Chapter 5

Chapter

Five

PATCH

A fter a third night in a row of dark dreams where the shadows writhed around me, inflicting pain via a thousand cuts, I abandoned trying to sleep the first time I jerked awake. I half-expected to see McQuade right there. To my surprise, he was absent.

Frowning, I glanced from the empty space next to the bed to the window. The black out curtains made it impossible to tell the time of day. I was not supposed to open them either. No lines of sight into the house.

Shoving the blankets back, I climbed out of the bed. Everything was stiff and sore. My neck cracked as I stretched and then my right shoulder popped. The relief spreading in the wake of the stretching and crackling was enormous. With a twist, I added popping my lower back to the list before I headed into the bathroom.

Trying to smother the yawns assaulting me, I emptied my bladder before washing my hands and my face. The cold water chased away the cobwebs and the exhaustion left in the face of more nebulous nightmares.

The dark, abstract nature of the dreams themselves unsettled me at the best of times. Not that any of my recent days qualified for that. The guys were still holding their own counsel on the specifics of what happened to me.

Though, to be fair, I could probably guess. If the burn marks on my arms weren't a giveaway, some of the other scars I'd found would be. Maybe my brain was right to not focus on that information.

Would recall help us solve the current challenges?

Hands braced on the cool counter, I studied myself in the mirror. I had no answer for whether it would help or not. None.

Frankly, I failed to see how more information would be a detriment unless they were worried I couldn't handle it. The longer I stood here, the more mental circles I seemed to get caught in.

Whether I remembered or not, this right here, this dithering and worrying about it, wasn't doing anyone any good. Least of all me. With that in mind, I braided my hair to pull it all back from my face before I got dressed.

The lack of McQuade in the bedroom made me think I'd find him sitting in a chair in the living room. Or maybe holding up the wall just outside of my door. To my utter shock, not only was he not present, none of the guys were.

That was… weird. The door to the little half-bath was open, and the light was off. The kitchen was mostly dark except for a couple of night lights. The windows were all covered, but the clock on the wall said it was after four.

Clearly, it had to mean four in the morning. Unless, I slept some ungodly amount of time and it was well into the next day. That wasn't possible, right? They would have woken me up if I'd slept that long.

I was halfway to the kitchen when the first inklings of panic struck.

Wait.

I hadn't been able to take a breath in days without running into one of them. No matter the time of day, I had one or more of them right here. Whether they were talking to me or not, I wasn't alone.

Locke would be at the table in the kitchen, making notes about something. Remy would be in the kitchen, preparing food or reviewing the security cameras. At least, I thought it was the cameras. Maybe he was reviewing other video footage. As unsettling a thought as that was, he was still usually here.

As for McQuade, I woke to him in my bed more often than not. The other night, he'd held me for hours and told me so many funny stories. They had chased away the shadows so effectively, I'd half-hoped it meant they were gone for good.

Never thought of myself as a dreamer before and maybe I shouldn't be now. Either way, the fact I was out here and they weren't put me on edge. Crossing to the kitchen, I opened the cabinet where I could literally pull out a television screen mounted on a stretch arm.

As soon as I activated it, six different areas popped up. The security cameras were all external as far as I knew. It gave me a good sweep of the property. Had I known what the land here entailed? Had I helped to set up the cameras?

The guys generally used their phones. I did not have a phone that would let me tell what was what. Still, there was a keyboard inside the cabinet, so I pulled it out and flicked it on. Then using the arrow keys, I paged through the numerous angles.

We had far more than six. The landscape wasn't familiar. Snow was still on the ground. The various images showed an outbuilding several meters away. There were no vehicles parked outside. The drive leading away from the house was smooth, unbroken snow.

I frowned. How were they coming and going if not by car? Or maybe it was a new snow? Each answer I found seemed to give me two more questions. As annoying as the wondering was, discovering such basic gaps in my intel was a slap in the face.

Not only did I not know how they were coming and going, I didn't know how they set up this location. What the next steps were going to be. I didn't even watch my own back. Some irritatingly contrary part of myself whispered, "You must trust them more than you realize."

Bitch.

I stared at the pair of coffeemakers. The espresso machine was my preference. It was also noisy though and more likely to alert my roommates to the fact I was awake.

Not that they would mind. It might throw them as hard as it had me. Deciding to just go for regular coffee for now, I set the pot up to brew. Then I filled the kettle and flicked it on.

Remy didn't drink much coffee. Of course he didn't, he preferred hot tea. Hadn't he asked me for an actual decent place to get a cuppa when he'd been in Turkey? The memory presented itself in detail. The job. The target. The five days of patient waiting.

Then the exodus from the country with me smoothing the way. That had an element of fun. It was also the first time I could recall he'd been quite that tired. Unwilling to linger longer than necessary, he was loath to stop and secure a place to crash for twenty-four hours.

Rubbing my thumb against my lower lip, I turned that part of the memory over. Arguably the job was done, I hadn't needed to stay on the line. His weariness worried me. It led to me breaking into a few local systems, particularly a transit bus that could get him to the border.

The buses all had cameras. After securing him a ticket, I sent him on board. The bus wasn't even half full. He managed to take up the back seat comfortably. With me watching his back and his comm turned all the way up if I needed to wake him, he'd slept.

He'd slept because he trusted me.

Kind of like how I was resting and recovering, without being read in on every part of the current operation. I trusted them and I couldn't even put my finger on exactly why . Obviously they were looking after me, but offering friendship in place of torture could soften a target up.

"Except, you know these men," that bitchy little voice observed in the back of my head. "They are exactly who they say they are and for two of them, this is not the type of job they would take. As for McQuade? He doesn't get off on the sadistic shit."

They weren't the trap. My uncertainty had nothing to do with lack of faith in them. The smell of the coffee brewing filled my nostrils with its heady scent. I got down a mug and poured myself a cup as soon as it was ready.

Both hands wrapped around the hot mug, I savored the first swallow. It was almost scalding. Almost. It blazed a trail through me, lighting the torches of awareness in my system. I pictured it like it was actually happening, the animation of it amusing.

"Enough," I ordered myself. A full computer sat waiting in the corner of the kitchen. It totally looked like my set up. It had from the first moment I saw it. But I'd been sleeping so much and I didn't spend time out here without them.

That meant they didn't entertain me sliding in to take a seat and booting it up to find out. I scanned the room around me one more time before carrying my precious coffee over with me.

I flicked on the power switch. I'd booted it all the way down, or someone had. I preferred to leave my equipment offline fully when I slept. It helped prevent infections from worms and other malware when I wasn't sitting in the chair.

It also meant I could be damn certain of each task I had it running. Sure, it took more time and some of it was tedious but tedious kept me safe.

Well, until recently.

Fine, tedious kept me alive.

As soon as the password challenge displayed, I set the coffee down and then typed in the code I most typically used on my equipment.

Muscle memory was a good thing.

The screen unlocked to a basic window.

Oh, so familiar. I appreciated the elegance and launched the operating system. Then I began working my way backwards in time by the dates on files. It wasn't hard to see that all the files dated to the window of time that was currently a blank for me.

Made sense. This was a new setup. I tried to picture my workspace at home. The locked room, the comfortable chair, the multiple monitors, and the security of doing what I loved. Was that all still there?

Presumably, whoever took me had to have taken me there . I never left the house. I hadn't left in years, not since I'd carved out that space for myself and settled in. The disquiet sliding through me at the idea of strangers in my space left an ache behind.

"Okay," I murmured. "Time to talk to me." While that was directed mostly at myself, I picked up the coffee cup and took a long drink as I began to scan the file system, reacquainting myself.

Encrypting and hiding everything was second nature. It was also training. No wipe could ever be trusted to be one hundred percent full proof. Scatter the files so they need to be stitched back together and only if you had the right keystrokes and software.

I had always liked puzzles.

After firing off decryption to open one of the last files I'd saved, I'd sipped my coffee. I was done with it all too soon. Shoving back, I stood and turned only to find myself breast to chest with Remy.

A shriek of surprise locked in my throat as I dropped the now empty mug. Shock and adrenaline left me shaking as I stared up at him. I hadn't even heard him move much less walk right up behind me.

Belatedly the lack of sound following the mug's fall had me glancing down to see the cup in Remy's hand. He'd caught it. The light cast by the screen left his beautiful face harsh relief.

"Didn't mean to scare you, luv." It wasn't quite an apology, but it worked. "Also don't think you're meant to be working on screens yet."

The adrenaline slammed headlong into my irritation and left me hopped up and vibrating. "I'm tired of not knowing. You said if I asked you to go ahead and tell me anyway, you would."

"Yes." No denial.

"This isn't any different."

"Beg to differ," he murmured, then shifted to wave me past him. The fact he hit three buttons on the keyboard and the screen went dark had me narrowing my eyes at him. "You doing it yourself is putting eye strain on you, it's dark, that's a lot of blue light, and you're still recovering from a concussion."

Rolling my eyes, I headed toward the pot and flicked his kettle on. It boiled swiftly so it wouldn't take long. I pulled the mug he tended to favor from the drying rack and flipped open the container of tea bags on the counter as he slid my mug to me.

"Thank you," he said, taking the tea bag from me. Though, he also caught my fingers before I could turn away. Hand locked on mine, he tugged me right to him and then wrapped an arm around me as I impacted against his chest with my hands.

"What are you doing?" The warning in my voice should be enough, but he kept one arm locked around my waist and his free hand wrapped my braid up in his grip.

One corner of his mouth curved upward as he brought his face down to mine. He moved so slowly, it telegraphed his every motion. The teasing warmth of his breath on my lips had my heart racing for a whole new reason.

"This," he said finally when I made no move to stop him. His lips brushed mine, barely there, a whisper of a kiss that seemed to magnetize until his mouth slotted firmly over mine, drowning me in the sudden, and surprising, sensuality.

My heart slammed against my chest as he tugged my braid once, angling my head better. Then his tongue swept over my lips, demanding entrance. We weren't just in the kitchen anymore, but the back of a car. The hot, albeit swift, kiss he gave me imprinted on my soul.

Jerking back, I blinked up at Remy. "For luck?"

Had I imagined him saying that?

His smile deepened and then he kissed me again. His tongue dueled with mine and I forgot all about the fact he hadn't answered the question.