He takes another step closer. “You want to tell her, or should I?” he calls out to who I’m guessing is Eli, while keeping his eyes locked on mine. Just mine.
“I can’t,” Eli chokes through broken syllables.
Kyrin breathes in and then out. “You killed the only man who could tell us something we really need to know.”
“And what could that possibly be?” I roll my eyes.
He takes another step into me, wrapping his arm around my waist. “Why he took away your fertility. Baby, look at me. They performed a hyster—”
“Wh—” everything turns black. My last thought is of Kyrin catching me as I fall into the darkness of my mind.
Water flows beneath my body in waves, crashing relentlessly and denying me any sleep. My eyes open slowly like glue, but my head pounds thickly as my eyes refuse to lift the weight that is weighing them down.
Pop!
Cartier is his daughter.
…they performed surgery on you that you don’t remember.
I jump up from where I’m curled against a hard chest with another right beside it. Only I don’t get far because we’re in the back seat of a fucking SUV and I end up smacking my head on the ceiling.
“Sit down, baby.” Eli reaches for my hand, but I pull away from him. No one else is in the car, so I move myself onto the seat opposite the both of them, reaching for the knife that’s tucked into the holster around my thigh. Only it’s gone. Fuck!
Kyrin’s eyes fall to my thigh. “As much as the whole outfit turned me on, I couldn’t have you cut happy when you woke up. Your aim is way too fucking good.”
“What you said…” I whisper, tightening the oversized hoodie around me. Even if I didn’t notice Kyrin wasn’t wearing his anymore, I would still know this was his by scent alone. Clean laundry laid out on cut grass, where tobacco smoke floats between the blades—that’s his scent.
I look between the both of them. “What the fuck do you mean? I would know if they did that to me! Patience isn’t like Kiznitch. They never meddled with our minds if we were Patience and not a customer.”
“When we get back to the house, we’re going to work on getting some of those blockages out of your head.” Kyrin reaches for his packet of cigarettes in his pocket.
“I didn’t know for sure right away,” Eli says, and I watch as he keeps his attention out the windows and passing trees. “In The Kings, we have someone called Benny. He’s a fucking spy for the CIA—” Eli pauses. “You can choose to believe that or not. I don’t really care. Anyway, he finds people who we need to find. One day, during a whole lot of fucking drama with one of the girls, he stumbled across an orphanage. At the time, he thought it was the one we were looking for, but it wasn’t. While he was in there, he overheard a conversation between a nun and a man whom he knew was Kij and your father.” Eli leans forward, resting his forearms on his thighs. “They were talking about a ritual they perform on Dolls to make sure they never conceive—” I squeeze my eyes closed, inhaling loudly until I can feel Kyrin’s scent drift up my nostrils and seep into my bones, calming me from the inside out.
“They locked me away, I think.” I let out a frustrated growl. “You’re right. I can’t get into that memory. I don’t—” I shake my head, and Kyrin grabs me by the hand and pulls me back onto his lap. Eli swings my legs up onto his as I rest into the crook of Kyrin’s neck, the deep vein that pops out of his skin pulsing against my cheek.
“We didn’t know they had been doing this to you all. I knew you were working with them while you were here, but I didn’t know why. Figured they had something on you.”
I sniffed. “No. They didn’t need it because I’ve never challenged them. I’ve been black and white all of my life; no other colors involved. Until I met you both. I got back there and did what I needed to do, fitting back into my routine. I tried to fill in the blanks with the same two colors I’ve used all of my life, but it was too late because you both had already given me new ones. I had a plan. I was going to go out with guns blazing. Suicide mission, it was fine. You gave me back to them—”
“—I gave you back because I thought you wanted to go back. Because I thought you were working against us, an enemy in our field.”
“Ah, so you’re admitting you were wrong?” Eli adds softly, his signature playfulness light on the tip of his tongue.