investigation, but the great thing about this was, no one saw any need to investigate. It was an open-and-shut case with all the right paperwork to prove it. The groundwork was already laid with your public descent into drugs and rehab.”
“Then it was no knee-jerk reaction to a mistake,” he said slowly. “It was planned for a long time before my death.”
He knew, she realised. He knew it was Dale. There was relief that she wasn’t the one to break it to him, but mostly she just hurt for him.
“I’d hoped it wasn’t,” he said with such difficulty that she pressed her cheek closer to his, as if she could absorb his pain and take it away from him. “There were other people in the house that night, besides Dale and Petra and me and the bloke I killed. I heard them. So did Dale and Petra—the noise seemed to panic them way beyond what was already going on. If I had to be shot, I wish it had been by those strangers.”
Jilly closed her eyes. “They weren’t strangers,” she got out. “They were my brothers breaking in to steal stuff. Someone put them up to it with false promises of an empty house. They’re not that bright. They ran away when they heard the gunshots. They thought it was Dale shooting at them.”
For a moment, he didn’t say anything; then he lifted his head a little to look at her. Her cheek felt cold.
“You have quite a family.”
“Tell me about it.”
“I realised he was dead,” Adam said steadily. “I stared at him, stared at my aching fingers, my brain numb. I wasn’t even relieved to be alive by then. I was just beginning to wonder what the hell I was going to do about it when this huge explosion seemed to rip my ears off. I remember falling forward, realizing I’d been shot in the back, and then the pain hit. And that was it, apart from a few hazy, fevered dreams. Until I woke up looking at you in the test lab.”
She hugged him, pressing her cheek to his once more. “Where were Dale and Petra while you were fighting with Killearn? What did they do?”
“I don’t really know. They shouted a lot. I remember Petra squealing, and Dale yelling at her to get out of the way. I caught glimpses of them sometimes, sort of circling around us, looking terrified. I kept wondering why Dale didn’t help me, why he didn’t realise this was life or death for me. But he’d never been a fighter, not in the physical sense. I put it down to that.”
He drew in a shuddering breath. His arms tightened again. “I’ve no idea where they were when I was shot. Not in my line of vision. They weren’t even on my mind anymore. I was thinking about the man I’d killed.”
“Stop,” she said. “Stop thinking about it now. I’ve got it. It’s all right. It will be all right. Sera’ll set you free.”
He stilled, and stupidly, it was only now that he’d stopped dancing that she registered they’d been doing a kind of informal waltz all the way through the traumatic conversation.
Slowly, he detached his cheek from hers once more. “You mean she’ll send me away. That’s not free. If I was free, I’d be here with you. And I’d be alive.”
Her heart beat and beat, every stroke both pain and warm, soothing joy, because she was up there in his thoughts and desires. “Freedom isn’t the same as wishing,” she whispered. “Sera can explain it better than me. You mustn’t cling to the world.”
His lips quirked. “The world clung to me first. But I have to say death with you, JK, is a surprising pleasure, even with all the other crap.” The veiled pain in his eyes seemed to have dissolved into a warm, growing heat that caught at her breath. “Fuck, you’re beautiful. Why did I not know you before?”
“We never moved in the same circles.” It wasn’t a bad effort, although the mockery was spoiled by the strange quivering of her voice, which she couldn’t seem to control.
“Didn’t we? We’re both computer nerds; we both play games.” He seemed to be inhaling her, his nose and mouth hovering over her lips, and cheek, her ear, her hair. “We even lived in the same city for the last eight years. God, you smell good.”
“I don’t know why. I don’t wear perfume.” Did I just say that?
“Maybe it’s shower gel or