Page 64 of Take You Home (Redwater Demons #3)

Roma hesitates with her fingers over her cell phone screen, already poised to text Naomi. “Obie,” she says quietly, “I really hate to ask this, but?—but I was the first one to try and run a long con on you guys. Are you positive Chester is on our side?”

Obie knows that her suspicion?—that all of their suspicions?—are unfortunately valid, but that doesn’t stop the words from slicing through him like knives. “Yes. I’m positive.” I’d swear it on Ada’s grave.

Cass’s shoulders are tense. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because?—?” Obie’s hands start to tremble again. “Because the binding spell also created a short-range telepathic link between us?—one that doesn’t let us lie to each other. We’ve tested it. So when Chester tells me that he wants to burn the Sanctum to the ground, I know he’s telling the truth.”

Ez’s eyes sharpen. “What? That doesn’t make any sense.

Nothing in that spell you gave us would’ve created a telepathic link, especially not one that’s enchanted like that.

I mean, we treated it as a binding spell between two humans, not a human and a demon, but that shouldn’t change the principles so drastically. ”

Panic rises in Obie’s throat. He swallows it down hard.

They’re going to figure it out. Ez in particular is going to figure it out first, diving into the minutiae of binding spells and telepathic connections until she finds a solution.

Or, at least, until she deduces that Obie can’t be who he says he is. And then she and Cass are going to put that together with all the other signs they’ve been ignoring over the years and realize that their best friend in this dimension was their beloved god in their last one.

And Obie can handle that. Really, he can.

Just not right now. “Ez,” he says, “you are the smartest person I know, but I need you to put that aside for now, okay? I need?—?” Pleadingly, he looks around at each of them in turn.

“I need all of you to put that aside for now. I swear that I’ll explain everything later, but this?—this just isn’t the time. ”

Ez’s eyes narrow briefly before relaxing. “I’ll hold you to that, Smith.”

“Same,” Cass says, “but we’ll revisit it later. For now, though?—?” He meets Obie’s eyes. “Obie. Are you really about to risk everything for a Sanctum lackey?”

It’s the exact same question Obie asked Cass all those months ago when Cass was getting ready to break JJ out of the Sanctum’s prison. Now, though, Obie knows that what he’s really asking is something different, something hidden in the subtext.

So he answers the question the same way. “I’ve been alive for fifteen thousand years,” he says quietly, “and Chester Locke is one of the only humans I’ve ever met who I’d die for without hesitation.”

Cass’s eyes widen. JJ edges around his fiancé, nodding with approval. “Good. So the five of us are getting Chester. Roma?”

“Naomi just responded,” she says promptly, her fingers flying over her phone’s keyboard. “They want to know whether to meet us here or on the trail outside the Sanctum.”

“Trail outside the Sanctum would be better,” Ez says.

“We don’t want to compromise each other’s safe houses any more than we already have.

And can we actually get Gregorio on the phone before we leave?

He hasn’t been in a conflict zone since the Hundred Years’ War, but he has more combat experience overall than me and Cass combined.

He might have some tactical questions we wouldn’t think to ask. ”

“On it,” Roma says, tapping a few buttons and pressing the phone to her ear. “Hey, Naomi? Yeah, can we brief you four over the phone? We want to make sure all our bases are covered, and…”

As Roma and Ez jump into a rapid-fire conversation with Naomi, Sawyer, Gregorio, and Micah, JJ glances down the hall, his eyes lingering on the door to Desi’s bedroom.

Obie knows that Cass and JJ have left her home alone during dangerous missions before?— sometimes, it’s just unavoidable?—but neither of them likes it.

“Please don’t ask me not to come, Cass,” JJ says softly.

Cass doesn’t hesitate. “I wouldn’t. Not for Chester. I know how much you love him.”

All at once, Obie’s throat feels tight. Chester’s voice wafts through his head like smoke off a match, as clear and precise as if Chester were standing right next to him, his fingers wrapped around Obie’s shoulder to push the words into Obie’s head.

I love you.

No. That will not be the only time Obie hears Chester say those words to him. Next time, he’s going to look Chester in the eye when he says them, and he’s going to say them back.

Next time.

There has to be a next time. Deliberately, he forces the thoughts from his mind. “All right. We’re on a time limit here. Let’s get moving.”

Councilwoman Nasir’s lips are pressed into a thin line. “You’ve disappointed us, Chester.”

Chester keeps his eyes fixed on the ceiling. It’s unfortunately a very familiar view by now. “Thanks. I’m good at that.”

Nasir’s jaw twitches. Chester feels a perverse sense of satisfaction at that. “Do you realize the gravity of what you’ve done?”

“With all due respect, Nasir,” he says, “which, by the way, is exactly none?—I’m an interrogator. And I’m a damn good one, too. I know how this game is played. You’re not going to get anything out of me, so how about we skip the villain monologue and head straight to the torture?”

Her eyes narrow. “This is no laughing matter, Locke. ”

Chester gives her his best smile. “Everything is a laughing matter to me right now, Councilwoman.”

And it is. It really is. The moment Chester woke up tied down to an interrogation table with his Sanctum enchantments torn away, he knew it was over. He’d tried his best to get out, to fight his way out, but it was a lost cause.

Maybe it was a lost cause from the beginning. His throat tightens at the thought. He got as much information as he could for Obie and the Conspiracy Fam, but was it enough? Will they be able to take down the Sanctum after Chester is gone?

Will Obie be the one who burns it all to the ground?

Chester hopes he is. He really hopes he is, and??—

And he’s also hoping for one of two options. Either that Obie and his crew miraculously break in before the torture starts, which is growing less likely by the minute, or??—

Or that they don’t get here until it’s too late. Until Chester’s body is somewhere else?— anywhere else?—besides this particular table.

After all, there was only one interrogation room left this morning: the second one Chester cleaned last night.

And he doesn’t want Obie to deal with the grief of knowing that the place where they had their first?—last?

—time together, laughing and kissing and touching, is the same place where Chester is going to be tortured and killed.

He’s having some trouble dealing with that fact himself, but he’s long since reframed it in his mind. At this point, it’s practically a running joke from the universe itself that they strapped him down to this exact table, just one last way for the world to screw him over.

Like he said. Everything is a laughing matter right now.

“I know all your secrets, Nasir,” he says.

“I know that the Sanctum is working with the Chain. I know that you set up the Jackson–Locke murders?—set up my family to be killed?—to recruit two traumatized and willing neophyte hunters, and I know that you’ve been repeating that pattern worldwide ever since. Sound familiar?”

For a long moment, Councilwoman Nasir considers him.

And then she smiles thinly. “Correct.”

The word jolts through Chester. “Wow, okay. Not even going to deny it?”

“This recording won’t be heard by anyone beyond the Council, so I won’t waste time with trite denials.” Nasir leans forward. “So let’s talk. You’ve been stealing sensitive Sanctum intelligence for weeks. Who have you been giving it to?”

“Like I said,” Chester says, “skip to the good stuff. I’m not telling you anything.”

Nasir sighs, like he’s being irrationally but predictably obstinate. “I’m not going to give you false promises of clemency if you cooperate, because we both know I won’t follow through. But we do have other ways of making you talk.”

“Sounds kinky,” Chester says. “Go on.”

Councilwoman Nasir smiles. Raises her voice the slightest bit. “Bring her in.”

Chester’s stomach lurches. Her? Maggie? Are they going to threaten to kill Maggie in front of him to make him talk?

Tears sting behind his eyes. He can’t. He can’t talk, not even for her. He sends out a desperate prayer that Obie will forgive him for letting her get hurt, that everyone will forgive him for letting her get hurt, but??—

But, in the end, he’s only talked to her a few times. He was willing to die to try and rescue her, but he can’t compromise his friends?—can’t compromise Obie? —for her.

The door swings open. Chester braces himself, turns his head to look??—

Panic slams through him. “No, no, no, no, no?—Bryant? ? —? ”

“Chester,” Bryant rasps, jerking her handcuffed arms against Hawthorne’s and Massimo’s tight grips. She looks unsteady on her feet?—probably from the still-oozing head wound on her left temple?—but her eyes are clear and wild where they meet Chester’s. “Chester, what the hell is going on?”

There’s a roaring in Chester’s ears. He yanks desperately against his bindings, snarling up at Nasir. “You sociopath,” he hisses. “She’s a purebred! She’s one of yours! She?—”

“In the course of auditing every Redwater hunters’ activities,” Nasir says crisply, “it was found that Bryant Nehemiah has been using her access codes to print classified documents pertaining to our strike teams. That alone is enough to classify her as a dissident.”

“That was me!” Chester snaps. “She had nothing to do with it, okay? That was me, and??—???”

“Who did you give those files to?” Nasir cuts in, her eyes glinting.

Shit. Chester doesn’t want to betray his friends, not ever, but???—

But he can’t let anything happen to Bryant. He can’t.