40 Souls to Keep - 19. Chapter 19

Horrified, frozen, Jase watched blood puddle around Lucas’s shoulders and head. The past seven years of his life had been full of grim scenes, but none had ever crippled him like this—made him incoherent and weak.

“No, please,” Jase begged, digging under Lucas’s limp shoulders and pulling him into his lap. If he could find the wound and put pressure on it...but no matter where he put his hands, the blood kept coming.

“Don’t bother,” Swift said, tone eerily conversational. “You’re going to be lying next to him in a minute.”

Blood everywhere. Lucas’s blood on his hands. Jase’s world narrowed and went dim around the edges. Mesmerized, he kept his eyes on the pulse beating at Lucas’s throat. It was still there—nothing about this man gave up easily—but already Jase saw it stuttering as his heart faltered. He lifted his head. “Then what are you waiting for?” he rasped.

Still, Swift didn’t act. The barrel of the gun dipped toward the floor. “You don’t understand,” he said.

Jase did, but it changed nothing. For the first time in seven years, he prayed, asking for mercy from whatever higher power had set him on this path. He pressed his lips to Lucas’s forehead and begged.

“She’s my last.” Swift looked over his shoulder, where Martinez had fled a few minutes before.

“She’s my last too,” Jase felt compelled to say, meaning it in more ways than he could explain.

Swift’s eyes swung sharply back to him. “Then I’m sorry.”

Despite everything, Jase found that funny. His loud bark of laughter had Swift frowning and raising the gun again.

“You’re sorry!” Jase said, choking now. “Forgive me if I don’t buy that bullshit. You haven’t got one ounce of compassion. I’ve seen what you’ve done.”

Swift cocked his head. “Are you upset about the kid or about your little boyfriend?”

Jase couldn’t think about Lucas right now and still function. “Macy,” he said, “I’m talking about Macy.”

“Yeah, well, she didn’t make it easy. Bitch.”

The venom took Jase aback. “She’s just a child.”

Swift blinked. “She’s not just a child. She’s potential. Pure potential. She could be the savior of the world, but—” he wagged the gun at Jase, as though they were sharing an inside joke, “—she could also be its destroyer. That’s how much power she has. Don’t tell me you haven’t felt it.”

Of course he had. Her dreams had tasted prophetic to him from the start. She loved a world that had been unbearably cruel to her. She was a guiding light. A beacon in the darkness. “If you believe that, then why haven’t you killed her?” Jase asked.

“No, no, no!” Swift chided, stabbing the gun in Jase’s direction with each word. “Didn’t you hear me? Waste of potential. She needs to hate, not love. Be bitter, not understanding. It’s such a fine line, you know? I just needed to warp her a little,” he said, twisting his hand in the air.

“Warp her.” Jase felt sick. Lucas had been right all along.

“Yeah. You know...make her feel safe, then steal that away. Give her hope, then yank that away. Over and over, until she’s an empty shell, just waiting to be filled up with hatred and resentment.”

People have no more hope.

Oh, Macy.

Jase wrapped his arms around Lucas’s motionless body. “Is that what you do to everyone?”

“Yeah.” Swift’s eyes fluttered, settling at half-mast. His lips stretched into a toothy grin. “It’s what I do to everyone.”

Martinez had been right too. “You are a monster.” Jase swiped a hand across his mouth, remembering too late it was covered in Lucas’s blood.

“You’re acting like I had a choice,” Swift said with a sneer. “There is no choice for me. Or for you.” The gun trembled, slipping lower. “You do what you have to. If you want to get your life back, you do what you’re sent to do. You don’t question and you don’t complain.”

“Who told you that?” Jase asked softly. In his arms, Lucas jerked once, then was still. His chest stubbornly rose and fell every few seconds.

The question caught Swift off guard. “I met someone. A woman. She explained how it all worked.”

Jase bet she had, just as Philip had explained the rules to him. They were all playing the same game—pawns on a chessboard.

The rain softened until it no longer sounded as if they were trapped inside a bass drum. Now another sound took top billing—an infrequent, shallow, wet wheezing. Jase unclenched his fists from Lucas’s blood-soaked T-shirt when he realized he was trying—in vain—to breathe for him.

A quiet scuffle reached Jase’s ears, from the deep shadows of the hall. Martinez? Jase grabbed at anything to keep Swift distracted. “How will you know when you’ve tortured her enough?”

His own powers had instant feedback and a built-in reward system. When it came to matters of the mind, things weren’t as black and white.

“I’ll know,” Swift said, and left it at that. His eyes drifted to Lucas, and Jase followed his gaze, raging inside at how still the body in his arms had become. The bleeding had either stopped or Lucas had run dry.

They both watched him silently until Swift swiped a hand under his nose and said, “It was weird, wasn’t it? The way he wouldn’t do what I said.”

Jase shuddered at the past tense. “Yes.”

“Did he listen to you?”

“No.” But why was hardly a mystery anymore. No one could tell Lucas what to do or how to feel. He figured those things out for himself. The idea of anyone having power over him was laughable. Martinez had a touch of that too.

The sound came again, the soft squeal of a wet boot on tile, and Swift’s grin crawled back onto his face. “I think we have company. Martinez! Listen to me and ignore everybody else, is that understood?”

Would that work? Jase’s brow furrowed. It occurred to him how much more experience Swift had with his power.

“Carla, no,” he called. “Run!”

Martinez didn’t reply, but when Swift made a sharp gesture, she came, stepping just far enough into the kitchen that her shadow was a bit brighter than the rest. Her ponytail had come loose, leaving her hair full and disheveled around her shoulders. Her gun hung limply at her side.

“Now, you see,” Swift said, “the irony of this appeals to me. Martinez! Shoot your friend. Twice. Let’s make sure the job’s done right.”

Jase formed and discarded a dozen plans in the space of ten seconds. Every one came up against a brick wall of impossible odds. This was the end. He’d failed. “Carla,” he pleaded. “Don’t.”

She raised her gun.

“Shoot.” Swift dropped his own gun to his side. “Do it.”

She did, swiveling at the last second. The bullet took Swift in the center of his forehead, snapping his head backward. He tipped onto his heels and crashed to the floor. Martinez took five wide strides across the room and sent his gun skittering away with the tip of her shoe. “Bastard.” Only then did she turn to Jase and Lucas. “You guys okay?”

Speechless, Jase watched her tug her ear buds loose so that they dangled around her neck. The faint strains of Guns N’ Roses reached his ears. “Hey. Hey!” Martinez crouched down and smacked his cheek. “You okay?”

“I’m okay,” Jase confirmed. “And you’re brilliant.”

“Macy’s back there.” Martinez gestured behind her. “I thought she was just sleeping, but I can’t wake her up.”

Go! Macy needs you. The command should have energized him, but he couldn’t make himself move.

“Hey, did you hear me?” Martinez shook his arm. “I’m calling for backup and an ambulance.”

“I heard you.” Jase carefully lifted Lucas out of his lap and onto the floor, rolling him onto his stomach. “Better go meet them around front.”

“Oh shit. Oh shit.” Martinez clapped a hand over her mouth. “Is he dead?”

“No. Go, Carla.”

Nodding, tears in her eyes, she went. Mechanically, Jase ripped Lucas’s T-shirt down the center and used the remnants to wipe at the blood. There. A small, round hole right between the shoulder blades, still oozing. “No,” he muttered, “He’s not dead. Not yet.”

Go. Macy needs you.

“I can’t go,” Jase whispered. “I can’t.”

Jase cupped both hands over the wound and let his power flow into Lucas—eager, strong and sure. It branched out, cataloged the damage, repairing it as quickly as it had occurred. From death’s door to a peaceful sleep in under a minute. Jase stayed braced over him for a long time afterward, eyes closed and mouth turned up in a weak smile as Lucas’s breathing grew strong and even.

Healing Lucas had brought no pain. It had given no pleasure.

What Jase took away was something different altogether.

***

Lucas surfaced to the smell of antiseptic and a quiet, steady beeping. Dry-mouthed, achy, he floated between opposing emotions, the first of which kept him safely muddled and unconcerned. But pulling at that was a stubborn inkling of trouble. His whereabouts came to him in a series of realizations as he identified the sounds and familiar odors of a hospital, but the events that led up to his being there were vague. He remembered Jase—pale, eyes bright with fear. And how his voice shook, the panicked words garbled and nonsensical. Everything after that in the timeline was blank, but before...it was like watching a film in reverse: the impact of the bullet and how it took his breath away, the press of the gun to his throat, the pounding rain.

“Wait,” he rasped, backtracking. The bullet. There was something important about that.

There’d been a brief, intense stab of pain. After that, only numbness and a dragging weight that he couldn’t throw off no matter how hard he tried. Wet warmth pouring out between his shoulder blades, soaking his hair. The desire to close his eyes and sleep—that he remembered. And Jase holding him and begging him to be okay. “I’m fine,” he recalled saying. “Perfectly okay. Can’t feel a thing.” Somehow that had made the agony in Jase’s eyes worse.

These memories froze him for a long moment, their implication terrifying. The machine’s beep made him flinch, its steady count suddenly ominous. And the sleepy numbness he’d woken to could be the most terrible truth of all.

Don’t be a coward, Lucas. Setting his jaw, he pulled in a breath, lungs filling on command, and wiggled his toes.The scratch of the cool sheet on his skin had never been so welcome. He attempted the same experiment on his fingers with similar results. He wasn’t paralyzed. And, despite being shot, he was still very much alive. Lucas grinned. Nice try, fate.

In fact, besides a deep, all-over ache, he felt fine. Though that victory did nothing to resolve the next pressing matter—Macy and Jase’s welfare. What had happened after he’d lost consciousness? He couldn’t even consider possibilities, not without spiraling into panic. His blank memory taunted him, but if he wanted answers, he’d have to ask for them.

After several tries, he managed to open his heavy lids and blink the room into focus. Definitely a hospital. Beside the bed at his shoulder sat a heart and blood pressure monitor. He had an IV planted in his left arm, with clear liquid dripping slowly through the tube, and a white bandage taped around his chest. Lucas curled his lip. That was going to hurt coming off. Now he just had to turn his head. Simple, since he wasn’t paralyzed. Except that every message he sent directing his body to move got bounced back as though he’d typed in a bum email address. After several frustrating tries, Lucas adjusted his expectations to simple in theory. Apparently, his synapses were still misfiring.

Finally he got his head moving, rolling it until his ear was pressed to the pillow. He found himself facing a window, a familiar ugly orange chair...and Jase.

The man needed a shave. But his clothes were fresh, clean, and completely unfamiliar. Lucas groaned. How many days had he lost?

Jase leaned forward. “Hi, there,” he said, voice a curious mix of gruff and gentle. “Do you need anything?”

Yes, but forming words was still beyond him. Was ESP one of Jase’s hidden talents? Lucas couldn’t quite remember. He projected a tall glass of water, but all Jase did was smooth Lucas’s hair off his forehead. “Lucas? Can I get you anything?”

So much for the ESP. He cut his eyes to the pitcher of water and plastic cup on the nearby table. That worked. Jase poured a small glass and added a straw before holding it to Lucas’s lips. Lucas drank, and more of the fog cleared. The ability to speak returned almost immediately.

“Are you okay?” he croaked.

Jase looked okay—tired and worried, but physically intact. Alive. Exhausted, ragged, strung out. Gorgeous.

“I’m fine.” Jase flashed a smile. “And so is Macy.”

His next question answered. He had so many more, but Jase’s hand in his hair stole his desire to have them answered. He let his eyes drift closed.

“How do you feel?” Jase asked, the tone guarded enough that Lucas tensed. He forced his sleepy eyes to reopen. Expression blank, Jase’s face could’ve been chiseled out of granite. What was he holding back that required such intense self-control? Instead of answering Jase’s question, Lucas asked one of his own.

“What about Swift and Martinez?”

“Martinez is fine. Swift is dead.”

Two for two. Three for three if they counted Macy. Not bad stats. “Hey, you did pretty good.”

“Thanks.” Jase covered a huff of laughter, dropping his eyes. “Want me to tell you how it went down after you went to sleep?”

“Very funny. Yes, regale me.” He arched into Jase’s hand when it appeared he might pull it away. Lips twitching, Jase scooted closer and stroked his fingers over Lucas’s cheek.

Better. Much more of this and he’d be purring. Lucas risked a cautious full-body stretch, wincing at the needles of discomfort it caused across his upper back. His fingers and toes tingled, the sensation spreading outward, growing uncomfortable, but he reveled in it. Paralysis would have been so much worse. He pawed for the remote hanging beside him and punched buttons until he’d managed to elevate the head of the bed.

Jase stopped it halfway. “Enough. You’re still recovering.”

“I know. But this doesn’t sound like the kind of story I want to hear lying flat on my back.”

Again, Jase dropped his eyes. “You’re probably right about that.”

Lucas could have done with being wrong about that, to be honest. He steeled himself. “Okay, let’s hear it.”

Jase pulled away, clasping his hands between his knees. “Swift’s mission wasn’t to kill Macy,” he said. “He was trying to damage her. Psychologically. You had it pegged exactly.”

Lucas swallowed the rush of hatred. “Why?”

“He wanted to steal her hope. More than that, actually. That was only half of it. He wanted to take those things and fill her up with rage and hatred.”

Lucas shook his head, taking more water when Jase offered it. “Why? I don’t understand. To what end? For Christ’s sake, she’s just a baby.”

Jase pursed his lips and didn’t answer. Instead he said, “Macy was his last, by the way. He was as desperate to succeed as I was.”

Lucas didn’t like the melancholy sound of that at all. “Are you feeling sorry for him?” He balked a little at the flare of anger in Jase’s eyes, but plowed forward. “Don’t do that. He had a choice, Jase. Whatever ‘things’ he’d been sent to do, he could’ve walked away. He could’ve not done them. I don’t see that he has—or had—a molehill of moral ground to stand on.”

Jase’s silence could have been acquiescence, but it had the unpleasant taste of disagreement to it. What was worse, his vague expression had returned—the one that shot their intimacy to hell. You don’t understand, Jase’s eyes said, but Lucas wasn’t going to back down.

“You are sorry for him,” he said, aghast.

Jase wrung his hands hard enough to turn his knuckles white. “I understand him. I know what it was like. This thing was impossible to fight. I tried. At one point...” He swiped a hand over his mouth. “At one point, I think he must’ve tried too. I’d like to believe that he did.”

Lucas couldn’t dredge up a drop of sympathy. “Not hard enough.” And if it had come down to an inability to not do harm, Swift could always have taken the out Jase had considered more than once. “You’re completely different from him.”

“Am I?”

The tortured question squeezed Lucas’s heart.

Jase swallowed heavily. “I was so afraid, Lucas. When he shot you. There was so much blood. Then you looked at me and smiled and said it didn’t hurt.” Tears shone in Jase’s eyes. “I thought I was going to die along with you.”

“I didn’t die. I’m fine, see?” Lucas lifted an arm and waved at him.

“Yes. You are.”

“What about Macy? You said Swift didn’t want her dead, but something obviously changed that, if you were there to heal her.” Lucas watched Jase’s face for a clue. All he got back was a blank stare. “Where was Macy?” he pressed.

“She was in the house. Martinez found her in one of the bedrooms. Drugged. Probably so she wouldn’t try to escape while he was out.”

Lucas seethed, but it was the clue he’d been missing. “So it wasn’t planned. He overdosed her by accident?”

Jase broke their stare, his sudden interest in the view from the window so clearly evasive that Lucas’s toes curled in fear. “No,” Jase said, “there was no overdose. She was just sedated.” He met Lucas’s shocked expression with a wry smile. “Asleep.”

“Just asleep,” Lucas repeated.

Jase nodded. “The paramedics confirmed it.”

But then... “Did you know that? That she wasn’t in any danger?”

“No. By then, Swift was dead. Martinez is a crack shot, let me tell you. She saved my life.”

Lucas pushed that aside. “I’ll thank her later. Don’t deflect my questions.”

Jase could have been chewing on glass for his expression. “Okay.”

“So tell me about Macy.”

Jase stood and walked to the window. “I had no idea what was wrong with her. All I knew was that Martinez couldn’t wake her up. And you were bleeding out on the kitchen floor.” He said nothing more, and Lucas, confused by whatever opiate was dripping into his arm, took a moment to catch up.

Oh no. No, no, no.

His sleepiness drowned in a rush of cold realization. “You didn’t.” He struggled to sit up, ignoring the pain rocketing down his spine. “Tell me you didn’t.”

Jase stood straighter in the face of his anger, not looking apologetic in the slightest. “You were dying.”

You should have let me die, he almost said. Useless words, as the damage was done. Macy’s future was suddenly much bleaker.“How could you do that?” Lucas shouted. “What happens when her time comes? Who’s going to save her then? You traded her life for mine? How dare you!”

Jase let the accusation hang in the air.

Lucas lay back, staring at the tube feeding medicine into his arm. The urge to rip it out was physical. He resisted. It would make little difference now. “How could you?” he whispered.

Jase’s sad smile broke his heart. “You were right about free will, Lucas. There is always a choice. But for me, in this, there wasn’t. I couldn’t let you die. Nothing was going to change that.”

“And now Macy suffers the consequences.”

Jase shook his head, eyes intense. “No.”

Lucas barely heard him. “And what about your high-and-mighty mission? What about getting your memories back? Your life. How long did it take you to decide to throw that all away?”

“How long?” Jase crossed the room and laid his hand across Lucas’s forehead. “A second. A heartbeat.”

No, he didn’t want to hear that. None of them deserved any kind of happiness when it had come at the expense of a little girl. “All these years. All those people,” Lucas said. “All the things you endured and all the hell you went through, just to get to this point. And you still didn’t save number forty.”

“Lucas.” Jase’s hand tightened painfully in his hair. “Yes, I did.”

“What?”

“Macy was never my mission. You were. It was about you all along. You are number forty.”

“Me?”

“It’s why I couldn’t track Macy when she was kidnapped. Because the person I’d been sent to save was by my side the whole time. Macy belonged to Swift. You belong to me.”

Words failed him. He did belong to Jase. His heart had voted without him on that one. Ironic that they’d each been the one the other had been waiting for—but in such vastly different ways. Suddenly he couldn’t breathe for the weight on his chest. The sad smile, the blank expression—they made sense now. They weren’t for Macy.

They were just goodbye.

“Are you sure? I mean...” Lucas barked a pained laugh. “Me? I’m nothing special.”

“I knew the moment I healed you. In my vision, you were a shadow. Macy was the bright one. I thought that meant she was for me, but I know the truth now. She shines because of who she is.” He kissed Lucas on the forehead. “I saw, Lucas. You have such a future ahead of you. You bring hope to the world, you and Macy. She’s going to do amazing things. Some people will even call her a saint. But only because you’ll be with her every step of the way—loving, guarding and guiding her. You help her take shape, do you see?”

No, he didn’t see at all. “She’ll do that? After everything she’s been through?”

“Because of what she’s been through. Because of the losses and the trauma and the fear. Swift thought that by destroying the things she loved he could warp her, make her unloving. He was wrong. All he did was make her stronger. But now you have to help her with the rest of the journey.”

“Wow.” Lucas squinted against his sudden headache. “No pressure or anything.”

Smiling, Jase let him go and stepped back. The move had a feeling of finality to it. “You’ll do fine.”

How could he argue with that? “And what about you? Will you be fine?” It wasn’t a fair question. It might have even been a cruel one, but Lucas had to know. Of course, Jase didn’t make his answer easy to decipher.

Retreating another step, he said, “I would have given it all up for you. I thought I had, and had no regrets. Right now, I feel like I took the final test and failed...even though everything points to success. You talk about dodging this plan like it’s easy.” He shook his head. “It’s not. It’s impossible.”

So many words, and Lucas couldn’t make sense of any of them. “Please tell me you’ll be okay,” he said, voice breaking on the last word.

Something at the door caught Jase’s eye, and he raised his hand to whoever was waiting outside. “Lucas—”

“Did you remember your name?” Desperate, ignoring his shaking arms, he pushed himself higher in the bed.

Jase nodded. He didn’t offer it, and Lucas didn’t ask.

Jase looked to the door once more. “I have to go, Lucas. I have to find out what I left behind. You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course.” His answer had come from the heart, just like everything else he gave to Jase. “Of course you do.” He clenched his fists. “Good luck.”

“You too. Though you won’t need it.”

Lucas closed his eyes and concentrated on getting air past the tightness in his throat. “Will I ever see you again?” It was a fair thing to ask. They hadn’t pulled any punches with each other. Lucas could take the truth.

Jase’s voice echoed back to him from the doorway, as rough and uneven as Lucas’s had been. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” Lucas sank back against the mattress. “Whatever happens, don’t be sorry.”

If anyone had a right to that, it was Lucas. Despite the rosy future Jase had painted for him, all he felt was bleak despair. How could he help Macy give the world hope and love when his own was lost? He took a deep breath and tried to exhale some of the crushing pain, but it refused to go. A plea sprang to his lips, but he clamped them closed. No, he wouldn’t beg. After everything, Jase deserved some peace. He had no reason to be sorry.

But Lucas would be sorry for the rest of his life.

* * *

When next opened his eyes, Jase was gone, but the room wasn’t empty. He held his arms out to Macy, and she released Martinez’s hand to run to his side. “I was so worried about you, Lucas,” she said, climbing onto the bed beside him.

“I’m okay, cupcake.” Lucas drew her into his arms and she responded with a sigh, wrapping her arms around his neck.

Macy Pearl, the hope of the world. Shouldn’t he feel something of that in her? Then she said, “I don’t mean today. I mean before, when I got taken away. I knew you’d be upset. I worried about you then,” and Lucas knew he’d been seeing the magic in her from the moment they’d met.

“Thanks,” he said. “I was very upset. And worried about you too.”

“Oh stop,” Martinez said, winking at Macy. “You’re going to make me weepy.”

A tentative knock on the door had them all glancing up, and Lucas cursed the instant leap of hope that flared.

“Hey, Lucas.” Scott slipped into the room. He eyed Martinez and Macy, then straightened his shoulders and strode to the side of the bed, taking up Lucas’s hand with a determined grip. It was a huge step for him. A promise. One Lucas couldn’t return. Faced with Scott’s bravery, he couldn’t even offer the truth. That would have to wait. All he had to give was a weak, encouraging smile. Jase had taken everything else.

Scott squeezed his fingers. “Is this a bad time?”

Lucas took his hope and buried it deep inside. “No. It’s not a bad time. I’m glad you came.”

* * *

Connie arrived a few hours later, rumpled, exasperated and teary-eyed. She opened their reunion with a painful pinch to his arm. Lucas was still rubbing out the sting when she threw her arms around his neck. “I told you your smart mouth would get you into trouble one of these days.”

“It wasn’t my mouth,” Lucas griped, rolling his eyes when Connie looked skeptical.

“I’m sure your mouth had something to do with it.”

Denying it was useless; Lucas shrugged and handed her a tissue. “It all worked out. You’ve seen Macy?”

“Yes, just this afternoon. Remarkable child.” Connie sniffed. “I can’t even imagine the hell she’s been through. Just when you think you’ve seen it all—”

“Connie.” Lucas interrupted, drawing a fortifying breath. “I’ve been thinking.”

She arched a brow. “I’ll refrain from the obvious rejoinder. About what?”

“About Macy.” He scooted higher in the bed, determined to look strong and competent. “I want to foster her.”

It wasn’t often he shocked Connie. Despite—or maybe because of—her experience, her mood defaulted to unflappable. He’d been treated to more emotion from her in the past five minutes than in the five years previous. “You do?” she squeaked with indelicate surprise.

“Yes,” Lucas said, amused.

Connie’s lips pursed into a small, tight circle.

“I realize I’ve got things going both for and against me,” Lucas hastened to add.

“That’s putting it mildly.”

“That’s where I need you.” Lucas reached for her hand. “This is important, Connie. Very important.”

“Lucas, I don’t—”

“Your blessing would go a long way. Your recommendation would seal the deal,” Lucas stressed. “You know I can do this. You know I can do it well.”

Connie drew away to the window, finger tapping against her lips. “I’ve never disputed your talents or potential,” she said quietly. “But playing parent nine to five isn’t like being a full-time father, kid.”

Lucas didn’t let the endearment discourage him. She used it often. “Do you really think I don’t know that?”

Snorting, Connie shook her head. “The child’s bonded to you, that’s for sure. It only took a minute with her this afternoon to see it.” Spinning back, she spread her hands in front of her. “I’ll help you. But why now? Why this girl?”

“I can’t explain it all right now.” Lucas sank back against his pillow, pushing memories of strong hands and expressive brown eyes from his head. “One day, you’ll know why.”