Out of the Dark (The Brethren Series) (5 page)

F
rom overhead, she’d heard a soft sound, a tapping, and she froze. Eyes wide, breath bated with terror—because she was certain it was Lamar coming for her again—she lay like a baby rabbit, frozen with fear.

Again, she heard the sound, a soft rapping against the pine planks overhead. With it came a voice, hushed and hesitant: “Who’s there?”

She didn’t answer. Another knock, and again the voice—a young boy’s—whispered, “Hello? I can hear you crying. Who’s there?”

From above her, just off to her left, she saw a sudden dim glow, a faint beam of light breaking through the otherwise impenetrable darkness. For the first time, she noticed
a knot-hole in one of the floor boards, a hollow depression no bigger in circumference than the pad of her thumb. It must have been covered by something overhead, a rug perhaps, that the boy in the room above her had moved, allowing lamplight to filter through.

All at once, the light winked out again as something blocked it—the silhouette of a human figure, the boy, leaning into view. With a frightened mewl, Naima shrank back, scuttling in the loose soil and grit.

“It’s alright,” the boy said, leaning over, obscuring the light even more. “Don’t be scared. I won’t hurt you.”

“Who…who are you?”
she whispered.

“My name is Aaron,”
the boy said. “Aaron Davenant.”

And because she remembered him—the little boy whose father had beaten him so savagely—she’d burst into fresh, new tears and pleaded for his help. “I want to go home,” she sobbed, slapping against the boards above her. “
Please, I want my momma!”

“I’ll get you out,” Aaron had told her. He’d stuck his finger through the knot hole in the wood, as if reaching for her, offering her whatever fragile comfort he could. “I’ll find a way. I promise.”

“Aaron,” she said
again in the clinic. “It’s Naima.” Tears welled in her eyes and her voice grew strained. She reached out, caressing his face. In that moment, she was frightened of him, afraid that he’d strike her with one of those vicious telepathic blows again, but there was no way she could prevent herself. She
had
to touch him, if only to prove to herself that he was real, that it was
him,
that it wasn’t some cruel illusion, a trick her mind played on her. She couldn’t count all of the times the simple warmth of his skin had comforted her; didn’t want to remember, but was helpless to forget.

You saved me from that godforsaken place,
she.
In more ways than one…more than I can measure.

Even now, she could remember how afraid and alone she’d felt, how despair and panic had knotted in her belly, tightening with every passing breath because she thought she’d been forgotten, buried alive in the shallow, dirty depression beneath Lamar’s library. She hadn’t known at the time—couldn’t have even imagined—the breadth of the horrors that were yet to come.

He didn’t move, didn’t as much as flinch, as she gently drew the pad of her thumb against his bottom lip; even this tender, nearly intimate gesture drew no response.

“Aaron,” she said again, her voice gravelly and choked
as she cradled his blood-smeared cheek against the basin of her palm. “Don’t you remember me?"

“Easy,
chère,”
said a voice from behind her. She turned, startled, and saw her half-brother, Rene Morin, standing in the doorway. He was tall, with dirty blond hair worn wind-swept and pushed back from his face, his jaw dusted with light beard stubble. He was from New Orleans, and had the Big Easy accent to prove it, a combination of French and Southern drawl. He was also an amputee; his right leg, from mid-thigh down was a state-of-the-art prosthetic that allowed him to move so naturally, had Naima not known of his handicap, she never would have guessed it.

“Save some of him for the rest of us, no?” With a crooked smile, Rene walked into the lab. Obviously he thought she had either just struck Aaron, or was about to, and either way, she stood up and backed away quickly before he suspected anything otherwise.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, wiping her hand against her pant leg as if she could brush away the warmth of Aaron’s skin and the memories of him—of her past—so easily. “I…I thought you and Tessa were in Kentucky.”

“
We heard about what’s been going on with Tristan and decided to cut the trip short. Wanted to see if there was anything we could do to help,” Rene replied easily. “Besides, Eleanor was worried about you.”

Movement from the doorway attracted Naima’s attention, and she turned to find a tall, slender woman standing there. Eleanor Noble was beautiful, with a fall of dark waist-length hair and large, doe-like eyes. She held her arms around herself, as if in an embrace, and studied Naima, her expression unreadable.

“Karen told us you’d been hurt,” she said at length.

Rene brushed his fingertips against Naima’s brow, where a sore knot had formed, thanks to Aaron’s headbutt. She found herself ducking reflexively, with a frown. “I’m alright.”

“You sure about that?” he asked. “You got a goose egg the size of a ping pong ball coming up there.”

Naima’s frown deepened. “
I’m alright,” she said again.

“Why don’t you come with me, darling?” Eleanor offered. “We can go back  to the chateau. I’ll make you some tea.”

“I have to stay here,” Naima said. “Mason said to.”

“This belong to him?” Rene had found the pistol and lifted it in hand, curling his fingers lightly, comfortably about the stock and admiring the heft. When Naima nodded, he arched his brow. “Damn. This is right nice. Wouldn’t have thought Doc Fancy Pants had this kind of good taste
in firearms.” He glanced at Naima. “Why don’t you go on with Eleanor? Some ice on that bump of yours won’t do you any harm. I’ll keep here with our friend, no? I used to be a cop, after all.” Cracking the knuckles of his right fist in the basin of his left palm, he added with a wink, “I’ve handled my fair share of interrogations before.”

Naima glanced over her shoulder. Aaron’s head had dropped again, but he was awake; she had no doubt of that.

“Come on.” Eleanor slipped her arm through Naima’s, giving a gentle but imperative tug. “The hell with tea. We’ll have cognac. Michel has a nice bottle of Croizet Cuvée Léonie…1858, I think it is.”

Naima looked at her, and the other woman met her gaze. Her eyes were kind, filled with a gentle sympathy. She was the only soul Naima to whom had ever told anything of her time in the Beneath—and after that, in the hellish prison Lamar Davenant had devised for her. She hadn’t told her everything—not the whole truth, especially about Aaron—but Eleanor had clearly realized who he was, and what his presence at the compound was undoubtedly doing to Naima.

It’s breaking me…shattering me like glass.

“Go on,
chère,
” Rene told her gently. “I got this.” They’d had their share of differences in the past—hell, Naima had damn near telekinetically thrown him through
the engine compartment of his car—but all at once, she was grateful to him, grateful
for
him, and the escape he was offering that she so desperately needed.

“
Alright,” Naima whispered, nodding. With a smile, Eleanor drew an arm about her, a kind embrace, and Naima struggled against the unexpected and uncharacteristic urge to burst into tears. “Alright.”

***

Naima sat in the passenger seat of Eleanor’s SUV as the other woman drove to the guest cottage she and Augustus had been sharing while in California. Naima sat still and quiet, her gaze drifting dazedly between the light-bathed pine boughs and foliage ahead of them and her own reflection—haunted, shaken and nearly unrecognizable to her—in the side-view mirror to her right. From the feel of things, Eleanor had the heat blasting, every vent in the cab apparently aimed in her direction, but it didn’t help. She couldn’t stop shivering.

She remembered the soft, scraping sounds as Aaron had pried and dug at the pine planks above
her dark prison beneath the library floor, sending dust and grit spattering down into the narrow cleft of earth that had served as her home for so long. Sometimes, she’d fallen asleep to the noise, comforted by it in a strange sort of way, if only because it meant she wasn’t alone, that there was somebody close by who cared about her, who wanted to help her.

When he’d torn open a section of floor wide enough to wedge his hand through, Aaron would reach down, stroking her hair in the darkness while she cried
. She would clutch at him, cling to him, bury her tear-soaked face against his fingers.

It’s alright,
he’d whisper to her.
I’m here. I’m right here.

The Jeep stopped and Naima slid forward in her seat, startled from her memories.

“The man at the clinic,” Eleanor remarked at last. She’d turned the engine off, and the two of them sat in a prolonged, heavy silence. When she spoke, Eleanor didn’t look at Naima, but rather straight ahead, out the windshield. “He’s Aaron Davenant, isn’t he?”

“Yes.”

Another long pause, and then Eleanor turned to her. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.”
Naima hooked her hand against the latch and swung her door open wide. As she stepped out onto the gravel drive, her breath wafted out in a thin haze around her face, and goosebumps rose immediately along her arms. The ground was cold, and she hurried for the wooden stairs leading up to the cottage’s deck.

At the top of the stairs, she found Eleanor’s granddaughter, Tessa Noble, waiting. She
was nearly five months pregnant, her lower abdomen a gently protruding outward swell beneath the thin cotton of her nightgown. Naima felt a pang of envy she might not have ordinarily allowed herself; seeing Aaron again had left her emotionally vulnerable. She couldn’t have children of her own. Lamar had seen to that.

“Tessa, darling, what are you doing out here?” Eleanor asked, walking up the stairs behind Naima. “I thought you were sleeping. All of this excitement and traveling—you must be exhausted.”

“I’m fine, Grandmother,” Tessa said, and when her hands dropped unconsciously to the slope of her belly, Naima again felt that wicked little pang. “I couldn’t sleep.” As Naima walked toward her, she shied back a step, her eyes round and wary. “Is Michel alright? Did…did they catch the one who…?”

“Michel’s been shot,” Naima said flatly, brushing past Tessa and stepping through the sliding glass patio door. A small, tended fire had been left to smolder in the creek
stone fireplace, and the interior of the cottage was thick with heady warmth. “He’s in surgery now.”

“But yes, darling, they caught the man who shot him,” Eleanor added swiftly, sweeping an arm about her granddaughter and ushering her into the house.

“It was one of the Davenants, wasn’t it?” Tessa asked. “You told me the one who hurt Tristan and Mason, he’d been here in the woods, at the compound. They know where we are. They know how to find us now.”

“
They think it was one of the Davenants, yes,” Eleanor said. “But they caught him. There’s nothing more to fear.”

Tessa shrugged away from Eleanor’s embrace, her brows narrowing. “There could be more of them out there,” she said. “Plenty more! And plenty more besides that on their way as we speak.
” She was worried about her baby. She’d been married to Martin Davenant, one of Aaron’s nephews. Martin was dead now, but that didn’t mean Lamar wouldn’t still want his unborn heir. Naima knew this. And judging by the glossy fright she could see in Tessa’s eyes, could feel radiating off the girl in veritable waves, Tessa knew it, too. “You don’t know them. You don’t know how they are, how they think…”

“I
do,” Naima said, and even though Tessa knew nothing of her past, her own encounters with the Davenant clan, there must have been something fierce enough in her face, blunt enough in her gaze, to draw the younger woman to abrupt, gulping silence.

“Naima, stop,” Eleanor said, holding out her hands as if she felt she had to physically separate them. “
Both of you. Please. Let’s just sit. There’s already been enough—”

“No. Tessa’s right,” Naima said, and she damn near kicked herself mentally in the ass for not having considered it sooner. She’d been so bewildered, so shocked and upset at Aaron’s presence, she’d forgotten common sense, the instincts upon which she ordinarily relied. “There
could
be more of them out there.” She nodded once, indicating beyond the windows, the dark-draped forest. “I need to scout the woods and see.”

“Auguste can do that,” Eleanor
said.

“Not on his own, he can’t. There’s too much ground to cover. And he doesn’t know these
hills like I do. I can do it in half the time it would take him.”

Eleanor frowned, her eyes flashing hotly. She opened her mouth to argue some more, but apparently couldn’t think of anything to say.
Because I’m right, and you know it,
Naima thought, folding her arms across her chest in feigned patience.

“Call him and tell him to scope out the southern slope, down to Emerald Bay,” she
told Eleanor. “I’ll take the north, then work my way down from there to meet him.”