A new type of shock numbs my heart when recollection of the nightmare I had while under the influence of anesthetics slams into me. “Is that what you did with Kaylee? Did you hide her away too?”
“Kaylee?” Maddox and Agent Brahn query at the same time.
“My sister…” I stop truly unsure if it’s trauma talking or me. “I think.” I shake my head to clear the fog shrouding it. It is stupid of me to do. It hazes my mind more.
“Get the doctor.”
“I’m okay,” I assure Maddox, interrupting his race to the corridor with a gentle tap on his hand. “I’m just a little confused. I had a…dreamwhile I was in the OR, except it didn’t feel like a dream.” I lick my lips before lowering my voice so it’s only for Maddox’s ears. “At the death-match, my uncle mentioned something about me having a sister, but with everything that had happened, I completely forgot about it.”
“That’s okay. It’s understandable,” he replies, forever reasonable. “Trauma has a way of messing with our heads.”
“It does,” I agree before I realize this is the perfect opportunity to guide Maddox through the darkness swamping him. “That’s why you need to rethink your suggestion. You can’t leave your family, Maddox. They’d never recover.” I cup his jaw like we are once again the only two people in the world. “Think about what you went through when you thought I was gone. Do you truly want to put them through that?”
Maddox shakes his head in an instant, but he is as stubborn as a mule. “But we don’t have any other options. If we stay, I’ll soon become him.”
His reply stumps me for all of two seconds. I forgot what week it is. His next death-match is this weekend. The first one indisputably changed him. I don’t know if he will come out of a second one the same man.
I mull over our minimum choices for a couple of seconds before breathing heavily out of my nose. “Perhaps we should ask him for help?”
When I inconspicuously nudge my head to Agent Brahn, Maddox’s head shake isn’t as rapid as his first, but it eventually arrives. “We can’t trust them. You know what Agent Moses is like.” Nothing but pure disdain highlights his tone.
Although he kept the details minimal, I understand his dislike of Agent Moses. How could you not hate a man who forced you to become a murderer? I’m just fortunate Maddox doesn’t blame me the same way.
I realize Agent Brahn has better hearing than a man his age should when he says, “We’re not all like Agent Moses.”
A gasp escapes my lips when my peer past Maddox’s shoulder has me stumbling onto an empty corridor. The two blond agents are gone, and the door to my room has been shut to maintain privacy.
“All agents use the benefits that come from being a part of the Bureau. Most use them for good. Others…”
“Use it to fuck over the people they are meant to protect.” Maddox’s pitch announces he isn’t asking a question. He’s stating a fact. “Which category do you belong in,AgentBrahn?” The contempt his question is laced with exposes which team he believes Agent Brahn is on. It isn’t ours. “Because from where I’m standing, your boots are just as muddy as Agent Moses’s.”
Agent Brahn smirks like Maddox isn’t underhandedly calling him out as a rogue agent. “My boots are muddy because they were forced to trek through shitneither of usshould be anywhere near.” I feel like I missed the punch line when his comment makes Maddox’s Adam’s apple bob up and down. “Hiding one person is incredibly difficult. Two…” a whistle vibrates through Agent Brahn’s thick lips, “… you’d have a better chance of winning the lotto. But when one of them is a criminal, you may as well send them to their enemies with a bullseye painted on their backs. They’re all but dead.”
I’m about to defend Maddox, to explain he wouldn’t have killed Igor if he had any other choice, but Maddox stops my campaign by asking to have a word with Agent Brahn outside.
Usually, his chivalry would turn me on.
Today, it just pisses me off.
We’re in a town bordering Hopeton, so my rights are about as thin as my patience is becoming, but I never anticipated having my opinion disregarded by Maddox. He, of all people, knows how important it is for victims to have a voice. His mother is an advocate for it. She boards the national domestic violence organization.
“You’re not having a conversation in the hall like you aren’t talking about me. This centers around me, so I’m going to be a part of the conversation.”
A guilty mask slips over Maddox’s face, but nothing halts his campaign. “Demi—”
“No, Maddox. If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be in this mess. Your family wouldn’t hate me for forcing you to change who you are, and—”
“You’d most likely be dead in a ditch.” Maddox’s voice is filled with pure, adulterated angst. “Do you understand how much that guts me, Demi? How it plagues my nightmares more than Igor’s last breath? I did what needed to be done to keep you safe, and I’ll continue doing it until your uncle is either dead or you are free from him.”
I’ve secretly loved Maddox for years, but today is the first time it’s wholly consumed me. I’m speechless, both in awe and admiration. I knew what we had was special. The fact he went against everything he’s ever believed in for me was a sure-fire sign of this, but I’m still stunned. I never thought I would come before his family. Not once.
Feeling the sentiment in the air as readily as me, Agent Brahn rejoins the conversation with a negotiation. “Moving two people is hard. It will take more time, more diligence, and more money.”
“But?” Maddox and I ask at the same time, aware there’s more to his interruption than a reminder about the impossible task we’re hoping to pull off.
“But… it could be achievable if both parties are one hundred percent committed to the cause. This won’t fall back on the Bureau if it fails. It will beallon us. If I bring them in, I risk my team being disbanded, and you risk having your location unearthed. From here on out, this must remain between the three of us. No third parties can be brought in. Do you understand?”
Maddox’s nod is convincing.
