Page 57 of Fuse

Why? How?

That same mind fires an answer at me with terrifying speed. An image, flashing through like a snippet of a nightmare—because that’s what it still feels like.

The moments before Kane begged me to end him…

That electric worm he tried ramming into my ear…

The unbearable pain that made me fight back…

And what if you didn’t get it all, cariño?

What if I really did get inside…just a little?

What if I am there this very moment, sliding through your synapses and wading into your blood? And what if I soon shall be swimming there? In every thought you have. In every drop you bleed…

“Never!”

But as I prepare to repeat the snarl with at least fifty more punches into the rock, there’s a movement in my periphery. I whip a glare to the person attached to it, with his bleary daze, mussed hair, and barely zipped khaki shorts—though he tosses back some respect by straightening his stance and smacking a hand to the middle of his chest, which is covered by a wrinkled T-shirt centered by a grinning Naruto.

“Dude.” Sawyer shakes his head. “You’ve either had too much coffee or need a shit ton more.” He holds up a steaming coffee mug with his other hand. “Take mine if you need. Your mom brewed a pot of Peet’s deliciousness.”

I force myself to take a deep breath and jerk my head no. “Not going to help.” I don’t know why I’m so certain of that, aside from the fact that the last twenty-four hours have included one bizarre funeral, a couple of paradigm-changing orgasms, an attack on my adopted city, ending that attack by having to take my friend’s life, and not a second’s worth of sleep—which all leads to the last nail in my sanity coffin in the form of a Faline-themed ghost stalking my fucking mind.

And there’s where my certitude comes from. Last time I checked, caffeine and coffins weren’t a winning combination. I’m not going to be that guy, traumatized to the point of postmortem sympathy feels for Kane, including any credence to the bitch queen who hardwired herself into his head—and might have maneuvered him into implanting me with a similar device.

Doesn’t m-m-matter anymore… It’s done… All…done…

“No.” Though I snarl it at the memory, Sawyer barely flinches. Clearly he still thinks I’m making a personal mission statement about the coffee—or not. Not a lot the guy doesn’t know or flinch at about this crazy journey of mine so far. He knows I’ve already rendered my sacrifice to the Faline Garand altar in the church of the Consortium. He also knows about the two, sometimes three, torture sessions I endured each day and how that adds up to nearly four hundred hours the woman has already played Nurse Ratched with my mind while her minions played lunatic lab fun with my body.

But what he doesn’t know is that I was sometimes too weak to fight it.

That at times, the pain of her in my psyche was easier to face than the agony of the changes in my blood.

But I’m not that weak anymore. Even stumbling back to the runaway rolling chair and then plunking into it, I’m five thousand kinds of ready to backhand that bitch out of my brain faster than a fly on a fucking picnic basket.

“All right.” Foley extends both words with his unique combination of casual and insightful, bypassing the two modular chairs in the room in favor of the loveseat against the wall—or at least that’s what the catalogue called the thing. I haven’t gone near the damn thing, which looks more like a crostini of leather supported by aluminum chopsticks, but Foley mounts the thing with the grace of a bobcat and then dangles his coffee cup from between his braced elbows. “So what will help?”

“A lobotomy?” I retort.

He takes a contemplative sip from his cup. “Things went that shitty yesterday?”

I rise again, fighting prickling heat along my skin, feeling once more like a pinball in a damn coffin. “What time is it?” I ask, though my cell is sitting on the desk.

“Little after six.” Foley, being the ideal wingman he is, simply accepts the deflection. He even adds, as if knowing I need it, “In the morning.”

“And you’re here now…why?”

“Because Lydia is.” To his credit, there’s still no flinch in his tone or gaze. To his further credit, he leaves his coffee untouched as our stares lock. “Yesterday was rough on everyone. Being here for her was important.”

I tilt my head and hone my gaze. “She’s become that important?” As I lean against the desk, I insert, “Asking for a friend. As in my fiancée. Who’s likely to grill you harder about your intentions than Laurel and Todd Crist combined.”

His lips form a firm line. He still doesn’t falter. Not even to take a Cool Hand Sawyer whiff of his java. “You can tell Emma I like the grill hot.” And finally lifts the cup back up, indulging a huge gulp, as if knowing how thoroughly that’s going to shut my maw for a long moment, before going at me again with the jabbing jade slice of his scrutiny. “We done with pissing on the charcoals now? You want to tell me what really had you ready to turn your office into a quarry?” And once more, because my brain’s the real quarry and he’s probably been snoring into ’Dia’s chest for a few hours, he’s more ready on the new uptake. “What the fuck happened on that rooftop, Richards?”

I cobble together a tight grunt. “You were there.”

“Watching from the chopper,” he volleys. “Which was a good thing, since Angelique kept wanting to jump out and help you.”

“Help me?” I’m almost glad for the open perplexity I can display. “And she reasoned that out to you…how?”