“Critical, but alive.” This time she looked up, her green eyes cold. “He’s had transfusions, but he also has a raging infection the doctors have never seen before. Tybalt’s staying with him.”
“Anyone want breakfast?” Milo asked as he wandered into the kitchen.
“Whatever you can knock out,” Kismet said. “Coffee, too.”
I stared. She wanted breakfast? The idea of eating anything made my stomach churn in an unpleasant way. Even though it was probably nerves, I wasn’t about to tempt fate. I shook my head at Milo.
“You should eat, Evy,” Wyatt said.
“I’ll have coffee.” It was my compromise. We’d been up all night, hadn’t slept, hadn’t eaten much, and had used our Gifts to their limits and beyond. At least the caffeine would keep me conscious for a few more hours. “When’s Baylor coming back with the computer?”
“Around the same time as Nevada,” Kismet replied.
“Okay.” Time was ticking away loudly inside my head. I hadn’t felt it so keenly since the battle at Olsmill, and, while the end results wouldn’t be quite as spectacular as unleashing demons on the world, I was still preparing to sacrifice myself to protect others. Protect the city from the whims of a madman, and all I wanted to do was hide in the other room until the problem went away.
But I just couldn’t live with myself if I did that. It would have been so much easier to fall on my sword when all I had in my life were people I’d willingly die for. Because now I had someone in my life I’d not only die for but I wanted desperately to
The freshly deodorized scent of the bedroom surrounded me. I didn’t close the door, just wandered inside and sat down on the neatly made bed. Smoothed my hand across the damp blanket where I’d made love to Wyatt not a quarter hour ago. The pillows had lost their scent of us, and I longed for it. Just a small whiff as I pressed one pillow to my face. Held it tight to my chest. I shifted until my back rested against the wall and drew my knees up, locking the pillow in my lap.
The clock didn’t stop ticking.
“Coffee’s ready.”
I snapped my head up, unsure when I’d rested my forehead on the pillow and shut my eyes. Kismet stood just inside the bedroom. She’d traded her bloodstained shirt for something that belonged to one of her Hunters, judging by the bagginess on her slim frame. Her stance screamed of repressed frustration and the need to go a couple rounds with a heavy bag.
“Thanks,” I said.
“For what it’s worth, I admire you. I don’t know if I could do what you’re doing.”
I couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d said she was actually a vampire, had sucked everyone dry in the other room, and was about to eat me for dessert. It took several tries to find my voice. “What is it I’m doing?”
“Willingly giving yourself to who knows what fate at Thackery’s hands, even after everything you’ve already been through.”
My lips curled in a sneer. “You mean I’m letting myself be potentially tortured to death twice?”
“Yes.”
“Nothing Thackery could physically cook up will ever come close to what Kelsa did to me.” The only true torture he could possibly inflict was leaving Wyatt behind to wonder, and to hope for my rescue, knowing Wyatt would never rest until he saw proof of my life or death. Knowing that finding my broken, disposed-of body for a second time might destroy him.
“We’ll be tracking you,” she said, stepping into the room and pushing the door to within an inch of being shut. She fished into her jeans pocket and pulled out a small box, the size of a tin of mints. Matte black, with a single red dot on the center of the lid. She didn’t have to tell me what was inside; they’d been explained to us in Boot Camp. “We’ll do everything we can to keep tabs and bring you back, Stone, but you may want this, too.”
I took the tin, unable to keep my fingers from shaking, and tucked it into my rear pocket. As far as backup plans went, swallowing a suicide pill wasn’t my style. “Yeah, thanks.”
“Wyatt would kill me if he knew I gave that to you.”
I snickered at her poor choice of words. “We have them available for a reason, right?”
“Right.”
More and more, against my better judgment, I was starting to like Gina Kismet. I was also starting to get very curious about her. Perhaps because I really knew so little, and every tidbit I learned contradicted the one before. It drew me back to a conversation that seemed like years ago and a comment I hadn’t been able to shake.
“Who was he?”
Kismet frowned, her slim eyebrows furrowing. “Who was who?”
I hesitated. She could tell me to shut up, mind my own business, or quite possibly shoot me between the eyes for my impudence. But I’d asked the question, and it was time to shit or get off the metaphorical pot.
“Who was the Hunter you weren’t supposed to fall in love with?”
Kismet went perfectly still. Not a muscle twitched, not a wisp of hair moved. Even her eyes seemed flat, lifeless. Fascinating, if it weren’t so damned scary. Then she blinked and the spell was broken. I resigned myself to getting no answers and watching her storm back out of the bedroom.
Instead, she plunked down next to me, slid back until she hit the wall, and sat cross-legged, as if we were girlfriends sharing a weekly gabfest. “His name was Lucas Moore.”
I knew the name, and if I recalled my history correctly, Milo had been his replacement in the Triad. She’d been in love with her own Hunter. Hypocrite didn’t begin to describe what she was, and yet I couldn’t drum up any anger or indignation. Just pity. And I knew she’d hate pity.
I covered with a stupid question, because I already knew the answer. “When did he die?”
“One year, two months, twelve days ago.” Her perfectly trimmed fingernails picked at an imaginary snag on her jeans leg. “He was my Hunter for almost two years, and I … we felt something from the first day. Denied it, of course, for as long as we could, and then we hid it for over a year. I always told myself it didn’t affect my leadership decisions, but I don’t really know. It’s hard to judge actions when your mind is clouded by emotion.”
“It’s not easy staying behind.”
“No.” If she understood how much more was implied in my statement beyond simply her duties as a Handler, she gave no indication. “When Lucas died, I thought I would die, too. I’d never loved someone with my whole heart, and it broke me, Evy.”
Her use of my nickname didn’t go unnoticed. I couldn’t picture the strong, vital, persistent redhead next to me as a crying, shattered emotional wreck. Couldn’t picture her as anything except what I’d always seen, even with the tremor in her voice and glimmer in her eyes.
Our history was tangential, our paths barely crossing in four years—Kismet and I hadn’t directly interacted in any meaningful way until Olsmill, even though our Triads had. And gossip never really died. People talked, especially when teams went out of rotation for Hunter injury or loss, and Gina’s Triad had seen more than its fair share of bad luck and loss—four deaths in four years. The Handler herself had barely survived a brutal attack the night Felix was assigned.
The only thing I really remembered about the time around Lucas’s death was Wyatt. He’d seemed distracted, around less than he should have been. Guess he’d been helping out a grieving friend.
“Wyatt loved you for a long time,” she said, switching conversational tracks. “He never said anything, but if you’ve lived it, you can spot it. Then you died and he went apeshit. After seeing what I’d … I was furious at him for a lot of reasons, and now I think it was because I was jealous.”
I gaped at her, flabbergasted. “Jealous?”
She tilted her head, never breaking eye contact. “Jealous that he loved you so much he was willing to trade everything to bring you back. And he did. It made what I’d felt for Lucas seem very small.”
“Wyatt was manipulated by Tovin into agreeing to that deal. Tovin made him believe that if I was brought back, we’d both live and have a future together. Wyatt never would have done it without that promise.”
“True, but I asked myself not long after Olsmill if I’d do what Wyatt did, had our situations been reversed. If I would trade my free will for the tiniest hope of Lucas and me being together again.”
“I couldn’t say yes.”
“That doesn’t mean anything, Kismet. People feel differently, they love differently, but it doesn’t …” Emotional
