Page 23 of He is… Creed: Part Three

I wasn’t aware Katie had joined the Renegades. I’d selfishly shut out everything when I’d fled Groom Lake. Shut out a war that wasn’t going away. Refused to fight, while Julian became more dangerous. And right now, watching Katie in there fighting for Jensen’s life, as Jensen had fought for all of them—Maddox, Caleb, and yes, me—I hate myself for that. And I silently vow to make it up to these brave people. I will find Red Dart. I will destroy it. I’ll help find those bullets and destroy them, too. I won’t allow Julian to get his hands on more of them, either. If confronting my father would actually make a difference, I’d be charging out of here to demand he make this all right. But it isn’t that easy, and I know it. God. If only it were that easy.

I glance up at Creed, at the hard set of his jaw and his stiff posture. I believe whatever was behind his claim of fault in the elevator is eating him alive.

“He’s crashing!” someone yells, a moment before a warning buzzer pierces the air.

A harsh breath of air rips from my lungs as my hands flatten on the glass, and I watch the medical personnel prepare to shock Jensen. He’s GTECH, I tell myself. He will live. He will survive. He has to survive.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Creed

Time stands still as I watch Jensen, and the instant the monitor beside his bed begins a steady, stable rhythm, my shoulders slump with relief. Those bullets—those Taylor Industries-manufactured green bullets—did not steal my friend’s life. Beside me, I hear the sighs of relief from Caleb and Addie, the tension in the small alcove of the waiting area immediately easing.

“Caleb.” The male voice comes from behind.

The three of us turn to find Dr. Perry. I told Addie we didn’t have doctors, but that’s not a hundred percent true. We do. They just can’t get to us in the field. We can’t windwalk them to our aid. Dr. Perry is one of the half-dozen human doctors who’d followed Caleb after the Groom Lake attack. He’s a tall male with short, dark hair who is at present eyeing me with suspicion.

Caleb doesn’t miss the look and quickly responds. “He’s one of us. He’s always been one of us.”

I swear, I want to bare my damn teeth and watch the man jump. Accusation and hate are not what I need right now.

“Do you have something to tell us?” I half bark, irritably, barely keeping the growl out of my voice.

Dr. Perry clears his throat and shifts about nervously. “Noah, Cooper, and Jacob have avoided major organ hits. I’m about to take Maddox into surgery to remove a bullet near his heart, but I don’t anticipate any complications. It wasn’t a direct hit, so he should be fine. His body will heal quickly.”

Caleb offers him a sharp nod, but apparently requires a few minutes alone with the man, motioning him down the hallway. And I have no doubt it’s about me, which only serves to stir my agitation to boiling.

My gaze settles on Addie’s mud-smudged pale face, and seeing her like this brings back that moment I’d thought she was dead. How the fuck have I not gotten her looked at before now? I motion to a nurse. “We need medical attention.”

Addie shakes her head and motions the woman away, speaking to me. “Let them deal with the men who are in life-threatening situations. I’m not.”

“We don’t know that,” I say in instant rejection, thinking of those moments when I’d held her lifeless body in my arms. “You stopped breathing. You need to be checked.” I raise my hand again and motion to the nurse, who’s staring at me as if I’m Freddy fucking Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street. I scowl. “Holy hell, woman. I’m not a Zodius. I’m a Renegade. I was undercover, and we bloody well need medical attention.”

“Easy, Creed,” Addie warns, and then to the nurse, “I’m fine. I don’t need help. Please take care of the brave soldiers that were injured.”

“Like hell, you don’t,” I argue, but the nurse is pulled away to chase another problem.

I curse, and Addie is quick to reply. “I’m okay, Creed, and that’s thanks to you.” Her hand settles on my arm, gentle and calming, but I can’t afford such emotions. Not when people were damn near dying. The wrong people. Addie. Jensen. Maddox. Not Julian and Lawrence.

“Don’t thank me, Addie,” I hiss vehemently, anger forming within me like a swiftly thrown blade. I want a lot of things, but not her thanks. I want Julian’s and Lawrence’s blood. I want her beneath me, pressed close and moaning my name. Giving me a little piece of heaven, an escape.

But she can’t be that escape any longer. Not without the consequences of her lifebonding to a damn X2 GTECH. I tell myself to pull my arm away, to break the connection between us, so I won’t forget why we’re dangerous to her. But I don’t pull away, and neither does she. Instead, she stares up at me with those beautiful green eyes—eyes that I want to remain beautiful and green. Not black. Not spiraling into the depths of obsidian hell with me as they would be if I claimed her fully.

“I cannot imagine what it must be like to be treated like the enemy,” Addie says softly. “As hard as it was for you to be gone, to be without you, I want you to know how proud I am of you for everything you did.”

My chest tightens with her words, and I cut my gaze to the window. “If you knew what I had to become inside that place, you would not say such things.” I’d played the role of Julian’s personal bodyguard, of tyrant and terrorist, all too well. All too easily. Sometimes I’d almost forgotten I wasn’t that person. But I’d prevailed. I’d stayed on my path, reminded myself often that I did those things, walked those lines because I was capable of doing so, and so Caleb wouldn’t have to. So that Caleb could remain a leader of honor, untainted by the likes of his brother and those around him.

Someone had to be that person.

And that someone was me.

“War is brutal, Creed. We do what we must to survive.”

She thinks she understands, but she doesn’t. And I don’t want her to understand. I don’t want this world for her. I want her the hell away from all of this. Safe. Happy. And so I push, and push hard. Push to make her run. “Is that what you would have said if I had killed your father?”

She sucks in a breath, her hand jerking from my arm. “Killing him wouldn’t have solved anything. Julian would still be out there, trying to take over the world.”

“Without the lure of Red Dart to aid his efforts,” I counter.

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