It tries to force it all out when I didn’t even cry at her stillbirth.
All because I was too numb from the drugs and the twisted way Dr. Ross mind-fucked me like he’d been doing for half my life.
I shove my hand into my coat, pulling out that drive with the encrypted biometric data. “I know you’ve got a reader on this flight,” I snarl. “So you take this, you unlock it, and you tell me everything I need to know.”
“I-it’s—it’s—”
I let up enough to let him talk.
Barely.
Durham’s eyes go bleary and red-rimmed, his face nearly purple, and he gasps, “It’s in the...the cargo hold. I didn’t bring it into the cabin.”
“Liar!” I dig into his pressure points again, pinching right below the trapezius, and relish his anguished scream—less like a hyena now and more like a woman who’s just seen her entire life ripped away from her, every possibility of who she could have been destroyed.
I hope he’s enjoying it.
I draw my fist back, the data card clutched between my knuckles. I swear to God, one more word that isn’t what I want, and I’ll jam it straight down his throat.
But before I can, a strong, unexpected hand seizes my wrist, stopping me in my tracks.
I whip my head up, staring up at Oliver.
Part of me can’t believe he’s real.
I’ve snapped.
I’m hallucinating.
He’s not really here.
He’s like some made up audio-visual dream of my own conscience, looking down at me with that one urgent eye, shaking his head.
“You don’t need him.”
“What?” Everything inside me crumples. “But I—”
“No. I know a better way. Trust me,” he says tightly, pulling on my arm. “But it only works if we’re both free. We can’t do shit from prison. Come on, wildcat.”
Wildcat.
God, it is him.
My eyes are about to spill over, but I won’t let them.
I have to be cold.
I have to be me.
And I make myself stand, letting go of Durham, falling into Oliver’s grip—so warm, so real, so solid—supporting my shaky legs so I don’t lose my dignity.
“You’d better tell the man you murdered thank you,” I spit. “Because he just saved your sorry life.”
Durham only lies there gasping like a fish, while Oliver turns and strides quickly out into the entryway, the hall, then the boarding ramp, pulling me in his wake in brisk, hurried steps.
While he does, he fishes a phone from his pocket and taps a few quick icons, then hits something decisively with his thumb and pockets it again.
“What was that?” I breathe, and he glances over his shoulder at me, dark eye gleaming wickedly.
“Contact at the FBI. Who coincidentally happens to be in the neighborhood, looking for clues regarding a lead that says the Durham in jail isn’t the real Durham.” He smirks, devilish and wild. “Don’t fret. He’s not going anywhere good when the police show up.”
As we spill out into the rain, the sound of sirens and the flash of blue and cherry-red lights explode over the grey darkness, lighting up the storm like the strangest lightning.
With the squeal of tires chasing us, we make a break for it, dashing inside the terminal through the service doors and making ourselves invisible.
We take back corridors until we find a secluded spot out of sight of windows, doors—tucked away in some forgotten hall that smells dusty. It’s piled up with old cleaning supplies.
Then comes the moment he stops, turning to me, his mouth opening with his eye dark with concern.
There’s no more waiting.
I fling myself dead at him.
“Where have you been? Where have you been?” I demand, smashing my fists against his chest, gasping out the words like I’m spitting up years of built-up pain in bullets. “All this time...all this time I thought, I believed, you were dead...”
He just takes it, letting me crash my fists against him like a mountain, his broad chest resonating with the soft thumps of impact.
“I know,” he rumbles softly. “I know, Fuchsia. I’m sorry. I couldn’t—they had to think I was gone. They stopped watching for me.” He looks down at me helplessly. “And I thought...” He shakes his head. “I saw you. From afar. Up until the last couple years, I thought you were still...” A hard sound rumbles in the back of his throat before he finishes, “With them.”
“I was never with them until I had no one else to be with!” I strangle out.
He’s silent, watching, so expressionless it’s strained.
“How could you?” I snap, shaking my head with disbelief and rage. “And I walked out on the company a long time ago. I couldn’t take it. After what they did to you, to us. Why—why the unholy fuck—couldn’t you send me a message?”
I stare up at him, anguish clouding every thought.
That whiskey-dark eye cuts through me, his whole gaze energized like a beautiful thunderhead getting ready to unload.
This better be good.
“Do you remember that time in Anchorage when they tried to import those lethal bird flu samples?”
I blink, cocking my head. “Like yesterday. SP-73 was never enough for Durham. That was...what? Six or seven years ago? I personally blew the ship to kingdom come before it ever came into port.”
“Correction. You got yourself thrown in the brig after they confiscated your explosive charges. A lucky glitch in the computer system set you free,” he says, reaching for my hair to run his fingers through it.
For a second, I’m lost in the sweetness of his fingers.
Then it hits me, and I jerk back.
“You—what? That was you?”
Oliver says nothing. But that single bright brown eye of his smiles with a wicked gleam.
“Your guardian angel. Watching over you, whenever I could. At least, the few times I could actually find you with any confidence.” He scratches at his short, dark beard, princely flecks of silver multiplied in it. “Or that other time, when they were harvesting human organs from that other clusterfuck of a company, Mederva Therapeutics?”
She wrinkles her nose. “Those savages were harvesting babies. I was all set to bring the place down myself if that guy hiding out in Minnesota hadn’t done it first. The military man who married the daughter of that author...Miller something-or-other?”
“Miller Rush. And I knew you’d get yourself in the thick of it if I didn’t help you beat him to it. Kids are a sore spot for both of us. So I helped his man, J.T., secure that encrypted data he’d pulled out of Mederva in exchange for backing up everything related to Galentron. Didn’t you wonder how that shit made it onto their list of charges in court?”
“So you saved me some dirty work. Bravo. But Oliver, fifteen years.” My lips tighten.
I won’t break.
I just don’t understand.
“Deanna Bell and her data cache back in Heart’s Edge. The stuff you helped Clarissa Bell and Nine dig up and broadcast to half the country...all your bravery I only found out about after the fact—”
“Like I could forget? What? You were there?”
“Not in the flesh. But Deanna originally got that neat little package of incriminating evidence from Marianne Jonas, Mayor Bell’s former secretary. Deanna tried to get her to spill what she knew for years. The girl was persistent, but it was the call with me that made Marianne open up, comb through her records, and decide to take action.”