Sadie’s fingers were cool against his skin, but all he could feel was heat. A decade on and the memories still burned when they surfaced. The open furnace blasting in the tiny room where Sadie had been kept. The broken bones protruding from her skin. They’d barely made it out alive.
He blinked the images away, and Sadie dropped her hand, her voice softening. “Maybe I should envy you. I still can’t feel anything, but clearly you can.”
“Not much. Just certain people.”
“Cas.”
He nodded. Caspian most of all.
Sadie flopped back in the chair with a sigh. “Alright. Fine. How can I be of service to you, brother mine?”
“Take the guy to the kill room in Barrow Heights. I’ll send Madi that way, and we’ll join you in two hours. I need to pack.”
“You going to call Madi or am I?”
“Considering I just left, I’ll give you the pleasure. Otherwise, he’ll hold it over my head.”
“And what a pleasure it will be.” Sadie stood and moved behind the couch, walking the length of Cas’s scribbling one more time, like she might puzzle out the connection herself. “You know Madi’s going to hold it over your head anyway.”
* * *
“Sadie left?” Cas came up behind Jonah in the kitchen, then opened the fridge, inspecting the contents dismally before Jonah nudged him out of the way and closed the door.
“I’m heating up soup.” He thumbed toward the stove. “And there’s cheese toast in the oven. Sadie’s not much for family reunions. We’ll meet up with her and Madi in a couple of hours. We need to pack between now and then.”
“Wait, what about the guy and leverage?”
“That’s not a guarantee, so we need to be able to cut out quickly. You have a passport? A fresh one, not the one you used last time,” he clarified.
Cas nodded then shook his head, a habit that had always confused Jonah as much as it amused him. “You’d really come with me, though?”
“Not immediately.Shit,”he grumbled, dropping the toast onto a plate and shaking out his hand. “I have to stick around and make sure everything pans out.”
“I always thought Sadie was your biological sister. But she’s not, is she?”
“We both had the same boss once. In a lot of ways, that makes her closer than blood.” Jonah poured the soup from the pot directly into a mug and set it and the toast on the table. Five-star dining.
“I’m getting the idea this wasn’t a standard office job where you were cubicle mates.” Cas flashed a wry smile.
“Are you imagining me and Sadie in business casual?”
“Maybe.” Cas sidled closer and draped his arms around Jonah’s neck. “It’s sexier than anticipated. You, that is. Not Sadie. Sadie scares the shit out of me. She has dead eyes.”
“Yeah. She didn’t always.”
“So, you both were, like, private mercenaries for him? God, he must’ve been some kind of baller.”
“He was, but we weren’t his private mercenaries at first.” Jonah angled his cheek to one side, rubbing it against the silky crown of Cas’s head in a slow, rhythmic motion meant to sand off the vivid edges of his memories. “We fucked whoever he told us to and brought him back money or secrets.”
Cas pulled away, staring up at Jonah. “What the fuck? Are you serious? Why haven’t you ever told me any of this?” Underneath the indignation, Jonah thought he detected a sliver of hurt.
“They’re not pleasant memories, Caspian. Getting fucked wasn’t the only thing that happened to us. And I promise I’ll tell you the whole thing. But not right now. Let’s eat and pack.”
Cas pressed against Jonah, caging him against the counter, and slid his hands under his shirt, running his fingers over Jonah’s ribs. “Is that why you wouldn’t let me go with that guy at the bus station?”
Jonah lowered his mouth to Cas’s, kissing the right corner, then the middle, and then the left corner. He touched his pulse and threaded his fingers through the wet ends of Cas’s hair. He had the deepest blue eyes Jonah had ever seen. Endless. Infinite. A color without an accurate name. And he was so beautiful, so goddamn beautiful. Jonah had never known what to do with beautiful things. He always seemed to destroy them. He’d tried not to do the same with Cas, but he supposed if he’d succeeded, Cas wouldn’t be in front of him right now, chin tipped up, soft features expectant.
“The way your eyes look right now… How bright and alert and vivid and fucking full of life they are. They looked that way at the station that day, too. I didn’t want that asshole to take it away from you.”
