Axe's eyes drifted down to his own hands.
"Go back to the gym," Butch ordered. "Think about shit. Just know you don't have forever. We're not wasting--"
"I lied."
"Excuse me."
The hard-ass, Gothed-out, degenerate-looking male inhaled slowly. "I haven't seen any. I don't know . . . what it looks like. I don't know what it feels like."
The change in affect, from hostile mask to profound sadness, was startling, but that was the way it always happened. When someone broke, when they decided to give up the goods, they became a different version of themselves, proving that self-protection and revelation were two mutually exclusive propositions.
"So why are you here?" Butch whispered. "Tell me . . . why did you come to us?"
"I don't know."
"Yeah, you do."
Butch surreptitiously reached over and made sure his phone was on silent and that the ringer on the office line was off. And when Tohr reappeared on the far side of the glass door, Butch put his palm out--and the Brother backed off.
"Why are you here, Axe?"
The minutes slowed to a crawl and the quiet noises of the office seemed to dim even further out of respect for the space they were in.
"My dad was a nobody," came the hoarse voice. "He didn't do anything with his life. He was a carpenter for the species, you know . . . worked with his hands. Ma didn't want anything to do with him or me--she left before my transition. She didn't give a fuck about us. My dad, though, he stayed, and without him, I woulda been out on the streets as a pretrans, and we both know how long I would have lasted." That dark-haired, half-and-half head shook slowly from left to right. "I wasn't . . . good, you know? I never have been. He didn't leave because there was no one else, I guess."
Butch made no move, no sound. If he interrupted, he was liable to remind the male that he was talking, instead of reliving his previous life internally.
It was pretty clear where this story was going.
"I like X. I like coke. I like . . . some other hard-core shit. Two years ago, I went on a bender. Gone for like a week. One night, my dad tried to reach me by phone. Left me these messages--I was so fucking high that I got annoyed with him." That low voice trailed off. "I got . . . annoyed."
When Axe stalled out, the haunted cast to his face was a heartbreaker.
"What did you do, son?" Butch said softly, because he couldn't help himself.
Axe cleared his throat a couple of times. Rubbed underneath his nose like the tears he was holding back were irritating the thing.
"I erased the messages." There were a couple of coughs. "I erased . . . all the messages without listening to them."
"And then what."
"They'd killed him. The lessers. He was working in one of the aristocrats' houses that got hit in the raids. He was . . . dying at the time he left me the voice mails." Axe shook his head. "I went back and looked at the call log when I found what had happened and did the math."
Butch closed his eyes for a second. "I'm sorry, son."
"I didn't know about it all right away . . . I guess a son of one of the workers went there and discovered everyone? That guy, whoever he was, he took care . . . of everything. When I finally got back home--you know, three days later--there was this note that had been put on the door. Someone had called the house phone and left messages, and when there was no one returning them, they put it all . . . in a note."
"Brutal. Fucking brutal."
"I kept the note." Axe sniffed hard and shook his head. "I have the note they left. The remains are still on the estate--I think the house is in human hands now?"
"Do you want to get them back?"
"I don't know. No. No, I don't think so. Just one more way to be a bad son, huh."
"Where's your mom?"
"Heard she moved up in the world, married some rich guy, living the life. I don't know--I don't care." As the male looked up abruptly, Axe's face resumed its earlier composure, shutting the emotion down in the same way you might lock out an intruder. "So, no, I haven't seen death up close. That's one cherry I haven't popped. Can I go now?"
Butch felt like he should say something profound. But what Axe really wanted, more than some pep talk, was the exit. "Yeah. You can."
That chair made a squeaking noise against the concrete as it was shoved back hard, and then Axe steamed for the door. Before he opened it, he stopped. Looked back over his shoulder.
"What is it like?"
"Death?" When he got a nod, Butch did an inhale of his own. "You sure you want to know that kind of shit?"
"You said we needed exposure."
Touche, he wanted to say. Instead, Butch pictured the male going back to the modest house he lived alone in and getting really fucking drunk and slitting his wrists. Or OD'ing. Or jumping out a window.
Not a foregone conclusion, given the amount of pain lurking under the half-tats and the metal.
"I want you to move in here." Butch rubbed his large gold cross through his shirt. "Craeg's going to stay with us, you need to as well."
"What, worried I'ma go hang myself in the bathroom?"
"Yeah, precisely." When Butch just stared across the desk, those dark brows of the guy rose once again. "You'll stay here, Axe. It's safer, you're protected, and you can concentrate on what you need to do."
There was going to be a fight about this, of course. Asshats like this guy always had a--
"Okay, but I'm going to need a night or two every once in a while to . . . you know."
Interesting, Butch thought. So the poor SOB was aware, on some level, of the shit going on in his brain--and was spooked.
"You need to get laid, huh?" Butch drawled.
"Yeah."
"Don't blame you--and you can make arrangements with the doggen to drive you in and out. That won't be a problem."
"So . . . what is it like?"
Butch fell quiet and found himself pulling a little middle-vision-field of his own as images--gruesome, horrible images--played across his mind. For a moment, he wondered whether he should go there with the kid, but then he recognized that the truth was something that needed to be spoken even if it was terrible. Maybe especially if it was terrible.
And it had to be told to anyone who wanted to fight in this war.
If Axe couldn't handle his demons, then the last thing that was good for anybody was to give him a dagger and a gun and send him out into Caldwell's alleys.
Butch shrugged. "I used to be a homicide detective with the human police--don't ask--so I saw a lot of it. To answer the question, it depends on how old it is and how it happened. The new stuff . . . especially if it was violent . . . can be messy. Body parts really don't like to be cut, stabbed or hacked into sections, and they express their anger by leaking all over the fuck. Jesus, we're, like, seventy percent water or something? And you learn that's so fucking true when you go to a fresh scene. Pools of it. Drips of it. Speckles of it. Then you got the stained clothes, rugs, bedsheets, walls, flooring--or if it's outside, the ground cover, the concrete, the asphalt. And then there's the smell. Blood, sweat, urine, other shit. That juicy bouquet will get in your sinuses and stay there for hours afterward." He shook his head again. "The older cases . . . the smell is worse than the mess. Water deaths, with the bloating, are just ugly--and if that gas that's built up gets out? The stench will knock you on your ass. And I don't know, I wasn't too crazy for the burn deaths either. I mean, you'd think we'd realize we're not different than any other mammal--cooked meat is cooked meat, period. But I've never seen a grown man puke up his coffee and donuts over a medium rare T-bone." Butch refocused on the male. "You want to know what I always hated the most?"
"Yeah."
He motioned over his head. "The hair. The hair . . . God, the fucking hair, especially if it was a woman. Matted with blood, dirt, little rocks . . . tangled and twisted . . . lying on gray skin. When I can't sleep at night, that's what I see. I see the hair." His hands automatically began to rub themselves. "You
always wore these gloves, you know . . . so you didn't get fingerprints on anything, didn't leave any of yourself behind. Early days they used to be latex--later, they were nitrile. And sometimes, when I'd handle a body, the hair would get on the gloves . . . and it was like it wanted to get into me? Like . . . you could catch death by murder somehow." He shook his head. "Those gloves were so fucking thin. And they didn't work."
Axe frowned. "Why did you have to wear them then?"
"No, no, they worked with fingerprints, you know. But I left something of myself behind in all those dead bodies. Every one of them . . . has a piece of me."
Starting with my sister, he thought. And to be accurate, she had taken the largest hunk out of him.
There was a long stretch of silence.
"You were in the human world?" Axe asked. "I mean . . . it sounds like you were--"
"Yeah, a while ago. Now . . . I'm something else." Butch cleared his throat. "G'head, get outta here. You need your workout. You, me, and Craeg will go get all your shit--and maybe it'll help me if you're in the car with that hardheaded sonofabitch. I think I'm going to have to fight to keep him from jumping out and pulling a runner."
"Yeah. Okay. Sure."
"I'm sorry about your dad. And he wasn't a nobody. Taking care of you made him count."
Axe turned away and paused again, like he was bracing himself. Then he pushed his way out into the corridor and was gone.
As the glass door quietly eased shut, Butch stared straight ahead. He hadn't intended to reveal that much to the male--he never spoke about that shit to anyone.
Putting his head in his hands, he took some deep breaths . . . and prayed to God that none of the other interviews went like that one.
Chapter Twenty-six
Paradise finally let her feet drop to the mat, but she kept her grip on the chin-up bar. Her lungs were on fire, her shoulders and biceps were screaming, and there was a line of sweat working its way from the back strap of her sports bra down her spine. The cool thing was, though, she had learned that this woozy feeling was going to pass fast, and then she would be on to the next set of reps.
Glancing over at Peyton, she found him on the treadmill, and she was impressed. He was running like a bat out of hell, big body in perfect form, his head up, eyes unfocused but alert. She'd never pegged him for an athlete--then again, all he'd done was bong lifts before.
The question was, where was--
"Hey."
As Novo came up to her, Paradise smiled. "Good job with those sit-ups. You did, like, five hundred."
"Actually it was five hundred eighty-two. Listen, Craeg just left. He looked upset. Thought you might want to go help him with his problem."
Paradise wheeled for the door, but stopped. "I don't . . . I mean, it's not like I know him."
"Do any of us? And I'm pretty damn sure you're the one he wants to talk to."
"Why's that?"
"Just a hunch."
"Ah . . . okay, thanks."
Heading for the exit, she glanced at the Brother Tohrment. "May I please be excused to go to the ladies' room?"
"You got it, Paradise."
Slipping out into the corridor, she looked left and right, expecting to find Craeg pacing or sitting on the floor. Nope. Everything was empty.
Her body cooled efficiently as she went farther down to the males' locker room. Breathing in, she caught his scent, knew he was inside--and, sensing no hint of anyone else, she went to the metal door and knocked.
"Craeg?"
When there was no answer, she pulled the door open a little and saw nothing but a concrete wall. Heading in, she went around until she was in the large open area with all the lockers. Wow. Ten times the size of the females' one, but without the couches and the nice place to sit down to do your hair and makeup. Assuming you needed to.
Man, she was so jumpy, she was talking gibberish to herself.
New level.
"Craeg?" she said more loudly.
There was the sound of running water--a sink, not a shower--and she cleared her throat. "Craeg!"
"What the fuck!"
And then there was more cursing until he marched out of a different section of the facility. Water was dripping from his face and his hands, and his T-shirt was damp around the neck.
"What are you doing in here?" he demanded, passing a palm over his wet hair, shoving the stuff back.
God, his eyes were amazing, so deeply set and such a pale blue. And his shoulders were so big. And his chest was-- "Novo said you need help."
"Novo said what?"
"She told me you--"
"No, no." He whipped a hand through the air like he was erasing his question. "Why would she--" Craeg stopped. Then muttered something like, "I'm going to kick her ass."
"Why?" Paradise frowned. "Are you okay? Do you need to feed some more--"
"No." He jabbed a finger in her face. "And never again with you. Ever."
Paradise recoiled. "I beg your pardon."
"You heard me." Shaking his head and pacing around in a tight circle, he focused on the tile floor. "Now will you get the hell out of here--"
"I have as much right as you do to--"
He glared at her. "You're in the males' locker room. So unless you sprouted a boom stick overnight, in fact, you do not have as much right as I do."
She opened her mouth. Closed it.
And she was about to leave when he made the turn and came back toward her.
That was when she saw exactly what his "problem" was.
Instantly, her body responded--and as he tripped to a halt and looked at her, it was very, very clear that he had caught her arousal.
A curious defeat, one that seemed totally counter to his personality, suffused his face and dropped his shoulders.
They stared at each other for the longest time.
"You don't have to say it," she whispered. "I know you don't want this. I know the timing is bad. I know . . . that the last thing either of us needs right now is a complication. But I spent all day thinking about you, and what's the worst that can happen? Our bodies want . . . what they want."
This time, when he pushed his hair back, his hand was shaking.
On her side, the trembling was in her legs, her arms, her torso. The full stem to stern bifta, as they said.
Craeg came at her slowly, as if he were giving her time to change her mind, back away, leave. Not going to happen. She stayed exactly where she was, tilting her head up so she could meet him in the eye.
"If I kiss you," he growled, "there's no going back. I might not fuck you right here, right now, but I'll have you on your back the instant I get the goddamn chance."
She had the sense he was talking crudely to get her to reconsider, and for a split second, she did--but not because he'd used the f-word. That just turned her on even more. No, her glymera-trained conscience sat up and hollered, all those morals and expectations and rules rushing into the forefront of her brain and dulling the lust. If she lost her virginity to anyone it would be a problem--giving it to a commoner? She'd be stained for life. Unmateable. A source of shame upon her father, her bloodline, her class.
On the other hand, aside from somebody like Peyton, she was pretty sure that no "proper" male would want her after she had been through the training center's program, anyway. Even if she didn't fight in the war, this kind of learning did not fit into the parlor-games sort of education females were supposed to have.
The solution, she supposed, was to never get hitched.
As the thought hit her, an intoxicating relief went through her entire body, the buoyancy so powerful, she had the urge to jump--and that was when she heard Novo's voice in her head:
Why are you any different?
Locking onto Craeg's hot eyes, she marveled at how the easiest solution was in some ways the hardest. But if she never got mated, then she was free to make choices in a way she'd never dreamed.
And it was on that basis of strength that she made up her mind.
*
Paradise was going to back down.
Looming over the female, Craeg could feel it in his bones. In spite of her arousal, she was going to come to her senses and save them both a world of headaches. She was going to size him up, with his huge body and his raging erection, and realize that she didn't want the complications or the stress--
With an elegance of movement that terrified him, she lifted her hands and placed them on his shoulders--no, it was his pecs, because she wasn't quite tall enough. Tilting her head even further back, he was momentarily stunned by how perfectly the ugly fluorescent light from the ceiling fixtures hit her fine features and the feathers of blond hair that had escaped her tie and lines of her collarbone.
"So kiss me," she said.
In the back of his mind, he heard the sound of two Chevy trucks crashing into each other grill-to-grill.
Fuck. No backing down.
With a curse, he closed his eyes. Swayed. Realized that this was, in fact, going to happen.
Then he popped his lids back open and reached forward to touch her. Abruptly, he had a moment of awkwardness, as if he didn't know where to put his hands--her shoulders? The sides of her throat? Her face?
The sex he'd had had always been rough and quick, the kind of shit you did with human women or vampire females who didn't care who they spread for. Paradise was the opposite of all that--and that was the problem. As much as he wanted her, he wanted to do right by her.
Well, wasn't he a fucking gentlemale all of a sudden.
With shaking hands, he ended up tracing her jaw with his fingertips, and as her lips parted, he eased his head to one side and closed the distance between their mouths.
Almost.
With a mere millimeter of anticipation separating them, he whispered, "Last chance."
"I'm waiting."
So he kissed her.
The groan he let out was a combination of starvation and submission, and in the back of his mind, he became dimly aware that there was a new scent in the air, something that was part and parcel of the heat between them, but a revelation as well.
Whatever, she was soft and sweet and hesitant and strong. Everything he'd imagined her to be.