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He blinked. Said nothing. Blinked again. A muscle ticked in his jaw.
Before she lost her nerve, she continued. “The second is that you promise to get help. You make an appointment with Viv, or whoever you feel comfortable with, and put your demons to rest.”
The face he made suggested he’d rather swallow a poison pill, impending death a surety. At least he found his voice again. “I don’t do feelings. It’s rubbish. You know that.”
She used a hand to push against his chest and was surprised he didn’t resist, stepping back so she could pass. “If you want to be on my team—if you want to be in my life—you do now.”
FOUR
Flying hundreds of miles an hour through the air, Moe felt free. Yes, he was on his way to Colorado to track down Lydia Charmaine, and yes, Parker was ignoring him, but as they rode above the clouds, the disentanglement from the ground soothed him.
This must be what it’s like to be dead. Not in a morbid way, but in the simplicity of it. No strings, no responsibilities, no demands. Removed from the world and the heaviness of life.
He shouldn't feel so angry and disappointed that Parker had wanted to keep him off this mission. That she’d effectively broken up with him. He understood her reasoning, and yet, the idea that she didn't believe he could put his emotions aside and do his job rankled. Worse, she was his lifeline. Without her…
His phone vibrated. The screen ID showedBrain Picker.
Dr. Montgomery or Dr. Greene, depending. To the world at large, Dr. Genevieve Montgomery was dead and buried and Vivi went by Greene when outside SFI’s walls. Inside them, however, she preferred they use her real name. It was tough to let your former self die – Moe knew that all too well.
Her text was a one-liner:What is your biggest fear?
Of course, the sneaky beaky would interrupt his stolen moment of self-judgment, even when she was stuck on the ground in Virginia. Like her question at the lake, she was a bloody ace at getting under his skin and into his head even when he wasn’t technically her patient.
Parker’s demand to visit the therapist hadn’t ruffled his feathers; he’d only pretended it had. He’d secretly been talking to Montgomery off and on for weeks. Never any officialsit your ass in the blimey seat of emotional vomiting, only random questions delivered on a slip of paper she slid under his door at HQ. Or these one-line text zingers. He rarely responded because he wasn’t keen on the answers, but he couldn’t stop the way they dug into his brain like a burrowing tick.
Across the cabin, the others discussed strategies and shared details about Ghost Fox and Charmaine. Moe shut his eyes, tracking the question as it pinballed around his brain.My biggest fear…
Not hard to answer, only tough to accept—letting people down. Since the day he’d discovered he hadn’t been wanted by his birth mother, that she had abandoned him behind a tattoo shop of all things when he was only a few days old, he’d struggled with the realization.
Something had broken inside him when he’d been eight and uncovered the secret. It made no difference that his adoptive parents had gone overboard to ensure his acceptance in their family. It was the reason he’d started getting into trouble. The reason his older brother had ended up at the military school and been on board the bus that day. Jordy had loved him so much and felt his pain so deeply, that he’d covered for Moe and took the blame for most of Moe’s screwups to keep him out of trouble.
If it wasn’t for me…His brother wouldn’t have been there when the kidnappers hijacked the bus and Jordy had tried to save his friends.
Don’t go down that hole. He snapped open his eyes, his chest tight. Jeb, the wanker, was watching him from the other aisle. The geezer glanced down at his phone but not before Moe saw the worry on his face.
What do you know? Another tick. In general, Moe liked and respected the guy, but not when he was the dog Jeb had attached himself to. Jeb and Vivi—two parasitic arachnids in alet’s drive Moe madpod.
He rubbed his eyes and shook it off. No good came of sinking into the depths of guilt about his brother.We caught the killers. It’s over.
He gave Jordy’s ghost a mental hug and nudged him back into the compartment he kept his memories in. Lined up like storage units, he had one for everything. One for his secrets. One for his family. One for his job.
One for Parker.
Hers and Jordy’s existed inside his heart as well as his mind. All of them lined the circle he stayed inside, creating a thick-walled barrier against the outside world. Beyond that was chaos. An apocalypse. There was no solid ground, no foundations that could withstand the earthquakes others had caused in his life.
The weight of Parker’s stare drew his attention. Her brows were lowered and her scowl was impressive. The tear in his heart that never seemed to heal ripped a little deeper. He had to get back in her good graces. Without her, his cork would sink like a ton of bricks and he would never see shore again.
Guess it was time he pretended he needed the data the others had garnered to help him track Charmaine and her abductors. To reassure hisbosshe had his shit together.
He shot Parker a cheeky grin, acting as if he had everything under control.
While Trace often got away with using gut instinct in these situations, most of his teammates preferred strategy and tactics. Parker and Rory especially. They profiled, analyzed, and approached every assignment with a detailed plan. There was nothing wrong with that, but Moe didn’t work that way. He knew terrorists on a visceral level. Understood what made them the way they were. He strategized and analyzed his quarry in the same manner—no emotion, no distractions, no end game other than to extract the intel needed. Human life was negligible to them and they had few qualms about killing. Even less about dying. They lived day by day and considered life a game.
A different kind of freedom.
Regardless that he didn’t need the information Parker had sent to his phone, he went through the motions of reading it. As anticipated, this seemed to relieve her concerns and her sullen stare returned to her laptop.
He switched over to read another text from Montgomery.Floating or sinking? I need a measurement for clients beyond ‘on a scale from one to ten…’ What do you think about the cork analogy?
