12: Bolt Saga, Book 12 Read online

  All right, so maybe it’s hardly a wonder that she’s sneaked off with Angelique and Wade. Further, that she thoroughly believes it’s possible to save me from Faline armed with a simple Glock and a few motivational mantras.

  Impetuous, impervious Tinkerbell.

  Stupid, intrepid Bunny.

  Noble, unshakable woman.

  The sole person I can’t live without.

  “Damn it,” I rasp after we’ve parked the Rover down the block and start toward the mansion, sticking to the shadows of the miniature rainforests that double as front lawns around here. Goddamnit, Emmalina, if you’ve gone and gotten yourself into a shitstorm of trouble…or worse…

  I refuse to think about the worse.

  But I do.

  And because of it, endure a flood of neurotoxins called panic, which suddenly stops me in place.

  Thank fuck for Foley. “Yo.” Who gets it already and doubles back with a look of tight concern. “You all right, AC/DC?”

  And succeeds in shaking me back to the moment with his latest contribution to the team’s nicknames pond. Raw bewilderment will do that to a guy, and I concede to a slam of the stuff while contemplating the reference to a band I never imagined as Foley’s jam. With every fiber of my heart, I plead to heaven that after Em and Angie got here, they found nothing and dropped Angie’s phone on their way to an impromptu stroll on the beach. That they stopped somewhere for drinks and lost track of the time. That Roman Engrid just wants to use this place for giant cod bite parties.

  Now that my brain’s filled with scenarios only bleach will erase, I refocus on Foley. “I’m fine. I’m fine.” I nod toward the house. “I just need to know she is too.”

  Foley returns the nod as we crouch behind a giant elephant ear plant, eyeballing the mansion more fully from our vantage point. “She’s got a sharp head on her shoulders, Richards.”

  “Not saying she doesn’t,” I retort.

  “Then what’s with the bee in your lovely bonnet?”

  I toss a stiff side-eye. Copy his huff, only with a lot more emphasis on the irritation, while fighting mental images of Emma inside the house, tied up and gagged and—

  Enough.

  “She just doesn’t know everything Faline is capable of.”

  “The fuck she doesn’t.” Foley’s comeback is immediate. At the same time, he frees his SIG from his body holster, steadying his grip with one hand around his carrying wrist. “She just loves your sorry ass more than she hates and fears that bitch.” A fast glance, just to prove he’s as serious as a sommelier calling out cheese pairings. “You really don’t get that yet, do you?”

  “Of course I do.”

  The guy grunts. “Great.” Then elbows me in the gut. “So let’s get this show on the road before you trip over your nose, Pinocchio.”

  “Fuck you,” I mumble, with Alex and Fersh’s snickers as my backdrop.

  “Sorry, broheim,” Lydia cuts in. “That’s my job, remember?”

  “And on that piece of TMI…” Sawyer snorts. “That’s going to earn a certain brat a visit from my spanking hand.”

  I copy his elbow jab. “And that piece of TMI, none of us should have heard…”

  He snort-laughs before leading the way out of the bushes and onto the mansion’s property line. We stick to the shadows along the far perimeter until spotting the power breaker box that Alex located on the satellite overview of the place. Not that his task was easy, since the thing is shrouded by an eight-foot-high Bird of Paradise, but the guy didn’t quit enhancing shots even after we took off in the Rover, and he finally found this intel when we were ten minutes out from the house.

  It’s our critical key to moving faster now.

  After buzzing the flowers down with some effortless lightning blades, I have to zap a little more effort into slicing the padlock from the breaker box itself. But a few seconds after that, Foley has the backyard lights and security system completely shut off.

  And then, we brace.

  Through twenty seconds.

  Thirty.

  Forty.

  At just over fifty, we’re rewarded for the patience—“reward” being relative, since it’s in the form of at least fifteen of Faline’s minions who scurry like chickens in the path of a hurricane, clearly attempting to troubleshoot the security system breakdown before their mistress on high takes over to do it. Because with Faline, “troubleshooting” usually carries a much different meaning.

  “Uh-oh.” Foley’s comment is no more than a snarky vibration on the air, though even if he’d gone full volume, nobody would’ve noticed. It’s pandemonium inside the house, for which we have a full ringside seat thanks to the towering glass windows along the ocean side of the structure. “Looks like Mom won’t be letting the kids have dessert tonight, dear.”

  It’s ripe for a good follow-up, but my sarcasm is eliminated as soon as my logic kicks in. “But where is Mom?” I lean out from behind the pool equipment hutch now providing our cover, though I’m hardly sure we need it. For a bunch of chickens facing a Cat Five rager, the goons are weirdly oblivious about anything outside the mansion’s physical boundaries. Almost as if they don’t see what’s outside…

  “Damn good point,” Foley mutters, joining my scrutiny of the scene.

  “Could she just not be here?”

  Fershan’s huff comes over the line. “But would the worker bees get that frantic without the queen in the hive?”

  “Damn great point,” Foley answers.

  “Agreed,” I add.

  A new grunt from Alex roughens the line. There’s a sound of the comm piece being muffled but not thoroughly enough to drown out Trestle’s spitting passion for the F-word. “Uhhhh…Alex?” Fersh ventures. “You okay? You need me to come up to the lab or some—”

  “Trestle?” Foley’s already dropped his demand to a growl. “Talk to us, man.”

  Suddenly, as soon as memory hits me in a rush, I blurt, “The infrared.” And then double-palm my torso and thighs before explaining to Foley, “The detectors aren’t just in the Rover anymore. The guys wired a bunch of them into the battle leathers a few weeks ago.”

  Foley eyes my leathers with an approving nod. “Sweet.”

  But we celebrate only a second longer, since the line is roughened to static by an explosive snarl from Alex. “Jesus Clark Kent Christ with a Kryponite dildo,” he finally spits out.

  “Trestle?” Foley sputters.

  “What the hell?” I demand, rising all the way. There’s not a single double-take from any of the goons inside, so I stalk all the way out into the open. The backhoe scoop of gravel in Alex’s voice has buried any remaining cell of calm in my body. All that’s left are the nerves that blaze in trepidation and the senses straining to see or hear anything unusual.

  Who the fuck am I kidding?

  Is there anything “usual” about any of this?

  “Okay…shit…there are more than a few lizards stirring inside there,” Alex rushes on. “They—they must’ve had steel blocker walls across the front of the house. Fuck, I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry,” I snap. “Just be on the game now. Damn it, Trestle,” I dictate when his end of the line is too silent for too many seconds. “If you don’t talk to me, I’m just going in.” And am even more driven, along with savagely grateful, when Foley quickens his stride to match my stalk across the pool deck.

  “Uh…yeah,” Alex finally stammers. “That’s a damn good idea.”

  “What is?” Foley retorts.

  “Going in,” Alex returns. “Like, now.”

  I break into a jog. Okay, maybe a full run. “What the hell does that—”

  “Just do it.” The brutal punch of Trestle’s ordinance makes me instantly wish for the stammering again. “Once you’re in, cut a hard right through the sun room. Then down the hall after that.”

  We’re not running hard, but Foley’s breaths are heavy huffs on the line. “Then what?”

  “Just keep going.” Another harsh
breath, but definitely Alex’s this time. “Just…fucking…please keep going.”

  Before he’s even done choking it out, we’re using the Bolt battering ram to enter the sun room—aka, me whomping the window with a directed pulse, sending the whole pane of glass to the ground—before continuing to head right. A few seconds later, our sprint begins down a long, tiled corridor with ornate sconces along the walls out of some damn vampire movie.

  As we run down the passage, members of the Faline happy squad seem to materialize out of the walls. They’re really only bursting out from doorways, though the fuck-all with my imagination is the same, sending my mind into surreal gamer mode. The eerie light from the sconces adds to the effect, the dimness accenting the unblinking gold glow in all their eyes, making me feel like Van Helsing without his cool weaponry—or any of the adversaries sprouting fangs. Like that matters.

  I take each of them out with the same ruthless instinct, either spearing their chests or slicing their throats with the lightning firing through my senses and shooting out my fingers. I barely think about the actions, adapting each for optimal destruction. And yes, goddamnit, that’s all this is right now. Later, I’ll need to confront the fact that they’re humans—or that maybe they once were—but right now, with Alex’s hoarse pleas echoing in my head, all I can think about is getting down this fucking hall.

  Getting to Emmalina.

  Because she is here. I know it now. Every lash of my breath, pierce of my pulse, and agony of my muscles confirms it. Stabs it. Torments me with it.

  Until they don’t.

  Until I reach the massive steel door at the end of the hall and tear it off its hinges with a massive roar.

  Until I yell even louder, as her misery hits me like a full gale.

  Until I struggle to comprehend the scene before me.

  Standing stock still, stupefied and ashamed. Thinking if I stay this way, the horror will vanish. My gut will give my imagination back to my mind and clarify what I’m really supposed to be seeing. That I’m not really supposed to be digging a hand at my head, singeing my scalp as I drive my fingers through my hair, yearning to burn them through my skull. I want to gouge out my brains and hurl them against the wall.

  Because I’m not supposed to be seeing this.

  Because this isn’t real.

  Because this is just another nightmare, only worse.

  Because unlike the thousand other times I’ve relived it, when memory has attacked me in the midst of exhaustion or sleep, I’m not the one on that steel table, naked and shackled and terrified.

  No.

  “Jesus God.” Foley spews it on behalf of us both. My holocaust of a throat has turned my voice to ash. My spirit is a thunderstorm of horror, raining lava through every tendon, bone, muscle, and nerve in my body.

  I want to fucking die.

  But I can’t.

  I can’t.

  If I die, there’s no hope for Emma. There’s no way out for her. And yes, she still has a way out. Somehow, I’m able to take a mental triage on her, even from here. Her skin is still the color of pale cream. There’s no discernible energy sparking from her extremities. While the machines Faline has her wired to are advanced versions of the torture devices they used on me, I recognize the humanity in her bit-gagged whimpers. The bitch hasn’t stripped everything from her yet.

  Yet.

  “Darling! What a lovely surprise!” Faline attempts to croon it, but the soprano to which her voice jumps, instead of its worldly alto, is blatant. Clearly she hasn’t anticipated our arrival at all, meaning the solar flare infusion is holding steady in my bloodstream. Thank fuck, because right now, I feel completely bloodless.

  “Jesus…God.” Foley’s repetition, while still a sandpaper snarl, is dunked in a deeper vat of shock this time. The impression makes me look over to where my friend’s stance is racked by tiny, violent lurches. He seems to want to step forward but is being held back by a thousand filaments of invisible wire.

  “Hmmm,” Faline hums then. “Close, cariño, but not quite. I am definitely the upgrade.” As she finishes by swooping a couple of fingers toward him, missing only a wand to seal her Slytherin membership, I suddenly realize—it’s her. Whatever strange electric spider’s web has taken over the air and trapped Foley in place, it’s being controlled by her.

  And “upgrade” or not, I take advantage of the seconds in which she preens for Foley to pulse myself to Emma’s side. But as her scream splits the air, I leap back with my hands in the air, heart thundering at my ribs. If I ever hear that agonized sound erupt from my Emma again, I won’t just tear my brains out of my head. I’ll rip my skull off my shoulders.

  This is killing me.

  But even worse, I know exactly what it’s doing to Emmalina.

  Every excruciating notch of pain throughout her body. Every terrible plea for it to stop in her mind.

  Matched by every tormented muscle in my body, holding back from spinning and strangling the bitch who stomps back over with furious hisses. But I can’t kill her. Not yet. The shackles on Emma are controlled by codes that are likely known and controlled by Faline alone. Ding dong, the witch has to live on.

  “Attempt to touch her again, or override the codes on those restraints, and I will not hesitate to redline the voltage.”

  Though I know she can already see my hands, I hitch them a little higher. The bitch means every word. I’ve never seen her redline someone on the table before, but I’ve heard the word whispered as she performed the punishment—and eventually, the horrendous death—on others. Expendable others. Which may or may not be how she perceives Emma now…

  Why is she doing this to Emma?

  Revenge is the first option to surface, though I rule it out just as fast. Why would she go to the trouble if she assumed I was still in the induced coma and wouldn’t know about all this? Recruitment is next on the list, but once again I have to wonder why. It would make more sense for Faline to kill Emma instead of attempt to turn her. Why draft a soldier so patently hostile to the cause?

  That leaves…what?

  Research?

  Or simple sadism?

  Which, I’m nauseated to admit, would both fit. And yes, both right here and now. Putting Emma through an accelerated transformation—which all the dials and settings in front of me indicate—would neatly check both those boxes for Faline.

  Boxes I’ve got to uncheck. And then erase.

  “You don’t want her anyway.” Though it’s brutal and guttural, I turn it into an undisputable order—hitting the woman, nearly literally, below the belt. Because as thoroughly as Faline Garand knows all of my triggers and motivations, I know hers. I’m sickened by even admitting the knowledge now, especially after shutting it down so many times since taking my first step away from the Source, during that moonless midnight, so long ago.

  But not long enough.

  Or perhaps, in some demented depth of my psyche, I’ve purposely never let go of it due to realizing all of this. Recognizing that Faline would never set it free. That she’d remember every one of those days I was chained down for her, forced to forge that link with her faceless voice. I’d needed her for survival—and, in the months to come, I came to the twisted acceptance that she needed me too. I provided some strange connection for her…some unattainable goal, maybe. Back to her humanity? Or maybe the opposite direction, toward reaching for a higher purpose? Seeking her immortality through me?

  And do any of those clarifications even matter?

  She has the tool to get back to them again.

  Me.

  Standing before her, saying exactly this.

  “We both know what you want, Faline.”

  But it’s not Faline’s voice that fills the awful silence that falls then. It’s the high, tearful whimper of the woman on the table. The destiny of my existence. The center of my heart. The pulse in my blood. The more in my world.

  The reason Faline isn’t on the floor right now, her throat ripped open by lightning a
nd her heart yanked from her chest and fried into the black stone it really is. I could still try it, but I really do know the bitch that well. Her death by my hand would mean more than the shackle codes dying with her. As soon as she breathed her last, there’d be a dozen hits called on Emma’s life. I know better. The shitty thing is, Faline also knows I know better.

  But I still hold the ace here.

  Even if she doesn’t see it for herself.

  Which she clearly doesn’t, judging by the slither in her step and the gleam in her eyes, as she moves to cover the last couple of steps between us. Or even as I back up by equal steps but twice the distance, giving off the exact vibe I intend. As she follows me, tracing her bottom lip with one crimson nail, she starts gloating in her perceived triumph. But I’m the real winner of round one, having diverted her away from Emma’s bedside—though my girl, seeing only Faline making cat-in-heat moves on me, has no way of knowing that. Her heartsick mewl impacts every inch of Faline’s body like a rush of pure cocaine.

  “Oh, do go on, papi,” she stage whispers at me, purposefully leaning over as if I’m hanging on her every word. The thing is, I am. Waiting. Watching. Evaluating. Gauging when to speak. When to strike. “Tell me exactly what I want.”

  I swallow down a fuck ton of bile. Picture a steel vise ramming up my spine, fortifying my posture. Staying that way, no matter how wrenching the anguish in Emma’s next groan or how heavily her grief weighs the air. I run the risk of even glancing at her now. Hearing her, smelling her, and feeling her are enough. Goddamnit, more than enough.

  But I’m setting up the strike…

  “Me.”

  Somehow, I declare it exactly like my inner titan dictated it. No matter how deeply this starts to hurt. Holy fuck, does it hurt. Not in the blood cells that hold their charge or the muscles that keep their strength. In the other way. The worse way. In every cavern of my soul and all the tunnels of truth that connect them. In the ice that’s taking over the energy that once lived in them. The truth and energy and life of being with Emma.