Perfect Gravity (Wanted and Wired #2)(76)
She had brought Miss Mari’s gun. Right there, tucked behind a watertight seal and maybe four inches total from the tip of his thumb. Waiting for him to draw it. He dropped his grasp to her biceps, containing both her tremble and his own need to avenge her hurts, moving his hand further from the gun.
Further from temptation.
He had never seen Angela this broken—she was the fighter who always won, always had—and he wanted more than anything to whisk her off somewhere safe, tend her, and holler “fuck it” to the whole rest of the world.
He didn’t need to deal with Vallejo or bring hellfire and justice down on the scientist’s tacky, crimped head. He didn’t even need to know why Angela had reacted so fiercely to whatever bullshit that pissant had spouted. She could keep her private hells private. He wouldn’t push. All he needed was for her to be okay.
Which meant he needed to get her away from Vallejo. Across the low glass table, he locked gazes with the old man.
Vallejo looked more tired than anything but couldn’t resist one more villainous eyebrow wag. “So. Rescue, then? How are we coming with that? I presume based on your silence that you have no more questions for me. What do we do now? Access your message relay? Signal Farad?”
When no one replied immediately, Vallejo rolled his eyes, exactly the way Mari did from time to time, and managed to look both impatient and defeated.
Angela still shook beneath Kellen’s hands. God, please don’t let her be crying. Not her. As he prayed, he also got angrier and angrier. Low hum of menace, not out of his control. Not yet. Gettin’ there, though.
“Best you know,” he told Vallejo, “you are thrumming my very last nerve. I were you, I’d get real quiet.”
“Well, if the two of you would just make up your minds. I mean, you come in here demanding information, asking questions, practically begging me to talk, and now you want me to be quiet. Which is it? Or do you need to ask her for directions?”
It was the disrespectful tone on her that got him.
Kellen slammed his mouth into a line, pressing, holding. Furious heat blurred in a halo around his body, luring the monster out. Settle. Settle right now. That ain’t me.
Except it was him. It had always been him. Any pacifist’s secret was that his inner monster wasn’t leashed by will. It was leashed by fear.
Kellen was scared out of his ever-lovin’ mind that if he released even a smidgen of this fury, there would be no going back, no path home from that. Failure to subdue the beast meant becoming the beast.
And he’d seen that beast come out way too many times to risk it. Mama had gone to violence just as easy as she went to backwoods moonshine. Lord, hadn’t she just. The skills that made him a natural healer and helper had formed themselves of desperation early on, splinting small bones, bandaging cuts in princess-pink adhesive strips, waiting up late after a head-knocking to make sure Sissy kept on breathing and could come to when he jostled her. No coma, no permanent hurt, just a few anonymous logins at the remote doc, and Mama always apologized in the morning. But those nights had sure stretched long, holding it all together. Through it all, he had kept his temper, his monster, under control.
He hadn’t become Mama. Not then he hadn’t, and he wouldn’t stoop to her level now. Insult, even insult to the woman he loved, was not worth losing himself so completely. Insults were just words. His peers back at school had taught him that.
He took a deep breath, steadied himself, and then rolled his wrist against Angela’s shoulder, activating his com.
“Hey, Yoink, you li’l fur-butt, please tell me you got that patch up,” he said in a low voice.
At the cat’s name, Angela stilled. He squeezed her shoulder, and she reached and covered his hand with hers. Not grabbing for the gun, just making the connection. Her touch warmed him all over, but not with anger this time. The monster-luring heat retreated, dissolved into this other, better warmth, a sweet one like scratch brownies just out of the oven. The warmth of comfort in knowing he didn’t fight his monsters alone.
“No, it’s me,” came Chloe’s impossibly chipper squeak through the com. “I mean, yes, the cat is here and she’s fine, deep into the process of filling me in on all the details. Something about chatty dolphins and mosquitoes and depth charges and herself being critically hungry and sleepy and lonely and had to be fetched ASAP, which is done by the way, but I gather from all she’s downloading that you’re in danger and hey, guess what? Did you know our plane was armed with tac-nuke missiles? Shall I blow the shit out of something? Please say yes.”
Beneath his hands, Angela sighed. He had no idea what she was thinking or feeling, but right now, it was enough that she breathed. That she didn’t run. Hang in there.
“Not necessary,” he said. “But I do need your help to secure this boat. Can you hook into the fly-by-wire?”
The pause was infinitesimal. And excruciating. At last Chloe chirped in. “Aha! I found those depth charges your cat would not shut up about. Hush, kitty. Well, there you go: all traps have been disabled. Feel free to move around the cabin.” Her voice hitched in a half laugh, like she’d just made a joke. “Easy sailing from here on out, Doc. I am right above you and have removed the data hole, so you can even chat with the wide world if you want.”
“How’d you…?”
“Same process Heron used on Enchanted Rock. I copied the protocol. Go me!”