Among the Debris (Son of Rain #2) Read online

  MICHELLE IRWIN

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

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  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

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  ALSO BY MICHELLE IRWIN

  All Amity Allows (Fall for You #2)

  Through the Fire (Daughter of Fire #1)

  Rise from Ash (Daughter of Fire #2)

  CONTEMPORARY ROMANCE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  Copyright © 2015 by Michelle Irwin

  First Edition October 2015

  Second Edition October 2016

  Published in Australia

  Print ISBN: 978-0-9945337-8-4 and 978-1539645092

  Cover Artist: Desiree DeOrto Designs

  Cover content used for illustrative purposes only, and any person depicted is a model.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to an actual person, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. The following story is set in Australia and therefore has been written in US English. The spelling and usage reflect that.

  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, except where permitted by law. To request permission and for all other inquiries, contact:

  Michelle Irwin P O Box 671 MORAYFIELD QLD 4506 AUSTRALIA

  www.michelle-irwin.com

  [email protected]

  DEDICATION

  "Faith and doubt both are needed - not as antagonists, but working side by side to take us around the unknown curve."

  ~ Lillian Smith

  To everyone who has had faith in me and in my characters.

  To everyone who has played a part in bringing this book to life.

  Thank you all.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  “CLAY?” EVIE’S VOICE pulled me from my thoughts. I glanced over to her and saw concern buried beneath the lilac hue of her eyes. “You’ve barely eaten. Are you okay?”

  I couldn’t quite manage a smile, but I nodded to ease her worry. “I’m fine.”

  The words had become a force of habit. As much a lie now as every other time I’d uttered them. The truth was, my focus was on everything but our surroundings. It was busy trying to plan for an unknown future and obsessing over the events that had led us to a shitty bus stop somewhere in South Carolina.

  It had started with an unexpected reunion in Salem. Against all odds, Evie had found me. My family, my history, my very nature, all put her life at risk. Despite that, she had braved it all to be with me, and that alone made me willing to fight for what we had.

  We’d run from my family, again, and spent a few perfect days together after so many years of missteps and denial. Our peace had ended with the delivery of a newspaper to our hotel room. Encrypted within an ad on the front page was a note from my family: The meeting is over. You’ve had your fun. It’s time to bring your new bride home.

  The words ran on a constant loop through my head. The message was most likely from my father, although there was no way to be certain. I had no doubt it was missive—intended to be a call to arms to return to my family’s side. To return to continue to “fight the good fight” against the supernatural creatures that roamed the earth. To rejoin the Rain, the organization they belonged to—the same group I had once believed in and pledged my life to.

  Instead, I’d taken it as a warning to leave the hotel room before my family caught me with Evie, the phoenix I was in love with. The one who had opened my eyes and shown me the truth of the world and convinced me that not everything was black and white. Over and over, she had proven that some others could love. They could feel. They deserved life.

  One thing was clear, when they sent the note, my family had to have been unaware that Evie was the girl I had with me. If they had been privy to that information, it would have ended in a raid on the hotel room and not subtle hints and a coded message to return to their side.

  They would have destroyed her, and I would have been dragged back to Hell—to the Bayview Prison, the Rain’s New York headquarters—to be subjected to retraining.

  Again.

  A shudder ran down my spine with the thought of the nonstop torture I’d endured there after the last time my family had found me with Evie. For weeks, my life had been reduced to facing unspeakable beings and forced to perform horrendous acts. All in the name of forcing me back to their worldview and forging a new loyalty to the Rain. It had almost broken me completely, and I didn’t think I would survive another round.

  It was part of the reason Evie and I had been going nonstop for as long as we had. Twenty-six hours had passed since the encrypted message had been delivered to me via a daily newspaper. For almost twenty of those hours, the two of us had endured journeys were we were squeezed onto bus after bus to get as far away from Salem as we could.

  The one saving grace was the fact that I’d had my girl in my arms the whole time. Even now that we were sharing dry sandwiches in a dirty bus stop, I couldn’t regret the decision to run. Not even when she looked at me with such concern and worry. Then again, she was the only one did look

  Despite the certainty my family had been in the dark about Evie’s reappearance in my life initially, I had no doubt they now knew who I was with. Too much evidence existed for them not to have discovered the truth. After my failure to return to them when called, they would have investigated my movements and found out about Evie almost immediately. The security footage at both hotels would have been easy enough for them to retrieve.

  From there, the pieces would have fallen together for them.

  “Don’t look so worried,” Evie said, putting down her food as though my lack of appetite had infected her too. With a sad smile, she brushed her hand through my hair, pushing the brown strands back off my face. Her fingertips trailed my cheek, brushing under my eyes. Her gaze steadily stared into mine and she frowned. “Are you sure you’re all right? I know this can’t be easy.”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  When she looked like she was about to argue, I tried for a smile again. The thought that I was with her and that she was safe against all odds, made my lips curl upward in an easy arc. I could deal with being estranged from my family so long as those two things remained true.

  “I’m with you. That makes everything perfect,” I said with m
ore confidence in my voice. “Are you done?”

  When she nodded, I grabbed the remaining food and threw it out. It was a waste, and something we would have to be mindful of over the coming weeks and months—fuck, years even—but I couldn’t face taking the leftovers of the terrible meal with us.

  Returning to her side, I offered her my hand and wrapped her in my embrace. We walked a little distance away from the chairs and stood by a bank of lockers in the middle of the concourse.

  “Now what?” I asked.

  She shrugged.

  Lifting my hand, I tucked a few loose red-gold strands of her hair back under her cap. The unusual warmth of her skin kissed the pads of my fingertips as I brushed her forehead.

  Although the touch was innocent, it sent my blood rushing south.

  Only a week earlier, I’d been certain I’d never see her again. That the warmth granted by her nature would never radiate around me again.

  Her hair and her heat were two parts of her nature that drove my desires insane, but they were also the ones that endangered her life. The proof I should hate her—should want her dead—but also the reason I didn’t.

  They were the most obvious signs of her true nature to people like me. People who’d dedicated their life to the destruction of all nonhumans. To the Rain. The organization I’d removed myself from by choosing Evie.

  I didn’t regret my choice. How could I? I loved her. Maybe leaving my family, and the only life I’d ever really known, would prove that to her. It was the second time I’d risked everything for her, but this time I would make it stick. Dealing with the danger I brought to her world had been too much for me the first time I’d attempted a life with Evie. When it had cost her father his life, I couldn’t stay.

  Because I was weak, I had walked away to save her life.

  Things were different now though. I was different. Stronger. Able to protect her from the world.

  My certainty wasn’t just because of my increased physical strength but because I knew what life was like without her now, and I never wanted to face that again.

  She obviously saw my concerns etched in my expression, because she frowned.

  “We’ll be okay,” she reassured me.

  When I brushed my hand over her cheek, she closed her eyes and leaned against my palm. Unable to resist the urge to be close to her, I used my touch to guide her nearer to me. Her lips were waiting as I pressed mine against them. Her need to touch, to taste, seemingly as desperate my own.

  “I know,” I said as I pulled away. Resting my forehead against hers, I closed my eyes and took a moment to prove to myself that she was with me and she was safe. My breaths were deep, calming me as I drew on her strength. We needed to keep moving, but I wanted to stop and hold her for a moment first. I was like an addict desperate for one more fix.

  “I think I might freshen up a little,” she murmured, breaking the moment.

  “Okay, you go check if the restrooms have showers. Just don’t keep me waiting too long, okay?” Even though I didn’t want to let her out of my sight for a second, it was somewhat inevitable until we could find somewhere to settle down together. “I’ll check the timetable while you’re gone.”

  She offered me a smile and then cupped my jaw between her hands in order to guide my lips back to hers for a moment more. I wondered if the two-day growth I now sported bothered her. If it did, she didn’t say anything.

  It went against my need to keep her safe, but I watched her walk away without pacing urgently behind her. In the seconds before she pushed open the door, she spun back to glance at me one more time, offering me another reassuring smile. My heart clenched at the sight. She’d risked everything to follow my family and find me in Salem, and yet she still wanted to make me feel comfortable.

  I never wanted to make her regret her decision to find me.

  As soon as she disappeared, I paced back and forth in front of a set of lockers as the words my family had sent me played through my mind again.

  Spinning back around for another loop, I cast my eyes in the direction of the ladies’ room and wondered how long she might be in there. I needed a shower, a shave, and to freshen up myself, but I wouldn’t let her come back out to find me gone.

  “Clay?”

  I spun around when I heard my name called. When I did, I caught a glimpse of a familiar stocky redhead from my past walking toward me. The sight sent my stomach plummeting. Fuck.

  “Clay Jacobs, you son of a bitch, it is you!” The guy clapped me on the shoulder.

  “Max,” I said as I took in the grinning operative in front of me.

  “It’s been ages, hasn’t it? ’Bout a year, right? Not since that, God, what was it? Lizard man?”

  “Yeah,” I said, somewhat dismissively as I looked around, hoping that Evie wouldn’t choose that moment to return to my side.

  A frown tugged at Max’s brow as I met his green-eyed gaze again.

  “It, uh, it was a wild weekend, that’s for sure,” I added. From what I recalled, Max’s partner had gotten so drunk while we were waiting for the lizard man, he’d almost become a midnight snack. If my twin-sister, Louise, and I hadn’t all but tripped over his legs poking out of the swamp, he wouldn’t have lasted the night.

  “So, where’s the family?” Max asked. He raised his hand to scratch his cheek, showing me the M-shaped Rain symbol tattooed on the back of his hand, just behind his thumb.

  Every second I continued to speak to him was one second closer to the time Evie would join me at my side. Max wasn’t the sharpest tool in the Rain shed, but he was well enough trained to spot Evie for what she was in a second, especially with the increased chatter about the existence of such creatures in recent years.

  There was also a risk my family would have put out a notice to all Rain headquarters to pay special attention to women matching Evie’s description. Either way, it was likely Max would mark her as a phoenix on sight and then expect me to join him on a hunt.

  Breathing through my nose, I tried to force the anxiety clawing at my throat and racing through my heart from my features.

  “Solo hunt,” I said. I tried for a smile, but only managed a brief upward twitch.

  “Hunt?” His gaze traveled around the terminal. “Haven’t heard of anything that might interest you Elite around here.”

  Shit. I should have said some R&R or something, anything, else. I clenched my fists.

  “It’s nothing really, just a lead . . . on Lou’s case,” I added as the idea occurred to me.

  Almost every Rain operative we’d worked with, and many that we hadn’t, knew the story of Lou’s kidnapping by the fae when we were babies and my family’s quest for revenge ever since.

  “Dad and Eth asked me to come down and see what I could find. On the quiet, you know. No point getting Lou’s hopes up unnecessarily.”

  He nodded but the suspicion that pinched the corners of his eyes didn’t shift. “So, I heard the funniest story this mornin’ when gettin’ my assignments,” he said. “’Bout an operative gone rogue.”

  My gaze flicked straight to his face, searching for any signs of mistrust. “Yeah?”

  “Way I hear it, ’stead of destroyin’ the creature he’s huntin’, he runs off with it. Could be anywhere in the country they say.”

  The thundering sound of my pulse in my ears made it hard to focus on his actual words. It was clear he knew everything, or at least enough to indict me.

  I didn’t know why he was talking to me instead of just attacking, but it was possible he was stalling until backup arrived. With the new insight that we’d been caught, I did another scan of the area and saw what I’d missed the first time. A CCTV camera hidden near a light fitting on the depot’s roof.

  Fuck.

  I cursed ever helping create the damned facial recognition software. It had helped me find Evie before, but now it might have damned her too. We’d been trying so hard to be careful, to keep our heads ducked and avoid cameras. Obviously, not well enough.

/>   Even though Max had made me, and we both knew it, I had to pretend not to understand what he’d just revealed if I wanted to have any chance of getting Evie out.

  “That’s terrible,” I said, moving my hand to my gun. My motions were slow, cautious, and fluid, so as not to draw his attention. “What else do you know? Maybe I can keep my ear to the ground for some extra information?”

  “Oh, I’m sure you know all ’bout it,” he said. Even as he said the words, his hand reached for his holster, but he was too late.

  Before he had a chance to get near his gun, I reached for him, pulling him against me so I could press my gun hard against his side. With my lips at his ear, I whispered, “How many are coming?”

  “I dunno what you’re talkin’ ’bout.”

  Wrapping my arm tighter around his neck, I forced my gun into his ribs. Our stance was verging on the point where we risked drawing unwanted attention, but I didn’t care. “How many?”

  “Three.” The word was squeezed out between clenched teeth.

  “How long?”

  “They’ll be here any minute, traitor. There’s nowhere for you to go.”

  “You know nothing about it,” I hissed. “Now, let’s go.”

  Using the force of my gun against his side as motivation for him to keep moving, I pushed him toward the men’s room. Out of the corner of my eye, I kept watch for Evie. She still hadn’t found her way back by the time I shoved Max through the doors into the restrooms.

  With my gun still shoved hard against Max’s ribs, I pushed him though the room, kicking open the doors as I passed each one to check that the place was empty.

  “Why’re you doin’ this?” Max said while I forced him to move toward the basins.

  “Because I don’t have another choice,” I said in apology as I whipped my gun away from his side and moved to knock him unconscious. Only he anticipated my action. He might have been stupid, but he wasn’t completely foolish.

  Luckily, I was quicker. When his fist flew at my head, I ducked and tackled him around the middle, smashing him against the wall.