"She will," Jem echoed, and Gunner knew they were somehow talking about both Grace and Avery. Key was sitting there silently, staring at his hands.
This group had already seen enough for a thousand lifetimes, and somehow Gunner had caused the worst of it all.
"It's my fault," he said hoarsely.
"And it's mine too." Dare cut him off before he could say anything else.
"Fuck, Dare. I never thought . . ." He pulled himself together. "I love your sister."
"I know. She loves you too. But the future of this team . . . fuck, this isn't going to work. Not with what happened to Avery," Dare told them all.
"I agree," Gunner said quietly. Jem sat back in his chair, arms crossed, not meeting anyone's eyes, but Key . . . Key was staring at all of them, his expression tight.
"You can't take that away from her," Key said in a low, forceful cut this shit tone. "If that's the decision she makes, fine. But this is up to her. She is the team. Stop treating her like she didn't know what she was getting into. Give her some goddamned credit."
"It's not that easy, Key," Dare started, but Grace's voice cut him off. Gunner didn't know when she'd come back into the room, but it didn't matter, not when she echoed Key's sentiments.
"It might not be easy, but it has to be that easy."
"Avery's the reason S8 came together. She's the reason we all pulled together. She's the goddamned glue of this team, and she dealt with all of our shit and forced us to pull it together," Jem concurred. "We can't let her down now."
"Give her a chance to heal, Gunner." Grace's hands were on his shoulders. "Stop blaming yourself. She won't be able to heal if she knows you're doing that."
Gunner knew she was right, but it was so much easier said than done. For a long while, there was silence in the kitchen. Grace went about making coffee quietly, put the first cup down in front of Dare. When she caught his eye, she smiled and Gunner watched the man's face light up.
Dare smiled at Grace and said, "Avery brought me back from the edge. If it hadn't been for her, I don't know what would've happened when I met Grace. I was angry. Unpredictable. Living in solitude and she woke me up." Dare sounded broken.
Grace put her arms around him, stared at Gunner and asked, "How are we going to take Landon down? Because if we have a plan in place to present to Avery, I think she'll feel less like we're doing this for her."
"I have a copy of Landon's file from the CIA." Jem left the room and came back just as quickly, placing the CIA confidential folder on the table between them. "It's mainly about Gunner-James, actually-his jobs from the past six months. I don't think there's anything in there that ties him to Landon."
"Let me look," Gunner said quietly. He didn't want to. Knowing he'd done all the things written on paper was bad enough, but to have to revisit them in black and white . . .
For Avery, he would. He sat and opened the file. Pushed his anger back and he read until his eyes blurred, until he'd gone over each and every detail of his missions in living, breathing color. He could still smell the blood, taste the fear of the men he'd taken down. He knew every single reason why he'd done these jobs.
None of that made it right.
"Anything?" Dare asked. He'd been pacing until Grace led him gently to one of the couches. Gunner had been so engrossed he hadn't realized that they'd all been staring at him. Waiting.
He looked back down at the two pages he'd pulled. They didn't have much more detail than the others, but they had location points he hadn't noticed before.
He flipped the page so the others crowding the table could see it. Jem had a map out, pointed to the coordinates. Gunner nodded. "We start here."
"Where's that?"
Avery's voice.
"What the hell is it with women and sneaking up?" Jem demanded. "If we can't tell Grace or Avery's coming, maybe it is time we all retired."
"Or maybe we're that good," Grace told him, and Jem snorted.
Gunner had already gotten out of his seat to help Avery. "You shouldn't be up."
"You're all making plans without me," she said.
"We're making plans that include you," Gunner corrected.
"Landon's mine," she told them all, and Gunner felt the anger coming off her in waves.
"Why not let us help, Avery? It's what we do," Key reminded her.
"And you should've called before this," Dare added, but gently. "Fuck, don't ever do that again to me, sis."
Avery smiled at her brother. She was leaning heavily on Gunner and he looked toward Drea, who shrugged and mouthed, Couldn't stop her.
There was too much truth behind that statement.
"We had months to decide. I wasn't going to pull you all back for this. You had to make your decisions without duress. I couldn't do to you what we ended up doing unwittingly to Gunner," Avery told them all.
Dare flinched. It was apparent he felt as guilty as Avery did about that.
"I'm in," Key said.
"You already know my answer," Jem added.
"Someone's got to keep an eye on all of you." Dare crossed his arms.
"I want you all to know that I'm a better shot than Dare," Grace told them, breaking the tension.
Dare turned to her in mock frustration. "One time. My hands were acting up."
Grace took Dare's hands into hers and rubbed them. "I want to be involved. You have to let me. Even though it might not be by blood, Gunner's my brother."
"We're all family," Avery said quietly. "And this is what family's supposed to do for one another."
"Section 8's as much about protecting its own as it is about protecting the innocent. We're all legacies. We all deserve to be a part of this," Dare said.
"Let's start thinking of ourselves as lucky to be a part of it instead of cursed," Jem said, throwing a sideways glance at Key. Gunner was sure he'd eventually find out what that was all about. For now, all he needed to know was that they were bound by pain and pride. They would always know one another's deepest, darkest secrets, a fact born of necessity. All secrets weren't uncovered, not yet, but they would need to be put on the table. Because secrets could be used against the team.
Avery looked up when Grace came into the room. Drea had given her another pain pill without Avery having to ask. Now she'd settled back against the pillows, glad she'd forced herself to make the trip into the kitchen. She needed to show them that she was all right. That she would be.
Whether or not she truly felt that way would be her secret for now. Hers and Drea's and Grace's, since she knew she couldn't pull shit on these women.
"Nice job in there," Grace told her now. She pulled the door closed behind her. "They really needed that."
"They're hurting," Avery said.
"They're better now that they know you're still in," Grace assured her. She sat on the edge of the bed by Avery's feet. Drea was on the other side, curled up on a pillow, her tattooed arm resting lazily above her head. Avery leaned back against the pillows as the pill began to work. The throbbing pain receded, replaced by a low-level ache she could most definitely handle.
"Do you guys want to be alone?" Drea asked.
Grace shook her head. "You seem to be in as deeply as we are," she told Drea, before turning her attention back to Avery. "I didn't know if I should give you these or not."
For the first time, Avery noticed Grace had something tucked under her arm. She was holding three of the journals that Avery instantly recognized as part of Adele's set. The woman had liked writing in a certain type of journal, with a certain pen, and she seemed to have never wavered from that. That in and of itself comforted Avery. It had probably comforted Adele too-it was something that never changed in what had to have been a tumultuous existence.
"Why not?"
"These should've gone before the others," Grace admitted.
"I thought there was . . . something missing." There had been, physically, a full year in which Adele hadn't written anything. Avery thought a lot about what could've happened during that missing year. "I'd hoped she'd fallen in love."
"She did. But something else happened to her too." Grace held the journals tight against her body, still unwilling-seemingly unable-to part with them. "I didn't want to scare you."
And just then, Avery knew exactly what had happened to Adele. Drea seemed to know too, even though she didn't know who Adele was. The room stilled and Avery reached out for the journals. Slowly, Grace relinquished them.
Avery put them in her lap, traced the leather bindings with her fingers. "Was she raped on a job?"
"Yes."
"And the men knew?"
"She only told Darius. A year later," Grace said.
Drea gave a low whistle under her breath, then said, "Tough broad."
"She was," Avery agreed, making a note to let Drea read some of the journals. She didn't know exactly what the doctor's deal was, but suspected Jem would, soon enough. The very fact that she'd basically saved Avery's ass was enough to win her Avery's devotion.
"I didn't . . . Dare didn't tell you because I didn't want him to. I wasn't sure I was ever going to tell you what happened to me," Grace started.
"Grace, no . . ." Avery breathed.
"Dare didn't tell you everything. He kept a big part of it private. You all knew how bad my time with Rip was, but . . ." She paused. "It was Rip's men," she explained. Avery knew Grace's stepfather-and Gunner's father-had locked her in the basement rooms of the mansion and tortured her for a year, but she hadn't thought that he'd be capable of having his own stepdaughter raped. "It happened a lot that year. And it still comes up to bite me in the ass, and I hate it. And I know Landon didn't rape you, but he still took something from you. I just want you to know, when I say I understand, it's not just lip service."
Avery grabbed her hand, squeezed it hard.
"I'm not saying I'm fine. I'd be lying," Grace continued. "But I needed you to know I've been there. I know what you're feeling. We're all sticking together, but you and me, we need to rely on each other during the tough times. Because we'll each have them."
"Every time I close my eyes," Avery started, was unable to finish. "It's nothing compared to what you went through."
"Do not even go there, my love. What we both went through was horrible."
"Do you have nightmares?"
"Yes."
"Gunner does too. But I don't think they're all from me. I think . . ."
"Living with Rip is enough to do that to anyone," Grace whispered.
"I guess we've got our very own support group," Drea said softly.
"Ah, dammit." Grace took the doctor's hand in hers. "The Fates have a way of bringing those we need right to our door."
"Or they have Jem do it," Drea said, and that got a laugh from all of them. "My ex is abusive, just like my parents. You'd think I'd have learned to avoid the wrong kind of people."
"I think maybe you've finally found the right kind of people," Grace told her. Avery noticed that she sounded so sure of herself, wondered if Grace's sixth sense was kicking in something fierce about Drea, or if, like Avery, she just sensed that the doctor needed them.
Either way, it didn't matter. For the moment, they had one another.
Chapter Twenty-four.
Jem made a few calls and the next morning, he got an e-mail file he printed out for Gunner to see.
"These are Maria Landon's hospital records from the night she gave birth," Jem told him.
Gunner took the seat next to him. "I hope you don't run out of favors anytime soon."
"No chance of that," Jem assured him. "Doctor's notes indicate that the second birth was a surprise."
"How the hell can you read that chicken scratch?" Gunner asked.
"Been reading hospital records my whole damned life, Gun." Jem ran his finger along the lines of scrawl. "Okay, yeah, so second baby came five minutes later. Doc was delivering the placenta when Mom started yelling and contractions started again. Said baby was blue when first delivered but roused quickly. No permanent damage."
"Yeah, right," Gunner muttered. "How would we know if they're identical or not?"
"Look, DNA testing wasn't done back then. Obviously, there wasn't an ultrasound or no one would've been surprised. Doc notes that twins shared the same placenta, but that's not always an indicator of anything. Nurse noted that footprints looked alike."
Gunner leafed through the file and pulled out the inked markings from the two boys and held them up, side by side.
"Why the hell wouldn't Landon have mentioned the fact that he's a twin to you?" Jem asked. "I mean, an identical twin's not exactly run-of-the-mill."
"I guess he never thought the guy would try to impersonate him." Gunner thought back to what Landon used to say about family. From his first moments on the island, when Gunner stood stiffly in Drew's office, not sure what the hell to do, Landon had gone out of his way to be kind.
"Your father didn't have to do this," Landon told him. "I never asked him to."
"But he did," Gunner bit out. Wondered why it was so important that Landon tell him all of this.
"Sometimes family has their reasons." Landon motioned to the helo that was waiting on the lawn. It arrived after Powell's had left, and now Gunner watched a man walking toward it, carrying a bag slung over his shoulder. The man never looked back, but Landon had looked so damned sad.