The Revenger (17 page)

Boston took a cold bottle out of his mini fridge and offered it to her after he removed the cap. She took it and swallowed the whole thing in just a few gulps. The memory of her time with Kal and Sara came to the forefront in a rush. She needed air. She pushed herself off the bed, and Boston steadied her when she teetered.

“Careful, Lazarus. You might need a minute before you fly off the handle.”

She swatted his hand away. “Stop pretending to care.”

“Do you need to go for a walk?” His voice was tense.

The cameras and recorders were still in full effect. “Yeah.” Trooper had a bit of a limp as Savvy put on jeans and sneakers. “You know what? Let’s take the dune buggy in case I get winded.” Savvy brushed her teeth and hair and noted that she needed a shower desperately. But she wanted to hash things out with Boston more.

He nodded and allowed Savvy to lean on him on their way to the buggy. It had only two seats, but Trooper settled in Savvy’s lap as Boston popped the clutch. The sun was high in the sky as they drove. She’d been out for a while, it seemed.

They parked the buggy without speaking to each other. Savvy lifted Trooper, who turned out to be just a little too big for the treatment.

Boston took the dog from her arms and set him on the ground. He limped down to the edge of the beach and flopped down, biting at the waves as they splashed over his brown-and-white paws.

“Now you can speak.” Boston crossed his arms over his chest.

“Thanks.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.

He was angry, but the gold in his aura glowed bright. “Tell me,” he demanded. “Tell me how pissed you are to still be here. Give me grief over trying to keep you alive while you drank your face off and made every bad decision you could to piss off Sagan.”

Savvy shook her head. The party seemed so long ago. Everything was different now. She watched as Boston bent and rubbed the dog’s belly. The animal looked like it was in heaven, hardly any sign of his wounds remained.

She walked down to stand next to them, leaving their previous conversation behind. “So does he belong to anyone?”

“Nope. The guys in the Jeep found him in a cage outside the local shelter. They have a place for people to drop off dogs.” Boston stood, and Trooper pawed the ground, demanding more attention. “At least that’s what the witnesses we found told me. Fuckers.”

“We should probably take him back to the shelter. God knows what Sagan will do to him.” Savvy bent down and stroked the dog’s shaggy head. He was a mix of shepherd and some sort of spotted hound. A good, adorable mutt.

“Right now you can keep him. I told Sagan he needed to leave and let you keep the dog so you would heal. So downplay the miraculousness of this whole recovery. The longer you appear weak, the longer he’ll stay away.”

They were close now, both huddled around the dog. He put his serious blue gaze on her face. “I thought you were a goner. I was sure you were done. That shot? Right to the chest. I saw it happen. I was coming, but not fast enough.” Boston looked from her lips to her eyes a few times. “Don’t ask me to shoot you ever again.”

Savvy petted the dog, but managed to pat Boston’s hand in the process. Then she stood. “I have to stop him. I have to kill him.” She shielded her eyes and looked out on the water, at a sailboat bobbing in the distance.

“Tell me something I don’t know.” He stood as well. “You’ve said that a few damn times already.”

She shook her head. “No. Things are different now. I did die. I
died
on the beach. And I saw them. I spent time with them—my husband and daughter.” She closed her eyes for a minute, getting her wits about her. “They told me I have to help the good people and stop the bad ones. This whole thing happening to me? I might have a reason for still being here. Sagan’s whole shit show? It’s evil, but it’s magnetic to me. And as you know, he’s the reason they’re gone. I have to put things right. I think that’s my purpose.”

“He’s got me on a short leash. And you too. Your brother needs to be protected, correct?” Boston kicked the sand.

“That’s the truth. But it feels like there’s something more.”

“Sagan has a weapon in you. Like, inside you. That’s what makes you so strong sometimes. The chemical compound—something his scientist created—they were delivering it to him when the truck crashed, and you were exposed to it. The rest of it was compromised or burned up. As soon as he can get more, he wants to inject all of us who work for him with it.” Boston rubbed his forearm as if imagining the poison seeping into his system.

“Just another reason to pop his head off his neck.” Savvy faced him.

“It’s not that easy. Shit. He’s got that ring to protect himself now, and once they have a way to make more of the compound, the whole way war is waged will change. And Sagan will be in charge.” Boston bit his lip.

“Okay, blow up the shit, destroy the ring,
and
pop his head off his neck. My to-do list is getting awesome.” She motioned with her head toward the buggy, ready to do business immediately.

Boston shook his head. “But here’s the thing. The compound? In the right hands? It could be an answer to a lot of the energy problems we spend a huge chunk of our military’s time trying to solve. It could be one of the best things our generation produces for the ones that come after.”

“I think the potential for evil outweighs the need for energy.” She turned to face him.

“You think people are clearly defined by good and bad? Is it that easy for you?” His dark hair ruffled in the ocean breeze, his eyes now hidden by his sunglasses.

“It can be.”

“Then what are you?” He lifted his chin in challenge.

She exhaled in a whistle. It was good point. What the hell was she? Before her recent time with Kal and Sara, she would have said evil as the day is long—for what she could do, for what she wanted to do, for what she had done, especially to her own family. But when she was pounding on someone with a red aura, she felt right, almost good, like she had a higher purpose.

“I’m ready to get back, that’s what I am.” Savvy ended the conversation by walking back to the buggy. Boston followed after a few seconds and lifted Trooper into her lap.

As usual, she could feel her power pulse and strengthen as she returned to the house. Boston’s jaw tensed when she glanced at him. It was a tough job, trying to keep her in line. She wondered if he would live through it.

Consistency

Silas had settled in at his compound in Spain and even given himself a day to relax, though he spent it silently willing Savannah to heal. Now he had things to do besides watch the live feed into her world, but he was having trouble making himself do them. He tapped his fingers on his desk. It looked the same as the desks in Maryland, California, and Ireland, among others. He craved consistency, even if it was manufactured.

He called the scientist back in the US, knowing full well his timing was shit. The bastard was probably sound asleep.

He surprised Silas with a crisp answer. “Yes?”

“I’d like you to report your advances so far. You’ve had the ring nearly forty-eight hours now.”

The scientist sighed in exasperation. “Well, I’m extracting the Compound E left in the ring and trying to develop it to be more flexible, as you requested—protective to you, but not quite so stifling to the woman. At the same time I have two assistants running algorithms to identify possible locations of more of the compound’s essential ingredient for you. We’ve hit a snag. I’ll work it out, but I’ll need more time. The ring is almost done, though, so at least I can offer you something.”

“Will it have a larger radius, like I requested?” Silas looked at his bare finger.

“No, sir. I’m working with the tiniest fraction of the substance we have left—which could be used to further our future development efforts if you’d part with the ring…”

Silas didn’t respond.

“The ring will be done in three days’ time. It will be dulled enough that she can test the boundaries on command. And, as I must remind you, without command.”

“But can she still touch me? Can she physically lay her hands on my body?” The thought of it filled him, sending blood to his groin in a rush.

“She can, and she will be an average-strength woman when she does so. But again, to remind you, any human can kill any other one—with a gun, with a knife.” The scientist waited.

“Your warning has been received, but don’t you see? She wants to feel my blood slip through her fingers. She seems addicted to the pain she causes.”

Silas hung up because he felt like he was exposing his more vulnerable side. However, he knew his obsession with Savannah was probably quite apparent since he’d opted to use the remaining Compound E to get closer to the woman sooner, rather than further his weapons-development plans.

Setting limits had never been Silas’s strong suit. He kicked his feet up and rested his expensive shoes on his desk, regarding Savannah as she slept in one of his beds thousands of miles away. She looked almost peaceful in sleep, the moonlight highlighting the lovely slopes in her profile. He was dying to trace her jaw with his tongue, to command her to do things and watch the hate in her eyes as she complied. To have someone so strong, so filled with fury submit to him would be the ultimate high.

Silas had plenty of experience with the feeling. His mother had been forever infatuated with his father. Housekeeping for the great Baron Sagan was a source of pride. The drunken night his father had dragged his willing mother to bed was the high point of her existence. She suffered from an unending draw to the power the man could provide, and Silas became the ultimate chess piece in a game as old as time. He was the heir to the throne. It mattered not to his mother that the throne was built out of human bones and floated on a sea of blood; she wanted her son to have it.

When Silas was younger, his half siblings from various mothers had never viewed him as remotely equal. His chores included bringing them food and snacks. Two of his older brothers took to throwing pennies at him whenever he entered the room. His father saw him flinch once and rained a beating down on his head, screaming at his mother the whole time. “You claim this boy is mine? See how he flinches? He’s a coward. And not of my blood.”

His mother had hung her head in shame. And his father had dictated that his brothers always keep their pockets full of change to throw until the boy learned to accept the pain and shock of the hits.

His mother encouraged him as he hardened, whispering promises to him. “Those children? They are soft, not what Baron needs. You’ll see. They’ll fail, and then he will claim you. And the riches he has will be yours. Your future, your children—they will want for nothing.”

He still remembered his tearful reply. “But he hates me!”

His mother had slapped him then. “Never say that about your father. Ultimate respect. Only. Forever. Without him, we would be on the streets.”

So Silas had completed his chores, accepting the welts that came from the abuse he suffered, and then every chance he got, he made his way out to the very streets his mother feared. There he’d met up with Jack. Jack was rich as shit but acted like a human. He’d smuggled the twelve-year-old Silas a beer to dull the pain of the marks he bore. And like that they were bonded: confidants, troublemakers, and brothers. Silas loved Jack fiercely. Though they experimented with every trouble they could find, they always had each other’s back. They grew into teenagers exceptional at shoplifting and stealing from the rich people in their lives to provide the distractions Silas needed. Jack didn’t need them, but he gamely ventured into the shadows with Silas anyway.

And as things in Silas’s house went to shit, Jack had listened with wide eyes. Having someone that cared how his damn day went meant more than his mother’s constant angling for power. Jack was the only brother he ever acknowledged. He wasn’t even blood. But it was promise they made to each other so many years ago, to never turn their backs on each other that mattered most.

Jack had proven himself the day Baron was teaching teenaged Silas a lesson in manhood. When Silas had missed two nights worth of boy bullshit, Jack came looking. When he found Baron holding a gun on Silas, Jack had stood between the old man and his friends and talked Baron out of ending his best friend’s life.

Silas’s men would never understand why Jack was off limits, why the man lived under a cloak of protection no one had ever witnessed before. Until Savannah. He needed her for different reasons, but the commands came from the same part of his soul.

Seeing Jack woo her had caused his whole brain to seize up. And then the fools who’d been too drunk to care about his orders? The whole night had been a clusterfuck.

Jack was fine, fortunately. Silas had spoken to him by phone the day before, and he’d warned him off of Savannah. He’d also reported that she was healing well, and so blisteringly fast, which Silas could confirm because of his constant gawking at her.

As a test case for Compound E in humans, she was fascinating, as well as compelling as a woman and unparalleled as a killer.

Savannah turned then, as if she could hear his thoughts. She yawned, her gaze found the camera, and she smiled in a way that didn’t make it to her eyes. She dragged her index finger across her throat before pointing at him.