Page 8 of Fuse

She lifts her head back up. This time, there are no hurricanes or cutlasses in her gaze. It’s permeated with only one defined energy.

Fear.

“A weapon they have been working diligently on. I do not know what they are calling it right now, but…”

“But what?” Sawyer gives the order now, stomping up to stand next to Reece—until Angie pins him in place with a gaze distorted by even more apprehension.

At last, she whispers, “But we used to call him Kane.”

Chapter Three

Reece

Every single sense in my body—yeah, the sixth one too, whatever the hell that means right now—is on high alert, crackling with awareness every time Angie’s face changes by the slightest nuance. Anyone who’s ever written off the theory that humans aren’t creatures capable of raw electric energy simply hasn’t been plugged in to someone bristling with intense emotion.

I’m really plugged into Angelique La Salle now. Whether either of us likes it or not. Though at the moment, I’m not certain she’s given herself permission to feel anything, bad or good, about the bomb of information she’s just dropped on us. I’m also considering that might be the hugest chunk of wisdom the woman’s ever had. I’m sure as hell struggling for the same neutrality, though failing miserably, while processing the announcement that’s just tumbled out of her.

We used to call him Kane.

“Holy. Fucking. Hell.” I say it with soft volume but harsh emphasis.

Angelique looks ready to roll her eyes. The haunted darkness in them serves as the instant off button for the notion. “I am not certain there is anything ‘holy’ about any of this,” she mutters.

“About what?” Sawyer interjects. “The last time we saw Kane, he’d signed for Mitch’s body and then left for Charles de Gaulle.”

“Tibet.” I blurt it as if everyone needs to be filled in. They all know where Kane has been for the last month. They all know, because each of us at some point has voiced that we wished we were in the same place. Even yours truly, the head taskmaster of the Team Bolt research crew, has had at least a couple of moments a day of yearning for the peace and pulchritude of the Himalayas.

Angelique eyes me with anything but peace and pulchritude. “He did not go to Tibet.”

“What the hell?” Wade, who’s been dutifully quiet along with Fershan and Alex, finally fires it.

It’s oddly comforting to watch Angelique respond by thrusting out a hip and folding her arms. For an awesome moment, the woman who arrived up here beneath a cloud of her own trepidation is back to being the bitch de fantastique, complete with a pouty scowl. “He did not go to Tibet.”

I draw in a deep breath, surprised when I don’t inhale the stench of shit. Though Angie’s simply relaying the mess Kane got himself into, the news itself is disgusting enough for a tangible reek. “He went to Spain,” I finally state, grimacing from the equally fetid burn of the words. But just wiping them away and moving along isn’t anywhere near an option anymore—a truth getting a solid underline in the distinct tension of Angelique’s posture and the way she sweeps the toe of one elegant boot back and forth through the dirt.

“Fucking. Hell.” The echo gets extra punctuation in the form of my heavy stomps—backward. If I don’t get some distance from everyone, I’m liable to clock someone in Kane’s place. And yeah, probably in my own place too—because if it had been me having to sign for Emma’s body in Paris, I’d have done the same thing he did. Screw peace and pulchritude; the only obsession on my mind would have been vengeance on everyone in the Source I could get my hands on.

No matter how high the shitpile I created because of it.

The massive mound poor Angie has had to haul all the way here from Spain.

The least I can do is relieve her of it now.

During another labored inhalation, I concentrate on flexing my fingers in place of fisting them up. Only when I’m sure all ten will stay spread and at my sides do I go on.

“Okay, so let me take a spin at the rest of this now,” I growl. “He never got on the plane to Lhasa. He had Mitch cremated in Paris, which is why the ashes got back to us so fast.” Not observing a speck of denial in Angie’s gaze, I barely pause before going on. “He flew straight to Barcelona instead—but passed up the castles, the churches, the aqueduct, and Ibiza and instantly went for the gutter. Started scratching all the right underbellies in all the right places. And surprise, surprise, the Scorpios scratched right back.”

Angelique’s posture remains steady; her stare continues as clear as a windless sea—but she’s changing too. Subtly. Enough to tell me that whatever I’ve assumed as the facts in all this, it gets even worse.

“But the Scorpios didn’t stop at just scratching, did they?” I get out with deceptive calm. “Goddamnit.” And maybe calm is fucking overrated. “They got him, didn’t they?” I stomp back over the dried twigs and pebbles beneath us while struggling to dig my mind into the sickening truth I have to vocalize. “Those monsters got their claws into him. And…changed him.”

From the second Angelique dives her gaze to the ground, I already know I’ve banged that gong of fact. But the ominous gulp she lets me see as a follow-up? I’m clueless about interpreting that and not sure I want to. My relief hits in a rush as the woman pulls in a noticeable breath and then starts to pace in a careful circle herself. She’s not going to make me guess at the next part—though my heart rams my ribs harder as she contemplates how to express it.

“He was very upset,” she mutters. “And bitter. And determined. He wanted vengeance for Mitch.”

I jerk my way through another nod. “I know. His death haunts me every day too.” Another step, a louder crunch underfoot. “It’s a hell I wouldn’t wish on anyone I care for.”

She nods, but not as if my consolation has changed anything. Knowing Kane, even if I stood here and professed it to his face, it wouldn’t. “He refused to listen to me, even after they brought him in and locked him up,” she declares, swiping a hand back across her mottled skull. She curls her fingers at her nape, as though she’s forgotten she’s not wearing her wig, and there’s no real hair left to grab. For a telling instant, a wince takes over her face, though I sense the expression has nothing to do with her missing hair. Clearly she’s just figured out what the two boulders on the ridge stand for.