Strength (Mark of Nexus #1) (20 page)

“A scratch,” I echoed, shaking my head in disbelief as something warm trailed down the side of my neck. It tickled and burned, and I found myself dangerously close to the edge. “Do you hear yourself when you talk?”

He grinned, flashing perfect teeth. “Sometimes.”

Then he disappeared.

No, seriously. He disappeared.

I blinked and tried to sit up. “Co—”

“Here we go.” He reappeared with the slightest blur, unzipping a small red bag.

Was I getting delirious from blood loss or something? I felt the burn in my abs and leaned back. Nothing was making sense.

He threw the pack onto the mattress and rifled through its contents. It didn’t take him long to find whatever he was looking for.

“All right, so”—he extracted a sanitizing packet and discarded the wrapper, rubbing the wet sheet all over his hands—“I still need to figure out what to do with you. I’m getting restless.” He tore into something else, producing a small, sterile pad. “I would’ve thought…ah, never mind.” Without another word of explanation, he reached out and pressed the pad to my neck.

The sudden pressure made me flinch, but I didn’t pull away. Was he trying to stop the bleeding? It didn’t make sense, but I wasn’t going to question it. “What if Wallace doesn’t show up?”

Cole didn’t answer. His gaze had turned distant, and I knew better than to interrupt his line of thought. The last thing I needed was for him to get angry again. So, I did what any other questionably sane person would do. I lay perfectly still and waited.

A few minutes passed, and he finally pulled away, shaking his head. “He will.”

“What if he doesn’t?” I asked in a small voice. “Look. I won’t tell anyone. I swear.”

“If only it were that easy.” He discarded the mess, tossing it back into the bag before snagging something else.

“W-What is—?”

“Antiseptic,” he explained, leaning in to gently dab at my neck.

I hissed as the wipe made cold contact, barely touching the wound. “I’m serious.” I bit my lip and waited for him to stop. “We can forget this ever happened.”

“I wish I could believe that.” He threw the wipe into the pack and dug around inside. “You’re too close to the situation now. It’s too late.”

I closed my eyes, trying to digest what he’d just said. Another chill swept through my body as he applied a different kind of ointment.

“So, you’re going to kill me?” I didn’t recognize my own voice. It sounded so resigned, so vacant.

“Yes,” he replied, matching my tone. “That’s why I’m patching you up—so I can kill you.”

I blinked my eyes open, scrunching my features.
What?

He fanned my neck a few times, drying the affected area before he reached for a gauze pad. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“Can I help you decide?”

His mouth twitched as he pressed the gauze to my neck and secured it with medical tape. “Nice.”

“Didn’t hurt to try.”

He opened his mouth to reply, but froze when we both heard a loud crash from somewhere below. The entire building shook with its impact, and I heard something crack in the darkness. Seconds later, the patter of rain could be heard against the floor, like a piece of the ceiling had caved in.

My heart leapt into my throat. Was the building falling apart? Had a SWAT team blown off the doors downstairs?

Cole stood, knocking his stool back as he shifted into a readied stance. With his eyes trained on the far side of the room, the slightest hint of a smile curved his lips. He knew what was coming.

“What’s going on?” I whispered, squinting into the darkness. A lot of good my recon-thermal did. I felt exposed and powerless. It was one thing to deal with Cole’s flighty mood patterns, but now I had to deal with an outside variable?
Please be Wallace…please be Wallace...

My question fell upon deaf ears as Cole stood there, eagerly awaiting the unknown. Footsteps pounded in the distance, growing louder and louder. What other tricks did he have up his sleeve?

“Seems our time’s up,” he finally muttered, casting me a sideways glance as he bent to brace himself on the mattress. “How about one last photo-opp?”

“What do you mea—”

Before I could finish, he crushed his lips to mine. Jolts of hysteria shot through my system, and I squeezed my lids shut.
What the hell?

My body felt like it was on fire, born of shock and embarrassment. It was intense and raw and completely
wrong
. I wrenched my face to the side and tried to pull away.

He was unfazed, keeping his mouth against mine as the footsteps came to an abrupt halt. Whoever it was, they were already in the room. Didn’t he realize that?
Get off! Get off!

As if hearing my unspoken pleas, the newcomer echoed the same demand in a low, dangerous tone, “Get. Off.”
Wait.
I knew that—

And then all hell broke loose.

Chapter Twenty-One

My eyes flew open as Cole was ripped back and thrown across the room. His body slammed against the wall with a lifeless thud, and I cringed, hearing bricks shower down around him. It all happened so fast. I couldn’t process—

The dark, hooded form of a man stood over the bed, his shoulders heaving with deep, enraged breaths. I opened my mouth to scream but froze as a surge of foreign outrage pulsed through my body. It inhabited me for a moment, synchronizing with the steady pounding in my chest. “Wallace…?”

He ignored me, reaching over my head to grasp the chain between my handcuffs. With one sharp tug, they snapped apart like cheap plastic, and my elbows bounced against the mattress.

My arms were numb and my wrists were raw—still encircled by the cuffs—but I was free.
Just like that. Free.

But what the hell
was
this guy? I jerked away from him, fear prickling my exposed skin. Whatever he’d done to break those cuffs, it wasn’t human. I’d worked on those things for an hour, and they didn’t budge. That chain was solid freaking steel.

I scooted back, to the edge of the bed, and didn’t realize there was nothing to brace me until I fell. My eyes shot wide as I flailed in a last ditch effort to grab something.

“Rena!” He dove over the mattress and caught my arm at the last second. His grip was strong and possessive as he pulled me upright from where I’d dangled, skull mere inches from the floor. “What happened?”

That’s when I caught it—the stormy scent of rain and evening air. I looked up as he released my arm. “It
is
you.” Relief came over me so strongly, I nearly jumped him.
Too bad it was eclipsed by pain.
What the hell did he do to my arm?

“What happened?” he repeated, tearing back the dark hood that’d cloaked his hardened features. Narrowed blue eyes glowed, piercing the shadows.

His terse words cut through me like a knife. There was no pleasantry in his tone. No ounce of sympathy. He hadn’t come to save me.

I scrambled to stand up, pushing myself to unsteady feet. “I…uh…”

I rubbed at my arm where he’d caught me and licked the taste of Cole’s unwelcomed kiss from my lips.
Shit.
What was I going to do?

“Are you okay?” he asked in a tone that didn’t soften as he started around the bed.

I held up my hands in defense, eyeing him as I backed toward the kerosene heater. “Listen…” My mind was racing. What was I supposed to say? “I called Cole.”

The cords in his neck bulged, and I put the heater between us. “H-He slipped me his number yesterday. I thought we could meet in private. You know, to sort this thing out.”

“And what would possess you to do something so stupid?” His voice rose, and he ran a hand through his damp hair, making it stand on end. Apparently, he hadn’t gotten the hood up quickly enough to avoid the downpour. “You called and arranged to meet some guy you barely even knew. Do you ever
think
before you act?”

The heater’s warmth rose to my face. Was he serious? I’d just said that I’d endured this shit to help him out, and he was mad at me? “Because, obviously, I should’ve known your brother was a freakin’ psychopath.”

“See, this is what I like,” Cole interjected with a laugh, dusting himself off. “One second she’s all timid and then
reeoowr
! Hellcat.”

“Shut up!” Wallace threw a dangerous look over his shoulder before turning back to me. “I distinctly remember asking you to leave this alone.”

“I thought you were being stubborn,” I said through clenched teeth, hoping to mask the hurt in my voice. A wall of tears stung my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. “I thought I could help you, but obviously I was wrong. Why don’t I just make this easier on all of us and go?”

Go call the cops, that is.
I turned and took a step toward the dark end of the room. There had to be an exit somewhere. I was done with this situation. I just wanted out.

“Cole, don’t,” Wallace warned.

Something slammed into me, jarring my entire body, and hands grasped my arms. I jerked my chin upward, feeling the last shred of my patience wear thin. “Don’t touch me.”

Cole’s eyes creased with sardonic ecstasy, like I’d played right into whatever he had planned.

“I’m serious,” I spat, thrusting my arms up to break his hold. They cut through his hazy afterimage, and I blinked. Okay, his reflexes were getting weird. Like, trippy weird.

“Easy there.” Cole coaxed from behind me.

I whirled around, falling back into a defensive stance. I’d let my guard down. Again. How did that keep happening?

Wallace stormed across the room, his unzipped hoodie trailing back like a cloak. Before I could say anything, I found myself staring up at the wide expanse of his back as he positioned himself between us. Why would he—

He shifted his weight. “Let’s make this clear now. You do not touch her. At all.”

“I can ‘not touch her’
again,”
Cole teased, more calm than he should have been.

“Enough!” Wallace reached forward, grabbing his brother by the collar. “This isn’t one of your games.”

I peeked around his arm, unsure of what to do. Was this the time to run? They were both preoccupied. Maybe I could just slip away and…

“Relax.” Cole shrugged him off, straightening his shirt. “It got you here quick enough, didn’t it? What’d you do? Sense your girlfriend’s distress signal?”

Wallace’s posture went rigid. “Shut up.”

Girlfriend comment aside, Cole made a good point. We were at least two and a half hours from school, and I was pretty sure the first call had only been a little over an hour ago. Wallace would’ve had to have left before that, but that didn’t make sense. “Were you already in town?”

“What?” Wallace turned to regard me, confusion etched into his features. “What do you mean?”

“How did you get here so fast?” I asked. “How did you even know where to go?”

Something changed in his eyes, and he looked away. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” I snapped, crossing my arms over my chest. “So, you just came here on a whim?”

“Yeah, Wallace,” Cole chimed in, stretching out across the bed. “How’d you know?”

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Cool, levelheaded Wallace was actually allowing himself to be backed into a corner and not in a controlled way like yesterday. He flexed his hands and tightened them into fists, as redness crept around his collar. “Cole, if I were you, I’d—”

“How about this?” Cole sprang to his feet in one, effortless motion. “If you lend me your”—he hooked his fingers in the air like quotation marks—“
expertise
Sunday night, I won’t feel inclined to clean up this little mess.”

That wasn’t an offer he’d just made on the fly. It was too heavy, too practiced. Before, I thought this was about him needing bait, but it was more than that. I was his leverage, his bargaining chip. If Wallace didn’t agree to help him—

“We’re leaving,” Wallace growled, drawing deep breaths through his nose. I’d never seen this side of him. Hell, maybe Cole was right. Maybe I didn’t know him like I thought I did. “And if you think, for one minute, I’m going to overlook this...”

“Think you can outrun me?” Cole quipped, amused.

“Hey,” I cut in without thinking. “The hostage isn’t going anywhere with anyone, until someone answers my damn questions.”

Wallace rubbed his temples and blew out a sigh. “Don’t call yourself a hostage.”

The chains dangled as I held up both wrists.
Not a hostage, huh?

His gaze lingered on my arms and then slid over my head. “Give me the key.”

“Sure you don’t want to break ‘em off?” Cole asked. “You already ruined them. That’s forty bucks I’ll never see again.”

“Give. Me. The. Key.” Wallace spat the words through clenched teeth, barely keeping hold of his composure. This man was a stranger to me. I’d never seen him so tense.

Something flew past, and he reached out to catch it in midair. Without a word, he manipulated a small silver key in his hand until it faced the right way. “Give me your wrist.”