Heir of Ashes (The Roxanne Fosch Files #1)

Chapter 22

“How about an open favor,” I began, “but with a few conditions?”

“What do you have in mind?” Lee asked, and I noted the gleam of anticipation was still there.

“Let’s see. Umm. Not a child, and that includes any I might ever have.” I had no plans for children, but neither had my father, and look where that got him. Better safe than sorry, right?

“Second,” I chewed my lower lip for a moment. “You won’t have anything I love, be it a person, pet, or object,” I declared. The gleam of anticipation in her eyes brightened. “And my terms include past, present, and future,” I added. I wanted to cheer myself.

“Anything else?” she asked after I fell silent for a minute or two.

There had to be something more. I knew I was doing well, but my brain wasn’t functioning at full speed, so I gave myself a few more minutes to think.

“You also can’t ask me for something that is not within my power.”

“Is that all?” she asked, and above the anticipation, the beginnings of impatience began to show. Maybe her duty really called her.

There should be something else. What else should a person never bargain away?

“My soul!” I half-shouted at her. “You do not get my soul. Ever.”

“No offspring, no beloved, nothing beyond your capabilities, and no soul? Although I believe the latter is the priority of another entity.” Her lips twisted into a sarcastic smile. I could tell I had managed to insult her. “That aside, what’s left for me?”

“I’m sure you’ll find something useful. You name it, and as long as my terms hold, I will do it.”

“I do not like it.”

“That’s all I can give. I’m not making my father’s mistake. I’d rather die here.” My voice came out firm and fierce.

She clasped her hands together and studied me for a long time. Then she inclined her head once, as if conceding the point, though I couldn’t shake the feeling that I had just walked into a horrible trap. The kind I wouldn’t realize until I was neck-deep in and sinking fast. Again, I wondered if Remo Drammen was the lesser evil. I would never know.

“Very well. We have a deal. I will call upon you soon. Until then, daughter of Fosch, farewell.” Her words were barely out of her lips when there was a flash of light, and the binding of the bargain enveloped me like a cloak of warm silk. The world spun, my vision dimmed, and I was aware of a sensation not unlike floating before I was unceremoniously dumped back on Earth. It was nothing as debilitating as when Dr. Dean had dragged me.

I stood in a rank alleyway, the stench of decay and waste assaulting my senses. Why did people keep dumping me in such places? I guess it was better than finding myself on another planet. I glanced around at the dark alley, praying that I wasn’t in some far-flung corner of the globe, or in Russia or London, or—God forbid—Zimbabwe. The bass of music rumbled nearby, accompanied by the sounds of traffic, a busy night in a busy city. Sirens, horns, tires screeching, people shouting and laughing.

I took a step forward, determined to get out of the alley before the stink clogged my pores. But before I could manage a second step, my strength failed me, and my legs buckled as if they were made of jelly, sending me crashing to my hands and knees. I knew I couldn’t hold myself up like that for long, especially when my arms began shaking uncontrollably.

I was about to fall on my face, probably onto a rotten, squishy thing. With effort, I crawled to the urine-smelling stucco wall a few feet away. I forced myself to get vertical while I was still motivated to make an effort, leaned against the wall, and dragged myself forward.

A door opened ahead, unleashing a stream of light and the wonderful aroma of food. A stocky man walked out, dressed in dark pants and a white t-shirt covered by a clean white apron, with a garbage bag in one hand and a cellphone in the other. His attention left the lit screen long enough to throw the garbage in the bin. I made a garbled sound—my throat too dry for intelligible words. I had reached the bottom of my reserves at last.

“Hey there, what are you doing here?” the man asked, turning the light of his phone toward me. “Missy, you alright?” He placed the phone inside the kangaroo pocket of his apron and came closer. His gaze swept over my dirty, torn clothes, the dried trail of blood on my cheek and hands, and concern crept into his tone. “Missy, you need help?”

My throat burned as if on fire. My stomach felt glued to my spine. I nodded jerkily.

He dusted his hands, which was totally unnecessary considering the fact that I was dirtier than the garbage he threw in the bin, then nervously scrubbed them on his pants before reaching for me.

He was an ordinary man in his early to mid-thirties, with brown hair and brown eyes and a blue aura. I was taller than him by a few inches. At six feet tall, I was taller than a lot of people.

He hesitated a moment longer before taking hold of my elbow with a rough, hot hand and gently placed it around his neck. “You’re freezing,” he muttered. “Mind if I put an arm around your waist?”

I shook my head, the movement making me dizzy. Supporting more than half of my weight, he led me inside the brightly-lit restaurant, into the first room we came upon—a sterile, small office. It contained only an industrial desk, a gunmetal filing cabinet, and two chairs: one behind the desk, the other in front. A cordless phone and a neatly stacked mound of papers were the only signs that the office wasn’t deserted. The man helped me sit in the chair in front of the desk, keeping his hold until he was sure I was stable.

“I’ll call an ambulance now,” he said, and I croaked a “no” before he could dial.

“Water?” I croaked again. It came out as “wa-aa” followed by a burst of choked coughs. I wasn’t sure what did the trick—the choking or the croak—but he left the office in a half-run and returned in seconds with a small plastic bottle of the nectar of life. I drank greedily, taking huge gulps that made my throat ache, the water sloshing audibly inside my stomach.

“Missy, I have to call an ambulance. You don’t look well.”

“No,” I rasped. “Friend?”

After a moment, he passed me the cordless phone. I couldn’t remember much about what happened after that, just that I dialed Logan’s number and handed the phone to the man so he could talk to him. After that, I was constantly in and out of consciousness.

I remembered when Logan arrived, asked me questions I didn’t answer, picked me up, and carried me out. I remembered him talking to Rafael in garbled words I didn’t understand. I remembered being placed in the backseat of a car with the heater so high it felt like a furnace, and then nothing else.

***

I surfaced from the pitch-dark recesses of my subconscious in slow motion, as if wading through an ocean of molasses. I was lying on a soft bed. There were voices nearby, talking in hushed tones, and I recognized Logan’s right away. It anchored me to reality, reassuring me that I was safe.

I could have strained to make out the words, but it was too much effort. It was too much effort to open my eyes or even move my head, so I lay there and listened to the soothing timbre of Logan’s murmur.

I took stock of my condition: the queasiness, the lightheadedness, the sensation of having been scraped raw. Given my quick metabolism and fast healing, it was clear that not much time had passed since Logan had picked me up.

The pitch of Logan’s soothing murmur changed, gaining an angry edge. With great effort, I opened my eyes, turned my head, and concentrated. The side of the bed faced an open doorway, where I could just make out Logan’s silhouette at the end of a long, narrow hallway. I couldn’t see anyone else, but Rafael’s angry response was unmistakable: “… For someone you’ve only known for a few days?”

Logan grunted his confirmation, followed by, “That aside, she gets in the wrong hands, and it’s a fucking disaster. I believe she doesn’t even know what she is.”

Raphael exhaled. “Then send her to the clan and stop bullshitting yourself. Look, she’s haunted. You can see it from the shadows in her eyes. She’ll draw you in, and it will be like Cara all over again. For fuck’s sake, she even caught Black Drammen’s attention.”

A long silence followed, heavy with tension even from where I lay.

“Shit, Lo. Man, I say you cut her loose before it’s too late.” There was a kind of plea in Rafael’s voice, and I couldn’t reconcile that badass heavyweight I met a few days ago with this one. It was obvious the two weren’t just partners but very close friends. “Her guardian?” Rafael asked after a frustrated sigh.

A pause. “I took her there. It was right before the SEALs. I haven’t been up to date with internal affairs … but shit, man, I thought the elders wouldn’t …” Logan raked a hand through his hair in the ensuing pause. “The Society was waiting for her right inside the house. Do you know how fucked up that is? How they knew to find her there? Shit, the woman she thought all her life was her mother just stood there and watched. She did nothing. She didn’t even protest.” A huff, a shake of the head. “She just stood and watched.” A baffled tone underlined his frustrated words.

Rafael swore under his breath. “What could she have done against that platoon? She’s just one woman. Do you blame her?”

I thought back to the scene in Elizabeth’s living room and agreed with Rafael. Although that indifference, that emptiness in her eyes had shown me how much I had meant to her. Besides, she didn’t have to fight anyone. She could have given me some sign, some signal that we weren’t alone, that I was about to be taken again.

“That’s beside the point now. What matters now is that Archer was going after her when he got caught,” Logan continued. “He heard rumors about a scion being held by the Society the day before he disappeared. I’m sure he went to investigate it and was captured. I called Alleena, and she brushed me off. I called Vince and was sent to voicemail. I called for a council meeting and was scheduled out three weeks. Three weeks, for God’s sake.”

“Three weeks isn’t unreasonable,” Rafael interjected.

Logan’s voice sharpened. “An emergency council meeting should take place in less than three days, a week at most. I’ve been out of the game for a long time, yes, but I still know the rules, Goddammit!” He punched a fist into the palm of his other hand with a loud crack. He took a long, calming breath, and when he spoke next, his raging tone was more controlled. “That’s not even it. What if Archer didn’t tell anyone about her because he knew to keep her away from them, for whatever reason, maybe even for her own sake—”

“Come on, man!” Rafael exploded with a loud hiss. “Listen to yourself. Those people wouldn’t let a fly hurt one of their kind, much less a scion. They’re so rare, they’re practically deities.”

“And yet she was left at the mercy of the Society year after year, until she managed to escape on her own,” Logan argued, his hands clenched by his sides.

“Why?” Rafael demanded. “Everyone knows Fosch died for her, hybrid or not.”

“That’s what smells iffy. I’m going to keep her close until I can talk to Archer. Until he talks to her. Until then, I’m not throwing her to the vultures,” Logan said with finality, before adding more gently, “After that, I promise you, Rafe, I’ll wash my hands of the problem.” Logan glanced back at me—the problem—and met my eyes.

For a moment, we stared at each other, his words hanging between us like a heavy gong ready to fall.

I tried to sit up, and a sharp tug on the back of my left hand made me realize with a twinge of panic that I was connected to a dripping IV. A small sound of horror escaped my lips. I fumbled and grabbed for it, ready to yank it out when a large hand closed over mine. I pushed at it, trying to pull my hand free. My heart squeezed once, my vision blurred at the edges, then began to dim. Vaguely, in the very back of my mind, I recognized the panic attack for what it was. My inner voice told me to relax, that this was Logan and he was taking care of me, but it was faint and faraway, muffled by the loud roar of panic.

“Take it out,” I rasped. “Take it out!” I screeched, seeing only the white coats of the lab scientists and hearing only the bleeps of the machines monitoring my every breath while I shivered on that cold steel table.

Logan lay beside me, his body warm and solid against mine as he pulled me close, holding my hand in an iron grip. “Shh. Shh-hh. It’s okay. It’s okay.” He rocked me gently, his voice a soothing murmur in my ear until I fell asleep—or passed out.

When I woke, the IV had been removed, and I was sweating rivers under the thick duvet. I glanced around and found myself alone in a room sparsely furnished: a straight -back chair beside the bed, a nightstand with a cheap plastic lamp, and nothing else. There were no windows, so I couldn’t tell if it was day or night.

God, how I missed the warmth of the sun on my face. I pushed the duvet away and got up slowly. The world tilted from side to side, my stomach in sync with it. I had to sit back down and wait for the world to settle and the nausea to abate before attempting to stand again.

All I had on was one of my oversized t-shirts. With a vaguely alarmed sense of curiosity, I raised the hem to make sure I was wearing underwear. I was. Unless there was another woman in the house, I was sure Logan was the one who’d cleaned and dressed me. Werewolves were territorial, and he would feel responsible for me if for no other reason than he had met me first.

How did I feel about that?

I searched for something—embarrassment, alarm, outrage—anything. They were all there, but somehow muted. As though I was too drained to fully feel anything. Or maybe it was because, in a sense, I’d rather have Logan see me naked than Rafael.

I scanned the room but found no sign of my clothes or duffel bag. Since the t-shirt was long enough to cover the essentials, I left the room to look for food, Logan, and a bathroom—not necessarily in that order.

I found the bathroom first. It was the first door to the right in the narrow hallway. There were three other closed doors, but I paid them no mind. After washing and taking care of necessities, I went in search of the remaining two on my list. The hallway ended in a spacious, dimly lit, also scarcely furnished living room. There was a comfortable-looking green velvet sofa, a recliner, two straight-back chairs like the one in the bedroom, a scarred coffee table with some empty Coke cans on top, what looked like folded beach chairs underneath, and a flat-screen TV with some expensive-looking entertainment devices. The wooden floor, like in the bedroom and hallway, was worn and muted.

None of the furniture matched. Like in the bedroom and bathroom, there were no windows here either. The walls were unadorned and bare, painted a shade of muted white, with faint yellow splotches indicating a past leak. A couple of doors led to different parts of the house, but I went for the one on the left where a fluorescent light glowed.

Before I reached it, I heard the sound of a chair scraping against linoleum and muffled footsteps. Logan appeared, his figure looming in the doorway. He looked both weary and relieved, and as handsome as ever. My stomach fluttered with a mix of hunger and something else, something that could easily turn into a serious crush if I wasn’t careful.

“Hey.”

“Hey back,” I said, my voice still a little scratchy.

“You okay?”

“Hungry.”

He nodded. “There’s soup. Come on.” He turned and disappeared inside.

I followed him to a small kitchen. An industrial counter covered one side of the room, flanked by a stove and a refrigerator at each end. A scarred, light-colored wooden table sat opposite the sink, shoved all the way against the wall, with three straight-back chairs around it.

Logan motioned for me to sit, and I did, taking the closest chair.

He lit the stove under a copper pot filled to the brim with something that smelled delicious. He still wore the same clothes from before—dark blue long-sleeve t-shirt and faded blue jeans—though they looked disheveled. His hair looked like it had seen nothing but a few rough fingers for the past few days. His posture was stiff, with tension emanating from his shoulders in waves. His green-and-yellow aura pulsated with coiled violence, barely leashed.

“These digs yours?” I asked, trying for a lighter mood.

“No.”

“This Douglas guy Rafael mentioned?” I guessed.

He grunted.

“I don’t sense anyone in the house but us.”

Another grunt.

I suppressed a sigh.

Logan poured the steamy, fragrant soup into a mug advertising an investment firm and passed it to me. I was salivating by then, barely able to contain my drool. I attacked the mug, burning my tongue with the first sip. I was too hungry to care. I took hasty, noisy slurps and didn’t care if Logan watched either. He’d seen worse.

“Slow down or you’ll throw it all up,” he cautioned.

Any other time and I was sure he’d be amused. Instead, he looked … concerned. For me. I felt this warm feeling in my chest … or maybe it was just the soup tracking down to an empty stomach. Either way, I didn’t slow down, couldn’t, even if I wanted to.

Logan sat across from me without another word, and sipped coffee from another firm-advertising mug. When I finished the soup, I placed the mug on the table and glanced up. His expression was bland, a little mild. No traces of the tension or violence I still sensed showed on his face. The concern was also gone, or very well hidden.

“More?” I asked, a bit self-conscious.

“In a minute. Tell me what happened,” he demanded. “One minute you were there, the next you were gone.”

“How long?”

“About six hours.”

I stared at him in disbelief. It had been days. I was sure I had been gone for days. “That’s it? You sure?”

He frowned. “Yes, we got to the restaurant somewhere around nine-thirty. Give or take a few minutes. Where did he take you? Where is he?”

“It felt like days in that place.” I shivered once.

“Where? Where did he take you?” he repeated, his grip white-knuckled around his coffee mug.

“They called it the Low Lands.”

His only indication he recognized the name was the tiny jerk of his hand. “They?” he prompted, his voice a strained whisper.

“Dr. Dean and Remo Drammen.”

The names had barely left my lips when he exploded out of the chair, sending it crashing into the sink. With a vicious curse, he punched a hole in the wall with a sickening thud. “Son of a bitch!” He punched again and again and again, his knuckles splitting open. Over and over, as if he was seeing Dr. Dean in front of him. Plaster and blood flew, making a jagged hole in the stone wall behind. A bloody, jagged hole where the mortar showed.

I snapped out of my daze and shoved up, grabbing his arm to stop him—and almost plowed face-first into the wall with the next punch.

Damn, he wasn’t holding back.

His knuckles bled from around a mess of torn flesh, plaster, and pulverized mortar. The cuts looked deep enough to need stitches, the blood dripping from his hand and pooling on the linoleum floor, the metallic smell thick in the air.

Was that a piece of the wall or bone? Before I could find out, I pulled him away from the wall and picked up his chair.

“I’m alright,” I began, but was cut off by his sarcastic snort. His cheeks were red with rage, and I wondered if he ever blushed. “Look at me. I’m alright. Look at me.” I waited for his stormy gray eyes to meet mine. “I’m here. They are not. They’re dead.” When comprehension didn’t reach his eyes, I squeezed his arm, trying to anchor him back to the present. “They’re both dead. I’m here. I’m alright.”

His eyes flickered—surprise, disbelief, speculation—I couldn’t tell.

“How?” he asked gruffly.

“Sit down and I’ll tell you.”

When I finished telling him, he let the silence stretch for a moment. I left out no gruesome detail, going as far as my interpretation of the creatures’ joyous shrieks. I expected disapproval, disgust, horror, or just a tiny indication that what I had done was extreme, but he gave me nothing. Not even satisfaction, for that matter.

“In the Low Lands,” he began in a moderate tone, “time moves differently. Sometimes it’s faster, sometimes it’s slower, depending on which path the planet is aligned with. In a way, I guess you can say it’s unpredictable. You sure looked like you’d been dragged through Hell and back again.”

Yeah, the coldest Hell ever. We fell silent after that, eyeing each other. I could practically see the questions rampaging inside his head. I knew what he wanted to know.

I looked down at my hands, unable to keep hold of his sharp, burning stare, trying to avoid the question I knew was coming. When I looked back up, his jaws were clenched and the fury wasn’t so well disguised. His hands clutched the cold coffee mug so tightly that blood from his knuckles seeped faster, pooling on the table.

I got up and wet the dish towel, then began to clean up the wound. It was nasty—the skin torn, mixed with paint, plaster, and blood. The bone on his middle finger was visible. It must have hurt like a bitch.

I cleaned his knuckles as gently as possible, rinsing the towel when it became too bloody to continue. Logan remained silent, his heavy eyes on me, giving no indication that he felt any pain. When I rinsed the towel a third time, Logan clasped my hand over his and stopped me. He pried the towel from my hand, tying it around his palm and fingers with his uninjured hand and teeth.

When I met his gaze again, I saw the flash of fury, the barely-leashed violence simmering in the stormy gray of his eyes.

“Did he—did he try anything? Touch you?” he asked in a voice gone rough.

My face heated with mortification, and I hastily shook my head. “No. No.”

I clenched my fists, then unclenched them again. He was dead … and in that particular moment, it felt more than just right, it felt good. Dr. Dean got exactly what he deserved. As for Remo, the world was a safer place without his influence. It didn’t mean the images wouldn’t still haunt me, just that I had no regrets. Did that make me a monster?

“You don’t seem surprised about Remo Drammen,” I remarked to keep my mind from providing me with images of the carnage yet again. Angry, yes, but there hadn’t been any shock.

“No.”

“You already knew.” I felt a tug of resentment at that.

“No. But it didn’t surprise me Mr. Drammen had a hand in it. Especially after Vegas. I knew there was something brewing, but I couldn’t place my finger on it. In fact, I thought it had to do with Archer and keeping me occupied, keeping me fumbling to protect the only person who could help me break Archer out.”

Logan’s previous words echoed in my mind like a faraway thought. … She gets in the wrong hands and it’s a fucking disaster. I believe she doesn’t even know what she is.

“But you knew what I was all along.” This time, the accusation was clearer, carrying some of the resentment and bitterness with the words. God knew what else he knew and wasn’t telling.

“Not all along.” He paused a moment before adding, “I had a suspicion, but nothing concrete, nothing to base my suspicions on. Until things began adding up. The Society wanted you so badly they weren’t discussing payment. Archer was looking for a scion, Mr. Drammen was after you. But I only really connected the dots when you mentioned who your father was. That’s when the puzzle pieces fell into place. I knew then Archer had been tricked and that the Society and Mr. Drammen were in cahoots. Before then, I thought Fosch’s daughter had been secluded away from civilization. No one ever mentioned to me what happened to you … where they hid you. If they did, I can’t remember. It happened during a time when I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to process it.” He shook his head and shifted directions. “I was going to let Archer explain things to you, things I myself am not sure about or don’t know the answer to.” He caught my hand in his uninjured one, squeezed gently, then let it go. “I wasn’t hiding anything from you, Roxanne, I just thought you’d have questions, and Archer should be the one to answer them.”

I nodded once, understanding what he meant, then snorted. “I don’t think so. If he wanted to help out, he should have tried it a long, long time ago, preferably before the PSS took me.”

“I don’t know why that is. But I doubt Archer knew. He never talked about you, no one in the clan did. I thought it … no, I didn’t. I never thought about it. It was something that happened and was sorted out and put aside. It could be because Fosch and Archer, they were close. Maybe no one wanted to talk about him, bring up the hurt.” He took a sip of his cold coffee before he went on. “Before he left a few weeks ago, he told me the Society had gotten hold of a scion and he was going to investigate, since asking for an account of every scion would take a while with clan members scattered the way they are.”

“But that’s not what I heard.”

Logan raised his eyebrows in question.

“The way I gathered, everyone knew where I was,” I said, recalling General Parkinson’s words. “They just didn’t care.” Because I’m a half-breed.

“That’s not true. Archer isn’t like that. Even if he didn’t care about you, everyone knows Fosch sacrificed himself for you. For that reason alone, Archer would have made sure you stayed safe, no matter what.”

I didn’t say anything.

“Look, Roxanne, all I’m saying is that something is wrong. To begin with, whatever happened, whatever the reason, Archer wouldn’t have permitted a scion to be left in the clutches of humans. If for no other reason than to avoid exposing the clan. Most clan members don’t even use their real names. Almost all acquire a human job on the side to keep people’s curiosity at bay. Dean was a liar. He’d have told you that to cause chaos, have you distrust your own kind. To keep you from reaching out—”

“Dr. Dean told me nothing,” I snapped. “Even if he did, I don’t even know who this clan is, where they are, or how to reach out to them in the first place.” I pulled my hair back, tying it in a messy bun, trying to keep my anger at bay. Whatever had been done to me, it wasn’t Logan’s fault. I repeated what General Parkinson had told me. “He did say these Rejected were a secretive bunch and expressed his anger that I had been left to the mercy of the Scientists legally, with guardianship documents.” I remembered what Dr. Dean had told me and added, “Dr. Dean did tell me my mother—Elizabeth,” I corrected, “didn’t mention anything to me because it was one of the stipulations in the document. They were afraid to let me loose among mankind”—my lips twitched—“lest I cause mayhem with my superpowers.”

“General Parkinson was mistaken,” Logan said with conviction.

I cocked my head to the side, remembering something else General Parkinson had said. “He also told me one of my kind helped me in Vegas. You sure know a lot about this clan.” Back then, I thought he had lumped us preternatural beings in one category, but now … I focused on him. On his aura. I had never seen my own aura. For all I knew it could be double-stranded like in a DNA helix: green and yellow in color.

“I’m not like you, no,” he said calmly, his eyes meeting and holding mine. “I told you, Archer found me when I was just a baby in New York.”

When I didn’t say anything, he asked, “Can’t you sense it? My wolf?”

I grunted.

“Look, I’m not sure if someone from the clan tried to help back in Vegas. They’re not very accepting of my presence. It’s been an uphill battle for a long time, an issue I’ve been working on.”

I didn’t sense a lie. Besides, I could feel his wolf. And eventually, I’d meet Archer.

I shrugged and finished telling him about what happened. About Lee, about what happened to my father, how at the end the Rejected and Sidhe had gathered to watch the punishment, how she belittled my kind for letting a human raise me. I didn’t tell him about the bargain. For some reason, I didn’t think it was a good idea. There wasn’t enough trust yet between us.

Logan tapped his fingernail on the table, thinking. “Lee wouldn’t have lied about what she told you. She can’t. It’s more than what anyone has ever known before. Archer would want to know that.”

I nodded once, my doubt not quite masked.

Logan squeezed my hand briefly. “Look, Roxanne, let me be honest with you here. If Archer wanted to get rid of you, he’d have helped you meet a mysterious accident, just to prevent exposure to the clan. He’s capable of that, yes, and the fact that you are here, alive and well after nine years with the Society, tells me there’s something missing, something big.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose, betraying the weariness he’d been trying hard to hide. “All I’m asking is that you not judge Archer until we talk to him, alright?”

It wasn’t an unreasonable request, and I conceded the point. After a quiet moment, he got up, reheated the soup, and brought me another large mug.

This time I sipped it slowly and wished there were noodles, vegetables, or chicken pieces in it.

We didn’t say anything for a long time. Logan sat across from me, staring at the wall as though lost in memory, his hands—the right one still wrapped in the wet towel—curled around the cup of cold coffee.

“When do we leave?”

He looked at me, eyes focusing. “You sure you’re up to it?”

“Yes, I am.”

“You don’t have to. You can stay here until I return with Archer. After that, we’ll help you with everything you need.”

I shook my head. If anything, accompanying him on this rescue mission was now necessary. “I go with you; I’ll accept the help. You don’t want me along, I’ll move on my own from here. Maybe you’re right about Archer, but if you’re wrong, I’d rather he owe me than the other way around.”

Logan studied me for a moment more, his expression unreadable. “Very well then; we’re leaving in a few hours.”

I looked down and finished the rest of the hot soup. My bladder was beginning to protest again. A door opened and closed somewhere in the house, and footsteps approached, stopping just a few feet behind my chair. Logan’s eyes shifted to a point above and behind me. I didn’t have to turn to see who it was—I could smell the faint musk of Rafael’s cologne, along with his sour disapproval, like rancid gas filling the room. Logan excused himself and left, followed by Rafael’s muffled steps on the hardwood.