Fifth a Fury (Goddess Isles, #5) Page 3

  “Your leg...” Campbell pushed me away, his hands running over the same thigh with its harpoon-stitched hole. He pushed a new bump, prodded at new heat. “Without an X-ray, I can’t be sure, but I think you’ve fractured your tibia...wait...” He worked his way down my mangled appendage. “Your ankle.” He circled the new swelling, moving his inspection to my foot when I cringed. “And your foot.” He palpitated my toes, each exploration finding pain, pain, motherfucking pain!

  “You’re in pieces, Sinclair. Your ankle is fractured, and from what I can feel, at least three metatarsals. You can’t walk. Not with the harpoon hole and—”

  I snatched him around the throat, squeezing mercilessly. “Give me another dose of Tritec.”

  His eyes flared as his hands wrapped around my wrist, doing his best to get free. “No way.” He gagged as I squeezed harder. “You’ll...die.”

  I let him go, shoving him away from me. “Get me the syringe. Don’t make me ask again.”

  He coughed and stood, his stare saying everything. “You’re not asking now.”

  “You’re right. Get it.”

  “You take it and you’re a dead man.”

  “I’m a dead man if I don’t.” My fists tightened into boulders. “I’m not leaving her with him. I’m done.”

  “Send someone else. You’re in no condition—”

  “Tritec, Doctor. Otherwise, I will rip out your goddamn throat. I still owe you for what you caused. You’re a traitor. Your denial is only cementing my need to punish you.”

  “Christ, Sinclair.” He backed away. “I told you why I did what—”

  “I don’t have fucking time for this!” I tried to stand and howled like an enraged bear. “The needle. Now!”

  He tripped and scurried away.

  It wasn’t just the police afraid of me.

  He was afraid of me.

  Everyone was afraid of what they’d salvaged from the sea.

  Good.

  I no longer wanted to be a man, bound with weakness and feeble, breakable bones.

  I wanted to be the creature in the dark, the fable no one uttered, the Grim Reaper swiping the sickle himself.

  Fisting the steel frame of the bed, I gritted my teeth and hauled myself upright. Seemed at least one leg remained workable from my dismount out of a flying machine. The other...it would bow to my vengeance or I’d remove it. I was done with deadweight holding me back.

  Pika descended on my shoulder, his tweets and panic sounding manic in my ear as he nibbled and head butted my throat.

  Campbell took his fucking time raiding the cupboard.

  Each minute was a minute that Eleanor was in Drake’s possession.

  Each minute he could touch her, hurt her, rape her.

  “The syringe!” I held out my hand, sickly sweat pouring down my temples, mixing with sea and sins. “Now.”

  He shook his head as his hands continued to rifle through the boxes. “Reconsider, Sinclair. You’ve already had a dose. You don’t know when that will cease working. It might cause cardiac arrest, a stroke, a coma—”

  “I’m aware of the risks.” I hopped toward him, spying a pair of crutches resting against the wall. “The needle and a crutch, then you’re free to tend to Jealousy.”

  “It goes against my Hippocratic Oath, Sullivan. If I give you another dose, you. Will. Die.”

  “And if you don’t give me another dose, you will die.” I cocked my head. “And as much as I want your blood to flow, I need you alive to keep Jess alive.” Fury tried to suck me back, to delete the pain making my head swim, to pull me away from living and return to just watching.

  It was calmer that way.

  Distant and remote and focused.

  I fought its pull.

  I needed one last weapon before I allowed myself to succumb completely.

  I snapped my fingers, jolting Campbell into action. “Last chance.”

  “Jesus Christ.” Finding the right box, he pulled it free, ignoring the yellow and red warning sticker. A label coloured with dangerous pigments to alert the user of how risky its contents were. Warnings of death and serious complications.

  The drug was another form of elixir with irreversible side effects. A tonic and stimulant—a brew that had the power to disable pain and enable the user to do what was necessary before they succumbed.

  I didn’t care about the price.

  I didn’t worry about the future.

  All that mattered was her.

  In Drake’s hands.

  Too far for me to protect her.

  Facing a future of pain and horror and—

  “Fucking do it, Jim.”

  “For God’s sake.” Campbell grabbed a crutch on his way past, handing it to me and placing the box of potentially lethal injections on the bed. Selecting one, he unwrapped it, uncapped it, tapped out any air, and tore open an alcohol swab from his pocket.

  Pika fluttered to the bed, squeaking grimly, his beady black eyes intelligent enough to understand something dangerous was happening. Something he didn’t like.

  Campbell’s jaw clenched. His hand lowered. “If I administer this, the percentage of you surviving are—”

  “I know the math.” I held out my arm. “Do it.”

  “What if it’s not enough to get her back? To win?”

  “It will be. I’ll make sure of it.”

  “She won’t be happy if you save her only to die a few hours later.”

  “She doesn’t have a choice in the matter.” I narrowed my eyes. “Once she’s safe and Drake is dead, nothing else matters anymore.”

  “Love matters, Sullivan. Love can change you. It’s already changed—”

  “Love is dead if I delay any longer!” I hoisted my arm higher, ignoring my chugging heart and the quiet whisper of sanity. I could be buying Eleanor’s life with my own.

  And I would take that trade.

  Because I refused to go back to the man I’d been.

  I hated who I was.

  No existence was possible for me unless Eleanor was in my world.

  That was the point of a sacrifice. It wasn’t noble. It wasn’t heroic.

  It was selfish.

  Just like every other emotion a human being could conjure.

  I would die because I was selfish and couldn’t bear to live in a world without her.

  Campbell sighed and swiped the swab over my bicep. With steady hands from a lifetime of being a doctor, he punctured my skin, pressed the plunger, and shot the golden contents into my bloodstream.

  The second the needle had emptied, he tossed it into a biohazard bin and raked both hands through his hair. “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing here anymore.”

  “Go back and keep Jess alive.” Using the crutch, I hopped across his surgery to the phone resting on the wall. A landline. Archaic in this day and age but technology I was grateful for.

  Dialling a number I knew by heart, I waited until it connected with my hangar in Jakarta. The second Ametung answered, I growled, “Hire twenty mercenaries who aren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty. Use Quietus—their details are still on file.”

  Pika tried to bite the cord, dangling upside down with his usual antics. I needed to console him. To offer some sort of commiseration that I was still his, even if every part of me was cloaked in rage.

  But if I let empathy enter my soul in my current predicament...it wouldn’t just be my broken bones destroying me.

  Eleanor...

  “Anything else?” Ametung asked.

  “Prepare the jet. Get the crew ready. I’m on my way.”

  “Consider it done.”

  I hung up.

  I marched outside even as Cal’s voice followed me from his bed in the recovery ward. “Hey, sir. Sully!”

  I didn’t stop.

  “Go to Skittles, Pika. You can’t follow me where I’m going.”

  I once again leapt from my body.

  I let fury be my master.

  The bird studied me, cursed
me, lost me. He squeaked, then gave up on me, flying away from a demon.

  I inhaled hard.

  Tritec iced through my veins, numbing me, freeing me.

  Free to bathe in blood and turn into a nightmare.

  I took my place above such mundane activities of men.

  I played chess from my place of watching, cursing my physical weakness as I hobbled with a crutch, walking on a broken leg, fractured ankle, and foot, slowly standing taller as Tritec-87 kicked in.

  Heartbeat by heartbeat, breath by breath, the pain receded, the panic deleted, and fury welcomed me back.

  My pawn had become a knight.

  I was ready for the final checkmate.

  I’m coming, Eleanor.

  I’m coming...

  Chapter Three

  THE HUMAN PSYCHE HAD always intrigued me.

  From the dynamics in the school playground to the ethics within work environments, human nature was a fickle beast.

  I’d seen the same theme while travelling.

  Some people could accept rules with no complaint while others boycotted the mere whisper of boundaries. Those who were used to travel had the inherent ability to adapt to a new situation while those who’d never stepped out of their comfort zone panicked at the slightest unforeseen change.

  I liked to think I was skilled at adaptation. I hadn’t always been that way—I’d started off naïve and passive, my life unopen to challenge and change.

  But now...I had no such qualms.

  I gave up trying to predict or control.

  There was no predicting or controlling when you were someone’s prisoner.

  Either by a man who bought your life and ended up stealing your heart, or by his brother who threatened your existence and wielded sadism as a personal skill.

  I had no say in how I would be treated, no way to stop men from thinking they could own me, and even if I did, Drake wasn’t predictable because he operated outside the usual parameters of human psyche. He had no switch inside to prevent him from doing terrible things, no empathy to stop him from hurting others, and no rationale to reason with.

  He was just evil.

  Simple and stupidly evil.

  I stayed silent as he flew me away from Sully’s archipelago and into the heart of Jakarta. He returned me to a city that’d done its best at blocking me from Sully. He dragged me from one winged machine to another one, stuffing me onboard a private plane where another two mercenaries waited on the tarmac to greet us.

  The helicopter pilots didn’t say goodbye, both their faces relieved to no longer be employed by a madman.

  The boxes of elixir were stowed in the back of the plane, the engines kicked into life, the new captain and first officer prepared to fly us to who knew where, and Drake sat heavily in the luxurious cream seat across the aisle from me.

  His outburst on Monyet and his success at stealing Sully’s elixir had drained him of his reserves, and the moment the plane switched from taxiing to soaring into the star-dusted sky, he pressed a button on his chair, reclined to horizontal, draped a blanket over his body, and growled at his three mercenaries, “She moves, you shoot her.”

  The click of three safeties being flicked off echoed even louder than a Boeing engine.

  I stiffened in my seat, my heart chugging, my mind skipping between past, present, and future, and Drake completely discounted me.

  He fell asleep with a smug grin on his face, revealing yet another side to his nature.

  This asshole needed to get his way in all things. He was a vindictive, nasty boy who’d never been disciplined, yet he could let down his guard and sleep beside a girl who couldn’t stop plotting ways to kill him.

  Of stabbing him with a fork.

  Of strangling him with my seatbelt.

  Of kicking him in the balls so hard they ruptured and bled out.

  I needed him to die.

  It was a visceral longing.

  Something I chewed and choked on.

  His every breath stole one from Sully. Two brothers genetically linked and bound—a symbolic bind that said one couldn’t survive while the other existed. It was either Drake or Sully.

  Yin and yang.

  Light and dark.

  And if I can just kill this bastard, Sully will be okay.

  I still couldn’t sense if Sully was alive or not.

  And the farther I travelled from him, the more that panic grew.

  Why can’t I feel him?

  Had I ever been able to sense him, or had I been romanticizing that in Jakarta when Sully had sent me away?

  Sully...you better be okay.

  I’m begging you.

  My eyelids drooped as time ticked onward, and the monotonous sound of flying deadened the outside world.

  I’d somehow stayed awake after suffering elixir through sheer willpower and then necessity. I’d fought my every need and walked beside Sully while he’d carried Jess to Dr Campbell’s.

  It’d been the hardest thing.

  But I did it because I’d been such a hindrance to Sully when he’d tried to rescue me. I’d been dangerous and reckless, and my insides were still covered in slimy shame for what I’d made him do.

  Having sex in front of those men.

  Making him share me with strangers and their greedy gazes.

  Ugh.

  I wished I could delete my actions and get on my knees with atonement.

  Walking beside him—staying awake despite elixir’s toll—had been my apology to him. My oath that I would be strong for him after he’d been so damn strong for me.

  And I would continue being strong because regardless if Sully was alive or not...I didn’t have any other choice.

  I wouldn’t lay down and take this.

  I wouldn’t permit a man like Drake to steal my damn life.

  It didn’t matter that my heart still skipped unnervingly or sometimes tripped into ribs, keeping it trapped. It didn’t matter that my dealings with Drake kept adrenaline coasting through my veins when I was wrung out, strung out, and afraid I wouldn’t have the capacity to remain brave.

  Elixir had left my body a wasteland of bruises and truant heartbeats, but I would never complain of my ills because...Sully.

  Before he’d been pushed out of a damn helicopter, he’d already had more cuts, scars, contusions, and stitches than I’d ever endured in my entire life. He’d staggered beneath torture and marched against his enemies without ever bemoaning or giving in.

  For all his faults, Sully had been stripped of every mask he’d ever donned and his soul had been revealed. A soul I’d known existed the moment I saw him kiss Pika. A soul that would do absolutely anything to protect those he loved.

  If he was alive...I had no doubt he would come for me. I didn’t have to second-guess or pretend our relationship didn’t hold the same value to him. The only problem was...he would come for me no matter the personal cost. It wouldn’t matter if he had one foot in this world and one in a coffin; if he still breathed...he’ll come.

  And that terrified me as well as mollified because if he did chase me. If he once again put me over his pain, he might be sentencing me to a future I wouldn’t be able to survive.

  Drake’s touch could never break me.

  Drake’s rape, Drake’s torment, Drake’s ownership...they were just tremors in my life. Tiny earthquakes that had no strength to topple my inner towers or open giant fissures in my psyche.

  But if Sully came...and if Sully lost...that would be an earthquake far too catastrophic to withstand.

  But I need him to come.

  I have to believe we’ll both be okay.

  Ugh, stop!

  I rubbed at my stinging eyes.

  Focus. Get through this. Worry when it’s tomorrow.

  Slouching in my seat, I once again fought the heavy weight on my eyelashes.

  Sleep.

  No!

  Not with him next to me.

  You have to sleep...you’ve run out of miracles.

  My b
ody knocked impatiently for rest, hammering on the door of my mind and slipping quietly past my worries to drag me closer to unconsciousness.

  I wanted to sleep.

  I needed to rest so my brain stopped being foggy and my body repaired. Sleep wasn’t just a luxury but a necessity, but how the hell was I supposed to close my eyes in his presence?

  The idea of sleeping next to Sully had taken me time to accept...I could never be that vulnerable next to Drake.

  Never.

  My visions bounced as I struggled to focus. My heart continued to trip and skip. My head ached from being hit, and my limbs weighed five times their usual mass.

  Sleep, Ellie.

  No!

  I gritted my teeth, fighting off the sleepy smog.

  I looked out the oval window at the endless carpet of sea, clouds, and stars. The moon turned an otherwise dark vista into a silvery masterpiece, etching clouds, highlighting the world in monochrome.

  If I could just focus on that...I can stay awake.

  “Would you like something to eat?”

  I whipped my head from the outside and blinked at an airhostess. She swayed a little in my sleepy stare.

  I blinked again, stifling a yawn.

  Where had she come from?

  She held a tray with a foil-covered plate and a bottle of apple juice. She passed it to me, pulling a table from my armrest. “Here. You look exhausted.”

  Everything was sluggish.

  Scents of food wafted from the foil.

  My stomach growled.

  I might not be able to sleep, but I should nourish my body. I would do whatever it took to survive the turbulence that existed in my future.

  I had no idea how long this flight would last or where Drake was taking me. I had some idea of what he’d do to me when we arrived, and I had a lot of fear over what state I’d be in once he’d had his fill, but all I could currently control was keeping my strength up, so I could fight when the time came.

  Sully....

  My appetite flickered as nausea returned.

  The airhostess, with her carefully coiled blonde hair, murmured, “It’s beef ragu, my favourite. Enjoy.”

  No...

  My shoulders rolled.

  I didn’t bother peeling away the foil.

  Padding away in high heels so impractical for long hours in the sky, the stewardess deposited food to the mercenaries behind me, filling the cabin with the scent of dinner. The stench of cow flesh and slaughter.