A Shadow's Embrace (10 page)

And, while they were figuring out precisely what that
other option
was, Rider endured torture. He hung in hell while they took their time deciding what was to be done. Damn them. Fuck caution.
Make a decision and move, you chicken-shit slow pokes.
She bit back the enraged response, knowing it’d do no good. They were the experts.
 

“Diaz is solid, trainable,” Dagan stated.
 

“Tell us about him,” Kaeden said.
 

“Dare and Rider caught his so-called gang breaking into a corner market one night. They were loaded down with food, medicine. They hadn’t even touched the register.” Devyn chuckled. “That little street urchin gave them a run for their money. He told his crew to split, and they didn’t even blink before jumping to do exactly what he said. They were smoke. I’d never seen anything like it. It shocked Dare and Rider stupid I think because the next thing I see on the video surveillance afterward is both of them flat on their asses and him grinning down at them.
 

“It took a couple of weeks for me to track Diaz’s crew down, but I did. I decided to approach him myself. Cut out part of my soul that day to see them all in tattered clothing, scrounging through sacks of restaurant garbage they’d dragged back to their lair—an abandoned building a few blocks from our headquarters. He’d learned who we were. He walked right up to me and held out his hand in welcome.”
 

“They’ve had it rough.”
 

“Yeah. Their parents were mostly level threes turned away from Base Four a few months before you all broke out, I think. So, four years ago? Many of them died shortly after being turned out, their injuries too bad to be healed. Diaz had been the oldest at the time, a whopping fifteen. He rounded up the other kids and took control. They’re family.”
 

“And you look out for them now.”
 

“When they let me. They’d been surviving long before I came around. Indigo Order doesn’t shove itself down the throats of the street. We keep the doors open and let them come as they need, asking no questions.” Devyn shrugged. “Dare and Rider took it upon themselves to do more when they could. We all did, I guess. Cadence, Mia, and I work with them on their reading and computer skills, stuff like that. Dare and Rider are the real kings of the street to Diaz and the other crews. They teach self-defense and street fighting, help the kids learn to control their powers.”
 

“Dare and Rider are level six,” Kaeden stated.
 

Devyn nodded. “They’re probably like y’all. They were moved to our base because they’d been unruly in their station. They don’t talk about where they came from, what they did before then. I assume they’re Shadow Elites. Doctor Lang was working to curb their violent tendencies. It proved difficult because they’d learned to work in tandem, somehow using Rider’s abilities to channel each other.”
 

“Very interesting,” Kaeden stated.
 

“Diaz studied how the two of them work together, and he has his whole crew doing it, admittedly not as efficiently, but it’s quite a sight to see those kids we first met a couple of years ago able to work together and be that strong now. That proud.” Devyn smiled. “They’ll surprise you if you give them a shot.”
 

“Well, even if we do, the street hasn’t exactly been shy about expressing their dislike for the SEO. I doubt they’d work with us,” Trent stated. “If I had a buck for every time someone jacked something from my Harley, I’d be a millionaire.”
 

“That’s why I need to talk to Dare. They’ll do it for me, for him. More importantly, they’ll do it for Rider. Like I said, those two are their kings.”
 

“That explains a lot about after the explosion. Every underground psychic Indigo Order ever helped must’ve shown up. It was impressive as shit,” Corbin said.
 

Her heart swelled when she thought about them all turning out to help, but it sank into her gut like a lead balloon when she realized all the work she and her team had ahead. Getting Indigo Order back up and running would be a massive endeavor.
 

The compound had been obliterated based on what little she’d heard. The fact that she hadn’t heard more proved it’d been bad. No one wanted to be the beast to burden her with the destruction of what they’d all worked so hard to do.
 

But they’d overcome this. Together. Somehow. It would just take time, and she prayed the underground street crews she helped could hold out in the meantime.
 

“They’re the reason we do what we do. We aren’t covertly trained elites like you all. We can’t take on General Conver directly, but we can cut him off at the knees. We can protect those he expected to die.”
 

“You do good work,” Kaeden said. “When we get this op done and the dust settles, we’ll sit down, discuss how the SEO can help get Indigo Order back up and running. What your group does is too important for you to be down for long.”
 

Wow. The offer shocked her. She’d never respond one way or another without discussing it at campfire with her team. Hell, she’d probably have to discuss it at campfire with the street, too. There was no way Patch’s crew would be down with being associated with the SEO, not even if Diaz’s group was.
 

Their help would mean a massive boost in the time it would take to situate Indigo Order, but it was a cumbersome responsibility to saddle them with since they’d already done so much for her. Hell, they were going to get Rider back. She and Dare could never handle that alone.
 

She rolled her shoulders and grimaced as the telltale exhaustion from power usage crept into her body. Dagan massaged the sore muscles.
 

“Come on, I’ll show you where you can rest up.”
 

She followed him through the hallway and up the stairs. Her pulse quickened when she realized they were alone again. The non-descript bedroom was what she’d expected from a safe house. Decent, but bland. White walls, a double-sized bed, white comforter, and two equally colorless pillows offset the dark wood of the nightstand and dresser.
 

A yawn escaped as she turned to thank Dagan. His hands settled at her waist as he drew her closer.
 

“You okay?”
 

No. She was as far from okay as possible. She’d spent God only knew how long watching footage of a man she considered a brother being tortured. “I—I can almost smell his burned skin. He never screamed, Dagan. How can someone endure all that and not scream?”
 

“Because he knew you’d find him, find the footage. He knew what it’d do to you to hear him scream.”
 

The stubborn son of a bitch needed a good wallop aside the head. “I always told him I don’t need to be protected.”
 

“There’s no shame in accepting help, in letting someone else take the lead.” Dagan pushed errant strands of her hair behind her ear. “You let me care for you last night, let me handle the control room.”
 

“That was different.” She couldn’t explain why or how. It just was.
 

Dagan brushed his lips along hers, pulling away before she could respond. “Get some rest, babe. We’re in for a long day tomorrow.”
 

Dagan glanced at his watch. Three hours. He’d have to wake Devyn soon, give her a chance to eat something. His dick throbbed in a dull, continuous ache when he thought of her, like he had nonstop for the past three hours.
 

The vanilla of her shampoo still permeated his nostrils. The weight of her hand still pressed against his stomach when he closed his eyes. Fuck, he was in deep and didn’t ever want to crawl out.
 

He wanted to be the calm in her storm every day, the one to bring out that sexy-as-fuck smile of hers. Running through surveillance footage of the week before her abrupt departure from the compound had been an exercise in restraint. The urge to charge into her room, spread those sweet long-as-fuck legs of hers wide, and bury himself in her wet heat rode him almost as hard as he needed to ride her.
 

But there was no way in hell that was going down soon. They’d added Dare to the mix shortly after deciding they needed a better assurance something specific hadn’t gone down to get Devyn gone from Chicago—thus the perusal of every moment of Indy’s life before the week she’d poofed to do her digging.
 

Raised voices in the makeshift war room drew Dagan from the building specs he and Dare had been studying for the past hour. Contacting him had been a mistake in several ways. He was stubborn, fearless, and determined to help rescue his teammate. He was so much like the men on Dagan’s team, he melded flawlessly. But his ruthless, dog-with-a-bone mission to get Rider back kept Dagan on edge. Failing Dare or Devyn wasn’t an option.
 

“Sounds like trouble’s brewing next door,” Dare commented. “Are you the Rider of your crew?”
 

“Come again?”
 

“You calm and sort their shit before it hits the fan?” Dare tossed a map on the table. “That was Rider. No matter how pissed I got at the risks Indy took, he calmed my ass down.”
 

“Why do y’all call her Indy? How’d that start?” The nickname was cute and matched her independent spirit, but Dagan doubted that’s where it came from. He knew the street had come up with it, supposedly a nickname because of Indigo Order.
 

“We came up with Indigo Order because of the legend of the Indigo children—it sort of defined us in a simplistic way. I say we, but it was all Indy from the get-go. All Rider and I did was knock heads together to garner respect with the street and keep her, Cadence, and Mia safe. But the name appealed to the kids on the street, and that’s what mattered to Indy, I mean Devyn.”
 

Dare shook his head. “She was unstoppable. She wanted to hunt down and help every urchin this side of the Mississippi. I can’t tell you how many scrapes we dragged her out of. She’d go toe-to-toe with the worst dregs of the drug cartels and not even blink, like she knew she’d win the fight even though she couldn’t throw a punch for shit at the time.”
 

“Sounds like you and Rider kept her alive back when it started.” Dagan thought back to the rooftop. “And you did a hell of a job upping her fighting skills.”
 

“She gave us a reason to keep going. I won’t pretend we had it as hard as you did in the Elite ops Shadow bullshit Conver made you do, but things got real intense quick back before we escaped. Indy blames herself, you know. Thinks she should’ve used her power and gotten us out sooner. I try to tell her it wouldn’t have worked. Things were too secure at first. We had to wait until they got lazy, comfortable with the fact we’d been broken. Then you Shadows showed up, and we saw our chance.”
 

“She mentioned thinking you two were Shadow Elites before you showed up at the facility y’all broke out of with her.”
 

“Appreciate all you’re doing for her and my brother in arms, but he and I agreed a hell of a long time ago never to talk about the shit from back then. We paved roads in hell no one else traveled.” Darkness settled in his gaze. The heaviness of the man’s regret punched Dagan. “We’re alive because of her. Until we saw her in that compound, shining brightly with hope despite all the evil shit Lang did to her and those she cared about, the two of us were ready to check out.”
 

“But you held it together, because of her.”
 

“She needed someone to have her back. We could see the bright in her darkening threatening to dim. Lang was close to figuring out she was a level six, a fuck of a lot stronger than even that in many ways. Somehow they hadn’t contemplated her power existing. But Rider felt it, tasted it. From the moment we saw her, we knew why we’d survived.”
 

“To keep her safe.” Dagan rubbed his chest where it ached at the thought of what would’ve gone down had they not shown up. “You taught her how to survive, be strong inside that place.”
 

“No. That was all Rider. He refused to break, and, as long as he held out, we all did. It was a pride issue, sort of a throw-down street challenge for us all to endure and overcome whatever they threw at us, even if they didn’t know.”
 

“She blames herself for Rider getting caught.”
 

“Fuck, I was afraid of that. The thing is, she’s never kept shit from us. We didn’t know she had it in her. I get why she did it. I mean I do now. Rider will too. But, I gotta tell you, that shit burned bad, knowing she’d been going in alone and hauling out intel to pass on to you. We knew about some of it, of course. But we had no idea she’d come across all this shit.”
 

“Neither did we. She hadn’t passed anything on, not yet. She’d just discovered it when she took off for that week.”
 

“That week was hell on Earth. She’d never gone AWOL before. Rider blamed himself for being in her shit too much, keeping too tight of a hold on her. I’m relieved you all intervened and dragged her ass out of the fire when Conver was breathing down her neck.” Dare shook his head. “We owe y’all huge.”
 

Man, I know you’re bonding with the new guy, but we could really use you in here. Kaeden and Trent have lost their shit.
 

“Fuck. Corbin says shit’s getting intense next door. Let’s move.”
 

Tension thickened the atmosphere when Dagan entered. Rex and Cash had Trent cornered on one side of the room. Ace and Corbin had Kaeden down on the floor, his face pressed against the carpet.
 

What the fuck?
 

He didn’t realize he’d said it aloud until Corbin turned his head. “It’s about time. Can you hold their reins so we can figure out what the ever-living fuck your girl ran across?”