Chapter 28

CHAPTER

TWENTY-EIGHT

TRENCH

The dead man is wearing a fake CSS uniform and Jess is out of the house, so…

“Company man?” I ask Arc.

“Yep.” His eyes are closed, his teeth grit. “Apparently the people who sent her here from Earth want her back real bad.”

“He told you that?”

“Not exactly.”

The cavrinskh finally stops moving and Jess goes straight to Arc. “You are a mess. We need to get you downstairs.”

“I’ve survived worse.”

“I don’t care.” She stares him down. “I haven’t.”

Arc looks at me, gritting his teeth, but he stands, hissing as his back leaves the snow. “There aren’t any more around.”

I know.

“But you know that.” He gives me a tight smile and looks back toward the cavrinskh.

For a moment, I think he’s going to offer to help me with it, but he grimaces and lets Jessica usher him inside.

The wound on his back looks worse than the one on my arm did, and his chest is riddled with holes. I look down at the spines on the creature’s back. He should know better.

But as the door closes behind Jess I have a feeling I’m very glad that he ignored his better judgment.

The other cavrinskh I went after feels like a distraction now.

Two dead creatures, one dead man, and Jess inches away from this one’s jaws…

I drag it inside the garage and leave it there to dispose of later, going inside and taking off my weapons, my boots, listening to the beeps from the medfac downstairs.

Jessica says, “You have to tell him.”

“I don’t have to do anything.”

“If you don’t, I will.”

There’s a pause, and I walk toward the stairs that lead downward.

“Fine, I’ll tell him. He’s heard all of this, anyway.”

Jess looks at me when I walk through the door and her irritation with Arc turns to relief. “Are you okay?”

Arc snorts, but I ignore him. “Yeah. I was chasing down a second cavrinskh. No one told me there was one that needed my attention more.”

“Sorry. Sometimes you hear a monster headed for your sister-in-law and you don’t think to tell her mate to follow you.” He laughs and grimaces as the machine packs the last of his puncture wounds. “And then, you get distracted by the creep trying to kidnap her…”

“What do you need to tell me?”

He sighs, turning his back around to the machine and looks at me with a sullen glare as it starts to prep the healing matrix.

“You know how you can hear everything?”

I nod.

“Me too. The difference is, I hear what you don’t say.”

I stare at him for a moment. “Really?”

A handful of questions I could ask him run through my mind, but they could just be lucky guesses.

“Yes.” He looks up at me and scowls. “Seventy-six. Mom had blue eyes. I don’t care that you feel like those are lucky guesses and yeah, Risk and Shock have their own things, but those aren’t my secrets to tell.”

“Okay. I believe you.” I don’t like it, but I believe him. “Is that why you’re such an asshole all the time?”

He laughs, but it’s a broken sound, almost like a sob.

“Do you know how exhausting it is to hear everyone’s thoughts all of the time? If they’re all thinking the same thing though…”

“If everyone’s thinking ‘I hate Arc’?” I guess.

“Exactly.” He hisses as the machine starts to build the matrix.

“Why haven’t you told anyone?”

“If they know, they can torture me with it. Like your mate has tried a few times.” He laughs and drops his head. “Can you imagine what hell Kilo would put me through? Or Core? It’s already hard enough to be around any of you.”

“Don’t you think they’d like to know that their every thought is on display for you?”

“Not every thought. But in the scheme of things, they’ll survive.”

“You wouldn’t?”

“I would let one of those monsters eat me before I went back to Drift’s if they knew.”

I look at Jess. She stands beside the machine, nothing but patience radiating through the bond right now.

“Don’t worry,” Arc says. “She still doesn’t like me, she’ll back you, no matter what you decide to do.”

I never doubted that.

“I know,” he says.

“Okay. Just because I know now, doesn’t mean I want to be a part of a one-sided conversation.”

“Sorry. I lose track of what’s in my head and what’s out loud when I’m having my back torn open.” He curses. “Not that I want you to stop talking. It helps keep my mind off it.”

Jess takes a step closer. “You said the cavrinskh was only thinking ‘kill’ when it was out there. You can hear their thoughts too?”

“Sure. Most of the time it’s one word. Out or Kill or Go.”

“Like a simple command for a computer.”

“Yeah. They have a goal they need to accomplish. Getting out of the caldera, killing one of us, going back to the inner caldera, things like that.”

“What was the one that attacked us in the canyon thinking?”

“Return at first. Then kill.” He looks up, jaw tight. “The one you finished off outside felt like it was glitching.”

“How so?”

“It kept thinking two separate words. If we’re still thinking of it like a computer, it was like the commands were overwriting themselves, constantly.”

“What were the two commands?”

“Kill and return. I think, if they are being controlled by someone else…” He curses as the machine passes over his spine. “I don’t think that person wants you dead.”

Jess looks at me. “Who would be controlling them that wanted to kill the men who work for the Company, but not me?”

“I don’t know.”

Jess and I both look at Arc. He said it too fast.

Arc cringes, and I don’t know if it’s because of the machine, or because of what we’re thinking. “There is only one person I can think of who’s goals align with what you’re both thinking, and he’s dead.”

“You’re sure?” Jess asks.

Arc looks up at me and then turns to Jess. “Didn’t Trench tell you I’m the one who killed our Maker?” He laughs mirthlessly. “He’s the reason you’re here. He’s the reason the cavrinskh got out of control. He’s the only one who ever tried to tame them.”

“But he’s dead,” I repeat. Because all three of the cold boys swore on their lives that he was gone.

They killed him, set his remains on fire, and barely made it out of his workspace before the place collapsed under the weight of the mountain.

“Yes,” Arc says, glaring up at me before the machine crosses his spine again.

Jess glances at me before she asks. “How far away do we need to be to give you… relief from our thoughts?”

“If you’re thinking at me, I could hear you a mile away. It’s like screaming. But normal thoughts,” he grimaces, “If you were upstairs it would be the same as if you were having a loud conversation in the other room. For a normal person, I mean. I’d know that you were there and that you were thinking, but it would be a jumble of muted sounds.”

She nods. “That thing is almost done. We’ll go get you something to change into.”

Jess takes my hand and draws me out of the room. She doesn’t say anything until we get all the way upstairs.

“He heard me thinking about Sian brains and walked in on me holding a brain,” she explains. “I have a feeling you may have thought about killing someone in relation to me before.”

She looks at me and I nod. “I have thought it.”

“Then I think we both need to forgive him for having a small panic attack, even if he jumped to an ugly conclusion.”

“Probably.” I pull a suit off of the storage hanger and head back downstairs.

Arc is already standing by the door, and Jess takes one look at him and turns around again.

“I don’t need that,” He argues. “I just didn’t want to disappear without telling you I was leaving.”

“You might not need it, but you’ll take it anyway.”

He grimaces and does take it.

I look away as he puts it on. “Thank you for saving her.”

“What was I going to do? Let it eat her and kill you both?” He laughs and flinches and I turn back as he contorts to get his arm in the sleeve. “Besides, my brother finally found someone who likes him enough to stand up for him and was dumb enough to fall in love with him. Maybe that means there’s hope for the rest of us.”

“Go home before you say something that means Shock or Risk has to come collect your unconscious body.”

He smiles. It’s an odd little thing. “See you around.”

JESSICA

Trench and Arc step outside, so I pick up the phone I haven’t looked at once since I got here and tap through the instructions Andrea gave me.

Hey guys.

Finally!

The group chat explodes, and I have to set the phone down.

It’s too much all at once. Maybe I can sympathize with Arc a little more than I thought.

Looking up at Trench as he comes back to our room, I say, “I think I might have made a mistake.”

He looks at the phone and grimaces. “Maybe.”

But it’s the only mistake I’ve made since I chose him.

He takes my hand, guiding me away from the constantly buzzing phone and leading me to the shower.

The group chat can wait.

Setting my glasses on the counter, I help him strip out of his suit and he helps me out of my sweater, scowling at the place a claw slashed through the knit and at the scrape on my elbow from when I dodged out of the way. But he doesn’t fuss.

We clean each other off, and he picks me up, holding me high and tight to his chest, like we’re at risk still of bonding on accident.

“No more answering the door when I’m not here.”

“I promise. If you’re not here, I’m not here.”

“Good.” He lowers me down his body, and I slide onto him like my body was waiting to be filled.

“Remind me to thank whoever came up with Vitamin S.”

He shudders, and the sensation in the bond makes me clench on him. “You’ll have to get in line behind me.”

I chuckle against his lips as I kiss him, reveling in the feeling of him in me in so many ways.

I don’t think any other possible future could have been this perfect.