She scrambled around him, looking for a source. The only thing she knew about Tasers was from movies—electricity flowed from the handheld unit through wires into barbs that went into skin. There were no wires. But something that looked like a small dart stuck out from the large muscle of his shoulder.
“How can I make it stop?” she yelled. “What do I do to make it stop?”
Landon grunted as his fists struck over and over until the gunman let go of the weapon and his body went limp. Mitch’s body contracted suddenly, raising him off the floor, and then dropped. The shaking of his limbs slowed to more of a shiver. Like he’d just returned from a beach vacation. In Antarctica.
Landon climbed off of the unconscious guard and grabbed the Taser, studying it. “I’ve never seen anything like this before. I don’t—”
“Can I touch him?”
As soon as he nodded, she ripped the dart out and threw it across the room. Then she put her ear to Mitch’s chest, listening for a heartbeat.
“Is he…?” Landon asked.
She waved her hand to shut him up. She needed to concentrate, focus. What she didn’t need were distractions or explanations or—
She heard something. It was dim, slow, and erratic. More like someone in the ICU than the strong, masculine fighter Mitch was.
Is. He is. She took a deep breath, smiling nervously. “His heart is beating.”
“Shit,” Landon yelled. “Okay, that’s good. I’m going to…” He paced back and forth. “I’m going to…do…something.” Maybe Landon had never almost lost a partner before. Or maybe he had and reliving it was knocking all of his cop-instincts out the window. All the more reason she needed to keep her shit together—now she was thinking for all three of them.
“We need to get out of here, Landon. He needs help. And we need to find a place these bastards don’t know about. Get some stuff together—clothes, money, keys, and then go make sure they didn’t do anything to the car.”
“Yeah, okay. I’ll—”
“Just go,” she snapped. She heard him bounding up the stairs.
Why now? If they’d wanted her back, why did they wait two days? They had to have known where she was. Rules still unknown, and the game has changed. But the prize hasn’t. She looked down at him—her prize—and checked his pulse again.
She knew she was crying, drops falling onto Mitch’s bare chest, but her body was cold, her mind logical. CPR was out, until—unless—his heart actually stopped. He was breathing. Shallow, but it was something. So what the hell could she do for him?
“Mitch! Mitch, come back! Be okay. Please, be okay.” Words—useless. As if he’d start listening to her now. There was nothing to do but wait. Until he decided if he was going to fight, or roll over and die. She thought of calling out to Hyde. Hyde would never roll over. He would never give up. His name formed on her lips…
“What the fuck was that?” Mitch groaned, squeezing his eyes even tighter and grimacing. “Mother-of-all-that’s-evil, what the fuck did that bastard hit me with? A harpoon?”
“Thank God!” She kissed his face—cheeks, forehead, eyes, lips, feeling his warmth and languishing in his non-stop bitching about the guy who zapped him. It didn’t matter what he was saying, just that he was talking…and breathing…and being.
He opened his eyes, flinching when he saw her.
She recoiled slightly from the look of shock on his face. “It was a stun gun. A really strong one.” She stood up and tried to refit her I-couldn’t-give-a-crap-about-you mask. One that matched the one he was wearing.
“Huh. Never been zapped before. I hate trying new things.” He stayed on his back, rolling his head from side to side slightly. But he didn’t get up.
“Can you move?”
He glared at her, perhaps unhappy she saw him weak. “Give me a minute.”
Anger rose inside of her, overcoming the fear she’d felt moments before. What would she have done if he’d died? If he’d gotten himself killed? “You always have to be the tough guy, don’t you? I said I could take care of it, but nooooo, you couldn’t have that, could you? A woman couldn’t possibly take care of herself.” She dusted herself off and shook out her hand, glancing at the two unconscious men. The fight was going to leave some nasty bruises. Her shoulder hurt, but not enough to make her believe anything was too damaged. Of course, once her adrenaline died down, her pain receptors would probably start screaming at her. Too little, too late. And she knew it wouldn’t be long until her body started healing.
Mitch looked at her upside-down while she yelled, not moving to get up. Finally, she had a chance to talk to him when he couldn’t run away. Sure, it had taken about 10,000 volts to put him there, but suddenly it was all worth it.
“They weren’t here to hurt us, Mitch. We have something they need—our DNA, our selves. If they kill us, they won’t be able to find out what makes us tick. The last thing they want is for us to die,” she yelled, throwing her arms out and pacing. “So unless you force them into it, corner them into no other option, they won’t hurt us. But that’s just too hard for you to do, isn’t it?”
“I think what they want is a bit more singular,” he said. “You said they want your DNA. Great, you’re safe. But I don’t think the same holds true for my pathetic ass. My genes are so useless, they’d probably be better-off buying a new pair.”
“Why do you constantly need to prove that you have the biggest dick?”
He squinted slightly. “I’m a man. That’s a basic requirement.”
She walked around him so he was right-side up and so that she could double-check the expression she thought she saw on his face. Damn it. She screams at him, and all that happens is his eyes soften and the corner of his mouth curls up in amusement.
“I don’t know why the hell you think this is funny,” she spat.
“Not funny, just…ironic.”
Why did he always do that? Her anger was her own. He should respect it and treat it accordingly, which did not mean that he should belittle or be amused by it.
“You were very impressive,” he said.
“Don’t do that! Don’t say that! I don’t want to thank you right now. I want to beat the shit out of you right now for almost getting yourself killed.”
“Now, to be fair”—his grin disappeared—“I think I almost got both of us killed.” He swallowed. “Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be sorry!” Not now. Not for this. For anything, or everything, else. But not this. Not after she’d seen, felt, tasted, his death. Twirled it in her mind as the possibility became a probability. It didn’t even matter that it hadn’t actually happened. Because knowing what it felt like, experiencing that loss, had already left her with the reality of what it would be like someday. Someday soon, if he didn’t accept help.
“Okay. I take it back.”
“Damn, Turner. Are you alright?” Landon asked, carrying a bedsheet filled with crap over his shoulder Santa-style.
Mitch rolled his head to the side to look at him. “Peachy.”
Landon hefted his sack of goodies onto a side table.
“Put that stuff in the car,” Eden said, knowing there was a thin layer of ice coating her tone, but not caring. “And make sure there aren’t more of them waiting to ambush us outside.”
He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. “Yes, ma’am. But don’t you think he’ll need help to walk?”
“I think that you have a gun you know how to use. I have feet and arms that I know how to use. So how about we each use our strengths to get the hell out of here?”
He stared at her, possibly trying to decide if he should tell her to fuck off or not. When one of the guards groaned, Landon sighed. “Fine. Tie them up”—he flicked his head towards the still-unmoving bodies on the floor—“I’ll call the precinct to let them know they’re here. Not that they’ll be held too long before someone ‘loses’ their files, of course. But it might delay them.”
“Leave it to the cop to be the good guy,” Mitch
said, still lying on the ground. “I would’ve just left them in Hyde’s cage until they starved to death.”
Landon grumbled under his breath, but picked up the bag of supplies and pulled out his weapon before heading outside.
“Do you have anything to cuff them with?” she asked, looking at the men on the floor.
“That’s one-part erotic and two-parts just plain disgusting—they’re unconscious.”
“If you crack anymore bad jokes, I’m leaving you here. Do you have any cuffs that aren’t attached to a bed or not?”
“Boy, did you come to the right place. One pair. No, two. No—”
“Just tell me where they are.”
“Dresser in Hyde’s room.”
Eden took the stairs two at a time and was back before he’d had time to think of something else obnoxious to say. Probably, although one could never be sure. Maybe almost dying had simply messed up his comedic timing.
The men were still alive, but their weight was of the dead variety, and though she was stronger now, even rolling two-hundred-and-fifty-pound limp bodies across a wood floor wasn’t an easy proposition.
“Well,” Mitch said, “isn’t this awkward? Making a lady do all the heavy lifting while I relax on the floor.”
“You took a proverbial bullet for me. I think that means you’re off the hook.”
“I wish it was a bullet. Bleeding, I can deal with.”
“You’ll be fine soon. Unless you piss me off too much.” Already exhausted from the evening before, she muttered obscenities under her breath the whole time—some directed at the jerks she rolled around and other directed at the jerk watching her roll them.
“You should be nicer to Landon,” Mitch said. “He’s a good guy.”
“I’m over the whole good-guy, bad-guy thing. I think I’m more concerned with the let’s-just-stay-alive thing.” She slapped her hands together and took a deep breath. “Do you think you can stand?”
“Absolutely.” Then in one smooth move, he tucked his legs in and rolled up to a standing position. “You were right! I’m all better.” His eyes widened as his knees gave out and he started to slide down. “Kind of.”
Eden threw her arms around him and held him up until he straightened one leg out and then the other, sliding them underneath himself and taking up his own body weight. Which only left his arm around her shoulders and both her arms around his waist. He looked down at her, his jaw clenching and unclenching. She should probably let him go. Even if it meant he would fall on his ass. But the way he was looking at her—confusion mixing with wonder—didn’t allow her to move. Or breathe. Or speak. She knew he was looking at her eyes, but wasn’t sure what he was seeing. Could he look past her irises, into everything she was, everything he’d helped her become? Or did his vision stop at their color, unable or unwilling to look beyond it?
“I need your help,” he whispered, his arm tightening around her.
“Anything.”
He cleared his throat, covering his mouth with his hand, the movement breaking through the moment. “I don’t think I can walk on my own quite yet.”
They didn’t speak as they went outside. Mitch leaned on her, still trying to wake up his legs with each step. When they saw Landon in the driver’s seat, the car running, he shifted and pushed her away slightly. As if now that he was able to move on his own again, he didn’t want their skin to touch. She walked to the other side of the car in silent immature protest. If he didn’t want her help, then if he fell on his face, it would be his own damn fault.
“How you feeling?” Landon asked him. “ ‘Cause you look like shit.”
“Of course I look like shit, asshole—I just had electric shock therapy. What’s your excuse?”
Ignoring their testosterone-induced repartee, Eden slid into the backseat, shocked to see Mitch do the same thing from the other side. Before either of them could say anything, the car started moving.
Mitch slid down, his head resting on the window. “Where to, Jeeves?”
“The hospital,” Eden said quickly.
He lifted his head. “I don’t need a hospital. I’m fine. In fact, I feel great. Like my battery just got a jump-start.”
Why was he so stubborn? She glared at him, pointing at his hands that were still shaking. “Sure you do.”
He wrapped his arms around his chest. “I’m fine.” Then he called to Landon, “Where we going?”
“First, we find another car.”
“But—”
“Don’t say a goddamned word, Turner. We need a car we know isn’t being tracked. Call it ‘an emergency vehicle requisition by an ex-cop’ if you want. But I don’t wanna hear your shit right now. Got it?”
“Yes sir, Officer,” he said. “And then where are we going?”
“Somewhere safer,” Landon said. “We should’ve left this house a long time ago. They hacked into an alarm system that was pretty much unhackable.”
Eden knew they would come back. With lots of friends and lots of weapons. She just didn’t know why they’d used force. The point had been made—they wanted her back. She wasn’t free to come and go like they’d promised. Not surprising in the least. But why the violence? Why not keep manipulating her, keep using the carrot just out of reach to get her to go to them?
Were they that afraid of Mitch? Only using him as a means to get her to do what they wanted? All she hoped for was that, with their help, with the serum, Mitch could be safe. Like Justin. She hadn’t attacked first, the guards had. They must have expected a fight. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have brought those fancy Tasers.
“I know a place they don’t know about,” Landon said. “Police raid right before I got canned.”
“Where?” Mitch growled. “Damn it, cop, if you say it’s a crack-house that you cleared out, I’m going to kick your ass. I’m not in the mood to fight off a junkie for a place to sleep.”
“It was a brothel. Nice place. You’ll like it.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? Great. But if I get woken up by a near-sighted john who doesn’t know the place was shut down, I’m not taking responsibility for my actions.”
“Mitch,” he said, glaring into the rear view mirror. “We need a cage. How many places do you know that have cages? It’s either the zoo or the brothel—take your pick. But I sure as hell am not bunking with a monkey while Hyde is fighting it out to be king of the beasts.” His voice was calm and commanding, giving them no other option. Not that they had any. “So, to have access to a cage while not harming any animals, we’re going to the brothel. It probably isn’t as strong as yours, but it’s the best we got. Plus, it has a great view of a parking lot, cuffs on the walls, and mirrors on the ceilings. But, unfortunately for you, all the other toys are in lock-up.”
“Bummer,” Eden said without thinking. Landon’s eyes widened in the rearview mirror, and Mitch’s whipped his head towards her. “You wish. I only meant it would be nice to have ball-gags for both of you.” She looked out the window.
“That sounds like fun,” Mitch snapped back. “I almost forgot how kinky you are, Chas. Let’s hit a sex-shop before we get to the brothel, Landon. Give the lady what she wants.”
She could feel his stare, his animosity, heavy on her shoulders. She spoke without turning. “If you don’t have something nice to say…”
“Then say something fucked up,” he finished for her.
She’d had it with him. He was acting like a child, unable to keep his thoughts to himself. When she flipped around, he was right in front of her. She shoved him back, but he didn’t move.
“It’s nice to see your strength is back, Mitch. Maybe your brain will start working again sometime soon.” She cocked her head. “We can hope, right?”
“Oh, my brain is working just fine. In fact, right now it’s telling me that the zoo seems like a great idea. Because sleeping with a lion seems far more appealing than sleeping with you.”
“Believe me, you have a way better chance with the lion than with me.?
??
“Will you two shut up?” Landon yelled. “This is why I never wanted kids.”
Mitch laughed. “She started it.”
Landon smacked the steering wheel with his fist. “I don’t know if you guys are going to kill each other, or fuck each other, or fucking kill each other, or kill each other fucking. I really don’t. But whichever it is, just get it over with so we can all have some goddamned peace.”
CHAPTER XVIII
“This was a great idea, Landon,” Mitch said, looking at the outside of the dilapidated two-story building. “Any chance there’s a hideaway key?”
“We’ll have to break it down.” Landon pushed them out of the way and took a few steps backwards, readying himself to kick it in.
“You mean, you want to break your foot,” Eden mumbled, stepping in front of him. She unclipped a safety pin from her dress.
“What are you doing?”
She looked at them like they were stupid. And maybe she was right. But that didn’t have anything to do with their confusion.
“It’s a gift from Chastity,” she said, bending it and then hunching down near the door lock. “A leftover skill she imparted to me.”
That was how she’d gotten out of the cage. A fucking safety pin. He’d have to speak to the cage company about that sometime really soon. Because that was just wrong.
After a few minutes of fiddling, she stood, pushed the door open, and held out the disfigured safety pin.
“Impressive and highly disconcerting,” Mitch muttered. “Remind me to keep a few of those handy from now on.”
She stood back to let them pass. Mitch nodded to Landon to go in first, because there was no way he was going to let her be last. If she ran for it, he’d have to chase her down. And frankly, he wasn’t up to it. She followed Landon inside without glancing back.
The windows were all boarded up, so the only light downstairs came from the outside streetlights through the open door. Then the room turned red. Mitch had a moment of paranoid flashback until he saw the cheesy red lamp with sparkling fringe that Landon had just flicked on.