“We’ve got this.”
“Okay, just set it out here when you’re done. Have a good evening.”
Fat chance of that.
Matthias held the way open as Ad pushed dinner into the room, and, man, the whistle of the cart’s wheels seemed way too loud. So did the closing of the door. So did the soft voices that sprang up as the reporter and Matthias arranged stuff on the desk and asked Jim if he could stomach any food.
Ad backed away, that hum in his head making him feel as if the barometric pressure in the room had exploded. Pulling at the low collar of his muscle shirt—like that was going to help?—he backed into something.
Ah, yes, the door again.
Perfect timing. He had to get out of here.
The sad truth was that he was better at anger than responsibility. More competent at fighting than logic. And that bastard Nigel hadn’t given him anything to rail against.
Yet being pissed off wasn’t bringing Eddie back, and it wasn’t going to change the game or the fact that all of them, even that bitch Devina, were locked on this path, the rules of the conflict defining the landscape and trapping them in the game.
The whole goddamn thing made him want to scream—and left him missing Eddie so bad it hurt. With his buddy around, he’d always had a check and balance…had relied on Eddie to make decisions and provide that all-important pull-back-from-the-ledge when it was appropriate.
Except he was a grown-ass man—angel, whatever.
Maybe it was time to do that shit for himself.
Abruptly, he stared at the pair across the room.
As Mels started popping the covers off of plates, Matthias was hanging back, his eyes all but eating her up.
From out of nowhere, Jim’s voice banged around Ad’s head. He’s the soul, but she’s the key to all this.
Eddie would not have wasted time stamping his boots and getting frustrated, wouldn’t have allowed himself diversions into the land of cocktail waitresses and grungy service corridors, would have stayed sharp even when shit didn’t seem fair.
Adrian dragged in a deep breath, and on the exhale, the path became clear to him.
Applying Eddie logic, he knew what he could do to help.
Little bit of a game changer, but…what are you going to do. Nigel wanted him to get involved? Roger that.
Besides, it was what Eddie would have done.
As Matthias sat back down in the wing chair with his food, the weight blessedly off his tired, aching legs, he watched Mels as she ate at the desk.
French fries again. With a hamburger, done medium. And a Coke.
The subtle glow from the craned lamp was kind to her face, downplaying the circles under her eyes and the lingering bruise next to her temple. But he noted it all—along with the tension that ran down into her shoulders. Two near misses? In twenty-four hours? He was able to write off the construction guy falling from heaven—but down at that boathouse?
He had this awful suspicion that someone had tried to hurt her. Or worse.
And yet here she was, as pulled together as anyone else.
He thought about what she’d said about her father and was pretty sure that if the guy had been alive, he’d be stalking the streets for whoever had pushed her into that cold water.
Guess that was up to Matthias now—and he was prepared to meet the challenge.
As if she knew he was looking at her, her eyes shifted over and she smiled. “Aren’t you going to eat?”
He wasn’t hungry for food at this moment. Not in the slightest. Something about the almost-tragedy made him want to be with her skin on skin, like that was the only way he could be sure that she had survived for real.
Matter of fact, in his mind, he crossed the distance between them, pulled her up against him, and undressed her as he kissed the ever-loving shit out of her.
Not a bad plan, except the bed was full—and somehow he doubted that nearly drowning was an aphrodisiac to women.
“Matthias?”
He nodded and picked up his fork, putting food into his mouth and chewing like a robot. The silence that followed was all about waiting: Adrian waiting for Jim to feel well enough to get up; Jim waiting to recover; Matthias waiting for a moment alone with Mels, followed by some one-on-one with Jim to find out exactly what had gone down.
“Can I talk to you for a minute,” Adrian said abruptly.
Matthias glanced up. The guy was looming by the bed, a huge, dark figure who was grim as a graveyard.
How had this friend of Jim’s not been recruited into XOps, Matthias wondered. “Ah, yeah. Sure.”
“In private.”
Wiping his mouth with his napkin, he dropped the white square onto the arm of the chair and got to his feet. “Where to.”
Adrian looked around, and then nodded at the bathroom door.
“I’ll be right back,” Matthias told Mels.
The little room was cramped enough with the toilet, the counter, and the cut-in for the shower/tub combo. With Adrian in it, the thing assumed matchbox proportions.
“What’s up?” Matthias asked.
“Take the sunglasses off, wouldja?”
“Afraid you can’t read me?” When there was no answer, he removed the Ray-Bans and stared at the other man with his good eye.
“You’re very important in all this,” Adrian said in a low, even voice. “So we’ve got to do everything to help you.”
“You and Jim?”
“That’s right.”
“Who are you, exactly? Because I don’t remember you from the good ol’ days.” He narrowed his eyes. “And not because of the memory-loss bullshit. I don’t know you at all.”
“No, you don’t. But you’re never going to forget me.”
“What the hell are you talk—”
The man’s hands shot out and clamped on both sides of Matthias’s head, locking on as the eyes boring into his seemed to change—into a color he’d never seen before.
Matthias tried to jerk back, shove away, dodge out of the hold, but there was no going anywhere. He was stuck where he was, sure as if someone had bolted his feet to the floor—
In a warped voice, the other man started speaking in a language Matthias had never heard. The words were deep and rhythmic, almost a song—except no, they were so much more than sound, the syllables becoming solid in the air, forming strands of rainbow-colored light that encircled his body, one upon another upon another upon an infinite number, as threads would be woven to form a binding.
He fought against it all, thrashing, pushing, the memories of being trapped in that dark Hell giving him strength—