Page 63 of Vanish Into Light

The captive had told them all that they’d needed to know – all that he could tell them. And then Beck had snapped his neck, quick and clean, leaving smears of blood and viscera behind on his face, where he’d gripped him.

Tris had assured, brusquely, that he and Gallo would get rid of the body.

And now here they stood, and Rose hadn’t don’t anything more than prepare the ropes, beforehand.

Beck set the towel aside, and took her hands in his own warm, damp ones. Traced her calluses with smooth, clawed thumbs; he’d had calluses like hers before, the lasting impressions of knife handles worried into his skin.

“I have no doubt,” he said, “that you would do it well. But I didn’t need you to.”

Their conversation earlier, in the great hall, had softened some of her pique. She looked on him now with exasperated fondness, and didn’t feel as left out as she might have before.

“You said it wasn’t chivalry,” she said, “but I think, maybe, it’s time to acknowledge that, somehow, hell made you more chivalrous.”

He snorted, softly. “I like to think I was always a little chivalrous.”

“You were. I’ve never actually seen you be rude – I don’t think you’re capable of it. But you’re…well. You didn’t worry so much, before.”

A bitter-edged smile graced his mouth. “I didn’t take proper care of you, you mean.”

“Beck,” she said, seriously, squeezing his hands. “You were the first person in my life to ever take care of me. And you still do it the best.”

His eyes gleamed, polished gold beneath the overhead light. “I do it better, now,” he said, quietly. And then: “Don’t I?”

He wasn’t one for apologies; he did what he did with intent. He’d never been ashamed of his violent streak – at least not in the time that she’d known him – and she knew that if he could go back five years ago, to that awful night when he’d been taken from her, that he wouldn’t have done anything different, despite the five years of hell: literally for him, figuratively for her.

But he was trying, now, she was realizing, to atone for what he perceived as a sin. He would never get on his knees and grovel for the lives he’d taken. But he would spare her something like torture, when he could.

It was a blow, because he’d always said they were just alike, and if that was true – and it was, she knew it was – then how could he deny her nature?

And it was endearing, because even as he cautioned Lance about allowing her to be herself…he still wanted to enfold and protect her now.

Even if she’d long since moved past needing that.

How infuriatinglyBeckof him.

A knock sounded on the door out in the bedroom, but this time, Lance didn’t wait to be let in. A moment later, the door clicked open, clicked closed, and she heard a loud exhale, and the settling of the bed springs.

The glint in Beck’s eyes shifted; his tiny smile sharpened. He dropped the topic, for the moment, and she let him, because loving Beck had always meant taking him for every single inch that he was, and he’d never been budgeable.

“We have company,” he said.

Her stomach gave a pleasant flip. “Sounds like it.”

Beck dropped one of her hands, and towed her out of the bathroom by the other, his fingers tightening, once, in a quick display of anticipation that he couldn’t quell.

They found Lance flopped back across the bed, hands folded over his stomach. He looked tenser than anyone in that position should have, and Rose had no doubt that Beck had picked up on that, too.

His eyes rolled up, settling on them, and then following them as they moved to stand at the foot of the bed. “Gallo’s copying out his list in longhand,” he informed them. “Because nobody can read his fucking shorthand.”

Gallo had been their secretary, during the interrogation, jotting down the names and addresses the captive had given them in between heaved breaths and screams.

“We can head out this evening,” Lance said, and then checked his watch. “Or, well, now. It’s already evening. Shit.” He wiped his hands down his face, eyes staying closed afterward. “Gavin’s going to be a problem. I don’t know how big of one, but–” He broke off when Beck stretched out alongside him, on his side, propped up on an elbow.

Lance’s eyes opened, and his head turned; when his gaze met Beck’s, Beck grinned.

He reached to trace the tip of a claw down the center of Lance’s forehead, and his nose; Lance took a short, sharp breath, but held utterly still, otherwise. “You’re very responsible,” Beck said. “Always worrying.”

“Yeah, well, somebody has to,” Lance said, after a few beats.

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