Gaming for Keeps (Entangled Ever After) (8 page)

“Pen, I need your help. Shit’s about to go bad very quickly.”

Her forehead scrunched as she frowned at him. What the hell was a Takamaki? “What are you talking about?”

“Marissa didn’t get back from the office in time. It’s just us, and I need you to trust me. Can you do that?”

“Trust you about what? Cal…it’s a
movie
.”

His fingers bit into her arms, ten points of pain that made her heart start to thud violently. “No. It’s not. I’m sorry I can’t tell you more, but the doors behind us. I need you to make sure they get opened.”

The room disappeared, narrowing down to Cal and the door behind him—and the two men in uniforms and gas masks blocking the exit. “You’re talking like a crazy person, and you’re
hurting
me.” She squirmed in his grip. As ridiculous as it sounded, since she’d just met him yesterday, she said, “I feel like I don’t even know you right now.”

He let go of her arms—one hand moved to cup her face as the other dove for something inside his duster—and shook his head. “You’ve always known me. If nothing else I’ve said this weekend means anything, know that Lohonas has
always
kept you safe. I’m not stopping now.”

His lips crushed against her, the kiss searing straight to her soul.

Chapter Nine

N
ot Like the Movies

L
ohonas.

Han Solo. Lohonas. Sure, the anagram fit, but…it couldn’t be true, no matter how much he might look and act the part. If he
were
Lohonas, he would have told her. Hell, he was supposed to be looking for her. After all, that’s how she’d met Kent and wound up kneeing him in the groin. He’d found her and told her right up front that he was Lohonas. Hadn’t he?

In a split second she replayed that meeting. She wanted to slap herself.
Do you play
Heroes of Fallen Gods
?
A nice vague line in a con where the new expansion was unveiling. Kent had been trolling for girls here for the competition, and she’d fallen for it, even giving him a name to use.

But with Cal it all fit. From him calling her “Darling” to the way they talked to each other to…everything. From the first time she saw him in the elevator, he’d brought Lohonas to mind. It was as if some god had plucked him from her brain and made him real. But…could it be real?

The echo of her thoughts was still ringing in Pen’s head when Cal stood, yanked a short rod from inside his coat, and snapped his wrist. The metal tube expanded into a dull black baton that seemed to absorb the lights in the room with the way they dimmed.

She hadn’t even stood up when he swung at the men guarding the door. The first went down in seconds, but the second grappled with Cal as more men raced from the front of the room. People didn’t leave their seats, as if they thought it was all part of the show. An image enhanced by the fact that no one was yelling for help. Not even the people in charge.

The other men would be on Cal in seconds, and then they’d block the doors again. Pen’s blood ran cold. She was a computer geek, a gamer, a book nerd. Quiet. Shy, even. She didn’t get involved in things. Ever.

She didn’t even know what it was he’d asked her to get involved in.

But this wasn’t just Cal. It was Lohonas—she believed him, she had to. He was the guy who always had her back in-game. The one who saved her from death time and time again. Who’d even rescued her from heartache a time or two.

She didn’t know why he wanted those doors open, only that he’d made it sound like the most important thing in the world. Her gaze darted from the door to the approaching men and back again.

She didn’t take time to think; she just ran.

Her palms slammed against the bar, but it jerked to a stop before opening. A quick glance down displayed a strange black lock wrapped around the bars, holding them closed. It had to have a key, but there wasn’t time to look for one. The other guards—she couldn’t think of them as anything else now—were almost there.

Cal slammed the one attached to his back against the wall with bone-crushing force. But even if he finished that one off, he couldn’t help her. He was about to have a couple dozen other things to worry about. As the guard’s body crumpled, Cal tore something from the man’s belt. A gun.

Holy crap, the guards were armed. Any hope this was just some weird delusion on his part shattered. Cal started firing at the men approaching, but that just meant they fired back. Bullets whizzed by, thunking into the walls in a spray of plaster.

Now
people started screaming. Pen dove for the other fallen guard and yanked his weapon free. Bracing herself, she took aim at the lock on the door, closed her eyes, and squeezed the trigger.

Nothing happened.

Frantic, she squeezed again. Arms wrapped around her from behind, lifting her from the floor.
No!
Her gaze shifted toward Cal, but a sight beyond him set her heart racing. A hazy cloud filled the air on the other side of the room, and those closest to it were falling, clutching and clawing at their faces.

Oh God. No. Hell no.

She struggled, her heel kicking backward and catching a moderately effective blow to her captor’s groin. His grip loosened enough that her feet hit the floor. Tearing away from him, she raced toward the doors again, hunting over the surface of the gun. Safety. There had to be a safety. Just as she reached the door, the guard grabbed her again.

There was a tiny switch near the gun’s hammer, and she flipped it. A red dot appeared. Red meant danger, right? Sending out a little prayer, she aimed and squeezed the trigger once more.

The weapon bucked in her hands, but the lock over the bars cracked, a jagged line slicing through the darkness. As the guard dragged her backward, she shoved against him, picking up her feet and slamming them into the bar on the door. The lock burst free, and the door swung open a couple inches. Not enough. It couldn’t possibly be enough unless someone was right there waiting for it to be unlocked.

Before she could see if anyone noticed the door, her captor threw her to the ground and pinned her with his knees. Her gun spun away on the floor, kicked farther by the panicked crowd. There was another gun, though—this one pointed right at her head.

…

It was like Quantico all over again. Al
l the training with Marron…none of it mattered. Cal was right back in a world of madness and violence and blood.

The minute Cal had a gun in his hand, everything grayed out except his targets. He’d been okay when it was just the baton, but he couldn’t take on this many people hand to hand…and the Sig Sauer had been lying
right there
. It slid into his grip like it was made to fit there. Safety off. Fire. Fire again. And again.

His body moved, seemingly separate from his mind, the baton merely an extension of his other arm.
Shoot with the right, swing with the left. Kick those who come too close
.

Avoid the gray. The gray is civilians.

But there. A blaze of red near the front, a wolf moved amidst the sheep. Takamaki.

Someone grabbed Cal’s shoulder and he spun, the Sig leveled, his finger already tightening on the trigger when he recognized Trevor’s face in the gray. The others were here.

A tiny thread of calm settled over him, but still he wanted to attack. To destroy his targets. To make the rage that pounded in his brain and blood dissipate.

Trevor tilted his head toward a cloud drifting through the room. “You need a mask, dumbass.”

Gas. And Takamaki in the middle of it. Cal snarled and jerked away, blood-rage blinding him to everything except his target. Ducking, he snatched a mask from one of the fallen and turned, ready to put it on and dive into the mob after the cause of all this.

Then a shaky voice reached him through the din. “Please. Please don’t.”

He froze with the mask halfway to his face. The voice shattered his vision for a moment—faint colors leeching back into his world. Nothing had ever broken through before, not like this.

He’d been yanked from field training in the academy because of his rage issues, because something in his mind snapped and turned him into a killer when violence started. In all his work with Marron, the best they’d managed was to give him more conscious thought in labeling targets. When he fought, though, it was still all targets and gray sheep in his brain.

Until now. Until her.

He twisted toward Pen’s voice. Behind where the TRAIT team had come in, behind the fighting, a lone guard had her pinned to the floor.

She wasn’t gray. Unlike everyone else in the room, he saw her clearly—the way she fought even as she pleaded with the man.

A man who blazed blood red.

Pen had gotten the door open. Just like in-game, she had his back. He sure as hell wasn’t going to let these cretins kill her. Cal raised the Sig and squeezed the trigger. It clicked on an empty chamber. He tossed it aside; it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but his girl. And his target.

With a roar, he raced forward, leaping at the guard. Together, the men flew off Penelope, their bodies skidding across the carpet. When the target tried to swing his gun toward Cal, he leapt up and kicked it away. This wouldn’t end with a bullet—not if he had anything to say about it. The man had attacked
Pen
, which was inexcusable. As the guard moved toward him, ducking to pull a blade from his boot, Cal lunged. He tore the man’s gas mask away and rolled to grab the baton he’d dropped when he hit the ground.

Snapping to his feet, he spun to avoid the blade, but it still sliced his forearm before he was able to deflect it. The target got one, but only one. Cal brought the baton down hard on the other man’s wrist, and the knife went skittering. On the upstroke, he caught the man across the nose, breaking it at the bridge. The stink of fear poured off the guard as he dove for the blade again, but Cal tackled him, pinning the target to the ground just as the bastard had done to Pen.

The guard raised an arm for protection, but Cal cracked the baton down on it, breaking the bone with a
snap
. He dropped the weapon and grabbed the man, sandwiching the target’s head between his hands. “No one hurts her,” Cal snarled. Then, without any further hesitation, he slammed the target’s head against the floor with all the fury and strength he had left. The man didn’t move again, his eyes staring blankly at the ceiling…and the haze moving toward them.

With the gas already attacking and making his movements jerky, Cal shoved away from the guard and staggered back to Pen. When he knelt by her side, he rolled the mask toward them and shoved it at her face. “Put this on.”

She sucked in a couple breaths and held it toward him. “You need it.”

He didn’t take the mask. He just stared at her. In a world of gray and red, she shone like a beacon of light. “You are so beautiful.”

“No. No, no, no…” Her brows pulled together and she strapped the mask on his face as worry shone in her eyes. “I need my Cal back. I’m not beautiful. I’m cute, remember?”

While he stared at her—at his amazing Penelope—the world started to regain its color. Her presence, her touch, chased the battle-rage away. His lips twitched into a smile and he passed the mask back to her. “Silly woman, don’t you get it yet? Cute is sexy and beautiful rolled up into one amazing package.”

Her breath hitched and she clung to him for a second before passing the mask back. Even though the fans had finally whirred to life, it would take a while for the gas to clear. “I can make it out of here now. Don’t you need to go be a hero? Kill the bad guy or something?”

Cal glanced toward the front of the room where Trevor and a few others had closed ranks around Takamaki. It was all over except the paperwork. Shoving the mask back toward Pen, Cal swept her into his arms and carried her to the doors she’d broken open earlier. “Other people can get that piece of shit. And I kind of hoped I already
was
a hero.”

Outside, in the convention proper, everyone stared at them as if unsure whether they should rush forward to see what the commotion was all about or run away. He didn’t care about them, any of them. The only person who mattered was the one whose face was covered by a heavy black gas mask, the one who reached up to trace his jaw with her fingers.

She pulled the mask away, letting it dangle in her fingers and bang against his back. “Pretty sure you’ve always been a hero. I don’t know if there’s ever been a time when you haven’t rushed in and saved me.”

There was a sad note to her voice, as if she thought somehow she’d been a damsel-in-distress in all of this. He tipped her chin up until she met his gaze. “The only reason I’ve ever had to save you is because you aren’t afraid of taking on whatever life throws at you. It doesn’t matter if it’s twice as big as you or you’re out-numbered or out-gunned. I saw it every time we fought together in the game, and that door in there never would have gotten opened if you hadn’t done it. I can’t explain things to you, not here—” He tilted his head toward the crowd of people. “But please trust me when I say that, this time, you saved me.”

“But sometime—soon—you’ll tell me everything?” She started biting at her fingernail, not stopping until he set her on her feet and pulled her hand away.

“Before tonight is over, there won’t be any more secrets. You already know enough that I think I can promise that.” And even if he couldn’t, what happened to him in the screening room meant he might be fired anyway. He didn’t think he’d killed anyone he shouldn’t, but the brush with Trevor had been too close to be sure of anything. If it had taken even a fraction of a second longer for him to recognize his fellow agent, it would have been too late. The gun would have bucked in his hand and Trevor would have been dead.

He wasn’t, but it had been a near thing—maybe too near a thing as far as Marron and the government would be concerned.

It didn’t matter. He could do something else if he had to. Once upon a time, a career as a spy was all he’d ever wanted. Now the only thing he wanted was the woman wrapped in his arms.

Pen rose on her toes and brushed a kiss over his lips, sending the familiar and wonderful sparks of electricity through him. “It doesn’t have to all be tonight. I’m kind of hoping you might stick around longer than that.”

He grabbed the gas mask and chucked it back toward the door. He’d text Josh and let him know they were in his hotel room, ready for debriefing. Considering the possibility he was already out of a job, he had no intention of sticking around for clean-up. He’d either be the hero for the work he did inside or he wouldn’t—that was for someone else to decide. But he damn well wasn’t going to play the role of good soldier right now, not on what was supposed to be his vacation. Not when he could be spending time with Pen. He swept her into his embrace again, thrilling at the way her body pressed close and her arms wound around his neck. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m here for as long as you’ll keep me.”