Gravity (30 page)

suicide rather than living life scarred or disabled. That didn’t paint a rosy picture.

He took a hard sip of his beer as Knox and Sunny approached. Her painted smile told the story.

Women had an admirable way of holding a torch in the darkness.

“Hey, brother.” Knox greeted him. “How’s it hangin’?” He spun the chair around and sat with

his arms over the back. “Ready for me to blow your mind?”

Adam politely stood up until Sunny settled in her chair. She was busy unwrapping herself from

a white scarf that was knitted for a giant. Once the hat and matching gloves were neatly folded on

the table, she claimed the chair on his right.

“Hi, Adam. How are you?”

“Not bad. Is he treating you right?”

Her shimmery lips smiled wide and she leaned over and kissed Knox on the cheek. “He treats

me like gold.”

Knox’s eyes went half-mast and the tips of his ears turned scarlet. He pulled the ends of his

knit hat down, covering them up before swiping Adam’s beer and taking a drink.

“Adam, how have you been, really?” Sunny pressed. “We haven’t heard from you and Silver’s

been wondering when you’re going to come out with us.” She briefly spun around to look at a man

singing on stage who was getting a lot of catcalls from the women.

Knox didn’t look like he wanted to tread on this topic and waved at the waitress to bring him

what Adam was having.

Adam leaned back and rubbed his short, patchy beard. “I’m here. I don’t know what I can tell

you.”

An uncomfortable silence hung between them and quickly ended when the waitress clicked a

few bottles on the table and left her card. Her name was Mimi and she couldn’t take her eyes off

Knox. That never used to happen, because Knox was a hard-looking man, all rough around the

edges. Maybe it was the fact that he smiled a lot more now with Sunny at his side.

“So what’s up?” Adam asked, tipping his bottle of beer and taking a sip.

Knox cleared his throat and leaned forward on his elbows. “I got offered a position with HALO.”

He watched Adam’s expression and gave him a toothy grin. “No shit. I got contacts all over the

place—we both do. In fact, if you’d show interest, they’d snatch you up because your name was

mentioned more than once. Remember the dealer we talked about in our old group who’s selling

that fucked up magic metal shit on the black market?”

“Yeah. You find out anything?”

“I’m on it, and getting close. HALO knows they may never confiscate what’s already out there,

but maybe they can stop production.”

“You accepting the job?”

“Of course he is,” Sunny answered for him, but in a tone that told Adam they’d argued about it.

Knox gave her a reassuring look and said, “They don’t have any human representation. I can

shed light about what we did in the Special Forces and help them out with some of their

investigations whenever they hit a wall because it’s on human turf. I’m telling you,” he marveled,

leaning back, “this shit just gets weirder and weirder. Who would have thought a year ago I’d be

sitting on the side of the people we were taking out.”

Sunny cleared her throat and got up. “Ladies’ room,” she announced, and swung her angry

hips away.

“Problems?” Adam smirked.

Knox chuckled. “Nothing that can’t be taken care of later on tonight when I put my mouth on

her.”

“You don’t deserve a woman like that,” Adam said in a humored voice.

“You speak truth, brother,” Knox agreed. “I’ll never understand why that woman puts up with

my shit, but the God’s honest truth is that I love her more because she does. She still tosses my

smokes in the toilet; we can’t seem to come to an agreement about a man enjoying a cigarette

after sex.”

“Or steak. Or a car drive. I’m surprised you hung on for all those months smoking menthols.”

Adam snorted and polished off his beer.

“I’m down to a pack a week,” Knox said proudly, muscles flexing in his dark green T-shirt.

“Women don’t want to kiss a smoker; I get it.”

“So you’re taking the job?”

Knox picked at the edge of his tight hat. Some called it a beanie, but whatever it was, Knox

never left home without it. “Can’t deny the pay is outstanding. It’ll be more behind-the-scenes shit

so my woman won’t have to worry about me getting up in the middle of the night, strapping on

guns, and going on a raid. This is right up my alley.”

Then the weird silence loomed again.

Knox cleared his throat and leaned in privately. “Is it something you’d want to do? Hell, I’d love

having you in. It would be like old times.”

Adam shook his head. He had something else on his mind and didn’t need the distraction of

playing cloak and dagger.

Knox rubbed his jaw and released a disappointed sigh through his nose.

“When did this all happen?” Adam turned around at a few shouts coming from some obnoxious

pool players. The singer had left the stage and the jukebox played at a tolerable level.

“They gave me a practice run to test out my skills. My first job was—get this—Marco Fucking

De Gradi. Justus doesn’t want to deal with him. I think after taking out Merc, he’s afraid he’ll do

the same to his own Creator.”

Adam cursed. “There’re laws against killing your Creator.”

“Exactly,” Knox said. The chair creaked and he curled his hands into fists, deep in thought. “I’m

glad I gave that bastard what he had coming. You don’t mess around with my girl and walk away.”

Knox had put the man’s lights out in a short-lived bar brawl not too long ago. One that gained

him a little respect with some of the immortals because Marco was a Mage and Knox was just a

human.

“Why did he come back?”

“Guilt. I went down to Texas and questioned him—told him who I was affiliated with and he

wasn’t on board at first because I didn’t have one of those rings they wear. But you know I’m a

convincing man,” Knox said with a wry smirk. “He said finding Silver was a fluke; her energy as a

human was way off. That’s why he kept asking Sunny about Zoë’s father, because there were

always rumors floating around about crossbreeding and he wondered if there was something to it.

Samil had given him a list of names to locate, but it was time-consuming.”

More claps sounded at the bar and the both of them looked up with alert eyes. Some habits are

hard to break.

Knox continued. “Anyhow, he thought Silver would be like a bonus or some shit, but it

backfired on his ass. He knew Samil was working for Nero and tried to go directly to the man to

resolve some shit they had between them, but Nero didn’t want to deal with him.”

Adam ran his finger along the scar on his jaw. “Why did he show up in Cognito?”

“To strike a deal with Justus.”

Adam didn’t like the sound of that. “What kind of deal?”

Knox lowered his voice. “He doesn’t want the Council or anyone else involved because he’s

barely able to fly under the radar anymore with some of the shit surfacing. Marco knows how to

get in touch with Nero when he needs to, and he wants some woman back. He found out how

valuable Silver is to Nero and wanted to do a little swap. He thought the whole situation with

Justus taking in a Learner—a female Learner—made as much sense as a screen door on a

submarine.”

Adam folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. A woman with a good heart deserved better

than the way the men in her life had treated her. Abused. Abandoned. And now he discovered

someone wanted to trade her off. No wonder she didn’t trust men.

“Marco came up to bribe Justus.”

“With what?” Adam sniffed and shook his head.

Knox took another swig of beer and grimaced. “Everything. He was going to give Justus his

entire fortune. Justus is a materialistic guy—look at all that shit he has. Cars, homes, all those suits

and watches. Christ! If he has that much money, you can only imagine what his Creator has.

Marco wanted to pay Justus for Silver.”

Adam’s jaw muscle flexed. Anger bubbled in that nasty way that made a man do stupid things,

so he rubbed his face and looked over his shoulder at the pool players.

“Why did he tell you all this?”

Knox’s gravelly voice lowered. “So I’d relay it to Justus. He wanted to put the idea in his head

and see if he took the bait.”

“He better… fucking… not,” Adam growled, watching Sunny pick up a menu at the bar.

“No, he’s not on board,” Knox confirmed. “I had a private talk with him and he’s a man

shamed. I don’t blame him, because I get that your Creators are like fathers or some shit. That’s a

heavy load to lay on a man, and after he finished tearing up my office, he wrote me a check for the

damages and told me to keep it between us. But I’m telling you because we’re tight like that, and

I trust you. He appreciated my tactics at getting what he needed, and we started talking more

seriously about my future interests.”

Adam tipped his beer. “Well done.” The sentiment lacked enthusiasm, but Knox deserved a pat

on the back. He was motivated, intelligent, and always wanted to do something for a greater

cause.

“You know why we did all those hits?” Knox said discreetly. “To test out their weapons. Not all

of them worked—you remember that as well as I do. My ex-partner dug up some seriously

disturbing shit in those Trinity files. Most of the metals have a shelf life and weaken over time, but

they’re not telling that to the people they’re selling it to.”

“Damn,” Adam breathed. It made him want to get involved again to get some revenge against

the men who had used them like guinea pigs. They both shared a disgusted look, knowing that

was a part of their past they’d never be able to erase.

“You need to snap out of it,” Knox blurted out.

Adam’s eyes flicked up and caught Knox staring at the scar on his temple that ran straight

down to his jaw. It was the most prominent one that couldn’t be covered with facial hair. “Don’t

worry about me.” Adam brushed him off.

“Quit doing that,” he grumbled. “If these pricks won’t hire you, I fucking will. What did you

plan on doing before you found out you were a Healer? Think on that shit. You got a long time to

work it out, but you got way too many talents to ignore.”

“Well,” Sunny chimed in, strolling up to the table. “As much as I’ve complained, I will finally

admit that Breed bars have better food. This place is a dive and they don’t even have nachos on

the menu. Is this where you hang out, Adam?”

Adam shrugged. He came on a few occasions, but he preferred a bar a few blocks up the street

called Northern Lights. Local musicians were allowed on stage after nine. He loved watching these

humans get up and belt out their soul, only to go back to their regular job at the bank. Otherwise,

his routine hadn’t changed much. Two hours each morning, he went on a hard run. After that,

Novis usually had an agenda. Sometimes they practiced with weaponry, but without a job or

purpose, Adam had become listless. It made him want to pick up photography again, but he’d lost

the passion.

Sunny covered her stomach with her hand and blushed. Knox looked like a fishhook had

grabbed the corner of his mouth and pulled it up. He winked at Sunny and whispered something

softly in her ear.

“Extra-large,” she said privately to him.

“With cherries, baby girl,” he promised, kissing her nose.

“Watch my purse.” She got up and headed toward the bathroom.

Adam rested his chin in the palm of his hand. Sunny’s stares made him uncomfortable because

her eyes were filled with pity. That’s not the way a man wants to be looked at by any woman.

“I’m going to marry her,” Knox said quietly.

“Yeah, so you keep saying.”

Knox fished in his pocket and slid a tiny black box across the wooden table.

Speechless, Adam lifted the lid and admired a modest heart-shaped diamond ring with a

platinum band and two pale amethyst stones on either side, sparkling beneath the cheap lighting.

“You dirty dog,” he said with a wide grin.

Knox pulled the ends of his hat down, brown eyes staring at the box. “You think she’ll like it?

It’s not one of the big ones.”

“You’re serious?” Adam was still in shock and trying to process it. Knox had sworn he’d never

marry a woman, but that was before Sunny. “She’s going to fall over for this.”

Knox blew out a relieved breath and closed the box, slipping it back into his pocket.

“What are you waiting for?”

“Shit, I don’t know. I don’t want to blow it and I’m not good at planning all that romantic stuff.

I’m just waiting for the right time. Women have all those fantasies about vineyards, carriages,

roses, and violins.”

Adam leaned in tightly. “She’s not going to say no. You could propose to her sitting on top of a

tobacco truck, swearing your way straight into hell, and that woman would say yes.”

Knox laughed and rapped his knuckles on the table. “Where are you staying these days,

brother? Novis says you don’t come home some nights.”

“Here. There.” Adam swished the liquid in his bottle and watched a woman leaning over the