“If there were more, would you tell me?”
Jaspar’s silence stretches out between us. I’ve come to realize the magnitude of responsibility he feels with his power, maybe even more than the rest of us. He looks but doesn’t pry, and he only shares what is necessary. He may be a shameless flirt, but he’s not a gossip.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” he says.
With nothing left to say, nothing to look at except for the black of the fold, my awareness is drawn, as always, to Kaye. The signature of her presence is so much a part of me, so branded into my subconscious I’ll always know its shape. She feels it too. I’ve seen it in the way she carries herself. Our awareness of each other’s presence is magnetic.
After those nights spent holding her hand and hoping it would be enough, that my will alone could keep both of us going… relief is too gentle a word. The urge to touch her and assure myself that she is still here, still okay, is almost palpable.
I reach blindly forward, just to see if I can.
“You look stupid,” Jas hisses, grasping my wrist and pulling my arm down. Fulton snickers somewhere ahead. “Besides, we’re here.”
I don’t feel the blindfold, tied as it is over the contours of my mask, but my eyes still sting at the sudden brightness even as the tech in the mask quickly compensates. Fluorescent bulbs burn overhead with a sterile glow. Concrete surrounds our party on all sides, the walls closed in so we have to walk two-by-two in a line not to be packed like sardines.
Kaye is two rows ahead of me, blinking away the brightness from her spot at the front of the group with Fulton and Adeon. Standing directly in front of me, Eko’s dark eyes level a harsh gaze over his shoulder.
“Keep your hands to yourself.”
I give him my most flirtatious grin, cocky and sure. “Just keeping things friendly.”
Fulton rolls her eyes. “Men.”
She pushes open a gray metal door and I can’t help but notice the contrast to this tunnel from the cathedral we first entered. The room, if it even can be called that, is little more than a continuation of the hallway where we stand. A row of cots takes up the space along one wall, stuffed almost end to end to make the most out of the meager quarters. And yet, despite it all there are signs of home. Blankets and pillows. Artwork and pictures taped to the cement block walls.
And people talking. Playing card games and music on makeshift instruments. Eyeing news reports on an old, hulking cube of a TV set. Not as many as there were that first day after I saved Kaye, and though Fulton has kept me updated on those moving in and out of our safe-houses, the visual confirmation is notable.
Kaye moves without thought, shifting closer on instinct. Fulton bars the doorway with her arm, marking a clear boundary.
“Rest and recovery are the goals,” Fulton tells Kaye, her voice barely above a whisper so as not to disturb the people within. “New Malcolm’s Supers seem to feel a unique sense of obligation to the city that has forsaken them. We’ve done our best to find other places for them, other cities that don’t have the same attitudes toward our kind. Almost everyone wants to stay close.”
And we’ll need them if Kaye and I fail. I’ve been careful in my planning, made sure that our eggs aren’t all in one basket.I would keep them from this danger if I can. The CCP, my old friend C, and Rose.
“Most of the people still here are recovering from injuries or PTSD. They need care and attention. We do our best. Milo’s here about ten hours a day right now. I don’t know when he sleeps with work,” Adeon says.
“This is amazing,” Kaye finally says. “I don’t quite know what to say.”
She turns to find me through the wall of muscle between us. Our eyes lock, and there’s a glisten there that I never expected to see from my hardened rival. When I offer my hand, she reaches for me too. Our fingers touch and it’s not a spark that passes between us but a current, electric and alive. I let myself bask in it.
For so long I thought it was hatred. My body responded to her, sure. Whose wouldn’t? She’s beautiful. Brave. Funny. She runs into danger without a second thought. She was everything I wanted and could never have. Then I thought it must be the sheer challenge of her. That it was the game more than anything that excited me.
Things are beginning to change. Knowing not just Checkmate, butKaye. I can admit that I admire her. I’ve always admired her.
And C wants her.Will I be able to do what is necessary when the time comes? A month ago I would have said yes without a second thought.
A shadow of dark curls streaks across the periphery of my vision.
“Milo!” I call out, ignoring Fulton’s glare shooting like needles to prick my skin.
Milo, a tall Black man in his mid-twenties and more patience than all the saints combined, waves in greeting over the throng of patients surrounding him. Exhaustion weighs his long, butmuscled limbs. Still he smiles, continues to give just a little more.
“I told you no.” Fulton hisses at me, but she’s too late. He has seen Kaye. He darts forward, wrapping her in a light embrace.
“You have no idea how long I’ve waited to meet you, Checkmate.” He pulls back, gracing her with a disarmingly brilliant flash of teeth instead.
A new emotion fills my very being. Something hot and tight and undeniably male. I want to pull her away. Mold her to my side again and make her blush with all the dark, delicious things I whisper in her ear.
I shouldn’t have let her go last night. I should have shown her how dearly I coveted her all these years, how quickly desperation for her brings the monster in me to the surface, if only to watch her revel in the darkness. And Iama monster. I hadn’t lied about that. When I devour my beautiful little prey, it will be mind, body, and soul.
