How Beauty Saved the Beast (Tales of the Underlight) (14 page)

Ashley lowered her voice. “I’ coicather. m not doing anything wrong. I’m trying to help. Everyone will be happier in the long run if you don’t mention you saw me and head on home, all right?” She appeared earnest. For a lawyer, Ashley seemed awfully innocent, with the kind of wide-eyed hopefulness that was hard to fake.

“Who are you helping?” Jolie asked.

“Wesley. Now please, leave before somebody finds you.”

“You still haven’t told me what you took.”

“That’s because you don’t need to know.”

Jolie snatched Ashley’s Coach bag off her shoulder. The girl was so shocked she didn’t put up a fight, just yelled “Hey!”

Jolie shook her head and opened the clasp. “And I thought
I
lived outside reality. What sort of windowless tower do you exist in? Can you even see the real world from there?”

“That’s mine.” Ashley reached for her purse, her voice growling as if Jolie had struck a nerve.

Jolie ignored her and extracted a vial. It took her a moment to realize what Ashley had done. Then she felt like she’d been punched. “Hauk’s sedative?” Jolie shook it at her as her anger built. “You stole the special sedative LaRoche designed for Hauk? Why would you do that?” Other than to
kidnap
him
? Surely Ashley wouldn’t…

Jolie looked around the office again as Ashley straightened herself up as tall as she could.

“I thought you worked for the DA’s office,” Jolie said. “You came to somebody else’s office to deliver this.”

“Hand back the sedative and take a seat,” Ashley said, her voice surprisingly firm.

Jolie dropped the purse but clung to the vial. “You work for them. Ananke. You’re one of them.” She backed toward the window as the emotions blanked from Ashley face. “How could you do this to Hauk? He loved you. He might still—”

The door cracked open and a man poked his head in. “Everything okay in here?”

Ashley motioned for him to come in, her expression still eerily devoid of sentiment.

Unsure of anything anymore, Jolie ran for the window. She managed to get a leg over the sill before a big hand grabbed her from behind. She tried to wrench away but was hauled back in and tossed onto a chair.

Ashley held out her hand. “The sedative, please.”

“No.”

The guard pried the vial from her hands.

“And your cell phone,” Ashley added.

Jolie handed that over before the guard took the opportunity for an overly enthusiastic pat-down. She met Ashley’s gaze, hoping for some understanding or anger, anything other than the all-business mode she’d gone into. Sure, she hadn’t liked Hauk’s ex, but she hadn’t suspected this kind of treachery. It didn’t make sense. “What do they have on you? We can help. You don’t have to do this.” She glanced at the guard for a reaction, but like the most dim-witted of the Hands of Atropos, he appeared content to stand like a robot until called upon.

Ashley put a hand on her hip, finally showing frustration. “They don’t have anything on me, Miss
Benoit
. I joined Ananke while I was at Yale. An accomplishment I’m sure you could’ve had with far less effort if you’d cared about more than having a good cavihile Itime.”

“What, like world domination? Yes. I have fun. I also care about things, like stopping the crazy goddess-worshipping cult you joined from taking over the world.”

The crazy thing was, Ashley didn’t morph into some cackling super-villain who’d pulled one over on The Underlight. She stayed the same old sanctimonious brat as she waggled a finger and started a fucking lecture. “It’s not a goddess-worshipping cult. I don’t know what they’ve brainwashed you into thinking, but you—The Underlight—
you
are the bad guys. You steal things. You screw up court cases, forge documents… The Cincinnati branch sent a virus into the power company, turning off electricity in February. Your organization is just this side of a terrorist network. But I guess that’s more fun than doing actual work. You’re not good for Wesley. He needs somebody stable. If you hurt him—”

Jolie laughed. “Says the woman helping Ananke kidnap him? Are you kidding me?”

Ashley stepped forward, grimacing. “I don’t owe you this explanation, but on the slim chance you actually do care about him, I’ll tell you. Yes, I’m helping Ananke catch him.
To
help
him
.”

“They’re not going to help him. They hate Hauk.”

“I have no idea if you believe that or not, but regardless, you’re wrong.
We
can fix his skin and give him a prosthetic that doesn’t look like it’s made from clockwork scraps.”

“What’s wrong with clockwork scraps? Besides, they’ve offered him that already. He turned them down.”

Ashley smiled as if she were speaking the clincher. “We can also fix his rages.”

Jolie stopped. Catrina had a theory that the rages somehow stopped the tattoo from working. If she was right, and Atropos “fixed” his rages… “They’re trying to activate his tattoo.”

Ashley tilted her head to the side. “What are you talking about?”

She didn’t know. Jolie looked from the bruiser on her left to Ashley. It was possible the girl believed everything she was saying and really did want what was best for Hauk. She seemed plenty naïve enough to buy Ananke’s bullshit. If that was true, all Jolie had to do was convince Ashley that she was hurting Hauk and they could turn this around. She didn’t know how commanding Atropos worked, but if the guard recognized Ashley’s authority as a member of Ananke, he may not even try to stop them from leaving. This could be easy. If she just got Ashley to see reality. “The tattoos of Atropos. They marked Hauk with one.”

“Hauk has many tattoos. What’s important about that one?” She was actually listening.

“That’s what locks in the mind control.”

Ashley laughed. “Hypnotic tattoos? You don’t actually believe that, do you?”

Shit
. How did this stupid woman not know about the tattoos or the goddess or, hell,
what
the
organization
was
actually
doing
? “I’ve seen it. They use magic to turn people into mind slaves. This guy. Right here. Look at his wrist.” She pointed at the guard.

“Magic. Right. And then we slay the dragon and rescue the princess from the evil witch who locked her in a tower.” She scowled. “You should try listening to your father instead o cheras bf your anarchists. He deals in facts.” She took the vial from the guard. “Keep her here for an hour then let her go. If you hurt her, I’ll give your name and home address to her father, got it?”

The guard nodded.

Jolie sank back into the chair. “Fuck.”

Ashley raised an eyebrow. “You kiss your momma with that mouth?” On that line, she headed for the exit.

“Mother isn’t really the kissing type.”

Ashley stopped in the doorframe and turned around, anger sparking from her. “You know, Hauk has so much affection for you, and I’d really hoped you’d earned it. But you just keep rolling with the cliché, don’t you. Poor little rich girl didn’t get enough love, so now you strip off your clothes and hang out with criminals. Anything to piss off Daddy and Mommy, huh?”

Jolie clenched her jaw as Ashley’s words cut through her. They weren’t true. They might’ve been true once, but not anymore. Jolie was more than that. The Underlight had given her a real purpose. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I saw your type all the time in college—rich kids who came from everything, didn’t have to work a day in their lives, bored and searching for the next new thrill. But Hauk’s been through too much to be run over by somebody who’ll toss him out when the wind changes directions.”

“I won’t do that.” So yeah, her longest relationship was less than a year, but that didn’t mean it would always be that way. Jolie had it in her to go the distance with the right guy. She wasn’t some rich, selfish party girl with nothing else to show for herself.

Was she?

Ashley’s eyes dropped some of their hardness until she was almost pleading. “I know you’ll do what you please. You people always do. But if you can find it in your heart to leave him alone—”

Jolie’s voice dropped to a deadly growl. “Get out before I hit you, you bitch.”

Ashley straightened up as if affronted. “Fine.” She turned and strode out the door.

Jolie yelled after her, “You are a horrible, frigid person and I can’t believe Hauk ever had sex with you!”

Ashley yelped like a strangled puppy.

Offended, huh? Jolie hoped that straightened her uptight spine ’til it snapped. She tried to stand up, but the bruiser got in her way.

Dead end. She yelled down the hallway, “Hauk is never going to forgive you for this! You are handing him over and they are going to rape his mind!”

No response.

She had to get out of here and warn him. She tensed to stand.

“Sit,” the guard said, this time with a heavy hand on her shoulder.

She sat. She tried yelling one more time, not even su
re Ashley could hear anymore. “They’ve been trying to get their hands on him since he got back to the States. And you are handing him over.
You
fucking
moron
!” She put her head in her hands and screamed.

Then froze. No, not “since he got back.” They had a video of Hauk in Afghanistan. Ananke had been following him for longer than anyone realized.

She knew what to look for on the video.

But first she had a Hand of Atropos to cof ">S deal with.

Chapter Eleven

Seven friends dead, all by his hands. Hauk lay back on his bed, studying his fingers and the scars etched across his palms, the ones he’d worked so hard to get supple and functioning again. What else had his hands done that he didn’t know about?

He could’ve been on a damn murder spree here in Austin. He could’ve—

Somebody knocked.

“Who is it?” If it was fuckin’ Brayden again with another fuckin’ platitude…

“It’s Ashley. Can I come in?”

Killing
friends
. He closed his eyes and banished the image. That wasn’t him; it was the thing using his body. He rolled up to sitting and stuck his feet on the floor. He cleared his throat and forced his voice to sound calm. “Of course, Ash.”

Jolie was the person he really wanted to see. Her smile calmed him like nothing else. It was weird she hadn’t come by to talk after their argument last night. Unless he’d pissed her off so badly she was staying away. But Brayden hadn’t thought she was pissed. Had she heard about the video and changed her mind?

Ashley came in, and Hauk took a deep breath. This morning she had a more casual look than last night, reminding him of the girl he used to climb trees with. She smiled, but there was something nervous in it. Probably from being in a new place. Ash always liked to have things a certain way, and Austin seemed to have taken her by surprise.

She patted his knee. “I was hoping we could go on that tour of Austin?”

Gods, that sounded like effort. He really wanted to lie back down, maybe with a drink, and wait for Jolie to show up. Which could be sometime next never.

No
self
-
pity
.
Get
out
of
bed
.
Keep
moving
. Hauk stood up and put on the best smile he could muster. “Sounds great. Let’s get out of here.”

* * *

Decide
to
win
. Jolie watched the guard standing immobile before her with his arms crossed. He was a bruiser, not as big as Hauk, but still a big guy. And despite Ashley’s threat, she had a feeling he wouldn’t lose too much sleep over knocking her around.

I’m
smarter
and
I’m
faster
than
him
.
I
can
win
.

Every time she tried to stand he pushed her back down. There was no way she could win from her position. But if she couldn’t go forward out of the chair…

She tucked her knees up into the fetal position, like she was afraid, and gave a big sigh of defeat.

The guard relaxed. Idiot.

Ananke wanted to make Hauk just like him.

Breathing through her building anger, she watched from under her lashes until his gaze wandered to the door. Tucking her head, she threw herself backward. The chair slammed to the ground, and she rolled up to standi fwitch And deng.

The guard turned back to her and frowned, more like he was annoyed than threatened. She didn’t exactly blame him. “Aw, you stood up. Whatcha going to do now, Red? Like it or not, we got another forty-five minutes together.” He clapped his hands, rubbed them eagerly and gave her a two-fingered “have at me.”

He had the same tattoo as Hauk on his forearm, a capital alpha with scissors dangling off the base. Most Atropos chose their life in exchange for a fat paycheck, but those assholes in Ananke had given Hauk one without his consent. It didn’t work. She needed to make sure it stayed that way. The idea of Hauk as one of their brainless soldiers made the bile rise her in throat and rage burn. They may want to use him, but she wanted him the way he was—scars and all—more than the whole lot of them put together.

If she ran to the window while the guard was up, she’d get caught. She had to get him on the ground to give her those precious extra seconds. Thank God Hauk had finally taught her a more interesting move than a block or jab.

She faked a punch. The guard went for it and grabbed her hand. She spun into him and stabbed her foot on the floor between his legs.

She was about to find out if Hauk told the truth when he said he didn’t go easy on her.

The guard tried to let her hand go to grab her elsewhere, but she snagged his sleeve and held on.

She dropped into a squat, and his body dragged onto her back. Yanking his sleeve, she pushed back up. His weight leveraged him over her and he crashed into the chair. Without pausing to look, she ran for the window and hurtled herself onto the roof.

As she shimmied down the porch, the guy appeared at the window. She dropped to the ground. He dashed for the door of the room. She had a few seconds’ lead, but that should be enough to…

The tires to Hauk’s bike were slashed. He was going to kill her. She had no ride, no phone, no purse. And a Hand of Atropos on her tail.

Good thing she was just a few blocks from Guadalupe, a populated thoroughfare. From there she could find a way to get to The Underlight and warn Hauk.

If she wasn’t too late already.

She sprinted toward Congress, thoughts of Hauk driving her to move faster than she ever had before.

* * *

Some days, maybe, getting out of bed actually
was
a bad idea.

Hauk halfheartedly rattled the chain on his right arm as his groggy mind tried to make sense of where he was. Shirtless and shoeless, bound hand and foot to a table. That much he picked up immediately. He shook his head to clear it and looked around the room. He closed his eyes again. Tried to rub them, but the cold chains wouldn’t let his hands stretch that far. He opened his eyes again anyway to examine his prison.

If a mad scientist and an evil wizard had a love child, this would be his lab. A desk of pristine medical equipment was next to his table, and alchemical signs were chiseled into the floor. Shelves contained chemicals, IV bags and an assortment of enough animal bits to stock a hoodoo shop.

Ashley was nowhere to be seen. They’d been ambushed at the park. Atropos had gotten Ashley at gunpoint, so Hauk had surrendered. The last thing he remembered before they knocked him out was her yelling not to hurt him.

Poor Ash. Ananke wasn’t cautious wit k ca/span>h human life, but luckily they weren’t intentionally wasteful of it, either. They liked to think of themselves as the good guys. When he surrendered, they had what they wanted. There was a reasonable chance they’d let her go.

He hoped so, anyway.

Now he just had to figure out how to get out of here. He tugged on the chains again, testing the strength of their attachment. Firm.

The door opened. In walked a dumpy guy whose chalky skin said he spent way too much time indoors. At Hauk’s scowl he lifted an eyebrow. “Awake, I see. Sooner than we expected.” He had an oddly cheerful voice for the creepy surroundings. “But then, you seem to have all kinds of tricks we don’t expect, don’t you, Mr. Haukon.”

He smiled as he snapped on gloves, and Hauk had the unpleasant feeling the man could keep his happy-go-lucky demeanor as he cut somebody apart.

“You are, of course, hoping I’ll tell you what we plan to do with you. The anticipation is likely killing you. I will put your mind at ease.”

Hauk managed to lean up on his elbows, giving him less a feeling of prone exposure. “Yeah, I’m sure putting my mind at ease is your top priority.”

The man picked up a notebook and jotted down notes. “Such hostility. And after we’ve extended so many invitations. But this time, I think you’ll like what I’m offering.”

“Then unchain me and let me say yes all polite-like.”

He crinkled his brow. “I’ve been known to make errors when human psychology is involved in the equation.” Of course he had. The guy was likely a psychopath. “You are here so we can study your blackouts. We’d like to understand them and possibly remove them. You’d like that, wouldn’t you? It must be hell to lose so many hours of your life to something out of your control.” He looked almost sympathetic as he said it.

On the bright side, that plan wasn’t the worst news Hauk had had all day. “Too bad I don’t trust you people to remove them without tinkering around with my brain in other ways, too.”

“Hm. Shall we get started? I need to trigger a rage state. Do you know how to begin one? Is it a choice on your part?”

Hauk lay back down and put his hands behind his head in a casual pose. It might’ve worked better if he could interlace his fingers, but he did the best he could under the chained circumstances.

“Well then, the only way we’ve seen them triggered is in a fight.” The man poked his head out the doorway, said, “We’ll need you,” and came back to Hauk. “Putting you in a fight doesn’t work for my purposes, though. I need to be able to monitor you more closely than that.”

A man carrying a black bag walked into the room.

The doctor continued. “Our best guess is the blackouts are triggered in response to pain.”

The bag opened to reveal an assortment of knives.

Hauk muttered a curse.

“Are you certain you wouldn’t like to cooperate?” the psycho doctor asked.

“Could you start on the right? We could even the scarring up a bit. The lack of symmetry wreaks havoc on photo shoots.”

Torture-man frowned as he traipsed to Hauk’s left.

Hauk sighed. “So unaccommodating.” This was going to suck, but at least he’d gotten the g k go/fouy on the side with fewer nerve endings.

The man raised the first knife. Hauk stifled a shudder as memories of the hospital, of skin-flaying torture in the name of saving him, clenched his gut.

Recovering from burns sucked worse than getting them. He’d endured that. He would endure this, too.

But then what were they going to do with him?

* * *

Two months of carefully crafted social interactions designed to get The Underlight on her side, and Jolie threw it all away. Hauk’s shirt clung to her with perspiration and her hair had frizzed into a disaster. She’d taken the shoes off her swollen feet halfway back and her legs were Jell-O from the constant impact of the pavement as she ran.

She’d made it back as fast as she could with no wallet and no wheels. For once she didn’t give a crap about appearances. Lungs screaming for air, she pushed her exhausted ass up onto a table in the crowded common room and wheezed out, “Where’s Hauk?”

Everyone in the room turned to face her with giggles and a few strange looks before one of the knitters said, “He left with his blond friend about an hour ago.”

The words felt like a blow. That bitch already had him. Jolie had run as fast as she could, and it hadn’t been fast enough. “Shit!” She dropped to a squat down on the table. She had to go find him. He was probably already at Ananke’s headquarters.

She had to rescue him from the freaking lion’s den. “Shit.” She didn’t even know if she remembered how to get to the hidden retreat nearly an hour west of town. It wasn’t like she could do an internet search on “Temple of Ananke” for directions.

“What’s wrong?” Dr. Echelson said. She looked down and realized she was nearly standing in her professor’s lunch.

Great. Then again, grades, hell, even graduation, didn’t matter right now. Just Hauk. “She’s one of them. Ashley. She’s Ananke.”

Dr. E frowned as he put down his fork. At least he was taking her seriously. “No. She came as a transfer from the Cincinnati chapter. She knew the right people. Things she couldn’t know unless she was there.”

Jolie licked her lips. She needed to convince somebody. Hopefully she could do a better job with Dr. E than she had with Ashley. Dropping all pretense, all savvy, all everything but her terror for Hauk and determination to see him safe, she caught his gaze and willed him to believe her. “I don’t know how she did it, but she’s one of them. They sent her here to get Hauk. She stole LaRoche’s sedative this morning.”

His face blanched as he hopped to standing. Finally somebody believed her. “Are you going for him?” he asked.

She didn’t know how, but she nodded.

Her professor stepped up onto the bench and announced in a firm voice, “Citizens of The Underlight. Hauk has been taken. Jolie will lead the rescue effort into Ananke’s temple.”

Food, games, instruments, everything was forgotten as people gathered around. The crowd turned to her with assessing eyes, a mixture of mistrust and respect in their faces. One person said, “Catrina and I can draw up plans of almost the whole base.”

With that, the floodgates opened. “Tally has equipment. I’ll get her.”

“Is your car still at the club? I can get it.”

“You’ll need better clothes. Give me five minutes.”

Hope renewed Jolie’s strength as everyone banded together to help. They could do this. They had to. For Hauk.