Two Can Play (Entangled Ignite) (21 page)

Be strong
, she told herself. What had Maya said?
You’re beyond that weak female nonsense
. She was. Definitely. Cassie had taken charge of her fears and so would Rena.
You’re Astra, remember?

If she wanted to survive the challenges ahead, she didn’t dare forget.

Chapter Thirteen

Rena woke to someone banging on her hotel room door. She squinted at her clock. One a.m. Foggy, she stumbled to the peephole and saw Gage swaying in the hall outside her room. What the hell?

When she opened the door, he staggered in, wet and muddy, one fist gripping the neck of a half-gone quart of whiskey, reeking of the dark brew. “Lounge locked me out,” he slurred. “Too wet to sleep outside.”

“You blew Lounge curfew? What were you doing out so late?”

He held up the Jack Daniel’s. “Celebrating.” But his eyes flashed with pain, then went empty. He’d driven his bike drunk in the rain? It was a miracle he hadn’t been killed.

“What the hell happened?”

“Jus’…drunk. Need…sleep.” He said each word distinctly, clearly fighting not to slur, then flopped face-first onto her bed, letting the bottle clunk to the floor, its contents sloshing like a brown ocean.

Gage had come to her for
comfort
. The reason had to be the star-filled night they’d spent together. She’d made him feel safe, too, she realized, and it made her glad in a deep-down, secret place.

The bed was small, but they’d both fit. Besides, the sad little sofa was useless for sleeping. She had to get him out of his clothes before he filled the bed with wet grit. She tugged off his boots, peeled back his jacket, and somehow managed his belt and jeans, pushing away his fumbling fingers, which were trying to help, but were just annoying her.

She laid his jeans over a chair to dry, but when she lifted his jacket from the floor, a stapled stack of paper fell to the floor. She picked it up. “File Copy, Do Not Remove” was plastered across the top page of what seemed to be a report from the Phoenix NiGo Health Center.

A chill prickled through her, soles to scalp. What was Gage doing with health center records stuffed in his jacket? Had he stolen them? And why?

There was no legit reason for him to even go to the clinic, let alone steal records, and had he been carrying them around since they left town? She sank onto a chair, struggling to breathe. Gage was up to something, as she’d sensed all along. He’d snooped through her computer, she remembered, with some excuse about checking her sex partners. Now she saw that had been a lie.
Don’t be so naive.
Cassie had accused her of that. Maybe she’d been right.

What was he after? She’d wondered that from the day he arrived.

She made herself stay calm and plan her next steps. First, she had to find out what else he had. His outside jacket pocket held a Baggie with the kind of junk you’d find in the bottom of a purse. The inside pocket had a notepad with pages of weird letters and a Polaroid shot of Rena and Cassie. Where had he gotten this?

In his jeans pockets, she found his cell phone and wallet with his Lifer ID, driver’s license, a credit card, an insurance card, a beat-up snapshot of two teenagers in swimsuits, and some cash.

On his phone, she checked recent calls and found a couple of Seattle numbers. That was it for clues. Now she needed them explained. Holding the report, she shook him hard. “Wake up! Now.”

Gage moaned and shifted in the bed.

She yelled in his ear, “Get the hell up!”

“Wha…?” He rolled over and rose to an elbow, blinking hard.

She shoved the health center pages under his nose. “What the hell are these?”

He ran a hand over his face and widened his eyes as if to clear them. “I wish to hell I knew,” he finally said, falling back onto the pillow.

“You stole these from the health center? Why?”

“Not me. My sister did.” He sounded exhausted.

“Your sister? What the hell are you talking about?”

She watched him struggle up to sit on the edge of the bed, then to shake off the booze like a dog shrugging water from its coat. “Okay,” he finally said. “This will shock the shit…out of you…but it’s…all…true.” He was spacing the words, still trying to control the slurring. “You might as well know now…”

“Just say it,” she snapped, exasperated.

“Sit down, would you?” He reached up, as if to pull her to the bed beside him, but she grabbed a straight chair and sat, needing distance from him. “What’s going on, Gage?”

“The girl I was looking for…L.E. She’s my sister.” He swallowed.

“Your sister?”

“Yeah. Beth. That’s her name most…of the time… I got the job because of her…to find her. I saw her status tattoo…and figured out she worked here. I saw that story, see. Anyway…”

“So you became a Lifer to look for your sister?” This was too bizarre.

“I found out where she’d gone. Here. Seattle.” He took a slow breath and seemed to fight the fog in his head. “So I came up to find her.”

“So all that about liking Seattle was a scam?” She felt like a fool for believing anything he’d ever said to her.

“I found her, Rena.” Now his eyes cleared to a white-hot burn. “She’s dead. I saw her body. They killed her.”

“They? Who?”

“NiGo. Exactly who and exactly why I don’t know yet. It had to do with questions she asked… Her boyfriend was sick… Dead now, too…murdered like her maybe.” He ran his fingers through his hair, shook his head, blinked again. “Beth had a…trust fund. Maybe she refused to…give them the money, but they made her somehow…and then killed her… I don’t know.” He waved a hand in the air, loose from the booze.

“You think NiGo killed your sister for her money? That’s insane.”

“See for yourself.” He patted his thigh, then seemed to notice he was in his boxers. “You got my phone?” He nodded at the table where she’d put it and his other things. She gave it to him. Blinking to clear his vision, he pushed buttons, then held out the open phone, his hand unsteady. She saw a dim shot of a dead girl on a table, face waxy, eyes closed, a sheet up to her collarbone.

“She could be anyone.” But the sight stunned her, made her feel queasy and frightened.

“It’s Beth. Believe me. My only picture is from when we were kids.” She remembered the bleached-out photo in his wallet. He took back the phone and clicked to another shot of her bare shoulder. “Status tat. See?”

“Not really.” The slight shadow could be anything.

“It’s there. I saw it. Now look at this.” He showed her a picture of an arm with a streaked bruise. “That’s a needle mark. Beth hated needles. They wanted it to look like an OD… The mortuary tech saw no…um…signs of…addiction.”

“A needle mark? That’s evidence of murder?”

“Her boyfriend got kicked out… Beth took off, too. A bartender—Ruben—knew her. He says Watchers chased her. I think it was for her money.”

His words came more steadily now, as if adrenaline had kicked him from his whiskey stupor. “They drove the boyfriend to a homeless shelter like they did with Cassie. He was sick and drinking too much like Cassie, too. Beth thought the tattoo inks poisoned him, so she took him to a clinic and—”

“Wait a minute. What do you mean like Cassie? How do you know where Cassie went?”

“I asked at the van office and went to see her.”

“Why would you do that?”

“To find out what she knew. She was in accounting. I thought she’d know if Beth gave NiGo money. She told me NiGo is blackmailing gamers for big bucks.”

“You did all this behind my back?” He’d hunted Cassie, asked her questions, all while lying to Rena about wanting to be a Lifer. She shook her head. “I knew about the blackmail,” she said. “Maya told me they fired the employee responsible. Cassie took money not to talk about it. That was really why she was evicted.” Her voice faltered as she finished.

“That’s horseshit. Cassie never took a dime,” Gage said. “You can ask her yourself. Come with me to see her when we get back.”

“I can’t see her and neither can you. She’s in rehab. Maya just told me.”

“Maya told you? Maya tells a lot of…
stories
. Twisted stories…to control you. No way Cassie went to rehab…on Maya’s say-so. She despises her. Ask Cassie yourself.”

“Addicts lie,” she said faintly.

“She was sick, you know, and she went to the health center… Said she felt like slivers of glass were slicing her veins.” He took a breath, shook his head as if to clear it once and for all. “Beth’s boyfriend described it as burning blood. Your precious health center wouldn’t treat either of them and the next thing you know they’re out on their asses as Lost Lives.”

“What you’re saying is crazy.”

“Not as crazy as what NiGo has done to you and to Beth and to Cassie and every other Lifer. Your precious Blackstones have tricked you, used you, addicted you to Electrique and brainwashed you so you believe whatever they tell you.”

She slapped him so hard his head rocked back, but he didn’t falter.

“It’s true. Who knows how many Lifers they’ve killed—with poisoned tattoo ink or injected drugs or who knows what? NiGo is evil.”

This time she used her fist. Gage was spewing bile over all she loved in the world. He blocked the punch, but she kept at him, too furious to land a decent blow. “Get out before I call the police,” she hissed.

“Hear me out, Rena,” he said, grabbing her wrists.

She wrenched away, going for the bedside phone to call security.

Gage lunged and knocked it from her hand. She scrambled after it, but he caught her legs and yanked her beneath him. “Listen to me. You owe me that much.” His eyes were desperate and he was breathing hard.

“I owe you nothing. Every word you’ve said is a lie.” She fought, but he bore down on her.

“You feel betrayed, I know. I told you all the truth I dared.”

“Bullshit.”

“They’re using you, Rena. They use all the Lifers for what they can get. They took the thirty grand I set aside for Beth and they wanted her trust fund when she came of age. She signed over the money the day she turned twenty-one and they killed her that very day.”

“You’re making that up.” The idea was horrifying. She could hear the twisted logic in his story, but he was the one who’d twisted it, not Maya or NiGo.

“I can prove it about the trust fund. For the rest, I need time to investigate. If you love the Life, help me find out the truth about it.”

“I know the truth. Let me go.”

He stared down at her, his eyes red with fire, his breath hot whiskey. “Help me investigate. If the Life is right, we’ll both be sure. Cassie said that if you knew someone was hurting the Life you’d want to know, to fix it. I believe that, too. You’re a good person. You have honor.”

She gritted her teeth, furious, dying for a chance to escape, to hurt him, to get him thrown in jail.

“Trust me, Rena.” His voice went soft. “Trust yourself. Trust what happened between us. That was real, that night together. Trust that.”

She spat at him.

He didn’t react, didn’t wipe his cheek, just kept his red eyes on her, glowing with hellfire, never letting go. “You know me, Rena.”

“I know you, all right. You’re a user and a prick.” Like all other users and pricks in the Dead World. Nigel and Naomi wouldn’t use her. She remembered Nigel’s loving words, how like him he’d said she was. She recalled how she’d pressed her palms against his temples to relieve his pain. And Maya was her friend, her sister, who’d saved her from death and booze. Naomi was the warm mother of her heart. Nigel evil? Naomi fake? Maya a liar?
No. No. No
.

Gage was piling shit on her home, on the people who loved her, the place she belonged. He was making it as hateful and ugly as the Dead World.

Her body became a knot of power. She lifted her knee into his belly at the same time she slammed her head into his chin.

Groaning, he fell away and she stumbled across the room, going for her purse and her cell phone. Gage hauled her back by one foot. She kicked with the other, connecting with his crotch, gratified when he groaned and released her, rolling into a ball of pain.

She pushed 911, ready to hit send, when Gage said, “Please, Rena. Before you throw me out, let me tell you all I know.”

She wanted to say no, she wanted to toss him out the window herself, but she needed to know the extent of his lies. She would listen to his story and then she would destroy him. “You have ten minutes,” she said. “Make it good.”

…

Ten minutes would have to be enough, Gage thought, rubbing his aching jaw, his balls mangled and burning. At least the whiskey cut the pain a bit. And if the assault had taken the edge off Rena’s fury so she could hear what he had to say, he’d happily limp for a month. He’d drunkenly blown his cover, now he had to make it work for him.

Rena was breathing hard, her face full of hate. He’d attacked what she held most dear. But she was smart and sturdy, with a strong sense of right and wrong. Once she stood on true ground, she’d make a good partner.

He’d start with her soft spot. “You don’t believe Cassie took a dime from the Life.” He caught an infinitesimal softening in her face. “She saw the accounts by accident when she got onto Thomas’s computer. NiGo’s taking money from perverts banned from
EverLife
.”

“Maya said they fired the person who did that.”

“I doubt that, but even if it’s true, Cassie did not take any money. She asked me to find out what’s wrong with the Life and fix it.”

Rena’s face didn’t change, but she seemed to be holding her breath.

“Leland didn’t turn Cassie in. I know that from talking to him. He seems like a decent guy. Maybe he’ll help us investigate. We need proof to take to the authorities. If we could talk to more Lost Lives, find out why they were fired, what they know. Some of them may have been killed, too.”

“Stop saying that shit or this conversation is over.”

He shook his head, fighting for a clear thought. “I know this is tough to take in.” He had to show her something more. He grabbed the pages from Beth’s locker. “Beth was onto something. She hid these in a locker and disguised the key as a necklace. She also kept a phone number and she left a message for me written on her skin.”

“For you? Come on.”

“It was my name in the code we used as kids.” He flipped open his phone to the photo of the scrawled writing on her arm. “It’s hard to see, but…” He held it out to her. “She knew she was dying and hoped the police would find me.” His throat squeezed tight. It hurt to picture her last desperate moments, the hope against hope Gage would get her message and find justice for her.