Clary turned back to Brody and looked at him. “Are you coming?”

  His feet moved automatically, but Brody had absolutely no idea what to say. This woman was not who he expected and looked nothing like what he thought she would look like. Here she was, this absolutely stunning blonde, who he’d thought was working with Charles or was maybe even a family member. Now he knew why he’d felt so drawn to her when they met.

  Yet it made no sense, but to find out that she was the woman who had kept him alive this whole time had changed his perspective. The experience turned out to be … eye-opening.

  He stepped forward into the compound, and immediately the rest of the group was on him, everybody pulling him in for a hug. To him, it felt like he was engulfed in a sea of arms. He laughed, as he realized that all his team, everybody he loved, was here waiting for him.

  It took a few moments for everybody to calm down, but the chattering kept on, as everybody was busy introducing him to the women he didn’t know, and he got a chance to greet the others that he did know but hadn’t seen in a long time.

  When Tasha got a hold of him, she just wouldn’t let go. Brody held on tight and whispered, “So glad you’re okay.”

  She pulled back, looked up at him teary-eyed, and murmured, “And you.” She was trying to find the right words, but there was no easy way. “That was one of the worst times of my life. And to know that you were almost lost to us for … so long.” She shook her head, and he saw her tears.

  He reached out with a thumb and gently wiped them away. “I’m fine now,” he murmured.

  She grinned. “Well, not quite fine, at least not according to Terk and Clary.”

  “So you know about Clary too?”

  “Nope, … we only just found out about her from Terk,” she stated, the hurt evident in her voice. “But anybody who can keep you safe and everybody else on this team alive,” she added, clearly savoring the idea, “believe me. We’re all going to love her.”

  Brody smiled. “She has certainly done a hell of a job on me. I felt like I was in never-ending darkness and in never-ending pain. I was the lost soul with nobody to talk to, nobody to cry out to and to ask for help.” He shuddered under the weight of that realization and the remembrance. “Not a scenario I ever want to be put in or to feel ever again.”

  She reached up, hugged him close once more, and affectionately stroked his cheek. “No, not anything we ever want.” She walked him over to Sophia, someone he’d already been introduced him to earlier, but still it seemed that Tasha wanted Brody to feel comfortable and to get familiar with the new faces. “This is Sophia. She worked for Terk’s brother’s team before she came to be with us.”

  Sophia stood and shook hands with him. “I’m really happy to hear that you’ll be okay. Everybody here has been terribly worried about you.”

  He smiled. “And I appreciate the worry, but honestly I’m feeling much better.”

  “You might be feeling much better,” Gage walked closer, “but we all know just how rough that trip out of a coma was.”

  Brody looked at his buddy. “You too?”

  Gage nodded. “All of us to some degree. Damon got off the best. Well, scratch that. Terk maybe, and then Damon. While the rest of us all? … We’ve all been brought out one at a time, as we came out of the terrible dark place.”

  “Man, I never thought I would be slow in something. It’s as if I have forgotten about progress. It was awful,” Brody admitted.

  “You almost died,” Clary said quietly at his side. “You get to cut yourself some slack for that.”

  “Almost?” he asked, with a lopsided grin.

  She smiled. “Yes. I know you don’t believe it, and I get that, but you have no idea just how far from coming back you were.”

  “And I owe that return journey to you, right?” He still wasn’t sure how all that worked, but he was also aware of all the people looking at him. He didn’t even really know how to react to Clary. It’s like he had just found out something amazing and important in life, and he would have an audience while he tried to adjust to the news.

  Cara walked closer and whispered, “You were basically gone.”

  As if a cord had been yanked, he was plucked back to reality.

  “So, if you remember any of your energy-working lessons,” Cara murmured, “you know how close you came to not coming back.”

  He looked at her in surprise, and she nodded, like she was asking him to get that through his thick head.

  “We’re not kidding. It was a tough, … tough scenario for quite a while.”

  Brody nodded slowly. “Then I thank you,” he murmured to Cara. “I hadn’t realized how bad it was.”

  “Our patients never do.” She smiled. “We always try to keep things calm and to assure you that it isn’t so bad, but, in your case, it was definitely bad.”

  He nodded slowly. “And it was really you and your sister?”

  “Mostly my sister,” Cara admitted. “I ended up quite busy with everything here, and I knew my sister had the ability to, well, … let me just say that, if you’d died, there is a chance that she would have been there, waiting to kick your ass back onto this side.”

  That’s impossible. It had to be. Maybe? … He stared at Cara in shock.

  Cara nodded with renewed vigor. “So play nice. Clary really did save your life.”

  Chapter 5

  It took them a solid hour to be assigned rooms and to get sorted. Then Clary handed the bag Charles had brought to Brody. “It’s only a couple changes of clothes. We’ll have to arrange to get you more.”

  He nodded almost numbly and took the bag. “I never did say thank you.”

  She looked at him in surprise, then almost laughed. “See? That wasn’t so hard. Now go on …” She waved him toward the bed. “You need to rest. … Doctor’s orders.”

  “That’s hardly paramount today.”

  “And yet it feels like it should be,” she noted.

  “I feel like an ass, for some reason.”

  “We’ll talk later,” she said. “What you need right now is rest.” He frowned at that. Her expression changed, compartmentalizing Brody’s energy from Brody’s beast that Cara had warned her about.

  “Will you always be ordering me around?”

  Her shell broke somewhat to reveal a half smirk. “Maybe. Will you always need to order me around?”

  And, for the first time since he resurfaced, he grinned. “Maybe.” Then he headed into his room without a backward glance.

  She closed the door firmly behind him, yet still he heard her calling out, “I’ll be in to check on you a bit later.” Once again she had to remind Brody that she was a doctor, with superpowers, and he was in her care.

  Yet he was arguing—mostly with himself—and telepathically.

  How the hell had that happened? I have no clue how Clary ended up in charge of me, but, … if there was anybody in this world who would ensure I was still alive and doing okay, it would be Clary. And what’s with that sense of wonderment—when I first met her and didn’t know who she was? Why is it still with me?

  Clary walked into the room she’d been assigned and fell onto the bed, her shoes still on. She was exhausted in many ways. When the door opened without a knock or any warning, she smiled and called out, “I sure hope you brought a coffee with you.”

  “Will you sleep if you get coffee?” Cara asked worriedly, then sat down on the bed beside her. “You look like shit.”

  “Yeah. And thanks for that by the way,” she quipped. “I’m just tired. It took quite a bit to keep him going long enough to get us here in one piece. He thinks he’s a lot stronger than he is, so it’s taking a lot out of me.”

  “And yet you let him come.”

  “Yeah.” She opened her eyes to look at the sister she adored. “It also gave me a chance to come to you.”

  At that, her sister wrapped her up close. She was worried about her. “I hope it was the right decision,” Cara noted.

  “Is it that dangerous here right now?” Clary asked.

  “It’s like, … at times it’s just too much. It seriously is. Like bad news all around.”

  “Well, in that case, we’ll have to figure it out fast,” Clary stated, “because Brody was dying to get here. That’s the problem though. He could be dying.” She was deep in touch with Brody and drifted a bit, until Cara held her tightly. Clary nodded, addressed her sister. “We won’t do much about it. I know he only realized who I was when we got out here at the compound. So he’s still in a bit of shock and in a state of denial.”

  Her sister stared at her, and then, in a few moments, she started to laugh. “Oh my,” Cara said, “I hadn’t expected that.”

  “I know, right? Honestly I didn’t either. I thought the same connection I feel with him, he would feel with me.”

  At that, her sister stared at her in worry. “Is it … Is it deep?”

  “Of course it is,” Clary confirmed, “and you knew it would be.”

  “Well, I knew it could be troublesome,” Cara protested, “but I was hoping you’d distance yourself and not get too involved.”

  “Well, I failed. Somewhere along the line, it seemed more important to get him back than it was to keep myself separate. And, since I was fighting for his life, I realized that I had to let go of some of that detachment, which I so desperately needed.”

  “Oh Lord,” Cara whispered sadly. “In other words, you’re as hooked as I am. I’m sorry. That wasn’t my intent.”

  “I am hooked, but I’m not sure that it will have as positive of an outcome as you have experienced.”

  “We have to keep the faith on that,” Cara replied.

  “Yeah, well, you and I both know how hard this job can be.”

  “Sometimes I do wonder why we do this.” She focused on her sister, a worried expression on her face.

  “Because we really have no choice,” Clary murmured. “This is who we are, so, in order to be true to who we are, this is where we have to be.” And there was so much truth to her words that it brought tears to both sisters’ eyes.

  “Well, I really hope this works out for you,” Cara said. “Otherwise I’ll hate myself forever for having dragged you into it.”

  At that, Clary looked at her and laughed. “Like that’ll work,” she teased, trying to make Cara feel better.

  Cara stared at her affectionately. “You and I both know that we have a tendency to do what we feel we need to do.”

  Clary added, “And we jump right in regardless.”

  “I know,” Cara admitted, “but I don’t want you hurt.”

  “We get hurt with every job,” Clary stated. “We lose a little bit of ourselves, while we save someone else. It’s just part of the price of what we do.”

  “Still, I was hoping”—Cara paused—“that maybe this time would be different.”

  “Well, guess what?” Clary laughed. “It isn’t.”

  At that, her sister leaned over, gave her yet another hug. “Do you want a hot shower? I have clothes here, so maybe that will help.”

  “I would love some clothes,” Clary replied. “I did bring a bag, but I didn’t bring much, not knowing how long I would be here.”

  “Yeah, and that’s looking like it’ll be a lot longer than you thought, right?”

  “Isn’t it always?” she said sarcastically. “You would think we’d have learned our lesson by now. The problem is, we’ve never been exiled before. We’ve never had to hide like this, so all of our normal ways of operating had to be stopped in order to make this workable, and that means no shopping, no ordering online, and just making do. You seem to be doing okay with it though, don’t you?” Clary asked.

  “I am okay with it,” Cara replied, “for now at least. There have been lots of ups and downs, but, as long as I have Rick beside me, then it’s all good.”

  “I’m so happy for you. Rick looks like a very nice man.”

  “He is, but then you don’t need me to say that. You can see that energy all for yourself.”

  She grinned. “Yeah, I can. I’m just not sure how I’ll handle Brody.”

  “According to everybody else around here, Brody is the man.” Cara grinned.

  “We’ll have to see about that. Maybe this time both of us will get lucky.”

  “We haven’t been very lucky in love so far,” Cara admitted.

  Clary nodded. “If anything, it’s been the worst for both of us.”

  “I know,” Cara agreed, “but not everybody can understand the kind of work we do.”

  “These guys at least should manage that much,” Clary noted.

  “You’d think,” Cara added in a dry tone. “I am so confused. We’ve kept them alive and brought them back from the brink of death. You would think that they’re supposed to be okay with it, but we know how that goes.”

  “That’s not always the case with everyone,” Clary said.

  “No, but these are two young men, both healthy, both happy, and now with a connection to us that we never expected,” Cara stated, “so let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and see how it works out.”

  “And this is you saying that too,” Clary noted in amazement.

  Cara grinned. “That’s because I’m in love,” she whispered, “and it’s pretty damn fine. How about the same thing for you?”

  “Well, we certainly have that bond,” Clary confirmed, “and I’ve felt your emotions the whole time, but that doesn’t mean I’ll have the same result in my case.”

  “Well, we’ll see,” Cara replied. “We aren’t twins for nothing. I can feel your interest. I can feel your connection to him, and I can feel his connection to you. He has no clue what to do with any of this, but he’s definitely interested.” Cara grinned at her sister.

  “Good,” Clary said, “because so am I.”

  *

  It was hard to imagine feeling more like an idiot than Brody already did, once he realized that the woman who had traveled from the apartment and ended up with him here was Clary. The same woman who had been in his head and who supposedly had control over him in a way that he’d never experienced before.

  He felt a combination of resentment, embarrassment, and joy because there had been that connection, that sense of something special about her. Now he understood more; yet it just made him wary. He’d never been up against something like this before, and he wasn’t sure how to handle it.

  The fact that she was completely nonchalant and relaxed about it all didn’t help. She was also very close to her twin sister. The two of them were definitely not identical but similar enough in looks that he also felt a kinship with Cara.

  How the hell did that work?

  Brody shook his head, left his room, and joined his team in the main room. Brody looked over at Rick, sitting at a computer, pounding away on something and getting frustrated. Nobody would let him do anything either. At this point, nobody was letting Brody get close to anything important, and it was driving him nuts too. He dropped in the nearest chair with a grunt.

  When Clary sat down beside him, she said, “You’ll need to calm down that energy.”

  “Or what?” he snapped, glaring at her.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Or you’ll burn up too much energy, and the healing that could be happening won’t get done.”

  He mainly felt shitty because it wasn’t her fault. She’d done a lot to keep him alive, and he was being an ungrateful bastard. At the same time just knowing that he was an ungrateful bastard didn’t help. He groaned softly. “Sorry, I’m not trying to be a bear,” he explained. “It’s just frustrating that they won’t let me do anything.”

  “Because you’re obviously still not ready to do anything,” she murmured. “I get that you’re frustrated. You’re stressed, and you want to be back to the way you were, but you’re just not there yet.”

  “When will I get there?” He glared at her.

  “Not anytime soon at this rate,” she murmured.

  Nobody has ever been okay with someone telling them they are basically useless. He immediately got up and walked over to the coffeepot to pour himself a cup. She didn’t say anything, which was good, because he wasn’t sure that he could trust what would come out of his mouth.

  She stood beside him now. “Are you sure there isn’t something you can do that would be less demanding?” she murmured.

  “Like what?” He raised his empty hand in frustration. “If there was something I could do, and I knew what it was, I’d be doing it.”

  “Are they keeping you out of it intentionally?”

  “I think they are, but I’m not sure. They may just not have taken the time or energy to let me in on their plans. There is a slim chance of that.” He had no idea where this sudden urge to clarify himself was coming from.

  She nodded. “That makes more sense. I know that they’re short on manpower and that they’re struggling with whatever the scenario is,” she murmured. “I would imagine it’s more a case of not knowing how to make good use of you because they also don’t know where your abilities currently are and how you can contribute right now.”

  “Well, having you around as a babysitter won’t give them any confidence in me.” He struck a nerve, and she stared at him with such a flat gaze that he immediately felt shitty again. “You have the ability,” he said, “to make me feel like I’m a terrible person.”

  She burst out laughing. “Oh no. That …” she stated succinctly, “is not my ability but yours.”

  She was concerned, yet the banter was not helping at all, in Brody’s opinion.

  “If you want to be treated like a child,” she murmured, “then act like a child. If you want to be treated like an important part of the team, then act like that.” And, with that, she turned and walked over to sit beside her sister, who was helping Mariana with the supply list.

  He wondered at her words, unsure of what to do, as he pondered it. He didn’t get much chance because, all of a sudden, Terk was here, frowning at Brody, which he could use less of right about now. “I’m fine, you know.”