She didn’t need to fight. She needed sleep. And if Rafe told her to get some, she’d stay awake until she collapsed just to spite him. “I was going to go hit the showers and then fall into a bed. Just because I can stay awake for three days in a row doesn’t make it fun.”
“Suit yourself.” She squared up to the bag and took another swing at it, shaking the bag so hard that the chain securing it rattled.
He watched her for another agonizing moment, his own knuckles stinging with the pain she couldn’t feel. He could stay and give her a better target. God knew she’d be an exciting sparring partner. He was twice her size and easily five times as strong, but her speed—he’d never seen anyone move like Dani. Fast and fearless.
And if he got his hands on her now, it wouldn’t end with fighting. He was just strung out enough to make a lot of very bad decisions. And as satisfying as a hard fuck on the training room floor might be …
Rafe had Dani’s number. That would be it for him. She’d ride him hard and kick him out of her bed. Probably slam the door behind him for good measure. Dani didn’t let the men she fucked into her life, and that wouldn’t be enough for him. The fractures would damage their fragile new shared family and hurt the people they loved.
Rafe had decided the first time Dani stabbed him that he was playing the long game with her. All or nothing.
Turning silently, he retreated back along the hallway and down the stairs. Maya was still at the kitchen table, sipping from a mug of tea, but she offered him a smile over the rim. “Headed to take a nap?”
“At least a few hours.” He stopped next to the table. “Dani’s up there scraping her hands raw against the bag. I can’t get her to stop.”
“I can.” She set the mug down and rose from her chair. “Let’s trade. I’ll take care of Dani, you make sure Gray’s okay. He didn’t want to rest the whole time you were gone.” She wrinkled her nose in an adorable display of irritation. “He made me do training.”
The low-level dread in his gut jumped at the reminder. He’d tried to compartmentalize Gray’s deteriorating condition, but Rafe had never been good at that. “You got it,” he replied, struggling to hide the hoarseness in his voice.
Apparently, he didn’t hide it well.
Rafe had learned early to respect Maya’s personal space—she was skittish as hell about physical affection and rarely offered it to anyone other than Nina and Dani. But now she paused long enough to wrap him in a tight, reassuring hug. She even let him hug her back, and for a soul-healing moment it was like having one of his sisters leaning trustingly against him. God. Maybe two years before he saw them again. They’d be grown. They’d be strangers.
He’d miss all of it.
No wonder he looked miserable enough for Maya to offer him a hug.
After another tight squeeze, Maya pulled back and flicked her fingers at him. “Go. Gray’s probably over there building a new addition on your warehouse or something by now.”
Knowing how true that might be, Rafe hid his seething worry and tossed her a cheerful salute before heading out the back. He let the false smile fade as he crossed the short distance to their new home and was ready to find a heavy bag and beat out some temper of his own by the time he walked inside.
Instead he found Gray hauling around huge targets. Of course he was.
Rafe hovered in the doorway again, silently taking in Gray’s brand of self-destructive behavior. It wasn’t nearly as overt as Dani’s, but Gray could be a sneaky bastard. Unlike Dani, he could feel pain. No doubt he’d been feeling a wide and wonderful array of it over the past few weeks. He just ignored it so smoothly and skillfully that he’d started falling apart right in front of them, and none of them had noticed.
Rafe couldn’t help but feel the sting of that. He always noticed.
Blowing out a frustrated breath, he crossed the threshold to do battle for the second time. “You should let me do that.”
Gray frowned but continued with his task. “Why?”
Rafe stalked to the nearest one and hefted it with one hand. It probably weighed no more than thirty or forty pounds—nothing for someone with Gray’s enhancements. But Gray’s enhancements were on the damn fritz. “You need to be taking care of yourself, man, not pushing yourself into a damn seizure.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m dying, not an invalid.”
Rafe dropped the target in the corner and went back to retrieve another. “What the hell were you even doing with these? Maya said you were making her train.”
Gray shrugged. “With her memory, I figured she could take Hwang’s blind- shooting trick and crank it up to eleven.”
“And?”
“And I was right, of course.” He paused and arched an eyebrow at Rafe. “Perfect score on her first attempt.”
Rafe froze. “Are you sure you’re not hallucinating now, too?”
“That, so far, has not been one of my symptoms. And I never joke about bullets.”
Rafe considered the careful spots marked on the floor and how close together they were. It had taken Hwang months to be able to precisely pinpoint direction and even longer to be able to distinguish five meters from ten. Then again, Rafe had never seen anyone listen to the sound a security panel made over comms and then punch in the code until he’d watched Maya pull the trick.
Of course, Gray had seen the potential in that.
Rafe carried the target to the corner. “That’s pretty wild. I’ve heard Dani tease her about hustling pool before. She must be like Conall. A superbrain on top of the auditory recall.”
“Must be.” Gray nudged him with one shoulder. “How’s Knox?”
“Tense.” It took an effort not to let his fingers curl into fists. There was nothing here to fight. “Nina’s taking this hard, and he wants to fix it for her.”
Gray shook his head. “Did you ever think you’d see the day?”
“Honestly?” Rafe snorted. “Knox taking care of someone is nothing new. He’s always had it in him. But he lets her take care of him, too. And that? That is something I never thought I’d see.”
“No.” Gray stowed the last target with a sigh. “Mace was the only one who ever got to do that.”
Compartmentalization. Rafe tried to ball up his grief for Mace and put it in its place, but there was more of it than there should be. The months since they’d been forced to watch Mace die hadn’t blunted the pain. The memories were still crystal clear. The see-through walls of their cells, the acrid stink of recycled air, the dispassionate faces of the biochem techs who’d refused to rebalance Mace’s implant once it started to go haywire.
Every seizure, every pained groan—Rafe could even remember the way Knox’s bones had sounded, shattering on the polycarbonate wall as he tried to beat his way into Mace’s cell to hold his dying friend.
Losing Mace had broken something in Knox that might never be fixed. Rafe could only pray Nina was strong enough to hold him together while they all watched Gray fall apart.
Compartmentalization was a fucking joke. But Rafe tried, slapping Gray on the shoulder as he summoned his biggest smile. “Come on. Let’s figure out where you can make Maya practice next.”