Page 5

Disoriented, he glanced to his left and realized they were in a big SUV and the man sitting behind the wheel did indeed have a big-ass handgun or at least that was what it appeared to be with the muzzle pointed straight at him. Guns had never been his thing; he’d been more about putting people back together after the firefight.

In the lights from the dashboard, the planes of the man’s face were sharp, hard. Unforgiving.

Phantom pain lashed through him though nothing was touching him but the belt. Yet the agony was so intense he didn’t know how he’d survive it. He gasped for breath, clawing at the door handle as it abated, left him as hollowed out as an old jack-o-lantern three weeks past Halloween.

He had to get out. Had to get away before the torture started again.

“I said settle down,” the man’s voice rang with the order, and the airman inside Benny actually obeyed before he could think twice.

“Who are you?” Benny croaked, his voice dry with disuse. “Where are we?”

“Davenport,” the man said. “I got you out of there and I’m taking you to safety, but not at the risk of my own. Are we good?”

He didn’t know where the fuck ‘there’ had been, but the panic was subsiding as his surroundings began to make sense to his muddled brain, so he relaxed against the seat. “I don’t know if we’re good, but I’m not going to attack you, and I’m not going to bolt out the door.” At least not yet, he thought to himself.

Before he could make any decisions that’d make him a liar, he needed situational awareness on what the fuck he’d gotten himself into. With the inside of the vehicle and Davenport’s face burned into his mind, he looked through the windshield and, to his shock, recognized the neighborhood. They were in his sister’s neighborhood. Beth. His fraternal twin.

Thinking about her, he felt a pang in his chest that had more to do with heartache than the ghostly pain shivering through his body. He still wasn’t sure what exactly had gone down, but he knew Beth should have been frantic with worry. But instead, all he felt through their twin bond was a deep contentment. True happiness.

“What the fuck happened to me?”

Davenport lowered the weapon but kept it in his lap, still aimed at Benny. “What do you remember?”

Benny thought hard, but all he came up with was blanks when it came to anything recent. He knew his name, knew he’d been in the Air Force. Done a lot of crazy shit as a PJ. He had a twin sister named Beth. Those things were solid in his mind. As was the lingering sensation of unrelenting, screaming agony that his conscious mind shied away from quantifying. “Not much, just that it was a very painful period.”

Davenport barked out a harsh laugh as they pulled into the parking lot of Beth’s apartment building. “A master of understatement, I see,” he said. “Let’s get you upstairs.”

Benny stayed in his seat. “What is this all about?” he asked, now almost afraid of the answer. Part of him wanted, needed to fill that void. The other part cowered in a corner, insisting that knowing the truth would drive him insane.

“Beth and Tate can fill you in, at least as much as they know. I can’t tell you more than that right now, not without blowing everything.” Davenport said quietly, and in his tone Benny heard the truth.

Why would he take me to Beth? Why not the hospital? The cops? Why is Tate there? He didn’t voice the questions, and instead unbelted himself and opened the door, stepping into the nip of an early fall morning.

He stopped dead in his tracks as something teased his memories.

It was cold as fuck outside and it was his turn to feed the cat then bring each of them a cup of coffee in bed before they both had to get ready for work.

His lover’s face was so tantalizingly close to the surface of that memory.

The feel of her beneath his fingers, the scent of her shampoo, the little laugh she made for him, only for him… then it all disintegrated like a dandelion in the wind.

“Let me lead,” Davenport said, breaking into Benny’s contemplation. “It’s going to be quite a shock seeing you after eight months.”

Eight months. The words stopped Benny in his tracks. “What happened to me?” he demanded. “How the fuck have I been gone eight months? I can’t remember anything.”

A distant part of his brain told him that eight months made the cold snap he’d just remembered jive with the fall weather now. But how was that even possible? Everything was a jumble that desperately needed untangling, despite the low-grade dread beginning to truly coalesce within telling him he really didn’t want to know.

Davenport just pushed past him and began to climb the stairs. Benny followed, pounding up the stairs after the man who seemed to be just as much reluctant savior as enigmatic bastard.

The same analytical part of his mind that’d squared away the seasons told him that his body shouldn’t feel this good. That whatever he wasn’t remembering had broken him on a fundamental level, both physical and mental.

They reached Beth’s door and Davenport banged on it with his closed fist, ignoring the doorbell. When there was no answer he banged again, hard. “Wake up,” he muttered under his breath. “I don’t have much time.”

Then Davenport stepped back and held his hands at shoulder level. “Open up, Lyons.”

Benny peered past his shoulder as the door swung open and Benny’s best friend Tate Lyons stood there, in all of his bearded glory, wearing boxers and nothing else, holding a big-ass handgun.

“What do you want, Davenport?” Tate asked, his tone just short of hostile. “As much as I appreciate the whole lifesaving thing yesterday, you can’t just ghost in and out of our lives like this.”