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“No one told you?” Ghost says, and I bristle.
“Told me what?” I don’t like being in the dark where my men and their Gifts are concerned. “What am I missing?”
“Well,” Ghost says. “You know about the birds attacking your lodge, yeah? I mean, you were there for at least part of that, before Raptor’s shitheads took you.”
The memory floods back. The deafening thuds of thousands upon thousands of feathered bodies slamming against the glass dome of the turret gun. The misfiring of every weapon in the lodge. My brilliant idea to run outside with the grenade launcher, thinking that gun would work any better than the ones inside. The ear-piercing screeching and the unforgiving pummeling by a thousand razor-sharp beaks. If I hadn’t been in my tactical gear, I would have been sliced to ribbons. I should have kept my ass inside.
“I remember,” I say.
“So, I guess, the next day, Rev had, like, one of his visions, and he told Doc and Grim to work together on the birds. You know, the dead birds all around your lodge. They didn’t know what he meant, but they did what he said, and, I guess, they figured out they could raise those birds from the dead.”
Holy shit. “You’re joking.”
“I’m not. I can’t believe no one told you this. It gets even better.”
I know why no one told me. I haven’t made myself approachable. I led the conversation with Rev and made sure he gave me the run-down on all the important happenings. I didn’t give him a chance to talk about any miracles I might have missed. I haven’t given anyone a chance to just shoot the shit over beers. I’ve been a sulking, solitary jerk.
“Go on,” I encourage.
“So, Rev has this showdown with Lazarus on the roof of the casino the night they stormed New Orleans, right?”
My body goes tense all over. Fucking Lazarus. Mean-ass bastard. It was his twisted idea to gouge out my eyes, and Raptor was only too happy to help. I don’t like the idea of Rev facing off with that sadist. “He told me they had a shoot-out.”
“Did he tell you Lazarus shot him in the neck, and he bled out?”
My heart misses a beat. “No.” I grit my teeth. “He didn’t tell me that.”
“So, Brawn uses his crazy telekinesis to throw Grim up onto the roof. Fifteen freaking stories, man! And Grim touches Lazarus. His Gift does its thing, and Lazarus goes down. Grim thinks, ‘Okay, he’s out of the way now.’ So, he goes over to Rev, sees him in a puddle of blood, and Rev is D.O.A. I mean, bled-out, blank eyes, the whole deal.”
My breaths are coming in choppy bursts. Rev didn’t tell me any of this. When we spoke, I could tell there was something off about him, but I never guessed he’d actually died. Jesus.
Ghost continues the play-by-play, oblivious to my shock. “Grim remembers what he and Doc did for those birds, and he uses the comms to contact Doc. The two of them combine their Gifts, Grim lays his hands on Rev, and the bullet hole in his neck heals. Rev comes back from the dead, right there on that roof. Because Grim and Doc worked together.”
I can’t believe I didn’t know about this. How could Rev not tell me something like this?
I wipe a hand down my face, and I realize I’m clammy with sweat.
“My point is,” Ghost goes on, “that maybe Doc’s Gift isn’t enough to heal your eyes on its own. Maybe he needs Grim to help him. Or one of the others. Or even you. I don’t know. All I’m saying is not to give up. I think there’s hope for you. That’s all.”
Ghost gets up, and the air cools as he passes by me. Then I’m alone with my thoughts. Way too many thoughts.
Chapter 26
Cora
We have steak for dinner,again, and I love seeing all my guys lean back in their chairs with hands over their stomachs and smiles on their faces. Even Jud looks uncharacteristically sated tonight as he plants himself at one end of a sofa in the living room and props his stocking feet on a padded stool.
I’ve chosen my bedmate for the night, and it’s the same one I’ve chosen every night since our return from New Orleans. Hope.
I didn’t just get my brother back. I’ve gained a sister, too. Hope and I have bonded this week, so much that she’s talking about coming to Montana with me and the guys when we leave. She hasn’t told the soldiers yet, I think because she knows they’ll be devastated. They take turns watching her like hawks, and they try talking to her and charming her, but she’s not open to any of it.
“I grew up watching my mom flit from one boyfriend to the next,” Hope tells me that night while we have the hot tub to ourselves. Of course, X-Ray is keeping an eye on us from inside, and I don’t miss the fact that Rev and Scrap are sharing a smoke beneath a tree within sight of the lighted porch, but we have privacy for taking, and we’re making the most of it.
“She was never happy unless she had a man to hold her up,” Hope says, steam rising around her head and shoulders. “You know, out of my nine brothers and sisters, only two share a father. And guess how many gave my mom child support.” Her teal-blue eyes burn with indignation. “Zero. What does that tell you? It tells me that men can’t be trusted to follow through. They use you for sex and then they move on.”
She twists her mass of silky hair up into a knot at the top of her head and stares me down. “You might be happy to have seven boyfriends, but that life is not for me. Before week Zero, I was going to be a veterinarian, and that’s still what I want to do. I don’t have Faith to look out for anymore, so—” She sniffs and looks up into the night sky. “So, I can be free. Truly free for the first time in my life. I can go wherever I want, read as many books as I want and learn whatever I want, and no man is going to slow me down with romance and babies he’s not going to take responsibility for.”
“I can’t imagine being responsible for nine siblings,” I say. “And you were a kid yourself! I was a middle kid, and my parents both worked. We were good on money. It must have been so hard being the oldest of so many and caring for them when your mom wasn’t around and money was tight.” My face throbs, telling me I’m getting overheated. That’s happening a lot lately. I haven’t spent more than five minutes at a time in the hot tub all week.
