My thumb’s almost raw from circling my pendant when Jax lands back in the port room covered in blood. Evan’s not with him, just Sam and a woman I’ve never seen before whose wailing echoes off the walls. Jax rips the port bands off and shoves them at Sam, who shouts, “Same location.”
Hannah gives him the thumbs up, and he ports right back out.
Blood soaks Jax from head to foot.
I run across the room, but pull up short just before him. Keeping the personal boundaries he set in place. The woman’s howls bounce off the inside of my head as I take him in. My hands refusing to stay by my sides, tug at his shirt. Blood covers so much of it, but I can’t find a wound, can’t find where it’s coming from. The shirt’s soaked through with no rips or tears; must be under the jacket, maybe his arm. I push it off his shoulders, but still can’t find a hole. The front of his shirt is so bloody he’s got to be about to pass out. I run my hands over every inch, but nothing’s there. Dear god, this is bad. Must be his leg.
“Mae.” His warm hand cups my cheek and I drag my gaze up to his soft, sad eyes. “It’s not me. I couldn’t save the second hostage.”
“Oh ...” My hands fist in his jacket. He’s okay, at least physically, he’s not bleeding. I take a deep breath. “I’m so sorry. I should have been there to help. You saved her though—she’s the other hostage, right?”
He nods and drops his hand from my face, leaving it feeling empty.
The woman’s wailing has quieted and I look across as the blond girl, Hannah, leads her out of the room. Another innocent victim who’ll need our help. There’s been so many. The Collective usually aren’t sloppy like this, they don’t leave any witnesses. Something’s changed and I’d bet my life that it’s Manvyke’s hunt.
“What happened?” I ask Jax.
“Yes, what happened?” Beau echoes my question.
“It was Nik.” Jax moves off the port mat and toward the edge of the room. “He had two hostages; that woman and a man. He didn’t stand a chance.” Anger slips across Jax’s face. “He just ... I couldn’t reach him in time.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Evan’s soft voice comes from across the room a second before he joins our circle around Jax. I can feel Will behind me and Sam crowds in too.
Jax shrugs and clenches his blood-covered hands. “Either way, we lost him.” He meets my eyes. “They want an exchange.”
Sam pushes through to stand by Beau. “Why did he call you brother?”
“That’s not important.” Beau shuts him down, but Sam cuts the older man a questioning glare.
Holy harpy. They don’t know about Jax? My respect for Beau triples in that single instant. To protect Jax’s reputation, his privacy like that ... wow.
“But—”
“It’s a figure of speech, Sam. A taunt. Forget it,” Beau says.
“And what the hell is a Tarlequin?”
I shouldn’t be surprised, not really, that that’s what Nik asked for. An exchange though? What does he want to swap it for if he killed one hostage and we have the other? Surely not more hostages. He knows we won’t part with it, won’t give Manvyke all that power, but we can’t let innocent people die either.
Jax’s eyes flick across mine, like he’s waiting for something. There must be more to this, something I’m missing. I drum my fingers against my leg. Clearly he wants me to read between the lines, but I can’t figure it—
Everything inside me slips to the pit of my stomach.
“Xane?”
Jax frowns like he’s trying to figure out a puzzle, but only has the one piece. “Xane?”
“He’s the hostage Nik’s threatening to kill.”
“Xane’s not a hostage ...”
That should make me feel better, but it doesn’t because he’d only trade for one other person.
“Oh my gosh, it’s her. They want to exchange it for her, don’t they?”
Jax nods, but his expression ends the conversation.
“Who?” Beau asks.
Sam answers, “The guy said Annie.”
“Your mom, Mae—” Will grunts at my elbow plowing into his stomach and Jax takes a tiny step back, hitting the wall. It’s not enough to escape Beau, who says, “Right, you three.” As he pins Jax, Will, then me with a withering stare. “My office, now, and you can get my daughter too.”
Great, just freaking great. Looks like the past few weeks have finally caught up with us. It doesn’t matter, though. It can’t matter. We can’t save her, because putting the Tarlequin in Manvyke’s hands is too great a risk. We may as well just hand him whatever he needs for his ridiculous world domination plan. Beau shoulders his way between Will and I, growling, “Now.”
“I’ll get her,” Will says.
Deliberately holding my head high, I follow Beau out of the port room. From the hallway, I hear Evan yell, “Everything’s resolved for now, Beau.”
Beau doesn’t turn around just continues his purposeful stride down the corridor, his dark-skinned arms swinging by his sides. This isn’t going to be pretty, but I don’t care. Beau’s not as scary as he thinks he is. Jax grabs my arm and pulls me back, but not to a complete stop. Once Beau’s a good distance in front, he whispers, “We’ll work this out, okay.”
“We can’t, Jax.”
He presses a finger to my lips, triggering a ripple through my entire body. “We’ll get around Beau.”
Getting around Beau isn’t easy, and really, that’s not the issue. It’s getting around Manvyke that we need to work out.
“Let’s just see what he knows, okay?”
We fall into silence for a few steps, but damn ... “Xane is a prisoner. Nik caught him helping us.”
“Shit.”
“We have to help him.”
Jax tosses a fist into the wall. “It has to wait until after.”
We’re already at the downstairs room that can barely be called an office. Beau is pacing, which is never a good sign. I try to ignore him as the minutes drag on, but traffic buzzes along the road outside which doesn’t help the anxiousness pinging through my head. Annie, Xane, Annie, Xane. Mom, mom, mom.
Finally, Will arrives with an indignant Lilly, her hair all over the place like he dragged her out of bed.
“Sit down,” Beau says.
I drop into one of the armchairs and Will does the same. Lilly settles on the arm of my chair, and Jax remains standing despite the presence of another vacant seat. His jaw is set and a visible pulse throbs in his throat. Beau ignores his obvious defiance.
“I’ve trusted you lot all these weeks, now it’s time for you trust me. What’s going on?”
At first I can’t speak, I don’t think anyone can. He’s trusted us, what’s that supposed to mean? He hauled me off the field to teach for goodness sake. And now we need to trust him. Whatever.
He turns to Jax. “And you, where the hell did you disappear to? Were you ever planning on telling me about whatever the hell’s going down with Nikias?”
I wouldn’t have thought it was possible for Jax’s stare to get more intense, but his arms tighten across his chest and he leans against the wall never breaking Beau’s glare. In fact, he kind of looks like he’s trying to stare the older man down. Beau’s not finished though; he turns back to Lilly and me.
“I knew you were up to something, but I didn’t jump in. You’ve handled yourselves rather well in the past, and I didn’t have the time with all of these attacks. You deserved a chance, but I hoped you’d come to me before it escalated out of control.”
“Manvyke has Mae’s mom in an apartment in the city,” Lilly blurts. “We followed him there. We met with Mae’s friend from the Collective and he told us that Manvyke’s up to something funny. That was after we asked him about Mae’s mom, because Mae’s worried Manvyke’s going to hurt her.”
Jax groans.
Will shifts in his chair, tucking a long leg underneath it.
And Beau, he stares at his daughter like he knows there’s more. And damn it, she doesn’t disappoint dear old dad.
“We only took the truck once without asking,” Lilly continues. Talk about verbal diarrhea. “The other time you said we could have it, and hey ...” Her eyes widen. “Did you hide it from us that time?”
“I’ve got no idea what you’re talking about, Lilly.” Beau’s attention finally snaps away and he slumps into an old recliner. “Is that all you’ve done?”
“Yes,” she says.
I sneak a sideways glance at Jax, who shrugs as if to say, whatever. We can’t do much else after Lilly’s mammoth confession.
“We’ve had it under control and we haven’t done anything dangerous,” Will says. “Thanks for giving us your trust.”
“Yes, well.” Beau glances toward Jax, clearly expecting another confession. Good luck to him.
“Went to Frank’s place, but you’d know that if you’d asked Evan.” He lets out a long breath. “Turns out he was expecting help from you anyway, which never came.”
“So ...” Beau springs to his feet, resuming his pacing along the length of the room and ignoring Jax’s quip. “We’re not giving Manvyke anything. I won’t deal with terrorists.”
Will shuffles onto the edge of his chair. “But we can’t—”
“Sit down.” Beau’s glare pushes Will back into his seat.
“What do you know about where ... Annie,” he looks at me and I nod, “is being held?”
“It’s an apartment over on Wilcox,” Will says. “He’s got her in the penthouse but we can’t get up there.”
“Right. And what about this alleged meeting? What are the details for that?”
“Central Park at noon tomorrow, just me and Mae and,” Jax blows out a breath, “no funny stuff.”
Beau crosses the room, stops in front of the window and raps his fingers against it. It’s like the rest of us are playing one of those kiddie games of freeze. No one moves for a long time, and the only the sound is his constant tapping. Finally, Beau speaks.
“Here’s what we’re going to do.”