jax placed her on the bed, where she sat, hands limp in her lap. She stared through me. I didn’t like that.
“What do we do?” Jax asked, just as the puppy nosed in behind me. Ryle was an emotional sponge. He took one look at her and immediately fussed.
“Jesus Christ. What happened?” He rushed to the bed, reaching out to touch her. To shake her again.
I moved.
I moved before I’d made the conscious decision to do it. That was unlike me. I was always in control.
I grabbed the back of Ryle’s shirt and ripped him away from the bed. He stumbled over his feet, cursing. “Madoc! What the hell, dude?”
“No more touching.”
Ryle straightened with a huff. “I wasn’t going to fucking molest her. I was just feeling—”
That was the wrong word.
The M word.
We didn’t like that word.
The mind was a fortress, and then there were battering rams. I moved again, without thought, without hesitation, and pinned the puppy hard to the wall. He squirmed restlessly, then froze when he glanced at my face.
My demons smiled back at him. “We don’t touch,” I said slowly. His eyes widened. “Do not test me, puppy.”
Nervously, he nodded.
I released him, and he slid down the wall, then shot a wary look at Jax. “I’ll keep watch out here,” he said, shooting me a careful look that said too much. Emotional sponge.
I turned and faced the bed. Olivia was another battering ram. Her pale, blood-soaked face was a reflection of my own—prettier, but no less tragic.
I was nine.
I was twelve.
I was fourteen, and I had blood on my hands. That was the day I stopped feeling. When it all finally stopped hurting.
Jax hovered beside her, his large, scarred hands hanging uselessly. He thought he broke things before he fixed them. He looked at her, then back at me, jaw flexing. “What am I not getting?” he bit out, clearly feeling helpless.
I rolled my eyes and approached the bed. Then I knelt between her knees. Her eyes ghosted over my face.
“Wet towel,” I said.
Jax went to retrieve it. I said nothing as we waited, never taking my eyes off her. Her lashes fluttered like stray thoughts caught in a web.
When Jax returned, he handed me the towel and took up a post against the wall.
Oh, the twisted irony.
Careful, my movements deliberately slow, I lifted the towel to her face. I cleaned the blood without touching her skin with mine. It was fresh, so it streaked instead of flaked. I moved down her throat—pretty, so pretty—and her chest.
When I reached her hands, I grabbed each one and inspected them. No blood beneath the fingernails. She hadn’t fought anyone. I assessed her knees—no bruises. Where I could, I checked her thighs. No fingermarks.
When she was marginally cleaner, I pressed my thumb to the median nerve beneath her palm.
She jumped, alert.
Then she blinked at me. “Ow.”
My mouth twitched.
Her brow creased as she snatched her hand away from me. “Don’t do that,” she said, her voice cracking from her earlier opera rendition.
Jax stepped forward. “Liv?” His voice was deep and too hopeful.
I stood up and moved to the wall. Jax took my place, hands twitching at his sides.
Olivia looked up at him, then promptly burst into tears. Jax’s restraint broke, and he pulled her into his chest. “What happened?”
“Lucille,” she sobbed.
“What did she do?”
“She saved me.” Olivia slapped her hands over her face. Between her fingers, she recounted what happened. The ice hardened in my veins.
The copilot was a Viper. Of course he was. It was a near-perfect convergence.
My mind analyzed every detail from our earlier interaction. Thin, young, early-thirties. Nervous—yes. He’d been nervous. Not a seasoned killer, but an eager one.
Olivia hiccupped. “It’s my fault. She’s dead because of me. We’re all dead because of me.”
The small, irritating voice in my head whispered: She’s wrong. This is your fault.
Why?
Because you looked.
Because you felt.
Because you wanted.
I strangled the little voice and shoved it back in the locked drawer in my mind. I didn’t believe in regret. I wouldn’t start now.
With every new detail, Jax grew tenser, his face darker.
The idiot thought he could fix the impossible.
Olivia whimpered. “We were so close.” She sagged, defeated.
Jax’s fists clenched. “It’s not over.”
“The Viper has the plane, Jax. He controls it now. And if he killed the captain—”
“Stop,” Jax said, cutting her off. He started to pace the short length of the suite, a caged animal once again. “Just let me think for a second.”
The sweat gleamed from his skin. The plane shuddered, but it didn’t deter him. On his third rotation, he stopped and nodded to himself. “War room,” he said.
Without him asking, I turned and collected the rest of the ragtag rascals. Nate kept as much distance from me as possible. He hadn’t forgotten what happened when I learned he pulled a gun on Jax. He still had night terrors about it.
Ryle just pouted at me. “You suck,” he muttered petulantly, his precious feelings hurt.
I deliberately tripped him in the aisle, causing him to faceplant into an older man who glared at him. The puppy righted himself, then shot me a bright grin over his shoulder.
Forgiveness came in many different forms.
The mood shifted when they learned the news. Nate sank to the floor. Ryle stared at Jax like he always did, like he held the sun and the moon. Olivia had a similar look, though she did her best to hide it. For good reason.
Jax would ruin her, just like I would ruin him.
Jax reached for his phone and dialed Zola, putting her on speakerphone. “Patch in Cal,” he told her, and a moment later, we were all locked in.
“Here’s the situation,” Jax said, pacing again. “We’re two hours away from Zurich. We got a fucking Viper in the cockpit. No weapons. No way to get in there unless he grants us access from within.”
“Maybe we could ask him nicely,” Ryle said, then winced at Jax’s scowl. “Right, got it. Not the time.”
“We need a plan,” Jax said. “No stupid ideas. Go.”
Nate perked up. “We could ram through the cockpit door. Use one of those trolleys.”
Zola’s voice crackled on the phone. “He said no stupid ideas, dumbass.”
Nate grinned. “Hello to you, too, love of my life.”
“Someone smack him for me.”
I leaned over and smacked him across the head. He flinched, then shuffled over a few more inches, so he was no longer in swatting distance.
“The cockpit door is reinforced with multiple layers of metal, designed to withstand incredible force,” Zola said, her fingers clacking across the keys. “It’s bullet-proof and fire-resistant.”
“So, it’s practically a bank vault,” Jax said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Great. Next idea.”
“Lure him out,” Callum said. The ex-marine was a big fan of tactical operations. “He wants something. Use it as bait.”
“The SKS?” Olivia asked, crossing her arms.
Jax considered it, rubbing his jaw. “He still holds the cards. Fucker could crash the plane, and he knows it.”
I twitched.
Of course, Jax noticed. He whirled on me, a sharp look in his eye. “You’re quiet.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Show your work, super brain.”
He wasn’t going to like it. None of them would.
“He hasn’t crashed the plane.”
Ryle snorted, flopping onto the bed dramatically. “No shit.”
Even Olivia looked amused, rolling her eyes. The color had returned to her cheeks. “Does he ever say more than one sentence at a time?”
“No,” Jax said. His whole attention was fixed on me. Every word. Every pause.
Sometimes, it was fun to pause.
“He wants something,” I said. “He’s waiting.”
“For what?”
“Exactly.”
Jax sighed. He rubbed his hair aggressively, causing it to stand up in weird clumps. I liked his new haircut. Not that I’d tell him that. “Are you saying what I think you’re saying?” he asked me.
I smirked. “Yes.”
“Fuck.”
Ryle raised his hand. “Can someone translate for those of us who don’t speak Jadoc?”
Olivia snorted, then immediately slapped a hand over her face. She was still twitchy with shock, hysterical. I imagined stripping off her blood-soaked clothes and warming her skin…
I twitched again, and Jax arched a brow, curious. I shook my head.
He grimaced. “Alright.” He turned to the rest of them. “We’re going with Ryle’s plan.”
Ryle sat up, gawking. “My plan?”
“We’re going to ask him what he wants,” Jax said, baring his teeth in a feral grin. “But I’m not going to be fucking nice about it.”