Through the Static (4 page)

He wanted to see them flushed, pink and full. He wanted to see her well. To make her well.

“Are you just going to watch me eat?”

He nodded.
“And sleep.”

A ghost of a smile tugged at her lips. Had she ever smiled in front of him before? Had anyone?

He couldn't remember.

His fingers curled tightly to his palms, he kept his gaze on her. She retained the sly tilt to the line of her mouth, but otherwise she let him look, let him study her.

When she was about halfway through the packet, her eyes started to droop, her grip slackening. She looked so exhausted. So fragile. What she must have been through tonight…

Moving as quietly and smoothly as he could, Jinx rose and crossed the room to her. He reached out, tentative and shaky-feeling for all that his hands were sure. With the utmost delicacy, he pulled the packet from her loosening fingers. She started when their skin touched, eyes widening and hands closing around air.

“Shh.”

He brought the glass to her lips and urged her to take another sip. Gaze fixed on his, she did as he bade before letting her head fall back. Her eyes closed and she breathed out a shuddering exhale.

“You're safe.”
His lips moved along with the silent words.
“Rest.”

Her whole body slackened, and something inside him did, too. She was so beautiful, so trusting, there in his clothes on his bed.

He couldn't help himself. His fingers twitching, he brought the backs of his knuckles up to run along the line of her cheek. She flinched, and he cursed in his head, tensing for her to pull away. She didn't, though. She leaned into him, as if seeking comfort. From
him
.

Stunned, he let his hand fall. Though he was still aching for contact and for
more
, he retreated to the other side of the room. Put his back to the door, resolving not to move as feelings he didn't know what to do with swirled inside him. Protectiveness. Lust.

A desire for something beyond the needs of his Three.

Her breathing slowed, her eyelashes fluttering. As she slipped off into unconsciousness, he watched over her.

The whole time, the backs of his knuckles burned.

Chapter Four

In the dream, Aurelia was running. Everything was panic, a glinting metal blade whirring through the air and past her ear. Her shoulder was a mess of blood, and then the pain exploded outward. A bolt of lightning shot through her skull. When she lifted her hand to touch the side of her head, it came away wet, wiring sparking against her fingers. Her heart seized and she staggered.

Voices ripped the night apart, echoing in brilliant starbursts in her synapses.

“It's her.”

“Under our noses all this time.”

“Get her.”

She pushed forward, but out of nowhere, another star-shaped blade tore through the night. Tore through her flesh. She tripped.

The second before she hit the ground, her eyes flew open.

She shot up from the mattress, pushing up to sit. Her head and shoulder screamed as she whipped her head around. For an instant, her whole body sagged in relief.

She was in Jinx's room. She was safe.

Then she turned and met dark eyes—the same dark eyes that had looked at her with both tenderness and hunger. In the early dawn light, they were run through with fear.

“What's going on—”

“Shh.”

He was still sitting with his back against the door, his knees bent in front of him. Keeping his eyes locked on hers, he rose to his full height and reached into the waistband of his jeans. His hand emerged wrapped around a weapon, and Aurelia's heart thundered.

She scrambled to anchor herself back in the connection between their minds.
“Jinx.”

“I'm sorry.”

Gone was the sensual man of the night before. His movements were all stiffness as he stepped away from the door and raised his arms.

He pointed the weapon at her.

She should have known.

Before she could despair, before she could try to formulate a plan, his voice was in her head again. It was panicked and unsure, but the underlying tone was imploring.
“You should have told me, Aurelia.”

Oh, God. He knew her name.

In the next instant, the door burst open. The other two members of his Three stormed into the room, weapons similarly drawn. As they did, Jinx's posture straightened even further, and a little part of Aurelia's heart broke. Except for his eyes, he looked every bit the automaton he was meant to be.

She met his gaze, sucked in a deep breath at the way his irises burned. He didn't push any more words into her thoughts, but she sensed his emotions all the same. They screamed of treachery.

But was it his partners' betrayal or her own?

The shutters to his mind slammed down, forcibly shoving her back and into her own thoughts. She shivered against the cold isolation there, something frantic clawing at her lungs. The world felt suddenly empty without the touch of his consciousness against hers.

She forced herself to look away, but being confronted with the barrels of three guns did nothing for her calm. She lifted her arms, wincing against the flare of pain, and scooted herself backward so her spine was to the wall.

The big man stepped forward, eyes narrowed, smirk triumphant. “Well, well, well. Aurelia Locke.”

She didn't respond to the name except to raise her chin. Isabel's words echoed in her head.

Take control of the situation, even if it's completely beyond you. Act as if you own it.

At the time, Aurelia had scoffed, but her mentor's advice on how to handle a kidnapping came back to her, sounding sage through the lens of hindsight.

Sure enough, as she stared him down, a little of the man's bluster faded, the slightest twitch appearing under his eye. He kept his dominating stance, though. Tilting his head to the side, he asked, “You get anything out of her?”

“No. Nothing.”

Aurelia wouldn't let herself look at Jinx. Whatever betrayal he felt couldn't possibly be a match for her own. He'd been so kind the night before, so fierce in his protectiveness. She shook her head against the emotion tugging at her throat. He'd been a good actor was what he'd been.

Thank God she hadn't let him touch her.

The leader sneered. “No? Well, we'll fix that.”

The menace in his words made her want to cower, but she kept her outward calm. She was weak and outnumbered, but as her gaze flitted between the three guns and their owners, she was scrambling, too. She had strengths. Knowledge.

She flung her mind out into the network of invisible wires between them, trying yet again to infiltrate the Three's silent communication. Much as she had the night before, she was able to hook onto the frequency of it, but the words and thoughts flew past her in crackles and pops, isolated ideas that ended as quickly as they had begun.

“What should…interrogate…or call it in first?”

“…get a crack at her…”

Then with shocking clarity, a myriad of images appeared in her mind. Gruesome images. Twisted mouths and snapped bones, fingernails tearing and blood and…

For the first time since her name had been spoken aloud, Aurelia snapped her gaze up to Jinx's, only to find his visage a barely restrained mask of horror. His hands wavered around the handle of his weapon, doubt so clear in every line of him.

But still, he stood firm. He was
made
to stand firm.

Desperate, she forced open the connection to his mind again and spoke directly into his thoughts. Unsure if it was an accusation or a plea, she whispered her reminder.
“You promised you wouldn't let them touch me.”

His mouth crumpled but his stance remained impassive, his weapon raised.

As the others closed in, she couldn't understand how she'd actually believed him.

“Don't even think about it.”

“You have your orders, soldier.”

Another jolt of electricity seared Jinx's spine, adding to the blanket of control keeping him in place. No longer his own, his arms ached as he fought in vain to lower them. To all outward appearances, he was utterly still, but inside he was all movement, all thoughts flying out into the ether of his link.

“Don't do this,”
he pleaded.
“Don't—”

The lick of electrical flame was hot enough to make his eyes roll back.

In his mind, he saw what they were going to do to her, what they would make him do to her. He lashed out again, trying to reason with them.
“She can help us. She's innocent. We don't have to. We don't.”

“You're with us or against us. One mind, one mission.”

Going numb from the pain, he rebuffed commands to advance, to reach for the knife tucked into his boot. But he still couldn't make himself move the way he wanted to.

Aurelia's eyes fixed on his. The contrast with how she'd looked at him the night before couldn't have been starker. Instead of trust, there was disappointment and resignation. Betrayal.

He'd betrayed her as surely as his Three was betraying him.

His knees threatened to buckle as their efforts to control him intensified. The rush of thoughts and commands overwhelmed his synapses, and his will to disobey shriveled beneath the onslaught. With his eyes, he begged Aurelia for forgiveness. From the hard set of her jaw, he knew she granted him none.

Curse reached out and grabbed her by the back of her hair, yanking her upward, and her scream tore through the room. Jinx felt her agony, a shock of pain down his neck and to his shoulder blade. She squeezed her eyes shut. Jinx wished he could close his own.

And then there were more eyes. Dark ones gathering on the edges of his vision. A woman with a pale face, staring out at him through the static.

The sadness choked him.

Aurelia's silent whisper cut through the chaos.
“Help me. Please.”

He looked from the ethereal face to Aurelia's. Both their voices echoed his own.

“Stop this. Please stop this.”

But nothing stopped. Curse squeezed Aurelia's shoulder, wringing another cry from her.

And Jinx couldn't be still anymore. He couldn't.

With his arms screaming at him, he forced his weapon to lower, forced his legs to take one step back. The electrical backlash still coursed up and down his spine, but he ignored it.

All he had to do was advance a few steps, lift the handle of his gun and crack it down on Curse's skull. Subdue Charm. Grab Aurelia and run.

He just—

A crushing wave of suppression made him stagger.

He couldn't force his hand against his partners. He couldn't. He looked on, helpless, as Curse shook Aurelia again. When her eyes met Jinx's, he saw the despair and the fight in them.

The fight rose up in him as well.

Holding her gaze, he reached out for her mind and shuddered with relief when his thoughts found purchase in it.

She was Aurelia Locke. The woman he'd helped patch together last night was Aurelia Locke.

If anyone could do it, she could.

“Free me.”

Her eyes widened.
“I don't know if I can.”

“Free me.”

In the next instant, Charm was in front of him, her face twisted with anger as she lifted her hand and slapped him. His ears rang with the shock of it, and he fought to make his own fists come under his control.

“Free me.”

Charm was wrestling with his locked hands for his gun, and in his periphery, Jinx saw Curse lift Aurelia higher, saw him gather her hands behind her back and then slam her down, face-first onto the mattress. He placed his knee in the center of her back, and her scream cut off in a gasp that cut deeper into Jinx than her cries had.

“Free me.”

“Hold on to me.”

All at once, Jinx's brain exploded, a thousand electrical signals all crossing at once, synapses firing into nothingness. He felt the world falling out from underneath him as a silence so complete, so unbearable, shut down all his senses. His knees gave out beneath him, but he didn't feel the impact.

“Hold on to me.”

He flailed out in the darkness for the soft tenor of her mind. When he found it, he grasped tightly to the sound of her mental voice and followed it, dragging himself to the surface.

In a burst, his vision returned, but the silence still deafened him. Charm was standing over him, her weapon leveled at him. Her brows were pinched, and Jinx expected the flood of pain and anger, but it didn't come. Instead he floated.

But he was tethered, too.

Warm whispers of encouragement, underscored by the quietest wisps of panic filled the spaces left by his partners' voices. Like a hand in the darkness, Aurelia's mental energy held him to the world.

And helped him up. Filled him with energy and with
life.

Feeling all his strength return, Jinx flung himself up from the ground. Half his synapses were still misfiring, but for the first time in years, his actions were entirely his own. He lashed out, knocked Charm to the floor and stood over her.

“You made me hurt her. You were going to make me hurt her.”

Charm's mouth opened and closed, but no sounds came out. He reached down, lifted her head and slammed it against the floor.

Her eyes closed.

“Help me.”

He whipped around, adrenaline and rage surging through him. Curse stood over Aurelia, horrible sounds coming out of his mouth.

Jinx didn't wait to listen to them. In an instant he was upon them, clinging to his former leader's back with one arm wrapped around his throat, the other pulling at his hands, forcing the bigger man to let go. Freed, Aurelia rolled away, and then Jinx was fighting for his life.

And hers.

He kicked and punched, tore at Curse's chest. His fist came away bloody, and then his spine was slamming into the wall, Curse's head bashing into his temple. His limbs all cried out, wanting to let go, but he held on as his skull hit plaster again and again.

“Stop!”

He looked up at the same time Curse froze. Aurelia stood before the both of them, a gun in her hand, her arms shaking. She motioned with the muzzle of the weapon.

“Let him go.”

Curse's arms twitched, hesitation making him pause for just a second.

Jinx didn't falter. As Curse vacillated, Jinx twisted, pulled hard and yanked himself from between the man's huge body and the wall. In the next instant, he slammed Curse's head into the plaster. Kicked him again and again.

Only when the man went limp did Aurelia's voice break into his haze.

“Stop. Stop, you have to stop.”

The veil of violence and madness receded just long enough for him to look back at her.

“You can't. Kill him, and it'll kill you, too.”

She shook as she pointed the gun at them both.

“The link?”
he asked.

“Interrupted, but not severed. He dies, you die.”

Jinx glanced between Curse's still form and Aurelia's shivering one.

He only took the time to grab Curse's weapon. And then her hand was in his, and it was as if every broken piece of himself clicked into place at once. As if everything suddenly made sense.

And he could never go back.

He breathed into her mind the single word,
“Run.”