“Show her. She needs to see them.” Adeon scrubs his palms over his face.
It’s costing him something, taking constant emotional reads of the room. Even if he isn’t altering anything, it’s his job to run interference. To detect any possible threats well before they become a problem. But I can speak for myself.
“Sorry.” His cheeks dimple when he smiles. Cherubic. “Habit.”
“Which brings us back to what we’re doing here.” Zane leans forward in his seat. “I need you to have a conversation with Eko.”
My chest tightens. My voice is solid despite the pit opening in the pit of my stomach. “Okay.”
Eko’s eyes are a brown so deep and dark they are almost black, a close match to the charcoal of his hair. He is bronzed and golden, serious smolders and stoicism. There’s something comforting in it. That you get what you get with him. No games.
“There’s only one question that matters. The rest you can tell us if and when you feel we need to know.” He clasps his hands together and locks his gaze with mine. The hairs raise on the back of my neck, his power descending over my body like static electricity. “Can we trust you?”
There’s a pull at the base of my spine. It’s not a compulsion—I could lie if I wanted. It’s more a knowing, a recognition of a line cast between us and the truth set out before us.
“Yes.” It comes out like a gust, a breath held too long in the confines of my lungs. My chest feels empty, as the power tugs.
He nods, searching my eyes for another moment longer.
I can’t help but wonder if it’s not just truth being laid bare to Eko, but all my secrets as well.
18
ZANE
Kaye’s cheeks are ashen by the time Eko asks the question, an effect of the power washing over her. I remember that anxious, nauseous feeling from my own test under Eko’s powers. It’s the price they ask, the protection they use, and I can’t fault them for that.
They like Kaye. They treated me with a polite sort of suspicion when we had our first meeting, but the myth of Checkmate has allowed her a sort of legitimacy I’ll never bear. Not in New Malcolm.
And their reluctance is warranted. It has served them well, kept them safe. They lead normal lives, stepping in only where they can, focusing on people rather than the more sizable entities at large in the city. They stay off the CCP’s radar. They would have stayed off mine too if it hadn’t been for luck, circumstance, and a chance encounter.
Pressure prickles on the lower left side of my rib cage. The old ache has been coming on for days now, a telltale sign of trouble to come, of another dose needed just to keep myself from falling apart. The pressure turns sharp and hot. I wince, hope no one notices, but Fulton’s eyes are ever-watchful.
“If Eko says she’s okay, that’s good enough for me.” She reaches into her pocket and withdraws two folded up bunches of black cloth. I take mine and begin tying it in place over my eyes.
“You said you trusted me,” Kaye protests.
“Eko’s never wrong.” Her answer is calm and dry, no-nonsense or coddling. “But it’s safer for all of us—my team, the people we are helping, andyou—not to know everything.”
Kaye sighs, but the sound of fabric rubbing shushes in my ear. Then strong fingers tug at my arm, leading me forward at a considerate pace.
It took months of this before the members of Angelis trusted me enough to let me see their sanctuary. Months of darkness and disorientation. This kind of vulnerability has a way of touching the deepest fears inside you. It brings things up that are better left in nightmares, hopefully forgotten in the bright light of morning.
“I’m here with you, Kaye.”
“I’m alright.”
I hate the idea that this could be bringing those things up for her, that she could be thrown back into the hell she went through with the CCP. And Jaspar. Kaye played it cool, but he’s a kind of asshole I am very familiar with. Charming. Sarcastic. Dangerously beautiful. I have always been jealous of anyone who could get under Checkmate’s skin, especially if they could make her blush like that. It made me want to mark her, claim her as my own.
“Fulton’s got Kaye.” Adeon’s voice echoes despite his attempt to be discreet. “Jas is with you.”
“Are you a mind reader now?” Still, the tension in my chest loosens.
I didn’t react nearly as well the first time Jaspar greeted me. He had already dropped to the floor, firmly in dreamland, before Adeon’s influence veiled my vision and everything calmed.
“What did you see?” I tilt my head slightly in the asshole’s direction.
His response is a purr in my ear. “Pain. Determination. Loss. She’ll stand by you, but it’ll exact a heavy toll from her. The rest is unclear.”
