Balanced Chaos (The Void Series Book 3) Read online

  A calming wash of emotion spread across her, so overwhelming it could only be from one source. Sam opened her eyes and stared at Amber. Her friend gave her a wide smile—one she could not return.

  Am I really so broken that my best friend has to battle my panic for me?

  “You look fine now?” Jason said, oblivious to the silent exchange taking place between the two women.

  Sam swallowed the emotions playing out inside her. “Yeah. Werner here brilliantly got Jeffery, the vampire, to come in and attack me. We duked it out. I nearly killed him before they could stop me. But the end result is my wounds are all healed.”

  “Good for you, Corporeal,” said Amber with a smile.

  Sam turned to her friend again, amazed that Amber would agree with resorting to a violent attack.

  “What?” asked Amber. “You needed healing, and if Jeffery was offering you his healing abilities, you should have taken it in the first place so that they didn’t have to resort to attacking you. Like you, Sam, I have a gift that overwhelms me sometimes, but we can’t shut them out. It’s a lot worse when we try.”

  Sam ground her teeth together, annoyed with Amber specifically and the whole world in general. She was tired of being preached to, and tired of being wrong. She glanced at Werner, who, wisely, had chosen to stare at the floor.

  “As to the fae who attacked you,” interjected Jason, “you have to accept the pain, set it aside, and take the power, just as you do with any other fae gift.”

  “But I can’t. I can’t do anything because of the pain.”

  “It’s just pain. It’s just a state of mind. Like every other fae, you can beat this one, too,” Jason said. “We’ll work on it when you come for your first lesson. Unless you can stay for one now.”

  “I’m afraid not. We have to stake out the docks.”

  “Do I even want to know?” asked Amber.

  Sam rolled her eyes. “This doesn’t leave the room, but Mrs. Newberry is being poisoned. We believe those doing it will be at the docks tonight.”

  “Poisoned?” asked Jason.

  “Yeah and her dick husband wasn’t making sure her gift was being fed.”

  “Has she been fed since you found out?” asked Amber.

  “Yeah. I made sure she was fed,” Sam replied, willing herself not to look at Werner.

  “Not with Chad!” explained Amber.

  “No! Not with Chad!”

  “Ooooh…” said Amber, trailing off as she put two and two together, her eyes flicking to Werner.

  “Do I even want to know?” asked Jason.

  “No, sweetie,” said Amber, going over to her boyfriend and perching on his knee.

  “When’s the last time you checked on Mrs. Newberry?” Jason asked, moving the conversation along.

  “Last night.”

  “Oh, good,” said Jason.

  Amber pursed her lips. “Probably need to go see her again before you head to the docks.”

  Sam glared at her friend, seeing through the suggestion. “I think she’ll be okay until tomorrow.”

  Sam wasn’t completely sure, but she needed time to find someone else to take with her.

  “Look, Sam,” began Amber, “as another member of the Értelem Clan, I’m telling you to check on her again tonight, especially if she’s had another dose of poison since you last saw her—and that you can’t be sure of.”

  Sam ground her teeth together.

  “She’s got a point,” said Jason, turning back to his herbs and trying to work around Amber’s body. “You should probably go check on her.”

  Sam let out a long, exasperated sigh. “Fine. Let’s get going, Corporal.”

  They stepped outside and headed toward the Newberry’s.

  In the long hallway of the apartment complex, they waited outside the Newberry’s apartment. Sam knocked a second time and waited. No one answered.

  “They out?” Werner asked.

  “Probably,” Sam said, taking ahold of the handle and turning it.

  “Not locked?”

  “We don’t have locks on our doors here. Not allowed to have locks in case FMB wants to inspect.”

  They slipped in and quickly realized Chad and his father were, in fact, not home. Sam stopped outside Mrs. Newberry’s room and gently tapped on the door before cracking it open. Mrs. Newberry was lying in her bed, still buried under her pile of blankets. If anything, she looked worse than the day before. Sam frowned as she pushed into the room followed by Werner.

  She knelt beside the bed and checked Mrs. Newberry’s pulse, letting out a soft sigh of relief.

  “Alive, but barely,” she whispered, afraid to wake her.

  Werner didn’t respond at first. “Do we need to get going to the docks?” he asked after a long moment.

  Sam scrunched up her face, keeping it turned away from his knowing gaze. Finally she replied, “We need to feed her first.”

  “Oh.”

  As Sam rose to her feet, she heard the recognizable sound of Werner unzipping his heavy Kevlar vest and setting it on the floor against the door. Sam went to him, tilting her face up to his to receive his kiss, but his tilted his head away to kiss her cheek.

  Werner trailed a line a kisses down her neck to her right shoulder and across to the left, just along the collar of her tank top. Sam ducked her head, trying to catch his lips, but again he avoided her, locking his lips around the lobe of her ear.

  She felt her stomach give a little flip of excitement and pressed herself against his chest, wrapping her arms around his neck. Let him play his games. I’ll get his lips eventually!

  When he had finished running his tongue up along the edge of ear, she tried again, but he went back to her neck, one hand firmly gripping the back of her head to keep control of her.

  “What are you doing?” she growled, her frustration getting the best of her.

  “Giving Mrs. Newberry the sexual energy she needs to fight the poison,” he said between kisses to her chest over the top of her shirt.

  To Sam’s annoyance, the pressure on her breasts sent a new wave of arousal that she would never have admitted to the human in her arms.

  “That won’t work if you won’t kiss me.”

  Werner looked up at her before rolling his eyes over to the unconscious woman in the bed. “Really? Her color already seems better.”

  “You can’t have sexual energy without kissing,” said Sam stubbornly.

  “Watch me.”

  Werner picked her up suddenly before carefully lowering them both to the floor. He lifted her tank top and left another trail of fiery kisses across her abdomen, stopping just before the bottom of her breasts, as though to torment her, while one hand slipped under the small of her back. The callouses of his work-roughened hand teased her smooth skin. She wanted to feel his hands all over her heated flesh.

  “Why won’t you kiss me?” she asked as his whisper-soft kisses moved back to the low neckline of her shirt.

  He stopped his work for a moment to look into her eyes, one hand resting just above her head, the fingers playing with her hair. “Samantha, I won’t kiss you again until you ask me to, and not because Mrs. Newberry needs a boost, but because you realize you like me as much as I like you. And when that day comes, I will kiss you with all the passion you can handle.”

  Sam swallowed the sudden lump in her throat, causing the soldier poised above her to smile before he went back to feathering his lips over her flushed skin. Sam felt her heart race inside her chest.

  He doesn’t mean it, her obstinate, heartbroken brain told her as panic settled in. Fae don’t love me. No one has ever truly care enough to hold back like this. Why would a human?

  Sam reached between them, working to undo the belt strapped to his hips.

  “Sam,” he growled as he grabbed both of her wrists in his large hand. “What are you doing?”

  “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” she asked, blinking as moisture threatened to ruin her façade.

  “No, Sa
m.”

  Werner rolled off of her, flopping onto the floor and heaving a sigh of frustration. After a brief moment, he sat up and glanced at Mrs. Newberry.

  “She’s still asleep but she looks better. Let’s get to the docks. We can come back after the stake out and see how she’s doing.”

  Werner jumped to his feet and grabbed his vest.

  Sam watched him from the floor, amazed at his sudden refusal. What just happened? Did he really just refuse sex?

  Sam blinked away her traitor-tears. She’d told herself time and again that sex wasn’t worth it. Oh, she’d had sex before, but after the rejection of her people, and then the rejection of Chad—her one sexual partner—she had decided it just wasn’t worth it. Now, to finally offer it again only to be spurned, Sam was reminded why she had made her vow of abstinence.

  “Yeah, good idea.”

  She climbed to her feet and followed him out.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sam sat in the second-story window of the paper mill while Corporal Werner paced behind her. They had been waiting for at least an hour, and still had an hour to go before they could hope to see their prey, giving Sam plenty of time to think. Like most of their ventures into the reservation, she had sensed yet more of Roman’s strange little magical land mines—or whatever they were.

  In fact, there was one in the paper mill.

  Without wandering around, Sam couldn’t pinpoint it, but she suspected it was somewhere near the back corner—in other words, near the wall of the reservation. Thus far, Sam had not allowed herself the luxury of thinking on the various places her friend had left his little surprises. Now, though, as she had nothing better to do, she couldn’t help but think on their locations. Each and every one of them had been near the enormous wall that surrounded the reservation.

  What are you doing, Roman? her frightened mind whispered.

  She was afraid to deduce the answer to her own question, for fear that it might be something extremely illegal, or worse yet, violent. She tried to tell herself that Roman wouldn’t do anything violent but, though he had saved her from Heywood, Sam had to admit she didn’t really know where Roman’s ethical compass pointed. She couldn’t convince herself Roman wouldn’t do some sort of act of terrorism against those who held the mystics captive, or worse yet, those who allowed themselves to live in submissions to the humans.

  “Remind me again while we came so early,” grumbled the corporal, drawing Sam out of her depressing thoughts.

  “Patience not your thing?”

  “Never was.”

  Finally, he came and sat on an overturned bucket. “So, tell me about this Heywood guy Jeffery kept mentioning.”

  Sam pulled her eyes away from the docks spread out below them and stared at Werner, her pulse thumping in her ears. “No,” was all she could drag out of her constricted throat.

  Werner frowned at her before nodding slowly. “Okay. If you don’t want to. What about the massacre? When we first met Jeffery he said you fought like ten guys all at once. What was that like?”

  He crossed his arms and leaned against the wall, a grin spreading across his features as though he was settling back for a good story.

  Sam felt her habitual panic spread over her like a constricting straight-jacket—and there was no Amber to comfort her.

  “It was bloody,” she finally said in answer to Werner’s question.

  “That’s it? Bloody?”

  Sam finally turned so that Werner could see her face in the dim light washing in through the dirty window.

  “Oh shit, Sam. I’m an idiot. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”

  Werner reached out to grip her arm, but she pulled back.

  “Sam, you don’t have to, but it might be the best thing for you… to talk about it, that is. Get it off your chest.”

  “Let it go, Werner.”

  He nodded and slouched back, giving her space.

  “Why don’t you ask me some questions, then,” he suggested after a long pause.

  “What would I possibly want to know about you?”

  “Ever heard the saying: ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say nothin’ at all’?”

  “Where’d you hear that?”

  “Bambi.”

  “What’s Bambee?”

  Werner just stared at her. “The movie. With the deer… they shoot Bambi’s mom.”

  Sam just rolled her eyes. “You forget we don’t exactly get the latest blockbusters, but it doesn’t exactly sound like one I’d want to see.”

  Werner climbed to his feet and stomped a few feet away before turning back. “It’s not a ‘latest blockbuster’. It came out in like the 1940s or something. It’s an animated movie.”

  “Whatever.”

  They both remained silent for a long time. Sam tried to let her thoughts wander, but they continued to come back to Werner.

  “Sam?”

  “What?”

  The corporal sat back down on his bucket and took her hands in his, holding onto them even when she tried to pull away.

  “I get that you’ve had nearly everyone in your life stab you in the back. And I get that we’ve known each other for all of two days, so you have no reason to put your faith in me, but I am not your doormat. You can get pissed at me. We all get pissed at our friends, cause all our friends do and say stupid stuff sometimes… but that is no excuse for turning around and hurting them.”

  Sam opened her mouth to bite back.

  “No, Sam, I’m not finished. I am your friend. I’m here through the thick and the thin. You can keep pushing me away, but I’m still going to be here.

  “But that doesn’t give you the right to treat me like trash. You’ve let that stupid lie of Jeffery’s eat away at you until you don’t know your friends from your enemies. Well, I am here to tell you the truth. I care for you. I mean I really care for you… in a way I have no business doing.

  “I asked you about the massacre and about Heywood because I want to take those burdens from you. You shouldn’t have to carry them alone. But you don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to, if you don’t trust me enough to share your secrets yet. When you do, I’m here to listen. Okay?”

  Sam felt pressure building behind her eyes, but she refused to cry at his speech. If she cried, she would end up in his lap, cradled in his arms, completely oblivious to their task at hand. No matter how much she wanted to be there, tucked into his security, she had to focus on getting the job done. She had to save Mrs. Newberry. No one else could die on her watch—like all those during the massacre.

  More pressure built in her chest as a panic attack threatened to overtake her.

  “May I talk now?” she asked, forcing the sound past her constricted throat.

  Werner nodded.

  “We need to be watching the dock.”

  Sam turned and focused on the small wash of light shining down on the tugboat bobbing next to the dock. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Werner stare at her for a long moment before rising to his feet and pacing away. She had offended him, maybe even hurt him, but she wasn’t ready to break down into his arms. She couldn’t afford to be the damsel today. Maybe, just maybe, when Mrs. Newberry was well, she would go to him and finally ask for that kiss, but not until she was in control. Not until she didn’t feel as though she was drowning in the chaos.

  They both stayed silent for a long, agonizing hour. Finally, Sam found something in the landscape before them to talk about.

  “What’s that?” she asked, pointing toward a tower protruding above the structures of the docks near where they had been attacked the night before.

  “That’s a guard tower, or will be in another twenty-four hours.”

  “What? They’re adding guard towers within the wall perimeters?”

  “After last night’s battle they are.”

  “And then what?”

  “What do you mean?” Werner asked, taking his seat again.

  “What will they do from tho
se towers? Shoot the residents for any misdemeanor? Will there be blood in the streets every Tuesday?”

  Sam felt the muscles in her shoulders tighten. What had she done? Her fight had caused this? Was the colonel going to tighten security every time the mystics got into a scuffle? Which was worse—the FMB who never got off their asses, or the National Guard who panicked at the slightest hiccup?

  Werner chuckled to himself. “No. I suggested to the lieutenant colonel that we start arming the guards with tranquilizers. He liked the idea. It should only be another thirty-six to forty-eight hours before all the guards are armed with tranqs.”

  “Oh.” Sam frowned down at her hands. “Where did you get that idea?”

  “Well, from those two fae I shot who just sloughed it off like it was nothing. I realized we have to have some alternative. Then I got thinking, we need an alternative anyway. The guards can’t just jump straight to shooting the residents because we’re afraid of their powers, and I have a feeling that will starting happening if too many more fights break out. So, when I woke up before you, I met with Gallagher. I was just coming back from my meeting with him when I found you so hurt.”

  “And then you decided to have Jeffery attack me,” growled Sam.

  Werner let out a long sigh. “I’m not going to apologize for that, Sam. I stand by that choice. You can be pissed about it all you want. I am sorry, though, that you feel I betrayed you. And I am sorry that Jeffery resorted to lying to you, especially about me and our friendship. I’m sorry your feelings got hurt in the process. But you needed to be healed and you are a stubborn ass sometimes. We had no other way to get you healed other than to trick you. Had you just been…”

  “All right!” snapped Sam. “I get it!”

  “Do you?”

  Sam continued to stare out the murky window.

  “Sam, I need to know if you really understand why I…”

  She held up her hand. “We have movement.”

  Werner turned to look through the small clear spot they had made with a cloth. Sure enough, two men were walking down the bouncing dock, casually glancing over their shoulders.