Surrender (21 page)

“Darius doesn’t blame you. Darius set this in motion—it’s the only explanation. When he realized Rip was going after me . . . he knew it was time to take Rip down, even if it meant dying. Darius pulled us all together. He knew how powerful a group working together could be,” Dare said.

“I could’ve tried to escape earlier, and on my own. I didn’t have to drag S8 into it.”

“S8 never lets themselves be dragged into things like that. You did it to keep yourself alive, and then you left as soon as you could.”

“Yes, that’s true. Freedom always comes with a price. I told myself I could do more good alive than dead. And I’ve been trying. I feel like it will never be enough.”

“I know that feeling.” He paused. “But it might.”

She ran a hand along his shoulder, along the back of his neck, like she was drawing strength from his skin. Her touch was fire to his cold—he wanted, needed more.

“Let’s make this right for all of us,” she told him. “Let me go back to him and finish this.”

“Grace, you know he’ll kill you. You have too much intel on him. Even if he’s still intrigued by the fact that you didn’t break, even if you pretend you can use your gift for him, what makes you think he’ll suddenly believe—or trust—you?”

“It’s worth a try. I learned everything from my mother. The key isn’t reading cards—it’s reading people,” she explained. “Once you center in on their needs, it’s easy. And Rip had a lot of them.”

“You betrayed him once before.”

“He’s always been fascinated with people he thinks are as strong as he is. Wants to know more about them. He’d rather keep me underground and torture me, push my limits rather than kill me fast. He’ll learn more that way.”

“Yeah, that’s really going to convince me to let you go,” Dare said angrily.

“I have so much to make up for. Don’t you understand? I’m the reason my mother was killed. I fed her bad information, she gave it to Rip and he believed we were in on it together.”

“But you weren’t.”

She shook her head. “No, Esme believed me. She loved him. She wouldn’t have wanted him dead. That’s all on me, and she paid the price. He must’ve been suspicious, or maybe he was regularly testing me all the time I was using my gift and I didn’t realize it. But he knew, that night, that I was sending him to his death. I saw death and danger and I told Esme that he would be fine, that there was no danger. He knew I’d lied because he’d known that the meeting was a setup, that there was someone planning on killing him that night, so he wasn’t going to go to the meeting. He killed my mother because I lied.”

“That’s not what happened,” Dare said. “He made you think that so you’d believe you had nothing.”

“Wait—you’re saying my mother’s alive?”

“Alive and well and living in luxury,” Dare said, hating the look of utter betrayal in her eyes. Hated having to be the one to tell her. But she had a right to know, and he’d only wished she’d known earlier.

“Why? Why would she leave me behind like that?”

“I don’t know.”

She stared at her hands for several minutes, then met his eyes. “I don’t ever want to know. And if sh
e and Rip planned it all to break me, they were wrong.”

“
That
I believe.”

After he spoke, Dare pulled her to him in that way that always made her feel whole. She wanted to make him feel the same way. She wanted not to be scared of all of this.

But with him, her gift could grow. Flourish. Whether she used it or not, Dare wouldn’t make her feel abnormal.

But there was no turning back.

“What’s going on in there?” He tapped the side of her head.

“You don’t know how often I’ve thought of getting revenge against Rip,” she admitted. “It’s not healthy, I know. But I couldn’t help it.”

When Rip had first let her out of the basement, she’d made tons of sketches of his property. She’d mapped out the ways she’d get off the island. How she’d kill him, make him suffer. She continued after she was rescued. Decided she would go back in there and take the revenge herself, because hiring someone to do it would be too easy—and also ineffective.

Darius and Adele both advised her to forget it. They would get revenge for their group and for her.

“They were right,” he told her now. “You’re way too close to this. It’s too personal.”

“As opposed to how close you are to the situation?” she asked wryly. “I know—you’re going to give me the
I’m a professional
speech. But we both know that’s bullshit too. Personal is personal—you can’t just turn it off.”

“I have to. If I don’t, I’ll get all of us killed.”

Just by trusting her, he’d put himself in a tough position—she got that. She was lucky that Key and Jem seemed to believe her. That Dare did.

“Now tell me what you’re really thinking about.”

She gave him a tight smile at being caught. “This ability. It’s something that might not come back fully. But it might . . . and I’ll know things. At its height, I could feel everything. See things about people they might not have wanted me to see. And you . . . you have so many secrets, so much pain. And it’s invading you. I don’t want you to have to deal with that.”

“I don’t care if you see everything, that you’ll feel my pain. Big fucking deal. Everyone has pain, so don’t put that shit on me. You’re the one who doesn’t want to know.”

She took a step back from the sheer force of his words. From the truth of them too.

How could she answer the truth?

“I’ve sensed it since the beginning. You told me about it, confirmed it, but I knew that the black king was inside of you as much as the white knight was. You’re both.”

Now it was his turn to look as if he’d been slapped. He looked exposed, and she knew he hated that, but there was no rancor in his eyes.

No one ever liked what she had to say.

He stood then, managed, “You’ve known how fucked-up I am, and you still . . . you still . . .”

She embraced him, put her cheek to his chest to hear his heart beating. “I still.”

Chapter Thirt
y-four

I
t was an hours-long hike through the bayou to the house. Key and Jem didn’t find any bodies around the bomb shelter, figured those men had gotten away.

“They’ll be back since they didn’t find any of our bodies either,” Jem said, like he was reading Key’s mind.

The rest of the walk had been silent, both of them on high alert, guns drawn, taking the back routes they knew so well.

The bayou looked desolate and Key might’ve felt badly, but in his mind’s eye it had always looked like this. Black-and-white. Sad. Never like the lush beauty tourists described seeing in this area.

No, the bayou had been hell personified for him.

Jem would always say,
Everything can’t be protected or preserved. Some things are just shit and they’ll always be shit, no excuses.

He hadn’t lived the childhood Jem had, but he wasn’t sure Jem had lived it either, at least not anywhere but in his mind.

Jem was like their father’s side, the one with the crazy gene passed down from father to son. Key had heard about it for as long as he could remember, grew up like a ticking time bomb, waiting to go as nuts as everyone else. He still remained guarded. Ashamed of his family, which had been so damned poor they’d relied on the kindness of others to keep them going.

Jem was bent to excess, but he didn’t seem to have taken up the constant drinking their father had. Key felt like somehow they’d both partially escaped the curse, and he wondered if now they were punishing themselves for that. Because the CIA and the military were extremely punishing jobs—and neither of them was in any hurry to have a family and pass along their genes.

Key wasn’t an idiot, had known what Jem was for a long time. But he also knew the crazy streak that ran in their family was as much a gift as a curse, though it was one that all too often took people before their time. Jem had made better use of it than most, although the CIA would’ve wrecked him if he’d stayed in longer.

Key had been twelve the night Jem left for good.

He watched his sixteen-year-old brother get into the boat along the shore of the bayou and zoom off. Key waited and watched until morning for Jem to come back, but he never did.

Key survived five more years and did the same. Worked odd jobs around New Orleans until he could enlist; he paid an uncle to vouch for his age so he could get into the military at seventeen.

It was in the jungles of South America that he saw Jem again for the first time. To that point, Jem had offered no explanation for why he’d left.

“Couldn’t take care of a twelve-year-old. Couldn’t take care of myself,” Jem finally told him later at the FOB.

Key stared at the man his brother had become. Jem did the same to him. “Damned proud of you, Key. I always knew you’d get out. You’re different.”

Key couldn’t argue—he did feel different, but he knew the blood that ran through him, that it might be simply a matter of time before the family curse reared its ugly head for him.

“You’re pissed.”

Key didn’t answer the man with the dark beard and the darker eyes, with the deep, easy laugh, instead asked, “How did you get involved in the CIA?”

“Long story.”

“Always is.” Key gave up, as he often did with Jem. Having his brother in his life meant asking no questions. Instead, Key did some research in order to piece together some of Jem’s life.

He could never find the answers he sought.

One day, Jem might sit down and tell him, or maybe he’d die with all that knowledge inside him.

“Looks different,” Jem said now as they stared at the old house, and yeah, there was that perception problem again.

“Yes,” Key said hollowly.

“Looks just like I remember,” Jem continued, and when Key looked at him, Jem said, “I’m not that fucked-up that I didn’t know. I just had to pretend it was all right, Key.”

“Good,” Key told him finally, because he didn’t know what else to say. His skin ached being this close to the old house, like it could still feel the sting of the whip. The bite of the belt buckle that did enough damage for teachers to notice—but Child Protective Services never came.

No one rescued him, so he’d rescued himself. No doubt he was better off for it.

But he’d always be angry at Jem, didn’t know how to rid himself of that.

“Do you know what happened to them?” Jem asked.

“Assuming t
hey drank themselves to death. Maybe they died in Katrina. Never heard, never really cared,” Key said tightly, hated that this place could still be such a weakness for him; he didn’t do weak anymore.

Jem clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You ever want to know, just ask.”

“Will do.” Key turned his back on the land that for all he knew still belonged to his family and went back to the shed where the old Jeep was covered as though it was the most special treasure.

Right now, it sure damned was.

“Why’d you even come back here?” Jem asked as he clambered into the Jeep and hot-wired it. The engine started to turn, then sputter.

Key held up a hand and went under the hood to poke around. “Why’d you?”

“Couldn’t leave you alone again.”

“I’ve done just fine.”

“Yeah, you have. But you don’t believe that yet.”

“Try now,” Key directed, refusing to answer his question. The Jeep purred. Gas tank was full. He got into the passenger’s side as Jem let the Jeep idle for a moment.

“Don’t you know by now that there are no coincidences?” Jem said finally. “Everything goes according to a greater plan.”

“They’re not my plans,” Key said, and Jem stared at his brother.

“You saved Dare—that wasn’t according to plan.”

“And look where it got me.”

“Where you’re supposed to be.”

“Looking after you again?” Key shot back harshly.

Key’s words cut Jem like a knife. Key had never thrown that in his face. And Jem was well aware he might’ve pushed it too far this time.

“Where would you go if you didn’t have to worry about me full-time?” Jem asked finally.

“I have no fucking idea.” Key sounded more furious about that than anything.

Key had had the weight of the entire family on him for so long, while Jem had easily slipped out of the noose of responsibility.

Key had been through hell, according to Jem’s sources, and Jem figured he was as good as anyone to lead him out. “How about you let me worry about you for a while, then?”

“You’re going to keep me out of trouble.”

“Now, don’t go putting words in my mouth.” Jem lit up a Cuban cigar he’d lifted from the head shrink. “I’ll get you into enough trouble so that you forget yours.”

Key didn’t say anything for a long time, and then, “Let’s go pick up Dare and Grace.”

* * *

Darius could
barely stand, let alone fight, but all he had to do now was hang on. He’d sent the message he’d needed to, hoped Dare was on the bayou, ready and willing to receive it. Either way, his boy would get notice of the safe house blowing up.

He had to pretend that the man standing in front of him had broken him, and that galled him most of all. He had searched for this man nonstop for nearly a year, had finally found him, had taken his daughter from him, but the guy refused to give up. He’d disappeared for five years as he killed off members of S8 operatives’ families, but finally, Darius was able to track him again.

Now, after two months of living in this goddamned cell, Darius refused to give up.

“Thanks for the intel, Darius. It was a big help.”

“Fuck. You.” Finally he got to his feet, swore he heard the crunch of his own ribs as he did so. He refused to give in to the pain. It had always been there. Always would be.

“If you’d just given up looking for me, this never would’ve happened.”

“Fight me,” he demanded.

“I’m not stupid, Darius.”

“Which means you’re an old man now. Just like me.”

“Just like you, I never stopped fighting. I just do it differently.”

“Does this”—Darius looked down at his bruised and battered body and finished—“look different to you?”

The man in front of him smirked a little. “My time—our time—is over. I just want to live out my life.”

“You’d never be satisfied with that,” Darius told him. “Old warriors are a fucking pathetic thing. All the drive, a failing mind and body. Warriors need to die young.”

“There is nothing on me that’s failing.”

Darius raised his chin and asked the question he hadn’t ever wanted answered, not since he’d taken Grace and finally seen pictures of the notoriously private Richard Powell. But suddenly, he needed to know. “Tell me how you managed to survive the fight and get out of the jungle.”

* * *

When they’d l
eft the house on the bayou, Dare had managed to grab only the fire safe along with Esme’s picture. Now he watched Grace sift through the contents of the small box, looking for anything that could possibly help them.

She was sticking her hand inside the broken plastic band on the inside of the box. She stuck two fingers in there and winced as she pulled them out. Before he could ask if she was okay, she opened what looked like an old photo. It was folded in half, practically crackled when she opened it.

She stared down at it, engrossed. Her head cocked, eyes widened, and a flush broke out along her face and neck.

Before he could stop her, she had the gun pointed at him. “Stay back.”

“Did you have another vision?”

“Stay. Back.”

He did. Arms up. “Grace, talk to me.”

“Why? So you can lie to me more, just like your father did?”

The picture fluttered to the floor—an old S8 picture, maybe the only one that existed. He didn’t think Darius was particularly sentimental, didn’t know why he would’ve kept such a memory.

“I’m leaving. Give me the keys to the truck.”

“You can’t leave. You’re in—”

“Danger? With or without you, it seems. Keys, or I will shoot you, and you know I’ll hit you. I’ve made it this far. I’m not letting that happen again. Do you understand?”

“No, I don’t. Fuck.” He ran a frustrated hand through his hair but tossed her the keys anyway.

She should’ve known it was too easy. When she raised her arms to get the keys, he was on her. She got off a shot into the floor, but he had her, against the wall, gun facing down. Useless.

“You promised you were telling the truth.”

“I am.”

“How can you look at me and lie like that?”

He leaned his forehead against hers. “What did you see in that picture that upset you?”

“You’re serious?”

“Dead serious.”

She closed her eyes and wished, for the first time, that her gift wasn’t broken, but she knew Dare wasn’t lying. “Rip is standing next to Darius.”

He jerked back, stunned. Grabbed the photo from the floor. “Powell?”

She nodded, pointed. “Right there.”

“That’s Simon—he’s dead.”

“That’s Rip, and he’s alive,” she insisted, and he paled, and oh God, he hadn’t known. “I’ve never seen that before. If Darius had ever shown it to me . . .”

But Dare wasn’t exactly listening. He was half clutching the table like it was the only thing holding him up. Simon. Rip. One and the same, which meant that Darius had worked and trained side by side with the man who’d ended up killing the team members and their families.

“It doesn’t make sense,” he whispered, but they both knew it did. Rip had inserted himself into his own creation, worked side by side with the group he’d ended up killing.

Grace realized she still held the gun. She placed it on the table and went to Dare, to apologize, offer comfort, but he literally held her at arm’s length, putting out his hand so she couldn’t get close.

“I’m sorry. My sense of self-preservation is strong.”

“Mine too,” he managed, his voice like gravel, his expression battered.

“Does it bother you that I thought you were a certain kind of man, like Rip? Or is it worse that you are that certain kind of man when it’s called for?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

* * *

Tell me how you
managed to survive the fight and get out of the jungle.

“When you run toward something instead of running from it, you’d be surprised how that forces people to let their resistance down. Confuses them.”

“There were over twenty soldiers.”

Rip shrugged. “I’d dealt with worse.”

“I trusted you,
Simon
.”

“That’s what made you so easy to use.” He paused, only because he hadn’t heard that name in forever. Hadn’t been able to come down here and face Darius either. Just had his security personnel keeping an eye on him, which meant they’d had to stop Darius from escaping and beating the shit out of them as well.

By going back to being Simon, using his given name, and inserting himself into S8, he’d finally had people in his life he cared about—and who cared about him. He couldn’t decide if he’d ruined it or if Darius had by going back on the promise they’d made.

We don’t try to find out who’s behind S8. No matter what.

Because that would be deadly and stupid and would solve nothing. Would make everything worse, in fact. But once Darius realized that their handler had brought them back together on that final job for the handler’s own personal gain, all bets were off.

Besides, it had only been him and Adele left to break the promise. Or so they’d thought . . .

“You broke the promise,” Rip said, as if that explained it all. And maybe, for him, it did. Growing up as Simon, everything was always extremes—black or white. That’s why he’d moved through life and his jobs so easily, how he’d slid into the persona of Richard Powell. When you didn’t have gray areas, you knew exactly how to operate.

“And you lied to us the entire time!” Darius pointed out with a roar.

“Necessity,” Rip dismissed. “Didn’t mean I didn’t put my life on the line, same as you.”

Darius couldn’t argue that—Simon had been on every mission, with them every step of the way. Until . . . “You should never have called on us again. Not under the official S8 moniker.”