Avenged (The Altered Series) (18 page)

“Kitty?” Nick’s voice was weak. “Kitty, you did it.”

When she looked down into his pain-filled eyes, he looked pale. His lips were blue. He smiled up at her, reaching for her face. He pressed his palm into her cheek. She could barely murmur, “What did I do?”

“Fields.” He rubbed his thumb along her cheekbone. “You got him.”

She didn’t want his praise. She’d been adamant about going after Fields, but she wondered if it hadn’t been a foolish choice, another in a list of horrible decisions. Had stopping Fields been worth putting Nick’s life in danger?

“Save your strength,” she whispered, but tears thickened the demand.

“I’m cold.” He closed his eyes.

“No. No, you aren’t.” She pushed harder on his wound, even as his hand slackened and dropped from her face. “You’re not cold. You’re fine. You’re going to be fine.” Desperation laced her words. “The medics are coming.” At least that much wasn’t a lie. She could see two men running toward her, a backboard between them.

He didn’t answer.

“Nick? Nick!”

Terror gripped her. As the medics gently pushed her out of the way, taking over the task of keeping Nick from bleeding to death, she took up residence at his head, rubbing her fingers along his hair, his forehead, memorizing his beloved face.

She heard them mention his femoral artery. She knew that was dangerous, could sense they worried that it was bad.

She ran alongside the backboard as they raced to the helicopter. She listened as they checked his vital signs, and even she knew his pulse and blood pressure were low. Her movements felt jerky, disoriented as she murmured to him, trying to reassure him. Trying to say the things she wished she’d said when he was awake.

She refused to let that stop her, though.

Thank you for coming for me.

I love you.

Keep fighting. Stay with me.

…

From far away, Nick thought he heard Kitty.

It didn’t feel strange that she was in this place. It was peaceful and warm. A cocoon.

Her words were strange. Keep fighting? Stay with her? She loved him? Is that what she said?

A sliver of unease swept through him. She loved him? He must have heard wrong. Kitty hadn’t said anything about love. If that was here
,
then he wasn’t sure he trusted
here
.

He opened his mouth, but when he called for her, his lips felt sluggish, as if they weighed too much. The feeling upset him. He struggled, but there were restraints holding him down. He panicked, fighting harder.

Her voice echoed again. Relax. He was fine, it said. But he couldn’t find her. How could he be fine if he couldn’t find her?

Nothing made sense here.

He didn’t want to be here anymore.

She said it would be fine. When he stopped fighting, she praised him. Her voice was sweet, soothing to him.

It told him that it loved him.

And, while he trusted nothing in this place, he didn’t mind hearing that again and again.

Chapter Nineteen

The moment Luke felt Parker’s control slip, he tore after him and Jack.

His mind could barely begin to work through the fuckery of it all. He’d spent the past four months living with Jack, and the past month with Parker. He’d lived next to them, and he’d felt something was wrong, but he had no way of guessing it would be messed up to this degree.

He knew something was up when neither Parker nor Jack engaged after they landed at the compound. While Luke, Seth, and Blue exited right after Nick, prepared to help him get Kitty out of there, Jack and Parker had slunk away, behind the aircraft and away from the fighting.

Luke had been too busy to follow.

Still, he’d never expected something like this.

He should have, though. Parker’s rhetoric had become more and more fanatical as the days had gone by. Now he had Fields’s research. While Luke didn’t know exactly what he had planned, it wasn’t good. He was certain of that.

In the front of the building, Parker walked through the wreckage of the earlier battle. Men were still unconscious nearby, while medics and other responders helped others. Yet as Parker walked past everyone, they looked away. As if he’d told them he was invisible, or maybe that they weren’t permitted to look at him.

After what he’d witnessed—Kitty forcing a contingency of guards to assassinate their leader—Luke didn’t doubt that Parker could make others do whatever he wanted.

Jack trailed after Parker, carrying the suitcase he’d stolen like some deranged bellhop with Parker’s luggage.

“Parker,” Luke called. When neither of them stopped, he growled. Then, with a thought, he pulled the suitcase out of Jack’s hands, sending it winging into his arms.

The men he’d lived with in paradise turned to face him.

Parker lifted an eyebrow. “Mr. Kincaid. Please return that.”

“It’s over, Parker. This isn’t the place for you.”

“I disagree. This is exactly where I need to be.” Parker stepped toward him, his gaze calculating. “I know you have your doubts. I have heard how you feel about this transition we’ve made. A travesty. Abnormal. But this isn’t something you can fight. If you join us, we can understand what our place is in this new world. Together.”

Luke shook his head. “Thanks. I don’t think so.”

He threw the two men at each other, crashing them together. They fell to the ground, shaking their heads. Luke used their disorientation to destroy the locking mechanism on the suitcase with a mental rip. It popped open. As Parker and Jack staggered to their feet, Luke threw the contents of the case on the ground. With delicious satisfaction, he crushed dozens of vials of Solvimine crushed under the heel of his boot, splashing it onto the ground.

But before he could be certain he’d destroyed it all, something hit him with the force of a Mack truck. The blow left his ears ringing and sent the suitcase flying out of his arms.

It wasn’t a truck. It was Jack. The punch he threw sent Luke sailing backward along the helicopter pad.

His ears still ringing, he shook his head, trying to clear his vision. He needed to see if he had any chance of stopping him.

A kick landed on his side, stealing his breath. He closed his eyes, gasping, fighting through the pain, fighting to stand. Damn it, he needed to see.

He braced himself for the next attack, but there wasn’t one. Rolling to his feet, he coughed and staggered.

In front of him, Jack rifled through the destroyed suitcase on the ground. He pulled a flash drive from the mess of it and rejoined Parker, but not before he waved the drive at Luke with a mocking salute. Then, he placed the drive in Parker’s hand.

Behind them, the Black Hawk’s propellers accelerated. Luke started toward them, to follow them. He only made it a couple of steps before he was paralyzed.

“There was no way to stop this,” Parker shouted over the whir of the propellers. “Pandora’s box is open, Mr. Kincaid. The information is on these drives, on Fields’s computers, and now in the hands of the military.” He tapped the drive in his hand. “If you think there’s a way to contain that, you are more naive than I believed.”

He followed Jack into the side of one of the Black Hawks they’d arrived in. His voice echoed through Luke’s head.

A shame we couldn’t agree on this. Perhaps we’ll see each other again.

Luke fought against the invisible vise that held him, but he couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t move, couldn’t devise a logical counterattack. Every time he gathered his twisting brain to fight back, his thoughts scrambled again.

Good-bye, Mr. Kincaid
. In the helicopter in front of him, so close yet so far out of Luke’s reach, Parker offered him a solemn wave.

Luke was forced to watch the helicopter retreat, until the aircraft was too far away for him to see.

His faculties returned to him in a rush.

He stumbled to his knees. Flopping to his butt, he sat amidst what remained of the huge stash of Solvimine. It was splashed against the gravel along with broken glass vials and stoppers. He’d destroyed most of the drug. But when he sifted through the debris, cutting himself on the shards, he couldn’t find any other evidence of Fields’s research.

He stared after Parker and Jack. It was gone with them now.

Around him, the scene had stabilized. The last of Fields’s men were being contained, rounded up. He watched as four armed men escorted Jeremy, Nick’s old roommate, into a waiting helicopter.

They’d won this round. But while he’d once hoped they could stop the drug, destroy it and reverse the damage that had started months ago in his miniscule hometown in Colorado, now he realized that was impossible.

Parker was right. Things couldn’t be unlearned or undone. Fields had messed with things he shouldn’t have messed with, started a chain reaction that Luke was a part of now.

The Army was here, at Fields’s compound. Between what they found here, and the information Luke had already given them, it would only be a matter of time before the drug was fully understood. That much was inevitable now.

Parker was wrong about one thing.

If he thought he could start a revolution without anyone standing in his way, he was mistaken.

…

Something tickled Kitty’s nose.

Her eyelids were heavy, and the pillow under her cheek was soft. She rubbed against it. Her back hurt. As she stretched, she noticed more aches—her shoulder, her hip. Her right leg was asleep, too. She groaned, moving again, trying to ease the stiffness.

Didn’t work. Her eyes opened. The hospital room around her was darkened. Not dark, because hospitals were never completely dark. But dimmed. The window next to her framed a night sky.

That’s right. The hospital. She’d refused to leave Nick’s side.

She must have fallen asleep, though. After only managing a few hours of rest in a chair over the past two days, that didn’t surprise her.

She rubbed her eyes and met Nick’s amused grin. She sat up straighter. “You’re awake.”

He laughed. “Yes, Florence Nightingale. Awake.”

That smile…it sucked the air out of her chest. For twenty-four hours, she’d watched him struggle for his life. But he was alive. Awake. She jumped forward, onto the hospital bed and into his embrace.

He caught her against him with one arm. “Oomph, babe. Take it easy. I feel like I’ve been shot.”

“Sorry,” she added, scurrying back.

He growled. “I said be careful, not get off.”

She chuckled and moved back into his arms. This time, she sat next to him on the bed, being careful of his leg. He folded her against him.

“How long have I been out?” He grumbled his question against her cheek.

“Two days.” Two of the longest days of her life. “The bullet nicked your femoral artery. You lost a lot of blood.” She squeezed his hand. “The medics arrived right after that. Thank God. Or…” She left the rest unspoken because she couldn’t put into words yet how terrified she’d been, watching the blood pulse out of him.

He squeezed her fingers back. “I’m so sorry.” He didn’t continue out loud but went on in his head.
I’m sorry she had to go through this, had to worry about me. I should be the one watching over her, but once again here she was, watching over me.

What if they’d shot her? What if it was her in this bed instead of me?
His fingers flexed on her back.

“They didn’t. You’re here,” she whispered. “You’re here because I couldn’t hold them. You’re here because I made a decision to go after Fields, which almost got you killed.” She shook her head. “I only wanted to stop him. To save others.”

She’d made some stupid decisions in her life, especially since her parents died, but she couldn’t think of one she regretted more. Fields was gone, but the cost had almost been too great.

“You promised.” He scowled down at her.

“What?”

“You promised me, when I taught you how to fight, that you wouldn’t take chances with yourself.”

She shook her head. “You’re the one who almost got killed. I couldn’t hold them all.”

“And I couldn’t stop the second volley of gunshots.”

“You did a great job. It was me…”

“Stop.” He pulled her against him. “You were right to go after Fields. Someone like that, with no regard for human life… He killed people. A lot of people. I don’t believe for a minute that he was done.”

He was right, of course. She’d listened to Fields for months, knew more about him than any of them. He’d fed on glory. He wouldn’t have been satisfied to retire. He’d wanted fame, recognition. He hadn’t understood why he hadn’t gotten it.

“I have a hard time letting others take the lead.” He sighed. “In Iraq, a couple years ago, I stood by while an officer made a bad decision, a choice that ended with two people losing their lives.” A fiery explosion in the desert laced his memory, full of smoke and heat and fear. “I’m the oldest in my family—everyone looks to me. I’d known that the officer could hurt someone. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t. I regret that.”

She didn’t know what to say, so she ran her hand along his arm, hoping it soothed him.

“After that, I decided to always speak up. Always voice my doubts.” His lips quirked. “But maybe sometimes I walk the line between voicing doubts and being an overbearing jerk.”

“You aren’t a jerk.” She smiled. “You’re confident. It’s different.”

“But I’m not always right. My way isn’t the only way.” He hugged her to his side. “Maybe that’s why you sent me away instead of taking me with you.” He flinched, mentally.
Because maybe she didn’t think I’d listen to her. Maybe she didn’t think I’d hear her out. Maybe I’m not the guy she thinks she can depend on.

Maybe that’s why she doesn’t love me.

Kitty scooted back to look into his eyes. He didn’t look away. Instead, he gazed at her with resignation. As if her not loving him was something he knew, accepted.

To her, that was completely unacceptable.

“You have everything wrong.” She took his face in her hands. “You. You are the most loveable person I’ve ever met. I didn’t leave you behind because of you. I left you there because of me.”

“You?” His brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“You see me as this strong, brave person. Even when I feel the weakest, when people’s thoughts and feelings seem like they’re going to break me. The way you see me, that girl…” She shook her head. “I want to be that girl. I want to be brave and strong.” She dropped her hands. “I know you wanted me to be safe, but I didn’t want to leave Fields. We both knew that the Army might not have gotten to the compound in time. I sent you back because I knew you would make them come for me. I thought I could stop him. I had to try.” She kissed his hand. “You made me realize I was better than I thought I was. You make me want to be that person.”

She leaned forward and pressed her mouth against his. She made sure to hold herself away from him, on her hands and knees, so she didn’t hurt his leg. The slow rub of his lips against hers made her stomach warm, and tingles lifted goose bumps on her arms. He raised his hand, the one not attached to the IV, and ran his fingers along her cheek.

When they pulled apart, his brown eyes were soft, full of emotion. “I know who you are, Kitty. I love you.”

Her heart full, she smiled back. “I love you, too.”

Happiness tinged his thoughts as their mouths touched again, and this time the kiss was slow and sweet. Their tongues tangled together, and she poured herself into that kiss. Her toes curled, her legs weakened, and the only thing keeping her from falling into him, from letting herself melt against him, was that she didn’t want to hurt him.

When they pulled back, they were both breathing heavy. He scowled. “Damn leg.” He lifted the hand still adorned with an IV needle and heart rate monitor. “And this. Wires and machines. Ruining my game.”

She giggled. She didn’t know if she’d ever giggled in her life. But in the face of his disgruntled frustration—over not being able to be with her properly—she felt more feminine and powerful than ever.

She snuggled next to him. “You need to get some rest. Because you need to get out of here soon. Hospitals don’t exactly scream romance.”

He grunted, but his mind continued to roll through the things he wanted to do to her. Visions of their night in the crummy hotel filled his memories. He played the events over and over, slowly, until she gasped, panting, as aroused by his thoughts as she was by her own.

“You have to stop,” she whispered. “You’re killing me.”

He chuckled, the rumble against her breast doing nothing to stop the fire burning through her.

“Fine,” he sighed. “Damn gunshot.” He sobered though, his thoughts going to the compound, to Fields. “Tell me what happened.”

“Nick…” She didn’t want to get into this. He was still recovering. He needed to rest. “I should let you get some sleep. The doctors said you would be tired… You lost a lot of blood.”

More, she didn’t want to talk about it yet. It was still raw, what she’d done. She wasn’t ready to face him if he didn’t understand. Or worse, if he thought she’d done the wrong thing.

“Tell me what happened,” he said, this time more insistent. His arm had become a vise around her.