Reaching up, Tasha cupped Damon’s cheek and whispered, “Open your eyes, Damon. Please? Are you there?”
He opened his eyes, those huge steely gray eyes that were now the softest of colors. He looked over at her, and he smiled. “Hey, welcome home.” He’d reached up a hand and placed it over her heart.
She immediately covered his hands with her own, pulling them up to her lips, where she kissed them. “You are now officially out of action.”
He shook his head. “Oh, hell no.”
“Yes, you are. Until you get this chest wound fixed and are rested up, you’re not going back out on a job.”
He looked over at Terk. “We’re too shorthanded for that.”
Terk shook his head. “She’s right. You’re too injured.”
“We need somebody to help.”
And there beside them, speaking in a raspy voice, was another male. She looked over to see Wade sit up in bed.
He smiled at her. “Welcome to the team.”
She reached out a hand, and he grasped it, and she felt the energy flowing from Terk through her to Wade.
“Dear God.” They hugged gently. “Are you okay?”
“I am now.” Wade stretched, rotated his neck and his body a bit. “I’m not sure how long I’ve been out, and it’ll probably take me a couple days to really snap back, but, man, oh man, am I glad to be out of that fugue.” He looked down at Damon. “And you look like shit, buddy.”
Damon gave him a lopsided grin. “Yeah, but I got the girl.”
Wade looked at her, then to Damon. “Hell, I told you to take care of that years ago.”
“I know. I should have,” Damon agreed. “But now she has given me a reason to live again, so I’ll take it.”
Wade nodded at Merk, then took in Terk, glancing back again to Merk. “Good Lord.”
Merk smiled. “I know. We really are twins.”
The two looked so much alike.
Merk reached out a hand to his brother. They gripped each other’s hands for a long moment, and Merk asked, “Do you guys need us to handle this?”
They looked at the two dead bodies, and Wade pales. “Jesus. That’s Paul. I could feel him, sense him here, but…”
Terk crouch down beside him. “I’m sorry. He was part of all this.”
Wade pinched his lips. “He was always against me. Hated me really. I can’t say I’m surprised, but I am… sorry.” He crouched down beside his brother, laid a hand on his shoulder and closed his eyes.
Straightening, Terk replied to Merk, “Yeah, if you could handle that, it’d be great. None of us are supposed to be alive. Remember?”
“I’ll arrange for it,” Merk replied, “and I’ll get a panel van or something in here and get you guys moved out discreetly. These two won’t do much for quite a while.”
“I’ll take Wade and Damon back to our headquarters,” she stated, “and we’ll keep them there with us.” Then she frowned. “No, we shouldn’t have Damon anywhere near that stuff. He’ll want to work.”
“No,” Terk added, “short of you staying with Damon, you are needed at work.”
She looked over at Terk. “Solution?”
“We have a new base,” he noted, “so we’ll get you and Damon to move to a hotel for now, and, with help from Wade and Merk, we’ll move the entire operation there. Tasha, you’ll be happy to hear it has actual bedrooms.”
“Perfect,” Damon agreed. As they headed off to make arrangements, he called out, “And just one room for us, okay? Don’t piss me off by putting her in her own.”
“Why is that?” she asked. “Even if we wanted to be together, I could just come over to your room.”
He shook his head. “Nope,” he argued. “I’m pretty sure this guy probably got off a couple messages, so you will now be target number one.”
She shook her head. “That won’t matter. If he had any idea that Wade is alive, Wade would be target number one.”
Damon frowned, nodded. “Damn. Okay, fine. You can have your own bedroom then.”
“Too bad,” she said. “I don’t want one.”
And, with that, she leaned over and kissed him.
Chapter 15
It took four days. Four long days of moving computer equipment and other items. Tasha and Damon were in a hotel room during that transition period and were then moved to the new base at the outskirts of Manchester, England. They did have one shared bedroom, with a very large king-size bed, on which she was even now studying the sleeping man beside her. She hadn’t slept very much in the last few days, and, by the time she finished her night’s ablutions, she crawled into bed, but she was still too tired to sleep.
He wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close.
“It still feels so weird,” she noted. “Not only just the two of us together now but to think that, for the moment, we’re safe.”
“Don’t ever think that.”
She winced. “Okay, fine. Not safe-safe. But it just feels like, I don’t know. I guess I’m still just uptight and unnerved about the whole thing.”
“As much as I hate to say it, that’s actually a good thing. We do have to be wary, and we always have to be alert, no matter what.”
“I get it.” She rolled over and smiled at him. “I still can’t believe you’re alive after that.”
“I don’t deserve to be, but it’s thanks to you that I am.”
“I don’t know that it’s so much thanks to me but definitely thanks to Terk.”
“Both,” he agreed. “I’m good at some things, but Terk has been pushing the boundaries so far and so fast that we’ve gotten really worried about him. But he’s done it so he could teach us. It wasn’t just him with these abilities,” he murmured. “But it’s been scary watching him go down that pathway, pushing himself to the point where you wonder how much of this is even normal anymore.”
“None of it’s normal,” she noted quietly, “but I have seen enough now that I will never take for granted even the simplest things in life anymore.”
“Good,” he replied, “that’s one good thing then.”
She added, “Now that Wade is up and alive, I need to backtrack Coop, my kidnapper, and that other guy he killed, Paul – Wade’s brother, and see where we go from here.”
“Yes, and I’ll get back on my feet and do something about that soon, like maybe tomorrow.”
“Like hell,” she said. “I might bring you a laptop or something to keep you happy, but you’re not leaving this bed until the doctor okays it.”
“And who the hell thought it was a good idea to bring in a doctor on this anyway?” he muttered.
“I did,” she snapped. “Anything to keep you safe.”
He rolled his eyes at that. “I was healing just fine, you know?”
“You were healing, yes, but you’re still not healthy. Besides, it was Merk’s connection, and he, well, Merk seems to have connections all over the place.”