Wildcard (Warcross #2)(84)

“Yeah, well, you can only handle a hole in your head so many times before you don’t make it through.” Roshan furrows his brow and looks down again. He doesn’t speak, but I can feel the burn of his anger in his clenched jaw, his hands clasped tightly together.

“What are you thinking?” Tremaine says in a quiet voice.

Roshan shakes his head. “I’m thinking that I’m sorry,” he replies.

“Why the hell are you sorry?”

“For asking you to help Emi out in the first place. I was worried she’d go off on her own again, keep everything to herself. I shouldn’t have put the idea in your head.”

Tremaine lets out his breath in a huff. “If you didn’t say it, I would’ve done it anyway. You think a hunter’s going to stay away from the chase of a lifetime? Come on, now. Don’t give yourself so much credit.”

Roshan’s eyes are moist again, and he hurriedly rubs a hand once across his face. “You really want to know what I’m thinking? I’m thinking about how everyone else has already left and here I am, still at your bedside like some kind of idiot. The doctors said you’ve already stabilized; they told me to go home. What am I waiting around for? I don’t know.”

Tremaine just looks back at him. I can’t tell what’s flitting through his pale eyes, but when he speaks, he can’t meet Roshan’s gaze. “Know what I’m really thinking?” he mutters. “I’m thinking about how, if you were the one lying in this bed instead of me, your entire family would be in here. Your brother and his duchess of a wife and their baby. Your sister. Your mother and your father. All your cousins and nephews and nieces, every single last one of them. There wouldn’t be any space left. They would have flown in together on a private plane and they would be packed in here, waiting and worrying until you could walk out the door.”

He hesitates, as if afraid to go on. “I know you’re with Kento now. I know he’s better than me in every way. But I’m thinking that, even though there’s no one in my family willing to wait around for me, even though you’re the only one in here, I couldn’t care less, because you might as well be the entire damn world.”

He grimaces in the silence afterward, his expression embarrassed. “See, here’s the moment after my speech when I’d like to either go right up to you or leave the room in a grand finale, except I’m kind of tied down to this stupid bed, so now it’s just awkward. You know what? Forget what I said. It was only—”

Roshan reaches out, takes Tremaine’s hand in his, and squeezes it tight. He doesn’t say a word for a long moment, but somehow, this contented silence seems like just the right thing to hear.

“You know, I’m not over you,” Roshan finally murmurs.

“I’m not either,” Tremaine replies. He turns his head slightly, all he can manage, and closes his eyes as Roshan leans down to kiss him.

The memory vanishes, as if everything I’d just seen had happened in the space of a second. Roshan stays seated against the wall with his eyes staring vacantly forward.

Zero already knows what we’re doing and where we’re trying to go. He’d even planted this false endpoint here, had used this game against us in order to hunt us down. He knew Hideo would come here, back to their old home.

My head jerks back up to Zero, my eyes narrowed in anger. He just looks at me through his opaque helmet, studying me quietly before turning his attention back to Hideo. To my surprise, though, he doesn’t touch Hideo.

Instead, he turns toward me and lunges.

Hideo darts for me. He reaches me before Zero can, clenches his jaw, and crouches before me, ready to attack his brother. Zero halts before Hideo can reach him. Again, he seems to shy away from Hideo, as if making contact with him might have the same poisonous effect as Zero’s mind controlling any one of us.

“Touch her, and I’ll kill you,” Hideo growls.

“You won’t kill Sasuke,” Zero replies in a cool voice.

“You’re not Sasuke.”

The ground beneath us cracks more. I lose my balance and fall to my knees. Before my eyes, a huge line divides the entire floor. I try to scramble to my feet and throw myself at Zero, one last-ditch attempt to get to him.

But it’s too late. The floor gives way, and all of us fall into darkness.





31



I have no idea where we are. The darkness is all-consuming, and the only thing I can hear is the sound of Hideo’s breathing coming from somewhere near me. His breaths are hoarse now, and when he speaks, he sounds weaker.

“Hideo?” I whisper, then say his name louder. “Hideo?”

He doesn’t respond right away. For a frightening moment, I think that Zero has somehow gotten to him, too, and that my new theory is completely wrong. Hideo’s going to stop speaking. He might already be staring emotionless into space within this darkness.

Or maybe, in real life, he’s dying. Bleeding out. We’re both trapped inside this panic room with Zero’s guards outside our door. At any moment, they could break in and seize us, and I’d feel rough hands grabbing my arms and dragging me to my feet. I’d feel the cold barrel of a real gun pressed to my head.

Then Hideo whispers something. “Emika.”

All I can do is whisper back. “I’m here.”