Page 36 of Under a Wicked Moon
Fight Vivi? Hurt her? He couldn’t. Wouldn’t. But she might force him to make a choice he wasn’t sure he could make. If she hurt his family, even if unintentionally, because he brought her into their world, then that was on him. It was his problem to end.
His head throbbed.
His stomach revolted. Whether it was his body rejecting the real food or the onset of a legit migraine didn’t matter as he lunged for the restroom.
He stood above the toilet swallowing hard. Sweat formed on his forehead.Don’t vomit. Please, don’t vomit.
His stomach had other plans. He heaved twice so hard he was surprised he didn’t turn inside out. Now with his back against the wall, he didn’t dare move for fear it’d spark a new round. He felt the plane lift off and become airborne. Good. Distance between himself and the prison was necessary for his sanity.
The gliding sensation moved along his back and down his right shoulder. A sleeve lift revealed the angel tattoo’s realignment. Now upright, the angel propped itself on its sword in an inelegant pose.
“This sucks,” he whispered to the tattoo.
Felt as if the ink understood. Might all be in his head, though.
A small knock and Flynn entered, making the tight space even smaller. They stared at each other across the divide before Ky lowered his head and covered his face.
“They’ll pay for what they’ve done to you,” Flynn said with soft menace. The uncharacteristic deviation from his lackadaisical laissez-faire tone made him a hundred times scarier. “We didn’t know you were in one of those facilities until I tracked the computer and did some satellite image checking on the location.I’ve never been more pissed in my life.”
“Whichtheyare you referring to making pay? Pretty sure Roman killed everyone inside the prison. You talking about the one who now has the disc or maybe the one who’s in control of those facilities? Or perhaps the one who sold me out?”
“Every human who hurt you. You in the bathroom like this… I’m suspecting the food wasn’t the reason.” He stepped forward, offering a pill on his open palm. “Is it a migraine?”
With a nod, he accepted the oblong white tablet and swallowed it. It’d take a while before it kicked in. But at least the head pain might dull. “They didn’t cause the migraine.”
The headaches started long before he’d been incarcerated and controlled with heavy drugs; they’d actually started when he’d been possessed. He’d even gotten an MRI once to see if the spirit had caused an aneurysm or tumor or something his body couldn’t heal. It hadn’t. Human doctors couldn’t explain why he got the migraines, but they offered drugs, which sometimes worked.
Flynn shrugged. “It’s more fun to blame those bastards.”
“What’d you talk to Gerard about?” Ky asked.
“Check in. Told him we’d reacquired you and would report back as soon as we could. That we had to get you some medical care. He asked for you to report. Roman informed him in rather colorful language he could go fuck himself, since he’d been the one to send you into that hell alone to begin with. Oddly, Gerard didn’t seem to care.”
“Do we trust him? Gerard, I mean.”
Flynn glanced skyward. “He’s been with us since the beginning. He’s steered us straight many times and gives us good information, but he’s human. He’s susceptible to bribes and pressure, not that I even know if he has a family. I’ll research it. But you being sent inside by yourself? It makes no sense. That was on him. He knows that rule number one with us is we worktogether. Most things we do can’t be handled alone. I don’t think the new monarch cares much for the logistics of our missions. So he probably didn’t have anything to do with the order that you go in alone. Gerard had to know the chance of something going south—”
“My orders started out as surveillance and then changed toget caught. It wasn’t my idea. I was ordered not to tell either of you that I had to get captured in order to get inside and it had to be done alone.”
“That’s a setup from a mile away.”
“I know. I should’ve called before I followed the order, but what choice did I have?” They stared at each other, lost in mutual desire to be free of their tie to a monarch they didn’t believe in and who considered them expendable. Their cause to fight inhuman terrorists was important, they agreed, but if this had been a true betrayal by Gerard or the king, it was the first time.
“Gerard renegade?” Flynn cringed. “He’s so uptight that for him to go solo like this means it was a long time in the planning. Have I ever entirely believed or trusted him? Not with his low-key contempt for us. I think he was disappointed his career has been spent babysitting us instead of glorying it up in MI6 where he’d been on a trajectory for a high position.”
“You’d think working one-on-one with the monarch would be about as high as you can get.”
“The monarch is little more than a figurehead these days, outside of the operations he sends us on—which no one else knows about. I also think Gerard has gotten a little bit overinflated with the power of controlling us.” Flynn leaned against the doorframe. “Hey, did Roman tell you about Shane? Just wanted your thoughts on that situation.”
“What about him?” Simply hearing their youngest brother’s name hurt. Shane had given his life in order to rid the world ofa monster, but his death hadn’t been simple. Prior to his suicide moment, Shane got demon-possessed, which was different than Ky’s spirit possession. Shane’s situation was far worse, and he’d gone a little crazy from his daily mental battle to fight for control of his head. Nothing they tried would get it out of his mind.
“He didn’t tell you?” Flynn groaned. “I assume he told you about Nova, which would of course be his priority. That girl’s got his nuts in a twist. She’s wonderful, don’t get me wrong. But she wassentto find Roman. She remembered nothing of her past. She had Roman’s name tattooed on her, and she was given Shane’s lighter. She was told to flick the lighter like he did so that he and I wouldn’t kill her.”
“What? Is he alive?” He sat up straighter; the move was too fast and shot bolts of pain through his eyeballs.
“Someone wants us to think so. I don’t know for sure. There was the video we found of Nova before she erased her mind. A male voice at the end of the recording sounded just like Shane.”
“That means he got free of the curse?”
