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“I’ll take care of it,” Jax says. “You guys worry about getting everyone ready to go and I’ll make sure there’s a crawler waiting with what you’ll need.”
“Get ahold of Falon. Tell her what’s happened and where we’re heading.” Even in his weakened condition, Dante is coherent giving orders and making plans.
“What about Valery?” I ask. “We can’t leave her here.”
“Jax will take care of her. Get her clothes and get her to the crawler.” Dante looks to Jax for confirmation, and Jax nods.
“I’ll message Falon from Valery’s quarters,” Jax says.
I look at Dante and his face is determined as he gives one final order: “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
* * *
I rap so quietly on Erik’s door that he doesn’t respond so I knock again. When he answers his door, his shirt is untucked and his hair tousled but I can tell he hasn’t been sleeping.
“Can I come in?” I ask. It’s my job to convince both Erik and Jost to come, something I plan to approach with separate tactics, while Jax works on a distraction and gets Val and Dante out and into a crawler. The plan is straight and to the point, so I’m positive it will go all wrong.
Erik looks flustered to see me, which is unusual, but we haven’t talked about what he said to Jost. If he meant it. Or how I feel about it. Because I’m not sure yet. I duck in under his arm and push the door closed.
“I have something I need to tell you,” I start, but before I can continue Erik leans into me, resting his arm on the door behind me, and suddenly I can’t seem to breathe. He’s so close to me that I can see the golden flecks around his irises, like stars swimming in the ocean.
“We’ve needed to talk for a while,” he murmurs.
This close I can see that his lower lip is slightly fuller than the top one. I want him to lean closer. In this moment, I forget about Kincaid and Valery and Jost. I want him to kiss me.
Instead I push him away. Erik sighs and drops onto his bed, leaning his head into his hand. I’m immensely jealous of his hand in this moment. How he runs it through the mess of his hair.
“Not about us,” I stop him. “There’s trouble. More trouble than I can explain right now.”
“Well?” he says expectantly.
“We have to get out of here. I’ll explain later.”
“Explain now.” He grabs my wrist to stop my frantic pacing.
I gawk at him and pull away. Before I can respond to Erik’s demand, the door bursts open and a man stumbles in. At first I think we’ve been discovered, but then Jost appears in the doorway behind him.
So this is how it ends. The betrayal numbs my body into paralysis.
But Jost surprises me, releasing his fist. It makes hard contact with the Sunrunner’s jaw. He bounces back but doesn’t fall and soon he’s tussling with Jost. They wrestle each other to the floor and I jump up, looking for a way to help without accidentally ripping apart the room or anyone in it.
The Sunrunner pins Jost to the floor, his arm coiled around his neck.
“Little help here,” Jost gasps against the pressure.
I whip around, looking for something to attack the Sunrunner with, and as I do, the room spins to life, full of purple and gold and crimson. I could use my alteration abilities.
“Do it,” Jost croaks.
Before I can, Erik jumps in, surprising the Sunrunner enough that he loses his grip on Jost, who reverses the hold, pinning the other man to the ground as Erik unceremoniously cracks the medicinal bottle of whiskey over our attacker’s head, knocking him out.
“What’s going on?” Jost demands, his breath coming in heavy, fast pants.
I look to Erik, but neither of us speaks. I hadn’t planned on convincing both of them to come at the same time. That would require a miracle.
“Do you know what he was going to do to you? I got to know Burris on the mission,” Jost continues, pointing to the man on the floor. “Kincaid doesn’t send Burris to bring you tea. Trust me. He sends Burris to kill you—or worse.”
“Why would anyone want to kill us?” Erik asks in a cool voice.
