Vendetta Nation (Enigma Black Trilogy #2) (6 page)

He turned to sit down on his bed, but stopped short when he noticed the gleam from the light situated on the top of the building across the street. Something in that light caught his eye, beckoning his attention. Heeding its call, he walked over to the window to gaze upon the nothingness in its glow.

“What’s out there?” Paige asked, toweling her hair dry.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “It’s weird. Every so often, I’ll get the urge to look out the window, like something’s there wanting me to see it. Sometimes, I swear I actually do see something.”

“So, my boyfriend’s seeing things,” she said, tossing the towel aside while she rubbed his back with her free hand.

“Don’t worry,” he said, turning around. “All I ever want to see is you.”

*****

I’m standing in the smoldering rubble of Hope Memorial Hospital in my suit, and my mask covers my face. Around me, I can hear the screams of both the living and the dying. I’m disoriented as though I’d just been through hell, though when I inspect myself, I see nothing physically wrong. I walk through the rubble, stumbling over furniture and pieces of scaffolding, wondering why I’m here. Then I hear it.

Clunk, clunk, clunk
, the painfully familiar sound of the footsteps belonging to The Man in Black of my nightmares resound behind me. My stomach turns, my pulse quickens.

“Isn’t it enough you haunt me while I’m awake? Must you lurk in my subconscious too?” I turn around, expecting him to be several feet away still, but find myself facing him nearly nose to nose.

“Celaine Stevens,” he scowls. His gloved hand reaches over to my masked face, cupping my chin. I remain frozen, as a mixture of fear and rage roots me to the ground. “Tell me, Ms. Stevens, what do you have worth fighting for?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” I answer him. “It seems as though you’ve already taken everything that mattered to me. The only things I have left are my convictions. But I suppose that’s enough, isn’t it?” I can’t remove my eyes from the darkness that fills the eye sockets of his mask.

“You’re wrong.” His demonic melodious laugh echoes throughout the remains we’re standing in. “Look over there, and you’ll see that you have plenty left to fight for.” He points to a large cube centered at the heart of the destruction. Within the cube stands Chase, pounding on the side of his prison. “I know what makes you tick,” he sneers.

“Let him go!” I exclaim. My feet attempt to leave the ground, but they won’t move. “He has nothing to do with any of this.”

“He matters to you, that means he has everything to do with this.” The Man in Black takes a couple of steps through the rubble in the direction of the cube.

“Don’t touch him!” I yell. “Take me. Kill me. Just leave him out of this.”

“Find me,” The Man in Black says. “Then and only then will he be safe.”

The ground around me shudders, and the cube begins to shake violently. Nearby, The Man in Black raises his arms, and I know from a decade of countless nightmares that nothing good would come next. “No! No!” I scream, finally freeing my feet. But just as I became able to run again, the earth violently shakes once more, causing the cube to implode with Chase still trapped inside.

*****

“Celaine, wake up.” Ian shook me until I woke. “Are you all right?” he asked, sitting on my bed, his hand on my shoulder. “That must have been one hell of a nightmare.”

“You heard me?” I asked, trying to still my rapid heartbeat.

“Are you kidding me? I think they heard you in China. I’m surprised half The Epicenter isn’t in here right now. It sounded like you were being murdered.”

“In a way, I was.” I shivered. Pulling my legs up to my chest, I sat huddled on the bed, unable to rid my mind of the vivid images from my dream.

“I have them, too,” Ian said softly. “Nightmares so real I feel like my heart is being ripped out of my body all over again.”

“Why do we have to be repeatedly tortured?” I asked, not expecting an answer. “It’s like we were born just to suffer.”

“We weren’t born to suffer, we were born to make a difference. Our pain is just an unfortunate consequence of becoming the people we were destined to be.”

“Well, it still sucks.”

“Yeah,” Ian yawned. “It sure does.” He removed his hand from my shoulder, resting it in his lap. “Do you want to talk about it, your dream?”

“No. As silly as it sounds, I’m afraid that if I talk about it, it’ll come true. Like my words would add some sort of validation to it, giving it life.” I paused, studying his face. There was a different look in his eyes, a thoughtful sadness that made him appear more boy than man. A sadness that projected the hell he must have gone through as a child. “It…it was just so different from the others I’ve had over the years. This one seemed more…personal.”

“
Every
nightmare seems personal. That’s why they bother us so much.”

I stretched out on the bed, my head resting on the pillow, my hand clasping the heart attached to the chain around my neck. “Ian?”

“Yeah?” he answered between yawns.

“Stay with me?”

“Huh?”

“I’m asking you to stay here. Don’t leave…please. I’d like to try to get back to sleep, but I know I won’t be able to if I’m left alone. I need the distraction…the comfort of having someone here.”

He studied me for a moment, somewhat surprised by my request. “Okay,” he answered momentarily. “I wasn’t going to be able to sleep tonight anyway. The adrenaline’s really flowing this evening.”

“Have you tried the sleeping pills from Dr. Lin?”

“Unless I want to overdose, they aren’t going to help me. Ever since Victor told us about our upcoming mission, I’ve been psyching myself up, training a little harder. This could be our chance to end our real life nightmare.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.” My eyes grew heavy as my body began to calm down from the sensory overload triggered by my nightmare.

“Scoot over closer to the edge of the bed,” Ian ordered.

“Why?”

“Because I’m not sitting in a chair for the rest of the night. If you want me here, you’re going to have to make the proper accommodations.”

“Fine.” I pushed my body a little closer to the edge of the bed, allowing Ian to climb over me to the other side. He crawled under the thin sheet, his body grazing my back. “I thought you weren’t going to fall asleep tonight?”

“Most likely not, but if I do, I do. I was always able to sleep better with someone next to me.”

“So that’s how you lured all those women back to your lair. A promise of a good night’s sleep,” I said, a yawn escaping my lips. “Pretty slick, Mr. Grant.”

“In my defense, a good share of the time sleeping was all we did.”

“What?” I asked in disbelief. “No. Say it isn’t so. Don’t let my perception of Ian Grant, ladies’ man, be shattered.”

“You’d better get a broom because you’re going to be picking up the pieces,” he chuckled. “Yeah, I took my fair share of women home from the bar after my shift was over, but it was mostly because they were either too drunk to take themselves home or it had to do with the men they were hanging around with. I mean, I know how guys can be, and I really didn’t like the thought of some moron screwing up some girl’s life because of one night of drunken idiocy.”

“You just took them home, complete strangers?”

“I know it wasn’t always a smart move on my part. Most of them were the regulars who came into the bar, so I honestly didn’t expect there to be trouble. But sometimes, when they woke up the next morning, they assumed something had happened between us. Consequently, I developed quite the reputation around town, and I did nothing to stop it from spreading.”

“Huh,” I sighed.

“What?”

“You’re full of surprises, Ian. Though I must admit, I never thought they’d be good ones.”

“Don’t worry, I’m still an asshole.”

“A part of me fails to believe that now.” I felt the heat from his body against mine, and a familiar sting came over me. I hadn’t slept next to anyone since Chase. It felt comforting, almost too comforting. I wasn’t ready for comforting.

“You should get some sleep,” he said, almost in a whisper near my ear.

“I’m working on it.”

“And no funny business either. This is a purely platonic sleeping arrangement.” I could almost feel the smirk forming across his lips on the back of my neck.

“I’ll try to keep my pants on,” I said. “Goodnight, Ian.”

“Goodnight.”

I awoke to the alarm the next morning and rolled over to wake Ian, only to find myself alone in the bed. My hand drifted over the mattress where he’d lain. The sheets were cold, a sign that no one had been there for quite some time, and I couldn’t help but wonder how long he’d actually stayed there after I fell asleep. Scooting myself off the bed, I stood up, threw on some gym shorts and a t-shirt, pulled my hair back into a ponytail, and headed out into the hallway.

When I walked into the sitting room, I saw Kara staring blankly at the television. I strolled over to her, meeting her gaze on the screen. A cable news reporter was reading the events from the previous night off a teleprompter. Riots, orchestrated to commence just as curfew took hold, were springing up across the country. Suspected members of the rebellion were shown, clearly defiant, resisting arrest while they continued protesting everything from the curfew, to the presence of the numerous military personnel, to President Brooks himself. Surprisingly, though, their protests were strictly verbal, with not a single weapon brandished by any of the demonstrators. Any property damage that took place had been done by the counteroffensive.

Members of the rebellion were shown being thrown through storefront windows by Brooks’ men. Bullets ricocheted off the pavement, striking vehicles and buildings, forever leaving their mark.

“If they don’t expect to garner sympathy for the rebels, they’d better quit showing unarmed citizens being taken out like sitting ducks,” I said, the anger welling inside me.

“The footage was streamed into a live broadcast by members of the rebellion,” Kara said without taking her eyes off the channel. “One of them figured out how to hack into the broadcasting system and overrode the stations. Millions saw it last night right as it unfolded, and millions more will see it now thanks to the news.”

“I bet the rebels see an increase in recruits after last night.”

Kara shook her head. “This is bad, Celaine. You and Ian had better be careful. They may not have shown it last night, but they have the fire power to do some real damage.”

“You can’t honestly tell me you sympathize with Brooks’ men? If anything, this recording is showing people what’s really going on. It’s something that should be seen. There’s two sides to every story, not just the black and white picture being painted by Brooks.”

“Don’t you see?” Kara turned to face me. “This is going to throw the country into chaos, causing further restrictions, and even more oppression. We’re on the verge of something big; a revolution is knocking on our door.”

“If you ask me, it already let itself in and helped itself to a beer from the refrigerator. My concern isn’t for the rebellion, it’s for The Man in Black. That’s why I’m here, after all.”

“Then you’d better prepare yourself for one hell of an attack. They always get worse after an act of public defiance.” Kara’s eyes began to water, her face reddened.

“Hey,” I said, putting my hand on her shoulder. “Things are bound to get worse before they get better.”

“I know,” she answered. “I’m just worried about how bad they’re going to get and who else I’m going to lose before they get any better.” She touched my hand, pressing it firmly against her shoulder.

“I’m not going to die, Kara. Ian and I, we’re pretty resourceful. We’ll come through this relatively unscathed.”

“You’d better,” she said, smiling through her tears. “Because I can’t lose another sister.”

“What’s going on?” Ian entered the room with Becca in tow.

That’s probably why he left my room last night
.

“We’re just watching the news,” Kara answered him. “You and Celaine had better up your training. You’re going to have one heck of a fight on your hands soon.”

“I need to get back to the kitchen,” Becca said, rolling her eyes at the thought.

“Okay. See you later,” Ian called back after her. He walked over to our spot in front of the television screen. “Becca said it was getting bad out there.”

“Mmhmm,” Kara murmured.

“Sorry I took off on you last night,” Ian said to me, a knowing smirk forming on his face. “You fell asleep, and I figured that all of my tossing and turning would only wake you. There’s not a whole lot of room on our beds, anyway.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Kara’s head whip around to look at me, her eyes widened. “No problem, Ian,” I said through gritted teeth. “I didn’t expect you to stick around in my room all night.”