“You don’t want to know.”
Luca nodded. “I do. Tell me.”
Nox let him go and leaned his head against the headrest. “When they wanted to see how fast Koda could heal, they would hurt him.”
Luca flinched.
“After Dr. Dante left, what had once been cruel turned horrific.” Nox wiped his mouth. “When we had examinations, Echols would talk to the people there like we didn’t exist. From what I remember him saying, none of the Alpha’s before Koda were like that. I mean, they healed some, but not like him. Before Koda, I don’t think the Alphas or betas lived very long.”
“If Koda could heal, then how did he die?”
There was only a blank slate where the answer should have been. “I’m not sure if I know. If I do, I don’t remember.” But it would have had to be powerful. Something stronger than an Alpha who held the command of fifteen men.
“They told me, the doctors, they told me there was nothing they could do.”
Nox had no doubt. “The Anubis doesn’t follow the rules. It’s not from here, Luca. And no, I don’t know where it’s from unless there’s a Hell. Then I could believe it was from there. But whatever it came from is evil.”
“You’re not evil.”
Nox laughed, but it teetered off too quickly. “Not yet.”
But even in the calm of the Jeep, in Luca’s peaceful presence, the sense of being consumed crawled through Nox. He had no idea how long he had until he’d be lost, but he had to get Luca somewhere before it happened.
Nox started up the Jeep. “Put your seatbelt back on. We have a few hours to go, but we should be at Dr. Markus’s by nightfall.”
*****
Luca knew Nox believed what he’d said.
But cancer wasn’t a cold, a cut, a bruise, and it did not spontaneously go away. Maybe in some rare one-in-ten-billion chance it might, but Luca had already gotten a chance at remission twice and lost it.
The knowledge didn’t dull the wishful thinking spurned by the confidence in Nox’s tone. And wishing was dangerous. It led to hope, which inevitably ended shattered on the ground.
Luca knew this. He told himself these facts for the next six hours while watching the scenery slip past, the daylight fade, and the night come into power.
The rural country of Montana was a whole other world. There were no city lights on the horizon; there weren’t even many cars. After sunset, it became a liquid black landscape and a blanket of velvet speckled with tiny diamonds sewn together by thunderheads at the horizon. Melting snow caught the glow of stars, breaking up the terrain in patches of pale silver.
“Can you check the GPS?” Nox said.
“Yeah, sure.” Luca fumbled with the phone. The screen lit up, and he squinted. “Um, looks like about ten miles more, and we take the fork on the right and cross a bridge over a river.”
“That’s what I thought, but I just wanted to make sure I remembered correctly.” Nox’s hazel eyes were as endless as the night outside the windshield.
Luca turned the phone face down on his thigh. “If you want to talk, all you have to do is say so. You don’t have to make something up to get my attention.”
Nox chuckled. “Okay. You got me.”
“Just don’t….” Luca took a breath. “Just don’t say anything else about it.”
“Even if it’s the tru—”
“No. No, just….” Luca held up a hand as if he could fend off the thoughts those words spurned inside him. God, he wanted it to be true. He wanted to experience life, fall in love, grow old. He wanted to eat cake and get fat. He wanted a cat or a dog. He wanted friends. He wanted a job.
To feel…. To feel everything. To be held, to hold, be touched.
Luca just wanted to live.
He’d had a taste, and now it was all he craved.