“We’re going to find them. I was working on it tonight, matter of fact—”
“Kane died for us. For me and Nyx. We were tied up in the Hive, about to be tortured to death . . . and he pulled that collar off his neck, knowing it was going to explode. Without him doing that . . .” The Jackal rubbed his eyes. “He told me that true love was worth sacrificing for, and then he took that fucking collar off. The blast blew him to smithereens, but it collapsed the ceiling, and those poles we were tied to fell. The only reason we were able to get out was because of him.”
Rhage thought of his Mary. And how he’d kept his curse to keep her alive. “True love is a sword worth falling on. He made a heroic choice.”
“And he died because of it.”
“That’s the way it goes. Some choices are irrevocable—and are you saying you wish he hadn’t done what he did?”
“I don’t know.”
“Yeah, you do. You just feel bad that you survived.”
“I don’t have a fucking clue how I feel.” The Jackal turned to face the tunnel’s black void. “Why the hell did he do that. And what happened to the other three. I know he died, but what about . . . fuck. Maybe you’re right. Maybe that’s what’s eating me alive. I’m on the outside, I got a mate, I got a family. What have they got? Nothing. Hell, I don’t even know if they’re alive—but if they are? I won the lottery, and nothing changed for them. They’re still imprisoned.”
“Survivor’s guilt is a bitch.” Rhage thought of Phury, and everything the guy had done for his ruined twin, Z. “I know people who were almost destroyed by it.”
The Jackal’s eyes shifted over. “You told me I could help find the prison camp.”
“I did, and I meant it.” Well, up to the point where the guy might get himself killed. The pen was actually not as mighty as the sword when you were in the field. “The choice to help is yours, but it’s not going to be a cake walk. There are serious risks to the mission, and we’ll only be able to protect you to a point.”
“I have a lot to lose,” came the soft murmur. “Nyx is . . . everything to me, and I have my son to think of—and that’s why I don’t get it. I mean, Kane’s dead. Apex is a sociopath. Mayhem actually likes being in prison—don’t get me started on that. And Lucan has always handled himself. He doesn’t need me. So what the fuck is my problem. I have true love, I have everything I could want . . . and I’m stuck here. Still in this prison, even as I walk around a free male up above.”
Rhage locked his molars on the Tootsie Roll and bit down hard, breaking through to the chocolate center. As he started chewing, the familiar pull on his teeth as the center grabbed back distracted him from how much he didn’t like orange added to anything.
Before he could respond, the Jackal threw up his hands. “I mean, goddamn . . . my female is right now in our mated home, doing the dishes that we ate our First Meal on—and I lied to her about where I was going and what I was doing. Just like I have the other dozen times I’ve come here. What the fuck is wrong with me?”
Rhage extracted the empty white stick from his mouth. “Well, at least part of it is simple.”
“Oh, yeah? Which part.”
“They’re your brothers,” Rhage said in a grim voice. “And you need to save them because when you do, you save yourself. That’s why you keep coming back here, even though you have a female of worth at home. You need to save your brothers . . . to save yourself.”
The Jackal rubbed his head like it hurt. “But they aren’t my blood.”
“Blood is not required for that job description. Trust me.”
Back at the sanatorium, Lucan was walking through the tiled corridors of the south wing’s fifth floor. As he killed time, he read the graffiti spray painted on the walls. It was remarkably unoriginal and the kind of thing, like the unconfusing layout of the hospital, that had been easy to memorize. A few trips through and he had the fonts, the colors, the map of it all down cold: Names in block letters. Couples in hearted algebra equations that ended in “4EVA.” The occasional satanic bullshit just for effect. Oh, and a line or two from Edgar Allan Poe—which he only knew because they were marked “—Edgar Allan Poe.”
The storms of earlier in the night had washed through, and the moonlight that pierced the open porch and flowed into the patient rooms gave him more than enough to read the human missives by. As he went along, the fallen plaster crunching under his boots, the hoots of owls a distant radio station of fauna-tunes, he decided that the illumination was like sunlight at the end of the day, the beams long and slanted as they crossed the corridor in a regular pattern.