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Candice smiled. "My part was easy. Now it's your turn."
Chapter Fourteen
HIS CLOTHES WERE STICKING TO HIM IN THE HUMIDITY OF the bunker, his hands and forearms splattered with caked, dried blood. Even the faint, stale copper tang of the dead red cells had Kellan's head pounding and his muscles twitching with aggression as he stalked through the main corridor of the fortress.
He wanted to kill, not only because the predator in him was provoked by the scent of so much spilled blood today but because people he cared about - good people - had met with undeserved harm.
Because of him.
Because they'd trusted him as their leader, and he'd let them down.
He hadn't gone after Vince that morning like he'd intended. He still seethed with the urge to tear down all of Boston to find the bastard, but his crew had needed him here more. And the rational part of his brain reminded him that Mira was right: A full-scale pursuit in broad daylight would've been suicidal. He'd be dead soon enough, according to her vision. And he couldn't help thinking that the fact he hadn't run out into the sun today only fortified that he was still on a direct collision course with the fate he'd glimpsed in Mira's eyes.
Kellan's boots thudded hollowly in the corridor as he strode toward his quarters to change his clothes and clean up. The marked silence of the bunker around him was striking. He didn't like it. Didn't like knowing that he'd brought this trouble down on the base.
Despite living on the outermost fringes of the law, Kellan and his small band of rebels had never had violence cross their threshold to attack from within. They'd never lost one of their own before, not even in the field. They'd been lucky, keeping a low profile, running tight operations, and living off the grid. Avoiding the kind of unwanted attention and notoriety on which other rebel factions seemed to thrive. Now that they had suffered this blow, their shock and grief was running deep.
Kellan was no stranger to the feeling.
All of this bloodshed brought him back to his past, when he was a sheltered Darkhaven youth and evil had robbed him of his family. In a single night, a madman's violence had destroyed the Archers' primary estate in Boston, stripping Kellan of everyone he loved but his grandfather, Lazaro. Fortunately for the two of them, the Order had stepped in to offer its shelter and protection. They'd brought Kellan and Lazaro into the fold as the Order's own, a kindness Kellan could never hope to repay.
Especially not now.
And Mira . . .
She'd been there for him from the moment he first arrived on the Order's doorstep. A pint-size pain in his ass who wouldn't let any of his bullshit slide, not even then. He'd been so terrified of caring for someone after losing so many people he loved, he had refused to let anyone in back then.
And although he'd been a stupid boy, hardly able to recognize the bone-deep fear at the root of his sullenness and pain, Mira had been far wiser, even as a child. She'd seen right through him. She'd stubbornly taken him under her tiny wing as her friend and had refused to let go, not even when he pushed.
No, whenever he'd pushed, she'd dug in her heels and stood steadfast for him - just as she'd done today, taking it upon herself to pitch in like one of his crew, to show them true concern and support, in spite of how he'd left things with her.
He wanted to be furious with her for that, the way the caustic, aloof teenage boy she'd known so well would respond to such an act of defiant generosity of spirit. But the man he'd since become couldn't muster any anger. What he felt instead was a squeezing in his chest, an all-too-pleasant sense of gratitude and pride that she was his.
Should have been his, he corrected himself harshly.
And, as her damnable vision assured him, could not be his for long.
His answering curse was rough and self-directed as he rounded a turn in the corridor and stalked past the closed door of the bunker's shower room.
The water was running on the other side.
It wasn't Doc or Nina, seeing how just a few minutes ago Kellan had left the two of them with Chaz's body at the opposite end of the fortress. And Candice wasn't going anywhere for days. She was resting quietly in bed when he'd checked on her on his way here.
Keep walking.
That's what he should do. And yet he paused outside the door and turned the latch.
Mira stood naked under the spray of the shower, her head tipped back, water sluicing over her pale-blond hair and down her creamy skin.
Kellan's breath left him in a rush. Instead of quietly closing the door and moving on, he opened it wider and stepped inside the steam-filled room. He pulled the door closed behind him.
At the resulting soft click, Mira covered herself with her hands and arms and looked his way. There was uncertainty in her lavender eyes. Lips parted but unspeaking.
Kellan stood there, taking in the sight of her. "You stayed," he murmured.
She swallowed, water dripping off her chin, spiking her long lashes. "I stayed."
He nodded, but he could feel a scowl furrowing deep into his brow. "I just looked in on Candice. She told me that you'd been in to see her, said the two of you talked . . . about me?"
