Author: Santino Hassell
Date: 2017-10-09 04:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Paranormal; M M Romance; Romance; Fantasy; Urban Fantasy; Lgbt; Abuse; Suspense; Contemporary; Paranormal Romance
Description: Chase Payne is a walking contradiction. He's the most powerful psychic in the Community, but the least respected. He's the son of the Community's founder, but with his tattoo sleeves and abrasive attitude, he's nothing like his charismatic family. No one knows what to make of him, which is how he wound up locked in a cell on the Farm yet again. But this time, the only man he's ever loved is there too. Elijah Estrella was used to being the sassy sidekick who fooled around with Chase for fun. But that was before he realized the Community wasn't the haven he'd believed in and Chase was the only p

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All person(s) depicted on the cover are model(s) used for illustrative purposes only.

Sightlines

Copyright © 2017 by Santino Hassell

Cover art: Kanaxa, kanaxa.com

Editor: Sarah Lyons

Layout: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at marketing@riptidepublishing.com.

ISBN: 978-1-62649-509-8

First edition

October, 2017

Also available in paperback:

ISBN: 978-1-62649-510-4

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Chase Payne is a walking contradiction. He’s the most powerful psychic in the Community, but the least respected. He’s the son of the Community’s founder, but with his tattoo sleeves and abrasive attitude, he’s nothing like his charismatic family. No one knows what to make of him, which is how he wound up locked in a cell on the Farm yet again. But this time, the only man he’s ever loved is there too.

Elijah Estrella was used to being the sassy sidekick who fooled around with Chase for fun. But that was before he realized the Community wasn’t the haven he’d believed in and Chase was the only person who’d ever truly tried to protect him. Now they’re surrounded by people who want to turn them against their friends, and the only way out is to pretend the brainwashing works.

With Chase playing the role of a tyrant’s second-in-command, and Elijah acting like Chase’s mindless sex toy, they risk everything by plotting a daring escape. In the end, it’s only their psychic abilities, fueled by their growing love for each other, that will allow them to take the Community down once and for all.

For all the unexpected heroes—past, present, and future.

About Sightlines

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Dear Reader

Acknowledgments

Also by Santino Hassell

About the Author

More like this

It was always a challenge to maintain his mental shield while pretending to be mind-controlled by a sociopath in a black lab coat who was trying to splinter his brain. However, Chase had done it before.

Without his shield, the sociopath in question—Jasper, psychic vamp extraordinaire—would realize Chase had never been truly loyal to the Community. More terrifyingly, he’d also gain access to Chase’s psychic talents. The trick to keeping up his shield was focusing on why he needed it. Usually it was because he trusted nobody enough to let down his guard even for a moment. In this specific moment, it was because he needed Jasper to think he had Chase, biggest freak of the multitalented freaks, firmly on his side so he’d stop pulling.

Pulling wasn’t a technical term, but it was the only way Chase could describe the sensation of Jasper trying to absorb the abilities out of his fucking brain. It felt like a giant vacuum had attached to his ears and eyeballs and was sucking away the psychic bits that made him Chase. And there were so many of those bits that each pull left him convulsing, eyes rolling back, pained screams wanting to escape his mouth.

As a kid, he’d tried to justify the existence of psychic powers as genetic mutations. That had to be why the Black family was so strong, and why Richard had taken a page from their book to begin breeding psychics of his own.

But if all of it was just mismatched genes . . . what clusterfuck of a mutation had given Jasper the ability to suck the abilities out of Chase’s brain? To cause such mind-numbing pain that Chase at times forgot who he was or even what he was. Could a human experience this and still come out okay? Maybe not. Maybe he wasn’t human. Whatever the case was, he wouldn’t let Jasper get him. And Jasper would never hear him scream.

Chase gritted his teeth, fingers clenching where his arms were pinned to his sides, and worked on keeping Jasper out. The psy-sucker could do his best, but he wasn’t going to succeed. Not until Chase’s brain completely buckled and he lost all agency over his body. And his abilities.

“You’re going to kill him.”

Jasper didn’t look back at Richard. He continued to loom over Chase’s pinned-down body, hands braced on either side of Chase’s temples, and struggled to work his way in past Chase’s mental shield.

“Jasper.”

The commanding whip crack of that voice jolted Jasper. Shit, it even jolted Chase, and he was in the process of caving under a mental attack more excruciating than usual. His father tended to have that effect on people.

“He won’t die.” Jasper’s cat eyes fixed on Chase. “He isn’t in danger until he starts to scream.”

Chase bared bloody teeth at him in a smile. “When have you ever heard me scream, shit bag?”

“The times you don’t remember.”

Disgust curdled Chase’s stomach. Jasper made him sicker than the torture itself. So, he did the only thing he could do in such a situation, and spat a bloody gob in Jasper’s face. It wasn’t easy to get all his facial muscles to cooperate and aim just right, but he did it and got a violent backhand for his trouble. It was followed by a punch in his face, then his stomach.

Physical pain joined the mental torment he’d been enduring for . . . a week? Two weeks? Time wasn’t real to him anymore, and he had no idea how many days had gone by since he’d jumped out of that boat. Since Holden and the others had left him and Elijah behind. All he’d known since that point had been a narrow room, an uncomfortable hospital bed, and the sensation of being ripped apart from the inside out.

“Jasper!”

Richard appeared in Chase’s view and grabbed Jasper’s arm. Had he been watching the entire time? Chase didn’t know why Daddy Payne was suddenly involved in this shit show.

“I’m beginning to think you’re enjoying your role rather than understanding the utility of it,” Richard said coldly.

“You don’t understand my role, Richard. That’s why you need me.” Jasper wiped blood on his lab coat, green eyes and narrow pupils still drilling into Chase. “He’s keeping me out, and I need to drain him.”

Richard glanced down at Chase. His nostrils flared before his eyes sharply cut away. “Chase’s abilities have been useful in the past. He doesn’t need to be left a husk.”

“He’s too dangerous to be left whole,” Jasper said with no emotion. “If it weren’t for him and his telepathic communication with his inbred brothers, none of this would have begun. Either he’s stripped or he’s removed entirely.”

Richard’s lips thinned. “He doesn’t need to be a corpse either.”

Chase panted harshly while staring up at his father. The man he’d never expected to . . . defend him?

“He is a traitor,” Jasper said, enunciating each syllable. “The fact that you look at your offspring as your children is the one thing I don’t understand. There is no need for parents in the Community. Isn’t that part of your ideology? That we should be devoted to the cause, to the community as a whole, and not to specific relations?”

Richard ignored the jab. He seemed to ignore a lot when it came to Jasper. “The only thing Chase is definitely guilty of is not telling us what he knew about Beck—not trusting me to tell me what he knew.”

“You really think that’s all he’s done?” Jasper sounded on the verge of laughter. “Are you that desperate to cling to one of your children?”

Richard’s lips curled just slightly before his expression smoothed again. “This has nothing to do with family. But I find it difficult to believe the only person who has consistently remained inside the Community is the one you suspect of betraying it. Especially since you can’t explain how you know.”

Chase stared up at Jasper through his eyelashes, breathing hard and hearing himself wheeze with each gasp. He wondered whether, when Jasper was rooting around in the depths of his mind, he’d found psychic evidence of Chase’s transgressions. The residue of lies, the stain of a secret, a shadow shaped like growing dissent. Could Jasper see those things? Or was this all . . . his assumptions? His personal vendetta because in all their time together as researcher and test subject, since Chase was a child, he’d never broken. Never screamed. Never given Jasper the satisfaction of watching Chase Payne break down.

“In all my years of studying siblings, I’ve discovered they have the strongest bond of all family members,” Jasper said. “Even more so than a parent and a child. They’re unique, especially twins. And that uniqueness would be heightened by psychic siblings, two of whom are from a family with enough power to send a rocket to space.” Jasper’s cat eyes slid away to focus condescendingly on Richard. Leader of the Community, but it seemed, in Jasper’s mind, still lesser. “I think Chase assisted Theo Black when it came to Beck, and I think he called Nate Black here after Theo was killed. Our reprogramming prevents Chase from fully acting against us, so he sent an SOS to his inbred brother. And I believe it’s Chase who continued to send messages to both Nate and Holden, drawing them here.”

“They left him behind,” Richard said. “Holden left him behind.”

“Because Chase came back for the boy.”

“Then use the boy to control him, not the shit that you’re doing now.”

For the first time since this had started, maybe since his childhood, and before Jasper had started practicing pulling from him, Chase panicked. Fear took hold of him with violent fuck-boy paws and forced him to see nothing but images of Elijah being hurt. Tortured physically. Ripped apart mentally. Left a husk as Richard had said. Beaten. Starved. White torture. Disorientation. Or totally reprogrammed and controlled.

The heart monitor tracking Chase’s vitals sped up.

“If I can’t get him to break, we’ll use the boy.”

A concession. One that satisfied Richard. He took a step back, retreating to his corner of the room while Chase shot him a panicked look.

Help me.

Richard started, then went still. Jasper put his hands on Chase again.

The pulling began more violently than usual. Chase’s eyes rolled back and he seized, limbs shaking and lips parting. A grunt escaped, the first sound all day, and Jasper released an excited hiss: “Yes . . .”

This man would soon have Elijah. He would use Elijah. Hurt him. Take him. Destroy him. Control him.

The possibilities shrieked through Chase on a loop, one image more awful than the last, as Jasper continued tearing him to pieces out of determination to destroy Chase’s telepathy—the only tool he had to communicate with his brothers. It hurt more than anything had ever hurt before. Maybe Jasper was getting closer, and this would work, and Chase would end up incompetent or brain-dead. Or maybe it wouldn’t work, and they’d drag out Elijah.

Chase did the only thing he could do to stop this.

He dropped his mental shields and invited in the full force of Jasper’s power. Then he screamed.

What had been painful was now unbearable, and he let himself feel it all. Red streaked across his vision, then black, and everything was cold. Everything was agony, and his scream got louder until he sounded like something else. Something different.

The glass lining his cell shattered.

“Goddamn it, Jasper!” Richard’s voice shook when he yelled.

The pain kept coming, a freight train of agony. Heat blazed over the cold, until Chase’s body felt flayed and exposed. His mind was a distorted mess of crossed wires that scrambled his thoughts and distorted his vision until everything was wrong.

There was shouting above the screaming in his head and the sound coming out of his mouth, but none of it made sense. Even when the pain traveled down his arms and something cold and sharp bit into his wrists.

Something touched him. Fingers. Hands. And then the pulling, the awful violent stretching, stopped.

Chase peeled his eyes open to find himself crouched on the floor, curled up and panting like a feral animal. The skin of his wrists was torn and bleeding. Apparently, a surge of energy and adrenaline had soared through him, and he’d broken the straps. Or that spark of telekinesis had come out like it always did when he started to slip away.

Licking his lips, Chase tried to reorient himself while huddling and hiding his face again. The voices around him still seemed too far away as he regathered his wits, but he could hear Richard snarling at Jasper, and Jasper lazily defending himself.

Everything in his body was on fire, but Chase forced himself to unlock his limbs and muscles. There was a conflict going on around him, and he could work with this. Divide and conquer, even when it felt like his own brain had been split in two.

Chase clumsily scrabbled across the floor, unable to walk, mostly crawling. The words silenced around him as he huddled by Richard’s feet.

“Please,” he managed to gasp. “Please help me.”

Silence resounded in the room. There was nothing but his labored breathing and the drip of his blood on the tile. He chanced a look up, squinting through the blurriness and lights dancing before his eyes, and saw naked horror on Richard’s face. It was amazing how a man who’d done so much, who was responsible for so much, had never witnessed this violence with his own eyes.

It made Chase hate him even more. But he swallowed his revulsion and clutched the smooth, perfectly cut slacks his father wore.

“Please,” he croaked again.

“You’re not buying this, are you?” Jasper asked, again sounding bored. “Put him back on the table and next time—”

“There won’t be a next time,” Richard thundered. “We’re done here.” He took a deep breath, which came out shaky, before kneeling beside Chase. “Come on. Up.”

Chase tried to grab Richard’s shoulders and failed. His fingers wouldn’t lock. His limbs wouldn’t cooperate. For a second, he really did panic. What if this was permanent? What if . . . he couldn’t escape? Or help Elijah.

“Why can’t he move?”

“It should fade.” Jasper walked closer, his footsteps slow and deliberate. “Richard—”

“‘Should,’” Richard repeated. “I told you not to hurt him.”

“No, Dick. You told me not to kill him.” A patient sigh, one that prompted Chase to glance up through his tearing eyes. All he could make out was a clenched jaw and Jasper holding himself very still. “I know it must be shocking to see what I do here, but it’s been sanctioned by you. Long ago. Why do you think the child is the way he is? He was half a beast when you finally took him to the city. Still is.”

A beast. One day Chase would crush Jasper’s head. That was a promise.

“You’re right. This is why Chase is the way he is, and this is why I’m putting a stop to it. Now.” The tremor was gone from Richard’s voice, and he was himself again. Commanding, strong, and brooking no wiggle room for debate. He was once again the person Chase had been in awe of as a child. The first time they’d met, Chase had been amazed at the man wearing the dark suit and shiny shoes—the first person he’d ever seen without a uniform or lab coat. “He’s my son. My only remaining adult son. And I won’t waste his life so you can have his talent.”

Richard hooked his strong hands under Chase’s arms and pulled him up. When Chase, whose knees were like water, nearly slid to the floor again, Richard held him.

“Fine,” Jasper said, voice gone cold. “And the boy? Elijah.”

Chase dug his fingers into Richard’s arms as tight as he could, and forced himself to make the most pathetic whimpering sound he could muster. Save me, Daddy. Save me from the bad man who wants to hurt me and my friend. I’m still loyal to you.

“I’ll deal with the boy myself.”

Richard put his arm around Chase’s shoulders and drew him out of the room, but not before Chase chanced a disoriented look over his shoulder at Jasper. He was furious. And that wouldn’t end well for any of them.

When Chase opened his eyes, he was immediately aware of a few things.

The first was that Frick and Frack, the Farm’s asshole psy-kid siblings who’d replaced Six as head of the guards, had sedated him after Richard had summoned them to the silo.

The second was that he was in a room he’d never seen before, so fancy he could have never imagined it. In all the years Chase had spent on the Farm, he’d always been . . . confined. Held in either a tiny cell in the silo, where Jasper could poke and prod at his leisure, or allowed to sleep in a slightly larger room in the silo with no windows save for a thin horizontal strip near the ceiling. He’d thought that had been a luxury and a reward for good behavior. But this bedroom, with its dark wooden walls and heavy beams across the ceiling, the golden glow of designer lamps, and fancy throw rugs, was a palace.

The third thing he realized was that all his psychic brain bits seemed to be intact, but he was pumped full of psy suppressants so those bits were close to useless. They’d put him back on them three weeks ago—when they’d first brought Elijah to the Farm.

Chase gritted his teeth and stared up at the ceiling. He should have been used to their methods of controlling him. As a kid, they’d programmed him to fear everything. Fear leaving the Farm, fear people from other parts of the city, fear voids, the government, anyone who could hurt him if they knew what he was.

Then, he’d gone out into the world and decided . . . a lot of that was bullshit. His talents allowed him enough insight into the people around him to discern whether they truly had bad intentions, and most of them didn’t. The people who wanted to do harm were there, but more folks than not couldn’t have given less of a fuck about whether he lived or died. Apathy was humanity’s biggest crime. Not murderous intent.

But even as he’d gone into New York City to learn that Jasper and Richard had mind-fucked him into being afraid of his own shadow, the Community’s early programming had kept him steady in their ranks. He knew there was more to the void world than they’d let on, and he knew his father and Jasper were taking advantage of the Community and even the rest of the board, but he could never force himself to do anything about it.

It was a mental stranglehold created by Jasper to control their Super Boy even after Richard had demanded his son be turned loose into the world. Chase would be out in the city, but the very notion of leaving the Community or defecting had caused his throat to close up and his body to all but shut down. Of all the Pavlovian responses that could have been programmed into him, Jasper had chosen to make Chase think—really think—he’d die if he left the people who’d raised him. It was all Jasper could do since he hadn’t been able to strip Chase of the talents that had opened his mind to the rest of the world, and there was no way to pump him full of drugs while Chase was running around the city.

Mind control had been the only way Jasper was able to exert his control on Chase, but now that Chase was back at the Farm . . . there were all the other ways as well.

Chase curled his hands in the plush blanket beneath him. One shift, and he felt the bed molding beneath his aching back. These motherfuckers straight up had memory foam beds while he’d lived almost a decade of his life sleeping on a hospital bed? Out of all the things they’d done to him, somehow this was right up there at the top of the list as the biggest slap in the face.

He rolled to the side and got to his feet, wincing at the sudden motion. All his mental pieces were in place, but his body was still a mess. His shoulder ached, and he could catalog a sprain in his ankle, his wrist, and a herniated disc in his back. Or two. After Frick and Frack had shot Elijah, he’d put up quite a fight.

“How are you feeling?”

Chase rolled his shoulders, flinching. “Awful. Your hand puppets beat the shit out of me.”

Richard stood against the wall with his hands in his pockets. He was looking out the window, sandy hair shot through with silver and falling to the nape of his neck. It wasn’t usually this long, and that reminded Chase of Holden. The thought of his half brother caused Chase to swallow. After all this time, he still had no fucking clue how he felt about the guy.

“They thought you were trying to escape.” When Chase said nothing, Richard looked over at him. “Were you?”

“Nah.”

“‘Nah,’” Richard repeated. “Is that supposed to satiate my concern?”

“Is you not letting Jasper actually kill me supposed to satiate my concern that you were still sitting there watching him try to suck me dry?”

Richard looked out the window again. “I apologize for that.”

“You apologize? He’s been doing this to me since I was a kid, Dick. And . . .”

“And what?”

Chase exhaled slowly. All his talents were in place, but he still felt scrambled. Maybe it was the drugs, or maybe it was just the aftereffects of all the pulling. Regardless, there was no time to ease back into this game. The game where he pretended to be a loyal card-carrying member of the psychic Community. He just had to jump in with both feet.

“I didn’t know you knew,” Chase said finally, putting a rough edge of hurt into his voice. “And I never told you because I know how informants and snitches get treated here. But I didn’t know you gave the okay for me to be a science project.”

Richard had the decency to react. Not much, just a slight bowing of his brow and a pursing of his lips, but it was something. “You were never a project.”

“So what the fuck was I? Research?”

“Yes.”

As cynical as he’d always been, it still hit Chase like a punch in the throat.

“I’ve never met anyone like you, Chase. And I was amazed that you were a product of my genes.”

“Half your genes,” Chase bit out. “The other half is Lorelei Black’s.”

Richard’s back stiffened. “Even so, you were mine, and yet you were exceptional. If you weren’t so impulsive, so unwilling to acclimate yourself with the Community and society as a whole—”

“You mean dressing up like Holden instead of getting tatted and screaming ‘Fuck the world’ in a pansexual accent?”

Richard’s eyes narrowed at the mention of his other son. “Correct. If you’d followed his example, you would have been the most valuable psychic in this entire Community. A telepath with both precognitive and postcognitive abilities and a touch of telekinesis—”

“My telekinesis is a joke. It doesn’t work at will.”

“It works under emotional duress,” Richard said. “In the silo, you didn’t break the straps with your physical strength alone. I watched them loosen before you broke free.”

Chase scoffed, unconvinced. He’d spent eighty percent of his life in extreme emotional duress and the psychic bits in his brain had rarely rubbed together enough to spark a telekinetic reaction.

“My telekinesis is broken. Get over it.”

“Regardless. You’re a powerful telepath. You can not only project your memories but insert yourself into another person’s mind. Into their dreams.” Richard turned fully to Chase, and his expression was strained. “My God, Chase. Do you have any idea the places you could have gone?”

“You’re right, Dad. I coulda been the motherfucking president.”

Richard pushed himself away from the window and moved closer to him. He’d always seemed larger than life, this impeccable person in power suits with broad shoulders and strong hands. With Chase battered and fatigued, that was emphasized. But he didn’t shrink in on himself or flinch for a coming blow. He just watched and waited.

“I know what you’re thinking, Chase. That the entire reason I was supposed to have dreamed up the Community was to help psychics. Not study them. But there is more to this than brotherly love and support systems,” Richard said. “We need to protect each other. And we can only do that with power.”

“So you studied people like me . . .” Chase trailed off, blinking away memories that came back unbidden. The way they’d poked and prodded and tested and pulled at him as a kid, trying to figure out how a toddler could be mentally stronger than multiple grown psys put together. How he’d managed to speak to them with nothing but his mind and ask where his mother was. And when they’d ignored him, how he’d entered their dreams to beg to be released from his cell. “Because you wanted to figure out how we can become strong,” he finished.

“Yes. Do you think a psychic like me would ever have enough influence to make a difference in the world?” Richard scoffed. “No. But you? And more like you? Absolutely.”

When Chase only stared up at him without comment, Richard began to pace the room with long steady strides. Agitation made itself known in the way he clenched his fists and jaw.

“When I met your mother, Lorelei Black . . .” Richard said her name like he was trying to pronounce an unfamiliar language. His gaze flicked to the window before he continued. “God, she was beautiful. Pale, white-blond hair, silver eyes—she didn’t look real. The fact that she was a powerful psychic made it better. Even though she was far more powerful than I’ve ever been. Powerful like—”

“Like me,” Chase said flatly. “She was a multi.”

“Yes. But her power was raw whereas we taught you to control yours.” Richard wiped a hand over his face, inhaling deeply. “The first thing she said to me was that no one could know we’re psychics. She was terrified of voids learning about her gift. She was initially indescribably happy to learn about a psychic Community, but that quickly turned to fear that the CW would lead to us being exposed. She feared what would happen if the government knew we existed, so to reassure her, I told her I’d show her the Farm. I’d show her . . . our plan.”

Chase could have laughed if his face didn’t hurt so much. “The plan to study people like her? Powerful raw psychics?”

“Yes. At first she was excited, just as I expected. She was born into a family just as obsessed with remaining strong, and after I met her, I realized the value in breeding psys.” Richard shook his head as if thinking back to that time. “She agreed to stay and participate in Jasper’s study. But then she changed her mind. Something spooked her, and she vanished.”

“‘Something spooked her’ . . . More like Jasper spooked her. Did it ever cross your mind that the man is a fucking psychopath?”

“Over time it has, but I’ve also realized he’s a necessary evil. With his help, we’ve crafted so many powerful psychics.” Richard turned to Chase, not stopping until they were only a couple of inches apart. It was closer than they usually were, more intimate than Chase was prepared for. When Richard cupped the side of Chase’s face, the astonishment and the sudden rush of vulnerability that shot through Chase was real. “You have to understand, son. The government already knows about us. It’s only a matter of time before they decide to use us. Or worse—treat us as a threat to be neutralized or controlled. Kept within the confines of some facility until they can figure out whether we can be used as tools or whether we’re dangerous to national security.”

“Are we?” Chase asked, voice steady despite the way his pulse jumpstarted at his father’s touch. Never had he shown kindness. Never. “Do you want your super psys to get in and take over or be watchdogs?”

“There’s no point in having a watchdog if no action can be taken when things go awry.”

It made sense. God fucking help Chase, but it made sense. It was why, even without the programming keeping him from leaving the Community, he didn’t think he ever would. There were too many parts of it that . . . worked. Too many people it worked for. People like Elijah. And there was more hope to change things, or fix things, if he was on the inside.

He had nowhere to go, anyway. No aspirations. No hope for a life beyond the CW, Evolution, and the Farm.

“You understand,” Richard said knowingly.

“I guess I do.”

Richard crouched down so they were eye to eye, and Chase fought an urge to jerk away. Out of revulsion but also horror that . . . he warmed at this attention. These touches. Richard’s tone.

It’d never been him on the receiving end of affection or concern. It had never been him who’d been treated like a person. If his brain wasn’t close to succumbing to the recent strain and the drugs, he would easily be able to pick out his father’s thoughts. He’d know if any of this was real.

“You’re my son, Chase. Regardless of your mother, of the circumstances of your birth, you are mine. But if we could figure out how to make more psys like you . . . It was a sacrifice I was willing to make.”

Not your sacrifice. My sacrifice. While Jasper pulled me apart and put me back together, you collected psy women to breed more multitalented babies. Because you were inspired by my mother’s family, after you fucked her up and ruined her life. Ruined mine. Ruined Nate and Theo’s after turning their mother into a basket case before they were even born.

The accusation was on the tip of his tongue, ready and waiting to leap off and slam into Richard’s face, but Chase stopped it. He closed his eyes, took deep breaths, and schooled himself into a false version of himself.

“Chase, why were you trying to escape?”

“I wasn’t trying to fucking escape.”

“You’re lying. I saw the surveillance footage.”

Chase sneered. “You saw what you wanted to see. I went with them, but only because of Elijah.”

“The boy.” There was a hint of disgust in Richard’s voice. “You were willing to leave the Community, to betray me, for that boy?”

“I was going along with their dumb-fuck plan because I didn’t want Elijah to end up . . . like where I was. With Jasper. And then your shit-stain guards shot him.”

“Because he broke in and was running off with you. Running away with outsiders and traitors. With Sixtus. And your brother.”

There was real venom in Richard’s voice, and it was clear he felt a genuine sense of betrayal. Chase had no doubt that Nate and his boyfriend, but especially Six and Holden, were in for a world of pain once they were back in Richard’s grasp.

And he had no doubt, if he didn’t play this right, that he and Elijah were in for the same.

“I’m not like Holden,” Chase said flatly. “The Community is where a freak motherfucker like me belongs. Even if I do hate Jasper.”

Richard dropped his hands onto Chase’s shoulders and squeezed. “And the boy? Is he the reason why you withheld information from me before? Why you allowed outsiders to come into Evolution and look into Beck?”

Chase felt himself nodding. “I knew no one would believe me about her. And every time I tried to do something myself . . .” As he spoke, he waited for the choking sensation to grab hold of him. The feel of his chest constricting as he broke into a sweat. It hit him every time he thought about leaving the Community or taking it down.

Except . . . it didn’t happen.

Just like when he’d pushed through it for Elijah. From the start, a thread between him and Elijah had formed that he couldn’t explain. A connection that anchored him to the present and not a fear of what would happen in the future if he turned his back on the people who’d made him.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Chase finished. “You people taught me to keep my mouth shut even when you’re talking to me. Asking questions was a crime. Snitching on Beck seemed like more of one.”

Richard stared at Chase, gaze intense and skewering. “And the boy? What do you hope happens with him?”

“Elijah belongs here just as much as me.”

“How can you be so sure? He came with that group with an intent to destroy everything we’ve accomplished.”

“That’s not true,” Chase said sharply. “He only came here for me. Because he knew something bad was happening to me. That Jasper was on the verge of killing me.” When Richard just gave him that cool skeptical look, Chase balled his hands into fists. “He’s a precog. He could see it.”

“Are you certain, Chase?”

“I am fucking positive, Father.”

Richard’s nostrils flared. He rose to his feet as a glimmer of satisfaction passed over his expression. “Then maybe we should bring the boy in here and ask him for ourselves.”

It took nearly thirty minutes for Elijah to be transported from the silo to the guesthouse. Long enough for horror scenarios to run through Chase’s mind. They didn’t usually go straight to physical torture when they were reprogramming a wayward psy, but . . . the staff got rough when someone disobeyed. And Elijah wasn’t exactly the kind of person to go along submissively.

He always put up a fight.

That fiery streak, the sparking brown eyes and nonstop sarcasm, were what had initially drawn Chase to Elijah. From the moment Chase had stepped off the Farm to join the rest of the Community in the city, people had feared him. They’d avoided him. They’d assumed his bad attitude was indicative of some deeper issue, or that he was so powerful that there was no way he could control it.

Elijah hadn’t given a shit. He’d taken a single look at Chase, informed him that punk was dead, and hadn’t hesitated to backhand Chase after one unsolicited grope too many. And then he’d schooled Chase on consent. He’d schooled him on boundaries. He’d spent the past two years teaching Chase why so many things about him were wrong, and trying to help him be less . . . the him he’d been taught to be while raised on the Farm with people who’d thought his body was fair game.

After that, Elijah had wound up in his bed—or in a bathroom stall at Evo—on a regular basis, despite him claiming Chase wasn’t worth his time. They’d fucked so much, it had sometimes felt like there was more to it. Chase had allowed himself to create fantasy scenarios where Elijah only looked at and wanted him. Or that Elijah also felt the red rubber band that bound them together no matter how hard they sometimes pushed each other away.

That all crashed and burned every time Elijah looked up at Holden with admiration in his eyes.

But none of that mattered anymore. Right now, Elijah had been shot, likely mind-fucked, and was locked up in the silo.

Chase simultaneously felt like hurting himself out of guilt, and taking out everyone on the Farm to get revenge.

He did neither. He couldn’t even reach out telepathically to his brothers or Elijah. The combo of psy-sups and sedatives was dampening his talent in a way he’d never experienced before. And Richard was still standing there observing him.

“Are you ready?” Richard asked.

“For?”

The door opened, and Chase’s hands tightened into fists.

Frick and Frack, dressed in tactical gear as they’d been since the “invasion,” dragged Elijah in by his arms. He was barefoot and wearing nothing but a thin white T-shirt and a pair of compression shorts, even though the outside temperature was frigid. There was a bandage on his arm from where he’d been shot, but it was clear the two fuckers handling him hadn’t been using the best of care.

His lip was swollen, half his face was bruised, deep-bronze skin dull and slightly ashen, and he sank to the plush carpet despite them making a weak attempt to toss him in an armchair. Elijah landed awkwardly on his side and hissed out a breath, cradling his arm.

He was breathing so hard and shaking so violently, that he didn’t even seem to register who else was in the room.

A flash of anger shot through Chase too quickly for him to mask. He could tell the moment Richard felt it, which proved something Chase had been suspecting for the past several months. Since he’d made the desperate decision to reach out to Nate.

His own feelings for Elijah made him weak.

He schooled his face, gathered all the fragments of his asshole armor, and sneered down at Elijah. “Look what you did to yourself,” he managed to spit out. “You should have never gone with those idiots.”

Elijah looked up, squinting through the pain. His big dark eyes widened slightly upon seeing Chase, but they quickly flicked to Richard and back again.

“Chase . . .”

Elijah struggled to push himself up. Judging from his mobility, Chase was willing to bet the gunshot had thankfully been a flesh wound, but it didn’t stop his body from tensing with the need to go to him. He wanted to help Elijah up, pull him close, and tell him roughly, while burying his face in all that wavy glossy hair, what an idiot he was. But instead Chase held himself still and forced himself to look at Richard for direction.

“Sit down,” Richard said. “We’re all going to have a chat.”

Chase sat on the edge of the bed. Obedience made him ragey, but he’d already gone off too much about Jasper to get away with giving any more attitude to Richard. His loyalty wasn’t believable if he spent the entire time talking shit to everyone.

“And you . . .” Richard’s gaze grew distinctly chillier once aimed at Elijah. “You hold still.”

The two guards started to drag Elijah to his feet, but he twisted away, sneering at them. “I can do it myself. I guess it’s a good thing you have shitty fucking aim.”

The male sibling tensed, his own expression creasing in a scowl. His sister gave a minute shake of her head. Then she glanced at Richard. He didn’t say anything, but there was something in his demeanor they read as a warning because neither of them lashed out at Elijah.

Chase suspected they were the type who would let their new roles as head guards get to their heads, unlike Six. But apparently, Six had been Ex-Comm all along, so maybe this was how all staff at the Farm got once they realized the people being held for “realignment” were nothing more than prisoners waiting their turn to be brainwashed. If someone was a fucking monster, it probably wasn’t hard to stop seeing people as people once their free will was stripped away.

Chase would love to get the two guards in a room alone. Psychic powers neutered or not, he’d been in enough fights to fuck him up a pair of dead-eyed psy kids.

“You’re probably wondering why you’re here, Elijah,” Richard said once Elijah was sitting upright. “Why you’re being held in the silo. Why you can’t go home . . .”

“I know why.” Elijah tossed his disheveled hair out of his face. Even sweaty, battered, and clearly in pain, he had a way with a condescending bitch stare. “Because I know what you’re doing. What the Community is really about.”

“And what’s it about, Elijah?” Richard asked, crossing one leg at the knee. “Enlighten us.”

“It’s about you collecting psychics. Community Watch, an organization designed to help people—” the words like me were unspoken in the air, but the heavy weight of them still took up space nonetheless “—is being used by you and Beck and Jasper and . . . who knows who else, as a honey trap. A lure for psychics in need. It’s all a game to you. A hunting ground. Just like Evolution.”

“Interesting theory.” Richard was trying to be light, but it wasn’t working. He wasn’t as charming as Holden, or as two-faced as Chase. Not as good an actor as his wife. He couldn’t keep the ice from his tone. “What’s the goal of this game?”

Elijah’s eyes lit for a second—that psy-kid glow that indicated he was seeing a flash of the future—before he set his jaw. Apparently they hadn’t bothered to put him on psy-sups.

“You want to use us to shape the world, and you’re totally willing to betray your original goal, and the other founders, to do it.”

Chase wanted to smack him.

His nostrils flared, eyes narrowing, and by default he tried to make a mental link with Elijah. To reach out with his gift and whisper into Elijah’s mind: We’ll win the fucking battle if you quit fighting so loudly.

Trying to go head-to-head with people on the Farm had always called for guerilla warfare. Staying low, trying to be invisible, and then getting over or getting out.

That was how he’d gotten off the Farm as a kid. How Six had been trusted enough to slip away after years of servitude. And it was how Stepmama Payne had managed to live out nearly a decade with them decreasing her tranqs and psy-sups over time because she’d seemed so placid. But not Elijah. He had to kick, scream, and spit. And Chase wasn’t able to tell him just how suicidal that was.

Not directly, anyway.

“The Community saved your worthless life, you idiot,” Chase said. “Or did you forget?”

Elijah’s attention whipped from Richard to Chase. He blanched, making the purpling bruises stand out more on his delicate face.

“What?”

“Three years ago, you were nothing but a runaway from fucking Wisconsin who was pickpocketing faggots at the pier by West Fourth and had downgraded even more to hanging around the Brambles to try your hand at sucking dick for pocket change.” Chase kept his tone even, his eyes as dead as the guards, and locked gazes with Elijah. “The Community saved your life. Without them, you’d have wound up in jail, a career whore, or dumped in the Hudson.”

Elijah’s lips moved, but he seemed to have trouble forming words. Chase didn’t need Holden’s hyperactive empathy to see the naked hurt on Elijah’s face. The way his eyes had grown damp.

“I don’t understand how they’re able to control you like this,” Elijah whispered. “You’re the most powerful psychic I’ve ever known, and they turn you into their fucking puppet.”

Chase wanted to shake him. He was so good at his own act that Elijah couldn’t tell it was an act. Which meant Elijah was going to keep doing all the wrong things instead of jumping on the pretend-to-be-mind-controlled train.

“You shouldn’t have come here with your little friends,” Chase said. “You shouldn’t have let them turn you on—”

“They’re your friends too.”

Elijah shot to his feet, or tried to, and had to swing out his good arm to brace against the wall. His head seemed to swim because he wavered, and then almost collapsed to the floor again. The female guard grabbed him before he could fall.

“Will.” Richard looked at the male guard. “Prepare another room for the boy.”

Chase dug his fingers into his palms. He tried not to snarl once Will passed him on his way out the door.

Richard nodded at the other guard. “Put him in the chair, Kyra. And keep him there.”

“Yes, sir.”

Elijah gave little resistance as he collapsed in the armchair, sweating, but his big dark eyes were still conveying his betrayal.

“Chase,” Richard said. “Tell me about our friend. When we first brought him in, you were a little . . . preoccupied, and he refused to talk.”

Preoccupied had been more like sedated when he wasn’t being mentally skewered by Jasper. All he’d known was that Jasper had dangled Elijah in front of him like a threat. And now they were going to do it again, unless he and Elijah got on the same page.

So Chase nodded, not breaking Elijah’s stare as he relayed all of his information like a fucking soulless computer. “His name is Elijah Estrella. He’s from Wisconsin, and ran away at seventeen. His mother’s boyfriends were abusive, and he’d seen the Community, and New York, in a premonition. But he’s not powerful. That’s why no one notices him as anything other than a twink with a nice ass who hangs around with the right people.” Elijah flinched, but said nothing to interrupt Chase. “But we noticed him at the club. Set him up with a job, rented him the room in my apartment, and introduced him to the band. For the past three years, Elijah was a success story. An example of the good the CW could do.”

Elijah closed his eyes, but he didn’t disagree. He couldn’t. He’d sung the Community’s praises so many times in the past, even to Theo and Nate, that there was no denying how infatuated he’d been. How loyal.

“And your relationship with him,” Richard said. “What is it?”

Here it was. The real test of whether Chase was willing to say anything and everything. Whether all their years of programming had fully brought him under their control. So he let his shield slip, just a bit, like an accident, and allowed Richard to feel this truth.

“He started fucking me because Holden wouldn’t give him the time of day,” Chase said flatly. “He sees me as a convenient dick, and Holden as the prize.”

Elijah shook his head, eyes growing rounder. “Chase . . . no.”

“And how do you see him?” Richard asked, speaking over Elijah.

“As someone I love.” Humiliation wasn’t an emotion Chase experienced very often, but it scorched through him without remorse. “But it doesn’t fucking matter. Because I’m the freak—”

Elijah shook his head more vehemently, his lips trembling, eyes red and damp. “It’s not true.”

“—in the family. Just someone he’ll hop on when he’s horny and bitter over Holden. ’Cause he knows I’ll never turn him away. ’Cause he knows I would do anything for him.” The amount of vulnerability needed to strip himself this bare, to show his insides, made Chase want to throw himself out the window. Sweat trickled down his face, and his body felt cold. “I’ve never told him because he doesn’t think I’m capable of feelings. He thinks I have no heart.”

Elijah looked so stricken by the words, so absolutely fucking broken that Chase felt sick. Even though it was true. All of it was true. He’d been the one to beg for a job for Elijah, the one to offer his apartment, the one to bully Jericho and Lia into giving Elijah a shot at joining the band even though auditions had been over. But Holden had gotten all the credit. It was Holden, in Elijah’s mind, who had saved him. And Chase was just there to fuck him when he was bored.

Richard put a hand on Chase’s shoulder and squeezed. Was this supposed to be a comfort? Could he feel how Elijah had spent the last couple of years digging a larger and larger hole into Chase’s chest every time he’d dismissed him for Holden? Every time he’d talked about Holden right after they’d fucked?

Heh. Richard could probably feel it all. And more. But his compassion was hilarious given Chase wanted to rip his fucking face off.

“So, you fell in love with a runaway who used to be a thief, and you betrayed me for him?”

“No.” Things were getting dicey, but Chase left his shield down. Because this was true too. This was how stupid he’d been, along with everyone else. “I thought all the shit at the club, the disappearances and Theo’s murder, was only Beck. And I left the silo with them the other night because I was half out of my fucking mind, and I wanted to protect Elijah.”

Richard’s hand tightened on his shoulder again, and Chase slammed the gate closed. That was all he had for his father. Not the soul-crushing—as pitiful as his soul was—realization that Beck had been scouting multitalented queers for Richard. And that he’d sent her to Evo, because he was evil enough to know that most of the more powerful queer psys didn’t have anyone but each other, and he could snap them up because not many people would miss them if they were gone.

But Richard hadn’t anticipated Theo. Or Nate. Or even Chase trying to stop it. Apparently rebellion ran in the Black family genes.

“So what do we do with him now?” Richard walked closer to Elijah. He dragged a finger down Elijah’s damp cheek, shaking his head when Elijah jerked his face away. “He’s aligned himself with Ex-Comm. Shows utter contempt for us. And he’s in love with Holden, who has also betrayed me.”

“Realign him,” Chase said sharply. “He’s not far gone. A few months ago, he was basically a Community evangelical, spreading the goddamn word to every psy he came face-to-face with. Then your wife’s people got to him and talked him and Holden into the invasion.”

Richard’s entire body tightened.

Bad move, Chase. Don’t bring up the wife.

“Let me work on him,” Chase pleaded, allowing all his desperation to seep into his voice. “I’ve spent most of my life on this Farm. I know how to realign someone. And he can be. I know it. He’s not like Holden, who always kept himself separated in his special fucking club.”

“Why are you doing this?” Elijah cried. “Do you actually believe this or are you not . . . you? Holden cared about you. He came for you!”

Chase cast him a withering look. “He came for his mother. He just happened to find you first. Or did you really think he gave a shit about you? About either of us.”

“You’re his brother. He loves you.”

“I’m a tool for him,” Chase snarled, voice rising. He didn’t know if it was the venom in his voice or the fierceness in his expression that struck him silent, but Elijah clammed up. “That’s all I ever was.”

Chase exhaled and inhaled slowly, and allowed his eyes to fall shut for a second. There were dual urges working inside of him, and he was starting to have a difficult time discerning his plan from the seeds of resentment that had been growing for years. That had started from the very first moment he’d realized that Richard Payne wasn’t only his father. Off the Farm, in a beautiful Upper East Side mansion, he’d had a real son.

“Whatever.” Chase turned to his father. “Elijah’s infatuated with Holden, and with the idea of the club, and it’s got him all twisted up and confused. Work with him. We can get him back to where he should be.”

“You can’t make me like you,” Elijah said, struggling to get up from the chair and failing. “I spent so long being a puppet, and I won’t do it again. I’ll tell every fucking Comm member I meet that Richard Payne is a sociopathic monster who uses—”

Chase swung out his arm and cracked his hand against the side of Elijah’s head. It seemed to stun more than hurt him, but Elijah’s face still reddened.

“I can’t believe you’re this weak,” Elijah said, voice low with contempt. “I thought you were the strongest psychic I knew.”

“You have no idea what it means to be strong, baby boy.”

Chase could feel everyone’s eyes on him, watching and assessing his ability to follow through on his promise that he’d be able to get into Elijah’s head and realign him. Analyzing whether he was truly in line himself. But instead of looking at them, or focusing on convincing them, he stared into Elijah’s eyes and tried to make that mental link again.

Just do what I say and we’ll get through this, you silly fuck, he wanted to say, but he couldn’t reach out far enough to make the connection. His shield kept anything from getting in his head, and the psy-sups kept his gift from projecting outward. All he could do was narrow his eyes and stare into Elijah’s lovelier and more miserable pair.

“It’d be in your interest to try the usual route before you let Jasper lobotomize him,” Chase said again, directing the words at Richard even as he glared down at Elijah. “Holden and them will try to spread the word that you’re using the CW for your own agenda. But if one of Holden’s own employees, a close one like Elijah, says Holden is just . . . trying to slander you out of resentment or bitterness, then his story loses weight.”

Elijah’s gaze was so narrowed all Chase could see was a glimmer of deep-brown eyes. Elijah shook his head slowly, leaving little doubt he would fight Chase tooth and black-painted nail.

“And what’s in it for you, Chase? Why are you so invested in this boy?”

Will reappeared in the door, interrupting the answer. “The room is secured and ready.”

Richard nodded, but his gaze never left Chase. “Answer me.”

Chase grabbed Elijah’s good arm and hauled him out of the seat, jerked him toward Will and the doorway. Elijah ripped away and stumbled once before catching himself.

“I told you he matters to me,” Chase said roughly. “And if this works, he’ll be mine. Holden will be a fucking memory.”

It sounded bad. So bad, that as Elijah curled in on himself and shuffled by, Chase did the only thing he could think of. The most desperate, pathetic excuse of an inside joke they had. He smacked Elijah’s ass.

Elijah swung around to stare at him, first with uncertainty and then with slowly widening eyes.

He got it. Finally, he’d understood.

Finally, they could figure out how to eventually escape together.

As Will and Kyra led them to Elijah’s new room, Chase kept quiet and turned a sharp eye to their surroundings. He’d grown up on the Farm, and yet there were some parts he’d never seen. Even so, it all brought back bad memories.

When he was a kid, back before they’d converted the silo into a full-on brainwashing factory, he’d stayed in the cottage for some of his tenure on the Farm. But back then the Farm hadn’t been exclusively used for “realignment,” and Jasper had just started fully practicing his . . . craft. After Chase’s mother had run away, Chase suspected he had been their first full-time test subject. There had been a few other kids who were “special,” but he’d always been treated like a ticking bomb, while the others had extra privileges. They’d gone outside, shared meals with adults, and he’d been isolated and alone unless Richard had come back from the city to see him. At those points, he’d been allowed to go on walks or for car rides, and his father had “explored” the woods with him.

He’d always wondered why the other children were treated differently, but now Chase suspected those other “special” kids had lived on the Farm with their mothers. Maybe they’d been born on the Farm to high-ranking Community fathers. Apparently, the plan to breed psychics to birth multitalented kids hadn’t been limited to the Black family.

At the time, he hadn’t questioned it. Community indoctrination had started at birth, and it had never occurred to him to tell his father about what Jasper did to him. He’d thought it was what everyone endured. Besides, complaining about the Community got you punished, and after all—even his own mother had left him, so who else would take him if they kicked him out?

He’d accepted that until the first time Holden had shown up, twelve years old and already snobby in a peacoat and slacks, and looking at Chase like he was an alien.

That’s when Asshole Chase had been born. But even Asshole Chase had continued to believe his father didn’t know . . . couldn’t know . . . the extent of it all. Except he had. Richard had visited Chase in the cottage with his Real Son every once in a while, before the decision had been made to let Chase attend school. That had lasted for a year before the NYC DOE had attempted to put him into a special school for emotionally disturbed children because all he did was fight. And use his gifts to fuck with his teachers.

The Farm had changed since then.

The cottage had been remodeled sometime in the past few years to look like a dormitory. Door after locked door lined the hallways of the three-story structure, and he wondered who was behind each one. People like Elijah—literal prisoners who were there against their will—or people who had chosen (if real consent could be given when the brainwashing was so strong) to put themselves through realignment. There was no way the women who lived there, and the other kids who’d been born to unknown fathers, had agreed to live in a drugged stupor. The very idea made Chase sick.

It made him want to march down the hallway and throw open every door to figure out who would be with him when he started the fucking rebellion. Would it be people like him and Elijah, or the Holdens of the world who’d trusted in the Comm before meeting Six? Would his potential allies need to meet their special someone before they opened their eyes?

Either way, there was no way to rescue everyone at once. There were way too many people to sneak off unnoticed. That plan was for later. Right now, he was most concerned with Elijah. And the brief moments they would have together before Jasper convinced Richard that allowing them to talk in private, prior to realignment, was a bad idea.

The two guards stopped by one of the rooms, the one now meant for Elijah, and glared at them as they walked in. Chase waited for the sound of their retreating footsteps before he locked the door and turned to Elijah. He was immediately met with a smack. It landed with enough force for his head to turn and his ears to ring. He blinked away the balls of light dancing before his eyes.

Rubbing his cheek, he looked at Elijah. “Belated response to my ass slap?”

“Yes. And for not fucking warning me that you were fa—”

Chase grabbed the front of Elijah’s shirt and hauled him away from the door and around the bed. “Careful.”

Appearing genuinely chagrined, Elijah sank down onto the carpet. Instead of seeking comfort on the bed, he wedged himself between the wall and the empty side table. He’d always felt safer in small secure places. It was why, before his first full show with the Dreadnoughts, Chase had found him hiding in the storage closet while trying to tamp down an anxiety attack. Imposter syndrome often made Elijah its bitch.

Fondness swelled inside Chase, and he despised it. But he still knelt on the floor next to Elijah, glanced at the door and then at the window, and then crossed his legs in front of him.

“There’s no surveillance inside these houses, but you won’t be here for long.”

“Why? Am I going back to the silo? I thought they were going to let you . . . work on me. What does that even mean?”

“I don’t fucking know.”

“What?” Elijah sat up straighter. “You said you were all Mac Daddy Realigner guy!”

Chase’s mouth twitched. Leave it to Elijah to be totally ridiculous even when they were being held captive by a fucking cult. “Yeah, I was bullshitting so they wouldn’t hand you over to Jasper.”

“Who’s Jasper?”

“My nightmare.”

Elijah’s mouth sank at the sides. A shudder went through him, prompting him to cradle his arm and hunker down lower to the floor. “They told me this place was awful, but I had no idea . . . I just . . . I didn’t know what you were going through.”

“Who’s they?”

“Ex-Comm.” Elijah’s voice lowered to a whisper when he said the word, and his big eyes flew around the room despite the reassurance that there were no cameras. “After the thing with Beck, and after you were taken away, Lia finally told me about . . . everything. All the things I didn’t know before.”

Chase’s lips mashed together, discomfort working its way through him. “Don’t fucking leave me in suspense, kid. Just tell me what she said.”

Elijah’s bruised face creased in a scowl. “She told me about the missing psychics, and how she thinks it’s connected to whatever goes on here—at the Farm. And that there were a group of people who’d been aware of the problems with the Community for years, and were slowly getting other people to work with them to change things.”

“Which things?”

Elijah leaned farther back against the wall. His curly dark hair had grown out and was hanging all over his face and in his eyes. The urge to brush it away was stronger than it’d been in the past, but Chase didn’t succumb to it. As always. Instead, he kept his hands to himself and waited for Elijah to keep talking.

“Everything starting from the membership fee, to the rules and indoctrination, to the secrecy, and the consequences when someone toes out of line . . . the fucking board of directors none of us had a hand in choosing or electing. Basically, they think of the Community as a fascist cult or something. They think people become brainwashed and end up blindly devoting their lives to an organization that’s corrupt—and they also suspected the Farm was where people were sent for punishment. Not just . . . readjusting or realigning or whatever.”

Chase stared at him, expression unmoved, and tried to sort through how he felt about this load of bullshit.

“Who else knows about Ex-Comm besides the Dreadnoughts and Jessica Payne?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think Ex-Comm is an organized group like the Community. More like . . . the principles behind Ex-Comm are held by separate small groups. All of my information came directly from Lia, who is in contact with one of those groups.” Elijah hugged his arm closer to him, chin dipping to his chest as he peeked at Chase through his hair. “Why are you questioning me like this?”

“Because number one—I’m pretty goddamn unimpressed that enough assholes know this shady shit and have never actually, y’know, done jack squat about it.”

“Well, Lia tried—”

“And speaking of Lia, I’m starting to wonder if the Dreadnoughts were ever really just a band formed by two mostly void queer musicians, or if they’re a fucking plant in Evolution by Ex-Comm to keep an eye on Holden.”

Elijah went still. “I didn’t think about that. Lia claimed she didn’t know about Ex-Comm until Jericho joined the band and warned her about the Comm.”

“Right. That just means he may have been the plant.” Chase scoffed and shot a look at the door again. “Regardless, I don’t believe anything these people say. If there are enough of them to spread the word that something is off about this whole outfit, then why hide in a corner fucking whispering to each other? Why not act?”

“They did act. Lia and Holden—”

“They came here to get Jessic—Ex-Comm’s figurehead and Holden’s mother. Stop acting like it had shit to do with us. In the grand scheme of it all . . .” Chase sneered. “We ain’t nothing but a baby psy with weak precog abilities and a freak who everyone is convinced will go off the deep end one day.”

Elijah leaned forward so abruptly that he winced, cradling his arm more carefully. “How can you say that? Holden was worried about you. He had nightmares about you.”

“He had visions about me. ’Cause I sent them.” Chase’s nostrils flared, hating to admit the rest. “It was the only thing I could do to . . . to sound an alarm. Trying anything else triggers a massive fucking shutdown in my brain because of all their brainwashing.”

“If that’s the case, then why isn’t their brainwashing working now? In the past, you couldn’t even tell me anything. You’d try and then you’d lock up. I didn’t put it together at the time but after you disappeared . . .” He cringed, hands balling into fists. “I rethought everything I thought I’d known about the Community and you, and I remembered. But you’re nothing like that now. Drugged? Yes. Brainwashed?” Elijah shook his head. “No.”

Chase had nearly interrupted Elijah to refute the claim twice during his speech, but it was true. Even the night of the showdown with Beck, Chase had lacked the agency to tell Elijah why he needed to get the hell out of town. Every attempt to get the words out had resulted in pressure and tightness and pain spreading through him before he was paralyzed with fear. The fear the Community had ingrained in him of what would happen to him if he betrayed them or if he left.

If he thought back to the past couple of months and his incarceration inside the Farm, he couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment that stranglehold had begun to fade. Yet he knew it had something to do with his father. With knowing that all this time, there had never been a safe person inside the Community. Jasper wasn’t the only bad guy. They all were. It was the Community he should have feared all along.

“You’re right,” Chase said after a beat. “Guess brainwashing doesn’t work if the threat of being cast out starts looking like a good thing.”

Elijah nodded and reached for Chase’s hand. He didn’t look surprised when Chase pulled away.

“And now you know you have people outside the Community who care about you. You don’t need them.”

Chase barked out a laugh. “Like who?”

“Like Holden. He risked everything when he came for you—”

“Trust me when I say this. I’m convinced the only person who gave a damn about my narrow white ass while busting into this place was Nate, because freaks in the Black family stick together.”

“You’re not a freak.” Elijah’s voice came out loud, so he lowered it and hissed, “What the fuck is the matter with you? You don’t sound much different than you sounded in the other room in front of them. I thought that was just a performance.”

“Yeah, you would.”

Elijah searched his face, dismay written in every line of his own, before putting a hand on Chase’s knee. “You don’t really believe all that stuff you said, do you?”

Chase pushed his hand away and started to climb to his feet. Elijah pulled Chase down and winced. It shouldn’t have been possible for Elijah to manhandle him, especially while wounded, but Chase was weakened from being holed up in the silo with Jasper. He already felt fatigued from this much activity.

“Chase,” Elijah said. “What’s wrong with you?”

“What’s wrong with me is that you’re being an idiot as always. You never listen to me, Elijah. You didn’t listen the twelve fucking times I told you to get out of the city, you didn’t listen when I said to hop on a bus and not tell anyone in the Community a damn thing, and you’re not listening to me now.” Chase slapped Elijah’s hand away once again. “It’s easier for you to believe that Ex-Comm is good and the Community is bad, and Holden is a hero, and some day we’re going to be saved? But guess what—it’s not like that. You’re naïve.”

“If I’m so naïve, then tell me the reality,” Elijah snapped back. “Tell me what I’m missing if I’m so stupid.”

Chase’s automatic response was to say he wasn’t stupid, and to comfort Elijah even though he’d been the one to inflict the hurtful blow, but he bit back on it. “The reality is that you can’t trust Ex-Comm, just like you can’t trust the Community. They’ve been sitting on this info for how fucking long? And yet they waited with their thumbs up their asses and their dicks in their hands, and it took the inbred squad from Texas to actually try to put a stop to everything that was going on at Evo.”

Elijah flinched, but kept his chin up.

“Also,” Chase continued, in full rant-mode, “they’re trying to dismantle the whole community. We don’t know if it’s bad as a whole or if there’s a few—”

“Oh my God, if you give me the few-bad-apples speech . . . I swear I’ll start believing this is really a realigned version of my Chase.”

His Chase. Chase’s lip quirked, but he ignored the throwaway comment. “So, you think everyone who works at the CW is evil? They didn’t really help you?”

“They did, but it was mostly individuals, not the organization as a whole. That’s the whole point, Chase! I know you were born into it, but now that my head is less in the clouds, I can see so clearly why all of this is messed up.” Elijah gripped Chase’s forearms again, leaning in until their faces were less than a hand span apart. “Babe, think about it. The structure prevents anyone from ever democratically picking leaders, they crack down on anyone who speaks against them, they have this perfect face of how they want their organization to be viewed and like . . . shepherd special psys into key positions to have influence even outside of the Community. Not only that, but this shit with the Farm? It’s nuts!”

He was right. He was right about all of it. But there was something deep inside Chase that rejected the idea that all parts of it were bad, and not just the little coalition run by his father, who’d convinced himself he could use psychic vampires to create a perfect psychic army to take over the government.

“At this point, we don’t know shit,” Chase growled. “And I’m not going to take the word of a group of people who’ve done nothing to change the situation.”

Elijah deflated a little. “That’s fair, but Holden—”

“I don’t want to hear about Holden. And this little conference has gone on too long. I have to pretend like I’m setting you up to be fucking brainwashed in the silo for a few days before you’re allowed to come back here for good behavior.”

Elijah didn’t react, but realization slowly trickled into his expression until he grew paler and his eyes had become blank with horror. A tremor went through his slight frame, and this time Chase didn’t stop himself from reaching out to touch him. For three years now, he’d wanted Elijah. To touch, to care about, to fuck, to comfort—and he rarely allowed himself to do it. But now . . .

“I’m so scared, Chase,” Elijah whispered. “I want to be strong like you, and be able to pretend, but what if it works? What if days of being locked away in a white room with nothing but a droning monologue about the Community having saved me, and them starving me or dehydrating me, and then them questioning me and . . . and confusing me, or that Jasper guy torturing me—what if it works?”

“Elijah, just listen—”

“No, you fucking listen.” Elijah jerked him closer and did nothing to hide the dampness in his eyes or the trembling of his full lower lip. “Look how brainwashed I was without even being on the Farm. How hard could it be to get me back to the point? Or worse . . . like one of the drones who do nothing but exist on this Farm to procreate . . .”

Chase’s eyes narrowed. “You’ve seen them?”

“Yes. Men and women. Multitalented. They’re . . . breeding them.”

Chase had known it, but the confirmation churned his stomach. And the fear sweeping over Elijah like a wildfire clenched his heart with a tight fist.

“We have no control, Chase. It’s like everyone I’ve ever met, all the people who took me in and showed me that there was more to life than constantly running and doing last resorts to survive, were liars. I feel like they tricked me, and now I don’t know who to trust.”

The tears spilled from his round eyes and caught in his lashes. Elijah’s breath hitched.

“For fuck’s sake. Calm down, all right? This isn’t gonna solve—”

“And now you don’t even trust Holden or Lia,” Elijah went on miserably. “You think no one gives a fuck about a freak like you or a little Mexican boy like me, and that they’ll never come back for us.”

Chase wrapped his hands around Elijah’s upper arms and leaned down so their faces were pressed together. “Listen here, jackass. You just said you feel like everyone you’ve ever known has lied to you. Well, guess what? I feel the same way, which is why I’m not so quick to trust Ex-Comm.”

“And what about me?” Elijah reached up to press his hand against the side of Chase’s face. He didn’t let go even when Chase tried to turn away, brow knitting and nostrils flaring. “Do you trust me?”

Fuck that question. Fuck Elijah for demanding an answer.

“This ain’t the time.”

“This is exactly the time.” Elijah pressed their foreheads together. He searched Chase’s gaze with soulful brown eyes, so beautiful that Chase never failed to get lost in them. Even though he’d rather choke than admit it. “If you want me to trust you, and whatever your plan is, I need to know where we stand.”

“I want us gone,” Chase gritted out. “But we have to play along first. They’re gonna be watching us, so we have to make it look good. And believe me, baby. Next time it won’t be a shot in the arm. People have died here.” Elijah’s sharp inhale didn’t slow Chase down as he continued in a hiss. “You’ll go to the silo for a couple of weeks so they can try to get your mind right, but it won’t work. Know why? Because you’re strong as fuck. You survived your mother and her boyfriends, and your grandparents and their religious bullshit—”

Elijah cringed. Even now, after all these years, he hated to admit that it had been his own family’s homophobia that had driven him halfway across the country. To New York and the Community. Religion was just as capable of brainwashing and indoctrinating as the Community. If people devoted their lives to something, they sometimes refused to turn their backs on it even if it meant hurting their own.

“You survived hitchhiking across the country, being homeless in New York fucking City, and you managed to pull your head out of your ass and open those big pretty eyes of yours to see what the Comm is. Even if it took as long as it did. Some people still ain’t about to admit it, Elijah. You’re stronger than most. Than Holden. Maybe even stronger than me.”

A hoarse laugh released from Elijah’s throat. “No one’s stronger than you.”

“Untrue,” Chase said roughly. “You didn’t let your hardships turn you into a cold, unfeeling bastard. I did.”

The pained look on Elijah’s face intensified, and his fingers dug into Chase harder. “Chase, please . . .”

“Please, what?”

“Tell me if you believe those shitty things you said about me. If you think I’m just using you while holding out for Holden.”

Chase’s jaw clenched.

“It’s not true,” Elijah said fiercely.

“Yeah, whatever.”

“It’s not fucking true, you fucking pendejo. Yes, I was infatuated with Holden. Yes, I wanted him to notice me for years. But you know what I realized after everything fell apart? That I wanted you, not the person who I thought had saved me.”

Chase looked away from Elijah’s furious gaze. It was hard to believe what he was saying after so much evidence to the contrary. “This isn’t the time. They’ll be in here—”

“Stop telling me about it being the right time! Whatever you think about me and about how I feel is wrong. Maybe I’ve said things out of anger in the past, but that’s because you do act like a bastard. Why would I tell you how much you mean to me when you sometimes act like I’m nothing but a convenient piece of ass.”

“Good point.” Chase pushed Elijah back. “Can we—”

Elijah surged forward to crush their lips together. Chase started to shove him away, to twist his face and end this, but when Elijah’s tongue flicked at his mouth . . . he was gone. Gone into the sea of warm sensation and pleasure. The peace of the man’s mouth and the familiar stirrings of arousal that made it clear his sex drive would never lower no matter how much they tortured him. Months of mind-fucking, and his body reacted to Elijah just as strongly as it always had.

He wanted him on the bed or on the floor. Screw it, he’d fuck Elijah up against the wall. Run his mouth all over soft brown skin, tangle his fingers in tangled hair, and look into eyes that always held a promise even though Chase had never allowed himself to fall too deep. Believing Elijah could ever want someone as warped as him was as good as believing in miracles. Telling himself he was just a stand-in, a big dick and a high libido with killer stamina, was easier.

But Chase hadn’t realized how much he’d miss Elijah’s mouth. After all this time, it was like heaven. Or whatever afterlife would take a freak show like Chase.

He slanted his mouth and kissed Elijah deeper, drinking in the soft little moan that followed, and enjoying how demanding Elijah was even now. They were surrounded by enemies, locked in a room with only a small hope that there were still no cameras, and moments away from pretending to be enemies. And yet . . . Chase wanted to rip down Elijah’s shorts and bury himself in his tight heat. Let him feel, with intense fucking, how much Chase wanted him. But then he’d have to swallow all the traitorous nonsense words that always wanted to fall from his mouth, because those words made it plain as day that he needed Elijah for a lot more than sex.

He tore away, heart jackhammering against his chest, and sucked in deep even breaths.

“I might have to hurt you,” he panted against Elijah’s mouth. “If they let me in the silo.”

“Until I . . . pretend to have turned?”

Chase nodded, still running his fingers through all that wild beautiful hair. “At the very least, I’ll have to treat you like you’re finally mine. And you’ll pretend you want it that way.”

“Who said anything about pretending?” Elijah licked his lips slowly. “If us fucking makes things more believable, I’m not going to complain.”

“Even if I treat you like my bitch boy? Tote you around like arm candy?”

“You can slap me around and fuck me in front of an audience as long as no one else lays a hand on me and the end game is us getting the hell out of here.”

“If anyone touches you, I’ll cut their throats. I may be hogtied mentally due to the drugs, but I still have a mean streak a highway wide and can hold my own in a fight.” Chase sat back on his haunches. “But when you walk out of that silo, you need to act like Ex-Comm are basically traitors, Holden and Lia are shady, and that you’re devoted to me. Then when they trust us enough to put us to work, and there are fewer eyes on us, we get the fuck out.”

Elijah’s breathing had increased as he listened to the skeleton of a plan. “And from there?”

“I’ll think of that. For now, the plan is to get off the Farm.”

“Got it.”

Chase stood, but Elijah grabbed the hem of his shirt.

“I mean what I said, Chase. It won’t be pretending. I do want to be yours. Even before they dragged me here, I was searching for you. All I wanted to do was find you. The minute you disappeared from Evo and the city, I realized how much you meant to me.” Elijah sat up on his knees. “Were you lying when you told Richard how much I mean to you? That you’re in love with me?”

A vise closed around Chase, and a tableau of everything that had happened between him and Elijah in the past few years sprinted through his mind. The grudging kisses, the frantic and intense sex, the traded insults, and the way Elijah’s attention had always skewed back to Holden.

“No, it’s not true.” Chase turned to the door, but even out of the corner of his eye, he could see Elijah’s face fall. “I just said it so he’d think they had me under their thumb. He knows I would never admit to anything like that of my own free will.”

“Got it.”

“Good.”

Chase strode out before his resolve could crumble. Just like it had the first time he’d laid hands on Elijah, and every time after that when he’d told himself to stay away.

“See you on the other side.”

The room around him was white and the floor beneath him was hard and cold. It wasn’t exactly freezing, but it was frigid enough for a consistent shiver to pass through his body, and for the scratch of soreness to have already formed at the back of his throat.

It was that scratch, and the coldness beneath his bare thighs, that immediately allowed Chase to realize he wasn’t in his new bed in the cottage.

He was in the silo, and this wasn’t a dream.

Visions had come to him this way for his entire life, and it was still a surprise when he opened his eyes to find himself somewhere else. Especially when everything felt so real.

Chase’s eyes adjusted to the blinding brightness of the room—shocking mostly because it must have been the dead of night outside—and focused on Elijah. He looked so small balled up in a corner with his hands pressed to his ears and his eyes shut. He’d tilted his head back against the ceiling. It looked like he was praying. Or trying to sleep.

And that’s when the music started.

The roar of an aggressive beat intercepted with the growl of a voice so distorted it was hard to make out, or maybe that was the static of the vision making it impossible for Chase to understand. Elijah curled in on himself tighter, hands plugging his ears harder, as his jaw clenched up.

Pain was a bullet to Chase’s heart. Jasper had stolen his empathy ages ago, but when it came to Elijah . . . Chase’s chest was like a cage with wide bars. Easy for the beautiful boy with the smart mouth and luminous eyes to reach in and touch Chase’s heart, even if those feelings never managed to get out.

He stood from his own crouch and walked across the room in measured steps. The cold seeped into his skin with each movement, so he walked faster, moving with the beat, before he reached Elijah. Even after Chase crouched in front of him, Elijah didn’t react. His face was twisted, damp with tears, and his brows all screwed up.

God, he was so beautiful. Even when he was hurt.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Chase put his hands on Elijah’s shoulders and leaned in. There was no way his touch would be felt or his voice would be heard, but he spoke anyway.

“They can’t get you, baby. You’re fucking strong. They’re nothing. You survived too much for some psy kids with distorted brains to mess you up. As long as you can keep your shield up, you can beat them.” Chase brushed his hand alongside Elijah’s face with a gentleness he never showed in the real world. “And if they do manage to get you, I’ll bring you back. Because . . .” He swallowed, that sick feeling taking over even as he beat it back. “Because I do fucking love you.”

The music seemed to lower, and a beat later, Elijah opened his eyes and looked directly at Chase. His brows rose, relief washing over him, and then everything faded around Chase. The white walls crumbled and Elijah dematerialized.

Then Chase woke up.

His heart wasn’t pounding and there was no cold sweat. He lay still and silent in a too soft bed as he gazed up at a ceiling that was far too low, and listened.

No footsteps. No voices. Nothing but the distant hooting of an owl and the wail of the wind outside the windows. The Farm was still except for somewhere up in the silo where Elijah had been inundated with sound and the drone of Community propaganda for the past two weeks.

Chase knew without question the vision had been real. And he knew Elijah had heard his voice. Which begged the question: why weren’t the psy-sups working?

He went through a mental catalog of the past several days. His realignment was different from Elijah’s because they thought he couldn’t act without fighting past the excruciating pain of his programming. They didn’t realize the brainwashing had lapsed, and he’d regained his free will.

He wondered what else they were doing to Elijah. They were trying to disorientate him—that was clear. They probably had Community propaganda on repeat—stats about who they’d saved, or maybe even data from Elijah’s own file. Recordings of his old counseling sessions at the CW. Reminders of how they’d “saved” him, when all they’d done was take him off the street to put him into a different type of unsafe situation.

They would also be performing nonstop questioning. That was a given.

If Chase knew their strategies, the questioning would have been going on all along. The questioning was what had gotten Chase as a kid. Why he’d never told his father about what could only be described as torture. Jasper had always bombarded him with the same questions but worded slightly different: Why did your mother leave? Do you think your mother left because of you? Do you think you scared her? Is your father scared of you? Would he be angry if he knew you didn’t want me to fix you? Do you think your father will leave like your mother?

It was weird how something so obvious could break you after enduring it for long enough. But it’d worked for a while. Undoubtedly, they were laying into Elijah with it. They’d even taken it up with Chase again. Which turned his thoughts away from Elijah, where they always landed even when he was trying to focus on something else, and back to his analysis of the past few days.

They all started the same. Like at a hospital or a residential psychiatric treatment center, from what Chase had gleaned from baby psy kids who’d stumbled into the CW after escaping a situation where their parents had thought telepathy was schizophrenia, and had them institutionalized.

He woke up to a nurse giving him his meds. A cocktail of vitamins, sedatives, and psy suppressants. The psy suppressants were what kept him, and what had kept Holden’s mother, from fully using their talents while on the Farm. If they used enough, it made him as useless as a void. But Jessica had been more with it than him after the invasion, so somewhere along the line she’d fooled them into decreasing her meds.

The only way Chase’s abilities could be active was if he was doing the same. But he wasn’t. The nurse—Shelby, a chubby black girl with deep-brown eyes that reminded him of Elijah, and pink woven into her braids—gruffly gave him his meds every day and practically took apart his mouth making sure he swallowed them.

Now, he wondered about those pills.

It was time to get friendlier with Shelby.

The next day, Chase made it a point to wake himself up a little before Shelby arrived. He wanted to be alert when she showed up, and he’d had trouble sleeping anyway.

He’d lain there wondering whether he’d be able to play along with the daily questioning sessions and fake-ass counseling to earn a trip to the silo. So far, he hadn’t asked to see Elijah. Until the day before, he’d been too doped up to even think of asking. Now everything was different.

The world was clear, his thoughts were sharp, and he was ready to fuck someone up and get the hell out of Dodge.

Shelby came in wearing her light-pink nurse uniform with her matching pink braids, and gave him the usual stern look. The I-know-you’d-be-an-asshole-if-you-weren’t-drugged-up look.

“Good morning, Shelby.”

That eyebrow drove straight up. “Oh, so he speaks today.”

Chase crossed his arms behind his head. “Wasn’t feeling up to it until today.”

“Uh-huh.” She pushed her cart with the computer, tray, and various implements to the side of his bed. “Time for vitals.”

He sat up, watched as she took his blood pressure, holding her steady gaze as she took his temperature, and tried to get a read on her. It was risky, but if he moved fast, he could dip in and out without leaving a mental footstep behind. Unfortunately, it was impossible. There was basically a mental fortress around her brain. Fuck. What good was being a psychic if every other psychic could shut him out of their brains? Tapping into the average psy kid at Evo had been a cakewalk, but Comm staff had their shields secured.

The shittiest part of being a psychic was having this entitlement—like all of this info should be at his disposal—but being unable to actually utilize it since his abilities were inconsistent. Visions came when they wanted, and he could only get into the minds of a void or someone without a strong shield. There was never really a reason for him to psychically connect with a void, so that left him with a useless talent. Theo had let him in, but he’d also not listened to Chase’s warnings.

Which was why he’d died.

The memory of that night came back with a roaring intensity. A freight train of guilt and horror that he’d known his brother would die, and had been utterly fucking powerless to stop it as he’d watched through Theo’s eyes. The Comm programming had kept him from doing anything but screaming one word over and over: Run.

But Theo hadn’t run. He’d been so cocky. So sure that he could handle Beck, and that the confrontation would go his way. He’d sworn he could influence her to seeing his point of view and telling the truth.

Neither of them had expected her to have absorbed enough abilities to make her the superhuman everyone always said Chase was. But they were wrong. Compared to Beck, his abilities were child’s play. So far, his telepathy had been most useful for sending visions to Nate. And his telekinesis worked only at random. Like when he’d powered through those straps in the silo, causing them to stretch out of shape with sheer willpower before the talent had gone dormant again.

“BP was a little high.”

Chase blinked, refocusing on Shelby. “Huh?”

“Your blood pressure was high.”

“Maybe I’ll have a heart attack,” he suggested.

“Is that a personal goal?”

“More like a dream.”

“Uh-huh.” She shook her head, but the corner of her mouth was twitching. “Open up, smart guy. Time for meds.”

“Yummy. Gotta love those psy-sups.”

“Mm-hmm.”

The look Shelby gave him this time was a little narrower. Was he seeing things or had that been a shut your dumb fucking mouth look? Or was he the only one to use specific glares for specific reasons? It was good to have an arsenal of stank faces.

“So,” he said, glancing into his little paper cup. “How’d a gal like you end up in a place like this?”

“Gal? I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we’d teleported to the South in the past twenty seconds.”

Chase kind of liked Shelby now that he knew she probably wasn’t evil. He fell back on the bed with his hands crossed behind his head and grinned up at her. “You got something against the South?”

“I just have no desire to be there.”

Shelby grabbed his jaw, jerked it down and inspected the inside of his mouth to make sure he’d swallowed the cocktail. Satisfied, she stepped back and peeled off her gloves.

“You really gonna do me like that, Shelby?”

“Do you like . . . what?” Her face creased incredulously. “We really do not need to interact. All my other patients shut their mouths, do what they’re told, and hold off with the small talk.”

“You got something against small talk?”

Shelby’s lips pursed as she nailed him with a skeptical stare that immediately pulled a smirk out of him. He couldn’t help it. Her glares were epic gold, and he liked people who said what they meant instead of playing games. Although, he suspected she did indeed have a game plan of her own.

Now that he was paying attention to it, the pills she’d just watched him choke down didn’t taste the same as the ones he’d taken a couple of weeks ago. They were just as jumbo sized, but the distinct chalky taste had gone, and they were smoother. Sweeter. Citrus flavored.

Had she swapped his psy-sups for Flintstone vitamins, or was he losing his shit?

“See you tomorrow, Shelby.”

“Uh-huh.”

She left the room without ceremony, and he wondered if he’d just created an ally out of pure desperation. Not knowing when Elijah would be released was killing him. He’d been on edge all along, but now that he’d seen what they were doing to Elijah, he felt ready to come out of his skin. Especially since his father had yet to let him leave the cottage.

The sound of footsteps outside his door drew his attention and sparked his hope. Usually, he was left alone until breakfast was served about an hour after his meds, and then the cycle of questions and counseling started. A full day of gaslighting all day every day. The Community special. No one ever dropped by before that routine because things never changed.

But this time, someone stopped in front of his door. It was Richard who slipped into his room, wearing the same sharp suit he always wore but minus the tie. For Richard, that was seriously dressing down.

“Can I finally do something useful?” Chase asked. “Because I’m pretty sure our agreement had been for me to work on Elijah, not be subjected to sixteen hours a day of—”

“There was no agreement,” Richard said. “You’re lucky to be here and not in the silo with your boyfriend. Jasper doesn’t trust either of you.”

“And I should give a fuck what Jasper thinks?”

“Yes. He’s been an incredible asset to the Community, even if his methods aren’t easy to tolerate or understand. But he produces results.”

Chase swallowed his disgust. “What results has he ever fucking produced with me?”

At that, Richard looked at him sideways. “You’re here, aren’t you? Not off playing rebel like your brother. Or Six.”

In that moment, Chase realized his father was seriously sold on his own crap. There had been times when Chase had listened and observed people in the Community, and wondered how they could talk so much bullshit without ever once having to wipe their mouths. He’d assumed they were all faking their devotion, lying about their beliefs and opinions with the sole purpose of either sucking up or not pissing off the wrong person and getting a concerned write-up and a trip for realignment. And for Richard, Chase had always assumed he was in this one hundred percent for the power.

Now he had to wonder. Did Richard really see brainwashing as an effective tactic for instilling loyalty to the Community? Did he seriously not get how forcing Chase and Elijah to stay on the Farm was kidnapping and exploitation? Did Richard really regret not putting Holden in the same situation so he would never think of leaving either? It was amazing to think the person who was destroying the sanctity of the Community still thought it was the safest place for them all.

Chase swallowed every response that sprang to his mind, and nodded slowly. “What am I doing today?”

“You’re finding your place here.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning you stop being my child. You stop being a tool to be utilized in a menial role. And you become part of this.”

“And when you say ‘this’ . . .?”

“Our future.” Richard turned to the door. “Get dressed and wash up. We have a lot to do.”

Chase did as he was told, but all the while his mind was racing. This would be his chance to not only gather information about who else was being held on the Farm, but to learn how they’d revamped the security, and to get a chance at seeing Elijah. After that last vision, he desperately needed to.

It was the first thing he wanted to demand upon meeting his father downstairs in the sitting room, but he held on to it. It had to look like his priority was the Community, and the operations that would lead them to progressing.

“Things have changed since you last had run of the place,” Richard said once they were leaving the cottage together. “In the past, this place was primarily used for rehabilitation for troubled psys. Now it’s the main base of operations.”

“I’m not too clear on what those operations are,” Chase said. “Because I see and hear a lot of little kids scampering around, and I have a hard time believing they’re next in line to join your ranks of covert operatives and super psys.”

“Because you’re not thinking broadly enough.” They stepped out into the sunlight, and Chase took a deep breath of clean cold air. “Those children will be raised surrounded by members of the Community. Everything from their thought patterns to their responses will be shaped by their upbringing here.”

“So, they’ll be good little robots for you to control,” Chase said shrewdly. When Richard only stared, he shook his head and asked, “Who’re the parents?”

Richard looked out over the property, his gaze resting on the guesthouse before flicking to the cottage again. “Different people. We matched individuals based on ability. It’s a crudely designed operation, but until we have more technology—”

“Wait, hold up.” Chase raised both hands as if in surrender, and stared at his father without hiding his shock. “You match people? What the fuck? Are you making this a nice safe place for psy families and staff, or are you crossbreeding psychics?”

“Both,” Richard said crisply. “They’re not mutually exclusive. We provide a safe haven for those who volunteered to be part of this project.”

“The project of . . . crossbreeding psychics.”

“Yes. As I said, they gave their consent.”

“Did they also give their consent to stay stoned out of their minds?” Chase demanded. “And speaking of, I didn’t give the go-ahead for that either. I don’t need the fucking psy-sups.”

There wasn’t a hint of warmth on Richard’s face as he said, “You need them until I can be sure that you won’t defect or use your abilities to summon your brothers.”

What a laugh. Chase wasn’t summoning a goddamn person until he knew what they were up against. What he was up against in his desire to free Elijah. Everything else could wait.

When he appeared sure that Chase wasn’t going to ask another question, Richard nodded and began walking in the direction of the silo. He indicated the other buildings as they walked, flicking his fingers.

“Families are kept in the cottage and the guesthouse,” Richard said. “Depending on ranking.”

“Ranking, huh?” Chase squinted over at the guesthouse. “Any of those kids mini Richards?”

“Would it matter to you if they were?”

Chase didn’t think any of it mattered either way. They were all fucked. He shook his head, and they kept moving. Richard pointed out the names of guards and other staff, keeping a sharp eye on the people around them. If he didn’t trust his own staff, how could he ever trust Chase?

Chase listened closely as Richard noted their medicine closet and kitchen, where they stocked goods and what the plan was in case of an emergency. The place wasn’t a working farm and it wasn’t self-sufficient, but they’d prepped for disaster.

“And the silo,” Chase said after they circled the Farm and set eyes on everything and everyone who’d been out wandering. “Did you always want to use that for Jasper?”

“It was his idea. He thought his research into multis and the more extreme realignment should be kept separate from the psy village I was trying to create.”

“You take all of Jasper’s suggestions?” Chase asked. “Because I can tell you right now, honestly, that whatever plan you think you have to save us in the long term . . . having a motherfucker like that working for you will ruin everything.”

“Without Jasper, there wouldn’t be anything to ruin.” Richard followed Chase’s gaze to the silo. “Not many people know much about Jasper, and he prefers it that way. Even though he was my original founding partner. Not Kyger or Hale. It was Jasper who suggested we organize and come together. It was him who saw the need for a way to protect ourselves against the voids. That was how this all started.”

Chase looked away from the structure to focus on his father. “So, you’re saying this was always your goal? Creating a psy army?”

Richard didn’t look away from the silo as he said, “Yes.”

Nothing had ever been how it’d seemed. That much was certain. What wasn’t certain was how much the rest of the Community, especially the other founders, knew about Richard’s plans. And about Jasper’s existence.

As Chase walked the “village,” it was hard not to consider how long this plan must have taken to create and then put into action. This wasn’t just a couple of madmen rounding up powerful psys to experiment on them and research their powers to absorb them or breed them—this really was an entirely different world.

Chase had never been sold on the CW being a haven, because he’d seen where misbehaving psy kids wound up. But the Farm? Whole new ball game. There were more staff members than he remembered there being—medical staff, cooks, maintenance, and of course the mysterious people who worked in the silo. And they were all members of the Community. People who’d given up their life to exist on this Farm and help to create a perfect generation of psy babies.

And there was no doubt these kids were powerful. Chase could see himself in the toddlers, the kids, and the preteens. The eyes that glowed a little too long, the perceptive way they glanced at him, and the way pairs sat around together and looked at each other without speaking.

Richard had taken Chase to observe the children during one of their “lessons” in the main house’s great room, and it seemed to consist of the children finding ways to communicate with each other without words. It was the stupidest shit Chase had ever seen in his life, but one little boy caught his eye. He had golden hair and big gray eyes that looked blue in some lights and silver in others.

“Why’s that kid look like Nate and Theo?”

Richard looked at the boy for a long moment before speaking. “Are you paranoid over every blond child you encounter?”

Chase stared at the kid, trying to pick out familiar details, and finding more than just the hair and eyes. He had Nate’s—their—somewhat delicate features too. Small nose, high cheekbones, the thin willowy build . . .

A creeping sensation slid down Chase’s spine. He swallowed thickly, willing the feeling away. “Can you blame me? I didn’t know I had an entire family of clone-looking motherfuckers until I had a vision of them when I was twelve.”

One of the staff members attending to the kids gave him a disapproving look, and Chase just jerked his chin at the guy. Richard steered Chase away, not bothering to hide his smile.

“How did you know what your vision meant?” he asked. “Premonitions are usually vague. Contextless. Why did you assume it was real?”

Because he’d stalked them online until he’d found their information, and then had spent years trying to make a telepathic connection. His mental antenna hadn’t been strong enough until he’d watched Theo die.

Chase shrugged off his father’s hands and headed out to the brisk air again. He hadn’t missed Richard’s not-so-subtle subject change away from the little blond boy, but poking at him with questions he’d refuse to answer wasn’t the best strategy at the moment. “I didn’t know the visions were real until Theo showed up. And all sarcasm aside, I have a question for you. A real one. And you need to answer it if you want this to work.”

“What’s that?”

“What, specifically, is your plan with all this?”

Richard slipped his hands into his pants pockets and looked around the property. There was a gleam of pride in his eyes as he did so. “Have you ever heard of the Skull and Bones society?”

Chase snorted. “No. Sounds fake.”

“It’s not. How about the Illuminati?”

“Yeah. I also stayed up one night reading the theories that Beyoncé is their queen. Good shit. I enjoyed her rebuttal.” The smart-ass retort was evidence that Chase had been hanging out with Elijah too much, and that reminder made his chest ache. “What’s the point, Daddy-o?”

“My point,” Richard said slowly, impatience seeping into his tone. “Is that I don’t know if those organizations and societies exist, but I can believe they do. I don’t think there’s anything supernatural about them, or that they are run by psychics, but I do think a tradition started generations ago for several people to come together and decide to make a difference in the world. I think they succeeded by obtaining positions of power and then nudging the right people into the right places over time.”

“So you want to be the psychic Illuminati.”

Richard pursed his lips, and he had that look again. The I want to backhand you look. “I think the only way this world can be safe for our kind is if we’re the ones in control of it. But we’re a young organization, and a large one with inefficient leadership across the board. We’ve had limited success with planting adult psychics in key places, and Hale and Kyger keep a sharp eye on the younger ones who come through the CW.”

“Except the troubled ones,” Chase said. “’Cause you’re in charge of realignment and rehabilitation here.”

“Correct. Hale and Kyger treat the functional children like they’re their actual children, and dedicate their time to shepherding them to safe places instead of positions that would benefit the Community as a whole.”

Aha.

Hale and Kyger didn’t know about the master plan. Or if they did, they weren’t in agreement. Worse but still more plausible—they’d agreed to let some kids end up in Richard’s projects but only the troublesome ones like Chase. And Six.

“So you try to rehabilitate the fucked-up ones like me and use us as muscle or guards, and you’re trying to breed a whole bunch more to create your Skull and Bones society. Do I get you?”

“You do.” The wings of Richard’s brows rose. “Your thoughts?”

Chase smirked through the biggest lie he’d ever told. “I think you’re fucking nuts, but I also think you’ve got a point.” The roar of a motorbike cut off the last half of his sentence, and he glanced away to see Frick and Frack, or Will and Kyra, taking off out of the Farm. “Question number two for you, Pops. Your dynamic duo of assholes.” He pointed at the dust their bikes had kicked up as they sped away. “Did you find ’em or grow ’em?”

Richard’s lip curled at the question. Chase couldn’t tell if he was amused or annoyed at the phrasing.

“They were found in a group home in Illinois.”

“Long way,” Chase said. “Who found ’em?”

“Beck. My former spotter.”

“Ahhh . . . Where’s ole Beck now?”

The coldness that crossed Richard’s face was enough of an answer, but he said, “She wasn’t fit to serve in this operation any longer. Her desire for power took her to new heights of desperation, and she wasted valuable talent.”

Wasted. Like she’d spilled a drink or dropped an expensive bowl of strawberries, not, like, consumed actual humans to absorb their talent.

“Are there other people like Beck?”

“Spotters or psychic vampires?

“Both.”

Richard looked toward the silo. “As you know, I’m a spotter and have a touch of empathy, but my powers do not extend beyond my immediate area. I can sense when another psychic is using their gift, but not like Beck. Or, rather, not like what she absorbed from someone else.”

Chase nodded slowly. “Are there more vamps like Jasper and her? ’Cause I’m pretty sure it’d be hard to not be corrupted by the ability to fucking absorb another person’s psychic ability.”

“Agreed. But if you can’t summon the self-control to not put the entire Community at risk, then there’s no need for an individual to be in it. Regardless of their talent.” Richard began walking again, his feet taking him toward the silo. “And there may be others like them, but it’s very rare. You’re more likely to find a real vampire.”

Chase didn’t even want to consider that possibility. He was pretty done considering all the other weird shit that must exist in the world in general.

“So, what’s my place in all this?” he asked. “I serve as your right hand? The muscle? An enforcer? Take out the people who need to be taken out?”

“No. Your future role would be to run this facility while I return to the city to make changes with the board.”

That smelled like an entire casserole of trouble and mayhem, but Chase made his face look like impressed, and nodded. “Why not Frick and Frack?”

Again, Richard gave him one of those long slow looks, as if he couldn’t believe he’d helped to spawn someone so dim-witted. “They’re impulsive bullies. Fine for enforcers but not for leadership. I had Six in mind for this role, but he was—”

Richard broke off and pursed his lips. The way his eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared were intriguing enough for Chase to gently reach out with his telepathy to see what the old monster was thinking. It came in the form of angry screaming phrases in Richard’s mind: He fucking betrayed me. After all I did, he fucking betrayed me. I looked at him like a son, and he betrayed me. That bitch took him from me.

Chase withdrew before the tickle of mental fingers alerted Richard to the fact that the psy-sups were inactive in Chase’s system. He took a chance every time he tried to read someone, but he was going on faith that his own shield was strong enough for them to not detect his talent unless he got sloppy and lingered too long.

“He had other plans,” Richard said.

With your wife, Chase wanted to say, but didn’t. He had no idea when Jessica Payne had transitioned from philanthropist and First Lady of the Community to someone who was secretly working to take it all down, and it wasn’t his place to ask. He’d just scrape at Richard’s mind little by little in the hopes of catching him unshielded in an off moment, and find out on his own.

“When do I take over this role?”

“Once you’re through with your realignment sessions.”

Chase didn’t hide an eye roll. “And when the fuck do I get to see Elijah?”

Richard arched a brow. “You’ll be excited to know that he broke last night. Confessed his crimes and pleaded for realignment to be returned to our fold. You can see him as soon as he’s transferred back to the cottage.”

Elijah was so fucking beautiful it sometimes hurt to look at him.

When Chase and Richard walked into his room, Elijah was asleep in the bed. Ashen, gaunt, with dark circles shadowing his eyes, but there was no changing his thick shiny hair, the long eyelashes, or the way his full pillowy lips parted in sleep. His sleek body and elegant limbs—how looking at him just made Chase want to pull him close. Protect him.

“Is he sedated?” Chase asked roughly.

Richard walked around the bed, his impassive face unchanged even as he dragged two fingers along Elijah’s cheek. “No. He’s sleeping.”

“Yeah, I’m sure he’s pretty exhausted.” Anger boiled inside of Chase, threatening to spill over and expose itself to Richard. And that couldn’t happen. This had been his idea. His plan. “But at least it doesn’t look like your creepy clones put their hands on him.”

Richard flicked another look over Elijah. “The staff was informed that he wasn’t to be physically touched.”

“Yeah? Why didn’t they get that directive last time around?”

“Because last time I didn’t know my foolish son was in love with him.”

Chase raised a brow. “And that activates your care factor?”

Irritation lit Richard’s expression, the first sign of life since they’d walked into the room. “It’s time to leave your bitterness in the past if you’re going to be part of this. Whatever perceived failings you think I had as a father—”

“You mean treating me like a science project while you raised your other son? Those failings?”

Richard’s lips pursed, and he inhaled deeply, slowly. “Chase.”

“Daddy-o.”

“It’s time you leave your resentment toward me in the past, as well as your jealousy of Holden.” When Chase’s lips twisted into a snarl, Richard raised a cautioning hand. “Let’s be blunt, Chase. I bet on the wrong horse when it came to my family. Twice. But now it’s over, and you’re the one who’s here. And I’m rewarding you for it.” Richard waved his hand toward Elijah without looking at him. “If what you thought was favoritism of Holden was at the root of your distrust and animosity, rest assured there is no need to feel anger anymore. I am focused on you. And soon, your Elijah will be as well.”

Chase could only stare at his father and experience an inferno of rage like he had never felt before. But he kept his body still and his lips in the same mocking expression, because Richard would expect nothing else.

“Enjoy,” Richard said. “And learn to be gracious.”

He swept from the room with another penetrating glare, and twisted the lock behind him. It was a pointless gesture considering the staff all had keys to the doors, but the implication was clear. He’d just given Chase permission to “enjoy” his “reward.” In less than a minute, he’d relegated Elijah from a member of the Community to a sex toy. An object. Someone lesser than him, than them, and therefore not worthy of humanity.

How had Chase not seen his father for what he was? How the fuck had he thought . . .

The sound of Elijah whimpering in his sleep wiped all Chase’s chaotic thoughts away. It was ridiculous how any word or movement or breath from Elijah captured him so completely, and how even now there was no changing it. Whatever was between him and Elijah, and whether it was solely on his side or not, it wasn’t going anywhere.

He crossed the room to sit on the bed next to Elijah, and put a hand on his face, fingers curling just slightly to tangle in his thick curls. Chase had only meant to caress him, to try to soothe whatever dream or nightmare had wrenched that sound from his throat. To be gentle while he was sleeping because that was the only time Chase could bring himself to worship the soft skin the way it deserved to be. But he ended up doing more.

Chase opened a channel between his mind and Elijah’s, and prepared to delve into the other man’s memories. He was going to relive the past two weeks so he could feel everything Elijah had felt, and punish himself the way they’d punished Elijah. It was his fault Elijah was here. He’d been brought as a threat, and now he was being used as a gift.

Chase closed his eyes and slid into Elijah’s mind.

The floor was cold under his feet, and the chill in the air was so consistent it slid into his bones. And he hurt. He hurt from standing in the middle of the room, for hours, without the ability to go to the bathroom. Without water.

“Fuck,” Elijah whispered, his voice low and choked with tears. He looked up, rage ripping through him to railroad the discomfort and fear. “Fuck you all!”

“Why are you angry, Elijah?”

“Because you fucking people are punishing me for not wanting to be one of you! It’s my choice. It’s my life.”

The last words scraped out low and raw and desperate. Elijah trembled, his teeth chattering, his body rebelling on him and his ability to remain in control.

“Why are you angry right now? Right at this moment?”

The voice was low, mellow, and unrecognizable. Maybe a woman’s voice, but when Elijah looked at her it was impossible to fully make out her characteristics. His eyes were blurry and strained, and her face was so ordinary it could be any of the other people who’d come into his room to question him.

“Because you’re monsters.”

“Elijah . . . tell me what you want. Right now. More than anything. What would change the way you’re feeling?”

The trembling intensified, and a sob bubbled in his chest. “If you’d please just let me go. Just leave me alone. Please.”

“Elijah.” Her voice was so patient, but there was another emotion thickening it. Almost as if . . . she cared. “What could help you right at this moment?”

“Fuck.” He clenched his fingers into fists. “Just let me sit down! Please. Just let me fucking sit down.”

“I want you to sit down, Elijah. I want you to feel better. But you won’t help me help you.”

Elijah shook his head, the tears welling in his eyes. “What does that mean? I don’t understand.”

“Answer the questions,” she said, lowering her voice as if in confidence. “And we can get you rested and fed. Just answer the questions for me.”

The small white room filled with the sound of his sobs, and his tears began to flow so steadily that they slid down his face and dripped onto the floor. “Please . . .”

“Why did you leave Wisconsin, Elijah?”

Elijah gritted his teeth, hands balled up and body hunched.

“Answer the question, and let me help you. Why did you leave Wisconsin? After you moved in with your grandparents, you said it should have been safe. So, why did you leave?”

“Because my grandfather said he would fucking kill me if I didn’t stop being gay!” Elijah wrapped his arms around himself, the shivering wracking his slight frame. “He saw me with a kid from Church, and he said if I didn’t start acting like a boy and not a pervert, he would—he would cut—” The rest of the sentence was choked off in a garble of syllables and sobs.

The questioner moved closer, put a hand on his shoulder, and asked, “Did he hurt you, Elijah?”

He shook his head. “But I was so scared that he would. So I ran. And while I was running . . . I saw . . . New York. I saw Chase and Holden. Evolution.”

“You saw the Community.”

Elijah tensed further, shaking violently, and nodded his head.

“And how did it make you feel, Elijah? When you saw the vision of your future within the Community?”

He gnashed his teeth, tasting warm iron in his mouth.

“Tell me how you felt. Help me help you.”

“God,” he moaned. “Please just leave me alone. Please.”

“Then answer the question, and let yourself rest. Do this for yourself, Elijah. Not for me. Not for the Community. Do it for yourself.”

Another anguished whimper, and then, “I felt relieved! I felt hope. I felt—I felt like . . . I could belong somewhere.”

She nodded slowly, face appearing to soften. “Did you not belong with us, Elijah?”

He clenched his jaw so tight his head hurt. The throb joined the rest of the pain in his body until it was all encompassing, and he felt like he would collapse. Right there.

“Did you feel a sense of belonging in the Community?”

“Yes! It was the happiest I’d been in my life!”

The appearance of relief bloomed on her face when Elijah finally looked up with his swollen, aching eyes.

“Lay down, Elijah. And I’ll bring you something to eat.”

He dropped to the floor like his strings had been cut, a shaking pile of limbs, messy hair damp from his tears, and muffled cries.

Chase opened his eyes and slid his hand away from Elijah’s face. Slowly, he raised it to touch his own cheek, and was amazed to find it damp. Elijah’s tears had become his tears. All that pain and hopelessness. The fear and all those building doubts at the end . . . had become his own.

He inhaled slowly, surprised when it shuddered audibly, and tried to take deep calming breaths. All the while, he stared down at Elijah. The pinched brow and dark circles. How exhausted and thin he was.

If Chase compared the torture he’d endured for his entire childhood, the mind games they’d played with Elijah might look like nothing. But that was wrong. The ability to turn someone as strong, as durable, as Elijah into a mess of self-doubt and guilt, actual fucking guilt, was incredible.

For the first time, Chase doubted his own self-assurance that Elijah would make it through this. The fear welling in Elijah’s chest became his own, and it drove Chase to lean down and brush his lips against Elijah’s temple. Then across each closed eye, the tip of his nose, and then his mouth.

Elijah made another soft sound, but he sighed through the kiss.

“Chase . . .”

Chase started to pull away, but Elijah’s hand shot up to hold him in place. There was strength in that grip that should have been impossible given the past two weeks, but Elijah’s fingers dug into him hard enough to cause pain. A desperate clawing grip that sent chills down Chase’s spine.

“Is this real?” Elijah whispered, his eyes cracking open. Only a glint of damp dark brown showed beneath his feathery lashes. “Are you really here this time?”

Chase’s relief was so powerful that a lump swelled in his throat. He tried to clear it, but it still came out shaky. “I’m here.”

Elijah opened his eyes wider, a trembling smile growing on his face. “Did I do good?”

The burning behind Chase’s eyes meant fucking nothing. He wasn’t going to cry. He wasn’t going to let Elijah see him break. He wasn’t.

“You did fucking perfect, baby.”

His voice cracked on the last syllable. Dampness welled at the corners of his eyes, so Chase buried his face in Elijah’s hair. It smelled like soap, like someone had scrubbed him clean with some hospital-grade crap that didn’t belong on Elijah’s carefully tended curls. God, everything about this was wrong. Elijah being here in this room, having been in the silo, having staff members haul him around and treat him like a prisoner. It was an alternate reality. It had to be.

Elijah’s hand slid over to rub Chase’s back. He didn’t say anything when Chase’s shoulders began to shake, or when the tears dampened his hair. He just rubbed soothing circles between Chase’s shoulder blades.

“Are you okay?”

Chase guttered out a rough laugh. “You’re asking me?” He shifted onto the bed so he was next to Elijah, curled onto his side and positioned so close his lips brushed Elijah’s ear. “You’re the one that just got mind-fucked for two weeks.”

Elijah turned his head enough to see Chase. He licked chapped lips. “Is that how long it was? I . . . I couldn’t tell.”

“Two weeks,” Chase confirmed. “And I couldn’t get into your head until last night. I had no idea what they were doing to you.”

A shudder went through Elijah again, reminding Chase of the memory he’d just witnessed. Elijah closed his eyes and wrapped his arms around himself. “A lot of it was just them talking,” he said hoarsely. “Just constant talking, questioning, and then . . . the music and the cold, and only enough food to keep me from keeling over so they could question me more. But they never touched me.”

“They tortured you,” Chase growled. “And I’ll fucking kill them for it. I swear to God, I’ll murder them all.”

Elijah shook his head just slightly, his eyes still shut. “It won’t do anything. Change anything. It happened already. And the worst part is . . . The worst part is that it was working.” The disgust was thick in his voice as he went on. “By the end of the first week, I doubted everything I’d ever believed about myself. Holden, Lia, Nate. I questioned whether I knew what I was talking about or whether it was all just . . . just lines I’d been fed. Disinformation from a group who wants to take the Community down due to their own agenda. How the fuck could I ever— How was I so quickly . . .”

“Don’t doubt yourself. And don’t feel bad.” Chase propped himself up on his arm so he could stare down at Elijah’s face. The agony was evident, and it caused his protectiveness to rear up again. “These people spent years programming me to the extent of my entire body shutting down if I even thought of leaving. It’s what they do. That it’s not still working on me now is a miracle.”

“But they did worse things to you. You had Jasper trying to take your head apart.” Elijah squeezed his eyes shut, jaw clenching. “It barely took them anything to make me feel like I was losing part of myself. And the things I said . . .”

“About your family?”

Elijah finally looked at him. “How did you know?”

“I saw it.”

Shame crept in further until Elijah focused on the window. The view was of the trees stretching out beyond the property and the dark blue of the sky.

“I never talk about them,” Elijah whispered. “Ever since I went to the CW for the counseling sessions, when I unloaded and realized it’d all been recorded, I don’t talk about what happened in Wisconsin.”

“Why, though? Fuck them. There’s no reason to feel bad for talking about some pieces of shit who threatened to hurt you.”

“I know. But this is . . . this is part of my problem. Someone can hurt me, or something, and I’ll still feel this awful guilt deep inside my chest because even though they did that bad thing . . . does that bad thing outweigh all the good?” Elijah wiped a forearm across his eyes, forcing out an ironic laugh. “Isn’t that so stupid? My mother didn’t protect me from her boyfriend. And my grandfather basically threatened to kill me for being gay, but all I can think of is how . . . even though he was raised as a hard-core homophobe, he did everything possible to support me and my mom after my dad died. So did my abuela. They fought against so much racism where we came from, put together an amazing life for us, and . . . yet . . .”

“There is no and yet.” Chase grabbed Elijah’s jaw, forcing their gazes to lock. “Just because someone gave you life, helped you keep that life, doesn’t give them the right to betray you or threaten to take it away when you don’t meet their expectations or . . . if you’re not as useful as they want you to be. If you don’t obey the way they wanted you to obey.”

Elijah looked miserable, but his breathing evened again. “Is that how you feel about the Community?”

Was it? Chase had no clue. There was so much resentment and hate and anger wrapped up with the same level of brainwashed loyalty that Elijah had just discussed, that trying to figure out the answer to that question would take days. Weeks. A lifetime of unraveling all the different webs now that he was finally able to really pick it all apart and discuss it.

“I don’t know how I feel about anything,” Chase said. “Except knowing that when it comes down to the wire, I’m going to protect myself and my people. And that I will fight until the very end to keep my people safe. And fuck—maybe that’s why even before their programming stopped working on me, I could reach out to Nate. To try to warn you. I never was before. Not until . . .”

“The disappearances?”

Really, it had started with that burning need to protect Elijah. To get him out before something happened to him. Ever since Richard had started showing interest in Evolution, and especially after he’d placed Beck there, the entire place had felt like a bomb on the verge of exploding. And Chase had wanted Elijah out.

But he nodded. “When it came down to it, and it was me feeling like my head was going to cave in, or me protecting someone I needed to protect, I picked the other person every single time.”

Elijah nodded slowly, searching every centimeter of Chase’s face. “Hero.”

Chase snarled. “Shut up.”

Elijah’s mouth twitched in the first hint of a mischievous smile. “It’s true. You’re a punked-out ragey cynical bastard, but you have hero potential. And even if you don’t like or care about me outside of friendship or sex, I care about you, Chase. So much. So fucking much. God, you have no idea how you were my lifeline. How you saved me. How much I—”

Chase brushed their lips together again, hushing Elijah before he could finish the sentence. Elijah slanted his mouth so their tongues could slide together, and the sensation fired up Chase’s sex drive in an instant.

They pulled away with a wet smack of lips, and Elijah once again gripping him. He was staring at Chase’s mouth with outright hunger, and that sent another blast of arousal through Chase.

“Get your strength up, Elijah,” he uttered in a gravelly voice. “’Cause Big Daddy Payne sure as fuck expects you to be my beta sex kitten from now on.”

Elijah half scoffed, half laughed. “God, I can do that. Just as soon as I feel like physical activity won’t cause my soul to escape my body.”

Chase kissed him again, firm and brief. “We got this as long as you keep your shield up. Keep them out of your head and they’ll have no idea that the show we’re about to put on is the first act in the play called ‘Smash This Bitch to the Ground and Get Out.’”

The conference call with Kyger and Hale was odd for two reasons. The first being that Richard had demanded Chase sit in the room only two weeks after their fake-ass man-to-man discussion while touring the Farm. He’d assumed it would take longer for his father to start trusting him.

The second oddity was that Jasper was not present.

Just him and dear old Dad—the old Payne family connection. The worst part of that connection was Chase was almost positive that if anyone could reach in through his shield and get a handle on his vibes, it would be Richard. There was something different about the energy around his relatives, and it made him nervous. He’d spent the last few minutes holding himself still and concentrating on a memory of his childhood torture chamber when keeping his shield up had meant life or death.

Not that this wasn’t life or death. He’d been invited to the phone conference, but he still had no idea where he stood.

“This story is so convoluted it sounds like bullshit.”

A snicker popped out of Chase’s mouth before he could bite back on it. Richard cast him a baleful glare, and he spread his hands with a helpless smirk. No one ever talked to his father like that but him, so Michelle Hale was already his favorite person.

“What part of the story is confusing?” Richard asked, icicles hanging from his voice. “The part where my son turned on the Community after being brainwashed by Ex-Comm, the part where they invaded the Farm to abduct my wife, or the part where they tried to kill me?”

“Yeah, I got all that, Richard,” she said with an edge. “But what I’m wondering is how this all came to be. Why would Holden do this?”

“He’s been brainwashed by Ex-Comm.”

A loud sigh made it through the speaker, and that sound caused Richard to sit up straight. He tensed, hands balling up, and an expression of rage filled his face that Chase hadn’t seen in a long time. Since childhood, when Richard had treated his wife like a brainless doormat whenever she rejected his version of reality. Kind of like what Hale was doing now.

Chase was struck with an overwhelming desire to end the call before his father could go nuclear, but he stopped himself. Instead, he slumped further in the chair and made a big show of scowling at the phone.

“Richard, this Ex-Comm obsession of yours needs to stop.”

Oh shit, Hale was going in.

“Ever since Jessica relocated to the Farm, you’ve been fixated on this idea that everyone who slips away, drops membership, or whatever other thing, is banding together to turn against us all.” Hale’s headshake was almost visible through the phone. “You’re paranoid. And I know it’s likely because of the deaths and the disappearances that have been happening for the past few years—”

Chase sat up straight. “What?”

Richard frowned at him, and Hale paused. After a beat she said, “I didn’t think you would speak, Chase.”

“I didn’t have much to say until right then. I thought the shit that went down at Evo was an isolated incident.”

“On the contrary,” Kyger finally butted in, his voice nasal and impatient sounding. “We’ve had rashes of these incidents at various Community nodes in the tri-state area. It started several years ago and pops up every so often. So far, we haven’t figured out what’s happening or why, but the commonalities are that involved parties are exceptionally talented, troubled, and in or associated with the Community. So there was something to the theory that a member was involved.”

Chase looked at his father, unable to speak.

“My theory is that Ex-Comm is involved,” Richard lied stonily. “They’re abducting members of the Community and brainwashing them. Nothing else makes sense.”

Nothing else. Right.

Because it wasn’t entirely possible that Richard was sending out his flunkies like Will and Kyra to procure rare psys, some of whom were conveniently “troubled,” to the Farm. For research. It definitely didn’t seem likely that he’d planted Beck at Evolution to spot rare psys for him, and that he hadn’t anticipated her fucking eating them.

There was no way he was involved at all.

Bull. Shit.

It all clicked together so beautifully that Chase had to strain his face to raise an eyebrow and look like a smart-ass. He felt like throwing up.

“Yes, you’ve told us this theory before,” Kyger said after a long silence. “In any event, I imagine you want us to organize a group to find Holden and Jessica.”

“To find them all. It’s time we stop waiting for people to attack us.” Richard clenched his jaw, staring down at the phone, and added, “These people hate us, Lukas. Michelle. You have no idea what plot they have to expose the Community to the rest of the world. It’s completely within their power to destroy our discretion and everything we’ve built over the past few years. Whether you think I’m paranoid or not, the fact remains that we’ve accepted responsibility for the protection and care of thousands of vulnerable psychics. If some former members with a grudge ruin that, we will all be doomed.”

There was something about those words, regardless of how masked they were by his real intentions, that rang true for Chase. That fact was emphasized when he pressed his mental ear up against his father’s shield. Chase heard a resounding thought: They’ll kill us all.

People could say a lot of things about Richard Payne, but Chase had no doubt that his father believed what he said. As twisted as his ideas were, he genuinely thought he was doing what he had to do.

It was fucked up. Even more fucked up because a concern drifted back to Chase. Ever since he’d learned of the existence of Ex-Comm, he’d wondered what their intentions were. Their plans. They wanted to take down the Community, but how? And what would happen to the people who were in fact supported by it? What would happen if this little showdown resulted in more attention landing on them than they’d ever considered?

Chase had zero doubts that his father’s propaganda speech was accurate in at least one way: if the government knew about people like them, people like Chase, he’d end up in the same kind of research chamber as he’d been in as a child.

“What do you propose, Richard?” Hale asked.

“Members of our security task force headed by people I hand select will go after them, return Holden and Jessica to me, and then I’ll bring the rest here for questioning.”

“Questioning.” The word held weight, but Kyger didn’t follow up on his unspoken skepticism. “Do you have leads as to where they could be?”

“Yes,” Richard said, and Chase’s heart stopped. He had to hold himself very steady, and focus on the memory of that room to not give himself away. “I have reason to believe they’re in or around Poughkeepsie.”

“What is your reason for believing that?” Hale asked.

Richard’s eyes shifted to Chase and, in that moment, Chase knew his father was trying to penetrate his shield. Root around for any traces of the panic that had set his heart galloping, or the fear that made his stomach tighten into a thousand knots.

The first image that crashed into Chase’s mind was one of Nate being dragged through the Farm and into the silo. Of Jasper getting his hands on one of the infamous full-breed Black psychics . . .

Before Chase could stop himself, his mind sent out a frantic shout aimed at his brother—wherever he was. Richard didn’t look at him twice, and Chase inwardly sighed with relief. The Black family bond was freakishly strong if he could send a frantic directionless mental message without his father picking up on it.

“They managed to evade the guards,” Richard said finally. “But they were tracked far enough to get an idea of their general direction.”

“I see.” Hale didn’t sound thrilled with this development. Maybe she wasn’t as gung ho on the idea of chasing down rogue Comm members as Richard, or maybe she just wasn’t keen on anything he suggested or said. There was definite tension between them. “Fine. Assemble a team of people to investigate this and see whether Jessie truly did not leave of her own accord.”

Richard’s lip curled.

“Do you need anything from us?” Kyger asked.

“No. I’ll use my people here for this operation.”

Richard hung up but continued to glare at the phone. His face was etched into a cold mask of hatred and disgust that Chase could only imagine was aimed at Hale and her beautiful skepticism.

“I take it you two don’t exactly . . . get along,” he drawled.

“I fucked her and now she hates me.”

Richard smirked, and Chase tried not to let his snarl of disgust become too apparent.

“Sounds like the story of your life, Daddy-o. Must be bad at laying the pipe.”

The comment didn’t seem to register at first, but when it did, Richard’s face hardened again. His ability to take a joke was right up there with his ability to take criticism. Nonexistent.

“You’ll lead the search for your brothers,” Richard said, cutting back to the chase. “You, Will, and Kyra, and a couple others.”

“Why me?”

“Because something tells me you’ll be able to find Nate easier than anyone else. And something also tells me that they’ll hesitate to run from you. They won’t know you’re working with me.”

“If that’s the case, then I’m bringing Elijah.” Chase nodded toward the door as if Elijah were on the other side of it. “They’d never think he switched up on them, and he has a better face for a con. Also, I need to fuck at least twice a day, so I need to keep him handy.”

Again, Richard gave him one of those blank stares, but it slowly morphed into a douchebag of a smirk. If there was anything that could bring two similarly fucked-up psychics together, it was the comradery of being dudes who talked about banging bitches and whatnot. Chase wanted to punch himself in the face but wiggled his eyebrows instead.

“We’ll see. I don’t know if he’s ready.”

“He will be.” Chase rose to his feet and rolled his shoulders, cracking them. “Elijah was always one of us. They just managed to manipulate him after he watched your freak show of a spotter get one of his friends mauled and murdered, and then you dragged me off and kept me here for months to have the obedience tortured into me.”

For the first time, Richard didn’t deny that it had been torture. He just slipped his hands into his pockets and said, “So you blame his defection on me.”

“Pretty much, yeah. When you made it clear that you found the queer psys at Evolution to be expendable. You acted like they didn’t matter. Then when several of Elijah’s friends had vanished or died in a short period of time, you showed no real concern other than finding a scapegoat, and opened up the door for defection. He was primed for it by your dereliction.”

Richard nodded, his hazel eyes slit and face cast in seriousness. For a second it seemed like he would lash out at the criticism like he so often did, but then his mouth turned up in the barest hint of a smile. A proud smile. The kind that had always been reserved for Holden, never for Chase.

“Every day you prove that I really did bet on the wrong horse all those years ago. You’ll make a good leader.”

“Leader,” Chase repeated. “Of what?”

“I won’t be around forever, Chase. You need to be ready to take my place.”

“What about the board?”

Richard shifted to look out the window, his hands clasped behind his back. “They won’t be around forever either.”

He found Elijah sitting in the cottage surrounded by zombies.

Some of them had only a trace of cloudiness in their eyes, but others were in full-on just-had-my-brain-realigned mode complete with glazed eyes and vacant stares. There was no doubt in Chase’s mind that they were all medicated, which begged the question as to why he and Elijah were not.

Elijah. Who was sitting pretty in one of the stark-white sweat suits the staff provided all their detainees. Although, his pants seemed to be child sized. They were so tight that Chase’s gaze automatically strayed to the heavy curve displayed between Elijah’s thighs.

Getting to touch Elijah again had done nothing more than jumpstart Chase’s addiction for him. When he finally managed to look up again, he found Elijah’s big brown eyes trained on him. They were narrowed, and Elijah was biting the full swell of his lower lip. Fucking leave it to them to want to smash in the middle of a goddamn horror movie.

“Can I help you, Mr. Payne?”

Chase focused in on the dude, Kier, leading the meeting, therapy session, meeting of the minds, or whatever the hell it was supposed to be. Despite his calm voice and what was likely supposed to be a serene smile, his eyes were sharklike.

“Not really, but I’m gonna need my boy.” Chase jerked his chin at Elijah. “Time to put that ass to work.”

Kier’s brows drew down and there was a subtle curl of his mouth, but he just gave a curt nod. “I’ll see you this evening, Elijah.”

Elijah ignored him and zeroed in on Chase like an eagle. He crossed the room, face lit up but still carefully vacant as he pretended to be as medicated as the others, and went into lamprey-mode. Sliding his slender arms around Chase’s neck, standing on the tips of his toes, and drawing him into a slow kiss complete with a hum of pleasure. He’d probably meant for it to be a chaste show of devotion since he was supposed to be in beta kitten mode, but Chase couldn’t help the way his hands fisted in the back of Elijah’s shirt or the way he slanted his mouth to taste the inside of Elijah’s.

The rest of the room disappeared, and for a good ten seconds, there was nothing but Elijah’s tight body against his own, and the hungry sliding of their tongues. It felt so good to touch him again. And doing it out in the open where it made other people nice and uncomfortable made it even fucking better.

“Mr. Payne . . .”

Chase ripped away with a wild-eyed glare aimed at Kier. He snarled, breathing harder, and slid his hand down to grip one of Elijah’s round ass cheeks.

“You got a problem?”

Kier’s eyes flashed, but he shook his head. “We’re in the middle of a session.”

“Yeah, I see that.”

Chase gave Kier the mean stare down for a moment longer before turning away and dragging Elijah behind him. To his credit, Elijah ignored his likely natural impulse to kick the shit out of Chase for being so demanding. Instead, he gripped at his hand and trailed behind him like a puppy as Chase led him to his room.

All the other doors were still shut, but Chase caught a glimpse of Shelby at the far end of the hallway. She was pushing her cart into one of the rooms, but glanced over at them before going inside. Chase held her gaze for a beat before she entered the room. He had to find a way to have words with her. She’d been carefully distant for the past two weeks, not speaking much and not making a ton of eye contact, but it was time. Now that Elijah was back to full strength and his arm was mostly healed from the flesh wound, it was also time to start focusing on a plan.

Instead of figuring it out now, he burst into Elijah’s room, kicked the door shut behind him, and shoved the slighter man onto the bed.

“Get your fucking clothes off.”

Elijah’s lips parted, damp and pouty and so damn irresistible that Chase found himself drawing Elijah into another scorching kiss instead of allowing him to comply. With his fingers tangling in Elijah’s curly hair and Elijah moaning against him, Chase lost his ability to make any executive decisions beyond refamiliarizing himself with the body pressing against his.

He broke the kiss just long enough to rip off Elijah’s white sweatshirt, then pushed him back on the bed with his legs hanging off the side.

“Tell me you missed touching me,” Elijah whispered. “Please?”

“I just got you off yesterday.”

“But we haven’t had sex. Haven’t really fooled around except quick-and-dirty blowjobs or jerk-off sessions . . .”

It was clear Elijah was getting at something in particular, but Chase wanted no part of it right now. He was always too paranoid about someone bursting in while they were talking about something sensitive, which was the only reason he’d kept their interactions brief.

“Shut the fuck up and take your clothes off.”

Elijah paused, searching Chase’s face, and a flash of something crossed his own. His cupid-bow lips turned down and his jaw tightened, which automatically led to the tightening of Chase’s chest. How many times could he get away with protecting his own heart at the expense of Elijah’s before Elijah walked away for good?

Chase stalked toward Elijah, undoing his jeans, and didn’t stop walking until he was standing between Elijah’s spread thighs.

“I said to take your clothes off.”

Elijah closed his eyes. “You take them off.”

The words heated Chase’s blood and managed to further harden his cock. He yanked Elijah up, loving the gasp of anticipation that left his mouth at the roughness, and manhandled him until the smooth satiny stretch of his back was pressed against Chase’s tattooed chest.

Chase dropped his hands to Elijah’s white pants and jerked them down so violently that he heard the seams of the too-tight fabric rip. He’d wanted them off completely, but once his fingers grazed the protruding length of Elijah’s erection, Chase couldn’t bypass it. He yanked the band of Elijah’s briefs down and wrapped his fingers around that thick cock. The plan had been to squeeze it, just enjoy the heaviness of a dick in his hand, but it was impossible to leave it at that.

Chase tightened his grip and pumped Elijah with long, sure strokes, pressing his thumb against the slit that was increasingly damp.

“Oh . . .” Elijah tilted his head back against Chase’s shoulder, lips parted and eyes closed. “Fuck . . .”

Chase’s hips jolted against Elijah’s round ass and began a steady grinding motion. Elijah’s dick was dripping like a faucet by now, and Chase’s hand made a wet sound as he glided over the length.

“You hard up for a dick in you?” Chase rumbled in his ear. “I know you’re used to getting fucked on the regular.”

Elijah whimpered, but savaged his lower lip to muffle any other sound. Chase used his free hand to drag Elijah’s abused lip away from his teeth. He smoothed the pad of his thumb over it.

“Uh-uh. I want to hear every sound, baby,” Chase panted in his ear. “And you’re gonna moan like my good little slut, right?”

“I—” Elijah’s entire body shuddered as Chase pumped faster. “I . . .”

“Say it.”

“I’m gonna moan like a slut,” Elijah gasped. “For you.”

“That’s fucking right.” Chase jerked Elijah’s face sideways and crushed their lips together in a sloppy, hungry kiss. He ripped away only after it became necessary to suck in a deep breath. “I’m gonna fuck you raw.”

“Good,” Elijah guttered out. He sucked in another breath, then twisted his face to meet Chase’s eyes. “It’s not like I’ve been with anyone but you for over a year.”

Chase’s brows snapped together, and several questions formed in his mind. I thought you were fucking Holden? I thought you’d fucked around with Theo? I thought I was just there to use when you were bored . . .

“Stupid,” Elijah whispered. “You’re so stupid, Chase.”

Chase’s hand stilled. “What?”

“I can hear you. When you’re emotional, and we’re this close, I can always hear you. Like you’re talking to me, in my head, without realizing it. And . . .” Elijah pushed Chase’s hand away from his dick just enough to shift around so he was kneeling on the edge of the bed facing Chase. “And I fucking heard you when you visited me while I was in the silo.”

Chase lost a breath, his heart coming to an abrupt halt before slamming against his rib cage. “I don’t know what . . .”

Elijah shushed him with a brief kiss. “I heard what you said to me. And that’s the only thing that kept me sane.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Chase said roughly. “And you shouldn’t be talking about it at all.”

“Fine. We can play it that way, but I want you to know.” Elijah kissed him again, harder this time. “That I know.”

Goddamn it. Whether Chase was stupid or not when it came to Elijah, there was no denying he was soft. Sloppy. He consistently let down his shields for this dark-eyed beauty with the tempting mouth and gorgeous ass. And it was time to put a stop to that.

“Shut your mouth and get on your back,” he rasped.

Elijah dimpled at him and eased himself backward, never breaking eye contact. “Whatever you say, Mr. Payne.”

Chase grabbed Elijah’s sweatpants and jerked them off, discarding them on the floor. “I say finger that hole and get it ready because I have no lube, but I’m still fucking you.”

Elijah braced the heels of his feet on the edge of the mattress and pulled one of his knees back. With his ass spread and hole exposed, he sucked on the digits of his free hand before reaching down to press them into his ass.

Chase’s body grew hotter, and his balls drew up tighter as he shed his clothes while watching Elijah finger himself into a trembling mess of curled toes and pre-come glistening at the head of his dick. He was flushed, sweating, and he looked like a fucking god. A god that Chase wanted to imprint with his touch.

He spat into his hand and smoothed it over his dick. “Pull both your knees back.”

Elijah complied, hamstrings flexing as he held his knees against his chest. “Go slow,” he whispered.

“I’ll do what I want.” Chase circled Elijah’s hole with the tip of his dick, resisting the urge to force his way in past that tight ring of muscle. “And you’ll let me, won’t you?”

“Yes. Because I know you’d never hurt me.”

Fuck.

Fuck.

God fucking damn it, Chase loved him so much.

Elijah tilted his head back again, but it did nothing to cover his tiny smile, making it clear he’d heard that too.

Cursing himself, Chase pressed inward against Elijah’s tense body. It took two more applications of saliva and pre-come, and Elijah slowly stroking his dick, for his body to relax enough to accept Chase’s intrusion. Once Chase was fully seated, and Elijah stopped gasping for breath and digging his fingers into his thighs, all it took was one squeeze to prompt Chase into motion.

He slid in and out of Elijah with increasing speed and pressure until Elijah was releasing loud rhythmic cries. When Elijah’s body began to tremble again, his breath coming out in sharp huffs, Chase shoved him farther back on the bed and crouched before him. He held Elijah’s thighs open, gripping the underside of his knees, and fucked him deep enough for pre-come to continuously swell at Elijah’s tip.

The slapping sound of his body pounding against Elijah’s filled the room to combine with both of their increasing grunts, but it didn’t drown out a ping to Chase’s mental shield. First one, then two—his gift warning him of two people approaching his door.

Fucking faggots. Disgusting that he—

Why is this my job? Total bullshit . . .

Frick and Frack.

Chase smirked and picked up the rhythm, not devastating Elijah’s ass the way he would have if they’d had lube, but working his spot until Elijah was beside himself. Impaling himself on Chase’s dick and chanting a steady stream of “right there, fuck me there” that grew louder. It peaked as soon as the door opened.

“Please fuck me,” he wailed. “Chase, please make me come.”

Holy shit.

What the fuck—

His dick is . . .

He’s begging to be . . .

The crowd of voices filled Chase’s head as the twins looked on. He blocked them out but gave them a good show, grabbing a fistful of Elijah’s hair and leering down at his slit, dilated eyes. They flicked to the side just quickly enough for Chase to know Elijah was aware of their audience.

“Say it again,” he growled.

“I love you,” Elijah moaned. “I—” His body locked up, and he wrapped a hand around his shaft. “I’ll never leave . . . you.”

An urgent cry of devotion about the Community would have been better for this dick-you-out-till-you’re-loyal game, but this sounded better.

To draw it out, and make Frick and Frack suffer, Chase pulled out just to tap his dick against Elijah’s hole. It clenched up, wanting to suck Chase back in, which made him moan.

“Please don’t stop,” Elijah panted. “I need it.”

“Tell me what you need.”

“Your dick. Fucking me. Making me yours. Please.”

Voices filled Chase’s head. First Kyra then Will.

Why is this my job?

Begging to be fucked. Filthy whore. God, I’d use him so good . . .

Chase slid back into Elijah and ruthlessly pounded him. Lost himself in it and the sound of Elijah’s loud wails, his begging. Will really liked the begging.

“Right there,” Elijah shouted again. “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me—”

Elijah pumped himself once and caused an eruption of pearly fluid all over his stomach. The clench around Chase’s dick briefly elevated him from his conscious mind to the blank space of utter bliss. He pulled out of Elijah just in time to add his semen to the growing wet spot on Elijah’s flat stomach.

Would lick it up . . .

Will was a freak. But even so, he said with disgust heavy in his tone: “You done?”

Chase exhaled and inhaled sharply, still looking down at Elijah.

Put on a show, baby. Gotta make it real. They know where Nate and Holden are.

For just a second, Elijah’s eyes took on a brief glow. It was a blink-and-you-miss-it type of sheen, but Chase saw it.

“You didn’t like watching?” Chase asked, voice in his typical slow drawl of sarcasm. “You sure as fuck stood there long enough to watch us both nut.”

Behind him there was the sound of someone starting forward but abruptly stopping with a slight shuffle of feet. Smirking, Chase untangled himself from Elijah and turned around while pulling up his jeans. He didn’t miss the way Kyra’s gaze briefly dipped to his softening cock before flicking over to Elijah’s thoroughly debauched form. At least someone could appreciate the sight of naked bodies and good fucking.

Will, on the other hand, was still looking at Chase like he wanted to break his neck. He’d flushed all the way down the high neck of his biker leathers. His nostrils flared when Chase finished fixing his jeans and patted Elijah’s knee.

“Get cleaned up.”

Elijah obediently rose, completely naked and still streaked with dampness, and smiled at them. “Hey, guys. Didn’t know we were gonna have—”

Fucking slut. Could fuck him so much better. Make him take my dick. Come in his ass. Keep him in my room. Tie him up and force—

Chase’s brows flew up before he could stop himself. He had to clench his hands into fists to stop himself from killing Will. Especially because he could see what the freak was thinking. See what he wanted to do to Elijah. It was a nightmare.

Their eyes met, and Will went rigid. “Cover yourself, for fuck’s sake,” Will growled at Elijah.

Elijah laughed, ducking his head in faux bashfulness even as he stood there with his goods out for everyone to see. “Sorry. I wasn’t thinking about—”

“Just put your clothes on,” Will shouted.

Chase tensed, thinking this would be the moment when Elijah slipped and told Will to go fuck himself with a chainsaw, but it didn’t happen. Elijah just shrugged, grabbed his clothing, and used his underwear to mop up the semen splattered on his stomach and chest.

Chase couldn’t help but notice the way Will watched as Elijah shimmied back into those now-torn white pants. Fucking punk. He was going to find himself on the wrong side of Chase’s fist before this all was said and done.

“Did you come in here to say something or just to look at E’s dick?”

Will reddened again. Kyra sneered.

“Richard told us to meet with you,” she said with an air of the supremely uninterested. “To discuss the search.”

A vision hit like a lightning bolt, nearly splitting his head open with the intensity of its arrival. Him in one van, and Elijah in another.

He saw Kyra watching him in the back seat of a large SUV. And he felt his own urgency. Dread. He saw them turning off the Taconic to a heavily wooded road.

He saw himself stepping outside of the van . . . then nothing else. A void where there should have been the rest of the vision.

Chase blinked out of the vision as if he hadn’t just watched his last living moment, and forced a mocking smile at the twins.

“Well, then let’s get to it.”

After washing up, Elijah sat on the bed, legs folded under him, and let a vacant expression cross his face as Chase stood nearby and stroked his hair. It was very much like a pet and his owner, something that both amused the hell out of Chase and unnerved him. But he kept sliding his fingers through Elijah’s hair and smirking as Will and Kyra started their spiel.

“They’re still in Poughkeepsie,” Kyra said. “But we won’t know exactly where until we get on the road.”

“How do you know they’re still there? That information could be a few weeks old,” Chase said. “If I was them, I’d have taken off.”

“So would I.” Kyra hesitated, and it was clear right then that she didn’t trust Chase if she was this slow to show her hand. Her fingers curled and uncurled, maybe a nervous tic or maybe a sign of her tension, before she went on. “But there is a strong node of psys in that area, and it’s worth assuming it might be them.”

Chase wanted to dismiss it as wishful thinking, but her defiant chin lift and Will’s unblinking stare told him otherwise. This wasn’t guesswork. They really had a lead. And Nate, Holden, and whoever the hell else really had stuck around long enough to tip someone off.

“Okay, so we’ll go poke around,” he said, trying to sound bored. “And then what? Fan out and ask random people about this node of psychics?”

“You don’t need to know the plan until we’re on the move,” Will said. “You’re only coming because—”

“I’m coming because I’m leading the search, wise guy,” Chase cut in. “Now stop trying to be big dog in charge. Beck pulled that same shit on me.”

“Never compare either of us to Beck,” Kyra said coldly.

“Ohhh, did I hit a sore point?”

“Beck is pathetic,” Will piped up, sounding more like a bully with exactly three thoughts in his brain with every word he spoke. “She was desperate to matter. To be part of all this. To be—”

“You?” Elijah asked, cocking his head.

Will’s gaze cut back to him, and his entire body tensed as though he was bracing for the sight of Elijah’s still mostly naked body. If there was ever a queer who hated himself more than the male part of the terror twins, Chase hadn’t seen them.

“You think you’re being smart?” Will asked, nostrils flaring as he glared at Elijah. “Or sarcastic?”

“Um, no . . .” Elijah blinked, looking innocent as you please while well fucked and still damp with sweat. “But you seem really important to the Community and the village.”

Will’s nostrils flared again, but this time the darkening of his gaze had nothing to do with danger. Chase heard a fraction of Will’s initial thoughts before slamming his shield down to keep the words out of his own head. There was only so much he could take before he lost his cool and made it apparent that the awesome morning nurse wasn’t giving him the right meds. And then they were all screwed.

“She wasn’t what the Community needed,” Will said finally, coldly. “And the only reason Richard put her at Evo was because of their . . . relationship. Which should never have any bearing on a Community decision.”

Kyra nodded her agreement. “She was a tool, and she should have remained one. Pushing people ahead because of personal connections won’t ever lead anywhere good. You should know that.”

If Chase had had a doubt that these two didn’t approve of his newfound role as Richard’s up-and-coming right hand, it would have been out the window now. What he didn’t know was whether the distrust was borne of genuine suspicion that he was doing them and his father dirty, or whether it was simply jealousy. After all, they’d been raised to be enforcers on the Farm—in charge of keeping the peons in line. They probably thought they were destined to be Richard’s pair of right hands. Two had to be more useful than one, right?

He’d escaped, disobeyed, tossed the rule book out the window, had been reduced to a science project, and yet . . . here he was. All because Big Daddy Payne believed in dynasty rather than democracy. In Richard’s eyes, if anyone ran the Comm, it would be family. Even a fuckup who was half out of his mind like Chase.

He stopped responding and let the twin terrors drone on about how important it was to remain discreet while they were off the Farm. It was the most boring amp-up speech he’d ever heard, and his only takeaway was that they didn’t leave the property much if at all. They acted like the void world was full of traps and spies waiting to stumble upon a psychic and drag them in front of an anti-psy tribunal.

Chase said nothing, or he said something irrelevant. After ten minutes, Will and Kyra left rather than continue trying to communicate with someone dead set on trolling them. Once they vacated the room, he looked at Elijah.

“They’re gonna kill me once we leave here.”

Elijah wrinkled his nose. “Those idiots?”

His voice was three times louder than Chase’s, and yet another reminder that having Elijah for a partner in a plot to escape the Community and the Farm was complicated. Not only was he a constant source of distraction and temptation, hardheaded, and mouthy to a fault, but he was loud as hell.

Chase grabbed him and dragged him to the corner of the room as if that would save them from being overheard if they had a fucking remote viewer on the Farm. And given the experiments and the crossbreeding—anything was possible.

Can you respond to me like this?

Elijah’s eyes went round. . . . Yes?

Good. Can you think back at me or whatever while keeping up your shield?

For a moment, Elijah was blank, seemingly testing his ability to maintain his psychic protection. I think so. I’ll test it now but, wait, how are you doing this? I thought they were pumping you full of psy-sups?

They were. But you’re not on them either. You’ve been having visions, right?

Elijah grabbed Chase’s arm, fingers digging in hard enough to leave Elijah-sized handprints in the form of bruises.

I thought they were just dreams, but they felt . . . different.

Because they’re visions. The nurse—Shelby—I think she’s one of Jessica Payne’s people. She’s been switching our meds. Vitamins or placebos instead of the suppressants.

“Holy shit,” Elijah breathed. “This is wild.”

Chase smacked his arm.

Stay quiet, dickhead. Now that I know the terror twins are out to get me, who knows if they’re listening in.

Elijah nodded, glancing over at the door again. He shifted closer to Chase, seeking comfort or protection, and sighed.

Do you really think they’ll be able to track Holden and Nate and the others in Poughkeepsie?

Don’t know, but I’m damn sure gonna try to throw them off before they blow my brains out.

The next morning started with the usual visit from Shelby. Chase watched her carefully as she took his vitals, trying to catch her eye. She didn’t take the bait. In fact, she was more curt than usual and rushed through the process.

He considered the tiny cup to see what she was giving him and raised an eyebrow. The large pill was the same one she’d been giving him since he’d realized she had switched out the psy-sup, but now even the smaller two pills, the sedatives, looked more like Ibuprofen.

Chase glanced up at her with the paper cup still in his hand.

“It’s gonna be a good day, Shelby.”

“If you take your meds, it will be so I can get the hell on with my job.”

He snorted and knocked back his Shelby Special, not taking his eyes off her as he swallowed dry. The woman did not even twitch. She looked at him with the same dislike she’d been regarding him with since the first day they’d met. It was enough to make him think this whole covert alliance was in his brain, and he was just awful at identifying pills, but . . . couldn’t be.

Could it?

Shelby collected her belongings, undid the strap that measured his blood pressure, and started to push her little cart toward the door. Just before opening it, she glanced back at him.

“It’s cold out there, Chase. Supposed to be a big storm tonight.”

“Uh. Okay?”

She rolled her eyes and walked out.

What the ever-loving fuck was that? Did she know he was planning to dip out of the savage arms of Frick and Frack and had decided to make small talk on his last morning in her care, or was she really that concerned about the weather?

Or maybe she knew he was planning to jet and wanted him to be concerned about the weather.

Huh.

They were set to meet outside after breakfast, so Chase went on a mission to scavenge supplies from the unlocked dorm rooms around his own. While he and Elijah barely had any clothes, since they were noobs on the Farm in the permanent resident sense, everyone else had been living here for a while. It took under an hour to dig up long johns, extra socks, and thicker zip-up fleece sweaters, but no dice on the shoes department.

The idea of running around in a snow storm with their cheap-ass Community-issued slip-ons was awful, so Chase bit the bullet and slipped out of the cottage over to the guesthouse. The VIPs of the Farm stayed over there, and they’d have better shit. He grabbed a backpack and walked over like was supposed to be there—the only way to properly sneak into a place in his opinion.

“What are you doing here?”

Chase glanced over at Kier, the idiot who did the brainwashing meetings, and sneered. “Aren’t you supposed to be off somewhere in a prayer circle?”

“Prayer circle,” Kier repeated. “The Community doesn’t—”

“Yeah, yeah, we don’t do religion, yeah.” Chase kept glaring at him, hoping the force of his hate would send this twerp back to whatever white-clothed hell he’d climbed out of. “Where’s Will? We’re moving out today, and we need to discuss the deets. Kyra said he was in his room.”

A look of relief crossed Kier’s face. “Their bedroom is upstairs to the far left.”

“Thanks, fuck face.”

Chase jogged away from Kier, sprinted up the stairs, and was in the terror twins’ domain before he had a plan to explain why he’d really come. Thankfully, they weren’t in the room. But weirdly, there was only one bed.

Ugh.

Apparently the Black fam weren’t the only crackpots who enjoyed inbreeding. Although, this was probably a Jasper and Richard idea. Probably one that had been planted in Will’s and Kyra’s heads since they were young: that it was normal to fuck your sibling.

Chase shuddered and ransacked their closet. It was packed with more crap than any of the others, likely because they’d been running around like Comm Spec Ops since puberty. He was able to find a pair of snow boots that looked like they’d seen better days, and a waterproof and less bulky pair of hiking boots.

He shoved them in his backpack, scoped out the other bedrooms on the floor only to find them locked, and headed downstairs. His curiosity about what else he might find rerouted him in the direction of the room at the far end of the hall. Before he could stop himself, he twisted the doorknob and peeked inside.

The room smelled strongly of some kind of fragrance. His nose wrinkled, but the scent was overshadowed once his eyes fell on the woman sitting in the chair by the window. Recognition hit him like a truck slamming into his chest.

She looked like the little boy he’d seen outside on the day he’d made the rounds with Richard. She looked like Nate and Theo. She fucking looked like him.

The air left his lungs, and Chase’s knees felt weak. Instead of fleeing like he wanted to, Chase slipped into the room and shut the door softly behind him. Everything in him told him to fucking abort this mission. To get out of Dodge before his brain buckled under the weight of this new piece of knowledge, but . . .

He had to know for sure.

Chase set the bag of supplies down and crept closer to the woman. She looked so fucking . . . strange. Her hair and face were ghostly pale. As she sat there gazing at the window, he could only see her cheekbones, high and sharp like his own. She also had a slight cleft in her chin, just like he did.

A sound filled the room, a sharp gasp. When she looked away from the window to focus on him, Chase realized he’d made that sound. And when their eyes met, he realized she wasn’t as vacant and zoned out as she’d first appeared. There was awareness in those big silver eyes. And when they swept over him once, then twice, there was recognition.

“Lorelei Black?” It came out in a low croak.

Recognition turned to shock. Her lips parted, then it was her who gasped. “Are you . . .”

He flinched at the sound of her voice, and she clammed up. She looked around the room, first at the door, then the windows, as her chest began to rise and fall more rapidly. It snapped him out of his trance, and he dropped to his knees in front of her.

“Look, calm down,” he hissed. “I’m not here to hurt you. Or to drug you up again.”

Lorelei started at the word again, and he nodded slowly.

“You’ve felt yourself recently, right? Able to think? Maybe even . . .” He stumbled over the next sentence, because he had no idea how much of her talent she had left. “Maybe even remember things?”

She stared at him long and hard before giving a jerky little nod.

“Good. That’s good.” Chase glanced at the door again, his heart slamming into his chest. “How long have you been here?”

Lorelei got that worried look again, and he cursed himself. How the hell would she know? It wasn’t like they were giving her calendars. The only frame of reference was the man who’d been obsessed with her since before Chase’s birth.

“Was—was Richard much younger than he is now?”

All hesitancy and fear fled her face. What was left was pure, unadulterated hatred.

Thank fucking God.

Lorelei nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“That motherfucker.” Chase lifted his hands slowly. “Look, I’m going to ask you something and you tell me no if you don’t want it, but . . . I know you know who I am. And I know who you are. And that means I need to tell my brother that you’re here in case I get my ass killed before I see him again.”

He’d expected her to panic again, but instead she slowly reached out her hands and touched his palms. No questions. No confusion. Maybe Richard had been filling her in for all these years, thinking she was too zombied out to remember. Maybe that’s how she’d recognized his tattooed ass as her spawn.

Either way, Chase grabbed her hands and closed his eyes.

The memories hit him all at once.

Her walking through a field on a hot summer day, her eyes red and wet and her feet covered only by flimsy sandals. A truck coming up behind her, fear taking hold of her, then a familiar voice shouting her name.

Her coming awake strapped to what looked like an airplane seat. Her head pressed against a window, and a dark night sky spreading out all around her.

“I’m taking you home,” Richard’s voice said softly. “You’re safe with me. I should have never let you leave.”

Snapping awake without drugs in her system, gaze flitting around the inside of a large van. Lorelei lashing out wildly, kicking the seat in front of her and then struggling against the binds around her wrists.

“Let me go, fucker!”

Jasper turning from the passenger’s seat, a disgusted look on his face right as he held up a needle. “You shouldn’t have brought this inbred country trash back here, Richard. You’re so goddamn needy.”

Lorelei spitting in his face.

The world swimming around her as she stumbled out of the van, the Farm looming before her.

Chase kept his eyes closed long after he’d finished watching the tableau of images. He tried his best to transmit each and every one of them to Nate. When it was done, he had no idea if it had worked, but he was exhausted.

Lorelei touched the side of his face, and a swell of emotion came up his throat, threatening to choke him.

“I didn’t want to leave you,” she whispered. “But they said they would . . . they would hurt you . . .”

“Stop.” His voice came out too loud. He stood, jerking away from her clumsily. “Listen to me, I don’t have a lot of time. But the nurse? Shelby?”

Lorelei glanced down at the little cup on her side table.

“Yeah, Shelby. She’s on our side, and she’s the reason why you’re not a zombie right now. Trust her. She’s more likely to talk to you than me.”

Lorelei nodded. “Then what?”

“Then we get the fuck out of here.”

He spun away before she could respond and hurried to the door after swiping the backpack. His eyes were burning as he speed-walked out of the guesthouse and into the cold air. When he found Elijah, he’d managed to choke down the urge to freak the fuck out.

All this time, and she’d been here. They’d taken her from Texas. And she’d implied she’d not wanted to leave him . . .

“Chase.” Elijah stood up quickly. “What’s wrong?”

They have my mother in the guesthouse.

Elijah’s eyes went wide.

She’s alive?

Yes. Chase took a deep breath, then another. Elijah grabbed one of his hands. They abducted her years ago and have kept her locked up in that house like a goddamn broodmare. They’ve— He . . . Chase couldn’t bring himself to get the words out. I told her to trust Shelby, and that we’re getting out of here.

“Good.” Elijah brought Chase’s hand to his mouth and kissed it. “That’s good.”

“Yeah,” Chase said roughly. “Real fucking good.”

Elijah started to speak, but seemed to think better of it and dropped his gaze to the backpack Chase was clutching. Relieved, Chase dropped it on the floor along with the boots.

“Change your clothes, and put these on,” he said, pointing to the hiking boots.

Elijah frowned and examined one of the boots. “They’re a little big.”

“No sweat.” Chase tossed the two pairs of socks at his face along with the long johns. “What color was your cocktail today?”

“Uhh . . .” Elijah had already begun stripping off his white sweats. “Green caps and an orange pill?”

“Cool.” So she’d slipped him the same shit. Shelby was definitely low-key on their side even if she hated Chase personally. Although, he told himself that was just a cover. Not everyone could dislike him on sight, could they? “Layer yourself thick.”

Elijah followed the direction without question, and Chase watched as all of that smooth brown skin was revealed. Usually he had to remind himself that it wasn’t the time to be constantly horny, but damn, Elijah was gorgeous and he needed a distraction. And what if he really did get his head blown off today? What if this was the last time they had together?

Chase came up behind Elijah just as Elijah pulled on the pair of long johns. He drew Elijah back to his own chest, and pressed his face into the soft curly hair. Elijah froze for just a beat before relaxing against Chase.

“Quickie before we head out?” Elijah looked over his shoulder from beneath his lashes and smirked. “I’ve never gone on an adventure filled with come before, but I could try it out. Could be squishy for a while.”

A shudder went up Chase’s spine. He gripped Elijah tighter and bucked his growing erection against that tight round ass.

“Don’t tempt me.”

“Is that what I’m doing?” Elijah ground back teasingly and guided one of Chase’s hands down to his crotch. “Tempting? I thought I was providing stress relief. Being a good little pet for Chase Payne, second-in-command.”

“You’re being a good little slut because you know it turns me into your fucking puppet.”

Chase kissed down Elijah’s face before sucking on the side of his neck. The vulnerable little moan he got in response was enough for him to drag his teeth along the now-damp flesh. He wanted to bite down and leave marks, something Elijah would remember him by in case this all went wrong.

But he didn’t. There would be no branding. Elijah didn’t belong to him. He didn’t belong to anyone. And if this all went wrong, he’d focus on surviving. Not mourning Chase. That was the hope, anyway.

Elijah reached back to pull at Chase’s pants. It took everything in Chase’s power to shake his head and take a step back. A small step, but one nonetheless.

“We’ll save it for if we survive.”

Elijah turned, hands on Chase’s shoulders, and considered his eyes. “We’re going to survive.”

“How do you know? Did you—” A golden bullet of hope shot through Chase. It wasn’t an emotion he’d expected to feel anymore. “Did you have a vision?”

Elijah smiled slightly and shook his head. “I just have faith in you. In us. To be . . . like . . . ten times more badass than these brainwashed fuckboys.”

“Wouldn’t Kyra be a fuckgirl?”

“Nope. She’s probably the mastermind of that horrible duo. Do you really think Will can focus on anything but his burning desire to have power over something or someone? It’s why he hates you.” Elijah bumped their hips together. “He thinks you rode in with zero effort to steal his thunder. Also, the hot precog boy is in love with you.”

Chase shifted away, but Elijah dug his fingers in tighter.

“Boy, you do not get to pretend I didn’t just fucking declare my love for you right before we ride off to get potentially murdered.”

“I thought you said we weren’t gonna die.” Chase looked everywhere but at Elijah, warmth rising up his neck to flush his face like a teenager who’d just got an erection in science class. “Stop looking at me like that.”

“Then stop being an asshole.” Elijah reached up to grab his chin, fingers sliding over the rough stubble, and forced Chase to meet his eyes. “Say it back.”

“For fuck’s sake—”

“Say it back, puto.”

Chase wrenched his chin away. “Just focus on getting out of here,” he said flatly. “Save the declarations for when you’re reunited with the others.”

Elijah’s lips parted, his brows drawing together, but he said nothing. He only gave a curt nod as his expression hardened. If Chase thought back, he could trace that look to several other times in the past when he’d yanked away or dismissed Elijah’s attempts at affection. He’d told himself it was just Elijah’s way—clingy and somewhat needy and pouring that all into Chase since Holden was unavailable. But “I love yous” had never factored in. That was new. Didn’t mean it would be real once they were off the Farm.

“Fine.”

“Good.” Chase turned to the door. “Get dressed. We’re out of here in like ten minutes.”

The silence following his order was thick, but Chase didn’t try to soften the blow. Didn’t touch Elijah like he was yearning to, didn’t get a last kiss or embrace or anything. They’d have time to figure out what was real and what wasn’t if they survived.

Just like in Chase’s vision, there were two dark SUVs waiting outside. There was a driver in each one, guards who vaguely looked familiar but who had names Chase didn’t know, and the terror twins split up between the two vehicles. They were dressed similarly to how they’d been when he’d first laid eyes on them—biker leathers despite the lack of a bike, utility belts, and they were packing more weapons than should have been necessary on a Farm of psychics.

Will yanked Elijah toward one SUV with him, and Kyra jerked her head at Chase.

Elijah looked back at Chase just as he was shoved into the back of the vehicle. He was wearing a mask of worry that wasn’t helpful to their original plan of him playing the part of doe-eyed, placid zombie.

“Why’s your boyfri—brother want to ride with Elijah?” Chase asked, ambling toward Kyra as though he didn’t have a care in the world. “So he can get frisky on the way? Pretty sure my pops didn’t give the okay on people sharing my toys.”

Kyra said nothing, her distaste for him evident without words.

He stopped by the SUV’s door only a few inches from her. “Gonna be a long and difficult trip if you’re giving me the silent treatment.”

She opened the door for him without comment. They held eye contact for a long moment before he winked and slid inside the vehicle. There was someone sitting across from him, a gaunt woman with long red hair, who looked up once Chase settled.

For the first time since this had all started, he couldn’t hide the genuine shock that overtook him.

“Holy fucking shit. Beck.”

Even when she straightened and her red hair fell away from her face, Beck looked different. Older. Paler. The challenging spark that had always been in her eyes, that very slight indication that she was more than she’d seemed, was gone. Beck was depleted.

But . . . probably not fully. If she was here, it was because she had a use. Given what Richard had used her for at Evolution, her presence on this little mission was most likely due to her ability to track psychics. Ideally, she’d be able to find Nate, Holden, and the rest. Unless Six managed to shield them all.

“I thought you were dead,” he said. “So this is a little awks.”

“You wished I was dead,” Beck said in a low hoarse voice.

“Well, you did murder a bunch of people including some friends of mine. I’m an eye-for-an-eye type of guy.”

Kyra slid in next to Beck. Her lips upturned very slightly, as though she was thrilled by Chase being so visibly caught off guard. Maybe she wanted some form of revenge for him letting the cat out of the bag about her boinking her own brother. As if murdering him in a little while wasn’t revenge enough.

“So . . .” Chase drawled. “This is an odd trio. Do you ladies know each other, or do we need an ice breaker? If we play I Never, I’m definitely going for I never killed another psychic. Guaranteed win—”

“Do you ever shut up?” Kyra asked. “Or is constant shit talking your way of hiding how nervous you are?”

“I generally just like pissing people off.”

“Ah. So, you’re not worried about us tracking down your brothers? I’m sure you were hoping we’d randomly wander Poughkeepsie instead of us using our ginger friend to pinpoint their precise location once we’re closer.”

Kyra watched him closely, waiting for a reaction, or maybe trying to read his emotions. He gave her nothing and smiled while panicking internally. If the terror twins found Nate and the others, it would be a disaster. His brothers and their crew were armed only with psychic powers. A bunch of empaths with a side of invulnerable were useless in a regular fight, and Chase had no idea how to trigger his telekinesis. Even in the past, when he’d watched Theo die, when the crowd had swarmed on Jericho, and after Beck mind-controlled Nate into the subway tracks, he’d tried to use the ability to do something, but it hadn’t worked.

In a face-off, his brothers would be helpless against an armed band of Farm guards. Had Richard planned it this way? Had he wanted Chase to lead the mission, or was this a test to see whether he’d sit back and watch the terror twins kill Nate and Holden?

With Kyra expectant and Beck gazing at him with bleak eyes, Chase smiled stiffly.

“I guess you’ll just have to wait in suspense and see how it all plays out, now, won’t you?”

Kyra smiled the creepiest of smiles, and Chase lifted his chin.

They sat in silence as the driver guided the SUV away from the Farm and toward the main road. The ride away from the area was a boring one filled with trees, more trees, and infrequent vehicles on the road, but Chase made himself pay attention. His sense of direction wasn’t the best when it came to woods, but he had a working knowledge of the area in terms of a map.

It would take about an hour to drive from the Farm to Poughkeepsie, but there were a ton of woods in between. The area was also dotted with campgrounds, state parks, and even some undeveloped tracts of forest. It so wasn’t his scene, but he’d make it his scene if it meant getting out of this situation.

Twenty minutes into the silent ride, Chase was still bracing himself for a blow to the head or a spark of inspiration, but neither came. What did occur were the storm’s initial flurries, and Beck’s voice sliding into his mind.

What’s your plan, Chase?

Chase tilted his head against the seat, gaze fixed on the trees rushing past, and gave no indication he’d heard her.

Even if I had a plan, you think I’d tell you, psy-sucker?

Still an idiot, I see. He could almost hear her mental sigh of disgust. Your friends are in a townhome along the Hudson River Valley. Near the bridge.

Where near the bridge?

That’s all I know. I can’t pinpoint their exact location anymore.

Chase rolled his shoulders, making a big show of stretching and yawning as if bored, and flicked a glance at Kyra. She didn’t so much as twitch.

Why didn’t you tell Kyra and Will if you already know where they are?

I have no desire to help the people who spent the past six months tormenting me. Beck hunched in on herself again, red hair falling over her face. Given Kyra’s lack of reaction, it was likely normal for her to attempt to go fetal. They’re like Jasper. They get off on the power. The game. The control Richard lets them have.

Chase barely controlled a sneer in her direction. And of course you have no desire to get back in their good graces. Since you don’t care about power at all. Nah, you spent all that time absorbing other psychics so everything could be equal and fair.

There are no good graces to get back into. Even in his head, he could hear the heaviness of her defeat. They helped to turn me into this, and they’ll do the same to you—use you, harvest your DNA, and discard you.

Is that what they’re doing to you?

Beck sat up again, looking at him with those bleak eyes, that gaunt face.

This is the last time they’ll have use for me. After this trip, I’ll be kept in the silo with Jasper until they’re done. He’s always wanted to study someone who can absorb power, and he can’t study himself.

They were all so much worse than he’d ever dreamed. He wondered yet again if the rest of the board knew about what went on at the Farm. If they sanctioned it or cared.

If you want out, find a way to make it happen before we get to Poughkeepsie. It’d be best if I didn’t return to the Farm.

Was that supposed to be a plea for assisted suicide? Jesus Christ, this was grim. He couldn’t figure out how to save his own life, let alone work in ways to helpfully end someone else’s. Murderer or not, he had no doubts that the Community had helped to create the monster Beck had become. The way they poked and prodded and pitted one psy against the other—just like Richard and Jasper were behind the scenes doing the same to the terror twins—created an environment where people would do anything to feel needed. If you were expendable, who knew what would happen to you?

But he couldn’t worry about that right now.

Baby fucking steps toward getting out of this SUV, meeting up with the others, and then figuring out how to get everyone else off that damn farm.

Chase shut down his communication with Beck and resumed his analysis of their surroundings. During their mental back-and-forth, the driver had turned off the Taconic to drive along a smaller road that appeared to lead nowhere. Through the blurring snow and the trees, Chase could see nothing.

He glanced at Kyra and noticed she was watching him again.

This was it.

Chase scrabbled for a plan and reached out to Elijah.

They’re about to make their move.

He waited.

Elijah, can you hear me?

Dread curdled Chase stomach. Without missing a beat, he jumped from his own perspective and dove into Elijah’s. Beck, Kyra, and the interior of the silent vehicle drifted away, replaced by a scene of chaos.

Elijah backed up against one door, his clothes in disarray as he lifted his foot to kick Will. Will grabbed his foot and twisted it to the side, using it as leverage to yank Elijah closer to him.

“Get the fuck off me!”

The driver flicked a glance behind him, cringing.

Will bared his teeth in a snarl. “Keep fucking driving.”

Elijah tried to twist away from him, but his back was now pinned to the bench seat. He brought up his knee hard, and Will reared back his fist—

For a single instant, the world stopped. The pause was the space of a single heartbeat, but everything was suspended in time. Then, as Chase exhaled his rage, he blinked and was in his own SUV again.

Everything went wrong.

His brain was screaming, his eyes watering, and a force he’d never experienced this strongly exuded out of him with such power it felt like he was flying apart. He squinted, trying to focus on something besides the pressure in his head, and found himself meeting Beck’s eyes.

Do it, Chase. Burn it all down.

The SUV swerved wildly back and forth like a rollercoaster as the driver screamed something incoherent. Beck and Kyra were thrown together so hard their heads collided with an audible bang, teeth chattering and blood exploding from one of their faces. They fell to the seat like rag dolls.

The pressure didn’t stop. If anything, it intensified. As the driver battled the force of Chase’s power, he was thrown about in the driver’s seat. His head slammed forward, colliding with the top of the steering wheel.

The SUV jolted to a sudden stop which lasted for only a second before Will’s and Elijah’s vehicle slammed into them at full speed. The other vehicle screeched to a halt, but Kyra’s SUV went flying forward, skidding on the icy road, and began to flip over.

This was it. They were going to die. Or at least Chase was. And then Elijah would be alone with Will.

Panic filled Chase’s throat before being replaced by the excruciating force of his telekinesis. It blinded him, blocked out all sound, and gripped his vocal chords until he could do nothing but release a wild, inhuman scream. The windows in the SUV burst even as their descent slowed. Instead of crushing into the ground as the vehicle flipped, it dropped with half the impact before skidding off the road into the trees.

Time returned to normal with the smell of gasoline thick in the air. It yanked Chase out of his daze, and he opened his eyes to the sight of blood and stillness. No one was moving but him.

“Fuck,” he whispered. “Holy fucking shit.”

“Chase!”

Elijah’s panicked yell spurred him into action. He ignored Beck’s and Kyra’s slack faces, and began fumbling to get out. He managed to twist onto his hands and knees and crawl out of one of the broken windows. Glass dug into his palms and embedded in the layers of his knees along with dampness from the snow-covered ground, but he ignored it and scrambled out of the SUV just as it began to smoke.

Slipping and sliding with each step, he climbed up the curved edge leading to the road. The second SUV had a crushed front grill and deployed airbags, but was otherwise unscathed. The driver stared at him with a face full of horror. Behind him, the back door was open as Elijah tried to get out and Will attempted to drag him back inside.

“Elijah!” Chase shouted.

Will’s head snapped up, his face twisted with hatred that sent a chill down Chase’s spine. It was the kind of loathing that branded him with a promise for later violence. Even with his lack of empathy, it slammed into Chase like a sucker punch to the gut.

Will released Elijah, allowing him to fall backward onto the icy road, and dove back inside the SUV. He shouted something indecipherable, but his meaning was made clear when the driver accelerated right at Chase.

“Chase!” Elijah yelled again. “Get out of the—”

For the third time in what felt like as many minutes, time slowed, but this time Chase blanked out. The power radiating from his body brought him to his knees, then knocked him onto his back. He saw nothing but splotches dancing before his eyes as he screamed.

When he came to, his limbs were trembling and his fingers were numb. The weight of the past year—the murders, the disappearances, Theo, Jericho, all of it—was crushing him to the cold wet ground. His thoughts scattered like the wind-whipped snowflakes, but one question was whispered at the back of his mind, repeated, and then slowly grew louder.

Where’s Elijah?

Chase opened his eyes, gasping for breath, and found Elijah’s tear-streaked face only a couple of inches from his own. He looked so stricken that Chase momentarily only saw the grief.

Then he noticed the reflection of flames in those beautiful brown eyes.

Shoving himself up to his elbows, Chase finally registered the wash of heat against his back. He turned, heart pounding and eyes still slightly blurred, to see Will’s SUV had flipped over and landed on top of the one Beck and Kyra had been in.

“What happened?” Chase rasped. “How—”

Elijah tried to pull him to his feet, but Chase jerked away, still staring in disbelief.

“What the fuck happened?”

“You—you screamed, and then the SUV just flipped over.” Elijah’s fingers dug into his arm, hard enough to leave marks through the layers he’d worn. “They’re probably dead.”

It wasn’t possible.

There was no fucking way.

He had no idea how to control his telekinesis. No way to call on it when he needed it. Or at least that’s what he’d told himself for years. That it was harmless if he left it unchecked and unpracticed, because that was better than asking for Community guidance. But now . . .

“Chase, we have to go,” Elijah said in his ear. “You have to get up.”

“I . . .” Chase shook his head, unable to look away from the lick of flames and the wash of white snow that did nothing to diffuse them. “I didn’t . . .”

“Chase, we need to go.”

Chase dragged his gaze from the wreck up to Elijah’s damp face. He was shaken, terrified, but there was determination in the set of his jaw.

“We’re getting out of here, Chase. We can talk about what happened later. But you need to come. Now.”

“Okay . . .” Chase croaked, allowing Elijah to pull him to his feet. “Okay.”

Elijah clasped their hands together and squeezed tight before leading him away from the flames.

It was Elijah who led them through the storm with Chase’s limited mumbled directions toward a campground he thought was a couple of miles away. They got turned around twice, but after the initial exchange of information, Elijah didn’t ask again. He forged ahead through the trees as the snow went from steady flurries to a near blinding whiteout.

Chase distantly thought that if Nate or Holden were here, they’d find a way to the camp using their empath powers. Latch on to a memory from the summer camp by the now-frozen river, follow some strong impression left by the children who visited every year, and go in a direct path. But all Chase had was his memory, cognitive abilities that had grown quiet in his brain, and telekinesis that apparently sparked at random and killed people.

He stopped walking and stared down at the snow. It stretched out white and pure for miles around, untouched until he treaded through it with his stumbling, dragging footsteps. There had to be a metaphor there, something that would key into him being a fucking murderer, but he couldn’t think of it. His mind was blank of everything but flames and smoke, and that last moment when he’d looked at Beck.

“Burn it all down.”

How the fuck was it possible he felt so much guilt for snuffing out someone who’d killed his brother? And someone else who’d intended to kill him? But it hadn’t just been them. It’d been the drivers as well. They’d died just for being there.

“Chase!”

He looked up blearily to find Elijah standing right in front of him. His face was bright red, hair soaked as his hood was swept off over and over by the howling wind. It created tunnels of snow and blasting frigid air. Chase was half convinced they’d walk until they became delirious from hypothermia and died out here.

“Are you okay?”

Chase tried to say something reassuringly flippant, something Chase-like, but no words came to mind. He could only blink away the snow as the flakes collecting on his clothing seeped in to freeze him even deeper to the bone.

Elijah reached up to put one gloved hand on his face. “We’ll be there soon, Chase.”

“Okay.”

It came out in such a weak croak that Normal Chase would have hated the sign of distress. But Normal Chase had been left behind with the wreckage, and this version of himself was slowly letting the spiderweb cracks spread until he felt like crumbling.

They continued walking with Elijah gripping his hand. He clung to it like Elijah was his lifeline. It helped him get through the rest of the trek. Eventually, when he felt close to keeling over, they spotted the welcome sign for a lake summer camp that butted up against the Hudson River. It was majestic even in the snow, with the wooden cabins crusted with thick layers of fluffy whiteness and icicles hanging from the awnings of the welcome center.

In the middle of what had seemed like a vast desolate wilderness, it was a haven for him to curl up and process everything. And Elijah had brought him there while his own brain had shut down.

“Finally,” Elijah huffed. “Let’s go.”

Chase nodded and followed as Elijah picked his way around the welcome center and toward the cabins. He seemed to know exactly what he was looking for, and made a relieved sound once they approached sets of smaller cabins set apart from the rows meant for campers.

“I bet these are for staff,” he said, stopping in front of one of them.

“Okay?”

Elijah shook his head. “Never mind. Can you break the lock or something? I’d pick it, but my hands are frozen, and I have nothing to use.”

The request drew Chase a little out of his fog. “Break it? How the hell would I do that?”

Elijah huddled under the awning of the door, blinking up at him. His face was bright red from the lashing wind and snow, eyelashes wet clumps around his expressive eyes. “You know,” he said softly. “Use your telekinesis.”

“Elijah, you know I can’t fucking control—”

“I know you always said that, but . . .” Elijah shuddered, teeth chattering. “But you used it back on the road to protect us. So maybe you can use it now to keep us from freezing to death?”

The question struck something inside of Chase. The part of him that had been screaming that he was a killer and a freak just like everyone had always said. The part that was scared of a gift he couldn’t control but that was powerful enough to snuff out five lives in an explosion of gasoline and fire. The question made him wonder whether he could make the talent work for a good reason. A nonviolent reason.

Licking his cracked, burning lips, Chase faced the door and put his hand on the knob. If Six or Trent were here, he bet they’d have enough physical strength to break the bitch down. But he didn’t have that, especially not after months of being on the Farm. He only had his mind, and his fierce desire to protect Elijah.

Once again, that terrifying pressure built in his head. It felt like he, and the rest of the world, would fly apart beyond his control, except this time the pressure concentrated. It peaked with an audible cracking sound coming from the door, which proceeded to drop down off one hinge, then the other.

Chase stepped away, panting.

“Good enough,” Elijah breathed. He briefly looked up at Chase with absolute wonder before sliding forward to shift the door partially out of the way.

They stepped inside the cabin, and even with it dark and chilly, it was a sanctuary from the storm. Elijah immediately went to shove the door into the hinges again, struggling to sit it just right. It was only when he cast an exasperated look over his shoulder did Chase snap out of his daze and assist. He helped put the door to rights, then shoved over a chest of drawers to sit in front of it until he could find some tools. Assuming he hadn’t destroyed the hinges.

“What now?”

Elijah looked at him, surprised. “We build a fire if they have supplies, get these wet clothes off, and wait out the storm.”

Chase nodded woodenly. Again, Elijah seemed to be on the verge of saying something but turned away. He raided the cabin as Chase looked on, foraging for precut wood and instead finding a small portable heater. They plugged it in, spread out their clothes nearby, and huddled in the bed under layers of scratchy blankets Elijah had found in a cabinet.

The blankets smelled clean, and the cabin as a whole was very cozy and tidy. There was electricity and running water, a fact that surprised Chase, and he wondered distantly if people used the cabins for activities during the winter. If so, and if anyone came up on them, he was sure his fucking random power would blow them to bits. Since that was his new thing.

“Chase, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

Chase started, caught off guard by the declaration. He looked up from his examination of the quilt to meet Elijah’s gaze.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Elijah found his hand under the quilts and squeezed. “I know you feel guilty. Or scared.”

“What, are you joining the empath club?”

“No. I can see it in your face. You shut down as soon as you realized there was nobody climbing out of that fire, and you haven’t really . . . come back since then.” Elijah laughed softly. “You’re usually so bossy and impatient, and you followed after me like a lost little boy.”

Chase glared at him. “So? You seemed to be Wilderness Master all of a sudden.”

“Did you forget I didn’t grow up in the city?” Elijah nudged him again. “My parents used to send me to sleepaway camps when I was little. Shockingly, I loved it back then. Liked being away from everyone and in the peace and quiet where nothing triggered . . . visions. Where no one looked at me like I was weird if I spaced out. Just me and the trees, and a hundred other boys.”

Chase snorted. Leave it to Elijah to help him find a smile at the bottom of his pit of despair. “I knew that was coming.”

“You ought to,” Elijah said with a sniff. He lifted his chin haughtily, then relaxed against the pillow again. “I’m serious though, Chase. They were going to take us out into the woods and kill us. Or kill you, and Will would have—” Elijah grimaced. “I don’t want to think about what Will would have done. He acted like I wasn’t a real person. It makes me . . . really afraid for the other people back at the Farm.”

“But Will is gone,” Chase said. “He can’t hurt them.”

“Maybe not, but do you think he’s the only guard or staff member like that?” Elijah shook his head. “The power dynamics there are awful. People like me, and the psys they have for breeding, are like . . . helpless. Well, they thought I was helpless. Will wasn’t the only person who let his station turn him into an abusive monster. Even Kyra gave me the creeps. She may not have been like her brother, but there was something off there.”

“Something off like what?” Chase pressed. “How?”

“I just . . .” Elijah squeezed his hand again. “I overheard her with one of the counselors once, and it made my skin crawl. She seemed to be the type of person to play people against each other to make them more loyal to her, and then led them on with this weirdly . . . fake emotional bond? Even I could see through it, but the counselor was blinded. I could tell by watching that one conversation. And now that she and Will are gone, there will just be more like them. How could there not be in a community that thrives on empowering a select few while keeping everyone else as subservient pieces to be moved around at will?”

It was a lot to digest, but it didn’t ease Chase’s doubt. Not really. Even if the twins were monsters, even if Beck was, him snuffing out their lives didn’t feel righteous. He felt like he’d become . . . like them. Just another monster using his gifts to get what he wanted no matter how it happened.

The only thing that felt right about any of it was that he’d protected Elijah. If he thought back to the first time he’d used his telekinesis in the recent past, during that pulling session with Jasper, he’d destroyed the cuffs because Richard had suggested Jasper use Elijah against Chase. After all this time, did his telekinesis only activate if Elijah was threatened? It seemed to all go back to him.

Elijah watched him carefully and lifted a hand to his cheek. The tips of his fingers grazed Chase’s hair, longer than he’d worn it in years, before it turned into a slow caress. Elijah’s touch was gentle, but the hazardously intense affection building inside Chase made it dangerous. Everything about Elijah was dangerous. And even now, after everything that had happened in the last few hours and with their future so uncertain, Chase couldn’t get over how badly he wanted him.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Elijah searched his face, gaze training on his lips before rising again. “Sometimes I can read you so well, and other times I don’t know what to think.”

Chase tried to speak, but no sound came out. He didn’t know if his vocal chords were failing or if there was simply nothing good enough to say. No words powerful enough to explain just how much Elijah had come to mean to him. How his mere existence was enough to trigger a psychic power so dangerous it killed anyone who threatened him.

“I . . .”

Elijah’s breath hitched. “What, Chase? Please tell me.”

“I just . . .” Chase squeezed his eyes shut, searching for the words in his chaotic, fucked-up brain. “Fuck, I don’t know. I can’t say it.”

Elijah pressed against him, their naked flesh aligning beneath the layers of scratchy summer camp blankets. Relics of innocence draping over bodies that were already hardening with arousal, because even explosions and death couldn’t turn them off each other. He would always want Elijah, and . . . and Elijah . . .

A memory came to Chase unbidden.

Him kissing down the side of Elijah’s neck in the office at Evo, asking against all that damp, heated flesh what he was doing for his birthday, and Elijah thrumming against him like a newly strung guitar. The way Elijah had lit up at Chase caring about celebrating, and the way he’d turned away as soon as Holden had barged into the door with a gift in hand. He’d come bearing an expensive watch when all Chase had offered was a kiss.

“Chase,” Elijah pleaded. “Tell me what you’re thinking.”

Chase squeezed his eyes shut, swallowed thickly, and forced that memory away. Why was he so fucked up? Why couldn’t he let it go? So many questions and so few answers. Absolutely zero ability to not feel inadequate at anything but giving Elijah every inch of his dick.

“I don’t want to think,” he said, voice scraping out low. “I just want to fuck you until my mind is blank.”

The weight of Elijah’s disappointment could be felt in his silence, but Chase couldn’t bring himself to say anything more than what he’d said. He already felt flayed open and raw, every nerve exposed and primed for damage.

“Never mind,” Chase muttered, rolling away. “I know you’re tired.”

He stared at the windows, frosted over with snow and ice, and hated himself for being so needy and emotional. He almost wished Elijah would just go to sleep, but that faded as soon as Elijah touched his shoulder.

“Does you rolling over mean I get to fuck you?”

Chase choked out a laugh. How could he love someone this much and be so terrified of them at the same time? “I didn’t think you wanted to fuck at all.”

“Well, I don’t want to think either. And isn’t this what they do in movies?” Elijah kissed lower, his legs sliding against the sheet. “Fuck to stay warm?”

“I wouldn’t know. I don’t like movies.”

“Oh, right.” Elijah trailed wet kisses over to the middle of Chase’s back before licking down his spine. “You don’t see the point of watching fake people do fake things when our own lives are weird enough to be fictional.”

“Heh. Yeah.” Chase bit his lower lip and balled his hands into fists. “Us screwing each other after killing people is the most fictional thing to happen yet.”

Elijah paused mid-suck at the small of Chase’s back, and shifted up to the head of the bed again. He yanked Chase around, once again showing surprising strength in his soft hands, and narrowed his eyes.

“You protected us. You saved me. And if you want me to be perfectly honest?” Elijah’s nostrils flared as he pressed closer. His dick swelled against the side of Chase’s thigh. Maybe he wasn’t as disinterested as Chase had assumed. “When your eyes got that glow, like molten silver, and all that power exploded out of you . . . You looked terrifying and deadly but also so ridiculously sexy.”

Chase could think of nothing to say in response to that, so he stared incredulously.

“I know I’m sick,” Elijah said, still peering at Chase with darkening, dilated eyes. “And I know it’s the last thing you want to hear. But maybe my sick Chase fetish is exactly what you need to hear right now. You’re convinced that your power makes you a murderer or a freak, but the first thing that went through my mind was how safe I felt with you standing in front of me. And how much that made me want you.”

Air left Chase’s lungs in a great gust. He closed his eyes and felt his heart race to a gallop when Elijah brushed their lips together. Elijah’s declaration probably would sound twisted to anyone else. A normal person would be horrified that he was turned on by his lover having the ability to annihilate someone with a single thought, but . . . they weren’t normal people. They were psychics.

“Is this a weird time to tell you that I fucking love you?” Chase rasped against Elijah’s mouth. His stomach bottomed out as he said it, but he couldn’t stop. If there was ever a time when those words needed to hit the air, it was now. Before they froze to death or Richard and Jasper tracked them down. “Because I fucking love you.”

Elijah stilled against him. “Why— What—”

“Don’t say a bunch of stupid shit and ruin it.”

Elijah grabbed a handful of Chase’s hair and yanked his head back. “Do you know how long I’ve been waiting to hear that from you, puto?”

“Since you realized Holden found himself a cyborg to fall for?”

The beginning traces of happiness turned to outrage in an instant, so Chase crushed their lips together again before Elijah could go off on a rant. Elijah tried to twist away from him, but Chase held him tighter and kissed him more forcefully. Their relationship so far had been made up of insults, spite, and frantic fucking borne of desperation and loneliness. Why not add in a combined dose of admitted affection and resentment?

Chase sucked on Elijah’s tongue and ground their hips together, getting hotter as Elijah’s dick nudged his own. He had little doubt that Elijah was angry, that he wanted to turn away and give Chase the cold shoulder like he’d done so many times in the past. But he equally knew that Elijah’s dick was raging hard, and that he liked blue balls even less than hurt feelings.

Maybe.

That’s what Chase had always told himself, anyway—that his own bad attitude and shitty comments could be smoothed over if they had sex.

“One last blowjob before we die?” Chase asked between increasingly ragged kisses. “Don’t say no.”

“What if I don’t want to suck you off? You ruined that beautiful moment.”

“Beautiful? I declared my love for you after murdering five people.”

Elijah pulled away from the kiss with a wet smack. “In self-defense. And I know exactly why you said it right then.”

“Maybe I just got a little emo.”

“Maybe,” he said, watching Chase with guarded eyes. “But it’s more likely that you know we may not make it out on the other end of this grand escape alive, and you know I would do anything for you, go anywhere to be with you, and trust you with my life.”

Chase opened his mouth to deny it, and Elijah pressed his fingers against Chase’s lips.

“Please don’t. You’d be lying. And I need to trust that you won’t keep pushing me away just for the hell of it.”

Jesus Christ, way to back him into a corner. If Chase’s choices were shoving Elijah away to keep from tumbling farther into a fubar hole, or letting him inside to keep this shit show of a journey functional . . . Chase would go with the second. And it had absolutely nothing to do with the way Elijah’s eyes went all soft and damp every time he was rejected. Not at all.

Chase leaned in for another kiss, this one slower and wetter.

“I said what I said, and I don’t take it back. Now let me suck your dick before someone shows up at the broken door and takes us out.”

“Do you think that’s possible?”

Chase laughed gruffly. “We just entered a whole new world of dysfunction. Anything is possible.”

Elijah shuddered, his teeth chattering as though a chill had infiltrated the cabin to snake down his spine. Or maybe it was the menace he felt coming all the way from the Farm. Chase had been feeling the animal claw of dread and fear at the back of his mind since they’d warmed up and calmed down enough for him to think straight. There was no doubt that the Community would come for them, he just hoped that would happen after they met up with Nate and Holden.

For all that Chase didn’t fully trust Holden when it came to Elijah, or Ex-Comm when it came to their motives, at the end of the day, they were safer as a group. Not one smart-mouthed drummer with a penchant for forest exploration, and a multitalented fuckboy with zero ability to control his most devastating ability. What a nightmare. Without Nate, Holden, and the others, they were doomed.

“Let me warm you up,” Chase coaxed when Elijah kept watching him warily. “You always come hardest when I let you ride my face. Maybe then you’ll be able to sleep.”

“And what about you?”

Chase kissed down the side of Elijah’s face. “Don’t worry about me. Just shoot all your milk down my throat, and I’ll be fucking thrilled.”

Elijah groaned and went limp against the bed as Chase trailed openmouthed kisses down his chin and neck before exploring the rest of his body. For a moment, stalled in the middle of the wild storm, there was nothing but the two of them pressed together—Chase worshipping Elijah’s body like he was royalty, and Elijah whispering his name like he was a god. Chase shivered at the sound of Elijah’s voice, at the way he spread himself open despite the cold, and arched pleadingly. Chase responded by scooting down and flipping their positions so Elijah was straddling his face, and his mouth aligned with Elijah’s dick.

“God,” Elijah whispered.

“No, it’s just Chase,” Chase growled, and opened his mouth.

Elijah leaned forward with his knees digging into the rickety mattress and pressed his dick between Chase’s lips. Chase’s lips skimmed the velvety head, then the shaft, until Elijah was lodged completely in his throat.

Chase squeezed Elijah’s ass, spurring him on. When Elijah got the hint and began to ride his face, thick length sliding in and out as his harsh gasps grew louder, Chase pressed the pad of his finger against Elijah’s hole.

“Oh shit.” Elijah bucked his hips forward, but Chase just took him down farther. “Chase . . .”

Chase slid his finger in deeper, and Elijah cried out. Each movement after that was fast and harsh, and not destined to draw this out. Elijah went to pieces above him, riding his face while Chase fingered him, and panting so harshly that the sound of them fucking grew louder than the howling wind outside.

When Elijah finally came, it was with a frantic cry.

“Chase,” he moaned again, shuddering as Chase swallowed every drop of him. “God.”

Chase pulled away once there was nothing left, and watched with hooded eyes as Elijah trembled above him. His eyes were squeezed shut, mouth gaping as he tried to catch his breath.

“You’re so fucking gorgeous.”

Elijah looked down at him, curly hair hanging everywhere and lips still parted. “You are.”

Chase scoffed. “Right.”

The denial didn’t earn him the usual eye roll. Instead, Elijah’s gaze narrowed, and he shifted to crouch beside Chase’s sprawled body. “Why do you think I wanted to fuck you even when I thought I hated you?”

“My charming personality?”

Elijah leaned down to run the tip of his tongue along Chase’s still-aching length. He looked up then, smiling at Chase’s desperate expression. “No. Because you’re beautiful. That white hair and gray eyes, the pale skin . . . you’re just as fucking beautiful as Nate and Theo, but your ink makes you walking sex.”

Chase wanted to say something witty, but nothing came to mind. All he could do was watch and wait to be touched.

“I hated your attitude,” Elijah said after another slow lick. “But I couldn’t stop looking at you and your leather and your sneer and all your metal. I wanted to fight you and fuck you at the same time.”

Then why . . .

Chase shut down on the thought before it could complete. No thinking of the whys and the hows. No thinking of Holden.

He just wanted to enjoy this one moment before they froze to death or got shot.

“Touch me, Elijah,” he whispered. “Please just help me not think for now.”

“I can do that.”

Elijah swallowed him down, eyes sliding shut like he was tasting something delicious. He sucked and pumped Chase’s dick at the same time, working him over until Chase was arched off the bed and ripping at the cheap sheets—panting and moaning and losing himself in the kind of pleasure that shouldn’t be possible in a world so full of darkness and pain.

When he came, it was with a silent shout, his body straining up. Afterward, he collapsed to the bed, and Elijah crawled up to curl beside him. They relaxed against the now-twisted sheet with the scratchy blankets still on top of them. Chase could smell detergent on the blankets and another scent that reminded him of summer days and sunlight. A reminder of simpler times in the lives of people he would never meet, and who had nothing in common with him.

He’d never had a simple life. Or an easy one. Neither had Elijah.

Chase glanced down at Elijah, smiling to find him already dead to the world with his lips parted and breathing even.

There were thoughts and mental images running through Chase’s mind that weren’t easily explained. Fantasies about feeling safe, the absence of that sinking sensation in his gut, and waking up with Elijah in a tiny colorful bedroom with their limbs intertwined and their chests pressed together.

He wanted to believe it was a vision of their future together, but if Chase had learned one thing in his twenty-some-odd years of existing on this planet, it was that good things didn’t come to him. And if they did, it wasn’t without blood, tears, and a whole lot of loss along the way.

The next morning, they crawled out of their chilly cabin to find the summer camp half buried in snow. Even with Chase in a more solid frame of mind, they seamlessly returned to the previous day’s arrangement of Elijah leading and Chase following. They spent the next several hours climbing over snow drifts as tall as Elijah and debating on the best way to make the journey in the timeliest manner with the least amount of chances for frostbite or hypothermia.

It wasn’t a complete desolate wasteland once they reached the area that butted up against a road, but Chase was too paranoid to walk directly along it. They stayed just out of sight in the trees, walking what seemed to be blindly, before Elijah suddenly changed course and headed toward another highway. They crossed a jumble of larger highways and overpasses, narrowly avoiding being smashed by trucks, and stopped once they reached a large parking lot.

A diner loomed across the pavement, looking equally like the type of greasy spoon that served bomb-ass food and the kind of establishment that would be full of dickheads who would give them trouble. It was probably a stereotype offensive to other greasy spoons, but Chase had serious doubts that the patrons would be the sort to look kindly on a couple of skinny queers.

“I’m starving,” Elijah said, his breath fogging in front of his face. “And I think we should stop here for a while.”

Chase arched an eyebrow. “‘For a while’? How long is ‘a while’?”

“Until . . .” Elijah wet his chapped lips and glanced at the diner. His gaze followed customers as they shuffled from the warmth of their cars to the warmth of the diner. It looked goddamn inviting inside, the windows glowing with light and the smell of cooking meat wafting from inside. “Until something happens. I don’t know, Chase. But this morning when we were getting dressed, I had a vision of this place.”

“Okay, I’m here for this.” Chase hunched his shoulders so his collar went closer to his ears. “In the vision, did we magically find a wad of cash, eat a couple of steaks, and then hop on a magic carpet to Poughkeepsie? Did my asshole brother finally respond to me screaming his name into the mental void? That’d be awesome, because I’ve been doing that shit all day, and no response, despite my shields being down. I’m starting to think Jasper broke my telepathy with all his pulling and put the kibosh on my long-distance communication.”

Elijah shuddered as the wind sliced across the parking lot. “Maybe Six is screwing up your ability to tap into Holden’s brain. He probably has a shield over them to prevent anyone from tracking them down.”

“That’s stupid. Beck was tracking them.”

“Not well,” Elijah countered, rolling his eyes. “You said she could only pinpoint them to the general area. I highly doubt she’d have sucked in a power that weak if that was all it could do. I’m convinced Six is just a giant psychic boner killer.”

Okay, he had a point. Chase looked at the diner again. His stomach growled.

“Fine, maybe that means Nate will hear me when I’m closer, but that doesn’t fix the other problems. We got no money—”

Elijah held up a wallet, smirking. “Yes, we do.”

Chase snatched the wallet, opened it, and recoiled as soon as he saw the driver’s license. William Daniels. Just the sight of his face, young and smooth and bright-eyed with the zest to do the Community’s bidding, chased away all traces of Chase’s appetite. He handed it back to Elijah.

“You stole a dead guy’s wallet.”

“He wasn’t dead when I stole it,” Elijah retorted, shoving it back into his pocket. “I lifted it when he was trying to hump me in the back seat. There’s only about fifty bucks in there and no debit or credit cards, but it’s enough for dinner.”

“Eating on a dead guy’s dime? Nah.”

“Are you fucking kidding me, Chase?” Elijah’s voice rose, getting sassier with each syllable. “That piece of shit was going to rape me. He was going to kill you. They were probably going to kill Beck when they were done with her, your brothers, Six—”

“Okay, I get it. Doesn’t mean I want to—”

“I don’t give a fuck what you want to do! I’m starving and cold, and I have a really good feeling about this place. Don’t be such a controlling asshole.”

Chase started to argue, watched Elijah’s eyes narrow in warning, and took a slow deep breath. It was only his newfound ability to feel waste-of-time emotions like love that allowed Chase to keep his mouth shut and stop arguing. If Elijah wanted to eat, they would eat. And when it got them killed, Chase would be a total pain in the ass in whatever trash afterlife they wound up in.

“Let’s go.”

Elijah went from glaring to beaming in a hot second, and speed-walked across the parking lot like someone had lit a fire under his ass. Maybe they had, and maybe that fire’s name was hunger.

Chase watched Elijah bust into the place like he owned it, but took his own time checking out the scene before he committed to an actual entrance. There sure as hell weren’t any motorcycles but he spied several trucks, family station wagons, and SUVs.

He walked inside to find Elijah shedding his scarf and hat as he spoke to a hostess. So far, no one was paying them any mind. The place was dotted with a good mix of customers—bearded daddies in leather, guys in heavy coats who sat alone but still somehow clustered together, and tired-looking parents with bratty kids. They all seemed bored or miserable, which made him and Elijah prime targets for people-watching as soon as they stepped in. It didn’t help that Elijah chirped that he was fine sitting at the bar. The hostess sat them smack-dab in the middle of the biker dudes and the trucker dudes.

“We couldn’t get a booth?” Chase muttered. “Fuck’s sake.”

“This is fine.” Elijah shrugged off his coat and made a big show of rubbing his arms to warm up. “We used to hang out at the bar all the time at Evo.”

“Yeah, because Evo was a fucking queer joint and this place is in the middle of Assfuck, New York.”

Elijah whipped open his menu and ignored the comment, but the people around them sure as hell didn’t. Chase glared back at the bikers as they openly sized him up. They were probably wondering what would give a scrawny white-haired faggot in bummy-ass clothes the balls to talk trash that loudly. Funny, because he’d been trying to figure that shit out for his entire life.

The biker crew lost interest after a couple of minutes, and Chase glanced down at his menu. It was packed full of every possible item you would think of, but he had no interest in any of it. Even the smell of cooking meat no longer appealed to him. All the scents in the place had combined to create an overwhelming smell of food, but it churned his stomach.

Maybe it was the picture of Will, or the idea of sitting in one place for long enough to bullshit with a waiter’s slow service and paying a bill, but he had a sinking feeling. However, his paranoia did not trump Elijah’s precog abilities, so Chase wasn’t about to make a big deal about his doubts.

It was Elijah who’d led them to the camp and who’d gotten them this far. Not trusting him with their lives would be stupid.

“Okay,” Elijah said, slapping his menu shut. “I want a short stack with eggs, bacon, biscuits, and grits on the side. And a jug of coffee.”

“What the fuck?” Chase blinked at him skeptically. “You couldn’t just get some soup? We’re literally living on fifty bucks for the rest of our stupid-ass lives at this point.”

Elijah rolled his eyes again, all long eyelashes and tilting head movements. “First, that whole meal is like seven bucks. Second, if you think I’m going to hike the next fifteen or so miles to the Waterfront District without a full stomach, you’re—”

“Wait, back up, what’s that about a waterfront?”

Elijah paused with his feet on the bottom rung of the stool. He’d been about to jump down but was now staring thoughtfully at the scarred bar top. “I don’t know. It just popped into my head. I saw this two-story townhouse on . . .” Elijah chewed on his lower lip. “I just had it, but it’s gone now. I’ll keep thinking.”

“Yes, keep fucking thinking. I’ll feed you anything you want if warmth and comfort means visions popping into that pretty head of yours.”

Elijah grinned at him. “I don’t think that’s it, really. Well, maybe not. But . . .” He stepped the rest of the way to the floor and looked around quickly. His voice lowered. “I’ve been wondering if my gift is like yours, and maybe it responds better when I’m like . . . in emotional duress. Kind of like it needs to be triggered.”

“Would make sense. Mine is apparently triggered by me wanting to protect you, but so far you’ve been the one saving my ass since we hit the road.”

They looked at each other for a long moment before, with no warning whatsoever, Elijah stood on his tiptoes for a kiss. And because Chase gave exactly zero fucks, he kissed back with a low growl.

Elijah drew away with a mischievous grin, turned on his heel, and sauntered toward the bathroom. Chase knew that he was probably about to get stomped by some bikers, but he still couldn’t stop himself from watching Elijah’s ass as he walked away. How was it possible for Chase to be horny, cold, hungry, and getting ready to fight all at the same time? He was a bomb multitasker.

“Hey, you.”

Ah shit. Here it went.

Chase swiveled around on his stool to find the whole biker crew staring him down. One in particular, a big dude with pale-blue eyes and a beard long enough to make him look like red-haired Gandalf, had waltzed over to Chase. He was a total cliché in a leather vest, a grimy grease-stained ribbed shirt beneath, and leather pants tucked into monstrous shitkicker boots. He could probably kill Chase with barely any effort. Which meant he could also hurt Elijah.

Chase’s lip lifted in a snarl, and his hands closed into fists. That was as far as he got before the glass one of the bikers was holding shattered in his meaty palm. Everyone exclaimed, drawing attention off Chase, but Gandalf the Red didn’t shift his gaze. He just nodded his head once, quirking his mouth up briefly, and said, “We should talk.”

“’Bout what?”

Gandalf jerked his head back toward his boys and lowered his voice to a gruff rumble. “’Bout that mess you just made. But we can save it until we’re in one of the booths you were crying about.”

Booths? Huh. This dude hadn’t been sitting close enough to hear that comment over the din of the restaurant, and yet he had.

Intrigue slid through Chase, and he felt himself nodding. “Yeah, okay, but don’t blame me when your buds think you’re trying to pick up some rough trade.”

Gandalf leered. “They wouldn’t be surprised, but your boyfriend is more my type.”

Chase didn’t try to hide his cringe face. “Okay then. But if you touch him, I will literally blow your fucking brain up. Just saying.”

“Yeah, I get the picture.”

Gandalf strode across the diner like he owned it, nodded at the hostess, and plunked his ass down in a booth. He folded his hands, pushed his shoulders back, and waited while staring Chase down. It was one of the weirdest things to happen in the past few months, but at this point who was Chase to challenge it? Especially when Elijah had said something would happen here.

Maybe big daddy Gandalf the Red was that something.

Or maybe he’d just kick their asses. Or offer them money for a blowjob.

Chase ran his tongue over his teeth, glanced around the room, and sauntered over to the booth. He spotted Elijah coming from the bathroom out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t turn his head. No way in hell was he breaking this Wild West–style glaring contest. It was already unfortunate that he was dressed like shit and drowning in a too-big coat.

“So let’s hear it,” he said. “What the fuck could you possibly have to say that my hateful self would want to hear?”

“Might want to wait for your boyfriend,” Gandalf muttered.

Elijah slid into the booth next to Chase, bumping his hip until Chase slid over toward the wall, and didn’t miss a beat.

“Is your name Rook?”

Rook flashed a crooked-toothed smile. His eyes went up and down Elijah, in lust despite Elijah being more covered up than he’d been in years. Nobody could resist him. Nobody.

“You got it, sweet thing,” Rook drawled. “Saw me in that head of yours?”

“Yeah. I did. But it was blurry.”

Chase looked between Elijah and Rook, incredulousness slowly morphing into a mix of disbelief and fear.

“You’re Comm—”

“Shut your piehole, boy,” Rook rumbled, smile fading when he turned his attention back to Chase. “That’s a dirty word around here.”

Bristling, Chase threw his arm over the back of the seats and made sure it touched Elijah. “Which one? You’re or Community?”

Elijah elbowed him in the side, and Rook ducked his head. He flicked his gaze around the diner like they were under siege, discontent and paranoia pouring out of him in such heavy waves that even Chase could feel it. If Nate were here, it’d have bowled him over.

The thought of his brother, the awkward nervous empath with the inability to construct a real shield, pinged his heart. That kid had gotten under his armor without even trying, all because he’d been so earnest and clueless. Also because he wasn’t an asshole.

“You think it’s a joke?” Rook asked once he was glaring squarely at Chase again. “You don’t know what you’re walking into, which is why I pulled you aside. It’s only out of the kindness of my heart, bud, but I can cancel that compassion right fucking now if you want to play games.”

“No,” Elijah said before Chase could retort. “Please tell us whatever you wanted to tell us. I have a feeling . . .” He trailed off, nibbling on his pillowy lower lip. “I did have a vision, but it was all in pieces. I saw you and this place, but none of it fits just right. All I know is that something good comes out of us being here.”

Chase sighed quietly, but kept his yap shut. For that, Elijah shot him a grateful little smile. The tiny upturn of his lips made Chase’s insides go all gooey.

“I don’t know what you think you saw, but I’m just here to warn you.” Rook put his forearms on the table and leaned in closer, furrowing his bushy brow. “I can smell the psychic on you two, which means other people can as well. It doesn’t help that you both stand out more than a showgirl in a feather boa. It’s not healthy and it’s not smart.”

Now, Chase once again felt hunted. It sucked after an entire day of Elijah trying to reassure him that maybe Richard and Jasper wouldn’t know what had happened yet.

“Get to the point, Gandalf,” Chase cut in. “We’re not exactly trying to flaunt our shit, but in our current situation, there’s no other choice. So tell me what you know about the big C.”

Rook’s jaw clenched. “Like I said—dirty word around here. We’re a small town, and the talent stands out, if you know what I mean. So do strangers. People start noticing when outsiders from the cult come sniffing around and looking to recruit. We also notice when the people they were trying to reel in suddenly go missing.”

Elijah inhaled sharply, but Chase felt zero surprise. This is what he had expected. It was what he’d feared.

“Gotcha,” he said, voice lowering. “But I can tell you that we know how dangerous that cult is. We just escaped it. Barely.”

Rook sat back and spread his arms wide. For just a second, his dark eyes gleamed, then he was slowly nodding as he studied Elijah, then Chase and back again. Reading them like one of the overly long menus sitting up at the bar.

“I see.”

Chase’s skin crawled, but he bit down on the urge to snarl at the motherfucker to stay out of his head. Having his shields down fucking sucked.

“We have to get out of here,” Elijah said softly. “As soon as possible. It didn’t go down the way they wanted, and they won’t be happy. I think . . . we’ll be okay once we’re with the others, but I’m afraid of what will happen between here and there. It’s five or six more hours on foot, and that’s if we don’t stop. Without taking the snow into consideration.”

“You’re fucked,” Rook said flatly. “It’s a bad plan.”

“No fucking shit, bud,” Chase muttered. “You got a better one?”

“Yup, I sure do.” Rook made eye contact with someone across the diner and jerked his head. “First, you’re gonna feed yourselves. Second, I’ll take you to the Poughkeepsie.”

Elijah sat up straight, eyes going wide. “That’s so—”

“Good idea, but how the fuck are two of us gonna fit on the back of your motorcycle, genius?”

Elijah whipped around and punched Chase in the shoulder. “Chase, shut the fuck up!”

Chase rubbed his shoulder, still eyeballing Rook. “It’s a good question.”

“It would be a good question if I was driving a bike, wise guy.” Rook grinned as the waitress came over. “You’ll be getting a ride in the back of my truck.”

Elijah shot daggers at Chase, who took that as his cue to shut the hell up.

When Rook said he had a truck, he hadn’t been messing around. The dude was dressed like a biker, but he led them to a goddamn eighteen-wheeler. Elijah swung up into it like it was the most natural thing in the world, triggering a protective streak in Chase as he remembered his little drummer boy had once had a penchant for hitchhiking.

It took a lot for him to get in the passenger’s seat and say nothing, but he managed. Elijah curled up on the bed at the back of the cab. It was done up pretty cozy looking with blankets and pillows. The softness combined with the heat on full blast automatically caused Elijah’s face to go all dreamy.

“Feel free to take a quick nap,” Rook said gruffly, starting the engine. “You have about forty-five minutes before we hit the city.”

“Is it out of your way?” Chase asked. “If so, why would you even bother?”

Rook huffed an impatient breath as he guided the big vehicle out of the parking lot and back onto the road. “I appreciate your cynicism, but it’s going to piss me the fuck off. And if you are what I think you are, you can climb in my head just as easily as I can get into yours.”

Chase bristled. “You don’t have a clue what I am.”

“Telepath,” Rook said immediately. “I can sense my own.”

“Your own? Look, man, we’re not in a cool kid’s club.” Chase crossed his arms over his chest, trying not to show just how good it felt to thaw in the blast of the warm air. No wonder Elijah was already dozing off behind them. “I’m a telepath, but I can do some other stuff too. Guess you can say I’m special.”

“Special enough to make beer mugs explode?” Rook glanced at him as the truck trundled along. They were going about fifteen miles under the speed limit, which was irritating but likely necessary with all the ice and snow. “How about cars?”

A lance of dread sliced through Chase’s don’t-give-a-damn armor, but he stared through the windshield and said nothing.

“I heard about a bad wreck off the Taconic. One car had flipped over onto the other. Four dead.”

“Four?” Chase cursed himself for letting the question slip. He rolled his shoulders and twisted his neck, pretending to be more concerned about the kinks in his body than the worry tripling in his brain. “I thought I heard about five. Maybe there were two wrecks.”

Rook didn’t seem convinced. He shrugged, tapped his fingers on the steering wheel, and said nothing more on the topic. It would have been better to leave it alone before the guy caught on that this topic was of particular interest to Chase, but he couldn’t. Because if there was a survivor . . .

Chase was in Rook’s brain before he’d fully made the decision to wade in. Years of practice with his telepathy allowed him to bypass the intersecting lines of thoughts and unnecessary memories, and pluck up the exact one that was relevant to him—a news report on the radio from earlier that morning.

“A two-car collision on the Taconic Parkway near Cold Springs left four people killed and a fifth injured yesterday morning. There were no witnesses to the deadly crash, but a passing motorist spotted the wreck before calling police. Police believe the two vehicles were speeding through the snow storm early yesterday morning, resulting in a collision that took them off the side of the road and one flipping onto the other.”

Chase exited the memory, but he was so fixated on the tinny sound of the reporter’s voice that he was sloppy about it. The trick to diving into someone’s mind was exiting as quickly as he’d entered, but he stumbled over the phrase “a fifth injured” enough times to linger.

Chase glanced over and found Rook giving him a pointed stare.

“Find what you were looking for?”

“Maybe. You don’t seem to be driving us off to kill us, so that’s a good start.”

It was bullshit. Chase had been too fixated on the lone survivor from Richard’s kill squad to even check into Rook’s motives. He was getting messy, but the information had him shook. Somehow, he’d gone from hating himself for snuffing out five lives to being absolutely fucking terrified that one of them had lived. A survivor meant an informant. Even if that person was locked down in a hospital surrounded by doctors and police, the right kind of Comm member could communicate with Richard telepathically.

In short, it was entirely possible that he and Elijah were already in danger.

Chase glanced back at Elijah and balled his hands into fists. The idea of him being taken back to the silo, of being locked up with Jasper or Will . . .

Rook shot out a hand to put on his arm. “Take a breath, kid. If this truck flips, we’re all dead.”

Jerking out of Rook’s grasp, Chase glanced around. Things on the dash had begun . . . shaking. The bobblehead doll, the dinky air freshener, and the radio had begun to fritz out. Jesus Christ, was that him? Did his protectiveness of Elijah really yank the destruction out of his psychic powers so easily?

He inhaled deeply, loosening his balled hands and relaxing against the seat. It didn’t work. He repeated the process again and again, but didn’t find a sense of calm until he looked back at Elijah again. He’d rolled onto his side, arms wrapped around himself, his curly hair covering his face.

“You’ve got it bad,” Rook observed. “Just be careful who you let see that part of yourself. People use the things you love against you.”

“Thanks, Yoda, but I’ve got it well-in-fucking-hand.”

Rook shook his head and allowed Chase to turn in on himself. The dude was nosy, and gave advice when nobody asked for it, but he knew when to take a hint. Judging from the lack of walls he’d put up as Chase subtly prodded around in the next several minutes, Rook also had nothing to hide.

Chase relaxed in the seat, letting his arms fall to his side. “I don’t know where you should drop us off,” he said. “Elijah said something about the waterfront, but half the fucking city is a waterfront.”

“You’ll find your way.”

They would. But would they find their way before the Comm came for them? That was the real question. He stewed in that until they left the smaller towns and the trees for the city that housed Vassar College. Poughkeepsie had absolutely nothing on New York, but seeing signs of life instead of an endless stretch of trees eased the knot in Chase’s gut.

If the Community valued anything more than complete obedience, it was discretion. They could hunt Nate and the others all they wanted, but when it came down to it, they would never put themselves at risk by making a scene where voids would see and remember.

“Holden . . .”

Chase jerked upright, gaze swinging back to Elijah. He was still sleeping, likely dreaming or having a nightmare, but that one word turned Chase’s heart to stone.

It wasn’t the first time Elijah had dreamed of Chase’s brother. There had even been times when Elijah had woken from a dream about Holden sweaty and panting, right before begging for Chase to fuck him. A stand-in. Placeholder. A good-enough dick.

Chase inhaled sharply and look away. He tried to focus on the city sprawling ahead of them, but his eyes were unseeing. Nothing worked right anymore. It was amazing how one breathy word from Elijah could break him down so completely.

“Mmm. How long was I ’sleep?”

When Chase didn’t immediately speak, Rook glanced over his shoulder. “About an hour. Drive took longer than I expected.”

Elijah uncurled from the bed, yawning like a kitten. He knelt on the floor behind the passenger’s seat and peered through the windshield. Chase watched out of his peripheral vision, tracing the slope of that delicate nose, the wide mouth, and long eyelashes. Why would he ever think someone as beautiful and special as Elijah would seriously be into him?

“So, where am I dropping you two off?” Rook asked, his gruff tone unchanged. “A hotel?”

“We don’t have any—”

“You can take us to Hudson Heights Drive,” Elijah said.

Chase turned to look at him, eyes narrowed. “You sure?”

Elijah gnawed on the inside of his lip, gaze turning faraway for only an instant before he nodded. “I’m sure. Uh. Mostly sure.”

“Good enough for me.” Chase jerked his head at Rook. “You heard the man. Hudson Heights, wherever the fuck that is.”

It wasn’t much different than the usual sardonic asshole commentary he made, but his caustic tone earned him a long look from Elijah. Chase remained quiet. They were in the middle of a life-or-death escape plan, complete with four actual deaths so far, and he was still finding time to be a jealous little bitch about Elijah and his brother. It was incredible, but not at all surprising. Chase had stewed in this resentment, this unrequited bullshit, for years. Now that he’d felt Elijah, every part of him and not just his skin when it was slicked with their combined sweat, the disappointed thrum in his chest felt capable of tearing apart his heart.

Why did he try? Why did he have hope?

The part of him that was small and cruel and hardened, the part that had been stunted but not crushed after he’d finally left the Farm as a child, had the audacity to wonder why he was doing any of this if he’d never matter to anyone.

Chase swallowed the sickness rising in his throat, and closed his eyes for the next fifteen minutes.

It turned out that Hudson Heights Drive was a circular residential street along the water. The Hudson River was a lot nicer this far north. Or at least it looked a lot less likely to turn them into radioactive mutants if they dipped a toe in it.

“Where can I let you out?” Rook asked, pulling to a stop by a basketball court. “Anywhere?”

“I’ll find it from here,” Elijah said. “I think.”

“Reassuring.” Rook shook his head, but there was a smile in his voice. Somehow, in the span of an hour that was mostly spent sleeping, Elijah had endeared himself to the man. “I can’t do much more for you from here—”

“You’ve done enough,” Elijah said quickly. “Trust me, none of the selfish queens in Manhattan would have offered us a ride out of the kindness of their hearts. It’s more likely they’d have walked in the other direction and tried to stay out of our business.”

“Good thing I’m not from the city, then.” Rook looked between them. “Listen, boys, if you get in over your heads, find a way to send me a message. I wasn’t kidding when I said the people like us in this area don’t think too fucking kindly on that group. You need backup, you holler.”

“What’s in it for you?” Chase demanded. Elijah sighed heavily, shaking his head, but Chase pressed on. “I’m serious, man. What’s in this for you? Why are you so concerned about what we’re up to and what happens with us?”

Rook tilted his head back, observing Chase more closely from under the brim of his hat. There was a brief beat of silence, and then he faced the windshield again, eyes narrowing. “I’m willing to help anyone taking on the group that broke apart my family. It led to the people like me, like us, banding together to keep an eye out for that group. They’re not the only ones who know how to get organized. And that’s all I’m gonna say about that.”

It was more than he needed to say, but Chase dove into his memories anyway. He skated through just long enough to see a younger version of Rook and a young girl with the same color hair, floating dishes with music and Sword in the Stone playing in the background, then the missing-person fliers.

Chase didn’t have to ask outright to put the pieces together. The Comm’s practice of collecting psys, even if it was against that psy’s will, had followed them up and down the river. Who knew how long Jasper and Richard had been doing this? They could have been kidnapping or coercing young psychics to join them at the Farm, their fucking psychic cult, for years.

Determination firmed up in Chase’s gut. He shouldered open the door to the truck, and dropped down to the damp ground beneath. He waited for Rook to meet his gaze again, and jerked his chin.

“What’s her name?”

A glimmer of anger flashed across Rook’s countenance, but no surprise. “Elise.”

The name meant nothing to Chase, but that wasn’t proof that she wasn’t there. Or that she hadn’t been there in the past. For all he knew, the more intense brainwashing wiped away all traces of who they’d ever been. Including their real names.

“If we get this thing done, and we take on the bastards on that Farm, I’ll look for her.”

Rook’s nostrils flared, and for just a second it looked like his eyes had gained a damp sheen. Then he shook his head curtly and looked away.

“If I see anything on my way down to Poughkeepsie, I’ll let you know.” He held up a small card bearing the name of a shipment company, and gave it to Chase. “Don’t lose it. Give it to your boyfriend if you have to.”

“Got it.”

Elijah hopped out of the truck and stood by Chase’s side. He had to have no idea what they were discussing, but he didn’t ask. He simply looked up at Chase and put a hand on the bend of his elbow, fingers digging in. They stayed that way until the truck was pulling away from the side of the road, rolling through the mountainous snow and disrupting the quiet neighborhood with all eighteen of its wheels.

“Did the Community . . .”

Chase pulled away from Elijah, uncaring of how pointed it looked. He shoved the card into his pocket. “Probably. I’ll find out if we ever get the chance to go back there and make a difference in what’s going on at that Farm.”

Elijah nodded slowly, watching him instead of scanning the area for the rest of their ragtag crew of runaways. “You didn’t have to offer to get involved.”

“When it comes to the Community fucking over people’s lives, I want to be involved.”

“Because you’re a good person,” he said quietly. “Even if you keep trying to shut down and go back to icing me out now that we’re going to be around other people again.”

Chase scoffed. “Yeah, that’s the reason.”

Elijah put his hands on his hips, managing to look huffy and diva-ish while layered in a million tons of oversized fabric. “What other reason would there be?”

Chase ignored the question and strode toward Hudson Heights Drive. The place was a little nicer than expected. At this junction in the horror movie playing out in his head, he’d figured everyone would be shacked up in a creaky cabin in the woods. Or an abandoned mental institution. Something equally traumatizing.

But no. This neighborhood was clearly on the privileged side, and the houses reminded him of The Brady Bunch. His long legs took him strides ahead of Elijah as he followed the sidewalk around the loop, occasionally glancing out at the bridge looming not too far away.

“Hey.”

Was this even the right place, or had they jumped out of their ride too early just to chase a vision that might boil down to having only been a dream?

“Chase!” Elijah jogged to catch up to him and grabbed his wrist. “What the fuck is wrong with you? Why are you being this way?”

A mushroom cloud of anger swelled inside of Chase. He took a deep breath, pushing it aside, and whirled around to grace Elijah with a cool glare. “Gee, Elijah, I don’t fucking know. Maybe because after all that ‘I’m in love with you’ bullshit—”

Elijah sucked in a breath, his big eyes going wider. “Wow.”

“—we’re about to be right back to you waiting for the chance to hump my brother.”

“That’s . . .” Elijah fumbled over his words, shook his head, then settled on a ferocious glare. He shoved Chase backward right there in the middle of this embarrassingly nice block. “That’s the stupidest fucking thing you’ve said in the past few days. And I hate you for saying it. I want to punch you in your asshole-ish pale face.”

“You hate me? Well, fuck you, then, pal. And while we’re at it, why don’t we cancel all that bullshit we had going for the past couple of weeks as well.” Chase ripped a hand across his face, and was furious to realize it was shaking. “You keep telling me I have the wrong idea about you and Holden, but I don’t. I’m not an idiot. I can see what’s in front of me even if you’re trying to run from reality yourself.”

Elijah looked either on the verge of crying or screaming in rage, or both. His hands were balled up, his body practically vibrating. They stared each other down, the most emo Wild West challenge in the history of challenges, and just as Chase thought Elijah was going to start shouting—a voice whipped into Chase’s mind.

Chase?

He looked up, scanning the area around them, and focused on a tan-paneled two-story home across the street. There were no cars in front, and there were no lights on inside, but the front door opened and a rangy figure with pale-blond hair stepped out.

The relief that socked Chase was unexpected. The sight of his brother was like the release of a breath he’d been holding for months.

Nate stepped out of the house in bare feet, holey jeans clinging to his legs, and a hoodie that was a faded shade of black. All Theo’s shit. Somehow, that combination of the two of them cracked Chase’s walls even more. They stared at each other from across the street, Nate with disbelief and Chase . . . not knowing what to do, until Holden barged through the door and shoved Nate out of the way.

Holden looked from Chase to Elijah, then, to the surprise of no one, ran forward to crush Elijah to his chest in a hug.

The whole squad was present and accounted for.

Nate, Trent, Holden, Six, Lia, Jessica Payne, and two bonus fuckers who put Chase on edge almost as soon as he laid eyes on them. The chip on his shoulder leveled up to a boulder as he got cagey in the presence of two strangers with weird vibes.

“Is this the multi?” one of the two asked, his different-colored eyes zeroing in on Chase. He was older than Chase, maybe in his late thirties, and except for his eyes, had a face so generic it looked like he’d been engineered to blend in with a crowd. “We didn’t discuss extras showing up to my house.”

“The fuck?” Chase hadn’t been prepared for an entire party bus of psychics, and he’d been even less prepared for randos talking about him like he wasn’t in the room. “Who the fuck are these assholes?”

Everyone started talking at once—well, everyone except Trent, Holden, Six, and Nate, who hung back observing the scene warily. Elijah had edged closer to the quad, and part of Chase couldn’t help wondering if he was a little bit closer to Holden than anyone else. Goddamn, but he was obsessed.

“Everybody calm down,” Jessica said, speaking over them all. She looked as frail as she had the last time Chase had laid eyes on her, even though the thick hoodie and purple cords she wore were way out of character. It made her seem normal, approachable, while in Chase’s experience, she was anything but. “Chase, Elijah, this is Damon.” She nodded at the asshole with the green and brown eyes who’d spoken up. “This is his, and his brother Xander’s, house. Lia contacted them after we escaped the Farm, and they’ve been kind enough to let us stay here for now.”

When Chase kept staring at her blankly, Lia cleared her throat.

“They’re Ex-Comm. They were Jericho’s contacts who were looking into the disappearances in the city. After he died, they reached out to me.”

Elijah nodded as if this all made sense, but Chase continued eyeballing them skeptically.

Weirdo Number Two stepped up so he was shoulder to shoulder with Damon. Chase had to assume he was Xander and there was something off about him—about both of them. It wasn’t the lack of vibes or the wall that surrounded his brain like a fortress. It was the way they stared him down. The way they didn’t spare Elijah a second glance.

“So, did I have to fucking RSVP for this party?” Chase asked. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Nate unstick himself from the huddle he’d been in and move closer. “Or . . .”

“I wasn’t aware that you were invited,” Damon repeated. “As far as I last knew, you were one of them.”

Chase was too tired to be incredulous, which meant he was just ready to punch somebody. “What the fuck is this idiot talking about?” he asked the room as a whole. “Do you know what we had to go through to get here?”

Xander’s and Damon’s attitude solidified the hesitancy Chase had been feeling about Ex-Comm all along. There was nothing more dangerous than an organized group of people who considered themselves crusaders for some obscure greater good.

No one moved except Nate, who stood shoulder to shoulder with him in a mirror of the Ex-Comm brothers. “You knew we went to the Farm primarily to get Chase and Elijah,” he said, low and steady and nothing like the hesitant boy who’d stumbled up to Evolution almost a year ago. “Why is it a problem now?”

“Because my people on the inside said Chase was all queued up to take on a leadership role,” Xander said. He had the same gravelly voice as his brother, but looked younger and less sure of himself. He glanced at Damon between nearly every word. “And that he was helping to induct Elijah.”

Elijah swelled up and marched up to Xander. “That’s total bullshit. I thought you people were psychics. Would it hurt to double-check before you spout hot garbage all over us?”

“You have walls up, plus Sixtus’s dampening ability,” Damon replied, again with no inflection in his tone. Chase didn’t know if that was the guy’s natural state or if he was putting on a tough-guy front for the noobs he obviously viewed as a threat. “Not to mention, I’m well aware of how powerful you are, Chase.”

“Yeah? How powerful am I?”

Damon’s gaze flickered, the first indication that he wasn’t as confident in his accusations as Chase had thought. “You’re a telepath, a postcog, a precog, and have telekinesis. One of the most powerful multis the Community has ever discovered. And because of that, and your ability to send messages long distances as well as via dreams, you’re a threat to everything we’ve created until we know for sure that you’re not on the wrong si—”

“‘On the wrong side’?” Elijah butted in. “Are you fucking kidding me?” His voice choked on the last syllable, and he charged forward until he was right in Damon’s face despite being several inches shorter. “Do you have any idea what those people did to him? How they tortured him? If it wasn’t for Chase, I would have been . . .”

He didn’t finish the sentence. And instead of being moved by the response, and the emotion in Elijah’s voice, Damon looked at Jessica and asked point-blank, “How do we know any of this is true and not a part of the Community’s plan?”

Holden and Nate both started to talk at the same time as Elijah, but she silenced them with a single look. Amazing how Richard had to brainwash, torture, and instill fear in his followers to gain their compliance, whereas Jessica had gained the trust of Nate in a couple of weeks. There was something about her that both commanded respect and inspired awe, a power that went well beyond her psychic abilities. It was one of the many reasons Chase had always been so jealous of Holden. He’d had a mother like Jessica. Chase had had a mother who’d abandoned him, or so he had thought.

But Jessica Payne had never tried to welcome him into her family. She’d been cordial, polite, concerned in the way an adult would always be concerned for any child, but she’d held him at the same distance the other Ex-Comm members were holding him now.

Something about him inspired distrust.

Chase swiped a hand through his hair and looked around the room. Trent had his back to the wall, not appearing intimidated but observing the scene very closely. To his credit, his gaze was more on the Ex-Comm brothers than Chase.

Six, on the other hand, was glaring at everyone. If he was as invulnerable as everyone made him out to be, he hadn’t felt them coming. And the reunion definitely was not panning out however Six had expected it to, likely because his goal was to take down the Community and not waste time with infighting.

Chase expected Lia to be in a similar state, but her arms were crossed over her chest and her face was unreadable. All Chase noticed was that she’d drifted closer to Elijah.

“Look,” Chase said, interrupting whatever silent mental communication was going down between the Ex-Comm members. “For once in my life, I’m gonna think about what some other motherfuckers want, and be reasonable.” He backed away from the group. “I’ll take off—”

“Chase, no,” Holden said. “This is unacceptable—”

“It’s really not.” Chase kept looking at Jessica, the leader in the room, and the one who could handle her people without him being there to turn everything into an argument. If there was anything he’d learned in the past month, it was that you couldn’t get through a fucked-up adventure like this if your attitude sucked the entire time. “I’ll go wander around, come back, and you can figure out whether you want me on your team or not.”

He continued walking backward and held up his hands when Elijah started in his direction. “You stay here.”

“Chase—”

“That wasn’t a suggestion.”

Elijah’s face filled with color, and Chase turned on his heel before it could turn into a big thing. He didn’t want anyone to stop him, so he tried to project that with every fiber of his being. The last thing he wanted was for Damon and Xander to start distrusting Elijah as well. At the end of the day, Chase was the outsider there. Elijah and Lia had been on board with Ex-Comm before any of them, Holden was in bed with one of their most loyal followers, and Nate . . . well . . . Nate had backed up to join Trent by the wall. They were probably wishing they’d stayed in Cali.

I’m following you.

Chase didn’t try to disagree with his brother’s message. He only gave Elijah another hard stare, ignored the building resentment in those big dark eyes, and strode out into the brisk winter air. He knew it was the right decision, he could feel in his gut that walking out of the house was the best thing to do, but going it without Elijah . . . felt wrong.

He closed his hands into fists and forced himself to not look back. Not give in to this weakness that had formed inside of him when it came to Elijah. Too much had been said and done between them in the past few weeks, and things would never be the same. He’d ripped open his own armor, invited Elijah in, and now he regretted it because of his own doubts. To top it off, he was now afraid he’d be the red line between Elijah and the anti-Community group he’d restocked his faith in before getting stuck with Chase.

“Chase.”

He stopped walking by the curb and waited without looking over his shoulder. There was something about Nate that pinged his radar like a GPS. He could tell as Nate took each step closer to him, a silent warning in his system letting him know that another member of the Black family was drawing near.

“Leaving the void?”

Nate slipped on gloves, showing his full Texan in the movement since it wasn’t even that cold anymore, and sniffed. “Call him Trent or I’ll go back in the house.”

Chase scoffed. “You thought I wanted you to come with me?”

“No, but I think you need someone to fill you in on everything that’s been going on. And you have some things to fill me in about as well.”

“Fair fucking point.” Chase jerked his head toward the road. “Let’s go before Elijah comes out here and reams me.”

They slipped their hands into their pockets, walking side by side. To Chase’s horror, he realized their strides were nearly identical. Same height and build.

“Your family is creepy,” he muttered.

“Heh. Speak for yourself, Chase Payne.” Nate shook his head, burrowing deeper into his jacket as they wandered toward the main gate where the eighteen-wheeler had parked not too long ago. “I had a long talk with Holden about families, and how we’re not responsible for what our families do, but I have to admit . . . our people are impressively fucked.”

“You’re telling me.” Chase dragged his teeth over his lower lip. “How much of my messages did you get?”

“Enough to know she’s alive.” Nate’s voice hushed, but the chaos of emotion and shock that Chase had experienced was absent. Maybe he’d already processed it and was moving on to a plan of action. It seemed to be how he operated since it was exactly what he’d done after Theo died. “Did your father—”

“Did Richard,” Chase butted in. “Don’t call him my father.”

“Got it.” Nate sighed slowly, his breath clouding the air in front of him. “So, that day she went for a walk and never came back . . .”

“He snatched her up. I don’t know how they found her, but I bet the glut of your family all living in one fucking town basically sent out a giant signal to any half-decent tracker.”

Nate shook his head slowly. “And to think my aunt thought she was so careful keeping us isolated and scared . . .”

“That sounds familiar,” Chase said. “It seems to be what people do when they’re trying to control you.”

“No shit.” Nate glanced at him again, and this time there was fear in his face. “How is she?”

“Pissed.” It was the first word that popped into Chase’s head when he remembered Lorelei Black’s furious silver eyes. “I found her locked in a room in a nightgown, sitting in a rocking chair like she was in a nursing home or some shit. Honestly, I figured she wasn’t all there after years of being drugged, but . . .” Fondness crept into his tone. “When I mentioned Richard’s name, she looked like a fucking lioness.”

Nate’s fear transformed into relief. “I was so fucking scared she wouldn’t remember anything. That she was alive but not . . .”

“Your mom anymore?” Chase nodded, averting his eyes. “Yeah. I get it. But she’s still there, man. She even fucking knew who I was.”

“And how did you feel about that?”

Chase could have cursed Nate for prying, but he couldn’t blame the guy. Chase had made his bitterness plain as day in the past.

“I don’t know. Nothing I thought was the case is turning out to be the fucking case.” Chase scoffed. “All my emo mommy shit, and it seems like she thought she was doing the right thing by leaving me behind.”

Nate grabbed his arm and stopped him from walking farther. “I told you before, she was haunted by what they did to her in New York. By leaving you. I didn’t know what it was all about at the time, but now I do.”

Chase nodded, sniffing against the cold and refusing to acknowledge the lump at the back of his throat. “Yeah, well, the best thing we can do now is get her the fuck out. We have some help on the inside—a nurse who is probably one of Jessica’s people. She’s been decreasing meds. It’s why your mother is lucid all of a sudden.”

Nate nodded slowly. “Is that how you and Elijah got here?”

“Yeah. Without Shelby, we’d probably still be on that farm. Me strapped down as dear old Dad’s pet leech tried to pull the abilities out of my brain.”

Nate grabbed his arm. “Beck?”

“Nah. She’s gone. There’s another one. A stronger one.” An image of Jasper flashed before Chase’s mind. His cat eyes, his cold smile, the way he projected nothing, like a walking corpse. “He runs the Farm—the experiments. Or ‘research’ as Richard puts it.”

Nate walked along with his hands in his pockets and his head down. “Did he get his hands on Elijah?”

“No,” Chase said quickly. “I’d fucking kill him.”

“How did you keep him away?”

They bypassed the basketball court and walked out to the street. It was like any other residential street, but Chase couldn’t relax. Even if this looked far removed from the Farm, and Cold Springs where the SUVs had crashed, he didn’t feel safe. Nowhere felt safe.

“I pretended to hate you all,” he said bluntly. “Like I’d only gone along with you when you busted into the Farm because of Elijah. As far as they knew, I was in love with Elijah, and I wanted him to be realigned to rejoin the right side.”

None of it seemed to surprise Nate. “How did you escape after the nurse decreased the drugs?”

“They were taking us to you. They know you’re in Poughkeepsie, but not exactly where.” Chase glanced up at the gray sky and the white rays of sunlight weakly attempting to break through the clouds. “You know, I probably should have led with that info, but I was kind of thrown off by dick-wheel back there giving me the third degree before I could even take a piss or drink some water.”

Nate stopped walking and turned to him. His hair had grown longer and fell over the side of his face. He looked younger like that, but those gray eyes were tired. Again, Chase regretted redragging him into this mess instead of leaving him in California where he’d been invisible. Safe.

“We know we have to go soon,” Nate said. “Apparently there are others in their group who have a cabin in the mountains nearby. The plan was to go there.”

Chase shook his head slowly, unable to get over how fucking ridiculous this all sounded.

“It does,” Nate agreed.

“Fuck, man,” Chase griped. “I wasn’t even trying to project that time. Why are you in my head?”

“It’s definitely not my gift.” He shrugged. “Maybe it’s the Black connection?”

“No. Because Elijah can hear me too sometimes,” Chase said.

“Maybe it’s people you, uh, have a bond with or whatever.” Nate stumbled over the words, clearly awkward with the implication. He reddened slightly like the dork that he was, and ran a hand through his hair. “Can Holden hear you?”

Chase snorted. “Fuck no.”

The response seemed to take Nate aback. He gnawed on his lower lip, studying Chase with those big gray eyes, and looked ahead of them. “I don’t know what the history is between you two, but he was worried sick about both of y’all. If it wasn’t for Six, I don’t think he’d have been able to keep himself from storming the Farm for as long as we have.”

It was in direct contrast to everything Chase had told himself about that first raid, and because of their connection, he knew Nate wasn’t bullshitting him. Within one blink and the next, he could reach into Nate’s memories and see Holden pale faced and pacing. Worrying for both Elijah and him. Pressing Six to do something, and getting pushback from Ex-Comm.

“Nate, help me figure out what the plan is here.” Chase glanced back at the house, but they’d gone too far for him to see it. “What does Ex-Comm want?”

“To dismantle the Community completely.”

Chase’s brows shot up. “What do you mean completely? Take out Richard and Jas—”

“No. They want it to be gone. No Farm, but also no Community Watch.”

“What the fuck? Why, though? The Community Watch actually does some good.”

“That’s what Holden says and what Elijah said in the past,” Nate replied. “But they think having any kind of organized hierarchy keeping an eye on psychics will lead to corruption and . . . I don’t know, somehow impede our free will?”

What, had they stumbled on some fucking anarchists? Chase wasn’t exactly rah-rah government or leadership, but even he could see how the CW helped people who couldn’t help themselves or who were trapped.

Chase scoffed. “Okay, but Ex-Comm is still an organization trying to make it their business to deconstruct a fucking institution. Won’t they just replace that institution somehow simply by existing?”

Nate smiled wanly. “That’s what Trent said.”

“Heh. Your void is smart.”

“He is,” Nate said. “And a natural skeptic. He thinks mostly everyone is full of shit.”

A man after Chase’s own heart. “What about Six?”

“Don’t know him very well, but I can tell that he says exactly what he’s thinking at all times, so . . . I trust him even though I can’t read him. It seems like he has more of a bond with Jessica than the outside members of Ex-Comm, though. I think he finds their righteous ranting annoying. It seems like he finds anyone who gets overly passionate about anything to be annoying. He just wants to get shit done.”

“Uh-huh.” That had always been Chase’s interpretation of the impenetrable former guard. Although, he’d managed to keep secrets. “And those Ex-Comm fucks who didn’t want me in their living room?”

Nate was silent a moment, his lip caught between his teeth as he visibly chose his words with care. “I think they’re very black-and-white, so whatever goodness you and Holden and even Elijah have seen in the CW won’t matter. They think it’s terrible, so there can’t be any goodness to it at all. Point-blank.” He looked over at Chase, brow furrowed. “And because you were part of it for so long, and they saw glimpses of you complying with your father, they think you’re part of that whole . . . thing.”

Was this the way it was going to be? Was he really a roadblock to Elijah and the others joining up with this group? Maybe it was best if he took off for good instead of only going for a cool-down walk.

The thought settled over his shoulders like a damp cold cloak, making him shiver and hunch, but it was more the idea of leaving Elijah than Ex-Comm that clenched his guts. And, with that in his head, the vision hit him.

Him somewhere without snow on the ground juxtaposed with an image of black SUVs and motorcycles pulling up to the house on Hudson Heights. A mix of guards in body armor and white-clad Community staff flooding the neighborhood and surrounding the home.

Six and Trent fighting until they were faced with guns. Damon and Xander on the ground outside, the melting snow around them dyed red with blood. Jessica and Nate being dragged across the ground as Lia lay unconscious nearby.

Will carrying a motionless Elijah from the house.

“Chase?”

He snapped out of the vision with his heart in his throat. The pressure in his head caused his eyes to tear, and it was only Nate’s position in front of him, with his hands on Chase’s shoulders, that held him together. Kept him from crushing everything in the immediate vicinity with his mind.

“They’re gonna come for you all,” Chase gasped. “We need to go back. Now.”

It was immediately clear that nothing had been resolved when Chase burst back into the house. There was no one left in the living room except Trent, who was nursing a cup of coffee.

“What’s wrong?” Trent asked, immediately standing at attention. “Did something happen?”

“I think he saw something,” Nate said.

Chase didn’t explain the horror of his vision. Describing to his brother how he’d seen Trent being shot in the fucking head was the worst possible thing he could imagine. If the memory of that intelligent gaze going blank was horrible for Chase, he didn’t know what it would do to Nate.

“Where’s Jessica?”

Trent shrugged, spreading his hands, and Chase turned away. There was no one in the kitchen, and the only people in the backyard were Holden and Elijah. They were standing in the cold, Holden’s arm wrapped around Elijah’s shoulders as they spoke in hushed tones.

Swallowing a bitter bill of resentment, Chase jerked his chin at them. “Where’s the Ex-Comm people?”

Holden yanked his arm away from Elijah as if his skin had suddenly burst into flames. He looked awkward, but Chase pretended not to notice. Especially because Elijah was gracing him with that guarded glare.

“They’re in Jessica’s room. Including Six,” Holden said. “What—”

Chase headed back into the house without explanation. He knew they’d follow, and the idea of retelling the hideous story over and over again was enough to make him sick. If he focused on it for too long, he could feel the pressure consuming him again—the indication that he was close to flying apart and taking everything in the vicinity with him.

“We need to talk.” His voice was a clap of thunder in the room where Six, Jessica, Lia, and the Ex-Comm brothers had holed up. It wasn’t very large or decorated very well, and the tension between the people in the room was thick enough to slice with a knife. If he felt that way, he wondered how it was affecting Nate, who was notoriously bad at shielding himself against impressions.

Chase shot a quick glance over his shoulder, unsurprised to see the others filing in behind him. Nate was cringing, and Trent was standing close to him, astute as always and analyzing the scene.

“Sorry to cut the debate short,” Chase said. “But—”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for.” Lia separated herself from the cluster and stood in the middle of the room with her arms over her chest. “It wasn’t going anywhere.”

For as little as she’d said, her posture and tone spoke volumes. There was a clear divide between them. Odd that it was Chase’s existence causing people to draw lines in the sand when he’d been a captive of the Community long before anyone else in the goddamn house.

“To be honest, that shit is the least of our worries,” he said. “They’re coming for us.”

Jessica shot up from her seat. She asked, “When?” just as Damon said, “You suddenly have this information fifteen minutes after rushing in here?”

Chase’s lip lifted. It was only Nate’s voice muttering in his head that it was entirely the type of skeptical question Chase had asked Nate when he’d first rocked up to Evo, that kept him from saying some out-of-the-way shit.

“I had a vision,” Chase said flatly. “It wasn’t good. They were here, and so were all of you.” His voice went wobbly on the last part, and he hazarded a quick glance back at Elijah. “I don’t know how much you fuckers understand about how me and Elijah got here, but us escaping required me taking out the team Richard had sent to track you all down. And one of them survived.”

“Who?” Elijah demanded. “Was it Will?”

There was no point asking how he’d known. Judging from his hunted expression, and the way he shrunk in on himself, Chase could guess Elijah had been having his own visions. Maybe in his sleep, and he’d tried to write them off as nightmares.

“Yes,” Chase said. “He was here, and he . . . had you.” Horror transformed Elijah’s features further. Chase had to look away before protectiveness took hold of him and wreaked havoc all over the room. “It was bad.”

“How bad?” Xander demanded. “Who did they come for?”

Chase wet his lips and swallowed hard, his voice suddenly dry. How did you tell someone that you’d seen them die? There was no way to go about that in a good way. Or maybe there was, and he needed to take a Psychic Bad News seminar.

“They wanted Elijah, Nate, and Jessica. The rest of you were expendable.”

Jessica was the only person who didn’t react. Maybe she’d already seen what was coming, or maybe she trusted him for some reason after all this time.

“When are they coming?”

“I don’t know for sure, but the snow was melting. So, my guess is the first string of warm days this area gets.”

Trent cleared his throat. “Supposed to have a warm blast next week. Like fifty degrees for a couple of days.”

Chase tried not to react, but he felt himself flinch at the words. A fucking week? That was nothing. They could barely decide on whether Chase was part of their squad, let alone work out a real plan on how to get the hell away from Poughkeepsie. Not that evading Will and his crew was his, or Ex-Comm’s, ultimate goal.

“Again,” Damon said, cutting through the tense silence that had fallen over them. “How do we know we can trust him?”

A flash of impatience swept over Jessica. She glared at Damon for a beat, then two beats, before focusing on Chase. “Can you still transmit your memories to others?” After his nod, she pointed at Damon. “Can you transmit the vision to him?”

“He can,” Elijah piped up. “But why should he? Why should we have to continuously prove ourselves to someone who clearly can’t see past their dumbass single-minded purpose to completely destroy the Community?”

Damon looked at Elijah the way someone would look at an annoying pet. “We lost our sister to the Community you spent years profiting from—”

“‘Profiting,’” Elijah said incredulously. “You obviously have no idea what you’re talking about, hon.”

Damon bristled. “They gave you a job, didn’t they? You had a livelihood, friends, connection. Holden was wealthy. Chase—”

“Don’t even try it,” Chase said. “You don’t know me, bud. You wouldn’t like what you saw if I let you in even a little bit. You wouldn’t like having walked a few miles in Elijah’s shoes either. If I judge by this house, and your attitudes, you came from some privilege. So don’t try to talk shit about me or Elijah. We stayed with the Comm ’cause we had nowhere else to go. You wouldn’t have handled even a fucking fragment of the shit Elijah went through to get to New York.”

Xander glanced at Elijah, but his brother’s cheek clenched. Damon didn’t disagree, maybe because he couldn’t without knowing real facts, but he crossed his arms over his chest in outward defiance.

Jessica closed the space between them and put a hand on Chase’s arm. “Show him the vision, please.”

Her touch startled him, and he looked down at her hand, then her face. She looked so tired that he wondered how much of their past interactions she remembered. Her polite distance and him acting out, so desperate for her attention, and then hating everyone around him because nobody had ever treated him the same as Holden.

Had it been obvious to an adult that he’d craved affection? A kind word? To be treated like a real child and not a little freak? He fucking hoped not. That would make the lack of it even worse.

“It’s okay, Chase,” she murmured when he only stared at her. “You belong here with us.”

He shrugged off her hand and swung his gaze over to Damon. “Whatever.”

It took little effort to call forth the vision he’d just seen, and he blasted it through the connection he opened with Damon. Let the little fuck hear every anguished scream, every impact of fists hitting flesh, gunshots, the sound of boots trudging across the ground as an army of Community murderers returned to their vehicles and went back to the Farm.

When it was done, and all the horror had been traded, Damon was completely unaffected. His expression unchanged, no tension in his shoulders, and judging by the narrow way Holden was gazing at him, he wasn’t emoting anything either. The dude was either a rock, or he had experienced something that made the vision look like a Sunday picnic.

Chase held that stare, lifting his chin, and finally Damon cracked. He glanced at his brother, the smallest flicker of his eyes, but one that let Chase know he was human.

Chase turned to Jessica, knowing the others were there but putting his attention solely on her. The legend of Ex-Comm, the one who’d also been there since the early days of the Community, and the person who had to see this from all the angles since she’d been around from the start.

“That vision shows mostly everyone in this room dead except Nate, Elijah, and you.”

“And you,” Jessica said. “Because you weren’t there.”

Chase set his jaw and nodded.

“Which is exactly why we’re not sending you away.” The protests swelled in Damon’s and Xander’s throats, but she silenced them again with a single look. “First, there’s a chance that Chase staying will change the course of the vision. Second, out of all of us, Chase is the only one with the psychic capability to defend everyone in this room.” She gave the brothers another meaningful stare down. “And third, he’s spent his life being used when convenient and discarded when he wasn’t. We’re not doing it to him after he came here seeking refuge.”

He was a few seconds away from saying he wasn’t deluded enough to think this was a refuge, but why fuck up a good speech? Probably be even worse to add on that his powers would only activate if he thought Elijah was in danger.

Chase shot Elijah another look to find him continuously glaring at Damon like he was trying to freeze his soul. Which really did it for Chase. Nothing like a pissy look to get his motor going.

“Then what’s the plan?” Xander asked when nobody else spoke. “We go to them before they come to us?”

“They have dozens of trained armed guards as well as scores of meat shields on the property,” Six said scornfully. “There’s a reason why we went guerilla warfare last time instead of some kind of brain-dead assault.”

Xander scowled. “We don’t have to go in guns blazing. If we kill Richard—”

Chase looked at Holden, who dropped his gaze.

“You won’t get close enough to my husband to kill him,” Jessica said, this time with a scoff. “The only people he would ever allow to get that close to him are one of his sons, so he can berate them for betraying him. Then he’ll humiliate them one—” she glanced at Chase, then where Holden and Six stood side by side “—by one.”

“Richard needs to go down,” Damon insisted. “Regardless of who he’s related to. He’s a monster—”

“My husband kept me drugged and held in a room for years while he experimented on multis to figure out how to breed and engineer them,” she interrupted. “I understand he’s a monster. As do Nate and Chase, since he’s also held their mother captive for over a decade.”

Nobody argued with that.

“Then what do you suggest?” Damon asked instead. “We sit here and wait for them to come to us before letting this unstable fuckboy blow everyone to pieces?”

Elijah strode forward, but Holden jerked him back. Just the sight of his hand gripping Elijah’s wrist was enough to set Chase’s teeth on edge. He told himself to focus, but he couldn’t look away.

Jessica sat down again, her hands folded in front of her. “I’m not in the position to suggest anything. The organizations I created, both of them, have become something else. The Community has been contaminated by what’s going on at the Farm, and Ex-Comm has become a gathering of crusaders who see the Community on the whole as the enemy.”

“And you’re saying it’s not?” Xander’s voice raised for the first time since they’d all gathered. “You were the one trying to save people from—”

“From being programmed against their will and used as pawns, but that doesn’t mean that’s all there is. But as I said, I’m not in the position to make that call anymore.” She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes before exhaling. “We need to remove Richard, Jasper, and anyone else complicit with the operations at the Farm from power, and then we can make a decision about all the rest. And if Ex-Community members don’t like the way I feel about it, they’re welcome to stop using me as their folk hero.”

Six cringed at the statement, the first animated expression Chase had ever seen from the man. “You’re the reason I’m part of Ex-Comm,” he rumbled. “The person who opened my eyes.”

Jessica’s face softened marginally before closing up again. “My role was always to make sure people have a choice, but my aims and the aims of what Ex-Comm has become have diverged.”

Damon had started nodding before she finished the sentence. Not for the first time, Chase had no idea what the fuck was going on, but it was Elijah who spoke up.

“What are the aims of Ex-Comm now? I get you want to take down the Community brick by brick, but, like, how? It’s not that easy. There are thousands of people involved in it, who believe in it and support it.”

“The only way to dismantle it is to expose it,” Damon said. “Expose the existence of psychics and the savages who—”

“That’s insane,” Nate blurted out. “Do you know how dangerous that would be for all of us if people knew we existed?”

“I’m aware of that, but like your friend just said: there is no other way.”

Chase looked around at the others in the room, wondering if anyone had any brilliant suggestions about how to expose Richard and Jasper without exposing the entire organization, but they were blank. Blank and looking to Jessica, which was a fuck-ton of pressure for someone who’d been out of the loop for nearly a decade. All her Ex-Comm contacts were people she’d recruited on her own in the Farm, like Shelby and Six.

The way the Community had been run for the past several years was probably a mystery to her.

“There’s another option,” Chase said. “We could go to the board.” The silence he got in response to the statement was so irritating that he pressed on. “While I was on the Farm, Richard made a big deal over wanting me to be the new Holden-slash-Six. He was prepping me to take over for him on the Farm so he could take over the Comm in the city, and he had me sit in on a phone call with Kyger and Hale. They were a hundred percent not about him or his plans, and Hale in particular treated him like he was fucking raving.”

“But that doesn’t mean they’d side with Ex-Comm over him,” Lia said. “Unless you could show them that he’s also a threat to them.”

“He is,” Chase said, warming to the idea. “As soon as they hung up, he made it sound like he had no probs taking them out of the picture so he could do things his way.”

“Sounds like Richard,” Jessica said quietly. “He’s made similar statements in the past. He found them . . . stifling.”

“Which means it’s possible they don’t know about what goes on at the Farm,” Lia suggested. “Not entirely anyway.”

Chase wasn’t so sure, but if it came down to working with the lesser of two evils over exposing the entire psychic world to the general public—he’d take it.

“You were great in there,” Holden said from the door. “I didn’t think they’d agree to it, but they did.”

Chase had been standing alone in the room for the past thirty minutes—since everyone had settled on a plan. He’d sensed his brother coming up the stairs, because that big empathic brain of Holden’s never stopped processing impressions or reacting to them even though he was probably only conscious of a fragment of it.

“Chase?”

“Holden,” Chase mimicked.

Holden moved through the tiny bedroom, stepping over a glut of boxes and bags that had been haphazardly tossed there by some lazy-ass fuck, and stood beside him. The silence that blanketed them was so thick it was suffocating. Chase glanced over at his half brother, willing him to speak or leave, and found Holden observing him.

“What?”

Holden raised an eyebrow. “How can you be pissed at me? Honestly.”

“I never really liked you in the first place, asshole.”

“Well, yes, but I figured that was because I have a shitty personality, not because I specifically offended you.”

Chase released a sound that was half scoff, half laugh. “You’re such a privileged fuck.”

Holden nodded in agreement. “But how—”

“Are you serious?” Chase was torn between disgusted and amused by how oblivious Holden could be. “I was locked in a cell to be experimented on while you were groomed to be some fucking psychic prince, which is basically the plot of an anime. Or a paranormal Man in the Iron Mask.” Holden blinked at him, and he continued. “My mother was stripped of her talents and locked away while yours trained you how to be thoughtfully duplicitous. And now—”

“And now you think the boy you’re in love with is secretly carrying a torch for me.”

Did everyone know Chase had declared all his fee-fees for Elijah? Or maybe he’d accidentally dropped his shield once he’d entered Six’s orbit, and Holden had felt every drop of Chase’s jealousy? It was that thought that had once tightened his gut with horror—humiliation and anxiety wanting to come up his throat at the idea of anyone knowing he felt anything for anyone—but now Chase was blank. He didn’t care.

So much had happened between Beck’s arrival at Evolution and the failed raid on the Farm that it no longer seemed critical to hide the fact that some people could break through his walls. Or that there was something on the other side of those walls to find.

“He isn’t in love with me,” Holden said. “I can promise you that.”

“You can’t promise shit.”

“I’m an empath, you complete moron. This is one of those things I can actually guarantee.”

Chase ran his tongue over the front of his teeth and said nothing. So what if his heart sped a little faster at the slightest possibility that he could be wrong? It didn’t mean Holden wasn’t bullshitting him to avoid conflict and cover his ass. After all, who would want to piss off a multitalented freak who could explode people with his mind? Or have their own cyborg boyfriend get territorial and jealous? That probably looked scary as fuck on Six.

“Look, Chase, this is the last thing we should be focusing on right now, but I’m also the last person to lecture on dealing with relationship woes while in the middle of a vast conspiracy.” Holden’s mouth quirked to the side, and his gaze flicked over his shoulder like he was trying to see his impenetrable boy toy through the door. “But while you were on the Farm, Elijah was completely fixated on getting you back. He removed himself from the Community, from Evo, and hooked up with Ex-Comm folks for the sole purpose of finding you. And never once did I sense that he was doing it for any reason other than love and devotion.”

Chase crossed his arms over his chest and tilted his head back against the window. Holden, also known as the only person besides Elijah to stand up to him with zero hesitation, met his gaze. It was so pitying that Chase glanced across the room where his eyes fell on the vanity mirror.

Their reflections were as different as night and day. Even in worn jeans and a sweater that had likely been snagged from a random discount store, there was something regal about Holden’s carelessly brushed-back hair and the way he carried himself. In contrast, Chase’s white hair, sinewy build, and tattoo sleeves were extreme. No one would ever guess they knew each other, let alone the fact that they shared DNA.

They were so different that there was no reason why they should have ever got along. Yet, somehow, they had. As much as Chase had tried to push Holden away, Holden had kept talking to him, joking with him, and worming his way in until teenaged Chase had reluctantly accepted him. The resentment had still been there, but it hadn’t prevented him from getting along with his brother. Just like his own doubt about Elijah’s feelings hadn’t stopped him from sleeping with him. Or falling for him.

As he stared at the mirror and watched Holden wait patiently to likely be brushed off or rudely turned away, it occurred to Chase that he was the fucking worst. He made no attempts to hide that he didn’t trust neither Holden or Elijah, and they both kept coming back and giving him opportunities to believe in them.

If it were him, he’d have stopped trying ages ago. And he didn’t want them to. Either of them.

“Look, I guess I should say this before one of us gets killed.”

Holden’s brows arched just slightly. “This sounds promising.”

“Shut up and let me talk.” Chase pushed away from the window with his shoulder blades. “I know I treat you like you’re a shady piece of shit, but you didn’t turn out to be that bad. If anything gets out of hand, I’ll definitely try to not let you die.”

Holden nodded slowly, his expression unchanging. “Thank you, brother. I hope your speech to Elijah is a little lighter on the teenage angst and higher on the romantic declarations.”

“Fuck you.”

Holden smiled, and there was no mistaking the fondness in it. “What am I going to do with you?”

“Nothing if my ass gets killed.”

The smile faded. Holden crossed the room to join Chase by the window, but he looked out while Chase remained faced away. Was he also searching for Comm members rolling up in SUVs with blacked-out windows? That’s what Chase had been doing only a few minutes ago. Wondering when it would all go down, and bracing for the moment when he watched Elijah being dragged away.

“Stop joking about dying.”

“It’s not a joke,” Chase said. “It’s a big possibility. In that vision, everyone got smoked but Elijah, your mom, and Nate. And I’m not too sold on them keeping me around given the fact that I’m the last son to sell Richard out.”

“Could be.” Holden rocked on his heels, hands clasped behind his back as he frowned out the window. “Or maybe they took Elijah to use him as leverage against you, just as they did before. Which means that you’re important to them. Very much so.”

“I think you’re too sold on the multitalented-freak hype, Holden. If I was so fucking critical to the Comm, and to our father, why would he have spent my entire life treating me like a nonfactor or a science project?”

When Holden turned to meet his eyes, there was sadness there. And regret. “Maybe because the best way to gaslight you into staying compliant was to make you feel like a nonfactor. To treat you like you would be nothing, or have nothing, without him.”

Chase’s eyes narrowed to slits. “What do you mean?”

Holden dragged his teeth over his lower lip the way he did when he was thinking and choosing his words with care. When he finally spoke, it was after he’d put a hand on Chase’s shoulder and squeezed.

“Even though you think of me as having been the ‘prince’ of the Community, Richard never hesitated to tell me I was a disappointment. Whether it was my sex life, my orientation, or my goals, he never approved. He made me feel less than because he thought if he kept putting me down, I’d work harder to please him. And he did the same thing to you. He hammered it into your head that you weren’t the real son, you were a tool, he was doing you a favor by putting you in certain situations, et cetera . . . In order to make you feel like you couldn’t function anywhere without the Community. And him.”

Part of Chase wanted to argue because he, who was so guarded with his feelings, could not be manipulated. Or that was what he’d told himself since the day he’d left the Farm for the concrete empire of New York City. But maybe he’d only been keeping an eye out for manipulation in obvious ways, not the insidious approach of someone who knew how to gain allegiance by treating people like shit.

Jesus Christ, human beings were awful.

“My point—” Holden pressed on “—is that you’re not only important to our father and the Community, but you’re important to us. Me, Nate, Elijah, and everyone in this house. I truly believe that without you, we’re all dead.”

“Fuck, Holden.” Chase shrugged off his hand, exhaling slowly. “No pressure or anything, right?”

“There’s a crazy amount of pressure, but I’m just trying to say that you need to believe in yourself.” Holden rolled his eyes, likely knowing he sounded cheesy. “Believe that you matter despite these . . . Ex-Comm boys trying to act like you don’t. You being here is fucking key, and Elijah loves you because you’re amazing when you’re not being a dick.”

“That’s some endorsement.”

“Yeah, well . . .” Holden smirked. “It’s true. Except you keep treating Elijah like he’s trying to fuck both of us or like some dumb kid who doesn’t know how he feels, which is worse.”

Chase shook his head but didn’t defend himself. He’d never thought Elijah was a dumb kid. He’d just thought Elijah was mind-fucking him and lying, because there was no way he’d want Chase instead of Holden.

“I’ll clear it up with him,” he said gruffly. “When all this is over.”

Holden pursed his lips, once again rocking on his heels and obviously trying to figure out what to say.

“They decided we should all go to the city to confront the board tomorrow morning, Chase. I have a feeling this is going to start moving really fast as soon we get there.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because Kyger and Hale will either have our backs and want to act as soon as possible to prevent news of this from spreading, or Ex-Comm from exposing all of us, or they’ll be in on it and we won’t ever see the outside of the CW again.”

“Another cheerful fucking forecast from Holden,” Chase muttered. “But you’re right.”

“I am. And Six agreed, so it must be pretty factual since he has zero hesitation about telling the brutal truth.”

“Heh. Well, then. As long as the cyborg thinks we’re gonna die, it must be so.” Chase combed his hands through his hair. “I guess we better prepare, then, right?”

Holden nodded. “Will you talk to Elijah?”

“Yup.” Chase crossed the room and opened the door for Holden to get out. “If we come out on the other side of this with all our bits still intact.”

“If you say so, Chase. If you say so.”

Holden left the room, and Chase shut the door behind him before leaning against it. A little voice in the back of his head asked what he’d do if the board didn’t support them and they died before clearing the air, but Chase didn’t have an answer.

The uncertainty plagued him until he abandoned his plan to lay low until the morning and went to find Elijah. It didn’t take long—Elijah was sitting on the floor outside the room, knees drawn up and head tilted against the wall.

“What are you doing out here?”

“Trying to decide if I should try to talk to you again, or whether I should save myself the inevitable rejection.”

Chase winced. He waited until Elijah rolled his head to the side, making eye contact, then extended a tattooed hand. “Come on.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s warmer than this drafty-ass hallway, and there’s a bed.” Chase frowned. “I don’t want to fuck. I just want . . .”

Elijah watched, waiting.

“Look, I almost always fuck up when I speak. I almost always do the wrong things when it comes to you, but if you’re not too pissed at me . . .” This time it was Chase preparing for rejection. “I just want to be close to you tonight. Like we were last night in that cabin.” His voice cracked horrifyingly as he said, “Please?”

A wash of emotions crossed Elijah’s face, culminating in damp eyes that quickly flit away. He grabbed Chase’s hand and stood.

“Only if you cuddle me like you did last night.”

“I’ll do whatever you want,” Chase said quickly.

“Really?” Elijah raised his eyebrows. “Does that include talking about everything at some point? Because I can’t go on with this hot-and-cold shit, Chase. I can’t . . . keep doing it.”

“We’ll talk. I promise. But tonight . . . I just want us to fucking pass out in that bed. I don’t even care who was staying in this room, ’cause it’s ours now.”

Elijah sighed and walked into the room. “Honestly? That sounds really fucking good to me. For now.”

Those two words resounded in the room, but Elijah didn’t press him further. He kicked off his too-large boots, skinned out of his outer sweater, and plopped onto the bed. When Chase eased in beside him, Elijah pressed against him until their bodies felt like one.

The worst part about leaving Poughkeepsie for the city was deciding who stayed and who went. In the end, nobody stayed. The Ex-Comm brothers left the house to meet up with the rest of their group, and the Evo squad along with Six and Jessica packed into two vehicles before heading south.

Chase was nearly convinced the EC assholes would eventually be a problem for them, but it was a gut feeling based on nothing. Voids went on about “gut feelings” a lot, but when you were born with extrasensory powers, “gut feelings” were pretty much as reliable as indigestion. In other words, his paranoia about Damon and Xander would have to wait until they dealt with the current shit-storm.

Trent drove the truck Chase rode in, and nobody asked where Six had procured it from. Holden was real cagey about it, and it was a struggle not to make jokes about getting stopped by a cop. Not like a cop stood a goddamn chance when facing off with a car full of psychics.

The roads were a mess of slippery asphalt, black ice, and traffic, but they made it to the city by midday. Chase tried not to focus on how much it bothered him that Elijah was completely silent, or that he’d opted to ride shotgun and leave Chase in the back seat with Nate. The night before, they’d crashed hard as soon as they’d touched the bed. That morning, Six had woken them up and demanded they eat a protein bar and get ready to go. There had been no time to talk as Elijah had wanted, so everything was still . . . unsettled.

Nobody spoke during the drive, but Trent played a steady stream of classic rock that was oddly soothing. Figured it’d be Nate’s boyfriend who wasn’t totally annoying.

“What’s the plan once you guys get there?” Trent asked as they entered Manhattan. “Chase goes all Matrix on their asses?”

“Do you have to crack a joke about everything?” Nate crossed his arms over his chest, so tense it looked like he’d break in two. “This could go very badly. As in, we’ll never see California again.”

Trent glanced at Nate in the rearview mirror, just a flash of his expressive eyes, but Nate smiled in response. As sappy as it was, Chase envied that kind of communication.

“Jessica is gonna do the talking,” Chase piped up after a while. “She’s gonna get us in.”

“How?” Nate pressed. “Just by being herself? She’s amazing, but what if there’s some kind of Comm APB out on her and everyone knows we’re on a public-enemy list?”

“Because that’s not how the Community functions.” Chase looked out the window again, watching as they sped closer to Midtown with every word. “Even if Richard really is on good terms with the board, and they’ll take his side, there’s no way they’d pull some shit in the CW.”

“Why not?” Trent asked, glancing in the rearview mirror again. “What’s there to stop them if they have all the Comm members on lock with the brainwashing and realignment and whatnot?”

“Because . . .” Chase gritted his teeth. “Elijah, can you explain? You’re better at this than me.”

From the back seat, Chase saw Elijah’s curly hair sway as he glanced to the left at Trent. “The larger part of the Community honestly isn’t like the Farm. There are toxic parts of it, and a weird, frightening culture of silence and blackballing, but when it comes down to it . . . the board wants people to stay loyal so they don’t do dirt out in the open where any rando psy can see it. They won’t mess up this image of perfection or . . . um . . . like goodwill. And that’s what the CW is all about.”

Trent had started nodding. “So, they’d be too shook to have a showdown when any number of people at the CW, including some new inductees, could see them showing their true colors?”

“Exactly,” Chase and Elijah said as one.

Nate didn’t look at ease with the explanation. A quick tap into his mind showed it was full of worries about Trent, and residual guilt for having dragged Trent into it in the first place.

“Part two of the plan is for most of you bitches to stay ghost,” Chase said, putting a little gruffness into his voice. “There’s no reason for us to go in hot looking like a psychic gang from The Warriors. The crew is me, Holden, Six, and Jessica. You three and Lia can—”

“If you think you’re going to tell me or Lia what to do, you’ve got another thing coming,” Elijah said. “You’re not the one calling the shots.”

“Yeah, thank fuck for that, but I don’t see why you four need to potentially get got just because we might.” Chase glanced at Trent and saw no disagreement there. Or from his brother, who likely knew Trent would only stay on the outside if he did as well. “If we get in trouble, we’ll still have a crew on the outside to come for us.”

“Well, I’m pretty useless as a ‘come for you’ team member,” Elijah said flatly. “Leave Six behind and take me.”

There was a long list of reasons why that was a shitty idea, but the primary one was that they’d use Elijah as leverage against Chase and cause his brain to go explode-y, but he left it alone. Because, as Holden had said back at the house, he shouldn’t be treating Elijah like a child.

“We’ll see what Jessica says.”

Twenty minutes later, they were double-parked near the horrific Manhattan Mall, and in a huddle, where Jessica agreed with Elijah about him coming along, but vetoed Six staying behind.

“They need to hear perspectives about the Farm,” she said. “All of them. And Nate, Lia, and Trent staying out here as our backup keeps them in the position to go unseen by the board in case this all goes wrong.” Jessica paused, her eyes lingering on Lia. “I have firsthand experience that Lia is a kick-ass escape artist. I trust her to come up with something if we’re unable to leave of our own free will.”

Lia smiled at Jessica, her eyes going soft in a way they rarely did. Huh. Were they having some kind of Mrs. Robinson love connection? But more importantly, how the fuck could he argue with solid logic like that?

They headed to the CW on foot, leaving Nate, Trent, and Lia to circle the area in one truck. Six and Jessica strode ahead speaking in low tones with Holden on their heels. Elijah lagged behind with Chase, his hands shoved in his pockets and his face downcast.

“We’re gonna be okay,” Chase said as they approached the high-rise. “I promise.”

Elijah looked at him, hope brimming at the corners of his eyes. “Did you see—”

Fuck, it was hard to offer empty platitudes when people always expected you to be dropping precog knowledge.

“No.” Chase paused at the foot of the stairs and looked down into Elijah’s big brown eyes. There was worry in them, but no fear. He hadn’t been lying when he’d said Elijah was one of the bravest people he’d ever known. “But I have to keep telling myself that because it’s the only way I can justify not putting this mission on time-out so I can make things up to you.”

“Make . . . what up to me? I need specifics.”

Chase licked his lips and hunched his shoulders forward. “Not trusting you. Obsessing over Holden even after you told me you weren’t in love with him.” He shrugged, wanting to look away but not letting himself. “And not treating you like an equal. Or like I love you and all that bullshit.”

Elijah didn’t react and kept looking up at him in anticipation, as though it was inevitable for the other shoe to drop in a conversation that had never ended quite right before.

Chase put his hands on Elijah’s shoulders and yanked him in for a soft kiss. “Believe me, Elijah. I have a ton of fucking regrets about my life, and a lot of them revolve around not being real with you. I wasted a lot of time, and it might be too late.”

Elijah caught Chase’s chin before he could pull away, and flashed a tenuous smile. “It’s not too late. We’re getting out of here.” He backed up and jogged up the stairs before Chase could take his turn to ask whether that statement was a truth from a vision.

Community Watch looked the same as it always did, which meant there wasn’t exactly high-profile security. They encountered a couple of guards and the receptionist at the front desk, but it didn’t appear as though anyone had set the alarms to wait for them. Then again, nobody would have thought them stupid enough to storm the fort head-on.

The receptionist’s eyes widened at the sight of them, and the guards immediately stood up straight. Whether it was because their identities had been spread around or because they looked like a band of troublemakers was hard to tell.

“Hello,” Jessica said, no smile in sight. “I’m here to see Michelle Hale.”

“Is . . . is she expecting you?”

“No, but tell her Jessica is here. With my boys.”

Chase glanced at her and refrained from arching a skeptical brow. He kept his comments and his observations to himself as they waited, and they were eventually led upstairs. Kyger and Hale were waiting, and they weren’t what Chase had expected.

The conference room they’d agreed to meet in was Richard’s style. Floor-to-ceiling windows, long glass table, high-backed leather seats—it was more fit for a corporate office than a psychic youth group, and that was always how he’d viewed this place. As a corporation. Kyger and Hale didn’t fit that corporate mold.

Kyger was a chubby dude with shoulder-length hair, oversized glasses that covered half his face, and he wore a Star Wars T-shirt beneath an open sweater. He was much younger than Richard, but maybe that was because he looked like someone who actually enjoyed his life and had other things to do besides contemplating the dissection of other psys.

Hale was another extreme. She had bleached-blond hair buzzed short, wore a black skirt and jacket, but had a distressed gray T-shirt beneath that was more Chase’s style than the CW’s. She also had on heels with spikes on them.

How the fuck had these people ever lowered themselves to befriending a stiff like Richard? Especially since they fit the Community origin story way better than he did. The legend was that a small group of friends had met in IRC chat rooms, seeking other psychics, and had decided to form a support system. And, over time, it had grown into something larger.

Chase had never been able to reconcile Richard with someone who wanted to help others, but now he could see where the initial spark of that idea might have come from.

“Kyger,” Jessica said, sitting opposite them at the head of the table. She placed her palms on the glass and lifted her chin, looking for all the world like she belonged in that spot and had never left. “Hale.”

“Jessica . . .” Kyger stared at her as though she were about to sprout another head. His expression stayed that way even as he shifted his gaze from her to Chase, Six, Holden, then Elijah. “We were told by your raving husband that you’d been kidnapped.”

“I was,” Jessica said. “By him about ten years ago. I went to the Farm to work, and he drugged me into a stupor and held me captive instead.”

Kyger and Hale exchanged glances. There was a beat of silence, and Chase wondered if they could communicate. Telepathy was supposed to be a rare talent, but maybe it wasn’t. Or maybe they were both incredulous and had no idea what to say.

“Let’s get to the point.” Jessica smoothed her palms over the glass, her gaze steady. There was no sign of the shakiness that sometimes seemed to plague her after years of being medicated and kept in a bed. “Can I trust you to hear me and my boys out, or has the staff already notified Richard?”

Hale’s lip curled. “I’m not sure where you got the idea that Kyger and I consult with your husband—”

“My abductor.”

“—before speaking to someone.”

“I assumed all Community staff consulted with him before taking a shit,” Chase said.

Elijah looked at him in exasperation. “Chase!”

“What? Just being honest.” Chase glanced at the two again. “He also makes it sound like you won’t be around long anyway. Is there a CW benefit package? Do you get to retire in Key West on a yacht?”

Kyger leaned forward, forearms braced on the table. “We let you up to hear your side of this ridiculous story, and to start the process of covering the tracks of a very messy and very public series of events. Embellishing or lying—”

“He’s not lying,” Hale cut in, dark eyes trained on Chase. “I can see it.”

Kyger’s face shuttered, and Chase tried to do the same to his talent. His mental shield was wavering, though, even with Six supposedly keeping them safe from outside interference.

“Your control over your talents is faltering,” Hale said, reading him again. “Likely because the telekinesis is distorting your ability to handle them. Your brain can only handle so much.”

Well, that was ominous. He tensed, and Elijah grabbed his hand. Chase squeezed and didn’t let go.

“So,” Jessica said. “Are you aware that Richard intends to take full control of the Community?”

Hale pursed her lips, and Kyger said nothing. Neither looked surprised.

Jessica nodded once. “I take that as you at least having had an idea about it. Do you also know he thinks you prevent him from fully carrying out his vision, and that he’d likely be willing to arrange your convenient disappearances and permanent relocation to the Farm rather than debate?”

When Kyger and Hale remained silent, it was enough of an answer. Either they knew now, or they’d known all along. Judging from the way Kyger’s gaze slanted away, he’d been a little slower on the uptake. Hale’s expression might as well have been carved out of stone.

“Explain your perception of the Farm,” Hale said after a beat. “I’d like to know what you claim to have endu—”

“No, you explain your perception of the Farm,” Jessica said. “Of everyone in this room, you two are the only ones who have never been there. Who’ve never been held there against your will.”

Kyger sat back in his chair, fingers interlocking as he folded his hands in front of him. When it became clear that Hale wasn’t answering, he said, “It’s where we shepherd psychics who don’t respond well to intervention here at the CW. Like you . . .” Kyger nodded at Chase, then Six, who sneered. “And you.”

“Richard’s original vision,” Hale said, her voice frozen, “was that it would be a safe space away from the city, where psychics who were traumatized, who don’t have enough of a handle on their gift to remain discreet, or who may be a threat to us remaining a secret, could retreat.”

“I know what Richard’s original vision was.” Jessica raised her eyebrows and looked so much like Holden with that skeptical smart-ass face of hers that Chase did a double take. “Do you think it turned out that way?”

“No,” both Kyger and Hale said at once.

“Why?” It was Holden who shot out the question. When Kyger and Hale looked at him with open dislike, he stepped closer to stand beside his mother. “Listen, I’ve not been on the same page as Richard for years, but I’ve always believed in the Community. It’s why we’re here and not . . .”

“Not with Ex-Comm,” Six filled in. “We want to work with you. To fix shit.”

Hale stood, in all of her over-six-foot glory, and walked closer to their group. Kyger remained where he was, but he’d taken to flipping a pen between his fingers.

Chase chose that moment to tap into their thoughts, and heard an almost simultaneous: Ex-Comm is real. It’s not one of Richard’s delusions.

“What we think the Farm really is,” Hale said, voice lowering, “is primarily Richard and his staff there being on a power trip as they try to mold and groom young, susceptible psys, and to brainwash the more established Comm members into thinking they’re doing some version of God’s work by staying there indefinitely.”

“We also think it’s become some sort of psychic puppy mill.” Kyger flipped the pen faster. It was nearly a blur in his fingers. “We have no proof, but we know he has a very creepy obsession with the Black family, and the idea of manipulating genetics.”

“‘Breeding,’” Chase said with a rough laugh. “That’s what you want to call it? Pairing up psys who’ve been convinced that they’re doing the work of some higher power, or people they kidnapped like Six and Jessica, and convincing them to sleep together after some nice thorough brainwashing? Or people like my mother, who . . . he’s been raping while she’s drugged and incapacitated.”

Behind him, Nate sucked in a breath. “Are you . . .”

The little boy with the white hair and gray eyes flashed into Chase’s mind. “I’m sure,” he said from between gritted teeth. “And you people can try to spin it however you want, but I’m calling him what he is. A kidnapper, a torturer, and a fucking rapist.”

The color drained from Hale’s face, but she didn’t speak. Her eyes flew to Jessica.

Six stepped up then, crossing his muscular tattooed arms over his chest. “He enslaves us. That’s what they did to me, Chase, and Elijah. To Lorelei and Jessica. Even his guards, who aren’t above killing to keep us quiet and contained, are essentially his slaves. You have no clue how bad it gets. How far Richard and Jasper are willing to go to keep control and to hide what they’re doing. Including breeding psy kids to become brainwashed drones, and permanently silencing anyone who tries to leave.”

Kyger released a low sharp whistle, but Hale looked toward the window, smoothing a hand over her blond hair, and pursed her lips. She looked strained under the weight of what they were saying, but was still trying to keep her composure.

Chase glanced at Holden, and saw his brother watching Hale carefully. He was probably reading her emotions and evaluating whether they matched her body language. After a beat, he said, “I’m sorry we’re telling you this all at once.”

“Thank you, but I can’t help but wonder how this has never come up before. Has no one escaped before?”

Jessica put her hand on Chase’s arm. He started, but didn’t pull away. “Who would have told you, Michelle?” she asked. “I went there willingly, hoping to make a difference, but was incapacitated for years. I was helpless. It was only later, when the people who now call themselves Ex-Comm infiltrated the Farm, did I have the capacity to think clearly.”

Jessica squeezed Chase’s arm then. “And as for escaping? We’re the first people to escape with our lives. Chase and Elijah almost didn’t manage that.”

“They shot me.” Elijah’s words rung out clearly in the quiet room. “And then Richard intended to use me as sexual reward for . . . whoever. I’m sure I’m not the only person to get that treatment.”

Kyger sat up straight. “We send children over there. Teenagers. If he’s doing things like that—”

“I already fucking told you that your boy is a rapist,” Chase snapped. “There’s no if.”

“Show me.” Hale strode closer to them and didn’t stop until she was right in front of them. “All of it.”

Jessica looked up at Chase. “Are you ready for this?”

Ah, that explained why she’d touched him. He could take their memories and put it on full blast for Kyger and Hale. Although, judging by the way Kyger was shutting down and sinking in his chair, he didn’t have the stomach for it. Chase didn’t have those same concerns for Hale.

So, he opened himself up to Jessica, and let her horrors wash over him. Then he took from Elijah, more than what he’d already seen of his time in the silo. It was a cluster of his worst fears, of any normal person’s worst nightmares, and it took every ounce of Chase’s control to keep his brain from tearing the room apart.

He had to wrench his attention from Elijah and redirect it to Hale, who now looked like she was bracing for a full-on assault.

“You ready?” he asked roughly. “It ain’t gonna be fucking pretty.”

“Show me,” she said again. “If you want our help.”

So he did.

Fragments of memories from Jessica started years ago, before she’d gone to the Farm.

“He’s just a child,” she shouted, following Richard across the room. “What right do you, and the rest of the board, have to sentence him to go to that Farm? You’re not a judge. You’re not God.”

The smack that followed was vicious, but Jessica never flinched. She didn’t look away. She just stared at her husband with a promise in her eyes.

The Farm spreading out beneath a gray sky, less developed but still ominous in quality. Jessica wearing all white and seeking out Six, who was already wearing a guard uniform.

“You can trust me, Sixtus,” she whispered. “I’m not like them. I want to help you leave this place.”

Six regarded her without emotion. “They’ll never let me leave.”

Jessica waking in the middle of the night to find someone dressed in white towering over her. Richard standing nearby. The prick of a needle, and then the building fear and realization.

“Aren’t you sorry you decided to meddle?”

Jessica watching, drugged, from her window as a young man in white shorts sprinted to the gates. Six chasing him and then, after several vehicles followed behind them, a gunshot.

Hale leaned against the table, her dark-brown skin going ashen.

“Had enough?” Chase asked. “That’s only a fragment.”

“Keep going.”

Chase, as a child, strapped to a table.

“You’re incredible,” Jasper was saying, his voice distantly breaking through the medicated cloud surrounding Chase. “Everything I’ve always wanted to explore.”

“Fuck you . . . Jasper.”

Then the pulling. The feeling of his mind being ripped apart. But no screaming. Even medicated, Chase had gritted his teeth until his eyes streamed but he’d never released a sound.

“Is you not letting Jasper actually kill me supposed to satiate my concern that you were still sitting there watching him try to suck me dry?” Chase demanded.

Richard looked out the window. “I apologize for that.”

“You apologize? He’s been doing this to me since I was a kid, Dick. And . . .”

“And what?”

“I didn’t know you knew,” Chase said, his voice rough. “And I never told you because I know how informants and snitches get treated here. But I didn’t know you gave the okay for me to be a science project.”

“You were never a project.”

“So what the fuck was I? Research?”

“Yes.”

“She feared what would happen if the government knew we existed,” Richard was saying, “so to reassure her, I told her I’d show her the Farm. I’d show her . . . our plan.”

“The plan to study people like her?” Chase asked. “Powerful raw psychics?”

“Yes. At first she was excited, just as I expected. She was born into a family just as obsessed with remaining strong, and after I met her, I realized the value in breeding psys.” Richard shook his head as if thinking back to that time. “She agreed to stay and participate in Jasper’s study. But then she changed her mind. Something spooked her, and she vanished.”

“‘Something spooked her’ . . . More like Jasper spooked her. Did it ever cross your mind that the man is a fucking psychopath?”

“Over time it has, but I’ve also realized he’s a necessary evil. With his help, we’ve crafted so many powerful psychics.”

Elijah being dragged away from the lake by Kyra and Will, who were dressed in full-body armor. Blood smearing across the grass.

Elijah being tossed into a cell in the silo as he clutched his arm and cried. Will slamming a booted foot into his stomach for good measure.

Elijah standing in the middle of an all-white room, shaking, his eyes lined with dark circles. “Please let me use the bathroom.”

The man who stood in front of him smiled. “You can once you make the choice to tell me about Chase and his brothers.”

Will and Elijah in the back of the SUV. Will ripping at his clothes as Elijah twisted away and fought. The driver flicked a glance behind him, cringing.

“We’re dumping the freak right now, slut,” Will whispered in Elijah’s ear. “And once he’s dead, Jasper said you’re mine.”

Hands pressed onto Chase’s shoulders, and it was only then that he realized he’d started shaking. His eyes had closed, his head tilted forward, and he could feel the pressure building again. The sign that things were about to go very wrong.

He sucked in a breath, clenching his hands into fists, and tried to pull it together.

“Calm down,” Elijah said in his ear. “The table just cracked.”

“Fuck.” Chase stepped back from Hale, looking around wildly and found everyone staring at him. He reached out automatically and found Elijah’s hand, closing it in his once again. “Sorry,” he croaked. “I don’t have a good handle on it yet.”

Hale nodded, but the shared memories appeared to have shaken her too much to care about a cracked table. Another look, this time without bleary panicking eyes, and Chase saw that Kyger had come to stand next to her.

“So,” Jessica said, talking as though Chase hadn’t just destroyed the conference table and no one was traumatized. “There’s only one option here.”

“Which—” Hale cleared her throat. “Which is?”

“You support us in destroying Richard and everything he’s created at the Farm, then we dismantle this entire organization and rebuild it from the ground up.”

“What?” Kyger demanded. “What does that have to do with anything? Richard is the problem here—”

“It’s not the only problem,” Elijah jumped in without hesitation. “The culture of silence in this entire community is awful, and it had to have come from the top. So many people went missing or were killed or . . . whatever by Richard and his creepy fucking vampires, and nobody was allowed to ask a question without fear of being iced out and blackballed. And labeled as . . . a defector or a problem.”

“As someone who needed realignment,” Six said. “Which would send them right to the Farm, and right to Richard and Jasper.”

Jessica nodded, unflinchingly staring at both board members. “It’s a cycle that you helped to feed into, and because of that, your roles have to change as well. It’s not just cutting off a couple of dead limbs. The whole tree is rotten because the infection has been spreading this entire time.”

Hale inhaled with a slow nod. “And would we be outcast, then?” A cold smile touched her lips. “You, Jessica Payne, would be in charge?”

“No. God no. But we could have a larger board with a nuanced voice, and then we can make some changes.”

Nothing was said at first, just a bunch of psychics all staring each other down and waiting for one or the other to cave. Six looked impatient with all the waiting, and he’d begun peering at the ceiling as if searching for a camera.

“Fine,” Hale said after a full minute had passed. “You want to take him on? Okay. But it’s going to be solely up to you.”

Elijah rubbed his hands together, seemingly unable to stop fidgeting. “Do you think we should have stayed at the CW?”

Lia shot Elijah an incredulous look. “No way in hell would I ever stay in that building, let alone sleep in it. They could have Richard and his boys on us when we least expect it.”

Six nodded from where he stood by the window. “Same.”

Elijah drooped onto one of the armchairs, and Chase shifted to stand beside him. Holden had unearthed some cash he’d had stowed away in the city, and had sprung for a hotel suite uptown, but everyone was too tense to relax. Holden had gone into the other bedroom with his mother, and everyone else was restless in the extravagant room.

It was the classiest joint Chase had ever set foot in. He’d never been more aware of how much the word uncouth really described him.

“I’m just worried,” Elijah admitted. “And scared.”

“So, you thought we should stay in the enemy’s headquarters?”

Chase shot Six a withering look. “Hey, Terminator. How about you chill the fuck out with the Judgment Day shit? He’s just worried that once we’re out of sight and out of mind, they’ll say fuck the deal and sell us out.”

Trent choked on a laugh and pretended to be really into the television listing card as he sat slumped on the couch. Nate elbowed him.

“It might as well be Judgment Day if we don’t get ourselves together and come up with a plan.” Six didn’t respond to the sarcasm or the Terminator comment. “We should be planning, not resting in separate rooms like we have all the time in the world.”

“Okay, never thought I’d say this, but Chase is right.” Lia rolled her eyes at the words and slid a vape pen out of her pocket. She was the only one among them who didn’t look a total hot fucking mess, so she’d gone to the store to snag supplies. Including cigarettes for Chase, not that he could smoke them in the room. Life would have been easier had he been born in the fifties, when nobody gave a damn about their health. Good health likely wouldn’t matter to him in a few hours, anyway. “Jessica is still recovering from seven years of sedatives and being locked in a room. It takes a lot out of her to be this active. And that standoff at the CW drained her.”

Six seemed to digest this, observing her as she exhaled something that smelled of candy apples. “So, why don’t you come up with a plan that we can present to her?”

Lia raised an eyebrow while taking another long pull from the pen. She propped her leg up on an ottoman and leaned on her knee. “Why me? So I can take the fall when this all goes wrong?”

Trend discreetly nodded, and Nate gave him another glare. Nate combed a hand through his hair and seemed to chew on whatever he wanted to say. Those pale-gray eyes flicked between Six and Lia, to the door joining the two bedrooms, and back again.

“It’s because Jessica trusts you. Implicitly.”

Surprise washed over Lia, which she tried to cover by examining her vaporizer. “She barely knows me.”

“True, but I barely knew Trent when I met him, and somehow I knew I could trust him.” Nate looked painfully awkward while explaining this, like he’d rather be doing anything other than discussing his big fat love for the smart-ass next to him. “Sometimes you can just tell, and you have no doubt. I know it sounds crazy—”

“Babe, I’m in a room full of X-Men,” Trent muttered. “I’ll let you know when something sounds crazy.”

Nate rolled his eyes, but there was no mistaking the dorky fondness in his face. He was so unlike his twin, Theo, that it was a little jarring sometimes. When Chase had first come face-to-face with Nate, he’d expected the same brand of manipulation he’d experienced with Theo. But . . . Nate was earnest and naïve to a fault despite his defensive outer layer. Although, the California air seemed to have chilled him. Or maybe he’d started smoking pot with his boyfriend.

“Anyway,” Nate continued. “I can feel it when you guys are talking, Lia. Jessica trusts you more than any of us for whatever reason. Maybe because you were never in the Community, always doubted it, and yet never fully committed to Ex-Comm. Maybe because you were the calm center in her chaotic escape from the Farm. Or maybe because of some weird fate thing, like with me and Trent. Either way, she’ll listen to you, and we all trust you.”

Six nodded. “Yeah, all that.”

Chase shook his head and instantly regretted it. The pounding in his head seemed to grow with every word spoken, but Jesus. What a bunch of fucking characters. “That’s all well and good, but then what’s the plan?” he asked. “Just saying, last time we went in all hot to trot, my boy got shot, and I’m not really compassionate enough to tend to him twice.”

“You didn’t tend to me the first time,” Elijah said, rolling his eyes, but there was a hint of a smile on his face. “But he’s right. How will this be different than before?”

“Well, for starters,” Six said flatly, “Chase isn’t a basket case this time, and he can blow people up with his brain. Basically, if we use you as bait, we guarantee he gets angry enough to fuck everyone up.”

Everyone stared at Six in horror. Lia patted his shoulder and shook her head.

“All right, let’s think about this. Together.”

Elijah didn’t seem comforted by the conversation, and sunk deeper and deeper into the back cushion with his arms crossed over his chest. The wit and sass that usually exploded out of him in a flurry of hugging and fast talking when around groups of people, was dormant. He huddled there like he was waiting for his number to come up and the Grim Reaper to march him to his doom.

Chase dropped his hand to tickle the back of Elijah’s neck. Elijah looked up, clearly startled. Chase nodded at the door leading to the bedroom they’d later share, and relief danced across Elijah’s wan expression. He stood, hesitated, then glanced at the others.

“I’m going to go lie down for a few before we do this. I can barely think straight, and I still feel like shit from our trek in a blizzard.”

“You should rest,” Lia agreed. “We’re not going anywhere right now. Even if we had a plan, we have no supplies. There’s a lot to figure out.”

Elijah nodded and began edging to the door.

Lia pointed at Chase. “And take him with you. He’s glaring more than usual, which means he’s either tired or sick.”

Or suddenly getting migraines after a few days of being Master Telekinetic. Maybe his brain really was about to explode.

“I’m fine,” Chase said shortly. “But I may fuck the hell out of him before we all potentially die.”

Elijah hit his arm as he headed to the room, and Chase responded by smacking his ass. They went into the large bedroom, shut the door, and then Elijah collapsed on the bed with a groan. He rolled over into the fetal position and gazed at Chase with big brown eyes.

“I expected Nate to get a little squeamish about the idea of me dicking you out right now.”

Elijah rolled his eyes. “We’re not actually gonna fuck. I just needed time to, like, process all this.”

“What?” Chase walked over to the side of the bed they’d claimed earlier, and held up a small bag from Walgreens. He dangled it obnoxiously in front of Elijah’s face. “I even got supplies.”

“You mean Lia got supplies?” Elijah was trying to make judgmental faces but could not seem to stop his wide mouth from turning up into a smile. “Chase Payne, we’re in the middle of a massive . . . a totally fucking . . . like—”

“A clusterfuck?” Chase kept dangling the bag. “A disaster waiting to happen?”

Elijah wrinkled his nose.

“A comedy of errors or whatever the fuck that phrase even means?”

Elijah kicked out at Chase this time and rolled his eyes when Chase effortlessly caught his foot. “Vete pa’l carajo, puto.”

“Mmm.” Chase knelt on the edge of the bed and kissed his ankle. “I love it when you speak Spanish to me. Tell me to go fuck myself in all the different ways.”

“Save your fetish for the next bitch.” Elijah tried to tug his foot away. “I’m terrified of what’s going to happen in the next twenty-four hours, and all you can think about is your dick?”

Chase bent his head to press a kiss to Elijah’s ankle. The soft touch stilled Elijah and quieted him down.

“What should we be doing if not fucking?” Chase asked, kissing a little higher up. “Doing amp-up speeches? Trying to use our extra special powers to figure out what dear old Dad is doing?”

Elijah nodded vehemently. “For starters, yes. I’m convinced the board has already sold us out, and Richard—”

“They haven’t,” Chase interrupted. “And he doesn’t know where we are yet. I got into their heads while Holden was getting this place, and confirmed that Kyger and Hale are worried about us failing even though they’re also unsure of the agreement they made with Jessica. They don’t want the Community to collapse because Richard is a sociopath, but they also don’t want to give up their roles as top dogs.”

“Okay . . . so what about Richard?”

Chase pulled off one of Elijah’s socks and tossed it to the side. “My telepathy is still on the fritz, and a lot of it was garbled frustrated ranting about killing me, you, and Holden, but he definitely didn’t know where we are.”

“Yet.”

“Yeah. Yet. Or never if we go to him first.”

Elijah lapsed into silence, watching Chase take his socks and shoes off. It was only when Chase went for his pants did he scoot away. “It’s not a good time, Chase. And it’s pretty discouraging that you won’t take this seriously.”

“Take it seriously?” Chase scoffed and watched as Elijah curled in on himself again, trying to hide from the Big Bad in the world as if making himself small would help. “Dude, what the fuck do you think we should be doing right now? Giving motivational talks or working out to a musical montage? This is going to be a shit plan regardless of what we do. We went to the board so they’d give us some manpower, and it looks like they’d rather pretend to not be involved just in case we fail.”

“Stop talking about failing!”

Chase bit back another sarcastic comment and kept his voice level. “Elijah . . . there are eight of us and a whole lot of them. With guns and whatever kind of freak psychics they’re stowing away in their arsenal. There’s no way we can plan for that in a way that’s gonna make you fucking feel better.”

Elijah flipped onto his back. “That’s really helpful, Chase.”

Chase ran his tongue over his teeth, rolled his eyes up at the ceiling, and then straddled Elijah. “You want me to baby you or be honest?”

“Dumb question.”

“All right, then don’t get uptight when I tell you the reality, sugar tits.” Chase braced his hands on either side of Elijah’s head and leaned down. “You knew you were taking a risk when you started asking questions about where I was. So did Nate when he came to the Farm to get me.”

“Yeah, and it worked. We found you.” Elijah’s eyes opened a fraction, mostly hidden by long fluttering eyelashes. “So now . . .”

Chase arched a brow.

“Now maybe we should just run,” Elijah blurted. “Like Nate and Trent did. Leave the state, start over, and disappear. Don’t worry about anything but each other.”

Chase straightened, watching Elijah from narrowed eyes. “Are you serious?”

Elijah pushed himself up on his elbows, desperation sending his words rushing out of him. “We could go to somewhere random. Somewhere people would never expect. We could go back to Wisconsin. Even after everything that happened, I think my family would help us. They could hide us. Help us blend— Well, you could try to blend in. They don’t accept me being gay, but I don’t believe they’d hurt me. I mean, maybe. I don’t—”

Chase pressed a finger to Elijah’s lips, hushing him. “You need to stop.”

“But—”

“No, I’m serious. Shut the fuck up.” Chase exhaled slowly, trying to reorder the confusing mix of thoughts and reactions rioting for attention in his already pounding head. “Look, if you wanna go to Wisconsin and chance it, I get it, but to be honest, you should just write those people off for the rest of your life. We all have some fucked-up families, and there’s nothing in the world that should ever send any of us scraping back to them.”

Elijah tried to speak again, and Chase pressed his finger down harder.

“Just let me talk, man. I’m being serious here.” Chase planted his hands against the mattress, fingers pushing into the comforter, and leaned down so their faces were once again close together. “Do I want to grab you and bail? Maybe go to Cali with Nate and his man, and learn how to find some chill? Fuck yeah. I want to blow all this off, but I especially want to keep your ass safe. You mean more to me than anyone else, if you haven’t figured that out yet with the staggering hint of my goddamn telekinesis only activating when you’re in distress.”

Elijah’s brows shot up. “I knew, but I still keep expecting you to deny it or take back the fact that you told me you loved me.”

“Yeah, well, I’m a little done with pretending. Like I said, we have a shit plan and we’re going into a dangerous situation. If I’m going to be real with you, now’s the time.”

“It is the time.” Elijah swallowed so hard his throat bobbed, making a clicking sound. “So then why can’t we just . . .”

“Because at the end of the day, I still think the Community is worth saving. Parts of it, anyway. I think the people on the Farm need to be rescued, and they won’t be without us because Kyger and Hale aren’t willing to risk their own selves by going up against Richard.” Anger rushed through Chase at the thought, and a flash of something in his mind: Jessica and Hale facing off, raised voices, and a lingering whisper that sounded a lot like You lied. It could mean nothing or anything, but it was far enough in the future to imply at least Jessica had made it out. “And I’d hate myself if I let my brother go in alone. Either of them. And you’d hate yourself if anything happened to Lia or Holden.” When Elijah opened his mouth to speak, Chase pressed their lips together in a brief kiss. “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain your feelings about him.”

“Why? Because you’re still telling yourself I love him and not you, and you think I was lying when I said it wasn’t true?”

Chase nearly said yes, because it was what he’d been telling himself for years, but it no longer rang true. “I don’t think you’re lying.”

“Then why does it keep coming up?”

“Because . . .” Chase glanced at the door. “When we were in Rook’s truck, you said his name in your sleep, and it fucking reminded me of all those times you used to wake up after having some sex dream about him right before jumping on me.”

Elijah blanched. “You thought . . . Chase, it was probably a vision. About us finding the house where they were. I told you before, on that first day on the Farm, that what I thought I felt for Holden was some . . . immature puppy love. Infatuation. Because I thought he had saved me, and I was beholden to him. Like a kid with a crush on an upperclassman who used to tutor them.”

“Oh, so now he’s your senpai?”

Elijah scowled. “Chase. Can you acknowledge what I’m saying?”

“I am. And yeah, that makes sense now.” Chase groaned and thudded their foreheads together. “Dude, it wasn’t rational. Nothing was rational. Do you know how long I’ve been bitter and angry about you and him? Knowing you worshipped him even though I was the one—” Chase cut himself off, because it didn’t matter what he’d done for Elijah. The last thing he ever wanted was for Elijah to have been beholden to him.

“No, I didn’t know anything,” Elijah snapped. “Because you never mentioned it. In fact, you just teased me about fucking other people and made it sound like you didn’t care what I did one way or the other.”

“Because I didn’t know how to deal with wanting you. And . . . I didn’t want to make it obvious that I had feelings at all, let alone hurt ones,” Chase said dryly. “The point is, I don’t believe it anymore. If you didn’t love me, you wouldn’t have just begged me to run off with you to live like cowards in Wisconsin.”

A laugh popped out of Elijah’s mouth, and his eyes crinkled at the sides. “Leave it to you to make me laugh at a stupid time like this.”

“Seems like perfect timing to me. I want to enjoy this one fucking hour while we have it.” He hesitated a moment longer before rolling to the side and spooning Elijah. “No sex. Just sleep.”

Elijah sighed, content, and practically melted in Chase’s arms. “I want this every night, Chase. I hope it can happen.”

Chase kissed the back of his neck before whispering, “Me too.”

“This isn’t gonna work.”

Lia glared at Chase, lips pursed. “You didn’t let me finish speaking. Why don’t you tone down the entitled angry white boy shtick for a second and let me go ahead?”

Trent coughed, not quite covering a laugh.

Chase had trouble not laughing himself. She was right, and he was a dick. He had a bad feeling about all of this, but she was right. “Fine, go ahead.”

She stared at him like she was the one with explosive psychic powers, shook her head, and then glanced at Jessica. The Ex-Comm leader nodded and flashed a small smile, as if reassuring Lia that she was doing a great job. It was so mushy that Chase wanted to vomit. Not that he had any room to talk with all the snuggling he and Elijah had done during the night. It was the next morning now, and it was time to act before someone else made the first move.

“Any-fucking-way.” Lia crossed her arms over the faded leather jacket she wore. “Ex-Comm was primarily interested in going scorched earth at the Farm, but we’re not going that route. Even as an outsider looking in who never had any attachment to the Community, a plan that’s all black-and-white is a bad one. I propose we forget about Richard and Jasper, and focus on getting people out.”

Chase mashed his lips together. His first reaction was to once again protest, but . . .

“There’s too few of us to even consider an all-out fight,” she continued. “Besides that, can any of us actually fight besides Six? Not just a fist fight, like a real fight where you have to be calm and collected?” Lia stared them all down, hard, as if daring Trent or Chase to go full bravado and start blustering. When they didn’t disagree, she gave them an impressed eyebrow raise. “So, best bet? Go in like we did before.”

“Right, about that . . .”

“Chase.” Lia pointed at him. “Shut the fuck up and let me finish.”

He raised his hands. “Fine.”

She looked up at the ceiling, exhaling slowly, as if trying to gain patience from a higher power. “Last time was sloppy, but it only got sloppy because we hadn’t counted on Richard being there, and Six went to distract him to give us time to get out. This time, we can plan for the worst, and get in and out. Either without engaging or . . . engaging while they’re just as helpless as we are and then going scorched earth if necessary.”

Elijah raised his hand, waving it around. When she nodded at him, he eased off the sofa. “How will they be helpless? They have a ton of fire power compared to us.”

“They won’t be able to see,” Six butted in. “I’ll go ahead and knock out the power circuit and the backup generator. A nor’easter is supposed to hit tonight. Snow, sleet, and rain. If it’s bad enough they’ll think it was a surge. It wasn’t uncommon to happen. They never had a real electrician come to the property, so everything is done half-assed.”

“Okay . . .” Elijah rocked on the balls of his feet, scanning everyone in the room. He wasn’t too big on choosing his words with care either, so it was obviously a struggle to not come right out with whatever he wanted to say. “If the plan is to infiltrate and get a bunch of people out, who may or may not be drugged, in the pitch-black, during a rain storm, I have to admit I’m with Chase in terms of thinking we’re probably going to die.”

Chase jerked a thumb at him, but kept quiet. Lia, who clearly preferred Elijah, did not tell him to shut up.

“I can get night vision goggles.”

Trent looked up. “Good ones?”

“Military grade.” Lia shrugged. “I know a guy who sells them out of his car in Williamsburg sometimes. He does weird artsy shit with military equipment.”

“Okay . . .” Chase drawled. “So how are we getting these people out? Like Elijah said—they’re drugged.”

Jessica paced closer to them, her arms wrapped around herself. “I’ve been in contact with Shelby. She’s been dialing back the dose on everyone salvageable.”

“‘Salvageable,’” Chase repeated. “What does that mean?”

Jessica looked at him squarely. “It means not everyone will want to be saved, and there’s no reason to have them fully aware so they can join the effort to resist you if you’re caught.”

Chase started to argue, but then remembered Richard saying that some people had volunteered for the breeding program. The very idea made him shudder.

“We’ll break into three groups.” Lia held up a notepad, where one of them had sketched a crude rendition of the property. “One led by Chase, one led by Holden, and then Nate. Of all of us, you guys have the biggest chance of influencing someone with either your empathy or telepathy, when you run into another psy. We just have to hope you guys are stronger.”

“That won’t be a prob for Chase,” Elijah said.

Six stared at him. “Fucking him makes you certain?”

Trent didn’t bother hiding his snicker this time. Elijah flipped Six off, and Lia went on, ignoring everyone.

“Trent and Nate will get Lorelei from the guesthouse, Holden and Six will tackle the cottage, and Chase and Elijah will go for the silo.”

A sigh of release escaped Elijah, but iron shot down Chase’s spine. He stood up from his slouch against the wall. “Why would you plan for him to go into the place where Jasper is?”

“A few reasons,” Nate said, speaking up for the first time. He eased from his own curled-up position in an armchair across the room. “For one, you and Elijah know the silo best. Even Six said he didn’t spend a lot of time in there to know how they’ve amped up security. And two . . .” A little cringe creased Nate’s face. “Well, Six had a point. Your power only reacts to Elijah being in danger. And if he’s in danger, that means you’re in trouble. You need him.”

“For something other than fucking,” Six clarified, because he was helpful.

Holden shot his lover an exasperated look. “Sixtus, I suggest trying to work hard on reading cues right now. You’re not helping.” When Six just shrugged, Holden took the same route as Nate—appealing in a low voice as if that would matter. “It’s not like we’re using him as bait—”

“Yes, you fucking are,” Chase said gruffly. “You totally are.”

“For your own protection,” Elijah snapped. “Stop trying to daddy me, Chase. Besides, if this all goes wrong, do you really think I’d leave without you, anyway? You in danger will always mean me in danger. It just so happens that I’m the safety on your telekinesis.”

Chase halfway expected Six to make some other sex joke, but thankfully the cyborg kept his yap shut. And with the way Elijah was looking at Chase, he needed to shut his own. At the end of the day, trying to shield Elijah had never worked. All it’d done was make it known to everyone that he was special to Chase, a tool that could be used against him. It had gotten Elijah into more trouble.

And he did not doubt for a second that Elijah would ever leave the Farm without him. They were a pair in safety and in mortal superhero-mission-type danger.

Chase didn’t pull away when Elijah snagged his hand. “Tell me the rest of the plan.”

When it was all said and done, they waited until the nor’easter struck at nightfall and went in under the cover of darkness. Six literally used that verbiage. The cover of fucking darkness. Chase could barely believe he was associated with these people. He could also barely believe their plan because it was out-of-this-world risky, ridiculous, and kind of stupid. But they were doing it.

Given the secluded location of the Farm, it was easy to sneak in and out once the electricity was disabled. Since Six had had free run of the place for well over a decade, he knew exactly how to make that happen. Including taking out the backup generators. And because Lia was a fucking badass, she really did make a pit stop in Brooklyn to buy night vision goggles from an artist loft. Chase had been hoping for some fire power along with it, but Holden had only had enough cash squirreled away for the goggles. And Jessica was against guns.

How the fuck a pacifist was the unofficial former leader of a militant group of psychics was beyond Chase. But, as it turned out, she’d been more of their inspiration than their leader. They’d liked her as a figurehead, a legend, not so much a living breathing woman with an opinion. Which figured.

They packed into two vehicles to drive up to the Farm, and left them with Lia and Jessica half a mile down the road. Jessica was still shaky and admitted upfront that she’d be more of a hindrance than a help on foot in the rain, but promised she could still drive like a bat out of hell if someone came along.

She and Holden embraced, and Six gave her a curt chin jerk before they split. Because cyborg and whatnot.

Six and Holden went ahead to disable the generators. Either by awesome timing, or because one of them also had hidden powers of weather manipulation, a giant-ass clap of thunder struck a few seconds before the power blinked out. There was silence, indicating this likely was as normal as Six had made it sound and as Chase vaguely remembered, but shouts did start to go up once the backup generators didn’t activate.

Since they’d split up in the forested area around the perimeter, it would take them different lengths of time to reach their destinations, but the plan was for all of them to get in at once. Nate and Trent had taken off running south to the part of the forest closest to the guesthouse, but Chase and Elijah took longer getting to their targeted spot behind the silo. It was amazing how invincible Chase felt with the flood lights taken out and the goggles strapped around his head. Darkness was a cloak, but Elijah’s presence at his side did not let him forget how much he had to lose. After so long of pretending nothing mattered but his next drink or the inkwork on one of his tattoos, it was overwhelming to realize when it came to Elijah he was as ruled by emotion as everyone else.

Despite his own sense of calm, the guards seemed to be in a panic. They called to each other across the yard, jogging this way and that in the pouring rain, and seemed frantic to restore the power. For the most part, Chase and Elijah easily evaded the bouncing flashlights, their movements masked by the rushing of rain. They made it to the exterior of the silo before encountering one of the many staff members.

“Who’s there?” the voice called out, deep and etched with aggravation. “Mr. Payne said for everyone to stay in their places. I don’t know why everyone is running around like chickens with their heads cut off. One of you assholes already broke my damn flashlight by slamming into me.”

The man squinted through the darkness, probably trying to make out who was in his face so he knew who to yell at, but could likely make out nothing more than the vague outline of goggle-covered faces. With the storm stalled above them, there was no light even from the moon.

Chase concentrated on breaking into the guy’s brain, on clearing his suspicions and trying to plant different thoughts there instead—about being underpaid and overworked and being treated like a mindless drone instead of the one guy keeping this place running. About how everyone was ungrateful, and he was tired of being the one following rules by the book. But it didn’t work. Chase couldn’t tell what brand of psychic the guard was, but he had a strong mental shield.

Reason number eight thousand and fifty why being a psychic was sometimes not all it was cracked up to be.

“Did you hear me?” the guard repeated when they stalled and Chase failed to infiltrate his mind. “What do you think you’re doing? And where did you get night vision goggles?”

“I heard you,” Chase replied, voice steady. “But we have orders to remove one of Jasper’s patients.”

“Bull. Shit.” The guard leaned in closer. “Tell me what—”

Chase grabbed the large metallic flashlight from where it leaned against the wall, reared back, and hit the guy in the face. He dropped to the ground, and Elijah gasped.

“Jesus, Chase.”

Chase knelt down and put his hands under the guy’s arms. “Help me get him out of the way. We can hide him in the trees back there.”

They dragged the guy several yards away to set him behind a group of trees. It was sloppy as fuck, but Chase was hoping he’d be unconscious long enough for them to get into the silo.

They doubled back, being less careful in their desire to make up for lost time, and slipped into the building before anyone else showed up. Chase moved ahead and held up a hand, halting Elijah from moving any farther before he got a read on the situation.

If he concentrated just right, he could vaguely hear the thoughts of everyone on the property. But if he narrowed the scope of his gift, he only heard the thoughts of the people within the silo. Surprisingly, there were few. Either there were fewer people being held in Jasper’s torture tower, or they were so drugged that there was nothing for Chase to hear.

The thought was a fist closing around his heart. He moved faster, extending his gift with a single-minded focus until he barely saw what was ahead of him because he was so focused on the whisper of voices inside his head.

Just want to sleep. Why won’t they let me sleep? I already said I was sorry. I shouldn’t have talked to her. Never fucking talking to anyone again. God, I just want to go back to my job. I just want to go to sleep.

Fucked up. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted him. Realignment my ass.

Rook is better off without me.

Chase stopped abruptly, and the world closed in around him again. Instead of sprinting ahead and trusting his telepathy to guide him instead of his eyes, he looked around wildly as if he’d see the speaker of that last thought.

Rook. His sister was here somewhere. Fucking hell.

“Chase,” Elijah hissed. “What the fuck?”

“I—” He swallowed, not understanding the tightness in his chest or why he was suddenly panicking. This is why they were here. To get these people out. He could get her out. “Nothing.” Chase took a deep breath. “Not many people here,” he said, his voice barely a whisper in the silent hum of the silo. In the distance, he could hear someone talking, but it sounded like gibberish. “There are two people on the second floor who are desperate to get out—they’re both being punished for something. And there’s another on the top floor. Sounds like a young girl.” He looked back at Elijah. “The best thing to do is to split up. I’ll go to the top, you get the other two. They’re both lucid.”

“I don’t want to split up,” Elijah hissed.

“Yeah, but they’ll be on the same floor you were held on, so just do it.”

Elijah didn’t argue, but he hesitated before moving ahead.

Nate’s voice popped into Chase’s head. I have Mom.

Relief hit Chase square in the chest.

Is she able to get around?

Slowly, but we’re having to creep around anyway. We need to get out of here fast. Not everyone is compliant, so we sent the kids into the woods with one of the staff members who works with Shelby. Her people are telling them there’s another raid.

Any sign of Richard? Chase thought at his brother.

None.

Maybe he wasn’t on the property. Chase didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing. Either way, he jerked his head toward the floor spreading out ahead of them in the gloom of the storm and distant lightning.

“Let’s move.”

Elijah sighed, and they split up. Chase ran to the top floor and jerked up his mental shield. He knew the silo well enough to navigate it without telepathy. The narrow rooms with the metallic cone-shaped roof, and nothing to keep inmates company for long spans of time except the ping of rain against it during a storm. The sound was so familiar that Chase missed a step, confused about whether he was trapped in one of his memories or existing in the present.

The moment of uncertainty faded once the girl’s voice drifted into his mind once again.

Nothing but a complication. . . . function in public, do anything. At least here I’m useful. Hate being in the way.

Chase didn’t know if it was his current mental strain causing everyone’s thoughts to come across fragmented, but he could barely string together a full sentence. Either way, they’d done a number on Rook’s sister, and he was going to get her out.

He followed the mental footsteps of the girl, trying to move silently but unable to do anything about the sloppy way his feet squished along the tile. He knew without the need for extrasensory knowledge that he was going to be caught. He just hadn’t expected it to happen as soon as he opened her cell.

Jasper stood to the side, turned away and peering through the narrow window, and the girl was huddled on her cot, knees drawn up and face turned toward Jasper. It was only when Chase set both feet inside did her body snap toward him.

“Who—”

The aborted question was a gunshot in the silent room, signaling both Chase and Jasper to spin into action. He felt Jasper reach out with his gift, a mental attack that almost immediately caused Chase’s knees to buckle, but he surged forward anyway. His telekinesis remained dormant even as the sensation of Jasper pulling at his brain with vampire claws sent daggers of pain exploding from his temples. Chase gritted his teeth, and slammed his body into the other man’s. They could do this the old-fashioned way.

He jammed Jasper against the wall with all his strength, and felt the invisible fingers slip. A pained grunt emanated from Jasper, followed by a louder clatter as they both fell to the side and knocked over a metal tray that had stood nearby. The girl screamed, and the sound drove Chase to fight harder.

Jasper might have had the one up on him in terms of control over his psychic abilities, but Chase had had his fair share of fist fights. It came with the territory when you had a big mouth and an unflinching side eye in a city like New York.

“Chase,” Jasper grunted. “I knew you’d come ba—”

Chase silenced the bad-guy shit talk by straddling Jasper and wrapping his hands around his thick neck. It bulged against his fingers, straining, but Chase squeezed as hard as he could. He was immediately assaulted with another mental attack. The pain from Jasper trying to pull at his mind was stunning.

Eyes watering and harsh pants ripping out of his mouth, Chase squeezed harder. He was going to lose his grip in seconds, he knew it. It was impossible to focus when someone was tearing away chunks of his brain.

Chase released a shout of frustration and agony, of desperation, and then the strangest thing happened. All the power emanating from Jasper stopped, and the mental assault abruptly ended.

“Elise—” Jasper gasped. “No—”

Chase gave up on his effort to strangle the asshole, and slammed Jasper’s head against the floor. The sound was sickening, but he did it three more times until Jasper went limp beneath him. Chase rolled off him, gasping for breath, and watched as the girl rushed to his side.

“Rook?” she asked, hesitant and frightened.

“No.” Chase struggled to get up, but he could barely see through the residual threads of pain still pounding in his head. “But I know him.”

A sound filled the room, like a sob, but Elise sucked it in. “We have to go,” she whispered urgently. “Even if you killed him—”

“I don’t think he’s dead, but we do need to get ghost before someone finds us.” Chase staggered to the door, gripping her arm and tugging her along. “My friends are releasing everyone else, and people will be on high alert soon.”

I’m free?

The question was Elise’s own internal scared-to-believe thought, so Chase ignored it and led her into the hallway, tugging the goggles back up. He was still breathing hard, still trying to collect himself, as he asked, “What did you do to Jasper?”

“They call it silencing,” Elise said. “I can . . . temporarily silence or mute someone’s gift.”

Chase had never heard of it, but there was no time for shock or awe. “Can you use it at will?” Through his goggles, he saw her nod. “Good.”

When she clutched his hand, he let her. If she yanked away after seeing his white hair, tattoos, and grim face—that was on her.

He tried to broadcast a mental message to the others, but searing pain scorched through him with the attempt. With no way to tell if it had worked, or if he’d somehow lost his telepathy in the fight with Jasper, he practically dragged Elise down the flights of stairs to the circular entrance of the silo.

Lightning crashed as they descended the last few steps, illuminating a scene he had dreaded but not prepared for. Elijah pinned to the floor by Will as they fought wildly. All it took was the sight of Will rearing back one fist to slam into Elijah’s face for the pressure to consume Chase. It combined with the pain from Jasper’s assault, an indescribable branding sensation that led to him throwing back his head in a tortured scream.

Everything faded but his anger, his fear for Elijah, and all his psychic bits realigning to protect Elijah in the only way his brain knew how—complete and utter destruction.

The ground beneath his feet shook, and a wrenching sound rivaled the rush of rain and boom of thunder outside, but Chase couldn’t bring himself out of it. He couldn’t walk, couldn’t speak, and couldn’t see anything but Elijah being hurt. It wasn’t until strong hands yanked him forward, closely followed by him colliding with the cold hard ground, that the pain ceased.

Darkness swallowed him. It was just him and a great expanse of nothing so silent that for the first time in a long time he felt . . . at peace. Nothing could touch him in this dark empty cloud. No one could hurt him. His brain wouldn’t wrench violently in an attempt to bend the physical world to its will.

But there was also no Elijah in this blank space. Chase was alone.

He opened his eyes, gasping for breath, and found himself staring into another stretch of darkness. It wasn’t until lightning struck in the distance did he realize he was looking up at the sky with rain pounding against him.

He tried to stand, but his head swam and a different kind of ache throbbed in his temples. When he reached up to touch his head with a shaking hand, he felt the warm wetness of blood and tasted iron in his mouth.

“Wha—” his voice came out strained. “Elijah?”

There was no answer. Panic galloped through him, propelling him upward despite his swimming vision. He pushed through it, but he could barely remain upright. His legs were wobbly, and his vision blurry. When he did finally manage to stand for longer than a few seconds, the ground trembled yet again, and a series of booms echoed throughout the night.

Chase snapped his gaze up to the silo. He froze.

It looked like someone had slammed a giant hammer down onto the metal roof. The dome had crushed inward, causing the entire structure to buckle to the ground.

“Fuck,” he whispered, staring at the destruction. “It can’t be . . .”

“It can and it is.”

Chase spun around, but dizziness overcame him. He staggered, swinging out a hand to hold on to nothing, and crashed to his knees just as Richard came closer. He looked up, breathing hard, to find Richard looming over him in the rain. Elijah and Elise were nowhere to be seen.

“I knew I’d bet on the wrong horse.” Richard jerked the night vision goggles off Chase’s face. The sky had lightened slightly, and Chase could see Richard staring down at him without emotion. “I just didn’t realize how much power I’d ignored for so long.”

Chase sucked in a deep breath, attempting to gather the power needed to get up, to face Richard, and to find Elijah. Was he in the rubble with Will and Jasper? He couldn’t be. Someone had grabbed Chase . . . Maybe he’d taken Elise and run. God, Chase fucking hoped so.

“So, you turned on me too.” Richard’s voice interrupted Chase’s frantic thinking. “Just like the others.”

If there was ever a time to be defiant and brash it was now, but Chase couldn’t. He could do nothing but struggle time and time again to stand. After a while, he collapsed, panting.

“You can’t turn on someone if you weren’t ever on their side,” he rasped. “I did what I had to so everyone who wanted to go could get the fuck out of this nightmare.”

Richard’s hand twitched, and for the first time Chase realized he was holding a gun. It was muted by the darkness, but still shone.

“Nightmare,” he repeated. “You just took out an entire building with your gift. Who is the nightmare?”

“If I have to become one to end your torture chamber, I’ll fucking do it.”

Richard exhaled loudly. “It didn’t have to end like this. You should have been by my side the entire time. You still can be.”

“Are you kidding me? I killed your head scientist. I killed Will, just like his sister and the guards.”

“They don’t matter,” Richard hissed. “Their power was nothing compared to yours.”

Of course it came down to the power. Not even the shared blood flowing in their veins, their connection as father and son. It was all about Chase’s psychic abilities, and what those abilities could do for Richard.

“Fuck you, Dick,” he said with a bloody smile. “You might as well blow my brains out now, because I’ll never stop trying to end you.”

Richard’s expression hardened. He lifted the gun, and a gasp sounded behind him, punctuated by the distant rumbling of thunder and the creaking of yet another piece of the silo falling to the ground.

Chase closed his eyes, waiting, but a body collided with his own just as a gunshot rang out. He knew without opening his eyes that it was Elijah who had slammed into him. Horror swarmed Chase, and he felt that awful pressure rising again, but Elijah was still breathing. He dug his fingers into Elijah’s shoulders, drawing him into a tight hug. The pressure receded until nothing was left but the sweet ease of relief.

“You fucking idiot,” Chase whispered.

Elijah released a sound that was half sob, half laugh. “I’m sorry, but I love you. I didn’t even think. I dragged the girl into the woods to hide, and came back, and—”

Chase crushed Elijah to his chest, squeezing him as the rain started to come down harder. Once the feel of Elijah whole and safe was imprinted on him, Chase allowed himself to look up.

Through the rain, he saw Richard lying on his face not moving. Behind him, Lorelei stood, drenched with her long platinum hair pasted to her face, holding a pistol. She was shaking so badly that her knees gave out, but Nate caught her. Trent rushed to his side with Shelby, who immediately knelt on the muddy ground.

Nearby, Holden and Six stood looking at Richard’s body as if waiting for him to rise, but he was motionless in the pouring rain.

Chase expected to feel something, but he didn’t. Only a distant sense of wonder about whether it was all over. Judging from the guards moving in, and the other staff members that had gathered around the remains of the silo in the last few moments, it probably wasn’t.

Two of the guards had made a move toward Lorelei and Shelby, but Shelby grabbed the pistol and aimed it at them.

“Whatever orders you had from Richard Payne are finished. He used his talent, and the talent of others, to manipulate people into coming here before drugging them into submission.” Shelby’s voice was clear and strong in the darkness, not once wavering. “That was my role here as well as your counselors. To keep you all compliant and helpless.” She looked around before going on. “The board wants this place shut down, so go along with the program, or I have no problem defending myself and the people around me.”

Nobody else moved.

Shelby glanced at Chase, back at the silo, then back again. “Your move, Chase.”

Chase couldn’t even comprehend why that would be.

“Let’s just get the fuck out of here.”

They didn’t get to leave.

Jessica and Lia waited off the property in the rain until receiving a signal to move in. At that point, Six went into cleanup mode and corralled all the remaining guards and staff into the cottage.

Everyone who’d already willingly fled the Farm had returned until the storm ended, including Elise. When she pleaded to speak to her brother, Elijah helped her get in touch with Rook using the number he’d given them on the truck ride that now felt like ages ago.

Shelby directed the rest of the operation. She gathered everyone in the guesthouse, from kids, to parents who’d agreed to participate in the program, to the individuals who’d been held against their will, and she and Jessica told them to choose their own paths. Some wanted to return to their homes or call their family, but others—the die-hard Comm members who seemed shaken and confused—asked to go to Community Watch. Then there were others, the ones who’d experienced the most trauma, who asked to stay at the Farm for now. With Shelby.

She handpicked a couple of staff members to drive people either to the CW or their homes if possible, and agreed to stay on the Farm until permanent arrangements were made. Lia and Jessica immediately offered to do the same after dealing with the board.

It seemed that Shelby had been planting the seeds for this rebellion for a while. Everyone who jumped to attention and asked for directions looked to her with each question. She then turned to Lia, Jessica, and Chase. There was a clear chain of command, but Chase had no idea why he was in it. In his opinion, Shelby was the one running this ship, and her deciding to stay at the Farm with people who needed recovery time was awesome.

After she examined him, she determined his brain wasn’t going to leak out of his ears from psychic overexertion, but he’d severely concussed himself by blowing up the silo. He consoled himself with the knowledge that he’d eventually recover, then holed up in a bedroom in the cottage with Elijah curled up to him. Chase had wanted to join the rank-and-file in the vans and get the fuck away from the Farm, but he didn’t voice that desire. How could he when everyone else was working to figure out what to do with the remaining pieces of this fucked-up puzzle? Lorelei, after all she’d been through, was currently arguing with Nate about her desire to stay with the kids and other mothers until a solid plan was put in place for their transition.

“We should go help.”

Chase glanced down at Elijah. His hair was still soaked, although he’d found some of the white sweats to change into. Besides a large scrape on the side of his face, he was unscathed.

“We just infiltrated this place and risked our lives. We’ve helped enough.”

Elijah looked up at him. “Don’t try to act like the hero gene doesn’t run in your family.”

“Excuse me?” Chase didn’t know whether to laugh hysterically or call Elijah delusional. “Like, the incestuous family or the sociopathic family?”

Elijah’s serious face was thwarted by his mouth twitching at the side. “Well, firstly, the entire Payne fam isn’t sociopathic. Just Richard. Holden and Jessica are pretty great. Same for Nate and Lorelei, who is also from the incest family.” Elijah stared him down as if daring him to disagree. “Also, don’t try to downplay your heroics, cockhead. You came here with the intent of freeing the psy folk they’d been holding against their will, and then fought a psychic vampire to save Rook’s sister. She told me.”

Chase glanced at the window, as if he’d be able to see her, but there was nothing in his line of sight except trees and the blank space where the silo’s roof should have been. “Is she okay?”

“Traumatized, but yes.”

“Is she going home?”

Elijah hesitated and chewed on the corner of his mouth. “Yes . . . Rook is coming for her, but she’s almost afraid to face him. I have no idea why. I asked if she wanted to go to the CW, but she said no.”

Chase nodded slowly. “All right, well, do you think the others going to the CW is a good plan? I mean, it ain’t exactly a bad place, right? That’s why we wanted to try to keep it around.”

“Right.”

Chase looked at Elijah sidelong. “Do you know something I don’t know? Why are you acting weird about the CW now?”

Elijah looked down at the scratchy bed cover, gnawed on his lip some more, and then sat up straight. “So, I had this vision.”

“Oh fuck. Great.”

Chase started to roll out of bed, ready for a fight, but Elijah grabbed his arm.

“Wait, it’s not a death vision. Okay? It’s just . . .” His fingers tightened on Chase. “It was about Kyger and Hale. In the vision, they’d lied about letting new people on the board. They’d used us to clean up this mess they were too afraid to touch, and then let the Community go back to the status quo.”

“So nobody dies,” Chase repeated.

“Right.”

“The Community just remains a fucking breeding ground for power-hungry psychos who prey on the vulnerable.”

Elijah cringed, dropping his eyes as if it was his fault for sharing the news. “More or less. It’s not like . . . this will still be happening. The Farm is done. Jasper is gone. Richard is gone. Will . . . gone.” He peeked at Chase, waiting for a reaction to that before going on. “But ultimately, the board stays the same.”

“That’s all you saw?”

“Yeah.” Elijah sighed and crumbled the comforter in his fingers. He scrunched it up and released it, performing the motion repeatedly. “I guess the big question is whether we can live with that.”

Could they? Could Chase?

The Farm was gone and the people who’d run it, but Kyger and Hale weren’t exactly babes in the woods. They’d closed their eyes to the sickness spreading in the community, handed over “problem” psys to Richard to do whatever he did, allowed Jessica to go missing without asking a question, and had ultimately been too cowardly to enact any change.

The disappearances would stop, and the threat in the woods would be gone, but how long until another one appeared? The whole culture of silence and fear was what had allowed all of this to go on for so long.

“No,” Chase said finally. “I can’t live with that.”

“I didn’t think so.”

Elijah pulled him back onto the bed, hands on his shoulders and fingers kneading Chase’s tense muscles. It felt so good that Chase eased against the headboard with Elijah still straddling him, and enjoyed the feeling of . . . being taken care of. Of a warm body close to his, the comforting scent of Elijah’s hair brushing his cheek, and the sight of genuine concern in that lovely face.

“Hey.”

Elijah glanced up at him. “What?”

“If you ever put yourself in danger for me again, I’ll kill you.”

The room filled with Elijah’s laughter. It was alien and unlikely given the nightmare waiting just outside, but it unwound the knot sitting in the middle of Chase’s chest.

The first time he’d met Elijah, Chase had heard his laugh before seeing his face. Even then, at the height of Chase’s resentment, he’d reacted to it. After being brought up in a world of manipulation and control, hearing something so carefree and genuinely happy had moved the stone that had sat unbeating in his chest for so long.

Chase yanked Elijah against him, gripping him tight, and released a shuddery sigh. “I’m sorry I doubted you. I’m an idiot.”

“Yeah,” Elijah agreed. “That you’re surprised I’d take a bullet for you proves it.”

Chase squeezed harder, probably cutting off Elijah’s ability to breathe. “Can we please leave? Just me and you?”

“Where though?”

“California.” It was out of Chase’s mouth before he could stop it, but it had been in his head for a while. His wary, defensive little brother had unwound so much after his brief time across the country that it made Chase want to follow that same pathway. “It seemed to work out for Nate.”

“That could have also been him being away from his shitty family and the town he grew up in,” Elijah said. “Or being with Trent.”

“But I’ll be with you.” Chase licked his lips, suddenly nervous and a little desperate. “Right? You’ll go with me?”

Elijah leaned back to meet his shifty gaze.

“Or I could just stay here if you don’t want to go.” As pathetic as he sounded, Chase didn’t actually care. He’d be pathetic as fuck if it meant being with Elijah in whatever state he chose to reside in. “Never mind. I’ll do whatever you want.”

Elijah grabbed the front of his T-shirt. “I’ll go to California with you. I was just surprised, not weighing my options. At this point, you’re the only option that matters. I know we fought this big fight to straighten out the Community, but I don’t know that . . . I’m the best person to be involved anymore. There’s been too much awfulness.” Elijah shuddered. “And seeing people die is just . . . I just can’t.”

When Elijah sagged in his arms and pressed his face to Chase’s chest, Chase wondered when he himself would finally react to everything that had happened. Would there be a point when he closed his eyes and be unable get the image of his father lying in the mud out of his head? When he’d feel like a monster because of the relief he’d felt in that moment?

He didn’t think so. But, then, he’d never been able to react to the deaths that had happened at Evo. He’d never had any downtime from any of it. No time to think or feel.

Chase closed his eyes, waiting for the moment when it all hit him, but all he felt was an overwhelming desire to take Elijah and get the hell out.

“See, this is why we should leave,” he said. “I don’t want to be involved with the Community in an active way. They’ve fucked with me too much for me to ever trust anyone involved, including Kyger and Hale. Besides, can you see me on a board of directors?” Chase gave Elijah a pointed look, and nudged Elijah when he smiled. “Exactly.”

“So we go to Cali.” Elijah kissed Chase’s jaw. “We start over, get stupid jobs—”

“Or use our psychic shit to scam money.”

“Or that. But first we need to talk to the others. Even if we take off as soon as everything is, like, settled, we need to stick around to see it all through. After all this, we owe it to ourselves and everyone else.”

This was one of those times when Chase wished he was the asshole he’d always told himself, and everyone else, that he was, but he wasn’t. They’d thrown the chips in the air, and the only way he could walk away from this for good was to see where they all landed.

“How do you feel?”

The question startled Chase, and he met Holden’s troubled gaze. They were in the back of the same truck they’d driven from the city with Six driving and Elijah napping at his side. Jessica and Lia were in another vehicle, whereas Nate and Trent had stayed at the Farm with Lorelei and Shelby.

“You probably don’t want to know,” Chase said. “My head is fucked right now. About Richard. About my mother.”

Holden looked down with a slight headshake. “What happened to Lorelei is unimaginable.”

Chase pressed his head against the seat and looked out the window again. “I wish I knew what to do. I hated her for all these years, and for all these years she was being tortured and assaulted in the same fucking place they’d tortured me. I feel like a piece of shit, and I want to help her, but I have no idea how.”

Holden’s hand brushed his shoulder briefly. “You can help by supporting the decision she made to temporarily stay at the Farm. I know you and Nate didn’t like it, but . . . it’s her choice, Chase.”

“Fuck, I know. Especially since there’s kids involved.” Chase pressed his forehead harder against the window. Trees rushed by them, and a steady snow had started again. The blur of white reminded him of that drive with the terror twins, and the destructive power of his telekinesis. Would snow always remind him of that, or was it because it was so recent? Either way, moving to Cali was starting to look better and better. “Maybe . . . maybe she’ll want to come away with me once everything is sorted.”

“I bet she’d love that you want her to,” Holden said softly.

Chase sighed softly and glanced at his brother. “What about you? How are you feeling? You just watched your father get blown away.”

Holden looked startled. “You’re trying to be nice to me.”

“Uh.”

“You are.” The barest trace of a smile formed on Holden’s face. “You’re trying to be compassionate. I can feel it.”

Chase sneered. “Don’t use your empathy on me just because my brain is too fried to hold up a decent wall.”

“You don’t need to shield yourself from me, you know. I’m not going to use that single incident of compassion against you.”

“You say that now, but next thing we know we’ll be entering the city to a fucking ticker tape parade. Everyone celebrating the fact that Chase Payne found a heart somewhere.”

“Somewhere. Right.” Holden laughed softly. “To answer your question, I don’t know how to feel. I stopped thinking of Richard as my father when I found out what he was doing to my mother and those other women. To you and Six and everyone else. And he was never . . . really a father to me, anyway. He was an abuser.”

“He was,” Chase said slowly. “And I’m not sad that he’s dead either, just so you know. Maybe I would have been before, but anything . . . potentially good I’d felt about him in the past died once he told me I’d been research. A science project that he let Jasper tinker with.” He scoffed out a laugh when Holden flinched. “It’s fine, man. That isn’t even the worst of what he’s done. That was just before I knew my mother had been there the whole time.”

“I’m still sorry.”

“For what? You didn’t know. I didn’t tell anyone. I let them make me believe that it would somehow be worse for me if . . . I talked about it.” It was so easy to call that decision stupid while looking at it all in retrospect, but gaslighting and manipulation wasn’t easy to identify while it was happening. Especially when you were isolated and more vulnerable than you were willing to admit. No one wanted to believe they were another person’s prey. “So, nah, I don’t feel a fucking thing. Just relief he’s gone. Big J is gone too.” Chase glanced outside again. “But I get it if me saying it outright makes you feel uncomfortable or whatever.”

“It doesn’t,” Holden said. “But like I said, I also don’t know how to feel. Right now, the only thing I can identify is . . . exhaustion. I just want this to be over, but I don’t think it will be for a while.”

“What will you do when it’s over?”

Holden made a soft sound. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

“Think of it now,” Chase pushed. “What are you and this big bearded bastard gonna do?”

Six glanced at them in the rearview mirror. “Fuck and sleep together in a real bed without it being blizzard conditions or surrounded by other people.”

Chase snorted out a laugh. You had to love a no-nonsense lumbersexual with an attitude problem.

Holden smiled at Six, and the tension eased from his shoulders. It was weird seeing him be all in love and shit. He was less smug and put a little more care into the words he used. Like he was going out of his way to not be insufferable. Kind of how Chase wanted to not be so much of a bastard for Elijah. Funny how falling in love made you want to be a better person. Or at least less of a total dickhead.

“I want to go back to running Evolution,” Holden said finally. “And I want to help fix what my father did to the Community. It’s only right.”

“It’s not your responsibility,” Six said, keeping his eyes on the road. “But I’m in it with you.”

“I know you are, and I know it’s not. But I’m standing by my mother. Especially since she’s about to face the board.”

“Yeah, about that . . .”

Chase spent the rest of the ride telling them about Elijah’s vision and the plan he’d come up with to challenge Kyger and Hale if they decided to go the route of spitting on their own promise.

“Do you think it will work?” Holden asked as they crossed the bridge into Manhattan. “Or will they make a power grab of their own?”

“Don’t know, but it’s not a bluff. If these people have learned anything about me, or us, it should be that we don’t sleep on our promises. If they want to play games . . .” Chase glanced at Elijah as he stirred, waking from his nap. “I can make things really uncomfortable for them before we get gone.”

They looked like absolute garbage rocking up to the CW. Half of them were in outfits that had seen far better days, and the other half of them were sporting the all-white ensembles the Farm’s lemmings had worn daily. As ragtag as they were, they had no business striding in with a list of demands, but that’s exactly what they did.

Kyger and Hale sat at the head of a new conference table exactly as they had before, but this time both were decked out in suits reminiscent of Richard Payne. Chase didn’t have to take it as a sign that they weren’t going to play ball. He already knew.

“Where are the others?” Hale asked, looking past him, Jessica, Lia, and Holden. “I thought the entire crew was present.”

Chase crossed his arms over his chest, trying hard to look imposing in a white hoodie. “No worries about that. They’re close by. Just no point in us all gathering at once.”

Kyger snorted. “Don’t trust us?”

“Not to turn at the last minute and make us all disappear?” Chase twisted his mouth to the side, pretending to think. “Mmm. Nope. Can’t say that we do.”

Kyger and Hale glanced at each other. The only thing they had going for them right then was the fact that neither appeared surprised or offended by the assertion.

“Makes sense,” Kyger admitted. “We haven’t exactly give any of you reason to trust in our word.”

“He’s right.” Hale looked like she wanted to push away from the table to pace the room, but coped with it by gripping the edge of it instead. “We didn’t know the extent of what was going on at the Farm, or Richard’s activities, but—”

“Horseshit.” Jessica leveled them with a cold look. She’d been in no-bullshit mode ever since Chase and Elijah had broken the news about the vision. It honestly looked like she was hoping for a reason to hand their asses to them, and had just found it. “Regardless of the details, you knew psychics were going to that property and not returning. And you were handing him the most vulnerable psys who came to the CW, for whatever purpose he intended, even if you didn’t know what that purpose was.”

“Jessica, you have no idea what you’re talking about.” Hale smoothed her palms over the glass table, but this time it looked like she was trying not to swing a punch. Her smile was razor-sharp and clearly sending undertones of cut a bitch. “You followed your husband out there years ago. How do we know you weren’t involved?”

“Because you’re a fucking psychic,” Chase said, incredulous. “It’s not like we’re dicking around grasping at straws here, lady.”

Kyger inhaled deeply, the sound of someone who thought they were dealing with angry toddlers, and that set Chase off like nothing else. However, before he could speak, it was Lia who strode forward.

“This is bullshit,” she said, looking between them. “I may not be part of your Community, but that’s because I knew from the start that something about it was off. The code of silence, the fear people had of crossing the higher social tiers, all of the clambering to be the best and the most talented, the most powerful—it wasn’t healthy. The cover-up with the disappearances was a large part of it, but not all of it. And you can’t put all that on Richard and Jasper. You can’t deny you let them pick off marginalized psychics for their experiments, and you definitely can’t fucking deny that you have no desire to change your ways.”

“We came here today to talk,” Kyger said, a flash of annoyance in his face. “We could have simply turned you away, but here we are. Maybe we won’t do exactly what we discussed—”

“You lied,” Holden said. “You said you would be willing to change the board if we took on my father, and you lied.”

“You bombarded us.” This time, Hale did jump to her feet. “We barely had time to process anything before you were making ultimatums and demands.”

“Right, and now that we put our lives at risk to hold up our end of the bargain, you want to back out,” Lia said. “Do you deny it? Because if you do, then you’re lying right to our faces.”

Genuine frustration washed over Hale. After a moment of standing ramrod straight and glaring, she raked a hand through her hair. “You don’t understand. None of you do. CW was our baby. It was all we ever wanted for psychics. A safe place—”

“Where you could save the ones you found worthy and dump the defective ones at a creepy farm like serial killers?” Chase raised his eyebrows when the question earned him a death stare. “’Cause that’s what you did, so save your fucking sob story.”

Hale glowered at him, but Kyger awkwardly remained in his chair. He gripped the arm rests, fingers closed around them, and seemed to be waiting for the entire meeting to go to shit. If he was all Hale was working with, no wonder she was so high-strung and prone to pacing rapidly.

“The fact of the matter is, we thank you for your help with Richard and the Farm, and are in the process of . . . cleaning up that mess right now . . .”

Beside Chase, Holden cringed but held his tongue.

“But ultimately,” Hale continued. “We’re unwilling to step down from the board. This Community was our brainchild. We won’t just turn it over to a bunch of self-righteous children who have zero clue what it takes to run something so complex, not to mention you have no idea who all our contacts are within various government agencies.”

Kyger nodded and finally stood up. “Exactly. You think you can do this, but you’ll need us. Remaining invisible takes more finesse than you have.”

Chase had no good response for that. When he glanced at Jessica, he realized she didn’t either. And her pale cheeks had flushed, likely from the irritation of having to accept that fact.

“After everything that has happened,” she said quietly, “the only capacity in which you will stay on the board is if more board members are added.” Jessica glanced at the three of them, her gaze lingering on Chase briefly before shifting to the other two. Somehow, she knew without having directly asked him, that he had zero interest in leading the Community. Or being part of it any more. “Me, Lia, and Holden.”

“Of course,” Kyger said dryly. “Trade one Payne for two more.”

“Two less psychopathic ones,” Chase said. “And Lia is a pretty bomb candidate for leadership considering she is the only one who didn’t grow up in the Comm blinded by its supposed greatness. She can keep all of you in check.”

Lia glanced at him in astonishment.

“And you?” Kyger asked Chase. “What’s your role?”

“Heh.” Chase slid his hands into his pockets. “My role is to stay as far the fuck away from you people as possible. I’ll take off with my boy and my brother, and keep my distance. But I do have a suggestion—add a couple of Ex-Comm members to the board as well. If they’re not allowed a voice, they’ll go on assuming the Community hasn’t changed, and all those alienated people who felt the need to come together the way they have?” Chase scoffed, looking between Kyger and Hale. “They’re gonna come for you.”

“Who do you propose?” Jessica asked. “Damon?”

“Or his brother, Xander. And Shelby.” Chase spread his hands and looked from Kyger to Hale. “It’s the only way we’re gonna bridge this shit. So do the thing, and stick to it, or else . . .”

Hale lifted her chin, seeming to have been expecting a threat. Chase winked.

“Or else I come back and make things uncomfortable for everyone in the Comm.”

“How so?” Kyger asked. “You blow us up?”

“Nah. But I will blow up your spots by broadcasting everything about the Farm, Richard, and the murders at Evo to each and every psy in the Community.” Chase spread his hands. “There won’t be any coming back from that, friends. All of this would fall down on your damn heads.”

The color drained from Kyger’s already pasty face. Hale, on the other hand, regarded Chase with grim acceptance. There was nothing she could do, nothing either of them could do, but cooperate.

They stood on opposite sides of the glass table, the original founders of the Community and the people who wanted to usurp and reform it. A standoff to see who would cave first, and whether Hale and Kyger were more interested in preservation than power.

After a weighted silence, Hale sat down.

It wasn’t hard to find Elijah.

Even in a high-rise, there was an invisible rope tying them together that allowed Chase to track him down with barely any effort at all. He was on the tenth floor, standing in a small room that had nothing but one bunk bed and a desk beneath a window. There was nobody inhabiting the room now, but Elijah stood next to the wooden bunk and dragged his fingers along the frame.

“I know you like stroking wood, but this is a little ridiculous.”

Elijah looked over his shoulder. “You’re an idiot.”

“I know, right.” Chase leaned against the doorframe. “What are you doing in here?”

“Remembering.” Elijah pressed his palm flat against the broad side separating the two mattresses and sighed. “This was where I stayed when I first came to the CW. There was a lady named Marilyn . . . a staff member. She kept apologizing for putting me in a ‘youth bunk’ as she called it, but said it was the only thing available. I laughed because she was obviously just being polite. I’m a short bastard.”

“Sure as fuck are.” Chase pushed away from the doorframe and strolled over to Elijah. “So . . . good memories of this shitty room?”

“It’s not that bad. And yes. After running from home with hardly anything, hitching to New York, and homelessness . . . this place was legit a haven for me. I felt so protected. Being surrounded by people who understand you after a lifetime of feeling like an outsider is pretty fucking powerful.”

“No doubt.”

Elijah breathed in deeply, briefly closing his eyes, like he wanted to memorize everything about the room. Chase didn’t pretend to understand nostalgia. The only thing he was nostalgic about was the first time he’d fucked Elijah in the storage room at Evo.

“Do you want to know how the big sit-down went or are you going to keep massaging that bunk bed?”

Elijah opened his eyes and punched Chase’s shoulder. “You don’t think I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t already know it ended on a positive note?”

“I dunno how your mind works.” Chase dodged before he could get punched again, and smiled. “Although it seems like the precog bits in that brain of yours are a little more active than usual.”

“They are.” Elijah bent to crawl into the lower bunk. He grabbed Chase’s pant leg and tugged until Chase joined him in the narrow twin bed. “Maybe it’s . . . our connection to each other? Kind of like how your telekinesis works more when it comes to me?”

“Or maybe it’s just because you’ve been in hella life-or-death situations instead of just drumming on a stage or shaking your ass behind a bar,” Chase suggested.

Elijah turned onto his side, scrunching up his face. They were so close their lips were practically brushing. “You’re such a jerk. Continuously ruining good moments after teasing me with your declarations and sweetness.”

Chase snorted. “That’s how you know shit is gonna be okay. I’m back to normal. Can you deal?”

“Uh, yeah, pretty sure. Considering I fell for your normal long before you told me you loved me.” Elijah gave him an arch look, then kissed him. “Now tell me everything.”

“I threatened to broadcast all my memories to the Community if they try to play games. Of course they weren’t thrilled with it, but they went along with the plan to split the board seven ways with everyone having an equal say in decisions.”

Elijah nodded slowly. “And did you . . . make it clear that we want to be left out of it? Forever?”

“Fuck yes, I did. Well . . .” Chase lifted his hand to make a seesaw motion. “I also said we’d be in contact with Holden and Lia.”

“We will. It’s not like we’re disappearing from the face of the earth. We’re just going to California.”

“Right.” Chase studied Elijah’s face, the soft smile and glimmer in those rich brown eyes. How at ease he looked even after the last several hours, days, weeks, fuck—months, of horror. “So, the thing is . . .”

Elijah raised a brow. “There’s a thing?”

“Yeah. The thing is, my psychic bits have been all jacked up since I started making shit crumble. I need you to tell me this is all gonna be okay.”

“This what? As in the Community, or us? Because . . .” Elijah’s gaze flickered, his lips pursing. “I can’t see far enough to know the details about the Comm or how that will all play out.”

“All right, well, fuck—what do you see?”

Elijah grabbed his hands and squeezed. “Try to look for yourself.”

Chase hesitated, not wanting to struggle and fail when all he wanted was reassurance, but Elijah’s nod was enough of a nudge. He closed his eyes and opened a channel between them, sliding into Elijah’s mind far more easily than he’d expected. He was immediately awash in Elijah’s fondness, and Chase found himself drawing the physical part of Elijah closer even as he wandered the landscape of his mind.

Once they were wrapped up in each other, the visions hit Chase.

“What do you think?” Elijah asked, standing outside of a small bungalow. It was painted gray and the yard was overrun with grass and trees. “Too small?”

“Fuck small. It’s too expensive.” Chase kicked open the small metal gate. “Uh, it also looks abandoned.”

“Yeah, that’s why it’s so cheap. Pretty sure the owner, like, died here.”

Chase snorted. “Right up our fucking alley.”

Elijah grabbed his hand, snickering, and dragged him to the door. “Shut up. I was just joking.”

Chase leaned against the counter at a tattoo shop, his white-blond hair grown out to his collar as he held open a wide book. On the other side of the counter stood Nate and Trent.

“Would you judge me if I got a tribal tattoo?” Nate asked.

Trent smirked. “No, but I might have to break up with you.”

Nate kicked him, and Chase laughed.

Elijah stood on the edge of a chair, hanging white circular lights around a bar in a kitchen. The chair teetered, and Chase rushed in to steady him.

“What the fuck are you doing?”

“Making the place pretty. It’s been over a year, and—”

“And it won’t hurt to be unpretty a little longer? If you’re trying to make the place look fancy for Holden and Six, don’t bother. They don’t give a shit.” Chase smacked his ass. “Be careful or I’ll beat you.”

“They won’t care, but your mom is coming over with your brothers, and I can’t have her knowing we’ve still failed to decorate.” Elijah finished hanging the lights and hopped down. “I’m done, so now you can spank me for real.”

Their entire ragtag group loitered in the lobby of Nate’s new tarot reading shop and eavesdropped on his sessions. Six loudly pointing out the lack of logic behind card readings, and Holden laughing so hard his eyes teared.

Elijah discussing buying the property next door, and having them all invest in a psychic-themed bar. The West Coast version of Evo.

Chase and Elijah were lying on the beach at dusk, holding each other and watching the sun set. Chase looked at Elijah, tracing the details of his profile before kissing the corner of his jaw.

“I love you.”

Chase opened his eyes to the sound of Elijah murmuring “I love you too” in his ear.

“Was—” Chase dug his fingers into Elijah, almost too terrified to hope but too hopeful not to ask. “Was that real? All of it?”

“All of it,” Elijah whispered. “Isn’t it . . . almost scary? Like, what if we saw how happy we could be and something happens to fuck it—”

Chase silenced him by pressing their lips together. He wrung every ounce of positivity and optimism from the hard casing of all his protective armor, and poured it into the kiss. A kiss that left his heart throbbing and his body tingling with hope he’d never dared have before. In a lifetime of nightmares, Elijah had always been his light. And now, it seemed that would be the case . . . forever.

“Don’t doubt it,” Chase said hoarsely, once they’d parted. “Just believe.”

Elijah released a shaky sigh. “That it’s true?”

Chase nodded. “And that we’ll be okay. All of us.”

They looked at each other a heartbeat longer, wrapped in each other’s arms, and smiled.

They would be okay.

Explore more of The Community series: riptidepublishing.com/titles/series/community

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There are so many people to thank for supporting me while I wrote this book and, honestly, the entire series. I’m always afraid of leaving someone out, so I’ll say this—I thank everyone who beta’d, who supported me when I had doubts, who pushed me when I was blocked, and who held my hand while I was penning this novel.

I wrote Sightlines during a time of great duress in this country and in my personal life, and it wasn’t easy. It was only the friends I’ve made in Romancelandia who helped get me through it, and who reassured me that I could keep writing despite everything else that was going on.

Lastly, I’d also like to thank my readers for going on this ride with me (special shout-out to my patrons: Leslie, Candie, Robyn, Jules, Flore, Jeanine, Kristie, Stacey, Matthew, Pixie, Shirlene, Christina, LaCresha, Mirjana, and Sandy!). I hope this was a satisfying conclusion to this trilogy (no further plans to write more so far, but I always explore characters further in shorts on Patreon or in discussions in Get Hasselled—my Facebook group!), and that watching our band of unlikely heroes defeat their Big Bad gave a little bit of hope that one day we can all do the same.

After Midnight

Stygian

The Five Boroughs series

Sutphin Boulevard

Sunset Park

First and First

Interborough

Concourse

Citywide (coming soon)

The Community Series

Insight

Oversight

The Barons

Illegal Contact

Down by Contact

Cyberlove series, with Megan Erickson

Strong Signal

Fast Connection

Hard Wired

Mature Content

Santino Hassell was raised by a conservative family but grew up to be a smart-mouthed, school-cutting grunge kid, a transient twentysomething, and eventually transformed into a grumpy introvert and unlikely romance author with an affinity for baseball caps. His novels are heavily influenced by the gritty, urban landscape of New York City, and his desire to write relationships fueled by intensity and passion.

He’s been a finalist in both the Bisexual Book Awards and the EPIC Awards, and was nominated for a prestigious RITA award in 2017. His work has been featured in BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, Washington Post, RT magazine, and Cosmopolitan magazine.

You can find him at santinohassell.com, in his reader group on Facebook—Get Hasselled, on Patreon, and on Twitter as @santinohassell.

Enjoy more stories like Sightlines at RiptidePublishing.com!

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www.riptidepublishing.com/titles/rogue-magic

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www.riptidepublishing.com/titles/murder-once-seen

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