Page 70 of Talk to Me

My sugar bear laughed and it pissed me off even more that Locke had gotten her to make that sound.

“Food,” Remington said abruptly as he rose. “You need to eat and then brief us on the ones who took you.”

“I—” She started but the assassin didn’t pause to let her deflect or distract.

“You needed extraction. That has been achieved. Now that you’re safe, we require that you remain secure. That is our next objective. While I’m sure the three of us could figure it out on our own, it will proceed far more swiftly with you directing us.” He fixed her with a look.

While she turned neither mutinous nor agreeable, I didn’t think she’d conceded the fight yet. That was fine. I liked Sugar Bear with teeth.

“We’ll eat first,” Remington continued as though they hadn’t just had some silent argument. “Because you need nutrition and to heal. Then we need a list of targets, tactical information, and threat assessment.”

Just like that, he pivoted on his heel and strode to the kitchen. If I hadn’t seen him stitching up a long slice along his ribs while she’d still been sleeping, I wouldn’t have known.

I didn’t think Locke knew, he’d been in the shower at the time. Somewhere during our excursion, Remington had been shot, but he didn’t mention it or bring it up. He barely even moved like it bothered him.

Which was fine, I’d been shot plenty of times. Hurt like a bitch, but when the fight was still on, you didn’t have time to fuck around. Of the four of us, Patch was in the worst shape. We were all capable of carrying her as needed. Hell, she didn’t even have to point a gun.

What we couldn’t do was replicate her mind or her thought processes. That—we would need from her.

“I don’t know that I’m ready to talk about it,” Patch admitted finally and it pulled my attention back to her. “I know what you need to know…”

“Then we keep it to a mission briefing,” I told her. “It can be hard to divorce yourself when you were the one who suffered. We just need names.”

I’d considered adding more to the list, but no, we really just needed names. We could figure out the why and the where later. The who—that was important.

Who they were. Then next would come the how.

How we would eliminate the threats.

The faintest of frowns tightened her brow and she looked from me, to Locke, then toward Remington in the kitchen then back to me.

Yes, Sugar Bear, you have three loaded weapons right here.

Just point us in the right direction.

Or any direction you want us to go.

Chapter

Twenty-Two

PATCH

The coffee tasted divine. Dark and bitter, yet smooth and warm. It was, quite possibly, the kindest thing I’d tasted in far too long. I still hadn’t quite figured out how long I’d been missing. Their check-in dates didn’t all line up with the last date I remembered.

Trauma was not always a friend to memory. It could burn some into the psyche so deep that a touch or a smell could set it off. At the same time, it could blur them until the edges melted away and everything ran together.

I really couldn’t decide which of the pair was more disturbing. The fact I could recall some of the tortures in high definition with almost crystal clarity, had me shying away from focusing on them too much.

At the same time…

“Fallon,” Locke said and I jerked, snapping my attention to the room. Sound rushed back in like I’d been tuning out.

“What did you call me?”

Dipping his chin, Locke gave me a small smile without an ounce of his normally cockier attitude. “Fallon. Your name.”

“It’s been a long time since anyone called me that.” The sound of my name on his lips was unsettling as hell. “A very long time.”