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Authors: Joan Swan

Blaze (40 page)

BOOK: Blaze
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As Cash leaned down to pick her up, three dark figures ran toward them from the bunker. Mitch, Kai, and Seth, coming to their aid.
“Just help me up,” she said. “I can walk.”
The three men crouched near them. Kai scanned the blood on her pants. “How bad?”
“I'll be okay,” she said. “How's Luke?”
“You mean besides bitching at Teague to stop working on him and let him up to come out here to get you?”
Cash cast her a sidelong look. She couldn't tell if the suspicion in his familiar blue eyes came from the topic of Teague or Luke. Or both. “We have a lot to talk about.”
TWENTY-ONE
“
S
hit, Teague.” Luke squirmed beneath the press of his friend's hand. “I'm fine now. Keira needs—”
“Keira's got four big strong guys out there with her, none of whom she really
needs
. We need her more than she needs us.”
I need you.
Hadn't she said that to him in the tunnel? Along with
we can be a family, have a family.
Now, with the pain ebbing, his wound healing, his brain came together, but everything she'd said to him while he'd been floating through different conscious states seemed to elude certainty.
Regardless of what she'd said or hadn't said, nothing would quell the urge to get to her. To see to her safety himself.
While Teague's healing powers poured into Luke's chest, he watched the bunker's entrance, willing Keira to appear. And with each lengthening moment that no silhouettes took shape, Luke's stomach dropped lower and his heart rate hiked higher.
All the moments in which he could have lost her over the last few days replayed in his mind, and the same question plagued him after each scenario—could he have lived without her? He kept coming back to the same answer—unequivocally, no.
And that very real fact put the fear of God into him now.
Luke used his good arm to grip Teague's wrist, pull his hand off the front of his throbbing chest, and push it away. “I can't just sit here.”
As he stumbled to his feet, voices sounded from the bunker entrance. Luke moved that way, holding his arm to his side, grimacing against the pain. The group arrived, but all Luke could focus on was Keira, clinging to Cash as she hobbled forward.
Keira's gaze lifted and locked on his. The physical pain in her eyes mirrored what he felt in his body.
“Teague!” Luke yelled.
“I'm right here,” he said from a step behind. “You don't have to scream.”
Teague went directly to Keira and started unbuttoning her jacket.
“How bad is it?” Luke drew close, supporting her opposite Cash.
She shook her head, her beautiful face twisted with pain. “They're nothing. They just hurt like a sonofa
bitch
.”
Luke almost laughed, but he choked on a sudden, gut-wrenching wave of gratitude. She was alive. He was alive. They had another chance to make things right between them.
“You can't be serious,” she muttered.
Luke's chest tightened. Had she read his thoughts? Rejected them?
But her gaze had gone distant, the way it did when she was hearing something in her head. She used her good arm and swung her weapon toward the sky. “Another chopper.”
Luke squinted into the night, strained his ears, but heard nothing beyond the sound of the distant fire. Then lights appeared, like stars against the dark, growing brighter. A second later, the familiar whap of blades.
Mitch put a restraining hand on her arm. “Don't shoot our rescue, babe. This one is friendly.”
Mitch lifted his arms and waved them overhead, and the chopper lowered.
Grit kicked up in the blade's windstorm. A man jumped from the chopper and approached Mitch, shook his hand, slapped him on the shoulder. As he turned toward the group, Luke recognized the face—Joe Marquez. The pilot Mitch had sent to get Luke to the private landing strip in time to intercept Keira's kidnapping.
Marquez moved toward Keira. “Trouble. I knew it the first time I saw you.” His smile shifted to a frown as his dark eyes lingered on her injuries. “I bet you came home with bruises and skinned knees every day as a kid.”
“Every day.” Cash grinned at her side. “Trouble with a capital T.”
“Somehow that doesn't surprise me.” Marquez glanced at Luke and shook his head. “You two were made for each other.” He gestured to the chopper. “Come on. Let's get you both checked out. Load up, everyone. We're on the razor-thin edge of restricted air space here and I'd rather not play chicken with the young guns.”
Inside the chopper, Keira sat with Cash's arm around her shoulders, their backs up against the cargo bay wall. The scenario reminded Luke of the way he and Keira had sat together on their ride to Mercy Medical Center just a couple of days ago and made him wonder what he could have done differently.
Trading one spiraling thought for another, Luke pulled out the Bible he'd taken from Q's room and opened it to where the coin separated the pages. He dog-eared the page so he could study the passages there later, hoping to find a clue. To what, he had no idea.
He held out the coin. Conversation in the cargo space ceased.
“What are you doing with that? Here?” Keira asked, her brow furrowed in confusion.
“I got it out of this.” He held up the Bible. “In Q's cell.”
Keira sucked in a breath and held it. “What am I missing?” Cash asked, his gaze darting from face to face.
“Each of us—I mean our team,” Keira said, waving her hand in a collective gesture encompassing those in the cargo space, even though Mitch hadn't been part of their firefighting team at the time, “received that coin five years ago for our ‘heroic' performance at a warehouse fire. The fire that caused all this.” She swept a look over the other faces in the cargo area. “Do you guys all have your coins?”
Around the group, Seth, Kai, and Teague nodded.
“Well, I have mine, and Luke has his. That leaves Jessica.”
“And Quaid.” Luke paused. “Or . . . Q.”
A heavy silence lingered in the cargo hold.“It's just a coin,” Mitch said. “Couldn't they have been made and given to different groups?”
“They're not just coins.” Cash narrowed his eyes on the metal piece. “We had them in the military, too. Some are minted specifically for a special team or event and are as unique as the number in the print run.”
“Look what they've done so far: Teague, Cash, Mateo. And those are just the ones we know of. What would have kept them from taking others? There had to be others. Why not Quaid?”
“They closed the coffin,” Keira said, gaze distant. “They said it was because of his”—she swallowed—“condition. Because he hadn't healed the way the rest of us had, but . . . now . . .”
“Think we should call Jessica?” Seth asked.
“And what?” Kai barked. “Tell her Quaid has been alive all this time, rotting in some jacked-up sci-fi prison? And, oh, by the way, he just died again?”
“That's what he calls me,” Cash whispered.
“Who? What?” Luke asked.
“Q.” Cash looked up. “He used to call me Sci-Fi because of my work in the lab.”
“What can you tell us about him? What did he look like? What did he say about his past?”
“I never saw him.” Cash shook his head. “They never let us meet. We talked through the heating vent between our cells. He could be one of you and I wouldn't know it. And we never talked about his past because he had no memory of it. They . . .” He hesitated, cast a look out of the corner of his eye at Keira, then dropped his gaze to the floor of the chopper. “He said they . . . in his words, fucked with his head.”
Keira lifted a hand to cover her eyes. Kai swore a string of curses.
“In other words”—Luke's mind immediately centered on Mateo, the chips in his head, and what Cash would do when he found out just what those savages had done to his little boy—“they used him as a science experiment.”
Cash lifted his eyes from the floor. Anger floated there, and determination; Luke had seen that look before—in Keira's eyes. “Q was—
is
—a good man. He kept me alive in there. I swore to him I'd make them pay. I'm on board, one hundred and ten percent. Whatever you need. Whatever I can do.”
As Cash stared across the cargo space, Luke felt the connection as if they'd known each other for years. As if Cash had always been part of their team. “The reason they put me in that holding cell is because I have the key to a powerful experiment they've had me researching for years and thought I'd hidden in my room. They want that information bad. If we play it right, they'd sell, trade, give us anything, to get it.
“And speaking of keys . . .” He glanced at Keira. “Excuse me in advance.”
Cash opened his mouth, stuffed his fingers inside. Luke cringed, fearing the man was going to make himself puke. Instead, he drew a thin, almost clear filament from his throat, the thread growing longer and longer, the way magicians drag never-ending scarves from their sleeves.
He covered his mouth and coughed something into his hand. Then held up a key.
“Good God,” Keira said. “How'd you do that?”
“Tied the key to dental floss, floss to a molar, then swallowed it. I have no idea what it goes to, but it's important. It's Dargan's. She had it on a chain around her neck.”
 
Keira tried not to keep checking on Luke from the corner of her eye, but she was growing more worried with each minute further into the flight.
After their short discussion on the coin and the key and Quaid, he'd gone quiet again. And while in the beginning, he'd been shooting off anger and frustration, now his vibes had shifted, resembling something closer to . . . extreme turmoil. But her abilities weren't working at full speed.
“Do you love him even half as much as he loves you?” Cash's voice brought her attention around again.
“What? Wh—?” She started to ask who, but her brother's gaze was locked on Luke across the cargo bay. Luke had his knees drawn up, his good arm curved around them, his chin propped on his forearm, and his gaze out the open door, as distant as the horizon brightening with the sunrise. Her heart filled until her entire chest felt tight from the pressure. “Probably twice that much.”
“What's keeping you apart?”
In light of the last few days, her fears seemed so . . . insignificant.
“My life isn't exactly family-friendly,” she finally said.
“What does that mean?” he chided. “You're going to throw Mateo and me to the wolves once we set down? We're on our own?”
“Of course not.”
He glanced at Luke, back at her. Understanding dawned in his eyes. “Keira, if your life is friendly enough for us, it's friendly enough for a family of your own.”
She looked at Luke again. Sighed.
“What's the problem?” he prodded.
“I'm not exactly mother material, Cash.”
He barked a laugh. “This from the girl who had a hundred dolls? I swear I bought you a new one with every paycheck.”
Keira smiled at the memory.
“Remember how you used to sleep with them? Took you hours to get them all ready, brush their hair, their teeth, change their clothes, sing to them, tuck them in. And then—”
“There was no room for me in the bed.”
They laughed together. God, it felt so good.
“You always reminded me of that scene in
ET
where the alien is hiding in the stuffed animals.”
The moment faded and melancholy drifted in. “I'm not that girl anymore.”
“You're anyone you want to be.” Cash set serious, knowing eyes on Keira. “Don't let others' mistakes dictate your future. What our mother did, what I did . . . God, there is so much to explain.”
“Not now.” She squeezed his hand. “We have lots of time.”
“I was wrong. Our mother was just a sick bitch. Don't let our problems shape your life. You're so much better than that, Keira. You were born to shine. In any way you choose.”
His words created a sweet burn beneath her ribs. Tears stung her eyes.
“I'm not in any position to give you advice, but let me just tell you this. When he looks at you, I see the way I felt about Zoya.” His voice took on emotion; his eyes reflected deep pain and deeper love. “You've seen firsthand how fragile life can be. How the person you love most can be taken faster than you can say their name.”
He closed his eyes as if the thought was too much for him to bear, pressed his cheek against her head, and squeezed the arm around her shoulder a little tighter. “If I could give you just one piece of advice, Keira, it would be family
is
life. You should be
making time
for everything else. Not the other way around. And I'll be here for you this time. Whatever you need. I'll never leave you again.” He pressed a kiss against her temple. “Ever.”
For the remaining ten minutes of the flight, Keira closed her eyes and leaned her head against her brother's shoulder, trying to figure out how she was going to fix the gigantic mess she'd made with Luke. Knowing she had Cash's solid support gave her a confidence she'd never had before, and for the first time, she thought she might have caught a glimpse of the underlying structure that kept Alyssa so damn strong—her relationship with Mitch.
BOOK: Blaze
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