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“I’ll give it a try,” Jud says. “Bring him in.”
I climb off the bed, not wanting to meet a new person while I’m snuggled up beside Jud.
I’m shifting from foot to foot, eager to see the rest of my guys, but curiosity has me staying right here. Doc tugs me into his arms, and we stand in the corner while Stealth goes to get the new guy.
He’s back in a minute. “Okay, peeps. Brace yourselves. Ghost isn’t exactly…well, you’ll see. Ghost,” he says, “meet Jud, Doc, and Cora.”
I’m not prepared for what happens next. And neither is the young man who steps through the door.
“Ghost” is literally see-through. But that, as remarkable asthatis, is not the only thing that has my knees refusing to hold me up. I sag in Doc’s arms, staring at a see-through, emaciated, bearded version of my brother, who I never would have recognized if I hadn’t seen a vision of him when I was Leon’s captive.
“Justin,” I breathe.
Chapter 24
Cora
My brother smiles wide,and I think my heart is going to explode. He’s wearing his Tulane hoodie and jeans, familiar from his last social media post, and his beard has grown down to his chest. His hair is a matted mess.
“They said your name, and I was like, it can’t bemyCora.” He moves toward me, and it’s the most surreal thing, not only to see my brother again, but to seethroughhim. “But it is you. It’s you!” He laughs and opens his arms, like he wants to hug me, but then he drops them to his sides.
“How—what—?” I look him up and down. “Are you alive?”
He shrugs. “I think so?” He makes it a question. “I mean, I have a pulse, so there’s that. But, like, I can’t touch anything.” He motions to his body. “Can’t eat or cut my hair or brush my teeth. I just sort of…am.”
“Holy shit,” Doc says. “This is your brother? The one you told me about?” With his help, I get my feet under me and take two wobbling steps toward Justin.
“I can’t believe you’re a survivor,” he says, and his smile drops. “I mean, I hoped. I had a dream about you, and I thought, maybe. But, I couldn’t leave the city. Tonight was my first time out. So, there was no way for me to know, you know?” He pauses. “Mom and Dad? Casey?”
My heart breaks all over again. I shake my head.
Justin drops his gaze to the floor. “I figured. I’m sorry. You would have been there for it, yeah? I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
“Holy shit,” Doc says again. He steps up beside me, inspecting my brother.
“I’m sorry you had to go through Week Zero so far from home,” I say. God, I wish I could hug him. I reach out, and our fingertips meet. I feel nothing but a cool moisture, fleeting and uncertain. “I saw you. You looked like this, but your beard and hair were a little shorter.”
“So, that was legit?” His eyes go wide. “Christ, Cora, you were—” He cuts himself off and glances at Doc.
“It’s okay,” I say. “He knows. I got away and found this camp, and there were survivors there.” I clasp Doc’s hand. “This is Doc. He’s one of my…boyfriends.” I try the word, but it doesn’t feel enough for what Doc is to me.
Neither man seems to mind. Doc thrusts his hand out for a shake, then realizes what he’s done. Shoving it in his pocket, he says, “Really nice to meet you, man. So, you’ve been stuck in New Orleans? And stuck like this?” He motions at Justin’s form.
Justin nods and looks between us. “Oneof your boyfriends?” he asks.
I wince, not out of shame, but because I can only imagine how difficult it will be for my older, protective, brother to process how much I’ve grown up since we last saw each other. “There are seven of them.” I drop the bomb and watch Justin struggle not to boggle his eyes out of his head. “Jud is one, too. He’s why we were there. Raptor—or, I guess, Lazarus—took him from our settlement in Montana.” I go to Jud.
He's still sitting up, still holding an empty cup of soup. It’s hard to tell if he’s following everything that’s happening, but when I take the cup from him and grasp his hand, he squeezes back. “You don’t have to worry about your sister,” he says. “We’re taking good care of her, me and my men.”
My heart leaps for joy to hear Jud say that. I love the part where he accepts his role as leader of Eagle Peak, and I love the part where he assures my brother I’m taken care of. It’s something a boyfriend would say to a girl’s dad. It has a normalcy and a respect about it that touches me.
“Hey, Jud,” Justin says in greeting, shifting on his feet. Something tells me he’s still processing that ‘seven.’ Heck, sometimes I thinkI’mstill processing it. “I’m, uh, glad you made it. You’re the only one who’s ever come out of that hospital alive.”
“It was a near thing,” Doc says.
“Doc’s Gift is healing,” I say. “Thank God we got to Jud before he starved to death. Doc has been fixing him up.”
“Hey,” Doc says. “This is your Gift!” His face lights up for the first time since he laid eyes on Jud. “You’re not corporeal, so you can go through walls and stuff. That’s why you had so much intel on Raptor’s group.”
