Avenged (Altered #2)(63)

“Fields.” He rubbed his thumb along her cheekbone. “You got him.”

She didn’t want his praise. She’d been adamant about going after Fields, but she wondered if it hadn’t been a foolish choice, another in a list of horrible decisions. Had stopping Fields been worth putting Nick’s life in danger?

“Save your strength,” she whispered, but tears thickened the demand.

“I’m cold.” He closed his eyes.

“No. No, you aren’t.” She pushed harder on his wound, even as his hand slackened and dropped from her face. “You’re not cold. You’re fine. You’re going to be fine.” Desperation laced her words. “The medics are coming.” At least that much wasn’t a lie. She could see two men running toward her, a backboard between them.

He didn’t answer.

“Nick? Nick!”

Terror gripped her. As the medics gently pushed her out of the way, taking over the task of keeping Nick from bleeding to death, she took up residence at his head, rubbing her fingers along his hair, his forehead, memorizing his beloved face.

She heard them mention his femoral artery. She knew that was dangerous, could sense they worried that it was bad.

She ran alongside the backboard as they raced to the helicopter. She listened as they checked his vital signs, and even she knew his pulse and blood pressure were low. Her movements felt jerky, disoriented as she murmured to him, trying to reassure him. Trying to say the things she wished she’d said when he was awake.

She refused to let that stop her, though.

Thank you for coming for me.

I love you.

Keep fighting. Stay with me.

…

From far away, Nick thought he heard Kitty.

It didn’t feel strange that she was in this place. It was peaceful and warm. A cocoon.

Her words were strange. Keep fighting? Stay with her? She loved him? Is that what she said?

A sliver of unease swept through him. She loved him? He must have heard wrong. Kitty hadn’t said anything about love. If that was here, then he wasn’t sure he trusted here.

He opened his mouth, but when he called for her, his lips felt sluggish, as if they weighed too much. The feeling upset him. He struggled, but there were restraints holding him down. He panicked, fighting harder.

Her voice echoed again. Relax. He was fine, it said. But he couldn’t find her. How could he be fine if he couldn’t find her?

Nothing made sense here.

He didn’t want to be here anymore.

She said it would be fine. When he stopped fighting, she praised him. Her voice was sweet, soothing to him.

It told him that it loved him.

And, while he trusted nothing in this place, he didn’t mind hearing that again and again.





Chapter Nineteen


The moment Luke felt Parker’s control slip, he tore after him and Jack.

His mind could barely begin to work through the fuckery of it all. He’d spent the past four months living with Jack, and the past month with Parker. He’d lived next to them, and he’d felt something was wrong, but he had no way of guessing it would be messed up to this degree.

He knew something was up when neither Parker nor Jack engaged after they landed at the compound. While Luke, Seth, and Blue exited right after Nick, prepared to help him get Kitty out of there, Jack and Parker had slunk away, behind the aircraft and away from the fighting.

Luke had been too busy to follow.

Still, he’d never expected something like this.

He should have, though. Parker’s rhetoric had become more and more fanatical as the days had gone by. Now he had Fields’s research. While Luke didn’t know exactly what he had planned, it wasn’t good. He was certain of that.

In the front of the building, Parker walked through the wreckage of the earlier battle. Men were still unconscious nearby, while medics and other responders helped others. Yet as Parker walked past everyone, they looked away. As if he’d told them he was invisible, or maybe that they weren’t permitted to look at him.

After what he’d witnessed—Kitty forcing a contingency of guards to assassinate their leader—Luke didn’t doubt that Parker could make others do whatever he wanted.

Jack trailed after Parker, carrying the suitcase he’d stolen like some deranged bellhop with Parker’s luggage.

“Parker,” Luke called. When neither of them stopped, he growled. Then, with a thought, he pulled the suitcase out of Jack’s hands, sending it winging into his arms.

The men he’d lived with in paradise turned to face him.

Parker lifted an eyebrow. “Mr. Kincaid. Please return that.”

“It’s over, Parker. This isn’t the place for you.”

“I disagree. This is exactly where I need to be.” Parker stepped toward him, his gaze calculating. “I know you have your doubts. I have heard how you feel about this transition we’ve made. A travesty. Abnormal. But this isn’t something you can fight. If you join us, we can understand what our place is in this new world. Together.”

Luke shook his head. “Thanks. I don’t think so.”

He threw the two men at each other, crashing them together. They fell to the ground, shaking their heads. Luke used their disorientation to destroy the locking mechanism on the suitcase with a mental rip. It popped open. As Parker and Jack staggered to their feet, Luke threw the contents of the case on the ground. With delicious satisfaction, he crushed dozens of vials of Solvimine crushed under the heel of his boot, splashing it onto the ground.