Blurred Memories (17 page)

Kate’s eyes went back and
forth between her two lovers as she tried to read between the
lines. She had figured the previous night that something had taken
place between the two of them, something dark and unpleasant, but
she didn’t know if she should ask about it. However much they both
loved her, their history together had begun before she was even
born, and she didn’t want to pry. At the same time, though, she
didn’t like feeling left out.

“
Is the coffee bad?” Marc
asked, and Kate realized she had lowered her mug as she
thought.

“
No, it’s good,” she said,
taking a sip as though to demonstrate. “I’m just wondering what I
missed last night when I didn’t join you two.”

They both went very still,
and Kate swallowed a sigh. They wouldn’t tell her.

“
I was wondering the same
thing,” Marc said, a twisted smile pulling at his lips to soften
his words. “You two look like you had a good night.”

Kate translated that as a
night without Blake having an episode, which indeed was good.
Episodes like the one he had experienced on the battlefield were
often followed by more of the same. Although the way he had stormed
out of Jen’s interrogation could be seen as an episode, too. What
had
happened after that? Why had Marc been gone for the rest
of the night?

“
Did you get any rest?” she
asked, taking another slow sip of coffee.

Marc’s shrug could have
meant anything. “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.” He glanced at the
clock and nodded toward it. “Daniel called a squad meeting in the
ballroom in twenty minutes. Go ahead and finish your breakfast.
I’ll take a quick shower.”

A knot tightened painfully
in Kate’s throat, and it had nothing to do with the coffee. Why did
it feel like he was running away from them? Why, when one of the
men she loved was finally allowing her to get close again, was the
other one pulling away?

“
I hurt him last night,”
Blake murmured into his own mug.

Kate turned to him more
fully, taken aback by this sudden confidence. “Hurt him?” she
repeated just as quietly, hoping that Marc wouldn’t hear over the
sound of the rushing water. “You mean, you hit him?”

A grimace crossed Blake’s
features. “I did, yeah, but that’s not what I mean. I…” He closed
his eyes for a moment, and Kate stroked his fingers lightly. “I
told him he should have found a way to come get me.”

A pang resonated through
Kate, deep and shattering. It was all too easy to imagine the words
being thrown at her, too.

“
He couldn’t,” she
whispered. “None of us could. We didn’t know where—”

Blake pressed two fingers to
her mouth, and she fell silent.

“
I know that. I do. I know
there’s nothing anyone could have done. I know I was unfair when I
accused him of giving up. But I just…” He shook his head. “I
couldn’t help myself. I…”

His next words were so raw
that tears prickled Kate’s eyes.

“
I was hurt, so I hurt him.
I didn’t mean…”

Only when he stopped and
turned to Marc did Kate realize the shower had stopped running.
Marc stood there, wearing a fresh pair of pants, his shirt
unbuttoned. Kate watched the two of them with a heavy heart and
wished that she knew what to say to make things better.

“
It’s fine,” Marc said, his
voice low and a little rough. “
We
’re fine. If you let go of
just a bit of pain, then it’s better than fine.”

One of these days, Kate
thought with no small amount of bitterness, they would all have to
stop using the word ‘fine’ altogether; it had long ago ceased to
carry any meaning. Judging from Blake’s blank expression, he wasn’t
buying it, either.

“
Come on, finish your
breakfast and get dressed,” Marc added a little more lightly now.
“I want to hear what Daniel has to say.”

The toast had no flavor, but
at least the coffee was decent. Blake finished his breakfast before
Kate did and was already dressed by the time she retreated to the
bathroom with her toiletries and a change of clothes. She closed
the door but listened intently, wondering if they would talk while
she was out of the room; they didn’t seem to, and she didn’t know
whether that was a good or a bad thing. They needed to talk; God
only knew how much they all did.

* * * *

The meeting was like every
squad meeting Blake remembered attending: dull and far too long.
Honestly, how many words did it take to inform the squad that they
would return to the breach for Simon to run more tests, and that
Daniel’s superiors were still evaluating the intelligence offered
by their prisoner? Blake interpreted that second piece of news as
meaning at least someone thought, like he did, that Jen was not to
be trusted, and he felt slightly vindicated.

He fidgeted in his seat,
feeling restless and wishing he could leave the reception hall
already. Kate and Marc were sitting on either side of him, however,
and they would both be alarmed if he left for no apparent reason.
They knew how easily he got bored, but still he was ready to bet
they’d assume he was falling prey to another memory, and he didn’t
want to alarm them now.

He didn’t want to worry
Kate, not after the lovely night they had spent together; he hadn’t
thought it possible to share such a quiet, gentle time with her
anymore, and he was glad they could—both for himself and because he
could still give her some of the things she wanted from
him.

He didn’t want to worry
Marc, either, although for entirely different reasons. Blake was
sorry he had lashed out at Marc the previous night. With his nerves
still raw from recognizing that demon on the battlefield and from
Jen being allowed to spew her lies, Blake hadn’t been thinking when
he’d flung those hurtful words in Marc’s face. Blake had only
wanted to wound Marc, the same way Blake himself was wounded. He
had done the same thing in the past, and afterward he and Marc had
always made up with sex and shared blood. It seemed unlikely to
happen that way now, so how was Blake supposed to show he was
sorry?

As Daniel, at the front of
the room, continued to go on and on about the plan, Blake allowed
his gaze to drift over the audience. Daniel had once had more than
a hundred soldiers under his command, but now there were only a
dozen and half. Blake wondered if it had anything to do with the
fact that Daniel was a vampire. When Blake and Marc had first
joined the squad, some soldiers had been cool toward them because
of what they were.

Blake found himself frowning
at the memory. He would never understand why he could recall some
insignificant things so easily when other, more important memories
were unclear, as though smudged by what had happened in the demon
dimension.

“
Everything okay?” Kate
whispered the words so close to Blake’s ear that he could feel her
warm breath against his skin.

“
Just bored,” he murmured.
“Daniel really likes to hear himself talk, doesn’t he?”

Marc made a tiny sound in
his throat that might have been a stifled laugh, and Kate couldn’t
restrain a smile. Neither said a word, but they both relaxed,
apparently convinced, at least for now, that Blake was all
right.

For once, it wasn’t even a
lie.

As Blake’s mind drifted
again, his eyes focused on Simon, seated a little ahead on the far
left side. His shoulders were hunched and he was squirming every so
often. He seemed downright miserable. Was he feeling bad for not
figuring out what was keeping the breach open? He could sometimes
be very touchy about his magical abilities.

When the meeting finally
ended, Kate said that she wanted to talk to Daniel. Her gaze
flicked between Marc and Blake.

“
I’ll go with you,” Marc
replied, and they both looked at Blake.

“
I’ve heard enough,” Blake
said, shaking his head. “I’ll pass on the second round. See you
both later.”

And before either of them
could change their mind and decide to stay with him, he hurried out
of the room and after a gloomy Simon. He caught up with him in the
hotel lobby as Simon waited by the elevators.

“
Going back to your room
already?”

Simon jumped, clearly
startled, and turned to look at Blake. “Oh. Hey. Yeah, I didn’t get
much sleep, so I figured…”

He shrugged but didn’t
finish. There was something vaguely hopeful in his eyes, though,
and Blake remembered what Simon had said on the roof about them
never getting a chance to talk without someone standing guard
nearby. Blake hadn’t realized it until then, but he hadn’t really
been out of sight or hearing of Kate, Marc, or both in weeks, if
not more.

“
I was going to see if I
can find some insta-coffee somewhere. Would you like—”

“
Sure!”

In the face of Simon’s
suddenly beaming grin, Blake couldn’t suppress a smile of his own.
They hunted down the kitchen together, and while a couple of
soldiers were already working at putting lunch together, they
pointed to a pot of coffee to one side of the room and a row of
mugs on a tray. Blake and Simon helped themselves and took their
mugs out into the dining area. A couple other people were chatting
over coffee or a late breakfast, but Blake didn’t recognize any of
them. They must have been the town’s soldiers, the fighters whose
job it was to keep the demons out of their town until the squad
could finally close the breach.

“
Ready for tonight?” Blake
asked as they sat at a nearby table.

Simon froze, his mug halfway
to his lips. He set it down again without taking a sip. “Tonight?”
he repeated. “You mean…”

Raising an eyebrow at him,
Blake wondered if he should have let Simon go get some more sleep.
“Going back to the breach to figure out why it won’t
close?”

“
Oh!” Simon looked relieved
for some inexplicable reason. “That. Yes. Sure. I mean, I don’t
know what I can do differently.”

Blake couldn’t help but
shake his head. “Do you ever? Seems to me, your best spells are the
ones you make up when you need to.”

Simon’s gaze lit up for a
second—but it soon darkened again as it dropped down toward Blake’s
lap, visible through the clear-top table. Blake looked down as
well, and was surprised to find himself scratching his thigh. The
gesture could have been entirely innocuous, but they both knew what
hid under Blake’s jeans, inked into his skin by the
demons.

“
Sometimes,” Simon said
absently, now looking into his coffee mug as though looking for
answers in its depths. “And sometimes I need a little help. But I
will figure it out.” He looked up again, and when he met Blake’s
eyes, there was no more hesitation in his gaze, only determination.
“I swear, I’ll fix it.”

Blake didn’t know whether he
was still talking about the breach. He also didn’t know what to
think of it.

Chapter 15

As Kate followed Marc out of
Daniel’s office, disappointment and anger raged through her, a
storm that slammed the office door shut in its wake. The banging
noise wasn’t half as satisfying as it should have been.

“
Are you okay?” Marc asked,
his hand rubbing slow circles into her back.

“
I’m fine,” she snapped,
and oh, how well she now understood why Blake grimaced when he gave
that meaningless reassurance!

She regretted her outburst
at once. It wasn’t Marc’s fault, after all. She leaned against him
as they walked, a tactile apology to accompany her words. “I’m
sorry. I’m not mad at you. It’s just…” She didn’t know how to
finish. It was all so stupid and senseless! She let out a
grunt.

A soldier who was standing
guard in the corridor in front of Jen’s improvised cell gave her a
startled look, and she glared at him, then at the locked door. It
wasn’t Jen’s fault, either; she had only reported what she knew. If
she hadn’t been a traitor, everything might have been different.
Daniel’s superiors might not have been so diffident. The poor
people in the demon prison might not have been doomed.

“
I know,” Marc said, his
hand still offering a comforting touch. “It’s hard to accept.
Although it can’t be the first time you’ve gotten an order you
didn’t like.”

They had reached the
elevators. As they stood there, waiting for the silver doors to
open, Kate snorted.

“
No, it’s not,” she
conceded. “But Daniel used to be very good at finding a way around
the orders he didn’t like. This time he’s not even going to try to
change their minds. They said no, and that’s all that matters to
him. I don’t get it.”

“
Don’t you?” Marc asked.
“They kicked him out of the squad once. Is it so hard to imagine he
doesn’t want to lose his place again?”

Kate only needed a second to
think about it. “Yes, it is hard to imagine,” she said defiantly as
they stepped into the elevator. “Daniel and me, we both joined the
squad for the same reason: help people and fight demons. What’s the
point if our superiors won’t let us do that? Maybe it’s time to
quit and fight on our own.”