Chapter 19

It took every ounce of Raina's willpower—and a few gallons of coffee to make up for her lack of sleep—to walk into Deacon the next afternoon. She painted her face and donned an all-black outfit apart from the blue-and-silver scarf—her concession to the Saints' colors—wrapped around her neck. The skinny jeans and spiked heels and her favorite battered leather jacket weren't making her feel any better. Not even the nearly Stage-Raina makeup was working. But she hoped they might at least convince everyone else that she felt better. Doubtful when almost everyone she was going to see today had been at Madame R last night. Had seen Mal sweep her off the stage.

And by now, unless the Saints grapevine had failed spectacularly, a lot of them would know that he hadn't come back into the club.

For which she was grateful. It had been hard enough to hold herself together while she apologized to Alex for the drama and then overseen the post-party cleanup. Luis and Brady had gone with her to Mal's but he hadn't been there. They'd scooped up Wash and Raina's things and taken her back to their house. She'd tried to argue and get them to take her to her apartment but Luis had put his foot down.

"Mal overreacted," he said. "I'm not arguing with that. I get why you're upset. But they haven't found whoever it was who went to town on your wings, so until then you're not staying alone."

By that point she was too tired to fight. She'd used up all her fight on Mal. She'd cried in the shower and then crawled into bed with Wash, who'd slept far more soundly than she had.

Mal hadn't called or texted or contacted her in any way. She was fighting not to check her phone every five seconds. But she'd told him to leave her alone and apparently that was one order he was taking seriously.

Careful what you wish for.

Or something.

They needed space: That much was clear. But that didn't mean space was easy.

Maggie was standing outside the Angels' locker room.

She gave Raina a quick hug. "I just came to see if you're okay."

"I am," Raina said. "And I'll stay okay as long as you don't add in some sort of plea on Mal's behalf."

"I haven't seen him," Maggie said. "I gather from Alex and Lucas that he's holed up down in the security office. But no, I won't argue his case. I think he's a good guy but he has to realize he's not Superman sooner or later. I hope it's sooner."

So do I.

"I have to go in and talk to the girls," Raina said. "Thanks for checking on me but I'm okay. Mal and I—well, maybe we're just not a good fit. I can't be what he needs if he needs someone who'll stay inside where he can see her every second of the day."

"Just don't write him off too fast," Maggie said. "And now I'll leave you before I break my promise and start defending him. See you after the game."

"Go Saints," Raina said. Then she walked into the locker room to rev up her Angels and try and forget about her demon for a few hours.

"You know, we thought you might be joining us," Lucas said. "Being one of the owners of a team that just won another game."

Mal looked up from his computer monitor. Lucas stood in the door to his office, beer in hand. He wore a Saints jacket over a white polo shirt that looked brand new and unwrinkled despite the fact Lucas must have been wearing it for hours. "Busy," he said shortly. He rubbed his hand along his jaw and looked back at the computer, feeling the stiffness in his body from sitting too long. His own clothes were definitely not unrumpled. He'd been down here since last night, which made it the seventh night in a row he'd worked through the night at Deacon since the party. He desperately needed a shower, some clothes that he hadn't dug out of the duffel he kept stashed in his office, and some sleep in a real bed. But he couldn't bring himself to leave.

That would mean going home to his apartment. Where Raina wasn't.

"Do you mind if I ask what you're doing?"

"Looking at the Angels' social media reports," Mal said. "Another one of those feather accounts popped up."

"Feather accounts?" Lucas asked, walking around behind Mal to peer over his shoulder. "Does this have something to do with Marly? Is she still getting crap online?"

"They all do," Mal said. "A depressing percentage of men seem to think that ‘come sit on my face' is the social media equivalent of hello. But no, she hasn't had anything specific. Not that I can figure out. The first account that messaged her was shut down by the time I got to look at it. But every so often, I get a ping on that feather image it used. So far, about ninety percent of the time, it's people just using similar feather pics. But there have been a couple of accounts that appear, comment or DM something at one of the Angels—Marly twice—and then close down again."

"Can you trace the users?"

"I have some of the guys at MC looking into it. It's not easy unless whoever it is fucks up and forgets to hide his identity. And so far this guy is being very, very careful. But they're digging."

"Well, if anyone can do it, your guys can," Lucas said. "So why don't you come downstairs and join in the celebration?"

Mal shook his head.

"C'mon, Mal, you've been holed up down here since the party," Lucas said.

"It's not like I have anything else to occupy my time," Mal said. "And we kind of have a lot going on."

Lucas walked back around the desk. "Have you talked to Raina?"

"She made it fairly clear she didn't want to talk to me," Mal said.

"Well, she was freaked out," Lucas said. "You did go a little overboard. But that was a week ago. She's had some space. You should give it a go. Unless you're determined to be an idiot and lose the best thing that's happened to you for several years."

"I thought buying the Saints was the best thing we'd done in several years," Mal said.

"It's very cool but a baseball team isn't going to keep you warm at night. Won't build a life with you. Won't love you," Lucas said. "If you want all that, of course."

"I scared her," Mal said. That was the part that was killing him. The fact that he'd scared her. Made her feel unsafe. She was too strong to be scared. And she'd been through plenty of crap without him adding to it.

"Yes, I imagine you did," Lucas said. "But you know, in the medical world, we have this thing about symptoms and causes. If you ask me, what you did at the club is a symptom. Remove the cause, lose the symptom."

"I'm not sure it's that simple."

"Didn't say it was simple. It might be that this has all triggered some of the stuff you thought you'd dealt with when you first got out. And after Ally's death. Maybe you'll need to talk to someone about that some more. Or maybe if you find the fucker who's messing with Raina and the Angels, you'll be fine. Neither of which is an easy fix. But it's worth thinking about."

"You think she'd talk to me?" Mal asked.

"You can at least try an apology," Lucas said. "Start from there and work up to some world-class groveling. Give her the moon. Or whatever the Raina equivalent of that is. That usually works. But only if you're ready to listen to her and curb those instincts of yours. Otherwise you're just going to set up the cycle all over again. And that won't be doing anyone any favors. So think about it, but think hard before you decide." He drained his beer, set the empty bottle on Mal's desk. "Now, it's my professional opinion that you are in desperate need of a few of these and eight solid hours' sleep. But you're a big boy and I'm not going to force you to come join the party."

"That's because you know you couldn't," Mal said, feeling a flash of humor for the first time in a week.

"You keep telling yourself that, big guy," Lucas said. "Brains win over brawn any day."

"You wish. Now stop bothering me. I can't do anything until I've finished looking at this, so if you want me to stop working, then leave me alone."

"Sad, sad, sad," Lucas said, but he left. Mal shook himself and got back to work.

In the end he didn't go to the party but he did shut down his system at midnight and call Ned to drive him home. When he got there, he showered, changed and made himself a sandwich, feeling hungry for the first time in days. He was eating it standing over the counter in his kitchen, trying to ignore the fact he missed Wash prowling around trying to steal his food, when his phone beeped to tell him he had an email.

Lucas.

Apparently midnight was the perfect time to take another swing at him. He almost ignored the message but changed his mind and checked it.

Something to think about, the subject line read.

Then the message was just: Better than a baseball team. L.

There was a video file attached.

Damn.

He switched to the computer in his study and pulled up the file there. Two quick clicks and it started to play.

Home video from the quality. And somewhere dark. Lots of voices. The screen was a wobbly blur but then it settled and Mal recognized what he was looking at. Madame R's. The night of the party. He could tell from all the Saints colored balloons being bounced around the room.

What the hell, Lucas?

He stared at the screen listening to the sounds of the crowd. Laughter and chatter. And then music started pounding through the room.

His heart nearly stopped. He knew that song. And he knew what he was about to see.

On the screen, the video zoomed in, focusing on the shimmering black curtain drawn across the stage. Which suddenly flew apart and revealed Raina in all her black-and-pink-angel glory.

The sight of her had nearly stopped his heart at the party. He'd wanted to leap onto the stage and carry her off as soon as she'd appeared.

Carry her off to somewhere dark and private with a big bed where he could remove some of that leather and maybe work out how to tie her down with those wings and do the sorts of things she liked him doing to her until she came about a thousand times.

"Breathe," Maggie had said in his ear on the night, and he'd taken that advice. Had stayed there, mesmerized, watching Raina slink across the stage and own it. Sex on legs. Glorious. Strong. The wings framed her body and somehow, despite the weight of them, she'd managed to leap and twist as though she might just take off.

Until the lights exploded and she ducked. And he saw himself leaping onto the stage and grabbing her, panic clear on his face. The video stopped when the lights died.

He hit PLAY again. Stopped when he saw his face again. Remembered the panic. The need to get to her. The certainty that he had to get to her. Remembered, with a sudden blinding flash, the first time he'd ever felt that way.

All those years ago. In Texas.

The explosion. Remembered the sound—a growling rushing roar—and then watching as, behind Alex, standing at home plate, half the stadium started to collapse.

The force of the blast had sent him rocking back but he kept his feet, half his brain registering the sight of Lucas falling to the ground while the other half tried to figure out what the hell had just happened.

It didn't take long. His ears ringing from the blast, he'd watched Alex running across the field, toward Lucas, uniform half streaked with black. Vaguely aware that around him, everyone else was running for the north exit. He stayed put until he saw Coach Paulson bend down to help Lucas to his feet. Lucas had shaken his head but the coach pointed at the exit and Lucas had grimaced and started to jog in that direction, limping slightly. Mal watched him go. The exit. That was the smart option. That way was safety. Which explained why most of the crowd was currently streaming in that direction, trying to get out of the stadium.

No way he going anywhere without his friends. He started toward them and the three of them met about halfway across the field. Lucas came to a stop, wincing, and Alex did, too. Mal stared past them at the flames and smoke billowing from what was left of the stand behind home plate. Lucas and Alex saw his face and turned, too.

"Coach said we gotta go," Alex had said. His face had been smeared with soot, his hair standing on end and black-smudged. One sleeve dangled from his jersey, nearly ripped off.

"There are people in there," Lucas said. Or that was what Mal thought he'd said. His ears still rang.

The three of them stared at one another a moment. None of them moved an inch.

"Okay." Alex nodded. "But we do this together. No one gets out of sight. No one does anything stupid."

It was stupid by definition. It was also the only goddamned thing to do. You couldn't run away when there were people in there. People who might be hurt or trapped. People who were smaller and weaker than he was. People who needed help. Stupid didn't matter. Only that he could do something.

He learned things that day. Learned the way that smoke stung your eyes and lungs as it closed around you. Learned that adrenaline could make you do things that you didn't think were possible and that you wouldn't remember clearly. Learned that he could feel completely terrified and keep running back into the flames.

Learned that he was one of the lucky ones. When they were done he had a burn across his forearm and a cut in his side where he'd stumbled against a twisted piece of metal but that was nothing. He was alive. The three of them were alive. Alex had busted his hand in half a dozen places and Lucas had done a number on his shoulder but all three of them were alive.

There were people who weren't.

People who'd died. Because on a perfectly sunny warm day they'd wanted to watch some damned baseball. Because they, too, loved the game. Died because some group of assholes had a gripe with the government or the university or something and thought they had the right to take it out on other people who were doing nothing more than trying to live their lives.

And he promised himself he wasn't going to let that happen again.

He shook himself out of the memory, breathing too hard. He hadn't remembered it like that for a long time. Not so clearly.

But he might have guessed that he'd be ripe for some sort of rebound, with the way he'd been pushing himself. He'd been half expecting one of his now rare nightmares. Combat and blood and death.

Instead there had been a girl wearing black-and-pink wings and leather in a darkened burlesque club.

There hadn't been an explosion.

Just a bang and a flash and a shower of sparks. And then pure reaction.

Dumb.

He leaned forward. Touched the mouse. Watched again. Watched Raina again. Stared at her, aching with the need to touch her.

Every move she made was clearly her. Strong and wild and free. Not someone who needed protection. Someone who couldn't be caged up. But someone who could keep up with him.

So much like Ally it scared him.

But different, too. Somehow he knew that. Raina didn't have that dark streak Ally'd had. There was nothing at the core of her, nibbling away at her, rotting her from the inside out.

He'd tried to fix Ally, to tame her. To keep her safe and in the end, he'd been defeated by Ally herself. Who didn't need him as much as she needed to try to run from whatever had been eating at her. Whether that was something the army had done to her or something from before he'd even known her.

He'd never know now.

There was no way to know.

But it wasn't too late to know Raina.

To let her in and let her be strong.

Which meant living with the fear of losing her.

He hit PLAY again. Watched her trying to fly across a tiny stage in a darkened club and completely enthrall a room full of people.

To try to stop her from being who she was would just make her smaller. Hurt her.

And then he'd lose her anyway.

So if he could get her to give him a second chance, he had to decide which Raina he wanted. The one on the screen, brilliant and bold and untamed, or a lesser version.

He could lose her, yes. That was the risk that anyone took if they let themselves be in love. But before then he could have her. Have all of her. If he let her be.

Leaning back in the chair, he played the video one last time, pausing it on the first moment she was revealed. On the smile on her face and the wicked light in her eyes.

She wouldn't take him back if she couldn't believe that he wouldn't freak out again. So he needed to do what Lucas had said and remove the cause of his symptom. Find the creep who was trying to mess with her and make sure he got thrown into some cell for as long as possible. Give her back her peace so that she could be who she was in this video. And even if she didn't take him back, then Lucas was right, he could still give her that.

He just had to figure out how to catch the bastard.

The phone call woke Raina at about three a.m. She reached for it while she tried to make her brain function. "Hello?"

"Raina, it's Mal."

"Mal?" She peered at the clock on the phone. "It's the middle of night."

"You need to come to the hospital."

Her heart started to thump so hard she thought she might be having a heart attack. "Why? Is someone hurt?"

"Our feathered friend decided to make a move," Mal said. "Luckily, he underestimated Marly's abilities."

"Marly? What?" She bolted upright in bed. "Damn it, Mal, is Marly hurt?"

"Just come." He reeled off the name of the hospital. "Ned's on his way to come and get you. He'll be at Brady's place in fifteen minutes. He'll call you when he gets there."

He hung up before she could ask him anything else. Like how the hell he knew where she was staying and where the hell he'd been for the last two weeks and what the hell sort of first-contact-after-a-fight phone call did he think that had just been?

Her teeth clenched as she crawled out of bed, flicked on the lights, and tried to locate some clothes. Once she was sure that Marly was okay, she was going to kick Malachi Coulter's butt. Or something.