Vigilante 01 - Who Knows the Storm (26 page)

In his mind, he knew what he should do if that happened.

Three bullets and then oblivion. Three bullets and they would be free.

Except….

What if there was still a chance they could survive? He’d cheated death before. Maybe he could do it again.

The sun shifted as the hours passed. Sam’s breathing continued to labor, Cade didn’t stir from his tightly wound cocoon. Nox felt the weight of the past few weeks sucking his energy, draining him of his mental process. His hope.

Protecting Sam and Cade was his priority right now. He couldn’t do anything until they were gone, until they were safe. It clouded his mind to worry about them, and he couldn’t find his anger—couldn’t peel away his love to find the fire that had kept him moving and surviving for seventeen years.

He just wanted them to be safe.

When it was dark, hunger pulled Nox off the floor. He ate a few slices of bread and drank two bottles of water before patrolling the perimeter. Still no police, no one canvassing the area. How convenient that the cops weren’t sweeping the abandoned buildings closest to the Iron Butterfly.

Convenient.

Maybe too convenient.

A
NOTHER
HOUR
.

Nox stared at a blank wall, cataloguing each tab of wrinkled and filthy paint until something switched on in his mind’s eye. Clarity. Space to think.

He traveled through everything that had happened in the past forty-eight hours. He went back two weeks, then two more. He replayed conversations, always waylaid by a memory of Cade under him, splayed out in his bed and absorbing each stroke and thrust….

No. Two weeks. Two more. Conversations. Moments.

What was he missing?

The man in the darkness—the one who told him to back off. Was he the person behind all of this? Was he Rachel’s boss? He knew her to be too good of a liar to take anything she said at face value, but Mr. White’s reaction to her name….

Who else could have been sending him those messages?

He went over each of the words, each of the nuances, his surroundings.

He was missing something. Something big.

H
ALF
PAST
nine and a flashlight beam swung past the opening over the back door. Nox had been waiting there, ready with his blackjack, just in case.

But a quiet creak of the door revealed only Mason Todd, wide-eyed and trailing the tang of fear and sweat.

“No one followed you,” Nox said, giving the rookie a long look.

He shook his head. “No. I followed your directions.” He pulled a knapsack from behind his back. “I got what you asked for.”

Trusting Mason wasn’t the easiest decision Nox had ever made, but he resolved he could snap the cop’s neck if he betrayed them—it wouldn’t be hard, because right now every person with a badge had earned his absolute derision.

They were raping this city as much as the drug dealers, and the blood of thousands of people dripped off their hands.

Mason better be different or he would be floating in the East River by dawn.

B
ACK
IN
the office, Nox found Cade awake and sitting up. He didn’t say anything, didn’t acknowledge him or Mason. The pull to walk to him, the need to touch him, swamped Nox’s senses for a moment, but his son’s thin cough directed him elsewhere.

The feeling of being divided—take care of Sam, take and give comfort to Cade—was frightening.

From the knapsack Mason pulled medical supplies: little vials of medication and sterile needles, a small machine to ease his breathing, even a portable IV drip with several bags of antibiotics.

“It’ll help him faster if we do it that way,” Mason said, gently pushing back the covers to reach Sam’s arm. He stirred, blinking and moving into wakefulness.

“Dad?” he rasped, eyes unfocused as he looked around.

“Right here. I’m here.” Nox sat on the ground next to his son, reassuring him as Mason continued his prepping. Alcohol rub to the inside of his elbow. The careful insertion of the IV into his vein.

Sam whined as Nox rubbed his shoulder.

“Shhh, it’s okay. It’s medicine. Just breathe.” Nox watched every move Mason made, catalogued the way his hands stayed steady even as sweat beaded on his hairline, his gaze trained intently on Sam.

“Where did you learn that?” Nox asked as Sam settled back to sleep.

Mason didn’t look up, fully focused on holding the bag and watching the medicine begin to flow. “My father was an EMT in Boston. I started volunteering when I was sixteen.”

“Why didn’t you become a Boston cop, then?”

“New York seemed to need me more,” he said absently, adjusting the line until he seemed satisfied.

Nox felt a sliver of relief then—the smallest possible amount, but still. He’d take it.

“Here’s the list,” Mason said once they’d gotten Sam resettled, the IV hooked to a portable stand and the blankets once again tucked around him.

Nox took Mason’s tablet and scrolled down the list of properties owned by the proprietor of the printing company. When he reached Morningside Sanitarium, he didn’t even blink. The Iron Butterfly was next. All the properties attached to a name and address Nox knew would turn out to be a dummy corporation. It was like he knew. The person pulling strings was bigger than he could have imagined.

“I
NEED
to go out for a few hours,” Nox said, startling Mason out of a snooze. The young cop had been sitting at Sam’s side since he arrived, barely looking away. Nox was starting to think Mason’s help wasn’t just about doing the right thing.

“What?”

“I’ll be back soon.”

Mason nodded, his gaze flickering up to Nox’s face. “Okay.”

“You armed?”

The rookie nodded.

“Shoot anyone who isn’t me.” He hesitated, chancing a look in Cade’s direction. “If I’m not back by dawn, I want you to go to your captain and tell him everything.”

Mason started to say something, but Cade sprung from his makeshift bed in a flurry of movement, interrupting them.

“No.”

Nox braced himself. “Yes.”

“You can’t make that decision for me,” Cade snapped, throwing off the coat as he stalked over to Nox. “I’m not a fucking child.”

“No—but he is. He’s my son, and I’m going to make sure he’s alive for his eighteenth birthday,” Nox said, calm and unfazed as Cade pressed into him. He could read the frantic movements, could see the wild fear in his lover’s eyes as clear as day.

“Where are you going?” Cade demanded. Nox saw the dawning realization in his eyes.

“To get some information.”

Chapter Fifty-one

C
ADE
HAD
to do something, so he folded blankets and coats and sorted through Mason’s knapsack of medical wonders. He went through their food supplies, then paced around the room reciting Bible verses in his head.

Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles; they will run and not get tired; they will walk and not become weary
.

He thought about his mom and dad. He thought about his brother Lee and how pissed he’d be if he were here. A guy who didn’t do waiting all that well, he would be the one picking up a pipe and rushing out the door, trying to find someone to thump.

Cade was the peacemaker. Cade would say, “Put that down before you get your ass kicked.”

He wished his brother were here right now. And he wouldn’t tell him to put the pipe down, not at all.

In the corner, Mason continued his vigil. There wasn’t much mystery to the way the kid looked at Sam, and somehow that made Cade sad and grateful at once. Sad because they’d probably all be dead or in jail by morning, and grateful because he knew he could trust him.

At the very least trust him to protect Sam.

“I wish we could get him to my parents’ farm,” Cade said, realizing a second later it was out loud.

Mason looked up. “Where do they live?”

“South Carolina.”

Checking Sam’s IV, Mason said, “If we could find a boat, that’d take us down the coast.”

“We? You leaving your post, Officer?” Cade sat down on the edge of the bruised surface of the metal desk.

“I’m pretty sure I don’t have a job anymore. I mean—harboring fugitives, collusion, stealing medical supplies….” A sickly smile bloomed. “I’ll be lucky if they don’t send me to prison for life.”

“We’ll get out of here.” Cade tapped his boot against the floor. Get down to the farm—if they could do that.

The clanging sound again. Cade got up, made his way over to the door. Behind him, Mason scrambled up.

They stood in the doorway, Mason drawing his gun.

“Cade?” a tremulous voice called.

“Rachel?” Cade ran out into the dining room, making his way toward the sound of her voice.

She was standing by the back door, decked out in black from head to toe like a fashionista ninja. And she wasn’t alone.

“Damian’s with me.” She indicated the stark white-faced terror that was Zed’s money man.

“How the hell did you find us?”

Damian blanched. “You sent us a text. To meet you here.”

Cade stopped in midstride, fear gripping him. “Someone texted you. And gave you this address.”

“Yeah—I was hiding in the residence and then Rachel came,” Damian rambled, his voice cracking. “Mr. Z is dead and we didn’t know what to do and then we got the texts.” He was carrying bags—both shoulders, each hand—looking crumpled and terrified in his overcoat.

Cade ran a hand through his hair. “I didn’t send those texts.”

“Shit,” Rachel spit out.

“We have to get out of here,” Mason said from somewhere behind him.

“Come on.”

They packed up what little was there—Rachel took the backpacks while Cade and Mason gathered Sam in a makeshift stretcher made from one of the heavy blankets. They moved with agonizing slowness across the restaurant floor, through the back entrance, and down a rickety set of metal stairs.

The air smelled like snow; already icy flakes intermittently hit Cade’s skin as they headed for the back alley. The plan was to find a hiding place, then send Mason to commandeer a vehicle.

Not their best work, but it was all they could come up with in the middle of their panic.

Home
resounded again and again in Cade’s mind.

His mother would be able to help Sam. His father and Lee were exactly the kind of people to have at your back. They were mostly off the grid, self-sufficient.

“We need a boat,” he murmured, straining at the weight of Sam and the sloppiness of the blankets holding him. Mason grunted something that sounded like an affirmation.

“A boat?” Damian caught up to them, struggling with the bags. “Are we leaving?”

“Over here,” Rachel called—on the other side of a split chain-link fence, she stood beside a garage, its door broken in.

They maneuvered through, the snow falling harder with each passing minute. Inside, there wasn’t much room; two trucks sat in all their rusted glory beside tables filled with debris. Rachel was all the way in the back, rooting around.

“There’s a breakroom or something,” she called. “Empty.”

The narrow alley of space between the trucks was a challenge; Sam thrashed a bit as Mason called out to soothe him. Damian brought up the rear, muttering to himself.

They settled back down in the dusty former breakroom. Damian sank into a corner, knees up to his forehead. Rachel knelt next to Sam, fussing with his covers as Mason checked his IV.

“It’s almost dawn,” Mason said finally, not looking at Cade.

Rachel sat back on her heels and turned to give Cade a long look. “Where’s your friend?”

“Out. He’ll be back soon.” Cade crossed his arms over his chest, feeling defiant. And afraid. “I’ll be right back.”

Cade went to stand at the opening, hidden behind the partial wall. He watched the abandoned restaurant, the empty street. He breathed shallow, praying in his head, thinking about home like it was the Holy Land. It would solve all their problems. Everything would be all right if he got home.

Thing was, he wasn’t going without Nox.

D
AWN
BLUSHED
over the horizon, shades of gray and pink as the snow fell.

Rachel came out to see if Cade wanted another jacket, some gloves, which he accepted with only a murmured thank-you.

Mason came out next. “He said….”

“No.”

The sun rose high in the sky. Everyone left him alone.

His stomach rumbled with hunger; he was thirsty, he had to pee, and yet he didn’t move. He needed to come up with another plan—talk to Damian, use Rachel’s connections, Mason’s knowledge of the city. He needed to get Sam to safety, because if Nox didn’t come back, Cade could at least give him that.

Then he saw someone moving at the back door of the restaurant, near the delivery door.

Nox.

Chapter Fifty-two

N
OTHING
IN
the world was as beautiful as Cade running toward the stairs.

“You were supposed to leave,” he said, his voice rough from yelling, his hands aching from the violence he’d wrought at the Habanos club house. “Why don’t you listen?”

“Screw you, asshole. I’m not Lois Lane.” Cade paused a second before bodychecking him into the wall. “No, actually, I
am
Lois Lane—she wouldn’t put up with that sort of shit request either.”

Nox put his arms around Cade and held on tight.

“I wasn’t going to leave without you,” Cade murmured, pressing his face against Nox’s shoulder. “I’m on your side, you know that, right? I just want to help you and Sam.”

Nox exhaled, shuddering as he pulled Cade tighter.

“You’re crazy to hook yourself up in this mess,” he whispered, holding on for dear life. “But Jesus, I’m so glad you’re here.”

Cade was beaming, his pale eyes bright when he pulled back. “Thank you. Also I’m a fucking genius, because I have a plan.”