Cipher

Chapter Twelve

He’d almost gotten her killed.

No, that wasn’t fair or quite right. It wasn’t strictly his fault she’d almost been kidnapped, stolen away to serve whatever heinous uses this goddamned cult had dreamed up. Not his fault, but he was responsible.

It probably wasn’t what Alec had in mind when he’d told him to step up to the plate.

Andrew kept his attention strictly on the road. He had to make sure they weren’t followed, that they had a fighting chance of making it to Michelle before the cult caught up with them. But driving in silence afforded him the advantage of hiding—his fear, worry and, most of all, his self-recrimination. Kat wouldn’t have it. She’d chalk it up to guilt and tell him to knock it off.

Maybe someday he would.

The drive back to New Orleans was desolate, a never-ending exchange of one two-lane road after another, followed by interminable stretches of interstate. Through it all, he pushed down worry in favor of focus. There’d never been anything he couldn’t do if he tried hard enough, and this was one more thing on the list: keep Kat safe and destroy the collar. He could do it because he had to, because the alternatives were unthinkable.

He headed home, toward the building he shared with Julio, the official base of their council operations now. Home was also work, though it still seemed odd to think of it that way.

No wonder he’d let the alpha-bastard shit take over his life.

He drove slowly down the street toward the building, hesitating when he saw a familiar truck. “Are Jackson and Mac back in town?”

“No, they’re still in Colo—shit.” She sat up straighter and smoothed a nervous hand over her hair.

“Alec called Jackson. He must have.”

“The question is when.” Not that it mattered, and this was a million times better anyway. “You think Jackson can get rid of this thing for us?”

“Maybe.” Her smile looked tired and feeble. “After he’s done yelling at me for not calling him.”

“Yelling at us, you mean.”

“He might take pity on you, mostly because Mackenzie won’t.” Kat shot Andrew a look that was almost sympathetic as she reached for the door handle. “Manly shapeshifters who don’t ask for help make her cranky.”

As it turned out, they both looked cranky. When Andrew and Kat walked in, Jackson met them near the door with his arms crossed over his chest. “You two having a nice night?”

Kat’s spine stiffened as a shred of life returned to her otherwise exhausted face. “Swell. I thought you were still out west.”

“We were, until we got wind of a crazy party no one bothered to invite us to.”

“There wasn’t time.” Though the truth of the words was undeniable, Andrew couldn’t keep the apology from his voice. “God knows, we could have used you out there.”

Some of Jackson’s anger faded into obvious concern. “What’s going on? You may as well tell me.”

So Kat did, laying it out without embellishment or emotion, though she seemed willing enough to gloss over the fact that she’d been shot. Throughout the explanation, Mackenzie’s gaze kept flicking to Andrew, her face growing increasingly worried with every word.

When Kat finished, Jackson ground his teeth and shook his head. “I don’t even have time to yell at you.

We need to destroy that stuff now.”

“Here?” Mackenzie asked. “Or do you need supplies? Or backup?”

“Have to poke at it to be sure.” He took the collar and charm from Kat and turned them over in his hands. “If it has protections, I might need Mariko’s help. Together, we could short those out. The likelier scenario is that no one ever bothered with that because they didn’t anticipate anyone wanting to destroy it.” He huffed out a sigh. “We wizards are a damn self-important lot.”

“I’ll get anyone you need,” Andrew whispered. Just so long as it got done.

Mackenzie touched her husband’s shoulder. “So go poke at it. We’ll be right here, and we’ll track down whatever or whoever you need.”

He headed off toward the converted—and warded—supply closet in the corner of the warehouse, and Andrew faced Mackenzie with his best grim look. “Hit me with it, Brooks. I can take it.”

Mackenzie didn’t look away from him. “Kat? You want to go help Jackson?”

She looked like she wanted to flee, but she held her ground. “Andrew?”

There were so many things he needed to say and ask, and no fucking time. “It’s okay, sweetheart.

Mackenzie likes me. She’ll probably only mostly kill me.”

It made her laugh, even if it was choked and died after a startled moment of sound. “Well, as long as you’re only mostly dead… I’ll be with Jackson.”

When she was gone, Mackenzie raised both eyebrows. “If I were you, I’d have her in the supernatural version of witness protection by now, and I’m not even suffering from testosterone poisoning. Whatever this thing is—” She waved her hand, taking him in from head to foot. “I’m not buying it. What gives?”

“I can’t shuffle her off like that without me,” he answered as he made his way over to the refrigerator in the corner. “After I get this taken care of, sure. Until then…”

“Wolves.” She shook her head. “You never just grab your people and run. You’ve got to save the world on your way.”

“Comes with the territory.” He cracked open a soda and snorted. “Literally.”

“Jackson’s my territory. That’s the long and short of it. And Kat…” She trailed off. “Shit, Andrew, there’s nothing I can say there that’s a damn bit of my business. But Jackson loves her like she’s his baby sister, and I’ve seen how wrecked she’s been. Just tell me you know what you’re up against.”

He’d thought he had a handle on it for the first time since waking up at Alec’s, shivering and overloaded on scents and sounds he didn’t understand. He and Kat were finally communicating, getting close to figuring out what the hell they were going to do to move beyond it, and now…

Now they could be starting all over again, square one, because Kat had had to do it again—use the empathy she thought of as nothing more than a burden as a lethal weapon.

So he told Mackenzie the truth. “I don’t know. I thought so, but I don’t know.”

Sympathy filled her eyes. “Honestly? She’s surrounded by overprotective badasses. I think maybe she’s trying to prove she’s an adult by turning herself into one, even if it breaks her.”

If it were as simple as that, it’d be easy to deal with. “It’s not about proving it to other people, Mac.

It’s about her.”

“And what about you?” Mackenzie hopped up onto the counter and crossed her legs, the pose deceptively casual when her energy pulsed with what she was—a cat deciding if she wanted to pounce.

“You were an architect when I met you. Now you make Rambo look like a weenie.”

“For your information, I was a badass architect. Not that much has changed.” A lie, but just a tiny one.

“Guns and fighting, that’s all. I probably needed to learn it anyway.”

“Uh-huh. And I saw what you did with it.” She gestured, taking in the building around them. “You’re doing good, you know. When I found out what I was, Jackson had to explain the shapeshifter world to me.

And it scared me worse than knowing there was a crazy Seer out to get me, because it was pretty damn hopeless. You’re changing that. Maybe not for cougars and lions and coyotes…but it’s a start.”

She was saying the sorts of things that always made him uncomfortable, and Andrew fought not to fidget. “I’m doing what Alec asked me to do. It’s not exactly heroic.”

“Tell that to the people who have new clinics in their cities. Alec can only get his work done because no one dares screw with him while you’re watching his back.”

“Maybe, but all that makes me is good backup.” Which was just fine with him.

“Tell me again why Kat’s not in a bomb shelter somewhere?”

“Because I’m not letting her out of my sight. Try to keep up, Mac.”

She flipped him her middle finger with a cheerful grin. “Why aren’t both of you in a bomb shelter somewhere, smartass?”

No matter what, it kept circling around to that question, and you either got the answer or you didn’t.

Until the night he’d almost died, he hadn’t. Now, he couldn’t imagine blowing off the responsibility, even if it meant sacrificing his own wants. He wasn’t the first, and he hoped he wouldn’t be the last.

The crowd at Mahalia’s was typical for a Wednesday night. Led Zeppelin spilled out of the jukebox, almost drowning out the drone of chatter and the clack of pool balls. Andrew scanned the room and spotted Julio and Anna by one of the pool tables. “Over there,” he said, low in Kat’s ear.

She pivoted, then relaxed when she saw Sera bending over the pool table to line up a shot while Miguel watched. “Everyone’s here,” she said, so relieved that she might as well have said, Everyone’s safe.

He laid his hand on the small of her back. “Let’s go give them the heads-up.”

Sera completely missed her shot as they approached, sending the cue ball sailing past everything else on the table to slide neatly into a corner pocket. She straightened with a sigh that turned into Kat’s name.

“I thought you guys were never going to get here.”

Kat jerked her head toward the bar, where Mackenzie had stopped to talk with the manager. “Jackson was doing his thing.”

“Took a while, but we got it done.” Jackson accepted the beers Anna offered and passed one to Mackenzie.

Kat shook her head when offered a beer and glanced at Julio. “Is Patrick in the back? We should probably talk.”

“He’s in the office,” Anna said, already heading toward the hall.

It was eerily quiet in the converted stock room behind the office. Magical soundproofing kept all the noise of the bar out, and would ensure the details of their conversation remained private.

Julio, for one, didn’t wait to start that conversation. “The thing’s dead, right? The collar?”

“As a doornail.” Kat leaned against the door, looking like she’d rather be out at the pool table with Miguel and Sera. Fractures had begun to appear in her icy calm almost as soon as Jackson laid the inert metal on his workbench, declaring it well and truly destroyed.

On the other side of the room, Patrick snapped his phone shut. “I put the word out on this cult as soon as Ben gave me the name, and he’s starting to get some intel back. Might as well find their nest and burn them out once and for all, right?”

“That’s it, then.” Anna hopped up to sit on the table along the wall. “We stay on our guard, just in case, and finish them off.”

“That’s it,” Jackson agreed.

Andrew stepped to the middle of the room. “I’ll call Alec in the morning. The cult members brought wolves with them, which means the Conclave might want their pound of flesh.”

“They can have it.” Kat closed her eyes. “The worst part is over, though. They can’t build their little psychic army any time soon.”

“Calls for a celebration, right?” Jackson drained half his beer and wrapped his arm around Mackenzie.

“Keep your eyes peeled. If anything happens, raise the alarm.”

Julio filed out after them, and Anna followed suit. Patrick paused to squeeze Kat’s shoulder. “Chin up, Katherine. You did good.”

“Thanks, Patrick.” To someone who didn’t know her, the smile might have looked real. Patrick seemed to buy it, and he nodded to Andrew before slipping out of the room.

As soon as the door closed behind him, Kat tried to pull Andrew’s mouth down to hers. He stayed rigid and wrapped his hands around her wrists. “Not so fast, sweetheart. We need to talk.”

“You could have died out there. I could have died out there.” Her fingernails scraped against his neck.

“I didn’t kiss you last time, and I regretted it for a year.”

“Kiss me all you want. After I make sure you’re not still spinning.”

“I’m always spinning, Andrew. I don’t know how to stop.” She tugged against his grip, trying to slide her hands toward the back of his neck. “You could make me stop. I wouldn’t be able to spin if you had control.”

Responsibility was one thing, but she was talking about the kind of control he’d never wanted. “That’s never been my thing. I didn’t know it was yours.”

She laughed shakily as her eyes fluttered shut. “You’re my thing. Wanting you is the only thing in my life that hasn’t changed.”

The cracks in her composure grew with every breath, and Andrew eased her away. “Kat, it’s been a shitty night. Just…sleep on it, and we’ll talk tomorrow.”

“No.” She took a step back, just one, then braced her feet. “I can’t do this anymore. I can’t heal a little and then rip off more of the scab. I can’t live with all this shit hanging over my head.”

The words sliced at him. “I’m sorry about what happened tonight. I’m sorry you had to do it again.”

“Not tonight,” she grated out. “Fourteen months ago. You’re a wolf because I lost control. Because I was scared, and I panicked, and I made those bastards attacking us panic.”

“No.” The denial escaped without thought, but with more than a little panic. “You did what you had to do.”

“Later. Later, I did what I had to do.” Her fingers curled toward her palms. “At first, I was weak and scared and out of control. I screwed up. And if you won’t be mad at me for it, we’re never going to be anything but two people who lie about the worst day of their life.”

He couldn’t hear what she was saying. She had to stop and, for a heart-stopping second, he wanted to scream at her. So he shut it down and answered calmly. “What happened wasn’t your fault.”

“Stop being a damn coward, Andrew. Be mad at me. Hate me.” Her blue eyes were ice as she glared at him. “And if you can’t do either of those, just ’fess up and admit that you think I’m a stupid kid who shouldn’t be held responsible for anything she does.”

His careful, hard-won control didn’t snap. It split—right down the middle, like his heart. Like his life.

“You want me to be mad? To hate you? Fine, I hate you.”

Her face split too. Relief, and pain, and when she spoke, her voice was tight with what could have been rage or tears. “I ruined your life. And then I ruined mine. Some days I don’t know which of us I hate more.”

“How could you not know?” The question had eaten him up inside, and it spilled out now. “Being around Alec and Derek, knowing how close to the edge they get sometimes… How could you not know that flipping your shit on a bunch of wolves was going to make them crazy?”

“I wasn’t thinking. He said—” Her jaw clenched. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t make a choice. I lost control, and I’m sorry.”

His anger faded as suddenly as it had formed, exhausted by her pain, leaving him tired and ashamed.

“Are we finished taking care of what you need, Kat? What makes you feel better? Because I feel like ass.”

“Why?” Her voice broke. It broke, and she broke with it, shattering before his eyes. “Because I’m not like you and Anna and all the other badasses? Because I can’t take it if you treat me like an adult?”

The truth was far simpler—and a hell of a lot more damning. “Because all hating you will do is cost me everything else. Whatever I didn’t lose that night.” You.

She choked on something lost between a laugh and a sob. “We lost each other anyway. And I can’t—” She lifted her hands and scrubbed at her eyes. “If this is what I needed, what do you need?”

It was impossible, literally. “I need for it not to have happened.”

Another helpless laugh. “We’re both fucked, I guess.”

“Yeah.” Anger bubbled up again, this time directed entirely at himself. His own selfishness was yet another thing he hadn’t been able to protect Kat from, and he really did hate her a little for making him admit it. “So what now?”

“Now…” She shrugged. “I guess we figure out if we can forgive each other, or we give up. We can’t build anything good on hating each other and being afraid to admit it.”

They had to be the only people anywhere, ever, who needed to despise each other, and it almost made him want to laugh. “I hate you, Kat,” he said again. “But I don’t want to, and not nearly as much as I hate myself.”

She wet her lips. “Do you hate yourself over me?”

He clenched his hands into helpless fists. “How could I not?”

“It’s recursive. That’s what I keep thinking. We just… We hurt each other and we hate ourselves, and we hurt ourselves and we hate each other. One of us has to…”

“To what?”

She swallowed, then reached for him, stretching up to frame his face. “It broke my heart when you pushed me away. But I forgive you.”

He caught her wrists again, but he didn’t pull her away. “Kat…”

“I forgive myself for killing those men, because it was all I could do. And some day, I’m going to forgive myself for not being able to be cold about it.”

“Stop.” He took a deep breath to ease the tightness in his chest. “I’m going to say it again, and you need to know that I mean it. You did what you had to do. It’s easy for me to blame you, but if you hadn’t unleashed on that strike team, I’d be dead anyway, and you’d be—” He couldn’t say it.

So she did. “He told me he was going to make me watch you die. And if that didn’t convince me to give them access to Alec’s files, they’d torture me.”

No matter what he wished for himself, he could never think she should have allowed that to happen.

“You did the right thing.”

“But not on purpose.” She leaned her forehead against his chin and sighed. “Tonight I did it on purpose.

That’s better for everyone else. Worse for me.”

He drew her into his arms. “You stopped him from getting the collar.”

“I know.” Her voice sounded small. “I did what I had to do, so shouldn’t it feel like it was worth it?

Justified?”

“Some of us aren’t cut out for killing, sweetheart. No matter what.”

“Still makes me feel weak.”

“Because you’re not bloodthirsty?”

“Because I want to do what the rest of you are doing. I want to make our world better, and not be the girl who’s sitting on the sidelines, or back at the office fixing the computers.”

“You haven’t been paying attention.” He tucked her face against his neck and sat on the edge of the table. “Julio and I have been finishing work on the other lofts over at our building. Carmen and Alec have been organizing clinics. What is it exactly that you want to do?”

“I don’t know.” She slipped her arms around his waist and sighed. “I finished my PhD…but I can’t go back, Andrew. I can’t go live in the human world and get a job and be normal. I don’t fit there.”

“Kicking ass isn’t the only way to fit in my world, either.”

“I know.” Easing back, she finally met his eyes. She looked old and tired and oddly amused. “No one ever really feels like they fit anywhere, anyway. I know that. You’d think it’d make it easier to feel so lost.”

“You’re not lost, Kat,” he whispered. “It’s just…a rough spot. If you weren’t going to pull through it, you’d know by now. But you are.”

A nod. Perched on the table, he wasn’t that much taller than her, and she took advantage of it by leaning in to kiss his cheek, lips soft and tentative. “This is it. This is us facing the worst we’ve been. And I am spinning, but that won’t stop until I start fighting for what I want instead of obsessing over what I can’t change.”

He didn’t argue. “One step at a time.” It was all either of them could ask.