6. Saint
Saint pulled another hunk of meat from the fire as headlights came into sight. He sighed, going back to stoking the logs. They were still a good three miles away. It had been awhile since anyone was stupid enough to have wandered that far into the Mojave Desert. With any luck, they had a full tank of gas and the smarts to go back the way they came.
A needy whine came from beside him. He looked down to find the flames from the fire reflected in pleading golden eyes. Saint huffed, shaking his head, then tossed a piece of steak to his companion. Jaws snapped, the expensive piece of filet swallowed whole, no appreciation given to the deliciousness of the treat. Saint gave him a flat stare while the animal licked his lips, watching him closely.
“What? No thank you?” The animal just blinked at him. “You’re getting spoiled,” he observed.
Saint’s only answer was a quiet huff and another soft whine before the beast curled up and nodded off. Saint ate the last few bits of his dinner in silence, then slumped in his seat, staring up at the cloudless sky. Without all the light pollution, millions of stars shone bright against the indigo backdrop of night. Peaceful. Otherworldly. It made him feel small.
As a child, he’d found the lights and chaos of Vegas overwhelming. Given a choice, he”d have stayed in Ohio with his mom. But he hadn’t gotten to choose. His father had stolen him. At four, Saint’s life had gone from normal to nightmare. His father cleaned money for gangs and the mob out of a coin laundry, leaving Saint in the hands of his father”s omega mistress of the week. He’d been raised by strippers, showgirls, and pros then enlisted at seventeen. Two years later, his father went to prison. He”d lost track of the man after that, but he didn”t care.
Saint had always assumed, once he left the military, he’d go back to the city. The irony didn’t escape him. Only once he had left Vegas, had he developed an appreciation for the town. He’d made a plan. Do his time in the military, do four years as a private military contractor, then head back to Nevada with his money, his GI bill and his newfound skills with explosives. A demolitions expert like him could do well in Vegas. Buildings went down almost as fast as they went up. It was a good plan. A solid plan.
But that was before.
Before Cerberus.
Saint took a swig of his beer, wishing for something stronger. But it would interfere with his meds. He sometimes contemplated not taking them…to see…just to see if the screaming had stopped. But it wasn’t worth the risk. The medication took weeks to build back up in his system. And he just didn’t know what he might do if he started seeing them again…hearing them again.
He shook the thought away, focusing on the vastness around him. Somehow, despite his crazy, Saint had carved out a cozy little den in this endless landscape. He found peace in the expansiveness, surrounded by nothing but plants and animals. Like him, they fought to stay alive on the bare minimum. The bare minimum was all Saint could manage. He lacked the capacity for anything more. He was useless in the real world.
But not out there. Nobody expected anything of him out there. Would never even notice if he ceased to exist one day. It made life more bearable. Knowing there was no pressure, no demand for him to stay alive, to keep trying. It made it easier. Getting up every morning was for him and nobody else.
In the real world, doctors would have locked Saint up for the thoughts that flooded his brain. The voices, the people he knew weren’t really there. But he couldn’t handle confinement. So the desert became his asylum. No walls. No buildings. Nothing closing in on him. No sirens. No screaming. No crying babies or ringing in his ears. It was just a place to hide his crazy.
It was safer.
For everyone.
He grimaced as the headlights grew closer, as if the glow of the fire was a beacon. Tourists had never wandered this far out before. He’d bought this property for its ugliness, all cracked earth and sage brush. Nothing Instagrammable about it at all. No picturesque mountains, no painted rocks. Just a big empty nothing, guarded on four sides by elaborate totems he’d carved out of wood from a fallen Joshua tree.
It was perfect for his needs; the need to be left the fuck alone. He didn’t even have an address. He was just a pin on a map, a set of coordinates. He continued to stare as the headlights grew closer and closer. Nobody should be out that far. Not for anything good, anyway. Nobody strayed twenty-three miles from the highway and decided to...keep going.
His gaze slid to the rifle propped up against the airstream, ensuring it was within reach, studying the vehicle the distance closed between them. A new Jeep. A rental according to the front license plate. He’d counted on politely giving the stranger directions and sending them on their way, but the person behind the steering wheel was no stranger.
Christ.
Saint’s heart thumped like mad. One look at Loch and his body reacted like he was right back in it, the flop sweat, the hyper-awareness of his own body...Time slowed, tension creeping into every muscle. Saint fought the urge to move. To flee. To run until he collapsed, until every muscle burned with fatigue, until he was no longer cognizant of every cell in his body. Until he didn’t want to claw his own skin off.
But, tonight, he had nowhere to go. Loch would run him down, force him to hear whatever he had to say. What the fuck did he want? Saint wasn’t ready for this. He hadn’t…planned for this. He couldn”t remember the last time he”d seen another person. Hell, he had his groceries delivered without having to interact with another soul.
With another long suffering sigh, he ran his hands through thick gray fur at his side, letting the feeling sooth him. “He’s nauseatingly wholesome, but don’t eat him.”
Loch stepped from the truck. Saint didn’t get up to greet him, only reached into the small cooler beside him and held up a beer, hoping he appeared...normal? “Who’s dead?”
Loch winced, the cloying scent of his distress thick in the air. Yeah, definitely not a good sign. When he reached the fire”s dim light, Saint took him in. He looked…okay. Healthy. Sane. But Loch was always the adult in the room.
In the beginning—when Cerberus assigned Loch as section commander for their team—Saint had appreciated how he always knew what to do. No matter how bad things got, how bloody or dangerous, Loch would behave as if it was all going according to plan. At the time, it was reassuring.
Now, it was…irritating. Especially now that Saint knew the truth, knew how much weight Loch carried on those broad shoulders. Always the martyr, willing to set himself on fire to keep everyone else in his life warm.
Loch took the bottle, eyeing the other lawn chair, stopping short when he saw the enormous canine curled on the ground at Saint’s feet. “Is that…a wolf?”
“Mm,” Saint confirmed, despite the stupid question.
Nobody could mistake the huge beast for any kind of domestic dog or hybrid.
Loch hesitated. “Does he bite?”
Saint shrugged. “He’s never bit me. Nobody else has ever been dumb enough to come out here. Feeling lucky?”
Loch huffed out a nervous laugh. The animal gave a sigh that sounded shockingly similar to Saint’s. Maybe it was true what they said about pets and their owners. Not that anyone ever owned a wolf.
“If nobody comes out here, why two lawn chairs?” Loch asked.
“The other”s his,” Saint said, pointing to the wolf, who whined. “Sit at your own risk. I hear they’re territorial.”
Loch dropped into the chair, clearly willing to risk it. “You haven’t changed.” He popped the top on his beer, tipping the bottle back, swallowing more than half in one go. “He got a name?”
Saint glanced down at the wolf whose eyelids were already drooping, too lazy to stay vigilant with his belly full. “He didn’t say.”
“Yep, just as weird,” Loch mused, almost under his breath.
Saint sucked down half his bottle, trying to catch up with Loch, before flicking his gaze to his former section leader. “What’s up, Sarg? What’s so bad you had to come find me in the middle of the night?”
Loch stared out over the flat lands, voice gravel as he said, “Josh is dead.”
Saint frowned. That waswhat he’d come to tell him? “Josh has been dead for a year.”
Loch’s gaze snapped to Saint. “What? You knew?”
Saint’s brows knitted together. “You didn’t?”
Loch shook his head, paling under his golden skin. Oh, yeah. Saint could see Loch drowning in his guilt. Saint hated talking, but Loch’s sorrow hung thick in the air. And even if Saint hated Loch”s Pollyanna attitude, he was still his friend.
“Joshy called me about three weeks before his official discharge. I didn’t know it, though. I had just moved out here.” He gestured to the Airstream behind him. “I was still trying to get my shit together. I had a satellite phone, but I never turned it on. I…couldn’t. By the time I checked my messages, it was two weeks after Josh’s discharge. I called Cerberus, asking Gretchen for his contact information. I knew she wasn’t technically allowed to tell me but she always had a thing for me. That was when she told me he’d been killed in a training accident about a week after he’d called me. I…didn’t know what to say, so I just said thank you and hung up.”
Saint was far too damaged to do anything but exist. So, he’d stayed drunk, sat with his sadness until he couldn’t stand sitting, then ran until he puked every day for a month.
Loch appeared flummoxed. He shook his head. “I can’t believe you didn’t call.”
“Did you?” Saint fired back. Was he supposed to keep Loch informed on their friends’ lives? “You lived in the same state as Josh. Hell, Binnie lived in the same city. Why didn’t he tell you Josh died?”
Loch turned to the fire, watching the flames as they died down to embers. “He didn’t know either. Not until a few days ago.”
“Fletcher’s been dead for over a year.” Calling him by his last name dulled the pain a bit, created some much needed distance. Saint would never admit it, not under penalty of death, but if someone had asked him, two years ago, to name his best friend—before his mind had fractured like a dirty bomb—he would have said Joshy.
Saint, Josh, and Ollie had been inseparable, not that they’d had much choice with Binnie and Loch always vacillating between acting like three-year-olds or like it was pudding night at the nursing home.
Back then, they were all kids. Early twenties only seemed like an adult until you’d been in the shit, until you learned the truth. Ollie and Josh had been Saint’s safe space. At least, until they’d all come to the devastating realization safe space didn”t exist at Cerberus.
“How could neither of you have checked on him after all this time?” Saint said after a minute, unable to keep the disgust from his voice. “He fucking worshipped you two.”
Loch made a choking sound. When Saint stole a glance, he could see Loch’s eyes were wet with unshed tears. “I know. Don’t you think I know that? We both do. Binnie feels like a complete piece of shit, too.” He finished his beer. “No matter how shitty you think we are, I promise we feel ten times worse than that.”
Saint believed it. Loch was already letting it eat him alive, and a sick, sad, mean part of Saint was glad. They hadn’t checked on Joshy at all? He’d been their baby, the one who was all feelings. He was the one who took every loss the hardest, always laughed the loudest, always made sure he had chocolate for the kids whenever they went into town. Josh would have been the first one to check on them if his contract had ended ahead of theirs.
Saint grunted, swirling the beer in the bottom of his bottle. “How’d you find out?”
“His baby brother.”
Saint’s brow raised as he recalled the picture from Josh’s wall. Blond hair, blue eyes, freckles, kind of on the skinny side in that way omegas often were. “Fenny?”
Loch cut his eyes at him, staring him down, something bordering hostility in the strange half-growl that left the elder alpha’s lips. “Do you know him?”
Saint’s nostrils flared, Loch’s aggression making Wolf snarl in his sleep. “Easy, killer. I’ve never even met the kid. I only know what Josh told us.”
Loch’s shoulders sagged, his head bobbing, the heavy scent dissipating. “He cracked some encryption Josh left for him and had a note telling him to come find me and Binnie. He wanted our help.”
Saint blinked at him. “Help with what?”
Loch’s mouth formed a grim line. “Taking down Dresden and Cerberus.”
Oh, Josh. You brave, bold idiot.
Was that why he’d been calling Saint? Was he going to ask him for help with his insane plot to dismantle Cerberus? Josh’s hatred of the company wasn’t a secret. If Dresden wasn’t loathed by more than half the Earth’s population, Saint might have feared for Josh’s safety. Fuck. He should have feared for Josh’s safety.
Josh was smart—maybe one of the smartest people Saint had ever known—but he was idealistic like Loch. He thought doing the right thing was always the right thing to do, even if it cost his life. He’d lie up in their barracks, hunched over his laptop, spitting out random facts about Dresden and Cerberus, horrible statistics about the deaths they”d all caused without lifting a finger.
“Fen’s going to take down Dresden? Has he recently acquired a militia or something? Because that’s the only way to get to him. Ask Josh.” His laugh was bitter. “Oh, right. You can’t.”
Toward the end of Saint’s contract, Josh was antsy, his interest in Dresden going from a self-soothing technique to an obsession, but nobody thought he’d actually try to take him down. Nobody could take down Peter Dresden. Not even the U.S. government.
Loch ignored the venom in Saint’s tone. “No militia. Just a spunky omega sidekick and a really sulky alpha who Binnie already wants to marry.”
Saint smiled despite himself. Binnie’s love of alphas was one of the worst kept secrets ever. The man was only happy when being pinned down and used.
Saint had first hand knowledge.
“Never underestimate a spunky omega,” Saint muttered. “And Binnie’s in love? Let me guess: a cop? A firefighter? Another closeted military guy?”
Loch chuckled. “Nope. An artist. Pretty and soft like an omega and absolutely can’t stand Binnie. You know how much he loves that.”
“Binnie’s found himself a unicorn, huh? A toppy alpha who looks like a pretty omega? He must be in heaven.”
Loch shook his head. “If he wants this one, he’s gonna have to work for it, and we both know Binnie isn’t used to working for it.”
Saint did know that. Intimately. Binnie was a hard worker when it came to almost anything except relationships. But he’d never had to try too hard. An alpha who wanted to be dominated was a unicorn in and of itself. Neither Saint nor Ollie had been able to resist. But sex was sex. It sounded like Binnie was in love.
Something twisted in Saint’s chest. He thought he’d be mated by now. Maybe have kids. That had been the plan. Do his time in the military, work for Cerberus, make a fat paycheck, find himself an omega to settle down with. But that was long before he’d become damaged goods.
“Why are you here?” Saint asked.
Loch moved his hand to stroke absently over Wolf’s fur, like he needed to busy himself. “I wanted to tell you about Josh.”
Saint scoffed. “Bullshit. You have my phone number. And I know you want something because you didn’t warn me you were coming. You wanted to blindside me.”
Loch snorted, shaking his head. “You’ve been out here too long, man. You’re getting paranoid.”
Saint side-eyed him hard. It wasn’t the desert that had made him paranoid. It was psychosis. “So, you didn’t come here to ask me for something?”
Loch sighed, sitting forward to place his bottle on the ground by his feet. “Fine. I need your help.”
“Nobody needs my help,” Saint said. “There’s not enough of me left to scrape together to help you.”
“I’d take ten percent of the old you over a hundred percent of anybody else,” Loch swore.
Saint swallowed hard, Loch’s words a punch to his nuts. He tried for a joke. “Flatterer. The answer’s still no.”
“Josh wanted our help.”
“He wanted your help,” Saint countered.
“He called you first, didn’t he?”
He had. Josh had called Saint and he hadn’t picked up. At the time, he hadn’t known he’d called. Instead, Saint was lying drunk and naked in the sand while Cerberus was doing God only knew what to his friend. Saint’s heartbeat was off like a rocket again, beating so fast it left a metallic taste in his mouth. He needed to move. To go. To get out. But this was his home.
“Come on, Joaquin. You just gonna hide out here until you die?” Loch asked.
Saint flinched at the use of his given name. One he rarely heard after joining the military and getting the moniker Saint, before he’d seen first-hand the real life consequences. Deadly consequences.
“That was the plan, yeah.”
“Are you that eager to die, man?” Loch asked, his concern thick enough to drown in.
Saint steeled himself. Loch’s words were too close to the truth. “Ugh, stop. I can feel your bleeding heart from here. What’s the plan? How can I help you bring down Dresden? A man who’s dined with Putin, who has more senators on his payroll than the U.S. government? Are you gonna take them down, too?”
Loch met his gaze and held it. “Yeah. That’s exactly what we’re gonna do.”
Saint’s lips parted. “You can’t be fucking serious.”
Loch shook his head, eyes shining. “Trust me, Fen is serious.”
Saint studied his friend, a snort escaping. The man was practically the heart eye emoji. “Oh, I get it. Binnie isn’t the only one with a crush.”
Loch’s spine straightened, his mouth opening and closing like he was a fish. “What? No! That’s not—I wouldn’t—This is about Josh.”
Saint laughed, the sound rusty to his own ears. “Wow, you’re not usually one to think with his dick, but good for you. Unfortunately, your dick is leading you to your grave.”
Loch huffed out an irritated breath. “I’m not thinking with my—Are you going to help or not?”
“Not,” Saint said, rocketing to his feet, forcing himself to stand still and stretch as if he were bored and not desperate to flee from this conversation. From life. He stretched with an exaggerated yawn, joints cracking and popping far too much for a twenty-eight-year-old. “Thanks for coming by.”
He tossed the near empty beer bottle into the trash, ignoring the inch or so that remained at the bottom, before clicking his tongue to get Wolf’s attention, nodding to the door when he got to his feet, also giving a stretch.
Saint let Wolf in first, following behind, making to close the door behind him but meeting resistance. When he looked, Loch had the cold metal edge in a death grip, keeping it open. Jesus, he was relentless.
Fine, two could play at that game.
Saint yanked on the door a few times. Loch couldn’t resist trying to overpower him. They played tug of war long enough for Loch to really put his back into it. Saint let go suddenly, watching with amusement as Loch went flying into the shadows.
Saint barked out a laugh. When he was a little kid in Ohio, his abuela used to slap the screens on the porch to watch the squirrels go flying. At the time, she was adamant they ate holes in the mesh coverings. Saint found it amusing. Turned out, it was still fucking hilarious.
“Real fucking mature,” Loch muttered, following him inside, stopping short.
Saint looked around, too, trying to figure out what he was gaping at.
“Did you refurbish this whole place yourself?” Loch asked, sounding awed.
Saint made a face. “Do you see anyone else? Wolf gets around okay on three legs, but he’s not much for swinging a hammer.”
“You know, I don’t remember you being this much of a jackass,” Loch said, but there was no bite to it. His head was on a swivel, taking it all in, eyes landing on the bed Saint had built into the opposite end of the Airstream, where Wolf now dozed on a red Navajo blanket.
“This is incredible, man.”
Saint rubbed the back of his neck, looking around. It wasn’t a mansion. Only a small kitchen, a smaller living area, a bathroom, and a bed. He had stripped and re-stained the floors, replaced the appliances with stainless steel, and built a window into the side of the trailer over the sink, but not much else. It had been a good meditative practice.
Saint curled his toes in his boots as he clenched and unclenched his fists, trying anything to stop the itch of panic rising now that Loch prowled around, touching his things. All of his things.
“Did you carve these?”
Loch held up a small wooden figurine, squinting like he was inspecting its craftsmanship. Saint’s shoulders stiffened, his jaw muscle ticking, fighting the urge to snatch the little wolf from his fingers. This panic wasn’t rational. He understood that. But it was like watching a horror movie.
Relief flooded Saint as Loch finally set down the little wolf, though it now faced the wrong way. But then he picked up the little horse beside it, turning it this way and that before, once more, setting it back down in the wrong direction.
Loch set the final piece down, moving deeper inside. Saint followed behind, putting everything as he’d had it before. But it didn’t stop. Loch seemed determined to touch every item Saint owned. Plants, books, picture frames, the vintage rain lamp he’d found at a swap meet. He bit back a low growl as Loch touched one of the strings caging in the fat, gold plastic cherub in the center, letting the oil collect on his finger before rubbing them together.
Then Loch saw it. He floated closer to the window, frowning at the sticks held together with twine to form something similar to an abstract A shape. He reached for it almost like he was hypnotized.
Saint couldn’t take it anymore.
“Don’t touch that,” he snapped. “What are you trying to do? Scent mark my place? You got a crush on me, too?”
Did he come across as a territorial alpha and not someone who couldn’t handle having their stuff touched without it making their skin crawl? He didn”t need Loch looking too closely at his behavior.
“What…is it?”
“It’s nothing,” Saint said.
Loch didn’t believe him. It was written all over his face, but Saint didn’t care. He’d figured out very quickly that for him to maintain a tiny sliver of normal—his normal—his life had to be arranged in a certain way. His things had to be arranged in a certain way. A place for everything. There had to be. If everything had a specific home, Saint could lose himself in the details, focusing on the small things. It kept him from being overwhelmed by the realities of his life, of his choices. It kept his demons at bay.
He’d accepted this militant need for order, but he’d never anticipated his emotional demons somehow mutating into the much more embarrassing fear of actual demons. But it had. And now, no matter how irrational, he needed to protect himself. Spiritually. Ritualistically.
He’d never believed in the packs’ superstitious old ways, their old magic. Spells and charms and symbols. As a child, he couldn’t see how sticks soaked in herbs or rocks stacked just so could provide any sort of protection. But at night, his demons were very real, sitting on his chest and stealing his breath until he was sure he would die. It wasn’t rational, it wasn’t sane, but the same voice that whispered that order would keep him safe now told him he was in danger without these ancient protections.
But he couldn”t tell Loch that. His big cow eyes were studying him, trying to determine if Saint was okay, though they both knew he wasn’t.
Finally, Loch grinned. “I always thought you were real pretty,” he simpered. “But Binnie got to you first.”
Saint glared at him. “I am pretty. But you’re not my type. Neither was Binnie. He was just there.”
Loch snorted. “Oh, I know. You like ‘em soft and fluffy, like a baby squirrel.”
Saint’s lips twitched as he was once more reminded of his abuela’s porch squirrels. Would they forgive his crimes against their people? But Loch wasn’t wrong. Saint preferred omegas with soft skin and softer bodies. Saint was born all planes and angles, lean and muscular and bony. The idea of cuddling up next to someone equally as pointy didn’t appeal to him.
Not that it mattered. He couldn’t drag an innocent victim into the nightmare palace of his mind. He couldn”t pretend to be civil. He’d gone feral.
“You are coming back with me, right?” Loch asked.
“Back to what? A battle we’ll lose? I know you have a hero complex but I never took you for the suicide mission type.”
“You don’t know we’ll lose,” Loch shot back. “Besides, you don’t start a war because you can win, you start one because it’s the right thing to do.”
Why did Loch have to be so fucking sincere? Saint could feel his resolve cracking. “There’s nobody to take care of Wolf.”
“Bring him with you.”
Fuck. “Who’s going to water my plants?”
Loch snorted. “Shit, bring those, too. Bring the whole goddamn house. It’s on wheels for Christ’s sake. That rental outside has four-wheel drive.”
“Is this kid’s ass really worth dying for?” Saint taunted, getting more and more desperate by the minute.
Loch shrugged. “I don’t know for certain, but if I had to take a guess,”—Loch made a face like he was thinking…or constipated—“my money is on yeah.”
Saint shook his head.
“What are you so afraid of?” Loch asked.
“Dying?” Saint shot back.
“You’re not afraid of dying. You’re not living. You’re out here…existing…sucking up oxygen…all alone. If this is the rest of your life, what’s the point? You’re not even thirty. Are you going to hide away forever?”
Saint dropped down to the sofa, cupping his head in his hands, his heart twisting in a dozen knots. “Do you think I haven’t tried to end it all by now? I have. Somehow, I always fuck it up or chicken out.”
He jumped when Loch’s face appeared right in front of him, close enough for Saint to see his own reflection in the other man’s eyes. “Come home with me. Binnie’s there. Ollie, too. We won’t judge you. We all know. We were all there. We all saw shit that we can never unsee. We all did shit that we can never take back. You don’t have to punish yourself out here in the middle of nowhere like you’ve been shunned by society.”
“I’m barely holding it together on my best day,” Saint confessed. “I’m not going to be an asset. What if I’ve forgotten everything? What if I blow us all up?”
“Then we’ll have far bigger things to worry about…or we’ll all be dead. It’s fifty-fifty,” Loch reasoned.
Saint huffed out a humorless laugh. “You’d make a shitty motivational speaker.”
Loch rolled his eyes. “Fine, if you blow us all up, I’ll be really mad. I’ll…fist fight you in the afterlife? Better?”
“Fuck. Fine. Why not? But I’m bringing my wolf and my plants and my carvings. And some other things,” he said, vague. “And nobody’s allowed in my room. Or to touch my shit.”
Loch’s phone buzzed. He slid it open and grinned, reading something and laughing before shaking his head.
Satellite phone.
Smart.
Loch turned back to Saint. “Fine. Nobody touches your shit unless you want them to.”
Saint looked him in the eye. “I will never want them to.”
“Noted. Now, move your ass.” Loch’s grin grew fond. “I have an omega waiting to boss me around.”
Saint snorted. “Whipped.”
Loch gave him a knowing smirk. “Wait until it happens to you.”
A knife of longing shot through him, but he shook it away. “That ship has not only sailed but sunk.”
Loch shrugged. “Guess we’ll see.”