Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

Justin woke with a start, staring up at an unfamiliar ceiling, with terror coursing through his veins. For a second he couldn't recall where he was, but his head was clearer, he wasn't in pain, and abruptly he knew exactly where and when he was.

Panic morphed into dread.

"You're awake," a voice informed him.

Like I don't already know that.

He turned to look into familiar bright blue eyes. Sam . The one with the food, the blankets and the need to mother him. The good-looking man who'd looked right through him and refused to let him give up and die in the middle of nowhere.

Not nowhere. Crooked Tree. It's what I wanted.

"Shoulda left me," he managed to say, his throat tight.

Sam twisted his mouth in a parody of a smile, and then shrugged a shoulder. "You're not dying on my watch."

"I told you—" What he'd wanted to say was lost in a spasm of coughs. He scrambled to sit up, having to accept help from Sam and the coughing stopped.

"Yeah, you told me and I didn't listen," Sam said, patting his back as though it would help.

Justin twisted away and crawled off the bed to stand. He felt like crap: his thigh ached—but at least it wasn't on fire—his head pounded, and his whole body was shaky. He was able to stand, albeit it by leaning on the nearest object, which happened to be a hard wooden chair, but at least that was one thing he could do.

"Where are my clothes?" he asked, wobbling dangerously.

Sam lifted an eyebrow. "In the kitchen. But no way will you be wearing any of it again."

Justin used the walls to get to the kitchen door, stumbling to his clothes and yanking at the denim, all that remained of his jeans. He dug fingers into pockets and cursed as he fell back against the table and dropped the material.

The memory stick was gone. "Where is it?"

Every bit of research was on there, every scrap of evidence that could be peeled apart to save his life—if he even wanted it to.

Then he saw it, an innocuous rectangle of green plastic, sitting there next to the water bottle he'd drunk from. He picked up the stick and checked it for damage. Outwardly it looked fine: no blood, no cracks, and he held it tight.

"I need to go," he announced. Then maybe Sam would stop hovering and throwing him concerned looks.

He couldn't see Gabe anywhere; Gabe should be there. Justin had seen his old friend go white with shock, calling his name and falling to his knees.

Where has he gone? Or was I hallucinating?

"I need to go," he said again.

"No." Sam was in the bedroom doorway, and without making it too obvious, Justin glanced at the front door, forcing his abused brain to think in angles and distances, about whether he could get to the door before Sam stopped him.

Short, with not so many muscles, Sam was slight, even. Against Justin he would be a lightweight, because Justin had moves, a few inches on him, and probably a hell of a lot more muscle and speed. Or rather, he usually had those things. Right at that moment, though, he was boneless and dizzy.

Sam glanced at the door too, and shrugged.

Justin winced. "I have to, okay?"

"I won't stop you," Sam said, "if you have to go."

"Damn right you won't." Justin stepped away from the chair experimentally, but grasped it again when pain shot from his thigh into his groin, circling to his lower back. Dizziness had the floor tipping up under him.

Concussion symptoms, maybe? Or infection in his leg? Justin used his free hand to test the area at the back of his head where a lump was sore to touch. He recalled hitting his head in the shack, making the injury from where Saunders had slammed him into a wall a hell of a lot worse.

"Where the hell is Gabe? I know he was here," Justin asked. Part of him, the dark, desperate part, knew exactly where his old friend was. Gabe had gone to fetch the authorities, or Ethan, or Adam, or hell, worst of all, Justin's dad. But whatever he'd done, wherever he'd gone, Justin was fucked.

"Gone to get Ethan." Sam delivered the words softly, with no emotion or added comments.

Even so, the world fell away from Justin's feet. "No," he murmured. "No, he can't. Witness protection. Rob said—" His thoughts weren't making sense, only that him being here put everyone in danger, and the one person he'd wanted to protect most was coming here. Ethan couldn't know he was there, or that he was alive. What if Rob tracked him down? He wouldn't stop at Justin; he'd take out anyone who might know anything, who could compromise state secrets. He would have to.

Because, it was what they did.

No one knows I came to Crooked Tree. It's the ideal place to hide. Rob wouldn't think I'd do something so stupid, so suicidal.

"Earth to Justin? Come in, Justin?"

"What?" Justin had spaced out, but his brain could only handle so much stress at one time.

"You need some clothes." Sam held out some sweats, and for a second, Justin didn't understand. Then he glanced down and realized he was completely naked. Which meant Sam would have seen his back.

Sadness washed over him, guilt and a healthy amount of fear following straight after. One-handed, he took the sweats, seeing a bright pink T-shirt underneath. He refused to let the self-disgust take hold, though; his back was a badge of honor, proof of the horrors he had seen and done. He just typically kept it hidden. The fear was that people asked too many questions, ones he didn't want to answer.

"You want some help?" Sam asked, although he didn't move.

"No." A stubborn need to get himself dressed gave Justin more than enough energy to at least put on the shirt, which was a little tight but serviceable. Then he eyed the pants. Soft and elasticized, and all he needed to do was balance on one leg.

Fire burned in his thigh as he attempted the awkward moves, and all the time Sam watched him.

"I can help," he said at least three times.

And all three times, Justin ignored him. Finally, just as Sam opened his mouth for the fourth time, Justin gave up and thrust the pants out to him.

Without comment, Sam helped, his face way too close to Justin's junk, and self-sufficient Justin was pissed at himself that he couldn't do as simple a thing like get dressed.

"I'll stay if you want me to."

Sam hovered, and Justin wanted to shove him away, if only that were possible. "Stay with me when?"

"When Gabe gets back with Ethan. If you think you need me to… I dunno. Hold you up, or stop Ethan from killing you."

Justin blinked at him, dissecting the statement. "The chair is holding me up fine. And I have to go before Ethan gets here, before anyone else?—"

"No worries."

Sam moved away from the door so Justin had a clear run. Suspicious, Justin narrowed his eyes at him.

Sam continued. "Your temperature's still high. You could have a concussion, so I don't imagine you'll get far, and clearly your wound needs more attention, but yeah, you can go. No one's stopping you."

Sam crossed to a corner of the room, picked up Justin's boots, and placed them next to him. "You'll need those."

Justin looked down at the boots, still ingrained with dirt and blood that had darkened the light-colored leather in patches. The laces were loose, but as he looked at them, Justin saw the damn things as a symbol of everything he couldn't do. Pulling them on, tying the laces.

There was focus in Sam's gaze, a challenge. "I'll give you an hour before you're unconscious on the ground somewhere," he offered.

Temper ignited in Justin's belly and he narrowed his eyes at the man who'd so casually told him he was fucked. The anger spilled out of him in a loud burst. "Do you know what you've done?" he shouted. Or he attempted to shout, because he ended up coughing straight after, his throat raw.

Sam shrugged again. He did a lot of that. "Saved your life, mostly," he said.

He moved swiftly to stand toe to toe with Justin, arms crossed over his chest, chin tilted, and looking up at him, his expression thoughtful. "What I don't get is why you want to leave. Didn't you come here to be home?"

"Home?" Justin didn't know whether to laugh or cry. His home was wherever he was sleeping, be it a hotel, a motel, or a shack in the backwoods of Montana.

Sam supported Justin's elbow when he swayed, but he shrugged off the touch and Sam stepped back with a sigh.

"You're not going anywhere, Justin. Just face it," Sam said.

There wasn't time to say anything else because the sound of horses drifted from outside, then men's voices. From the laughing and joking, it would seem Gabe couldn't have dropped the J-bomb on Ethan. That meant Justin's brother was walking in here completely cold.

"I don't get why I have to come out to see this. You owe me a beer."

Ethan's voice, just outside the door. Justin stared, transfixed, and then the door swung in.

Ethan stood on the threshold, and the smile dropped from his face as he paled and his hands turned into fists at his side; his mouth fell open.

Shock.

Justin let go of the chair, stumbled, and Sam was there immediately, stepping to his side and supporting him under the elbow.

"Ethan," Justin said, his voice a croak. He didn't want to be here, putting everyone in danger just being in the same room as them, but to see his brother up close, for Ethan to see he was truly alive, that had to be worth the pain. Surely?

"Jesus," Ethan said, his voice husky too. He shook his head. "Justin."

Gabe stepped in to stand next to Ethan and placed a hand on his arm, reassuring him.

Ethan moved, and Justin tried to move, and they met somewhere near the chair. Ethan hugged him, gripped him so hard, buried his face in Justin's neck, and Justin held back. They stood in each other's arms for the longest time.

Justin didn't even open his eyes. The path that had taken him from Ethan, from his family, wasn't one he'd chosen, but he did it to protect his family.

And to get revenge.

All he could do was cling to his older brother, as he'd done as a child, and desperately wish, for just one moment, that Ethan could make it right.

Ethan was crying. His shoulders shook as he just said Justin's name over and over, and somewhere inside Justin's icy heart, he found the love he had for his brother. And it made him sick with the need for more.

Ruthlessly, Justin pushed it down. If Ethan ever knew what he'd become, he'd turn away from him. There was never going to be reconciliation or a true reunion.

Finally they separated. Ethan cradled his face; his gray eyes, so like Justin's own, were red and wet with tears, and he attempted to speak, but nothing was coming out.

"I'm sorry," Justin murmured. Although inside that same icy heart there was no apology for what he'd done, what he'd had to do, even if the path of revenge had been based on lies other people had told him.

"I never stopped looking," Ethan said brokenly.

Justin dropped his chin, couldn't look him in the face.

Ethan used a finger to tilt his chin back up. "Look at me, Justin. I never stopped, okay?"

"I know. Please go. Leave me." His tongue felt big in his mouth, his head pounded. "People want me dead. I have warrants out for me… Ethan…." His vision blurred, his thoughts spun, he felt sick. He shoved himself away from Ethan, and all he saw was Sam reaching for him as he crumpled to the floor.

Justin was dreaming the same dream. The one he had so often. It started with fire, but he'd trained himself to wake up before the burning got to be too much.

But this time it was a waking dream, and he was hot, his skin wet with heat. He couldn't escape the fire or the people around him.

His dad crying, and Adam stood watching him, in shock. Adam wasn't fifteen, he was a grown man, and he wasn't saying a word.

The dream changed. Justin couldn't hear words, only sense actions. The whole narrative, from running into danger that day so long ago, the fire, the recovery, to the promise he made for a boy he thought he'd killed.

His dad was there. Marcus was thinner and grayer, but Justin had kept an eye on his dad when he could, seen him age slowly through a telephoto lens. He even knew about the cancer that had begun to wreak havoc on him, but he still hadn't come home. How could he? With Justin staying away, his dad had a chance to beat the cancer. If he'd gone home, he'd put everyone in danger.

The Unit, or what was left of it, would never let him rest now. Justin had gone rogue, had killed two men in the Unit, and he needed to be eliminated before he shared state secrets. He was under no illusion that this was how it worked. Justin was a weapon with no accountability, built to get the job done outside the lines, and he had broken the rules. Outlived his usefulness.

And Adam was back at Crooked Tree too, and he looked so animated . Not burned, not gone, and pain knifed sharp through Justin. Because the Adam he'd grown up with was dead, was gone, and Justin had been the one to get that version of Adam killed. He may as well have put a gun to Adam's head.

He'd been the one to cause Adam pain. He hadn't gotten to him in time in Chicago; he'd had to watch as Webb nearly killed him.

My fault.

And Justin had been the one to rush blindly after the sound of gunfire all those years ago.

He closed his eyes in the dream, moving closer to a warm body, the scent of leather, the reassuring smart of pain as fingers tangled in his hair.

Someone was in bed with him, and that was new in the dream.

When Justin slept, he was as alone as when he was awake. The odd quick hookup: a woman here, a man there, random pickups that kept him off the radar. Not once in his life had he slept with someone past the whole getting-off part.

After all, how could he explain the gun under his pillow or feel safe enough to let a stranger close to him?

"We need to be scared. People want to kill me," he repeated over and over in his head, but Dream Ethan wasn't listening, and there wasn't any way he could get him to do so.

Pain shot from his hand to his head and he moaned through it, pressing his head into the solid hold of the man with the leather jacket.

"It's okay," a voice murmured. "You're safe."

Sam.