In the Air Tonight (34 page)

His voice was husky as he told her, “Come on, take me, Vivi. Go ahead.”

She lowered herself onto his cock, her sex a velvet fist his body strained into—the way she moved, a sultry, slow rhythm, made him groan from somewhere deep inside.

This orgasm would devastate him, he knew that and he needed it. If he detonated, he could come back together.

She clamped around him and he told her, “You were my first time since I got home from the last mission.”

“Since me,” she whispered, buried her face in his neck and rocked against him, burying him deeply inside of her until she couldn’t hold on any longer. As she came, he began to jerk through his release, murmuring her name like some kind of prayer.

They remained that way, wrapped around each other, murmuring to each other, until Vivi drifted off to sleep. Before he could stop himself, Cael joined her.

——

T
hose men are the enemy. It’s time to kill them
.

Images swam in front of his face, hazy and dull. His brain was misfiring information and he felt heavy and slow, but still somehow faster than the speed of light.

The injections they were giving him made him alternately sleepy and wired. The training they gave him was so damned familiar—he’d done this before, was good at it.

The men were happy with him, told him he was ready for the next level.

He held the knife in his hands, turned it over and over in his palm while staring at the shadow the steel blade made against the walls.

“Caleb … Caleb, please …”

He woke then, eyes opened, and he sat up like he was on fire. Looked around frantically, and realized he’d shoved Vivi off the bed. She was pushing herself up off the floor and he was helping her in seconds.

“I’m sorry, Viv—”

“I shouldn’t have tried to wake you like that,” she told him. “I just saw you struggling and I felt bad.”

How long had it been since he’d drifted off? It had to be less than half an hour, which meant the memories were all there, simmering just below the surface.

Those memories were dangerous as hell.

“Did I say anything?” he asked.

She hesitated for a long moment. “You said, ‘It’s time to kill them.’ ”

He walked away from her, pounded a fist against the wall. He’d like to punch a hole in it, but that
would result in a broken hand and … well, a goddamned hole in Mace’s wall.

Instead, he put his forehead against the plaster and said, “I shouldn’t have slept next to you, I know I have nightmares.”

“I’m exactly where I want to be. You can try to push me away but I’m not going anywhere.”

He was alternately grateful as hell for that and terrified that his nightmares might actually be trying to show him the reality of what had happened in that underground prison.

“Do you remember what the dreams are about when you wake up?”

He nodded. Wasn’t sure if he could actually get the words out.

But he did. He spilled his guts, told her about the men in his dreams. How they taunted him. What they told him. How they wanted him to kill his friends. “I thought my friends were actually my enemies. I fought it, but I know there were times—when the drugs were working—that I believed them.”

Vivi held his hand, never took her eyes off him.

“It felt … good to get that out,” he said. “The dreams are short, but they’re fucking terrifying—and they must mean something. I hate having them. I’d do anything to make them stop.”

“Do you realize that in all of your dreams and in everything you’ve drawn, Mace and Gray and Reid aren’t there? It’s always the men. And in your dreams, you don’t see them, do you?”

“No.”

“That has to mean something.”

“Goddammit, I want it to. I want you to be right.” He paused. “You’re the first person I told this to.”

“Thank you for letting me in.”

“Thank you for letting me scare you.”

“I imagine everything that’s going on with Paige isn’t helping,” she said. “Or maybe it is. I guess it depends on how you look at it.”

“I guess.”

“You’ve been trying so hard to find your memories that you haven’t taken time to mourn Gray,” she continued. A simple—true—fact that caught him like a punch to the gut.

He sank to the floor with his back skimming the wall, stared straight ahead and thought about Mace … and Gray.

With Gray dead, a piece of him would always be gone, even if his full memory returned. Clawing his way back to the present couldn’t change that.

As he sat still, he watched Vivi take his notebook off the night table and flip through it, turning the pages quietly.

She stared at the last few pictures of the two men and frowned. Went back to the beginning and looked at them all again from the first to the last.

And then she began to rip the pages of the men out of the notebook, laying them out on the ground, side by side, as if they could tell her the story. Cael moved his gaze to the rows of sketches.

At first, there were pictures of the men separately, and then together. And then the men were separate again, the pictures of them going from clear as day, down to the smallest detail, to fuzzy, to really distorted.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked her finally.

She didn’t even bother to apologize about ruining his notebook. “Cael, do you remember water being close by when you were held prisoner? Was there a river or something nearby?”

“Why?”

She pointed to the last pictures. “These pictures … I feel like I’m looking down at these men and they’re underwater. In your first pictures, they look alive. But in these, they look …”

“Dead.” Cael bent down, stared at the last two pictures he’d drawn. “They’re dead in these pictures.”

He closed his eyes for a second, tried to remember what he’d been thinking and feeling when he’d drawn them.

“We were kept in separate cells—Mace woke up when I stood over him. There was so much blood … I didn’t think he was alive,” he said, his voice a tense whisper. “I’d already touched Gray and he wasn’t. Reid was alive—he had a pulse and there was no blood. But Mace …”

She thought he wasn’t going to continue, but he did after a few seconds. “He opened his eyes then and I covered his throat and picked him up. And I ran with him.”

“You saved him.”

“I guess I did. Jesus, I guess I did.” He was shaking. “I don’t remember what happened in between, though.”

“I think you killed these men after you saw them hurt your teammates,” she said.

“Then that means I could’ve stopped them.”

“Cael …”

He was busy, though, grabbing his cell phone and dialing. His head was spinning over what Vivi may have discovered, and he was calling the only man who was free enough to help him now.

“Long time, no speak,” the voice on the other end said.

“You picked up.”

There was a long pause and then, “For you, Caleb, yes.”

“Thanks. Listen, I might have something for you.” He described what he’d remembered—what he’d drawn—and Kell listened patiently on the other end of the line, interrupting with questions only once.

When Caleb finished talking to his teammate, he stayed awake for a long time, staring at the pictures laid out on the floor, with Vivi by his side.

M
ace didn’t check the mailbox at the end of the drive until just before the bar opened the next night. They’d all slept late, ordered lunch in rather than leaving the bar unprotected. A lazy day, for sure, but a well-deserved one, even though none of them was exactly relaxed.

Vivi told him earlier that news of the author’s death had begun to trickle out. It wouldn’t be a big story, although the topic of Arthur’s next book would give it some fuel.

“The bar hasn’t been mentioned in the news at all,” Vivi said. They’d been trying to spare Paige, and Mace was relieved that Ed had kept his word about not releasing much information about the murder.

But still, the town knew, and it would be only a matter of time before panic set in. Two murders right
outside the bar … and a new woman in town with a psychotic brother.

Mace could keep the bar closed, but that might make things worse. He could simply get Paige, Caleb, Vivi and Reid the hell out of Dodge, sell the damned place and head back to North Carolina, where Delta was stationed.

But that wouldn’t solve Paige’s problems. Wouldn’t solve any of their problems.

Now he took the long walk down, the snow crunching under his feet, the cool air in his lungs and the rush of wind clearing his head.

There was so much going on, so many decisions to make. But Paige had breached barriers he’d never before let down—the things he’d told her, things he’d admitted to her, it left him feeling vulnerable, and at the same time strangely peaceful.

She knew everything, and she didn’t think worse of him.

He flipped through the letters as he got closer to the house, the lights lining the long drive to the bar making them easy to read.

There were the normal bills and advertisements, a few magazines and a fat envelope, addressed to Paige Grayson from Carole Ann Porter.

He stared at it and he wondered if he should open it first. Decided against it and headed inside to find Paige.

She was sitting at one of the tables, reading Reid’s Clive Cussler book, put it down when she saw him.

“This came for you, from the woman you have checking your P.O. box.”

She took it from him, ripped open the envelope,
and a group of smaller ones spilled out on the table. She sorted through them quickly—phone bill, paycheck from the hospital, cancellation notices from the cable and utilities companies for her old apartment. A letter with a familiar last name, one from long ago. A last name that brought her heart to her throat.

The tears formed in her eyes before she could stop them, and as she held the letter, she pictured her friend’s mother standing in front of a mailbox for a long time before dropping it inside.

“What’s wrong?”

“This is from the family of one of my friends … one of the girls killed at the school,” she said, well aware that her hands were shaking.

“Maybe you should let me open it,” Mace suggested.

“I’d love that,” she said. “But I need to.”

She slid a finger under the paper, ripping it open messily, and pulled out a handwritten letter. Read it twice with blurred eyes, because she couldn’t believe the contents.

She’d braced herself for the worst, and instead she’d gotten the very best.

Mandy
. Her best friend. Paige remembered the sleepovers. Giggling about movie stars and boys in their class. Most of all, Paige remembered the normalcy of Mandy’s house. How she wished she could live there. How she practically did, for that one summer before freshman year.

“She says I shouldn’t blame myself, I never should have, and she wishes she could’ve talked to me after it all happened.” She wiped her eyes.

I wish I’d written you sooner. You deserve better, Paige. You’ve suffered as much as any of us
.

“That must help.” Mace had moved behind her and was rubbing the remaining tension from her shoulders. For a long moment, there was nothing but his hands slipping under her shirt as his palms brushed her skin—comforting, but a lover’s touch, for sure.

She’d let him in.

“It does help. You have no idea how much.” She paused. “Mandy’s mom sent this to the hospital. She hadn’t been able to find me, but when she saw me on the news … well, I guess some good did come from that night.”

Mandy had been her last best friend, until Gray had come along. And now she’d put herself in a dangerous position, because she’d gotten close to several people. She’d put them in danger too.

C
aleb came in after being outside for close to half an hour—he stayed out there sometimes, Paige had noticed, just staring up at the sky, no matter how frigid the temperatures.

Mace and Vivi had told her about Cael’s dreams, how they troubled him.

He and Vivi had grown closer, but somehow, Cael looked even more haunted to Paige. It made her heart break.

She touched the envelope in front of her, thought about the breakthrough she’d had with Mace last night and steeled herself for the next step in her healing process.

“Cael, maybe if I touched you again, I could help you remember more.”

“I wouldn’t do that to you again. I should never have done it at all,” Cael told her.

“The circumstances are different. I’m okay. I can try,” she told him.

Cael drew in a deep breath, a wary look in his eyes. “Paige, I can’t ask that.”

“It won’t break me.”

“And suppose you see …” He trailed off, shook his head as if shaking off the possibility of what they all couldn’t help thinking. “God, Paige, I want so badly for none of it to have happened. I want it not to be true. Gray was like a brother to me.”

“I know.”

“Paige,” Mace started, but she shook her head and told him, “Whatever happens, whatever did happen, we’ll all deal with it.”

Without further hesitation, she reached out and put a palm on either side of Cael’s neck, his skin chilled from the outside, and let the now too familiar feelings zing through her. But she waited it out this time, refused to let the danger and fear overwhelm her, the way they must surely overwhelm Caleb.

Separate what you see
, she ordered herself. Fought through the blinding fear of panic and pain and fogginess that Caleb had endured. She felt his sluggishness, like she was swimming uphill through molasses, fighting the drug’s effects as he’d attempted to.

And the men he’d drawn were in his face, in her face, yelling. Telling him lies about his team. The confusion, the anger, was crippling.

Gray. She whimpered. Caleb attempted to pull out
of her grasp but she held tight as she saw her brother slumped in a corner. He’d been beaten, his cheeks were flush with fever … he was dying.

Do it
, the men urged. Put the knife in her hand—Caleb’s hand—and for a second, it tightened around the handle. And then his palm opened and the knife clattered to the floor and Gray’s eyes opened and met Cael’s.