The ocean had been cold, but it had shocked him into consciousness and sealed up his wound, keeping him from bleeding out. Dizzy, nauseous, desperate, he'd forced his head above the choppy waves, his death grip on Zsadist the only-constant. Dragging his twin into his arms, keeping the male's head above water, Phury swam to shore.
Blessedly, there was a cave entrance not far from where they'd taken the plunge, and he used his last reserve of strength to get the two of them toward the dark mouth. After dragging himself and Zsadist from the water, he was all but blind as he went as far into the cave as he could. A curve in the natural architecture was what saved them, giving them the darkness they needed.
In the back, away from the sun, he sheltered them behind large rocks. Gathering Zsadist into his arms to conserve their body heat, he stared ahead into the blackness, utterly lost.
Phury rubbed his eyes, God, the image of Zsadist chained on that bedding platform...
Ever since the rescue he'd had a repeating nightmare, one that never failed to be a fresh horror each time his subconscious coughed it up. The dream was always the same: Him racing down those hidden stairs and throwing open the door. Zsadist tied down. Catronia in the corner, laughing. As soon as Phury was in the cell, Z would turn his head and his black, lifeless eyes would look up from out of an unscarred face. In a hard voice he would say, "Leave me here. I want to stay... here."
That was Phury's cue to wake up in a cold sweat.
"What's doing, my man?"
Butch's voice was jarring, but welcome. Phury scrubbed his face, then glanced over his shoulder. "Just enjoying the view."
"Lemme give you a tip. That's what you do on a tropical beach, not standing out in this kind of cold. Look, come eat with us, okay? Rhage wants pancakes, so Mary's backed a dump truck full of Bisquick into the kitchen. Fritz is about to levitate, he's so worried about not being able to help."
"Yeah. Good deal." As they headed inside, Phury said, "Can I ask you something?"
"Sure. What do you need?"
Phury paused by the pool table and picked up the eight ball. "When you worked in homicide, you saw a lot of fucked-up people, right? People who'd lost their husbands or their wives... sons or daughters." When Butch nodded, he said, "Did you ever find out what happened to them? I mean, the ones who were left behind. Do you know if they ever got over the shit?"
Butch rubbed his thumb over his eyebrow. "I don't know."
"Yeah, I guess you don't really follow up - "
"But I can tell you I never did."
"You mean the sight of those bodies you worked on stuck with you?"
The human shook his head. "You forgot sisters. Brothers and sisters."
"What?"
"People lose husbands, wives, sons, daughters... and sisters and brothers. I lost a sister when I was twelve. Two boys took her behind the baseball diamond at school and used her and beat her until they killed her. I never got over it."
"Jesus - " Phury stopped, realizing they were not alone.
Zsadist stood bare-chested in the doorway to the room. He was flushed with sweat from his head to his Nikes, like he'd run for miles down in the gym.
As Phury stared at his twin, he felt a familiar sinking sensation. It was always like that, as if Z were some kind of low-pressure zone.
Zsadist's voice was hard. "I want both of you to come with me at nightfall."
"Where to?" Butch asked.
"Bella wants to go to her house, and I'm not taking her there without backup. I need a car in case she wants to take some of her shit with her when she leaves, and I want someone to case the place before we land there. The bennie is that there's an escape tunnel out from the basement if things get rough. I checked through it last night when I went to pick up a few things for her."
"I'm good to go," Butch said.
Zsadist's eyes shifted across the room. "You, too, Phury?"
After a moment, Phury nodded. "Yeah. Me, too."
Chapter Twenty-two
That night, as the moon lifted higher in the sky, O eased up from the ground with a groan. He'd been waiting on the edge of the meadow since the sun went down four hours ago, hoping