Chapter 17

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

JESSICA

“Ready?” Trench asks, holding out my coat.

“No, but if I don’t come with you, Laurel will hunt me down.”

He laughs and smooths the shoulders of my puffy coat. “Yeah, she definitely will.”

He checks the zip, like he doesn’t trust it will keep me warm. “I’m going to order you a new one when we get home.”

I open my mouth to tell him not to and he shakes his head. “I will not take accept any argument on that.”

“Fine.”

This “meeting” has felt like a looming presence ever since Trench mentioned it.

“So,” I say as we get in his car and he pulls out into the bright light of midday. “You guys do this on a regular basis to pool information?”

“Honestly, it’s more of a basic welfare check.” He glances at me. “You’ve seen how easy it can be to go days, if not weeks, without seeing another member of the brotherhood.”

“Have I? It’s been eleven days, I’ve seen Richter and Laurel, and your brother—however briefly.” I still feel unsettled by that interaction. “And Margot showed up.”

“You’re right, it has been busier than usual.” He laughs forlornly, still looking out at the road. “You are the reason for most of that. When you leave, things will go back to the way they were.”

I clench my teeth and look out the window, feeling guilty somehow, even though he didn’t say it with anything resembling blame.

We spend the rest of the short drive in silence, and he curses softly under his breath when we pull into the massive underground garage.

There are already half a dozen cars parked.

“I had hoped we’d get here before most of them.” He pops the car open and helps me out. “If we need to leave, tell me and I’ll get you out, no matter what’s going on.”

“Is it going to be that bad?”

“Did you bring your earplugs?”

“No.”

He offers me a tight smile, but he doesn’t answer the question.

Letting go of my hand as we reach the door, he leads me into chaos.

Laurel descends as if she’d been perched by the door, waiting to pounce.

She drags me away from Trench, and he doesn’t follow.

But I see his jaw tighten. He likes it as little as I do.

“This,” she says, leading me over to a woman with a perfect dark bob and a smile that would set anyone at ease, “Is Kimba, Drift’s mate, and one of the few people in this room who is sensible one hundred percent of the time.”

“So, not like your mate then.”

Her brows quirk and her head tips to the side, “What do you mean?”

“My very limited time with Drift ended in a less than sensible way.”

Kimba and Laurel share a glance.

“He didn’t tell you. Of course he didn’t.”

Kimba’s brow raises and she looks toward the man in question. “I have a feeling there’s a reason he didn’t tell me whatever you’re about to.”

“Trench didn’t know I was coming. Drift dropped me off and just left me in his garage.”

Laurel drops her head back and groans, but Kimba purses her lips. She doesn’t look irritated on my behalf, she looks like she’s about to laugh.

It’s Laurel who speaks. “Please don’t give me more reasons to want to hit him. It’s all I can do to not throw things and shout ‘Boo’ whenever I see him.”

“What did he do to you?”

Laurel’s jaw tenses, but Richter comes up behind her, wrapping his arm around her. “He did not appreciate her value the way he should have.”

All of the tension in Laurel’s shoulders washes away as she leans back into her mate.

My eyes flick to Trench. He stands with one of the other brothers, speaking in their language, but his eyes are locked on me.

“I’m sure he had a reason,” Kimba adds, and I ignore the excuses she quickly makes for him.

“All’s well that ends well, right?”

Kimba nods. “I like to think so.”

Richter pulls Laurel away and for the first time, I notice that she is showing. Sian men work fast. I know why better than most.

“I hope you’re ready to answer a hundred questions,” Kimba continues, holding her hand out and ushering me toward the sunken area that reminds me of a living room yanked right out of the seventies.

There are only two other women among the ten Sian men.

Kimba takes me to the man with Trench first—Hazard—and he greets me with an all-too-knowing smile. It makes me wonder what Hannah has told him.

The first couple on the couch have their heads together, discussing something that Kimba interrupts without a care.

“This is Cindy and Core.”

The tiny woman looks up at me, hair bobbing wildly. “Hi! You and I need to talk!”

“We do?”

“Yes! Kimba told me about the research you’re doing and even though I’ve only been here for a few months, I think I might have some insights that would be helpful to your area of study.” She pokes the pink Sian man beside her. “This one spends enough time in our medfac that I am very familiar with both Sian anatomy and cavrinskh bite patterns.”

Core says something scolding in their language and she swats at his hand before looking back up at me. “He’s brought home six teeth and one claw. All of them embedded in him, the jerk.”

Core smiles up at me with his broken teeth and a scarred face, speaking in heavily accented English. “I was worse about it before. She’s very lucky that I try harder now.”

Cindy lets out an exasperated huff and turns to him, quibbling, seemingly having forgotten I’m even here.

Kimba chuckles and draws me down the line. I meet “the cold boys”. Shock and Risk are perfectly polite, but Trench’s brother glares at me like he’d rather I’d stayed on Earth.

I almost tell him I need him to come in a cup later, just to see how he reacts. But his expression sours even as I think it, so I decide not to prod at him.

It’ll be better in the long run if I don’t stir up trouble before I leave.

Arc glares at me before turning to say something to Shock beside him, and the pale orange man tells him no in their language before Arc pulls out a handheld game console and sets about ignoring all of us.

Kimba tugs at my arm, and I go with her to the next little grouping.

“This is Strike and Andrea,” Kimba pauses as if she’s laughing. “And Kilo.”

It’s very clear from the way they’re sitting that Strike and Andrea are the bonded pair. He touches her in a causal, possessive way.

“And Kilo,” the light purple man says in a humorous mimicry. “ Always an afterthought.”

“Shut up.” Andrea shoves him, and he falls over, dramatically.

“Fine, not an afterthought.” He sits up and smiles at me. “I just won’t let them get rid of me.”

Andrea leans ever so slightly forward and pretends to whisper, “Sometimes, I think he’s trying to get us to adopt him.”

“I mean, I don’t have a mom and you are going to be a great one.” Kilo shrugs and looks like he’s considering it. “Okay. You can adopt me.”

Andrea actually snorts. “Sure thing, kiddo.”

Strike sits silently by, as if he’s used to this sort of exchange.

“And you know Drift, of course.” Kimba says, turning me toward him.

“Of course, my taxi driver.”

Drift looks at Kimba for a brief moment and then back to me. “What’s a taxi?”

But Kimba pats him on the chest and says, “I’ll tell you later,” before she turns to me. “Go have a seat. We won’t grill you until we’ve got the usual stuff out of the way.”

There’s a space beside Laurel, but I don’t take it. I don’t care what it looks like. I go right to Trench and the empty space beside him.

I ignore the way Arc’s glare slides to me. It leaves me just as quickly.

“Will you translate the relevant details?”

He nods. “Most of the meeting will be in English, though. Core and Risk are the two of us who are least fluent, and I think they enjoy the practice.”

I’ll appreciate it too.

Drift talks about numbers and details of the monsters in the Zone. He thanks Andrea for the data and charts of the various data points.

I don’t like that Trench’s trips out into the Zone are on the higher end of the numbers. Arc’s are the highest and I glance over at him, wondering why his section of the Zone sees so many attacks.

And after Drift goes through his items, he turns to me with an apologetic smile. “It’s your turn.”

“I didn’t prepare a presentation.”

“That’s alright,” Kimba says. “We have plenty of questions for you.” Her smile scares me.

I find myself detailing all the little bits and pieces of my research on the cavrinskh so far. Several of them look disappointed that I’m only in the fuck around stage of the research and not yet in the finding out stage.

“They actually have a lot in common with you.” That offends most of them.

“I’ve never been more insulted in my life. ” Kilo’s face is so sour, I believe him.

“Sure you have.” Arc laughs and gets hit upside the head for it.

“They have a lot in common with Arc,” Hazard snorts into his coffee. “We all want to shoot them.”

Risk goes to Arc’s defense and I start to worry they might actually start a fight.

Before they get too out of hand, I interrupt. “I’m not suggesting that they are Sian, but I figured, if I could discover what they share with you, I might be able to figure out ways you can use your own weaknesses against them?”

It’s a ridiculous thought, I know, but I am kind of poking around in the dark at the moment.

“I haven’t even been here two full Earth weeks. I didn’t know you were expecting a miracle from me already.” I look at Trench. Maybe I’ve spent too much time enjoying myself.

“Two full Earth weeks.” Arc snickers and pinches at the bridge of his nose like he has a headache. “You’ve spent all that time with the ghoul and don’t need to be rescued yet? Are you an idiot, or a masochist?”

The room goes quiet, all eyes turning to him.

Drift says something to him I don’t understand and Arc shrugs, walking into the kitchen without apologizing.

I glance up at Trench. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think he hadn’t heard his brother at all.

“No one expected miracles from you,” Kimba says, also pretending to ignore Arc. “Is there anything else you might want to tell us?”

“There was a small incident in town,” Trench says, ignoring his brother’s comment entirely.

“At Margot’s?” Kimba asks, brows furrowed.

“No, we visited a zurgle cafe and a man seems to have intentionally made one scratch her.” He meets Drift’s gaze. “Riann sent over the footage, but without clearing his face, I don’t know who he is. Even then, I don’t know if I’d recognize him.”

“What did he look like?” Kimba asks me. “If we can get the footage cleared, I can have Margot run it through her database. If anyone is going to know who he is, it’s her.”

“I don’t really know how to distinguish him. He was a flinty gray with green eyes. No scars or markings that made him stand out. He was just wearing normal clothes, but something felt wrong about him.”

I see Arc’s head jerk and he and the other two cold boys exchange glances, but Risk shakes his head and they all turn away from each other.

“Do you think he might be a Company man?” Kimba asks, glancing at Laurel.

“Maybe? Or maybe he’s just a random guy who didn’t want to be there when Jess’s assumed bondmate came back and found her scratched?”

She’s probably right.

“If you hear hoof beats, it’s probably a horse, not a zebra.” Andrea shrugs. “Granted… there aren’t any horses here, so I don’t know how to modify the saying.”

“Gurdics?” Kilo offers and the two of them settle into a quiet conversation about what those are.

“We can look them up at home,” Trench says, a moment before I would have asked.

“Thanks.”

TRENCH

I would like to kick my brother out of the outpost and let him sour the air elsewhere. But everyone ignores his behavior, as usual.

“So, no miracles, but do you know what causes the bond yet?” Andrea, Strike’s bondmate, asks. “Because I’m super curious about that.”

“From what little I’ve been able to research…” Jess doesn’t look at me, and I’m grateful for that as memories of a different type of research flit through my head.

Arc makes an ugly noise in the kitchen and I glance at him for a moment before I turn back to Jess, who says, “It acts like a virus.”

Andrea shifts, scowling at Strike. “Well, I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Doubt anyone else would either.” Jessica shrugs. “I think the bond acts kind of like an STI.”

“Again,” Laurel shoots her sister a warning glance, “not a palatable way to put it.”

“Sorry.”

From beside me, Shock leans forward. “Does that mean you could cure it?”

Years of verbal abuse from Arc keeps me from reacting to anything the men around me say, but Jessica flinches, her face forming a mask of disgust, and she looks at Shock as if he’s just insulted her whole family. “Why would you want to?”

“Only an unbonded man would ask that,” Core assures Cindy.

Even Hazard, who’s in love with a bonded woman, looks vaguely disgusted by the idea.

“It might act like a virus, but there’s nothing to suggest it harms anyone, or that it needs curing. And as far as I can tell, the more exposure a bonded pair have to each other, the more connected they are.” Her mouth twists and she glares at the floor. “Maybe mutation would have been a better term.”

Shock doesn’t back down. “Still, could you reverse it?”

I watch her, like everyone else does, but she doesn’t look at me, thank the Saints.

All I can think is, if she could… we could give into this need , without risking her future.

I have to force myself to keep my face blank.

“If you could—and I’m not saying you can—it would take years, maybe decades of research to be sure of.” She looks at her sister this time. “And from what I’ve been told… Finding someone who wants to break the bond afterward would be difficult, so your cohort would be too small to be accurate.”

Arc snorts. “Just have someone bond with Trench. They’d want out real fast, probably take anything you handed them.”

Some of the others laugh, but mostly, Arc’s words are ignored, as usual.

Jessica stares at him like she wants to say something, but her gaze slides to me and I shake my head. It’s not worth bringing up now.

“You know all the risks, right?” Shock asks. “You know that if we die, our mate has a one in fifteen chance of dying with us.”

I force myself not to look at Kimba, but others glance at her.

“Yes, but—” Jess starts and Shock cuts her off.

“If a person was sick and dying, cutting the bond would save them.”

I wonder who he’s thinking of. Maybe Jess is too, because it takes a moment before she says, “Again, that would take years of research.”

Drift stands. “I’ll be interested to hear if you come up with anything else between now and our next meeting. But it’s getting late, and we all know we’d rather not have you ladies outside when the sun sets. ”

The others stand, milling and goodbyeing. Jess glares at Arc before she turns to me.

“What the hell was that?”

“It’s just Arc.”

“And no one has told him to cut it the fuck out?”

“It’s easier to just move on.”

Her brows pinch and she pulls back from me. “Wait. He’s always like that? And they just let him be an asshole?”

When I don’t respond with more than a shrug, her face contorts into a disgusted frown.

“That’s such bullshit.”

“Yeah.”

Because what am I going to do but agree with her.

She starts to say something else, but Kimba joins us, taking her hand and offering me an apologetic smile. “I’m going to steal her for a second.”

I watch her go, and then I go to the window, staring out at the Zone.

I’m not surprised when someone joins me. I’m less surprised when it’s Arc.

“Come to abuse me again?”

He huffs a little sound that’s not quite a laugh. “Just fuck her and get it over with already.”

“Would you be so quick to put someone else in a cage?”

Arc looks at me, and for a moment, it feels as though the ice on the other side of the window rolls off of him. “If no one else was here, I’d tear your throat out for that.”

“Then you know why I won’t ‘just fuck her and get it over with already.’”

He glares at me, and I glare back.

“Don’t worry,” Arc says, looking out over the Zone. “Once she’s gone, you can get a fake pussy from the Agency store and write her name on it.”

If he had said it while looking at her, I’d have put my fist through his face, but I keep it clenched at my side.

“Why are you such an asshole?”

The smarmy smile he usually wears slips, and for a moment, I think he might be honest with me.

“It’s just my nature.”

“Sure.” Maybe he isn’t lying, “Maybe you should consider trying to change it.”

“I prefer it when people hate me.” This time, he does look at Jess. “I think everyone prefers to hate me too. I can make us all happy and unhappy at once. It’s a gift.”

I watch him go, not knowing if I hate him or not. Maybe I should.

JESSICA

“What do you mean you’ve taken on your mate’s mutations?”

“That’s not exactly what I said.” Kimba glances toward the few remaining stragglers. “I can see some of the ways that Drift does. Cindy has started to hear the magnetic resonances of the machinery in her outpost.”

“And Laurel heals super fast?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I’m obviously not going to test that out.”

“Good.”

“You said that the longer the bonding, the more of the bonding chemical is in our system?”

“It’s a theory. I’d have to take blood samples and probably bring in a hematologist to get anything resembling accurate data readings.”

Kimba nods and then glances toward where Drift stands with the others. “Do you happen to know a hematologist who might want to come for a visit?”

“No, sorry.” And then, because she looks like she’s thinking about it. “Please don’t kidnap one.”

That makes her laugh. “Of course not.”

But I’m not sure I believe her. “Okay, don’t let Drift kidnap one, either.”

Her nose wrinkles, but she agrees again.

I see Arc and Trench talking. I see the way Trench’s jaw tenses when his brother leaves him.

“Why doesn’t anyone say anything to Arc when he’s an asshole like that?”

“He’s harmless, and when you try to stop him, he doubles down. It’s just easier to let him say what he wants to say and move on.”

I can’t believe that’s her answer.

I can’t believe they think it’s harmless.

Taking a deep breath, I almost say something I shouldn’t.

“Bathroom?” I ask instead. I need a moment to clear my head, so I don’t tell her she and Drift need to do their job and make him grow up. I’m just a visitor here.

Kimba points me toward an open door a little ways away from the door to the garage.

It’s a fairly plain space. But it has everything anyone would need, and when I have the door shut between me and them, I grip the counter, closing my eyes and breathing in deeply.

One breath.

Then two.

Three leads to four, and by five I’m ready to try to stretch the tension out of my shoulders.

When I look up at myself, I feel sick to my stomach.

Running cold water over my wrists, I focus on breathing a little while longer before I trust myself to venture back out into the outpost. Who knows how many of them are still here.

When I open the door, Laurel is waiting with an apologetic scowl twisting her lips.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey back.”

“Doing okay?”

“Okay is relative. But, yeah, I think so.”

“You’d tell me if you weren’t right?” She takes my hand and squeezes it.

“No.” I squeeze her hand back. “And you just get to deal with it.”

Eyes narrowed, she knocks my shoulder with hers. “Fine. But if you need anything, I’m here.”

“I won’t forget.”

“Good. Join the group chat!”

“I’ll think about it.”

Richter brings her her coat, and as she slips it on, she glances to where Trench speaks with Drift.

Richter says something to her in Sianese before she hugs me.

“I know you can’t stay,” she says, “but I think you’re good for him.”

The problem is that I could stay.

And it would be deceptively easy.

As if he knows we’ve been talking about him—I’m sure he heard her—Trench joins us, his hand coming to rest on my lower back.

“I think it’s time to get back to your research.”

“Have fun with that.” Laurel snorts and turns away. “It’s time for us to go home. You promised to feed me.”

Richter picks her up and carries her out the door.

“Did she tell you,” Trench murmurs, leaning close. “That Richter tried to wait to seal their bond?”

“She did not. But it wouldn’t surprise me if she changed his plans. Laurel has always known what she wanted and she hasn’t let anyone stand in her way.”

He chuckles as he opens the door for me. “She certainly doesn’t shy away from speaking her mind.”

It’s colder than I remember when we step outside, and I’m glad it’s deserted. As much as I know I shouldn’t, I prefer when it’s just the two of us.

I get in the car, and when we’re halfway back to his outpost, Trench asks, “What’s wrong?”

When I look at him he adds, “You’ve been scowling since we left.”

“I don’t think I should say.” Chewing on my tongue, I let out a long breath. “It will expose me for the bad, selfish person I am.”

“Well, now you have to tell me.”

I shouldn’t. I should keep my mouth shut, or think up something else, but, “I’m glad your bondmate didn’t work out.”

He’s silent for a moment, staring out at the flurries that dance across the road.

Then he laces his fingers in mine and looks at me. “Me too.”