“He was loose, but he didn’t get out. I don’t think.”
Nikita scraped his blunt nails gently along Sasha’s scalp, slow pets, the way he’d always liked. He did smell of chemicals: strong human medicines, and street narcotics, the kind of nasty stink he sometimes detected on bums and junkies.
Could Sasha detect him in his sleep, he wondered? Was Nikita’s familiar scent a comfort?
“Sashka.” He trailed his fingertips down behind Sasha’s ear, down the side of his throat, over the fluttering pulse there. “Can you hear me?”
Sasha murmured wordlessly and shifted on the bed, a tiny half-roll, wanting closer to Nikita, pushing into his hand.
“Sasha.”
His eyes opened to slits, that well-loved pale blue that should have been cold but had always been full of such youthful warmth. His gaze – glassy and unfocused – moved back and forth across Nikita’s face. He worked his jaw a moment, wet his lips. “Nik? Is it…are you real?” He made a pitiful attempt to lift one limp hand.
Nikita caught his hand with his free one, and squeezed it tight. “Yes, bratishka. I’m real. We’re going home.”
Sasha smiled faintly, rolled the rest of the way over, pressed his face into Nikita’s hip, and fell back to sleep.
*
“How’s she doing?” Deshawn asked, stopping to lean a shoulder against the wall beside Rooster, mirroring his posture.
When they’d walked into Lionheart – Rooster for the second time, and Red for the first – Much had met them with a bored, put-upon expression and walked them to a locker room. “No one else will come in,” he promised, sulky and teenagerish, and left them alone. Rooster sent Red in first, and now stood outside, letting the cool concrete wall hold his weight, breathing in and out in a slow, regular rhythm. Trying not to think too much about any one thing.
Red had been inside a long time.
“Okay,” he said, automatically. Then: “Quiet.” He cast a glance down the hall; once inside the main stone structure, the Lionheart facility was made smaller and more modern and usable by hallway, conference rooms, and bright electrical lighting. He could have been in a military facility anywhere in the world, its exposed ceiling pipes and its bleach-scented cleanliness a sort of comfort.
“She’s been through a lot,” Deshawn said.
He didn’t have to say that neither of them knew exactly what she’d been through. Through the chaos of the escape, and then the nerve-wracking ride back up into the mountains overlaid with the loud chop of the rotors, there hadn’t been a chance to talk about her captivity.
Rooster recalled something she’d said once, years ago, something she’d brushed off, and tried to laugh about, but which had tightened the skin around her eyes and mouth until her smile was a brittle mask. “I think they were going to try to breed us. Maybe even to each other.” With other children she’d claimed were her siblings.
His hands closed into fists inside his hoodie pocket.
If the way he clapped his shoulder was any indication, Deshawn knew it. “Maybe this isn’t the time to have this conversation, but I think you probably already know this: you two can’t keep going like you have been. Running. I don’t how the Institute keeps finding you, but they do. You guys can’t keep doing this on your own anymore.”
Rooster sighed, but nodded. He knew that. To be honest, he’d known that two towns and two shitty hotels ago. But he hadn’t wanted to believe it.
“I talked to Rob before Double Dee and I flew out to get you,” Deshawn continued. “There’s a place here for you – both of you. If you want it.”
Rooster searched his friend’s face, thinking for at least the tenth time in the last few days that he’d never really known him…but that wasn’t true, was it? He hadn’t known about Lionheart. About werewolves, and storybook heroes made flesh. But he’d known that Deshawn was the sort of person who wanted to help others; that if he offered safe harbor, he meant it.
“Is this you telling me I can stay as a friend? Or is this a job offer from Rob?”
“Both,” Deshawn said, hand tightening, eye contact steady. “You don’t have to decide right away.” He squeezed one last time and step back. “Talk it over with Red. When y’all are ready, come to the mess hall. It’s Tuck’s night to cook.”
Tuck. Another mage.
Rooster wasn’t sure how he felt about that, but he thought it might, might be a very good thing for Red to have a chance to talk to someone like her. Someone who could answer her questions without wanting to lay her out on a table and “breed her.”
He raked a hand through his hair. “Yeah. Thanks, man.”
*
The showers were the communal kind, with stainless steel walls, and no curtains. Red felt small, exposed, and chilled as she shed her clothes and left them folded on the bench beside the fresh ones Rooster had dug out of her bag for her. But the boy – Much? – with the snarling mouth and beautiful hair had promised they’d be left alone. The locker room stretched empty and gleaming around her, so she cranked on the hot water and stepped beneath the spray when it started to steam.
When the jets hit her, skin immediately pinking under the heat, she realized that the chill wasn’t physical; it resided in some deep untouchable place beneath her breastbone.
Someone had set out a fresh bar of Ivory soap, still in the box, and a bottle of Head & Shoulders. Masculine, functional scents. She reached for them, hands only shaking a little.
The problem, she reflected, as she shampooed her hair, was that everything had gone right. And so, so much of it could have gone horribly wrong.
Staying at the Institute, becoming Vlad’s…mage. His left hand? She still wasn’t clear on the details. Would that involve…sex? Would she be a kept pet? She feared so, yes. All of that had left her chest tight with panic; she’d wanted to cry, and kick, and scream. But at the end of the day, she had power. She was valuable. While Rooster – so precious, and brave, and damaged – was only a regular human. He had no value for the Institute, and they could have killed him – would have.
That was unthinkable.
She finished up quickly, not wanting to linger, needing to see Rooster standing in front of her, suddenly, alive and unharmed. When she soaped her arms, she noted that the marks from the cuffs, the scrapes and pinpricks of their spikes, had already faded, looking days old rather than just hours.
It was too quiet in the locker room when she shut off the water. She struggled into the clothes Rooster had left, the t-shirt and yoga pants clinging to her wet skin and making it difficult, wrung her hair out over the drain, and went to find him.
Rooster stood just outside the door, hands in his pockets, the wall looking like the only thing that held him up. It wasn’t the shakiness of deep pain, though; only regular exhaustion.
Red let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding and wrapped her arms around his waist. Pressed her face into his chest, the firm curve of muscle warm beneath the sweatshirt.
“Oh,” he said with a touch of surprise, and wriggled his hands loose so he could put his arms around her in turn.
She took a deep breath and let it out slow, allowing herself to accept the reality of his presence. He’d come to get her. Had come into that awful place to find her…
Her throat ached.
“How did you find me?” Her voice came out pitiful. She snugged her face tighter against him.
“That was all Rob and his guys. I was just along for the ride.”