Releasing the air in his lungs, he immediately reinflated them …

… and waited for whatever was next.

Chapter Eight

“… pair in the mouth. ETA four minutes. Clear entrance and far right side of pool…”

Pressing the release button on the wire that ran from his earpiece down the side of his neck, Butch said quietly, “Roger that.”

As he strode around the edge of the pool, he tracked the movements of the candidates in the water with his thermal-imaging goggles. Two more had just fallen in from up above; both had surfaced and assumed a dead man’s float so they were tight and relatively quiet. Not always the case. He and Tohr had had to pull four candidates out already, which meant there were only three other males in with the new couple.

Everyone was far away from entry point B over on the right. Good.

Butch checked his watch. Whoever was left behind in the gym was going to be timed out in another six minutes. And all this stuff was just the preamble to what he and his Brothers were referring to as the Final Destination—and that last stop was going to be shut down by the sun at dawn, so it was mission-critical that the group who made it through these early tests had enough time out there.

Doc Jane and Manny’s clinic was filling up. The mild herbal emetic had more than done its duty, and there had been a variety of minor cuts, scrapes, muscle pulls and burns. Two loads of dropouts were already on their way off the property, and there were going to be more.

This was the thing with a meritocracy: Shit had to get real fast, because he and V weren’t going to waste time on anybody who couldn’t make the cut.

“Is it my turn yet?” Lassiter asked over the earpiece. “I was born ready for this.”

“Of all the people who could be immortal,” V muttered, “why are you one of them?”

“Because I’m awwwwwesome,” the fallen angel sang. “And I’m part of your team—”

“No, you’re not—”

“—living your dream!”

Butch’s head started thumping even worse. “Shut up, Lass. I can’t do singing right now.”

“It’s from Despicable Me,” the angel commented. Like he was being helpful.

“Shut up,” V cut in.

“Shut up.” Butch fought to keep his voice low. “We’ve got another four minutes in the gym. I’ll let you know when you can—”

“I’m losing air over here, you know,” Lassiter bitched. “My inflatable is deflating.”

V cursed. “That’s because it doesn’t want to be around you any more than we do.”

“You keep this up and I’m going to start thinking my enmity is mutual.”

“About fucking time.”

Right, Butch didn’t get off on dragging soaking-wet, panicked idiots out of a pool—but, man, he was really frickin’ glad he wasn’t on the back side of the house with those two fighting. “Sit tight, Lass,” he said. “I’ll be in touch—and, V, for the love of God, will you turn off his fucking mic—”

“Ow! Hey! What the fuck, V—”

Annnnnnd everything went blissfully silent.

As his headache tried to kick down the door to his skull, Butch wanted to pop his goggles off and rub his eyes, but he wasn’t about to lose sight of the candidates for even a moment. The last thing the program needed was someone getting seriously hurt, or worse, waking up dead.

Besides, he was distracted enough on his own, even with the 20/20 headset.

Something was wrong with Marissa.

Shit knew he’d spent enough time being a walking zombie back during his human days to recognize the numb preoccupation she’d been rocking.

The trouble was, she was giving him nothing to go on. Every time he asked her what she was thinking about or whether she was okay, she smiled at him and made some BS excuse about things being busy at Safe Place.

Undoubtedly that was true, but that was always the case. And she didn’t always look like she had for the last night and day.

Maybe they just needed an evening off—and not only in terms of not working. The mansion was a great place to live—the chow was good, and the company even better. The problem was, you didn’t get much privacy. Short of retiring to your bedroom, which in their case was a shoe-box-sized enclave with a thin door and thin walls at the Pit, you weren’t ever truly alone. Intrusions happened without warning by everyone from the staff, to other Brothers, to mates.

The Irish Catholic from a big family in him loved that.

The worried hellren part of him was not quite as enthused.

I need to go on a date, he thought.

“Where are we going?” V asked in his ear.

Shit, he’d said that out loud. “Not you.”

“Hurt. Seriously hurt over here,” came the tinny reply.

“Marissa and I need…”

“If it’s sex ed, I could have sworn you two figured that out. Unless all those sounds are just the pair of you thumb-wrestling.”

“Really.”

“You’re saying that shit is origami? Jesus Christ, the paper cuts … can’t fucking imagine, true?”

“Stop it.”

“Says Marissa never.”

“Not been the case recently,” Butch retorted.

“You got problems?”

“I don’t know.”

There was a long period of silence. “I have an idea.”