straightforward query. “No,” he answered in slight bewilderment. “No, I am not.”
“Good,” Remy said happily. “I asked Shawn the same thing. Now you can
ask me, if you like.”
Thiago didn’t quite know what to say. “Are you?” he asked.
“Am I what, Thiago?” Remy asked, sounding like a teacher speaking to a
child. “Leave no room for prevarication, now, I am very good at it.”
Thiago snorted in amusement. “Are you the Archer, Remy?” he asked with a
grin.
“No,” Remy responded with something akin to glee. “See how easy that
was? Any more questions?”
“Does Shawn have any idea that you’re completely insane?” Thiago asked in
amusement.
“Probably. He is wicked quick like that,” Remy answered with a grin.
Thiago huffed and shook his head in exasperation. Remy looked at him
sympathetically and reached out to grasp his forearm. He squeezed it and then let his hand slid up Thiago’s arm until their hands were joined. Thiago stared down at their joined fingers, wondering just how long it had been since someone had touched him in order to comfort or console, and not just to fuck. He honestly couldn’t remember.
“You will see,” Remy told him quietly. “Life is a whole lot easier when
you’re not all alone, Thiago. All you have to do is trust us. And we’ll earn it. I promise you, we’ll earn it.”
Thiago looked up to see Remy’s sincere brown eyes watching him closely.
He nodded and Remy let his hand go and moved away.
“Get some sleep, Thi,” Remy said as he moved the ashes of the fire around
just enough to douse the flames. “Can I call you that? You mind?” he asked as he
stood back up and turned to look at Thiago in the darkness.
“No, not at all,” Thiago said, his voice gruff with an emotion he couldn’t
quite place. Was it… happiness? Relief? Camaraderie?
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Thiago watched Remy shuffle away toward the dark hallway and prepared to
follow him to bed when he thought of one last question.
“Hey, Remy?” he whispered.
Remy turned around to look at him. Thiago could barely see him in the
darkness; he was merely a darker shadow against the charcoal background of the
hallway.
“We’ll talk more in the morning, my little bay leaf,” Remy drawled with a
dismissive wave of his hand. Thiago could hear the smile in his voice.
A bright flash of light blinded him as he watched the Cajun. He threw up his
arms to protect his eyes and felt a great whoosh of hot air. He went to his knees and covered his head as the muffled blast of an explosion rocked the cabin.
XV
CARL’S eyes snapped open as Brandt shook him roughly and shouted something
Carl’s sleep-addled brain couldn’t quite understand. He didn’t have time to question the rough treatment, though, as Brandt rolled him to the side, pulling the twin
mattress with them and landing them on the floor with the mattress covering them just as the blast sounded.
“Tell me you did not just blow up the cabin!” Carl shouted as the heat and
noise washed over them. Brandt’s body covered his protectively, and Carl pressed his face into Brandt’s neck and squeezed his eyes closed even as he wondered how much good a mattress was going to do in shielding them against whatever explosive had
caused the destruction.
An unnatural silence followed the explosion. It was as if someone had
pressed the mute button, and Carl had the briefly terrifying thought that he was dead.
But then his ears seemed to pop and he could clearly hear Brandt’s steady breathing, only slightly faster than normal in the excitement.
“No, I did not just blow up the cabin,” Brandt responded in a disturbingly
calm voice as the silence lengthened. “But the cabin is definitely on fire,” he added as a round of smaller explosions sounded, followed by another unearthly silence.
“Are you indirectly responsible?” Carl asked as Brandt pushed up onto his
hands and knees and looked down at him through the darkness. Carl was struck by the difference in this time and the last time he had been under Brandt.
The last time had been much more fun.
“Not this time, Trigger,” Brandt said just before he gave Carl a quick, hard
kiss and pressed his body to Carl’s once again as another, smaller explosion sounded.
The panic began to rise in Carl’s chest. He started struggling to get up as
Brandt fought with lifting the mattress off their bodies.
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“How’d you know?” Carl demanded as the sounds of falling debris and burst
water pipes began to intrude upon the second odd silence. He was surprised at how calm his voice was. He’d been in explosions before, but never awakened by one. It was a surprisingly different experience altogether, and he could feel his entire body shaking with adrenaline and nerves.
“Had to use the toilet,” Brandt said as they lifted the mattress up together and
hefted it back onto the bed. It slumped half off the bunk and bounced slightly, but Carl had a pretty good idea that they wouldn’t be caring about the condition of the beds after tonight. Brandt walked slowly to the door, which was miraculously still intact and closed.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here, Wally,” Carl said in agitation as he came up
behind Brandt’s still naked form and reached for the door. Brandt’s hand flew out and gripped his wrist.
“Get some clothes first,” Brandt responded calmly. “We’ll have to go out the
window. See the smoke?” he asked, pointing to the small billow of smoke issuing
from under the door.
“Oh, yeah,” Carl said as he pulled back and looked wildly around the room,
trying to get his brain to catch up with Brandt’s. He lunged toward the bed and
fumbled around on the floor for his and Brandt’s clothing, and then he tossed Brandt his jeans and pulled his own up over his naked hips before grabbing his shirt and putting it on inside out in his agitation. “When the oxygen hits it, right? It’ll catch fire?”
“Not in this case,” Brandt said, shaking his head as he calmly put on his
jeans and cast around for his T-shirt.
Carl still shook with adrenaline and near-panic, and he took a moment to
inhale several soothing breaths and admire Brandt’s calm attitude. Of course Brandt would be calm as the cabin burnt down around him. He was fucking insane.
“That’s only when the area is enclosed, you see. And I doubt the hallway is
enclosed any longer judging from the size of that blast.” Carl gave him a questioning look as he gathered up all the equipment in the room that he could get his hands on and threw it on the floundering mattress. “Smoke’s bad for you,” Brandt explained with a wink. Another round of smaller explosions sounded and Brandt took Carl by
the arm and propelled him toward the small window. “Move it, Trigger! Can we fit
through that?”
“Only one way to find out!” Carl shouted in response. He braced his hands
on the footboard of the bed and the dresser and lifted himself into the air, swinging his legs and kicking out the fixed glass windowpanes in one fluid movement. “You
first!” he called as the sounds of the destruction grew louder and the door to their room began to smolder.
Brandt shook his head, and Carl knew they didn’t have time to argue, so he
hefted his body into the windowsill and swung himself out of the room. The drop was
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a bit longer than he’d thought, but nothing any more life-threatening than the blazing fire he’d just left behind.
“The bags!” he called as Brandt stuck his head out and looked down.
Brandt’s shadowed form disappeared, only to be replaced with a large black bag Carl knew contained just about every explosive device known to man. He debated briefly over whether to catch it and risk it exploding in his hands or to let it fall and risk it exploding at his feet.
He caught the bag with an expectant wince and laid it at his side with a
relieved breath as another bag appeared in the window. It was a smaller one of brown leather, and Carl didn’t know what was in it, but he caught it nevertheless and set it with the first.
Two more bags of Brandt’s equipment came through, and Carl piled them far
enough away from the cabin that they wouldn’t catch fire. He mourned the loss of his own equipment, still in the room he had shared with Remy, but knew he should be
thankful for just being alive. The roof above his own room was even now blazing
merrily and he experienced a brief, terrifying moment of panic as he hoped that Remy and Shawn had been in Shawn’s room.
Brandt made it through the window easily enough and landed with a grunt.
Carl helped him to his feet and they stood watching the flames on the roof lick at the dark night sky for several tense moments before Carl pulled himself together and
shook Brandt out of his little trance.
XVI.
SHAWN stood with his eyes averted from the flames in order to ensure that his night vision wasn’t compromised, his gun drawn and at the ready and his senses on high
alert for any sign of movement from within the cabin or from without.
When Brandt and Carl came slinking around the corner of the cabin they
were dead to rights as Shawn swung around and lined the two shadowy figures into
his sights.
He managed to stop his trigger finger just in time as he realized who they
were. His heart pounded in his throat and the blood rushed through his ears as he realized what he’d almost done. He pointed the muzzle into the air, resting the piece against his shoulder as they both skidded to a halt and looked at him in momentary indecision. Shawn knew he must have looked quite interesting to say the least,
standing there motionless with a gun aimed at them in the middle of a mysterious
blazing fire.
“Are you two all right?” he called over the noise of the fire. They both
hesitated briefly, looking at one another uncertainly before trotting up to him.
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“Just a nice bruise on my ass,” Carl answered as they all three turned to look
up at the flames in momentary fascination. Shawn blinked and shook his head,
looking away once more and scolding himself as he blinked the white lights from his vision.
“Brandt?” he queried worriedly.
“Hmm? Fine,” Brandt murmured dazedly as he watched the fire eat through
the wooden walls of the cabin like a knife cutting through melted butter.
Despite the affirmative responses, Shawn looked them over carefully all the
same. They both seemed relatively unharmed, despite their various stages of undress.
“Have you seen the others?” he asked, his heart jumping into his throat once more when they both shook their heads.
What had happened to Remy? He was supposed to have been in bed with
Shawn. Safe in bed with him. If anything had happened to the younger man, Shawn
would never forgive himself.
“Where’s the Ragin’ Cajun?” Brandt asked as he looked at Shawn with black
eyes.
“I don’t know,” Shawn answered hoarsely. “When I woke up he was gone.”
“And Nikolaus?” Carl questioned. “Was he still up with Thiago?”
Shawn shrugged as he searched the area desperately for any sign of Remy.
“We should go around to the front. Thiago may have gotten out okay,” Carl
suggested.
“If Thiago was on watch…,” Brandt said, stopping in mid-thought and
shaking his head. Shawn knew what he was thinking, though. If Thiago had been on
watch, then he’d probably been killed before the bomb went off by whoever set it.
That or the bomb had been set by someone already in the cabin. Shawn
hoped that the latter option hadn’t occurred to Brandt or Carl just yet. That would make things even more difficult.
“This way. Hurry now,” Shawn ordered as he set off at a wary trot around
the other corner of the cabin, keeping an eye on the dark line of trees to his right. The other two followed close behind him.
XVII.
NIKOLAUS felt very lucky at that particular moment. He stood by the tree line and watched in dismay as the cabin went up in flames. He could understand why Brandt
found fire so fascinating, but then thoughts of his companions filtered through his stunned mind and a wave of profound shock and sadness hit him.
Perhaps they’d all survived? It wasn’t looking particularly promising from
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Nikolaus’s angle. Another small explosion rocked the frame of the cabin, and
Not promising at all. He should go in and look for them. The blast seemed to
have originated from the back of the cabin, and it was possible that Thiago and Remy had lived. If they were still by the fireplace when the explosion happened then they would have been okay. Maybe. They’d still been in the main room when he’d snuck
out the front door for a smoke; what was to say they hadn’t remained out there? They could still be alive. But he hadn’t seen anyone come through the doors, and if they were still alive, they would need help.
Nikolaus shook the cobwebs from his mind and his limbs and started
forward, having no real idea of what he should do, but wanting to do something. He almost jumped clear out of his skin when Shawn rounded the corner of the cabin, his gun up in front of him commando style, with Carl and Brandt right on his heels.
Relief washed over Nikolaus at seeing at least three of his companions safe.
If he couldn’t endure the thought of losing them after just five days together
what must Shawn be feeling, knowing Remy was still in there?
“Hey!” he shouted, throwing up his hands instinctively as Shawn swung
around and aimed at him.
“Are you okay?” Carl called as he and Brandt swooped down on Nikolaus
and began feeling him over and checking him for injuries.
“I’m okay!” he shouted, shaking his head and swatting at Carl and the
pawing hands. He grabbed Shawn by the elbow and shook him, disregarding the gun
in the man’s hand as he tried to pull his attention away from the flaming front door.
“They haven’t come out!” he yelled over the surprisingly noisy fire. “I’ve been out here the whole time! They haven’t come out!”
XVIII.
“CAN we get through the door?” Shawn asked anxiously as they stood watching the
fire consume more and more of the structure. His voice was the closest to panic
Brandt had ever thought to hear from the man.
Brandt had apparently underestimated how much Shawn really cared for
Remy. Of course, Brandt was also noticing that Carl and Nikolaus were a little on the frazzled side as well.
‘Silly boys, letting a little heat get to them,’ Brandt thought in amusement, but he had to admit there was a nagging pain in his stomach whenever he thought that the other two men might still be inside.
Yes, he was worried about Remy and Thiago, because oddly enough he
found that he did care for them, just as he did Shawn and Nikolaus and Carl,
regardless of his various suspicions. He didn’t want to see any of them hurt. It was an
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odd sensation for Brandt, who’d gone through most of his life not giving a flying fuck about anything or anyone. It was terrifying. He finally had someone to care for, five someones, in fact, even if one of them was probably trying to kill him, and the
thought of losing one of them was terrifying. He didn’t know how Shawn was
functioning.
“Brandt!” Shawn shouted, snapping his fingers in front of Brandt’s face.
“Can we get through?”
Brandt nodded and grabbed Carl by his shoulders, taking the thin T-shirt the
man wore in his hands and tearing it in half. Carl was too stunned to protest as his only shirt left in the world was ripped from his body. Brandt tore the shirt to shreds, knelt, and rubbed the shreds in the snow until they were soaked through as they all stood and gaped at him.
He handed them each a piece of soaked cloth and tied his own around the
bottom half of his face, covering his nose and mouth and nodding to them to do the same. He then dropped to the ground and rolled in the snow, soaking his body as best he could, and the others followed his example as realization of what he was doing dawned.
“This won’t help much,” he told them calmly. “So if you find yourself on
fire, get the hell out of there,” he advised as he stood back up and looked to the flaming cabin with something akin to glee. Nikolaus’s eyes widened slightly, and
Brandt thought that Carl went slightly pale. But Shawn’s jaw clenched in
determination, and he began to give orders like the true leader they all knew he was.
“Brandt, gather as much equipment as you can. You know the signs,” Shawn
said through his soaked piece of Carl’s T-shirt.
Brandt nodded his understanding. Shawn was giving him the hardest job
because he knew how to see the danger. That, or Shawn was hoping he’d be killed in the fire.