The Bones of Valhalla (Purge of Babylon, Book 9) (10 page)

He nodded. “Yes…”

“Say it.”

“I promise.”

“Good. We’ll figure the rest of it out later. Together.”

“Yes,” he said, again so softly she had to strain to hear him. Then, “Lara…”

“Yes, Will?”

“Can I…”

“What is it?”

“…Touch you?”

She stared at him for the longest time. His eyes pulsed in the shadows, watching her back. She couldn’t have begun to read his face even if she could see it. He barely moved in the corner, and whenever she heard anything at all coming from him, it was the unnatural
clacking
of joints.

“I want to remember,” he said.

“Remember?”

“You. They’re fading. My memories of you. Each night, they fade a little more. I want to remember…”

“Yes,” she answered before he could finish, surprising even herself.

“Close your eyes.”

“Why?”

“I don’t…want you to see me like this.”

“I’ve already seen you.”

“Not…like this.”

She didn’t move, but closed her eyes like he asked. The wait was excruciating, and she exerted every ounce of willpower she had to sit perfectly still on the chair and not get up and run away—

His touch was cold against her left cheek, and she startled but didn’t pull away because she knew without a single shred of doubt that he wouldn’t hurt her. If he wanted to, he could have done it a dozen times now. Even the guards outside the engine room door were there just to keep people out. Nothing could hold him in here if he didn’t want to stay. Those two men Phil had sent down last night had found out just how dangerous he could be when—

She sighed out loud, involuntarily, when warmth spread through his fingers and against her skin and chased away the coldness. His entire body must have been closer than she realized, because she could sense the strange aura of chill and heat that Danny and Gaby had told her about. It was an impossible balance of winter and summer radiating from every pore of his skin.

She wanted to open her eyes, to look at him up close and see every inch of him the way he was doing to her, but she didn’t, because this wasn’t for her.

A second hand touched her right cheek, and this one was also ice cold at first, but the sensation quickly faded and was replaced by warmth. He traced her face with his fingers, as if trying to remember every inch of her, every imperfection, like a blind man would in order to “see” what someone looked like.

She expected her heartbeat to continue accelerating, but after the first ten or so seconds of contact, it plateaued and returned to a normal rhythm. Her breathing came out in even spurts, defying all logic. Her entire body seemed to almost slow down, her perception of time and space and senses
moving in molasses, almost as if she, and not him, were trying to prolong this moment.

“Lara,” he whispered, and his voice sounded almost human, almost like Will again. The Will she remembered, not this new Will that had come back to her changed. But that was impossible, and she was almost entirely certain it was her mind trying to deceive her in an attempt to keep her still as she allowed a blue-eyed ghoul to touch her—

Will.
She was letting
Will
touch her.

“Lara,” he whispered again, as one of his fingers touched her lips and traced them from side to side, then up and down. The cold followed by the warmth, then back again, until there was that strange, impossible balance of heat and freeze that defied nature.

“Will,” she whispered back.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Don’t be sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered again. “I’m sorry…I’m sorry…”

Then he was gone.

His touch faded, and so did the cold and heat that came from him.

When she opened her eyes, he was back in the shadows, huddled in the corner, and his head was downcast so she couldn’t lose herself in his blue eyes.

“Will,” she said.

“I have to go,” he said.

“Will…”

“I have too many miles to cover.”

“Will, please look at me.”

“…And you have too much work ahead of you.”

“Will, please…”

“We have to succeed, because we won’t get another chance,” he said quietly. “We won’t get another chance…”

“Will,” she said again, pleading with everything she had in that one word.

“I have to go back,” he said, still not looking up at her. “I have to go back…”

* * *

S
he left the cabin
, but she didn’t leave the engine room. Instead, she leaned against the wall and let the loud grind of machinery camouflage her tears. There were a lot of them. She didn’t know where they came from, but maybe they were always there, waiting for the dam to finally burst.

And they did, now.

She was just glad she was alone, with only the engine to bear witness to this weakness she had spent so much time and effort to hide from the others. She didn’t know if she was actually crying too, because the noise around her was so loud she could have been screaming at the top of her lungs and never heard a single sound.

But she could be absolutely certain of the tears. They rolled down her cheeks and dripped from her chin to the floor and there was nothing she could do to stop them—not that she wanted to. She slid down and put her arms over her knees and closed her eyes, remembering what it felt like to be young and afraid and helpless for the first time in such a long time.

Her body ached—every inch of her. Her chest was tighter than it should have been, and just breathing hurt. It was as if her entire being were being ripped apart from the inside out, as if her soul were being crushed inch by inch by inch.

All those times she pushed through the emotional and physical pain so the others wouldn’t see, so they’d have at least one person to look to with Will gone.

But not anymore. Not anymore.

She looked down the hallway, toward the cabin.

He was in there.

Will. Her Will.

But not really.

No one could possibly understand that concept except for her and Gaby and Danny, and just a small handful of others. To everyone else, he would be just another blue-eyed ghoul. Phil and the others had proven that.

Eventually, she found the strength to stand up and wipe away the tears with her sleeves and used the shiny machines to make sure her eyes weren’t still red and puffy. She hadn’t worn makeup in so long she didn’t have to worry about smearing it across her face.

Only when she was certain no one would know what had happened by looking at her face did she finally go back topside.

Bonnie was standing guard on the other side of the door when she came out. “How’d it go?”

“It went,” Lara said, hoping her voice didn’t crack, but it was probably not as strong—or steady—as she had hoped, because Bonnie gave her a questioning look.

“Lara,” Bonnie started to say, but Lara turned around and started walking away. “Lara,” Bonnie called after her.

Lara ignored her and kept walking, then faster, and faster still.

R
hett hadn’t returned
. Of course, it had only been a few hours and it wasn’t as if Rhett were in any hurry to take Keo’s offer to the higher-ups. That is, if there were higher-ups now that Mercer was gone. It was hard to figure out who was in charge at the moment, if anyone at all. It would have been nice if Erin were still around to fill him in on the island’s hierarchy.

But of course Erin was dead, and he should have been, too. The only reason he was still breathing was because Rhett and the others didn’t know what to do with him. That, and the fact that apparently more than just Riley had thought about rebelling against Mercer’s rule, but just hadn’t had the balls to go through with it. Keo had never actually met Riley—he didn’t consider seeing some guy lying in bed on an oil rig’s sickbay as “meeting”—but he had to admit, knowing what he knew now, he had new respect for the guy. Riley had done what so many others wanted to, but hadn’t. That took some brass ones right there.

At least Rhett had done him a solid and opened the high window to the left of the holding room so Keo could, once again, enjoy the natural and very airy upside to being held prisoner on an island. So if nothing else, there was that.

That’s it, pal; look on the bright side.

He sat on the floor with his back against the wall so he could face the window on the other side of his cell bars. After three days of soaking in his own BO, it was as close to paradise as he was liable to get. Now if only he could get them to give him something to eat that wasn’t mush or tasted like something someone gurgled out—

Clank!
as the door across the room opened.

Keo looked over as two men stepped inside, while a third stood back holding the door with one hand. Keo only recognized the third guy—his afternoon jailer, who swapped places with two others in eight-hour shifts.

He had never seen the other two newcomers before.

“Visiting hours?” Keo asked.

The men didn’t bother answering him, and while the first two walked over to Keo’s cell in the back, the third guy remained standing in the hallway looking in. Keo had never actually seen his jailer’s face before today, and in fact this was the most the man had ever exposed himself: Keo glimpsed his name tag and the word
Donovan
.

Keo focused on the two approaching him. One was six-five and built like a truck (
Calvin
was written on his name tag). The second one was around six foot, skinnier, and African-American (
Bellamy
was scribbled across his chest), and by just the way they were walking, with Calvin always a step behind, it wasn’t hard to guess who was in charge.

“On your feet,” Bellamy said.

“I like the view from down here,” Keo said.

“On your
feet
, soldier.”

Keo grinned. “Now that’s just mean. I spent an awful lot of time and effort avoiding that title.”

The two men had stopped in front of the cell bars and Calvin’s hand dropped to the Sig Sauer at his hip, but Bellamy didn’t make any moves toward his holstered Glock.

“Rhett sent me to come get you,” Bellamy said. “They’ve made a decision.”

“You should have started with that,” Keo said.

He stood up and brushed at his stained slacks and shirt, even though it didn’t do any good. Besides three days in here without an open window, he’d dripped (then had to wipe off) what passed for “food” on his clothes since they hadn’t bothered to give him utensils, not even those flimsy plastic ones.

“What’s the verdict?” Keo asked. He directed the question at Bellamy. If Calvin was bothered by that, he didn’t show it.

Someone knows his place.

“You’ll find out when we get there,” Bellamy said. He took a step back and nodded at Calvin, who moved toward the gate. “Hug the wall.”

“Could you at least buy me dinner first?”

“Do it.”
This time, Bellamy reached for his gun for effect.

Keo gave him a wry smile and turned around, then pushed up against the wall until his chest touched the jagged brick surface. The gate
clinked
and
clanked
behind him as Calvin opened it with all the dexterity of an ape who had just learned how to use his opposable thumbs a day ago.

“Did you guys make contact with the
Trident?
” Keo asked.

“Ask Rhett when you see him,” Bellamy said.

“How did it go?”

“Ask Rhett when you see him,” Bellamy said again.

“Oh, come on—” Keo started to say when a pair of incredibly strong hands grabbed his arms and bent them behind his back, followed by the rubbery sensation of plastic handcuffs slipping over and then tightening around his wrists. Keo was momentarily surprised by not just how strong but quick
Calvin had been.

Who knew the Yeti could move that fast?

Calvin took a step back and turned Keo around, then put one massive hand around Keo’s right arm and located a good grip.

“Easy there, Tex,” Keo said. “It’s our first date. Let’s take it slow and steady with the PDA, huh?”

Calvin ignored him and marched him out of the jail cell. Bellamy stepped back to let them pass. Keo breathed in some more of the fresh air as they walked across the room, then expelled it slowly.

“Must be nice living on an island,” Keo said.

“It has its moments,” Bellamy said as he followed them to the door.

The third man, Donovan, hadn’t moved from his spot, but it wasn’t where Donovan stood that caught and held onto Keo’s attention. It was the man’s face. He looked…conflicted?

Aw, shit. And everything was going so well, too.

Okay, maybe not “well,” exactly, but better-than-I-could-have-hoped-for-ish.

But maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was reading too much into one man’s facial expression. After all, he’d never been particularly good at reading faces. Every woman he had ever met or dated or been locked in a room with for more than a few minutes could have told him that.

Then again, this wasn’t about a single look on Donovan’s face. It was also about his body language, the way he was gripping the lever—way too tightly, as if he were afraid it would slip from his hand if he relaxed even for a second.

Donovan looked away as Keo and Calvin neared him, and by the time they reached the door the jailer had slipped behind it so Keo couldn’t see him anymore.

Shit.

“So, Rhett sent you guys to get me?” Keo asked as he was led into the hallway.

“That’s right,” Bellamy said. From the sound of his voice, he wasn’t very far behind them; Keo guessed only about five feet.

The door
clanged
shut; then he heard the
click-clank
of the lock turning into place. That last part made Keo smile to himself.

Why bother locking it, Donovan ol’ pal? There’s no one in there anymore, remember?

But of course that thought didn’t last for very long, because he was too busy concentrating on what lay ahead of him—or as far ahead as he was going to make on this particular trip, anyway. He didn’t think it was going to be very far at all.

Captain Optimism, amirite, Danny?

“Rhett said he’d come to get me himself when they finally made up their minds,” Keo said.

“He’s a busy man,” Bellamy said. “He’s running the place now.”

“Is that right? He never told me that.”

“I guess he didn’t think you needed to know.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. Why tell a condemned man anything?”

“Exactly.”

Keo glanced sideways to his right, at Calvin. The big guy hovered over him, much taller up close than the six-five Keo had pegged him at earlier. More like six-six. One inch might not have seemed like a lot, but it factored into Keo’s calculations. Just as he took into consideration Calvin’s size and possible weight. The guy was practically busting out of his uniform, so much so that his name tag actually wrapped around his pecs.

And what have they been feeding you, big boy?

Keo was sure of one thing: Whatever Calvin had been surviving on, it was probably not the slop they had been giving him while he sat in his jail cell.

Behind them, Bellamy followed in silence, the only noise coming from the
tap-tap-tap
of their boots against the hard floor. Keo had no clue where his prison was located in terms of the building’s blueprint, because he hadn’t bothered to memorize all the turns and hallways they had led him through after the Comm Room. For all he knew, he could have been in an entirely separate building. He regretted the lack of forethought now because he had absolutely no idea where they were going—one gray wall looked like the last one—or why there didn’t seem to be anyone around.

Up a creek, and me without my hands for paddles.

He wanted to tell himself that he’d had to deal with worse situations. There was that whole mess with Pollard’s army in Louisiana, surviving Song Island, then going toe-to-toe with a blue-eyed ghoul. Compared to those trying times, he was only dealing with two guys here. Two
human
guys, at that. Of course, he had free hands in all those other incidents, so maybe that had a little something to do with his successes.

Oh, stop your whining and get on with it. You shouldn’t even be alive anyway. Everything after this is a bonus.

Shit, almost convinced myself that time!

“So, the big boys finally made up their minds, huh?” Keo said.

“Yup,” Bellamy said from behind them.

“And you don’t know if they’ve radioed the
Trident
yet?”

“Nope.”

“A man of few words, I see.”

“Uh huh.”

“Two words that time. Eureka!” He snapped Calvin a grin. “Is Bellamy your boss or something?”

“Or something,” Calvin said in a deep baritone.

“Listen to that voice! You ever thought about doing soul music?”

“What?”

“Soul music. You got the voice for it. Right, Bellamy?”

A mild chuckle from the back of their little caravan. “Sure, why not?”

Keo was hoping they would eventually run across people in the hallway, but after the third turn they still hadn’t seen anyone and he was starting to get a feel for just how big the facilities on Black Tide were. Of course it made some sense why they hadn’t seen anyone yet. Who would put the brig close to the living quarters?

Even so, he expected to see
some
faces, not a big fat nothing.

“Where are we going?” Keo asked.

“You’ll see when we get there,” Bellamy said.

“I didn’t realize the brig was on the other side of the island. How big is this place, anyway?”

“Big enough.”

“Not much of an answer.”

“It’s all you’re going to get.”

“Tell me something…”

“What’s that?”

“You guys manage to scrape Mercer’s brains off the Comm Room floor yet?”

Calvin was the first to react—he actually twitched with his entire body, and the fingers gripping Keo’s right arm tightened even further.

Now now
now.

He threw his entire body into Calvin, and despite all the big man’s impressive bulk, the sudden shock of being rammed into knocked him off-balance. He stumbled and crashed into the wall, while somehow still managing to hold onto Keo’s arm and dragging him along.

Keo didn’t mind being pulled, because that just allowed him to twist sixty degrees until he was facing Calvin, who had
thumped
into the wall with his back, having turned at the last second until they were face-to-face. Keo saw the flash of confusion on the other man’s face, but if Calvin didn’t know what was about to happen, he figured it out pretty fast when Keo smashed his forehead into the bigger man’s face. There was a satisfying
crunch!
as Calvin’s nose turned to mush, his blood spraying the hallway.

Stars flooded Keo’s eyes and his head rang, and he was almost sure that a piece of Calvin’s pulverized nose was jutting out of his own forehead
(That’s what you get for using a part of your head as a battering ram!)
, but he fought through all of that—or as much as he could—and staggered back and spun around. He blinked through the blood coating his eyes (his, Calvin’s, but mostly Calvin’s) as Bellamy stood five feet from him.

“Jesus Christ,” Bellamy said even as he backpedaled, the look of shock frozen on his face.

For some reason, Keo grinned and wondered what he must look like with his face coated in a film of Calvin’s plasma while the man himself was sitting against the wall, large body tilted dangerously over to one side as blood
drip-drip-dripped
from his chin like heavy raindrops. Calvin was still alive, because Keo could hear him breathing. Or wheezing, anyway, because the air was clearly going through that bloody hole in the middle of his face that used to be his nose. It was a grotesque sight, but at the moment Keo couldn’t be bothered to feel any sympathy for the man.

Keo didn’t so much as run at Bellamy as he threw himself like some human missile at the man. His aim was true and he crashed into Bellamy’s chest, turning his body slightly at the last second so that his shoulder buried itself into the other man’s sternum just as Bellamy managed to get the Glock out of its holster.

He collapsed back down to Earth on his shoulder and let out a pained grunt, even as Bellamy landed on his back farther up the hallway. For some reason Keo thought his luck might have been good enough to jostle the gun loose from Bellamy’s hand, but he was wrong. Very, very wrong, as it turned out, because he found himself staring at the wrong end of a gun barrel.

Keo gritted his teeth and waited to eat a bullet, but for whatever reason Bellamy, sitting on the hallway floor on his ass, didn’t fire. Instead, he just stared across the iron sights of his weapon at Keo, that look of shock still present on his face.

After what seemed like an eternity—though it was probably more like two or three seconds—Keo let out a resigned sigh and slowly picked himself up from the floor and onto his knees. He was breathing hard, but that was more from exertion and the throbbing pain originating from his forehead than fear.

Bellamy stood up, the gun never wavering from Keo’s head for a single heartbeat. After a moment, he smirked.