Despair: A Deadly Seven Novel, page 5
He was right. Daisy had been too busy scouting sniper positions and following her psychopathic father around as he machinated and planned. Even after Julius had rescued her from the first lab, he brought her to a second lab. It wasn’t until he was sure she was well and truly brainwashed that he brought her to his home. And then she had to live in the attic.
She didn’t want to think about that now.
Axel looked like he wanted to ask her a question but held his tongue. Instead, he did something even more uncomfortable. He guided her to the plate and stood behind her, making sure to line up their hips before sliding his hands down her arms until they covered her fingers around the bat.
If Daisy’s body liked Elena’s embrace, it rejoiced at Axel’s. Every nerve ending was on fire. The yin-yang tattoo on her inner wrist itched as the ink changed color to reflect her now balanced internal sin equilibrium. She lost focus and shivered. It had been so long since she’d had human contact like this. Not just the quick embrace of family or required touch like how he’d carried her after pulling her from the storm drain—but affectionate, deliberate, intimate touch.
“You okay?” he asked.
“You set my body on fire,” she blurted. Then immediately felt the flush of a blush in her cheeks.
She heard his intake of breath. His pause as he considered his reply, and then… his lips hovered at her ear as he spoke. “I’d like to say I’m good at putting out fires, but I don’t want to.” He tightened his grip on her hands. “I’d rather control the burn. Would you like that, minha margarida? If you’re nervous, will you let me help you?”
Why was she out of breath? Why did his words sound so sexual? Were they? Yes. Wait. Were they? And why did he just call her a margarita? That was the part where his tone had dropped to a baritone. It had to be a nickname. She had no idea what was going on, and while she weighed his words, trying to figure out what would be an acceptable response, he gave a breathy grunt that sounded suspiciously like a self-satisfied chuckle.
As if rendering her speechless was his goal all along.
“Hold the bat like this,” he said gruffly, all business again. His breath was hot near her ear and sent shivers down her spine. “You have to look at the bat, Daze.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat and focused forward.
“Relax,” he said. “Drop your shoulders.”
Daisy exhaled. With her breath, so went her tension. But then came glaring awareness of the tall, muscular and hot-blooded fireman behind her. He knew full well what he was doing with this position. His intimate tone was deliberate. The closeness of his hips to hers.
“Hands need to be this far apart.” Husky. Rich. Deep. “Point the bat at the ceiling. Yes. Like that. Good work, Daze. Good.” He kicked her feet apart. “Widen your stance. Perfect.”
His praise triggered butterflies in her stomach. Just as quickly as he’d arrived, he gave her ass a friendly swat and then jogged back to the pitch machine. They stared at each other down the length of the cage. Daisy’s world shifted on its axis from the force of his attention. The fingerprints he’d left on her body remained. It was a seismic shift in her being. She’d never had someone look at her so piercingly, so full of… longing. Never had she felt an echo of it back.
He smiled and said, “Ready?”
She cleared her throat and nodded.
He flicked on the pitch machine and dropped the ball into the chute. The ball hurtled at her from across the expanse, but all she could do was hold his steady gaze. Brown, striking eyes looking at her as if she was his world. So lost in the trap, she forgot about the ball flying toward her face. Axel, also captive, realized a split second before she did.
“Look out!” he bellowed.
The ball! She closed her eyes, waiting for the hit to her face.
Nothing.
“Holy shit.” Axel’s voice had her peeling open wary eyes.
The baseball floated in the air an inch before her nose, but the moment she registered what had happened, it dropped. Axel rushed over.
“You saw that, right?” He picked up the ball. “I mean… what the fuck? It stopped in front of your face like it was caught in jelly.” He locked eyes with her. “Did you do that?”
Daisy’s heart halted. She gasped in a breath. “I don’t… I don’t know.”
“You wanna see if we can do it again?”
We? He acted like he was on her team. He didn’t even know he was her mate, or the effect he had on her internal sin equilibrium.
“Axel…” She shook her head and stared anywhere but at him. It was one thing for him to know secret things about her family, but actively helping her in this would turn the tide of their relationship. “I don’t know.”
“Hey.” He dipped to catch her eyes. “That’s a good thing, right? If it was you that stopped it, doesn’t it mean you’re becoming like your siblings? You’re leveling up?”
“It means…” She couldn’t let it out, because once she did, then it became real.
His long lashes swept down in a slow blink as he waited for her to continue, and when she couldn’t, he pushed her further.
“Tell me why you were running out the door when I found you?” His brows pinched in concern. “Is it something to do with your powers? Are your family not treating you well? Because if they aren’t, then—”
“How much do you know about us?” she asked. Most Faithful were strategically kept unaware of the grander Syndicate operation. She wasn’t sure how much Axel knew. Toward the end, he must have had more security clearance than most if he had access to her in the prison lab.
“I don’t know much about you except what I’ve put together from being a Faithful. I know more about the replicate system than anything else, and even then, I was kept in the dark about most things. You know what it’s like for the Faithful.”
“So… what do you know about us, specifically?”
“Well, my sister talks incessantly about you all, plus I picked up some things from the Syndicate. You were created in a lab to sense sin. You have powers, except not all of you do. Or—” His brow furrowed as he recollected. “Maybe you do but something happens to unlock them. I know that you each have a special person in your life that balances your sin, and that’s why they were kidnapped. Julius wanted your stem cells to help him fix a problem they have with the replicates. I figured that out after he mumbled something he shouldn’t have in one of his crazy, talking to himself moments. And he kept you from your brothers and sisters for decades.” His eyes locked with her. “You were lied to.”
Hearing him say it like that made Julius’s version of the truth even more fake. It was his fault Gloria set the fire in the first place. It was him who said Daisy’s siblings didn’t want her. He’d made it look like Daisy was dead, so Mary and Flint never came back for her.
She didn’t think Axel knew about the mating bond… specifically theirs. And with the way he looked at her, all stars and hope, she knew she’d end up disappointing him. Or, like he did with his sister, he’d end up doing bad things for her and she couldn’t be the cause of another stain on his heart.
For some explicable reason, his eternal optimism had survived. She couldn’t be the one to finally crush it out. He was a good person at the core. She wasn’t.
“I don’t know if I can give you what you want, Axel.”
He cocked his head, confused, probably at Daisy’s sudden turn of the conversation. “You don’t know what I want.”
“I know I’m not it.”
Something shuttered in his eyes and he stepped back. He picked up a bat to study it. When he finally slid his gaze to her, it was with a look that belied his age. Confidence. Determination. Heat. He pointed the bat at her face and said, “I’m going to enjoy correcting that statement.”
She snatched the bat from him. “I don’t want this.”
He tugged it back. “You don’t know what you want.”
“I know there’s too much pressure,” she blurted. His eyes narrowed. He stared, clearly understanding there was more to this situation than she let on. Each second that ticked by chipped away at her resolve until the rest of her worries tumbled out. “They want me to be like them, but I’m not. I’m not a hero. They expect me to be a savior and I’m not. You saw the kind of work I did for the Syndicate. I’m a bad person, Axel. You don’t need that in your life, trust me.”
“But you’re trying to be good.”
She threw up her hands. “A fat load of good that’s doing. I can’t find their missing mates. The city is falling apart. Your sister is dying. You’re—” she cut herself off before she blew it and said he was her mate. She’d already said too much. “I’m over a decade older than you. It’s clear you want more than friendship.”
“I do,” he admitted.
“But I just ran away from my responsibilities, and now my powers are triggering, and I have no fucking clue what to do.”
He tossed the bat and stalked closer to cup her nape. That simple touch was like a button to release her tension. She had no idea how he did it. Every time he touched her, she melted for him.
“When I was younger,” he said, “my father—meu pai—used to help me with school work. Once, I had a science paper due. I’d studied. I knew the subject, but every time I stared at the blank paper before me, I froze. Meu pai sat me down and said, ‘Não pense no todo. Comece com o que você sabe.’ Don’t think about everything. Start with what you know.”
“I don’t understand.” That statement was stupid. There were too many things she knew. Not all of them relevant.
“You know I’m your friend,” he said.
“Friend…” Daisy tested the word. It felt nice. But not quite right for him.
Axel continued, “You know Elena thinks the world of you, and you know I want…” His gaze blazed a slow path down her body. He seemed to catch himself admiring her, cleared his throat and met her eyes again. “But what do you know for sure, Daisy Lazarus? Tell me one thing.”
She opened her mouth but nothing came out. This was the opportunity to reveal he was her mate. He mentioned he understood every Lazarus sibling had a special person that balanced their sin. It would be logical to talk about it now… but everything was loaded with expectations, even the small things.
Something shuffled in the shadows beside the pitch. They whirled toward the sound. A white robed intruder emerged from the shadows. It was impossible to see his identity behind the faceless white mask. Slits for eyes, nose and mouth. One of the Faithful. Daisy had been the one to pick those masks from the Halloween shelves when the psychotic henchmen were born. She’d only been fourteen at the time. Julius had paraded her down the store aisles and said to pick the most frightening costume.
To her, the most terrifying mask was a blank canvas—no emotion, no identity, nothing.
Two more Faithful entered the room. Each held knives or a bloody katana sword; standard weapons for them, but after the Seven had destroyed the clubhouses during their hunt for their missing mates, there should have been nothing left.
Clearly, they’d regrouped somewhere. Daisy should have realized. The Faithful were fanatical cockroaches, impossible to eradicate.
Daisy picked up the fallen baseball bat. She checked on Elena sleeping soundly to the side of the net, then shared a glance with Axel. He inched closer to his sister.
Their leader’s gaze shifted to Axel then to Daisy. His voice came out muffled through the mask. “Falcon?”
She wasn’t surprised they recognized her. With silver hair and violet eyes, she stood out.
“What do you want?” she asked.
They all glanced at each other, confused. The leader shrugged. “We’re just sowing chaos like the boss asked. Isn’t that what you’re doing?”
They had no idea Daisy had defected. Or Axel. The shock of it hit Daisy hard. Had Julius not put the word out that she was public enemy number one as far as they were concerned? Madness must well and truly have a hold of Julius’s usually ruthless and strategic mind.
Parker’s fiancée used to be a Sinner—one of the Hildegard Sisterhood assassins. They believed Julius was trying to open the gates of hell. Daisy didn’t believe in hell. But she was with Parker in his belief there could be other dimensions. She knew Julius too well to believe that even in madness, he’d waste his time on a lost cause.
She was the prime example. The moment she’d betrayed Julius, and he realized she wasn’t ever going to be the powered soldier he wanted, he decided she was worth more for her organs and bodily fluids.
Suspicion sparked in the eyes of the Faithful. She wasn’t in her Falcon white leather battle uniform. Nor was Axel wearing his Faithful gear. And they had a sleeping teenager nearby. If they were sowing chaos like they should be doing, why were they hiding here in the dark?
“Something’s not right. Call this in,” the leader announced to a Faithful who pulled out his cell phone and dialed. Probably Julius, or whoever had taken over as enforcer.
Axel pitched a baseball and knocked the cell from the Faithful’s hands. Each white-robed fanatic turned his plastic-masked face Axel’s way.
Cold emptiness bottomed out Daisy’s stomach. She hated that they’d ruined the precious moment she’d been carving out for herself. The fizz and light Axel and his sister had given Daisy died with each of their advancing steps.
“This,” Daisy said to Axel.
His brows furrowed at her.
“This right here,” she said, and pointed to him and Elena with her bat. They’d been kind to her. They’d embraced her as a friend. It was more than anyone had done before. “This is the small thing that I know. I won’t let them hurt you.”
“Stop her.” The Faithful leader pointed his sword at Daisy.
Daisy wanted to be good. But right now, she needed to be bad. Very bad.
She launched at the intruders. Starting with the leader, her bat swung toward his head. He blocked with his sword, but it was sloppy. Weak. He parried like an infant. She booted him in the middle and sent him to the floor. A swift jab to his mask with the heel of her bat and he was out.
The remaining Faithful approached Elena and Axel. Rage exploded inside Daisy. She screamed and went for them as Axel dove for his gun somewhere near Elena’s backpack. But there was no need. Daisy was a hurricane of vengeance as she struck each Faithful in the head, then repeated her attack aiming for different body parts. She moved so fast, and with such swift violence, that she shocked everyone.
It was a tactic that had been drilled into her. Give it a hundred and ten percent, shock them, overwhelm them, put them on the back foot.
Don’t stop. No mercy.
She used the baseball bat like a hammer to pulverize white-masked faces, giving them anger and hate until the masks cracked. Until her anger lessoned and relief oozed in.
“Don’t stop,” Julius growled in her ear as she fought her martial arts instructor. She was fifteen. Her instructor was forty. She had him on the ground, face bloody beneath her fist. “Keep going until he’s finished. Or he’ll finish you. Is that what you want, my darling? Do you want him to take you away from me?”
Her roar came from her gut as she raised the bat a final time—
“Stop.” Axel gripped the bloody bat mid swing.
Daisy wheezed in air like she’d forgotten to breathe.
“Daisy, that’s enough.”
“But…” With wide eyes, she darted a glance between him and her quarry on the floor. Red had splashed over the white. Her face was sticky. “They were going to hurt you and Elena.”
Axel nodded calmly. “Now they’re not.”
Elena hugged her backpack, her eyes as wide as Daisy’s. But where Daisy was full of adrenaline, Elena looked full of fear.
Daisy let go of the bat. “I’m sorry. I… I don’t know how to be good. I told you.”
“It’s fine, Daze.”
“It’s not fine!”
Her vision closed in and all she could hear was Julius’s words taunting her on the day Mary left Daisy behind. His evil voice was always there, waiting to test her and push her. She punched her temples.
“Bad people do bad things,” Julius said. “You were created to stop those bad people. The others couldn’t handle that, so they left.”
“But if I stop them… doesn’t that mean I’m doing a bad thing?” And if she was doing bad things, then she was a bad person.
“You’re my darling.”
Axel pulled Daisy into his arms and crushed her with his embrace, still looking down at her with something decidedly not hate.
“How can you look at me like that?” she blurted through the burn in her throat.
“Like you’re the most incredible woman in the world?” he asked. “Because you are. You saved our lives.”
“But…” The Faithful were a bloody, pulverized mess. “I don’t know how to…”
“Be good?” He surveyed the destruction with a grave look, but then landed on his sister, trembling and shaking. She offered them a hesitant smile, and Daisy didn’t see hate there either. She would have at least expected that fear to transfer to Daisy. But the two Alvares siblings looked a little shell-shocked, but grateful. Relieved. Axel shifted his hands to Daisy’s waist. “Yeah, you keep saying that. I don’t buy it.”
“You don’t know anything,” she whispered, but her words had lost their power as they locked eyes and held.
Elena gave a shaky laugh then groaned dramatically. “Are you guys going to kiss? Because, ew. There are still bloody, masked fanatics on the floor. And… maybe I want to go home now.”
“Search the bodies first,” Daisy said.
“We can go home.” Axel shot Daisy an unabashed wink and then went to assist his sister. As if none of this ruffled his feathers. As if this was just an ordinary Tuesday for him. Heat flushed Daisy’s cheeks. When the heat didn’t leave, she realized she was blushing. Because Axel had winked at her.
She supposed he had seen a lot of violence as one of the Faithful himself… even in his job as a firefighter he’d seen this kind of gore. And Elena, Daisy’s gaze shifted to them as Axel lifted her up and steadied her on her feet. Elena was okay. Daisy was glad she could protect the girl. She cleared her throat and then helped Axel with the search before covering the bodies with some canvas they found. She didn’t want a poor staff member discovering the mess the next time they were in.
