Head hanging low, I shook it side to side. “For how long?”
Heavy boots marched around until they faced me, and Cole squatted, waiting for me to find the strength to lift my head and meet the steely determination in his gaze. “For as long as it lasts.”
“Mmmrrrrpt.”
Thom walked under me, his tail tickling my nose, his wings tight to his spine, and proceeded to bat at a loose thread on my shirt sleeve until I pushed myself back, sat on my ankles. The boxy tomcat must have swallowed a chainsaw to make so much racket, but his purrs soothed me, and they revved higher as I stroked him ears to tail.
“Let me take you home,” Cole repeated. “Come home with me.”
“Okay” was what he wanted to hear, so that’s what I told him.
I don’t know how I got to my feet. I couldn’t feel them anymore. All I knew was the cat kept nipping me, and if I didn’t get my butt in gear soon, I would start losing chunks of flesh to his wicked sharp teeth.
A black SUV rolled to a stop beside us, and a distant part of my brain wondered when Cole had called Santiago for a pickup, but he was riding shotgun. Maggie was behind the wheel. I could tell it was her and not Portia by the tears leaking down her cheeks and the way she flung open the door and her arms, offering whatever level of physical comfort I could withstand. I walked into her embrace, dropped my head onto her shoulder, and hung on until my weight dragged us both to the ground. The guys formed a circle around us, protecting us while I splintered, and it made me sob that much harder.
“We have to end this,” she murmured against my hair, long after my tears had dried, but the tone was pure Portia. Maggie had already lost her hold on their body. “The NSB told you to keep playing human. I get that. I really do. You’re spot-lit here in town. There was no clean way to extricate you from this situation without raising suspicions. But it’s time to circle the wagons. It’s time for you to cut ties to this life. It’s the only way to protect the family you have left.”
“It’s time for you to figure out how much of Conquest’s power you can tap without waking her,” Santiago said from behind us. The cadence of his speech was off, stilted, like he was forcing out each word or wanted to call them back as he spoke them. “You’re fast, and you’re strong. There has to be more in your arsenal than that. She’s in you, a part of you, and if we can figure out how to access —”
“It’s too dangerous,” Miller interrupted. “She could fracture if she starts digging around in her psyche.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Violence throbbed in his voice, an unmet need that demanded satisfaction. “I don’t want this. I never wanted any of this. But this is where we are, and this is what it will cost to stay alive.”
I withdrew from Portia, leaned against the rear wheel, and tucked my knees against my chest.
“Santiago is right.” I threw my lot in with his, and Cole recoiled on my periphery while I pretended not to notice. “I’ll talk to Wu and see if he’s got any suggestions. None of us know what we’re dealing with here. I’m an anomaly, but he’s got access to all the health records and laboratory findings on the charun in the NSB’s program. There might be help there.” I linked my arms around my legs. “Kapoor hinted they have an Otillian on the team. I think his exact words were that ‘all our information on you and your kind comes direct from the source’. He promised me access, so I’ll press for a meeting.” Five sets of eyes locked on me. “What?”
“An Otillian on their team, other than you, means trouble.” Portia checked with the others for confirmation. “Only the cadre and their offspring are allowed to ascend to Earth.”
“Any Otillian who has been around long enough to earn their trust would be a remnant,” Miller agreed.
“And that means Kapoor lied, that they’ve tried converting cadre before you.” Santiago glowered. “You might be the most recent in a line of experiments, maybe the only successful one, but still not the miracle he would have us believe.”
“We need more information,” Cole allowed. “Set up the meeting.”
With a game plan solidifying, I found the resolve to stand and dust off my pants. I reached for the SUV’s rear door, but Santiago beat me there. He wrenched it open, glaring at me as he slid across the bench seat in the back, like it was somehow my fault he’d surrendered his prime spot up front. Or like he was daring me to comment on the fact that maybe, just maybe, he wanted to be close enough to comfort me in his own way. Mostly by growling at me or hurling insults, but still. It was the thought that counted, right? I climbed in beside him, and he grumbled when I brushed his hip while fastening my seat belt.
“I almost forgot.” I reached in my pocket and withdrew the thumb drive Bruster had compiled on Famine. “I got you a present.” I passed it over. “Merry Christmas.”
“You must have hit your head harder than we thought in that wreck.” He accepted what I was offering with a frown. “That or you’ve got a Santa fetish no one needs to know about.”
Leave it to Santiago to ruin my favorite holiday. “Ho, ho, ho.”
“This is one of Deland Bruster’s thumb drives.” Santiago lifted it to his nose, eyes widening. “I can smell him on it.” A grin threatened to split his cheeks as he rubbed the stick between his fingers. “Maybe I do hear a sleigh bell or two.”
Learning the coterie was aware of Bruster didn’t surprise me given the fact the guy had been loitering in town. That was the kind of thing territorial charun tended to notice. But it stung that they hadn’t warned me about him.
“Aww.” Portia piled in beside me, sandwiching me between them. “Santiago likes you.”
“I do not,” he snapped. “I tolerate her. That’s different.”
She drilled the nail on her pointer finger into his forearm. “Is l-i-k-e how all the cool kids are spelling tolerance these days?”
“I hate you,” he grumbled.
“You do not,” she admonished, a teasing glint in her eyes. “You tolerate me.”
Wedged between the world’s most annoying pair of bookends, I met Cole’s gaze in the rear-view mirror as he settled behind the wheel. The look we shared settled me better than a warm bath and a glass of wine even before I reached for where his bracelet circled my wrist to feel closer to him.
Miller claimed Santiago’s abandoned seat, and Thom, back on all fours, leapt through the open door. He strutted across the console and planted his furry butt on my lap, angling his chin up for scratches. Surrounded by my coterie, another type of family, this one near-indestructible, I embraced the role I had never wanted but destiny seemed determined for me to fill.
For Uncle Harold and Aunt Nancy, for Dad and Rixton, for Sherry and Nettie, I would grant Wu his wish. I would delve into my darkest, coldest places, trusting love to anchor me in this skin. For Miller and Thom, Santiago and Portia, Maggie and Cole, I would leash what lied within. For all those who would view this war through the lens of late night news broadcasts, I would bleed so they remained innocent of the horrors of my new reality.
And above all, I would not break.
EPILOGUE
Special Agent Farhan Kapoor shoved through an unmarked door into a sterile room decked out with hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of medical equipment designed with charun biology in mind. The adjustable bed on wheels, silver rails flashing, was about the only staple this place had in common with a civilian hospital room. The patient, dressed in black silk pajama bottoms, propped up with a book older than dirt open on his lap, did nothing to humanize the space.
Now that he thought about it, the guy might be the least mundane item in the room.
Kapoor dropped into an empty chair positioned under a window, closed his eyes for a moment to block out the harsh fluorescence beating down on them, and waited to be acknowledged. The next thing he knew, his chin was bouncing off his chest, and his number had been called.