They functioned as a group. Not alone.
* * *
The yelling woke her. G
race peeked out the door and saw Dare rolling on the floor, punching another man. She saw Gunner and Avery and closed the door.
“Guess it’s going well,” she murmured to herself. Tried to shake off the sounds of shouting, but that always got to her. Brought her back even beyond living with Rip, to being so young and helpless, dragged around at her mother’s whims.
Everything had changed when Esme met Rip. Grace had been nearly ten. Tired of the neighbors yelling at her. The neighboring moms looking down their noses at Esme even as they were jealous of her looks, and even more of the way their husbands looked at her.
And they did more than look. They came to her back door at night under the pretense of getting healing herbs or other potions or simply Esme’s predictions for themselves or their kids, but really, they simply wanted Esme.
Richard Powell took them away from all of that. Esme met him one night at work. She waitressed at a bar that catered to the wealthy, and they all wanted her to tell their fortune, read their palm . . . kiss them silly.
Esme believed in love—wanted it with her whole being, despite her profession as a grifter. Grace’s father had been someone Esme claimed to have loved, but he’d left her when he discovered she was pregnant.
At least that’s what Esme had told her. She didn’t believe in coddling Grace. Wanted her strong.
She had to believe Esme knew what Rip was really like from day one. Because Grace knew, sensed it, and it had nothing to do with her abilities.
What had Esme gotten out of it? The best Grace could figure was love and money. Esme had really and truly loved Richard. That love blinded her to everything bad there was inside him, no matter how insidious. And because Esme had spent a lifetime reading people and running her cons, she’d been able to help Rip with his business dealings easily.
She’d used Grace and her very real gift to aid that.
Grace had seen the evil inside the man clearly, had shrunk from Rip’s hugs. Esme ignored it because she didn’t want to see Grace as a barometer, didn’t want to know how wrong she was.
Grace never told her. Instead, she cried silently in bed that last night they’d spent in the little blue house. She’d cried to leave a place she hated, because she knew what she was headed for was far worse.
It should’ve been every child’s dream. She had huge rooms to herself, toys, anything and everything she could imagine. And it was all pure torture, one hundred percent pure torture, because she watched Esme lose herself completely to the darkness that lived inside Rip. Didn’t happen all at once, but gradually, as Rip asked Esme to do more and more for him . . . she’d wilted. Only when it was too late did she even think about protesting.
Grace bided her time as her once budding gifts continued to wane under the pressure of helping a man who used them for personal gain. The more Esme pressured her, the worse it got, until finally, Esme seemed to understand what she’d done.
“I’ll make it better for you, baby,” she promised. And she’d tried, but it had been too late.
Once Esme was gone, all Rip’s attention was focused on Grace, and he knew she’d seen through him from the start. Blamed her for her mother’s gradual distrust.
If her mom hadn’t fallen in love, it wouldn’t have ended up like this. So Grace had gotten the message very early on that love equaled danger, and she’d promised herself that she’d never forget it.
She hadn’t until Dare O’Rourke pressed against her and nearly made her forget her own name. She wasn’t that stupid, that reckless, but in many respects, she was so much like Esme, no matter how long she’d tried to repress it. Esme gave away her heart too easily, while the only thing Grace gave up was her body. Because the more she numbed herself with sex, the better off she was. It was her insurance policy against love. If she could have cast a spell to ward it off, she would’ve. But she didn’t mess with that, because spells could go awry.
She knew she couldn’t alter the natural patterns of life. She could only hope to avoid them. Every once in a while, she had to revisit the past to reinforce that knowledge.
She had a single picture of Esme. Darius had let her keep it here, instead of at her place. And now she was glad she had.
Now she rooted around the top shelf of the closet to find the five-by-seven envelope, slid the picture out.
Esme was smiling, not wide, but the secret smile of happiness. The picture had been taken four days before she’d met Richard Powell. Grace felt the tears s
pring to her eyes, and she pushed them back with a fierceness she hadn’t felt in a long time. Cursed herself for thinking she could deal with a weakness now.
“Sometimes, crying makes you stronger.” Avery’s voice came from behind her. Grace turned around, wiping her eyes with her fingers. “I lost my mom recently.”
“Mine’s been gone for years, but when I see her picture, it feels like yesterday,” Grace admitted. It was refreshing to be able to talk with someone who understood.
“I’m sorry.” Avery smiled a little when Grace showed her Esme’s photo. “She’s so beautiful. You look just like her.”
“Do you look like your mom?”
“The hair used to, but my eyes . . .”
“Darius.” It was Grace’s turn to smile. “That’s a nice memory for me.”
“I’m glad. I never met him. And I’m trying really hard not to hate him for what he got my mom into. She spent her life protecting me from the things Darius got involved in.”
Grace and Dare’s sister were a lot alike. She could see the tight look of pain in Avery’s eyes when she spoke of her parents. “Darius is a good man.”
“You spoke in the present tense—you think he’s still alive.”
“I know what Dare told me, but I can’t help but feel . . .” She trailed off, not wanting to say anything more.
“I really hope you’re right, Grace,” was all Avery said.
Chapter
Twenty-six
J
em wiped the blood from his lip and went to find Key, who’d left sometime during his fight with Dare.
“Nice of you to stick around for backup.”
“You didn’t seem like you needed help,” Key said. “Besides, I’d already softened him up for you.”
“Thanks for that.” Jem didn’t sit down next to him, lit a cigarette instead and said, “There’s no way around this.”
“How the fuck can I work with him?” Key demanded.
“How can you not?” Jem countered. “Kill him once you’ve eradicated Powell and you’re safe.”
“Yeah, that’s healthy,” Key muttered. “Did they teach you that in therapy?”
“What were your plans when you met him face-to-face—a good, stern talking-to?”
Key had been so focused on simply finding Dare that he hadn’t allowed himself to think about that. Because he’d been worried about what he might consider in the heat of all the anger and pain that still swirled around him like a massive hurricane that could’ve rivaled Katrina.
Fuck it all—would he have killed the guy? He’d lost everything to save Dare because he thought he was an innocent victim. He was—he still was.
Key sighed, dropped his head into his hands, elbows propped on the table.
“It’s all right to want to kill him,” was Jem’s assurance.
“That makes me feel like all’s right in the world.”
“Stress will kill you, Key.”
“So will Powell.”
“True that.” The Cajun cadence was heavy again in Jem’s tone now that they were so close to home. Key was sure his sounded similar after only a week back.
“Gotta go check on the old place,” Key said.
“Not a stop on my tour,” Jem told him. No, Key hadn’t thought it would be, but he hadn’t thought it would be on his own either.
Life could screw you with surprises like that.
* * *
“Are thi
ngs okay out there?” Grace asked her, swiftly changing the subject.
“Lots of pissed-off posturing,” Avery said casually. She couldn’t tell Grace that Dare and Jem were fighting over her. Grace would know soon enough, anyway. “I think they’re pretty much agreeing that we need one another.”
Agreeing because there was no other way out. There might not be any way out, but Avery gave Grace a smile and was grateful when she heard the fighting stop.
She excused herself from Grace and went out to the kitchen to find Key and Jem sitting at the table. Jem had ice on his cheek, but he was still smiling.
She sat next to him, asked, “Why are you wanted?”
“Long-assed boring story,” Jem told her. “Suffice it to say none of us are safe drawing attention to ourselves, and Powell knows it.”
Key looked so miserable that Avery wondered if the original Section 8 members felt this way at first—isolated, looking for any way out of their current predicament.
The original S8’s so-called miracle had ended up being a nightmare, but only at the end. Still, according to Darius, they’d ended up doing an awful lot of good. When she mentioned that, Jem snorted and Key asked, “You don’t expect me to buy into that Robin Hood bullshit, right?”
“What do you buy into?” she demanded. “Because I need to believe in something.”
Key stared at her, and for a second, she swore she saw that same warmth that had been there that first night. Just as quickly, it disappeared and his eyes held that stony gaze.
“What happened that night in the jungle?” she asked. Neither man said a word. “Fuck your code and that classified crap. Tell me now. Make me understand why my brother had a death wish and why you hate him so much.”
Key slammed back his whiskey. “Little girl, don’t ask for things you really don’t want to have on your mind for the rest of your life.”
“I shot two men, point-blank, because they raped and killed my mother. I found her body. I was supposed to be with her, and if I was, what they did to her might not have happened, so I already live with shit in my mind I don’t want. I think I can manage to fit in a little more, so tell me.” She punctuated that by slamming her palms on the table, jarring the bottles and glasses.
“I saved your brother and caught hell for it. Is that what you want to hear?” Key asked.
“If it’s the truth, yes,” Avery said quietly. Jem swore an oath under his breath and shook his head as Key stormed out.
“This is going well,” Jem commented. “This whole situation’s insane.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “Are you, really?”
“Yep.” Jem took a long drag from his cigarette and blew smoke rings in the air. “The deep, dark parts of the CIA that the American public likes to pretend don’t exist loved that about me.”
“I’ll never understand these government agencies.”
“You shouldn’t even try—talk about making you crazy,” Jem agreed.
“So crazy gives you license to do anything?”
“Basically, yes, and that was the premise for S8. I would’ve been a perfect candidate.”
Jem and Key looked a lot alike once you got to know them. They had a similar crinkle to their eyes when they smiled, although Key did so a lot less than Jem. Their facial structure was similar, although Key was light and Jem was dark, much like her and Dare.
“Gunner said you grew up around h
ere.”
“In the next parish over,” Jem said. “Most of it blew away with Katrina.”
“That’s a shame.”
“No, that’s karma.” Jem sat forward. “Don’t push him, pretty girl. My brother’s got a whole lotta ugly inside and nowhere to put it. If you make him put it on you, he’s gonna feel worse,
chère.
”
“Dare won’t tell me.”
“Maybe you’re not meant to know. You got your own burdens, true that?”
More than she’d ever thought she’d have at her age. She studied her fingers. Her nails were short; even so, her hands looked delicate, fingers long and tapered, like she should be playing a piano or doing something equally refined.
Instead, she was wanted for murder and about to become a member of something she felt an immediate kinship to. In the long run, she supposed it didn’t matter how crazy she felt as long as she was doing something right.
After several long moments of silence, Jem said, “Maybe you can talk Key into this.”
“Because it’s our only choice?”
“Because it’s our best choice,” Jem said. “And I’m not your typical team player.”
“Jem, you’re not typical anything,” she told him as she stood. She couldn’t resist leaning down to give him a quick kiss on the cheek.
“What’s that for, girlie? You gettin’ sweet on me? ’Cause I can fight off those other two.”
She wagged her finger at him before heading out the door and off the back porch. She threaded her way through the tall grasses and down to the dock in her hastily pulled-on Keds and sat next to Key, crossing her legs instead of dangling them above the water the way Key was, even as he fished the murky waters.
She supposed that was what separated her from the native bayou dwellers. All she could think about were the alligators. After a few minutes he picked up a fishing rod and handed it to her. She cast the line, waited for it to make its soft plop into the water.
“Why do you hate Dare?” she asked finally, hoping he’d appreciate her not beating around the bush.
When he turned to look at her, his eyes intense, his face heartbreakingly handsome, she wanted to kiss him instead, to finish what they’d started the other night. Instead, Key started talking, telling her the story that Dare had refused to.
He started with, “Dare got me dishonorably discharged. I have a record. No one wants a vet with a record, and I wasn’t ready to leave the Army.”
“What happened?”
He glanced at her and back at the water. “If he didn’t tell you, I’m guessing he doesn’t want you to know.”
“I’m guessing it’s important I do know. Besides, maybe he didn’t know how to tell me,” she said, letting the line rest in the water. “I’m not catching anything.”
“You didn’t throw it out far enough.” He took her line and showed her how to recast it. When they settled in again, she said, “It has something to do with the scars on his hands.”
“Yes.”
“You were there the night it happened?”
“I saved him,” Key admitted after a long moment of silence. She let that sit between them for a while, until he pulled in a fish and recast his line. An alligator floated by like it didn’t have a care in the world, and she watched it until it disappeared.
Key didn’t bother pulling his feet up. “It won’t get you.”
“How can you be sure?”
He pulled a long knife out of his pocket and stuck it into the wood in between them. “I’ll get it first. Wrestle it down and use the knife if that doesn’t work.”
“You wrestle alligators?”
“A summer job. Paid well. I come from a long line of alligator nuisance hunters. My daddy, his daddy before that . . .”
She tried to picture him wrestling down one of the big green reptiles—and winning. He smiled like he knew.
“I was on patrol with my Ranger team and a couple of Delta guys. A different job. The fire distracted me,” he said. “I called it in and was told to stand down and ignore it.”
But he’d seen too much in his short time in the Army to listen. A burning village. Something was happening and he needed to know what. So he broke away from his men and trailed the smoke to the fire—and he saw the hanging man with the spikes embedded in his hands.
“He was shirtless. Pants almost ripped off. He was choking. But still, he was fighting. At first, anyway. And then it was like he gave up and let himself hang. The smoke and fire would burn him alive, and it was like, suddenly he didn’t care.”
“But you did.”
He’d run through the fire and smoke and gotten Dare down. Carried him to the rest of his team. “I took the damned spikes out of his hands. Do you get that, Avery? I took the damned spikes out of his hands.”
* * *
Key’s voice
shook a little when he spoke. Avery touched his arm, and Dare watched the whole scene from several feet away; he’d stopped, not wanting to walk into the middle of this discussion, and then looked down at his hands.
He remembered that well; Key hadn’t wanted to cause him more pain. Dare had insisted, tried to pull them out himself. A teammate convinced Key it would be the best thing to take them out, since Dare would do himself more harm than good.
“He could’ve bled to damned death. Hell, maybe that’s what he wanted. But I kept wondering—hoping—that I didn’t ruin his hands completely,” Key said.
Key had pulled them out fast—but carefully. Dare remembered screaming until he passed out. He hadn’t seen Key again, not until tonight.
Dare turned away and walked back through the brush. Dare’s connection to S8 had ruined Key’s military career—his life. Key was an innocent, and he’d walked into Richard Powell’s death trap for Dare that night in the jungle. And because Powell didn’t know if Dare had given Key any intel, and because Jem had tried to get intel to save Key’s career, Jem was in danger as well. No way Rip would let a CIA man who had even a peripheral knowledge of S8 live.
No way would Rip let any man who had peripheral knowledge of S8 live.
If nothing else, Dare now had to get his life back as well—but at what cost? Their way in was Grace . . . and he’d promised not to use that one. Couldn’t.
“We go back—regroup—and join you in a few days. I don’t think we should stay together for now,” Jem said when Dare got back to the porch, and Dare agreed.
“We’ve been lucky until now—remaining separate has fared us well, made it harder for Rip to track and catch us. But we’re going to have to stick together when we leave New Orleans,” Dare said. He wanted one last night alone with her. One last time to decide how he would move forward—with or without her. Because as much as he didn’t want to let her go, helping her to disappear was their best bet and hers.
“We’ll wait for your signal.”
The two of them and Gunner did wait, until Key and Avery came up the path. It was time for them to head back, time to hear Key’s decision.
“We go after him with everything we have,” Key said. “That’s what I know how to do—I fight. I have no problem fighting him.”
“He’s got too much lead time on us. He knows us way better than we know him,” Dare said.
“Then we learn more about him,” Jem said, pointed inside. “His daughter’s the key.”
For once, Dare agreed with that. He shook Jem’s hand and Gunner’s, hugged Avery, and they started down to the boat. Key lagged behind.
“You need to punch me again?” he asked, and Key stared at him like he was trying to read his mind.
“You wanted to die.”
“Would’ve been a lot easier than the recovery.”
“Did you ever really recover?” Key asked.
“Did you?”
“No, but I’m still hoping.” When Key grinned, Dare could see that maybe, just maybe, there was hope for all of them.
They shook hands then. It would take longer to truly mend their fences, but they understood one another, and that was what was important.