Chapter Fourteen

Kane

"How did they even know he was here?" We'd let him down. I'd let him down. Promised him safety and wasn't able to deliver. Rawlings ended his call.

"Oliver's on his way, but I also spoke to a friend in the evidence tech department and she went out to the scene."

"He's dead," Danny said flatly.

Rawlings nodded. "Beaten to death."

"Shit," I muttered. Shae was enhanced and had just been defeated publicly. It could be argued he'd want revenge.

"But I doubt he could get out of bed, never mind hurt anyone, and anyway, I was here the whole the time. I'm a witness," Danny protested again, the same as he had to the cops.

"There's enough evidence to prove certain enhanced have rapid healing abilities," Rawlings said. "A clever lawyer could argue he made the injury worse after killing Karlo to make it look like he wasn't capable of it, and you didn't take him to the ER. That raises questions. And so does your record. I'm surprised they didn't want you for questioning."

"Fuck." Getting him out of there without letting anyone see the injury might have made everything worse. "This is my fault." They both sent me an incredulous look, but it didn't change anything. "How interested are the cops in a quick arrest?"

Rawlings rolled his eyes. "They're always interested in a quick arrest, but what you should be asking is how interested are they in getting the right perp."

"And are they?" I asked bitterly. The only ones I'd ever dealt with just wanted to bury me in a cell so deep I'd never see the light of day.

"Many," Danny said. "You just have to know which ones."

"What was Shae's wound like when he left?" Rawlings asked.

"Healing rapidly," Danny said.

"So, they might not keep him in the ER?" Kane asked.

Rawlings shook his head. "They should just keep him for questioning and then release him as soon as they confirm Danny's statement. If he was a regular prisoner, then it would be straight to county while they investigate. But with that mark on his face, I don't know," he said honestly. He stood. "Let me call Talon."

I glanced at Danny. Talon was the one who'd been on his honeymoon. "Enhanced team leader in Tampa," Danny explained. "They might be able to help."

"So we just wait here?" I asked, wanting to do something, anything. I strode to the window and looked at the park outside. Shit was still following me around, no matter what I did.

Danny disappeared, then came in with a tablet. "CCTV. We have recordings of the front of the building. It would prove Shae didn't leave." He frowned. "I'm surprised they didn't ask for them."

"Did they take your laptop?" I sat back down.

"Yes, but I'm not worried, and they wouldn't have found this."

"Meaning?" Kane asked.

"Meaning all sensitive files are kept somewhere else," Rawlings said as he walked back into the room. "Gael has offered his help with the CCTV. Oliver wants me to go down there and look respectable."

I looked up eagerly, but he shook his head ,and I got it. Another enhanced wouldn't help Shae, and definitely not an ex-con. Regret burned through me, and for a split second I wished I'd never gotten into Rawlings' car. But then what the fuck else would I be doing?

"I'll go and see what's going on. Danny, if we need you, I'll send a car." And with that, he left. I felt a brush of something on my leg and in shock, I realized Sadie was lying right next to my leg and I'd never noticed. I stiffened slightly as she turned her head and rested it on my foot.

Looking over, I met Danny's blue eyes, and pushed upright, just catching Danny's wince as I stalked away from the table, which angered me even more. I slammed the door to my room like some snotty adolescent. Fuck. What did I have to do around here to get a break?

Shame hit me so hard and so fast I nearly stumbled. Me? This wasn't about me. This was about another seventeen-year-old that was gonna get thrown away by the system. It was Shae that was hurt and terrified, not me this time.

But it was so close it felt like me.

Stumbling again, I got yanked upright as the handcuffs bit into me, more cops following us as I was dragged to the patrol car, all aiming their Glock 22's at me. I only knew what the gun was because my dad had one. Terror made my arms shake, and pain arced across my back from the fresh set of stripes on my back. Dad always called them stripes when he put them there, but all I could see this time was the blood that had bloomed across his face from his smashed nose. Smell it. Taste it.

Because I'd hit him.

They said I might have killed him, and no one would listen to anything I said. They didn't care that I never knew how many times he would hit me with the crop. They didn't care about the bleeding wounds on my own back or the years of scars they hid. So, they'd dragged me to the car and taken me straight to jail.

Do not pass Go.

The only other time I'd been allowed out was ten days later, when I appeared in front of the judge. I could have cried with relief at seeing Dad. He had the remnants of a black eye, a bandage around his arm, and he hobbled into the courtroom. But he'd had that limp for years. And I had to sit there and listen to all his lies. At one point, he said he'd caught me hitting the dog and had tried to take the crop from me and I had beaten him for doing it. I'd jumped up, but the judge just told me I'd be removed from the court if I did it again.

And he lied. Told them I was uncontrollable. Blamed the scar. I could see everyone was scared of me.

And seventeen years later, everyone was still scared of me. Nothing had changed. I couldn't even stop it from happening to another scared kid.

I blinked as I heard the soft knock on the door. Somehow I was sitting on the floor, not even the bed, when Danny let himself in my room. My eyes widened because he'd shut the door on Sadie.

And like before, he put his back to the wall and slid down. I wanted to be left alone. Maybe if I ignored him, he'd leave.

"I get how it's just like you." Did he? He'd be the first. "I don't know what you went through, same as you don't know everything about how I became the mess I am, but I want to."

My first instinct was to deny that Danny was a mess in any way, shape, or form. "You're clever," I whispered. He wasn't some dumb prick that didn't—

"No, I went to school," Danny said quite forcefully. "I didn't have to deal with a bastard that lied and got me locked up on top of what I'd gone through growing up."

I glanced at him. He knew? "How—"

"Because you're a good guy. You cope with me, and it's killing you that you can't personally help Shae." He leaned toward me and rested a hand on my arm. "I've treated you like I scraped you off my shoe, and this is the first time I ever saw you close to getting angry."

And because I was such a loser, that moment was also the closest I came to crying since I'd sat in that courtroom and heard my dad tell everyone I was abusive. I shrugged, mainly to do something with my body. But then I absorbed what he said and turned to offer some sort of reply, but every word died in my throat. He was so close. So close I smelled his breath. The scent of tea. Of whatever toothpaste he used. Of hope. Of Danny.

And I didn't dare blink because, really slowly, he lifted his hand and settled it on my cheek, the one with the scar. I almost restrained the flinch, but not quite. But he must have decided the reaction was for another reason because his hand still settled on my skin. Part of me wanted to move. My skin vibrated with the desperate urge to run, but a bigger part, the part that kept my ass on the floor, wanted more. More touch, more Danny.

Way more Danny.

But I wouldn't kiss him. He'd run, panicked, last time. This one had to be him.

"I want to touch you, but I'm scared." Such a simple sentence for such raw honesty. And for the first time, I wondered if anyone had ever gotten the real Danny. Because the war might have changed him, but whoever Danny was had to still be buried in there. Right? In my dumbass, fanciful brain, I imagined he was waiting just for me to bring the part of him he'd lost in that hell-hole all the way back.

"I don't want to scare either of us," I admitted.

"Can you bear to stay still?"

Still?I would wrap myself in chains for him. "Yes." If prison had taught me anything, it was patience. The declaration must have been enough, because Danny moved. Slowly, in desperately small increments, but always in the right direction for our mouths to touch, his lips seemed to find mine just as my eyes closed. It wasn't hard keeping them shut. Every sense was so overloaded I didn't think adding sight to the maelstrom surrounding me could make anything more perfect.

It was harder—much harder—keeping my arms by my side, but as his lips began to move over mine, I forgot what I should or shouldn't do. I was still slow, though. Every gasp against my lips, every cautious venture of fingers against my skin that was returned, seemed to set my body on fire. I could feel the heat simmer under my skin. My heart skipped its rhythm then fell into a pounding that seemed to make the earth turn faster, but steady my world all at the same time. How had I still been alive all my thirty-three years and not known this? This moment. This feeling.

It made every stripe worth it. Every hurt. Every bruise. Every harsh word. And every fervent wish to die to finally find pleasure in being alive. Find joy in that ultimate failure. I couldn't imagine ever not experiencing his lips, his tongue, his cautious hands that kept mine still because no terror of my father's fists could ever match the fear that he would stop.

I didn't know, with failure and disappointment always swirling around me, how in my heart the touch of another—Danny's touch—could bring me such peace. I just knew I never wanted it to end.

But end it did, because he withdrew and then got to his feet. I could barely look, expecting him to rush out the door. But then Danny extended his hand to me. "Not sure about you, but I'd be more comfortable in bed."