Stone Cold (21 page)

Like taking down an entire bottle of whiskey in one shot.

He left me reeling.

Left me wanting. Wanting him.

Unfortunately I was still driving.

And then I blacked out.

SHAME

I smelled bubble gum and cigarette smoke.

Opened my eyes. My lashes scraped across fabric. Blindfold. I tried moving my hands. Bound at the wrists with . . . I wiggled my hands . . . silk? Something that felt like a woman's scarf.

This wasn't right. I lifted my hands, ran into metal above me. Dragged my fingers across it, then out to one side, then the other. I was in a box. A metal box. Tied and blindfolded. The vibration of an engine transferred through the box along with the smoky bubble gum smell. Where the hell was I?

“Morning, sunshine,” a woman's voice called out. “Are you awake?”

I knew that voice. Beatrice. One of Allie's, well, Sunny's Hounds. Which explained the bubble gum. And the smoke probably belonged to Jack, her partner.

I licked my lips. At least I wasn't gagged. I couldn't tell if Eleanor and Sunny were shoved in here with me. I couldn't feel them. Didn't hear them.

“Why am I in a box?”

There was some rustling around and then Bea's voice was just on the other side of the metal.

“We're taking you to St. Johns,” she said, slowly and carefully as if I had a concussion.

“In a box?”

“Void stone box. You're pretty toxic right now, so we're taking precautions.”

“Who are you working for, Bea?”

She laughed. “Come on, Shame. How long have you known me? Do you really think I'd take a job on the dark side?”

“If the money was right?”

“Okay, true. But there was no money. Dash called. Told us to track your ass down, hog-tie you, and lock you up. Also, to take you back to Portland. You've been a bad boy, Shamus. A lot of people aren't very happy with you.”

“How did you find me?” I asked.

“Not hard to find an unmarked cop car driven off into the gully. Thanks for making it supereasy for us.”

Hell. “Open the lid.”

“Sorry. I can't. Just hold tight and think happy thoughts.”

“Just because I'm locked up doesn't mean I don't have magic. You don't want to be in my way when I break out of this.”

“Knock yourself out, babe,” she said. “If you can break that box, I'll give you a standing ovation.”

Death magic pooled in me, cold and sluggish as an icy stream. Bea wasn't kidding when she said the box was made of Void stones. I could reach the magic, could even bring it to the tips of my fingers. But it stopped there, like flame under water. Canceled, void.

I couldn't use magic to break out. I was tied up, bruised and banged up enough I couldn't tear my way out of the thing either.

“Eleanor?” I said quietly. “Sunny?”

No answer. I didn't know if that was good or bad.

So I closed my eyes and thought happy thoughts of Eli's head on a platter.

After maybe half an hour, the car stopped.

“Hold tight, sugar,” Bea said. “We'll just be a minute.” Doors opened, closed. I couldn't hear people moving or talking, but they weren't gone for long.

Another door opened. Sounded like a hatchback.

“Ready?” Jack said.

“You going to open this thing?” I asked.

The box slid, and I heard hands grabbing at the side of it, a couple of grunts as I was lifted, like a corpse in a coffin, out of the car, then carried.

“Really?” I yelled.

No answer.

I was pretty sure I was taken up some stairs, then maybe an elevator. When I finally came to rest, it sounded as though it was on something padded.

Footsteps backed away. Wooden floor. Silence. Another set of footsteps came near. Then a latch was popped on each side of the coffin and the lid was drawn away.

The rush of air told me two things: One, I was at the Den, the Hounds' headquarters in Portland. Two, I hadn't been sold out.

“Sorry for the ride,” Cody said. “But you were down-hilling crazy, Shame.”

“You think that was crazy? If you don't get this blindfold off me, I'll show you crazy.”

He grabbed my arm, hauled back, and helped me sit, but he didn't help me out of the box yet.

He did, however, untie the blindfold.

I blinked, glad that they'd pulled the curtains on all the windows of the place. They'd done a little remodeling since the last time I had been here, put up some walls in the loft space to create a bedroom of sorts. A couple of bunk beds lined the walls, and a few cots scattered in the center. That's where they'd set the Void stone box—on top of a cot.

Only Cody was in the room with me. Well, Cody and Eleanor and Sunny, who stood on either side of the box. The black rope that tied me to the two ghosts remained intact.

Eleanor waved her fingers at me.

“What in the hell are you thinking?” I asked.

Cody drew out a knife and cut the scarf—it was pink and silk, probably Bea's—off my wrists.

“You were out of control. We needed your attention. Luckily, you drove off into a ditch and made it easy for us to find you and box you up.”

“Where are Zay and Allie? Are they okay? Have you found Eli? Did he send the drones after them?”

Cody turned to one of the nightstands while I worked on removing myself from the box. I stood, and then thought better of it, took a step, and sat on a different cot.

He handed me a glass of water. “Drink.”

I took it. Drained the glass. God, I was thirsty. And I hurt. Everywhere.

“I'm under strict orders to make you shower,” he said. “I'll answer questions while you scrape some of the blood and grime off, okay?”

“Whose orders?”

“Dash's.” He pointed to the door at the far end of the room. “Just shower, Flynn. You look like hell and smell worse.”

“Allie and Zay?”

“Still having the baby. Still okay. Dash has people there. They know about Eli. Shower and we'll do another round of Q and A.”

He pointed again.

I pushed off the cot and headed to the shower on sore feet and sore muscles. It even hurt to breathe in too deep.

I heard voices out in the main loft area, men and women, but didn't bother trying to track them. Now that I was moving, I knew Cody was right. I was filthy, wounded, and exhausted. Fighting Death magic constantly, and letting it take over my body and do whatever it wanted with me did not appear to be a path toward health and happiness.

Who knew?

The bathroom was set up like a locker room, without the lockers. No-frills tile floor and walls, three shower stalls and changing areas to the left, bench down the middle, shelves for towels and supplies above mirrors, and sinks to the right, toilet stalls to the back.

I pushed my way into the first shower, tugged off my T-shirt, which hurt, then my jeans and socks.

Left it all on the floor in the corner, turned on the water, and got in.

Holy fuck, it hurt. Every nick, every cut, every bullet hole—and I had an impressive collection in various sizes—burned.

I braced my arm against the wall and let the water pour over me. When that pain became familiar, I looked around for soap, found a bottle that said BodyWash, and poured some of that fresh hell into my hands and over my skin.

“Son of a bitch.” I clenched my teeth, scrubbed as hard as I could bear, digging fingers and soap into my wounds. “Goddamn.”

“You okay in there?” Cody asked.

“I'm friggin' perfect, thanks.”

I washed my hair, did one last sluice, then got out. I wiped my hair back and rubbed my face, then shook water off my hands. I'd forgotten a towel.

Opened the door. Cody was sitting on the bench. He looked up as I got out, his gaze taking in my wounds.

“Holy shit, Flynn. You need a doctor, you know.”

“A towel,” I said. “I need a towel.”

He pointed to the shelf I was already walking toward. They were perfectly nice towels. I'm sure they were relatively soft. But it felt as if I were sandpapering off a couple layers of skin along with water and blood.

“Where are we at on the clothing situation?” I asked.

He lifted a plastic bag out to me. “We asked one of the Hounds to stop by your place and bring you something. Of course, he found your dresser had been turned into a pile of ash, so he did a little thrift-shopping for you. You owe him twenty bucks.”

I took the bag, opened it. Pulled out a yellow T-shirt with a picture on it. “A monkey in a space suit?”

Cody leaned my way to get a look at it. “Curious George. He's such a naughty monkey.”

“Which Hound picked this up?”

“Sid. I can see why he got it for you. The resemblance is uncanny.”

“Oh, for the love of—” I shrugged into the shirt, put on the boxers, which were thankfully new, not used, and then got into the faded, hole-riddled old blue jeans that were a lot softer than I'd expected.

“Do we have eyes on Eli?” I asked.

“Not yet. Hounds are looking, though.”

“I can find him,” I said as I walked out of the bathroom.

“There's something you need to know first. Before you do that. Before you do anything else, Shame.”

“Before I put on these socks? Because my feet are killing me.”

“Even before socks.”

We were almost to the bunk room. “Do not make me play twenty questions with you, because I will use my fists. Out with it.”

“It's just, well, right there in front of you.”

I stepped into the bedroom area.

Right in front of me, about halfway across the room, stood a man. A little taller than me, good-looking with white hair pulled back in a band at the nape of his neck, he wore a plain white T-shirt, jeans and a smile.

“Terric?” I breathed.

He held his hands out to the side, and the corner of his mouth turned up in a smile.

For an aching moment, I wondered if I was seeing things. Seeing what I wanted, who I wanted. He could be a ghost—I certainly saw ghosts. He could be a hallucination—I certainly saw my share of those too.

But the way he held himself, his left shoulder hitched just a little higher than the right, his head tilted, was one hundred percent Terric.

One hundred percent real.

One hundred percent my brother, my Soul Complement standing there.

My heart kicked so hard I couldn't breathe fast enough to keep up with it. My vision went a little dark at the edges.

“Hey, Shame,” he said, words I thought I'd never hear again, a voice I thought I'd never hear again. “Sorry for the box—”

He didn't get a chance to say anything more. I strode across the room, grabbed him by the T-shirt, and pulled him into a tight hug.

“Jesus, Ter. You were dead,” I said, my arms locked around his shoulders, my heart thumping with a new kind of pain. I didn't want this to be a dream or hallucination. I wanted, with everything I had, for this to be real.

He returned the embrace, leaning into me a bit as if surprised but grateful for the contact.

“So I've been told,” he said.

“I felt you die, Ter.” He was solid, warm, and real in my arms. I could smell the soap and medicine that clung to his skin. “You're alive, right? Really alive?”

“I'm alive, Shame,” he said. “Right here. Real.”

“And you're okay?” I unlocked my arms, moved back, the sleeve of his T-shirt still gripped in my fist. “Do you need a doctor? A hospital? Are you hungry?”

He knit his eyebrows, his glacier blue gaze searching my face. “I don't need a doctor. I'm feeling fine. Considering what I heard happened to me.”

“You don't remember?” I couldn't let go of him. Not yet. I didn't want him to disappear. His hand was still resting on my shoulder too.

“I remember some of it,” he said. “Of . . . us. Not the dying part.”

“Good,” I said. “Good. It's better you don't remember that. It was just blood and pain, you know, like you'd expect. Pain and dying. Bloody way to go. But boring.”

“And now you're babbling,” he said. “Are
you
okay?”

The knife sliced his throat. There was blood, his blood, everywhere as he fell to the floor, Eli above him . . .

I pushed that memory away. Terric was standing here, smiling, in front of me. I was going to hold on to that for all I was worth.

“Me? Yes. Of course. I'm good, mate. Good. What's the last thing you remember?”

“Dash.” He glanced over at Cody as if checking to see if he'd gotten the name right for the man we'd worked with for years.

Cody nodded.

That was my first clue that everything was not okay with Terric.

“Dash told me I was taken and tortured.”

This was Terric. Real, alive Terric. Felt like Terric. Sounded like him, smelled like him. I knew he was real.

But there was something about him, a sort of guarded pain he was carrying.

“You don't remember that. That's okay. What do you remember?”

“Not much,” he said, finally letting go of my shoulder. “They think I was Closed.”

Son of a bitch.

I glanced at Cody. “Think?”

“We haven't had a lot of time to deal with it yet,” he said. “We thought it was important to get you two together as soon as possible. If he was Closed, it was a botched job.”

“It's like Swiss cheese in here,” Terric said, pointing at his head. “I do remember some things. My parents. You. Victor.” He smiled. “I thought maybe we could talk to him about how I was Closed. He might have some idea how to deal with it.”

He didn't even remember Victor was dead. That Eli had killed him. That we hadn't been able to save him before Eli tore him apart with his bare hands.

“I don't think,” I said before the memory of Victor, and the still-fresh grief of losing him cut off my breath. “No,” I finished. “I don't think we can talk to him about this. Are you . . .” I looked away to Cody again. “. . . is he all right?”

“He's standing right here,” Terric said. He patted my shoulder just in case I hadn't heard him. “Do you want to sit down maybe?”