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Daisy stared at the two women. Parker had said they truly believed there was something else at play here. He didn’t think it was heaven or hell. But he did say other dimensions were a possibility. There were still things of this earth none of them understood—how Daisy had been able to stop a baseball moments before it hit her face was one of them. She wasn’t even sure Parker understood Daisy’s part of their mother’s research. He was vague about it any time Daisy asked.
They all stared down through the darkness of the damaged lab to the hole in the wall and beyond. The sound of sewage water trickled back to them, along with an unpleasant smell.
Tawny shuddered and hugged herself as she eyed the hole. “It feels wrong. Like someone walks over my grave every time I look at it.”
Daisy concentrated on the hole, on the small gust of air coming out and the hollow sounds within. The hairs on her arms lifted. Her stomach twinged with the sense of despair or maybe it was something else, like Tawny said. The darkness felt wrong. Daisy’s eyes traveled over the broken wall that made up the hole into the sewer, trying to locate something—anything—logical that could explain the feeling. Like Parker, she would much rather face something flesh and blood.
“There?” Axel asked, pointing to the hole. “The gate to Hell is in the Cardinal City sewer, and I walked through it a few days ago?”
This time, Daisy couldn’t raise the energy to deny. She scratched her face. Dried blood came off under her nails and she winced. She needed to shower. Axel needed to sleep. She would continue this tomorrow.
“Whatever it is, just keep Julius out. Or at the very least, raise the alarm when he gets here,” Daisy said, ignored their duh look, then gestured for Axel to follow her back through the makeshift lab and into the elevator.
As the doors closed around them, and they stared out over the destruction of the lab, she realized it had all been fake. Nothing in this building was tied to the Syndicate’s real purpose. Just like her, it had been a means to an end for Julius. Tomorrow, she would find the truth.
* * *
“How long hasthe Syndicate owned this building?” Axel asked as Daisy opened the door to her apartment.
“A few years,” she replied.
Her place was the only apartment on the floor. In fact, it was the only habitable room. When Julius took over the empty building, he’d given Daisy an entire floor while he kept the one beneath and used it as his office. She’d hated having so much space, so had it furnished into an apartment. Outside the walls, the rest of the floor was just a dark concrete shell. She had her room set up with a view of the Quadrant Park. Far beyond that, farther than the eye could see clearly, was Lazarus House.
Up here, with the pretty view, she felt like a bird.
She turned on the dim lights and saw it for what it was, a cage of her own making. An illusion. Inside the small apartment, a bed sat by the window, a closet by another wall, a kitchenette and bathroom against the third, and a couch with books and wilted potted plants on shelves. That was it.
At some point during her stay, she’d placed her plants in self watering pots. Now it smelled like dying nature. Overwatered roots and rotting soil.
She was surprised her room was untouched. She wouldn’t have put it past Julius for him to destroy everything in retaliation for her betrayal.
Axel went straight for her bed.
“Come here,” he said as he sat down on the plush comforter and toed his boots off.
“Why?”
“Because I want to hold you while I sleep,” he grumbled and fluffed up the pillows.
Her heart rate spiked, and she tensed, unsure what to do with his sudden confession. He took her confusion as an excuse to elaborate, and when he spoke, his tired husky voice plucked strings Daisy didn’t know she had. “I want to put my arms around you and know that you’re safe. After the night we’ve had, and the day I’ve had, I want to feel the heat of a woman I adore against my body.”
Cocky, self-assured, and hard to resist. This was the other side of youthful optimism.
He smiled wryly with a slow look up and down her body and then gave a composed stare. “Come on, Daze. You know we share a special bond. There’s no point denying it.”
Special bond. So, he knew? “How do you know about that?”
He reclined on the bed and rested his hands behind his head. His lashes drooped with lethargy as he mumbled, “You lean into my touch when you pull away from others. Come here. Don’t make me wait. I’m tired.”
There was nothing in his tone or body language that revealed he expected denial which marveled Daisy. How could someone who’d seen her dark history firsthand talk to her like that? Like… he already had her. Like she had been sleeping in his arms for centuries.
He popped one eye open with a warning grumble. “I swear I won’t let myself sleep unless you’re here.”
“Emotional terrorism?” Her eyebrow arched.
He shrugged. “I’ll use whatever tool I have to get you to lie down with me.”
“I have to shower,” she blurted and headed for the bathroom.
