Chapter Nine
Ana
With the door to the bedroom opening, Luke reaches for his weapon, clearly, in the same mindset I’m in, which is to expect a monster not a man. Kurt would be that monster. For just a moment, terror rips through me at the idea that Kurt has killed Adam and Savage while we got dirty in the bathroom.
Turns out there is no monster. It’s only Adam.
Luke grunts and his hand slides away from his weapon, the steel arch of his back softening, if only a pinch, while my shoulders slump forward in relief.
Adam steps into the doorway, stone-faced, and tense, but clearly not as tense as me after I started seeing the walking dead, and found a monster in the man I once called my stepfather. I was also ready to call me and Luke insanely irresponsible for assuming safety that might not exist. We really don’t know what is going on around us. Then again, we don’t know how long we’ll be alive at this point either, and sometimes you have to live in the moment.
“What the hell is going on?” he asks and he’s looking at me as if I hold the knowledge to a universe where dead men start walking. If only I held that kind of golden information, none of us would still be in this house.
“I thought he was dead,” I confirm, reading his complete exasperation as his assumption this surprise was not a surprise to me, but perhaps, only a betrayal. As if any betrayal is only a betrayal. It was both.
“She thought he was dead,” Luke chimes in, offering me back up.
“I get that,” Adam replies. “What I don’t get is what the hell is going on?” He eyes Luke. “The rope was kinked. He wasn’t tied up until after you left the room.”
Obviously, that’s code for—he wasn’t tied up when you hit him—his way of saying that without saying it to protect Luke’s reputation with me, which doesn’t need protecting.
I meant it when I told Luke I wanted to hit Kurt. I wanted to shake him. I wanted him to just be a good man, who did the right things, but it’s hard to believe he can be that person after a gun to my head and a pile of lies that now define my life. And my breakup with Luke.
Luke’s eyes narrow with this information, his fingers flexing and curling on his dominant right hand. “He chose not to fight me.”
“Don’t go thinking that’s an honor thing, Luke,” I warn. “You know Kurt. This is a combat situation to him, and for all practical purposes, he’s the hostile. And we both know he does nothing without an agenda.” I glance at Adam. “Did you ask him why he didn’t fight back?”
“I did,” Adam confirms. “And he said it was to test Luke.” His gaze flicks to Luke with that tidbit of information, as if he’s watching him for impact. “He said you’re a man of control. He made you hit him to prove a point. He wanted to know if you still cared about her enough to lose that control.”
Luke gives a dry, humorless laugh. “He made me. Priceless. That’s how he wants to play that hand?”
My lips press together and there’s a splinter of ice down my spine. “He wanted to know if I was still your weakness. And I am. In other words, he wanted to know how to control Luke, and controlling Luke might as well be controlling all of us. Now we have to decide why he needed that information and how he intends to use it against us.” I start walking toward the door.
Luke catches my arm and turns me to face him. “What are you doing?”
“I’m the one playing games, punishing him by having him tied up. That’s just wasting time. We need answers. We aren’t going to get them with him down there, and us up here.”
“Tying him up wasn’t a game,” he says. “It was smart. It was your instinct and you cannot go down there thinking any differently, you hear me?”
I bristle, my defenses all kinds of prickly. “I don’t need you to dictate to me how to handle myself or Kurt.”
“If you don’t think tying him up was a game,” Adam replies from behind me, “he damn sure does.”
I jerk out of Luke’s grip and whirl around to face him again. “You don’t know me well enough to go there.”
“I consider Luke a brother. I would die for you, Ana. So yes, I know you well enough to speak up if it saves your life and his. Every action you took downstairs, was on the money. It was soldier mode. What you’re doing right now, that’s about emotion, which is human, but also dangerous. He’s counting on that emotion as a weapon and one he tested on Luke.”
“And I gave him my trigger,” Luke replies dryly.
“You saved his life, man,” Adam replies. “Had you challenged him properly you might have killed him. On some level, you knew that. He knew, too. And you also knew that would be the final wedge between you and Ana.”
In my mind, I vehemently yearn to declare any wedge between me and Luke impossible, but I’ve already had similar thoughts to those expressed by Adam. The truth is that the bond between me and Luke is fragile at best, and neither of us would be speaking the truth if we said differently. Only I’m not sure if this is a together or apart kind of thing for us anymore. It feels more like we’re holding onto each other, trying to walk a balance beam made for one, and doing so above a stormy, shark-infested sea. One move left or right, and we won’t be divided. We’ll just be dead.