Page 1 of Hansen (Mutants #7)
EVAN DIDN’T WANT TO do this. He really didn’t want to do this.
He’d been hurt enough in his life not to want to do the same to someone else.
He wasn’t sure what was happening, but there weren’t a thousand reasons for a hunter to take him out of his cage and sneak him out while trying not to get anyone’s attention.
Evan was used to dealing with hunters.
He had no idea how long he’d been a prisoner, but it had to have been years by now.
He’d been moved from facility to facility, punched and beaten, laughed at and insulted.
Nothing good ever came from hunters, and this one wouldn’t be any different.
For a moment after the hunter had taken Evan out of his cage, Evan had thought he was about to die.
He was still torn about how he felt about that.
Part of him just wanted all of this to be over, but another part didn’t want to give the hunters and the doctors the satisfaction of killing him.
Evan was stronger than people thought—stronger than he thought sometimes.
That was why he was still alive. It was why he was finally out of his cage.
He didn’t know the reason why the hunter had taken him out, though.
He’d stuffed Evan into a small box in the back of his van, and they’d driven for a while.
If Evan had to choose, he’d pick a cage instead of a box.
It was roomier and let in more light.
He’d snickered as he stumbled out of the box, and the hunter had stared at him like he was losing his mind.
He felt it was better for him to laugh than to cry, even though it made him feel like he was nuts.
It was probably a sign of how traumatized he was that he could see humor in all of this.
What was he going to do, anyway? Scream for help? No one ever came, and he’d stopped doing that a long time ago.
Which was how he’d ended up standing in an alley.
He looked around, then back at the hunter.
“You want me to do what?”
The hunter glared. He smelled bad, but when Evan tried moving away, he tightened his hold on Evan’s arm and shook him.
“You heard me. You’re going to go to the door and knock and come up with an excuse to get Orion to step out of the bakery.”
“Are you going to hurt him?”
It was obvious, but Evan needed to waste time. Maybe someone would walk by and notice them. Maybe they’d stop Evan before he could help the hunter hurt this Orion guy.
“None of your business.”
The hunter reached behind himself and pulled out a gun from the waistband of his dirty jeans. “You better obey. You won’t like what happens if you don’t.”
Evan was tempted to tell him that nothing he could do with that gun could be worse than what had already been done to him in the labs, but he didn’t want to push it.
Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing if the hunter shot him.
He would never have to go back to the lab. He could finally rest.
“I won’t help you hurt him,”
Evan said with more conviction than he felt.
He should have known better than to stand up to a hunter.
The man didn’t shoot him.
Instead, he raised his gun and hit Evan on the side of the face, right where Evan was already bruised.
Pain exploded under Evan’s skin, and he stumbled back, reaching out to hold himself up against the wall.
The alley wasn’t particularly dirty, but his stomach heaved anyway.
Of course, it wasn’t like he was clean.
He couldn’t remember the last time he had a shower.
The doctors in the lab kept him clean when they needed to poke at him, but beyond that, they didn’t care, and the hunters cared even less.
Evan supposed it was hypocritical of him to judge the hunter for his stench when he probably smelled just as bad, but at least the hunter had access to a shower.
Evan didn’t.
“You’re going to do what I tell you to do,”
the hunter said through gritted teeth. His gaze flickered to the back door of the bakery. “I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
“Then kill me.”
Pain pulsed in Evan’s face.
He wasn’t sure he was bleeding, but he wouldn’t be surprised if he was.
He reached up to clean whatever seeped there with the sleeve of his oversized hoodie. It was black, so it wouldn’t stain any more than it already was.
The hunter smiled.
He was missing several teeth, and his breath smelled of beer and decay.
Evan heaved, but he managed not to throw up, probably because he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten something.
“I’ll kill you, then I’ll kill my son. Or maybe I’ll do it the other way around so you can see what happens when someone disobeys my orders.”
This Orion guy was the hunter’s son? Hunters really were monsters, weren’t they? “If you’re going to kill him anyway, you can get him out of the bakery without me.”
The hunter raised his gun again, but he didn’t hit Evan this time. He ran the muzzle of the gun down Evan’s cheek, then tapped it on Evan’s lower lip. “So you want to die.”
“Wouldn’t you?”
“There are worse things that I can do to you than kill you. Do you want to find out what those things are?”
Evan didn’t even want to think about them.
He thought he’d stopped feeling fear a long time ago, but he was starting to realize that wasn’t the case.
He was terrified at the thought of what this man could do.
The other hunters and the doctors had hurt him, but they’d never violated him. Something told Evan that was what this man was suggesting.
He couldn’t. If something like that happened to him, he’d fracture, and he wouldn’t be able to pull himself back together ever again.
He breathed out. “Fine. I’ll go.”
The hunter nodded. “Knock on the door and get him to step out in the alley.”
Evan hated himself for doing this, but he didn’t have an alternative. He’d hoped the hunter would kill him if he said no, but that wasn’t going to happen, and he couldn’t deal with anything else.
He moved closer to the door.
He glanced back, and the hunter narrowed his eyes at him.
There was a silent threat in his eyes that Evan couldn’t ignore, so he quickly knocked before pulling the hood of his hoodie up.
Whoever opened the door would be alarmed if they saw the state his face was in.
The door opened to reveal a big man.
Evan sucked in a breath and quickly took a step back, even though he didn’t think the man would hurt him.
Why would he? He didn’t know him.
He was big, though, with blond hair and muscles that made him look like he could break Evan in half without getting out of breath. There was a streak of flour on his cheek, which looked oddly out of place on him.
“Can I help you?”
the man asked.
Evan wrapped his arms around himself. He didn’t know if this was Orion, but who else could it be? “I’m really sorry about this,” he said.
Evan knew the moment the man noticed the bruise on his face because he sucked in a breath. He opened the door wider so he could move closer to Evan, doing exactly what his father had expected.
“Who hurt you?”
the man asked.
Evan shook his head. “I didn’t want to do this. He forced me.”
“Good boy,”
the hunter drawled, making Evan want to puke.
The shock on the baker’s face was obvious. He hadn’t expected the hunter to be there. He clearly didn’t want anything to do with him because he moved back towards the bakery. His hands tightened into fists at his sides as if he were ready to fight the hunter.
Part of Evan hoped he would.
But before the baker—Orion, he had to be Orion—could do anything, the hunter grabbed Evan around the neck. Evan squeaked and tried to pull the arm away, but he couldn’t. The hunter had a good hold on him, and he wasn’t giving it up.
“You’re going to come with us,”
the hunter said.
Orion shook his head. “I can’t leave.”
“Yes, you can, and you will, because otherwise, Evan will pay the price.”
He squeezed his arm around Evan’s throat. “Won’t you?”
Evan wasn’t sure if the hunter was talking to him, but the answer was obvious. Of course the hunter would hurt Evan if his son refused to come along. It was why he’d taken Evan out of his cage. He’d wanted to use him, and he was.
And there was nothing Evan could do about it.
HANSEN WAS JEALOUS.
He couldn’t look away from Eliza and Olga.
Why was he sitting with them again? Why did he have to watch them as they cuddled and smiled at each other? This was what happened when he agreed to get a drink with his friends.
He’d always been a weepy drunk, and while he wasn’t there yet, it wouldn’t take many more drinks for him to reach that point.
“I wish I had a mate. Period,”
he told Davey. “It’s not fair. Why is everyone finding their mate, but I’m not?”
He glanced at Olga.
Maybe she could help.
She could see the future, so maybe she’d seen Hansen’s.
He didn’t need to know everything, just whether or not he would meet his mate and when it would happen.
He was tired of waiting, but if he knew how long it would take, he could make his peace with it.
“Have you seen anything? Is my mate coming?”
“You know I can’t tell you,”
she said as she squeezed her mate tighter against her side. They were so happy that it made Hansen want to cry.
Maybe he’d drunk a little more than he remembered.
“But I want to find my mate. Even Davey found his, and have you seen Orion? He’s gorgeous.”
“Don’t talk about my mate like that,”
Davey warned. There was no heat in his voice because he knew that Hansen would never do anything to hurt their friendship. Besides, Orion only had eyes for Davey.
That was what Hansen wanted.
He wanted someone who would fit into his life, someone who would make him happy and that he could make happy.
He wasn’t afraid of hard work when it came to relationships, but he’d stopped dating a while ago, and he missed it.
He missed having something like that to look forward to and having someone to cuddle with and to talk to.
He missed intimacy, holding hands, and tender kisses on the couch while watching TV.
What was the point of doing all of that with someone who wasn’t his mate? He couldn’t shake the feeling that it would be a betrayal, and with his luck, he’d meet his mate right after getting serious with someone.
No, he didn’t want that to happen, which meant that the next person he would date was his mate.
“I have eyes, Davey. What am I supposed to do when I see him? Look away? That would be kind of weird, and I’m pretty sure Orion would want to know what’s up with me,”
he explained. He was proud that his voice wasn’t slurring.
“You’re so dramatic,”
Olga teased.
“I just want to finally start something, you know? I’ve been hunting scientists and liberating people for years now, and I’ve never had anything for myself. I want that to change.”
“You could date,”
Davey offered.
Hansen shook his head. “Only my mate.”
He’d done one-night stands, dates, and even serious relationships. None of them could compare to what he could see between Olga and Eliza or between Davey and Orion. That was what he wanted.
He lost track of the conversation as he thought about his mate hiding somewhere out there.
He was startled when Olga and Eliza got to their feet to leave.
It was later than he’d realized, but he hadn’t exactly been watching the clock.
He wasn’t ready to leave yet, so he was glad that Davey seemed okay staying with him for a bit longer.
There’d been something going on with him, and while Hansen had been curious, he hadn’t wanted to push. Maybe it was time to.
He hadn’t expected Davey to answer his questions, but Davey did, shocking him.
He shocked him even more when he told him about his best friend and what had happened to him.
Hansen had been in a lab, like all of them.
He knew what the scientists and the doctors did to people, and he could understand why Davey was so frantic.
He wanted to get his best friend out of whatever lab he was in. No one should be stuck in one of those places. They were hell on earth.
“Have you told anyone else about this?” he asked.
“Moore and Orion.”
“And what did they say?”
It was clear that Davey felt guilty about what had happened, but he had no reason to. He might not listen to Hansen if he said that, but surely, he’d listen to his mate.
“You already know what they said,”
Davey said with a glare. “You don’t have to ask.”
“Well, if you believed them, you wouldn’t be feeling guilty. If Evan was your best friend, he wouldn’t want you to be unhappy.”
The same went for Hansen. He might be unhappy because he didn’t have a mate, but he would never begrudge his friends for finding theirs.
“But I’m supposed to focus on getting him back, not on building a life with my mate,”
Davey argued.
“Let me ask you this.”
Hansen turned to face Davey, tucking his leg under himself to be more comfortable.
“How would you feel if your roles were reversed? If you’d been left behind while Evan was free? What would you do if, when he found you, he told you he’d met his mate and had built a life with them? Would you think he’d been wasting time instead of trying to find you, or would you be happy that he had support?”
“I’d be happy for him.”
Davey sighed. “I know he’d be happy for me. It’s not like I can look for him twenty-four-seven. He’d understand that.”
“There you go. I realize it’s much harder to actually deal with this, but as long as Evan wasn’t an asshole, he wouldn’t want you to slowly kill yourself to find him. He certainly wouldn’t want you to ignore your mate.”
“I’m not.”
“I know.
I’m sure Evan would be happy for you, and it’s not like you’re going to stop trying to find him.
You’ve been through a lot.
We all have, and we’re still dealing with all the consequences.
Don’t make yourself unhappy just because you feel like you have to be.
There’s no doubt what Evan’s gone through is horrible, but it doesn’t make what you went through any less awful.”
Hansen squeaked when Davey unexpectedly pulled him into a hug. “Thank you,”
Davey murmured.
“Just don’t hug me to death,”
Hansen said, hugging Davey back.
They didn’t linger long after that.
Davey was probably eager to get to his mate, and Hansen couldn’t blame him.
He’d want the same if he had someone like Orion waiting for him at home.
Hell, he wouldn’t care even if his mate was nothing like Orion.
Orion was handsome and sweet, and he was exactly what Davey needed, but Hansen didn’t care what his mate looked like.
He didn’t care about his mate’s name or what they did for a living. He just wanted to meet them.
Apparently, that was too much to ask for.
“You’re sure you’re steady enough to go home on your own?”
Davey asked as they walked out of the bar.
“I’ll be fine. Go find your mate and cuddle him.”
“You’ll find someone eventually,”
Davey promised.
Hansen glared at him. “My mate.”
“Yes, I hope that someone will be your mate, but maybe think about the fact that not everyone meets theirs or that you could meet them in ten or twenty years. Do you really want to be alone all that time?”
Hansen didn’t, but what choice did he have? He wanted to wait for his mate. He didn’t expect his mate to do the same, but he didn’t think he could be with someone when he knew there would be no future with them.
He was still thinking about Davey’s words as he walked toward home. What would happen if he never met his mate? Would he be alone forever? Was it something he could deal with, or should he give up waiting?
He wasn’t ready to do that just yet. Maybe he’d wait a few more weeks or months before surrendering. He wasn’t in a hurry, even though sometimes, he was a bit lonely.
He just wished his mate would hurry up.
“YOU’RE GOING TO COME with us,”
the hunter ordered.
Orion looked like he wouldn’t have any of that. Evan didn’t blame him. If a hunter ordered him to do anything, he’d resist, too. Hell, he had resisted, which is why he was bleeding.
“Why should I come with you?”
Orion asked.
“Because without me, you don’t have anything. Come on. Get in the van.”
Orion crossed his massive arms over his bulging chest and shook his head.
“I’m not getting into that van, and I’m not going anywhere with you.
Where the fuck were you when I was wounded and almost died? Perseus took care of me, just like he always does.”
Evan had no idea what Orion was talking about, but it was interesting, almost like he was watching TV.
God, it had been so long since he’d watched anything.
He couldn’t believe how many episodes of his favorite series he’d missed. And what if it had been canceled? He’d survived the labs and the hunters, but he wasn’t sure he’d survive that.
“How did you get wounded? Were you helping one of these animals?”
the hunter asked. He shook Evan, making his teeth rattle. If he wasn’t currently stuck with the man’s arm around his throat, Evan would turn and glare at him. He wasn’t a rag doll, dammit.
“You know the rules,”
the hunter continued. “If you’re wounded, you take care of yourself, or you die.”
Evan had been in contact with enough hunters to know that was what they did.
They didn’t care about each other.
There was no sense of found family or camaraderie.
Hell, most of the time, it looks like they hated each other.
Evan had seen a hunter kill another hunter because of a look. These people were nuts, and he really wished the hunter holding him would let him go.
“Get in the van,”
the hunter barked.
Orion looked back at the bakery, but it didn’t look like anyone would come out, and Orion’s father was losing his patience.
“Now!”
he yelled, making Evan jump. Did he really have to scream in Evan’s ear?
Orion raised his hands in surrender.
Evan felt a pang of guilt and sadness.
The man had never done anything to him.
It looked like he’d cared that Evan was hurt earlier, although that feeling was probably long gone now that he knew that Evan had been baiting him out of the bakery.
It would’ve been nice to have a friend, but Evan had lost his best friend a long time ago.
He wasn’t going down that road.
He’d tortured himself with thoughts of Davey for years, and he’d promised himself that he would stop.
He was sure that Davey had come back for him, and he could only imagine how Davey had felt when he’d found out that Evan was gone.
Evan knew his friend, so he was sure that Davey had blamed himself.
He hoped he’d stopped, eventually.
He hoped that Davey had built a life for himself and that he was happy.
Evan couldn’t be, and he didn’t know anything about Davey’s life, but he could allow himself to dream that his best friend had made it even though he hadn’t.
Orion finally moved toward the van.
Evan’s stomach dropped, even though he’d known this was how things would go.
Maybe if Orion had been able to run without getting shot, he would have done so, but he couldn’t.
It was clear that his father would kill him rather than allow him to escape.
The hunter dragged Evan toward the van and pushed him into the back.
Evan curled up behind the passenger seat, wondering what Orion would do.
He wasn’t surprised when Orion climbed into the van, or when the hunter grinned at both of them.
“You two be good in here,”
he said before slamming the van door shut.
Evan didn’t want to be anywhere near him, which meant he had to get away from the passenger seat. He quickly did so, relieved when he managed to do it as the hunter walked around the vehicle. He was wary of Orion, but if he had to choose between him and the hunter, he knew who he’d trust more. Besides, Orion was visibly trying to make himself look smaller, maybe so he wouldn’t scare Evan. It was sweet.
“Is he the one who gave you that bruise?”
Orion asked softly.
Evan licked his lips and nodded. The hunter wasn’t the only one who’d hurt Evan, but Evan didn’t think that Orion wanted his life story. Besides, it wasn’t a lie. Orion’s father had hurt him.
“My father’s going to hurt me. I don’t want you to think it’s your fault. It doesn’t matter that he used you to get me out of the bakery. You have nothing to do with this, and it’s all on his shoulders, all right?”
Evan was stunned by how easily Orion seemed to have forgiven him for baiting him out of the bakery. He wasn’t sure how the hunter could be his father because Orion was so different from him. He was sweet and gentle, even though he was big.
Maybe Evan was wrong, but he didn’t think so. He didn’t think that Orion could hurt a fly. Hell, he was trying to reassure Evan, even though it was kind of Evan’s fault that he was here. He wouldn’t have left the safety of his bakery if Evan hadn’t knocked on his door.
Evan nodded, but before he could say anything, Orion’s father climbed into the driver’s seat and turned on the engine. Evan pressed his lips together. He still didn’t know what the fuck was happening, but whatever it was, he didn’t like it.
“We’re going to make a few stops,”
the hunter said. “You two are going to be good and not get anyone’s attention because if you do, I’ll kill both of you and come back for Perseus. Got it, Orion?”
It was a nice name, and it fit Orion. Evan wondered if the two of them could’ve been friends if the circumstances had been different. He missed having a friend.
Evan tried finding a more comfortable position, but he didn’t think that was possible in the van. His legs hurt from the last beating he’d taken. It would take a while to heal, and in the meantime, he had to deal with the pain.
He caught Orion watching him a few times as they drove, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t dare as long as Orion’s father was there with them.
Eventually, the hunter parked the van.
He didn’t say anything as he climbed out and locked the doors, leaving Orion and Evan on their own.
The silence between them was heavy, and while Evan wanted to break it, he didn’t know how.
What was he supposed to do? He could apologize, but Orion had already said that he didn’t blame Evan for what happened.
He could ask questions, but even though he wanted to know about Orion, none of this would last.
Orion would die, Evan would go back to his cage, and after that, to one of the facilities.
That was his life.
There was no way out of it, not for him.
“What happened to your leg?”
Orion suddenly asked.
Evan blinked. He hadn’t realized that Orion had noticed something was wrong with his leg. “I’m fine.”
There was no reason for Orion to worry about Evan.
“I don’t think you are. There’s a bruise on your face, and I noticed you were limping.”
“I’ll be fine.”
Eventually. The doctors tended to allow Evan to heal before they hurt him again. He supposed they didn’t want to risk killing him.
Orion didn’t look like he believed Evan. Evan thought that was the end of it until Orion opened his mouth again to say the most outlandish thing Evan had ever heard. “I was a hunter once.”
Evan’s first instinct was to move away, but he had a hard time believing that Orion could hurt him.
“I’m not anymore,”
Orion quickly added. “I never wanted to be one in the first place, but I was born into it. You know what hunters are, right?”
Evan laughed. He thought it was obvious that he knew what hunters were, considering his situation. “How do you think I got here?”