The Cardinal Bird - Book 1: Reverse Harem Series (The Cardinal Series) Read online

  Something sparked in my memory. Jace had mentioned that his brother must have been in the van. He hadn’t mentioned it was an identical twin brother.

  "CJ?" I guessed.

  CJ nodded his head, and his eyes seemed to glow as a smile stretched his face. It was as breathtaking and refreshing as his scent, and I felt my heart give a big burst of joy. It wasn't often I was smiled at like I was the answer to somebody's prayers, so it must just be the type of person that CJ was.

  "For a second, I thought maybe I had been hit harder than I thought. That maybe I was seeing double."

  There was a beat of silence, and then Jace smirked as CJ smiled. They climbed to their feet, and my head tilted back to look at their faces. At a crouch, they had nearly been the same height as me. Now that they were standing on either side of me, and the effect of their height was hitting me full force. My eyes bounced back and forth between them. They were identical. Really, their personalities were the only things that stood out. Jace was more reserved and careful with his expressions, his eyes reflecting back a person that had become cautious by necessity, whereas CJ was open and eager. His eyes, though the same brown color as his brothers, were brighter. They seemed more golden-caramel than they did his brother’s dark chocolate. It was almost as if they were glowing with an inner light.

  "CJ," Jace said. "This is Callie. She needs some bandages. Can we use the kit in your van?"

  "Yeah, sure, but we have equipment in mine. There might be more room to work in yours since we left your van mostly empty to have room for passengers."

  "Right. Ours it is, then."

  Jace's hand found its place on my back again, as if I needed guiding. CJ went ahead and opened up the other van.

  A quick glimpse into the van we bypassed on our way showed some shelves that ran the length of the vehicle that attached to the walls with cables and hinges so that they could be pushed up and out of the way during transport. There was a laptop opened up with what looked like satellite images of a forested area. A single folding chair was squeezed in there by it. Other pieces of equipment were in there, but with the light coming in through the windshield, it darkened them to silhouettes too hard to make out on a brief glance.

  CJ must be their tech guy since that was the van he was in. He’d probably been running surveillance from the computer. Could he be Megabyte_1, the hacker I’d sent the coordinates to? I didn’t have to time think much further on it and ask.

  CJ disappeared into the back of the second van with a quick jump. It was a coordinated and easy move as he managed to dodge the ceiling at the same time as he shuffled in. Inside this van, the shelves were still clipped in an upright position against the walls. There were some bench seats folded down that hadn't been in the other van. Along the far back were some closed, silver cases stacked up and still strapped against the passenger seat up front.

  Jace helped me up into the back of the van. The ceiling was rather higher than CJ's crouching had made it seem. My head probably had a few inches to spare between it and the roof.

  "You're short," Jace said, the van shaking under our feet let me know he had climbed in as well.

  CJ was on his knees with a first aid box already out and opened on the bench seat. He gestured for me to sit without glancing up as he rifled around with his other hand through the first aid box. I sat next to him, and Jace crouched on my other side with his palm on the seat next to me.

  "Okay," CJ inventoried, "We've got Band-Aids, disinfectant, cream, gauze...duct tape?" CJ glanced over at Jace. "Who put duct tape in here?"

  "Aleks. Had to be."

  CJ shook his head before meeting my eyes. "What do you need? Band-Aids?"

  I pushed against my bottom lip as I thought. "If you have it, I’ll need peroxide, gauze, wrap, and something to maybe scrub with...paper towels would probably get the job done."

  "Scrub?" CJ asked, his eyes going over to his twin’s.

  "She was in some dirty water," Jace said carefully, and I could almost feel his eyes studying me.

  CJ pulled out the supplies I had asked for. "That's her excuse then. Why do you smell, bro?"

  "Someone had to be her hero."

  I started to unzip the jacket, fully prepared to do the patching up myself.

  Something clattered to the floor. A tube of cream. I looked up. There was a light pink that was growing progressively darker on CJ's cheeks.

  "W-what are you doing?" he stuttered. I followed his line of sight, only just remembering that I had only a bra and panties on under the jacket.

  My face blazed to life, a raging inferno. Nikolai and the others had treated my nudity as nothing for so long. It was as if I had forgotten that it meant something other than another vulnerability for him to exploit. I was stuttering worse than CJ was now. In fact, my mind was so full of frozen embarrassment that it had no room for any other thoughts. "I-I'm...uh...t-th...y-yyou. W-ell, I..."

  "Good one, Chris James," Jace said, snatching the supplies from his equally flustered brother. Our embarrassment was a loop feeding into the others. The more self-conscious I felt the more CJ did too. "Give me those. You've embarrassed her."

  Yes, let's just call it out to the whole room. That made it so much better.

  Jace turned to me as he arranged what he needed first on the bench. "The cuts are obviously under the jacket somewhere. That's where the blood is coming from."

  I didn't know where to look. I most definitely was not going to look at CJ. Likewise, the way Jace had seemed so unaffected by the situation also made me nervous--reminding me somewhat of Nikolai, so I focused over his shoulder as he moved in front of me. Once he had everything arranged to his satisfaction, I felt him look at me. The air shifted right before his hand landed gently on my bare knee. "Callie, do you mind if I take a look?"

  I hadn't before, but now I certainly did. The wounds needed to be looked at. They were definitely aching and burning now that I'd had a chance to completely warm up from the tank, but I thought I might spontaneously combust into a raging blaze of shame. I shifted in my seat and bit my lip, avoiding the combined weight of both their gazes.

  The things I let bother me.

  Chapter 6

  Callie," CJ said after a moment. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it earlier. I was just surprised. I wasn't thinking."

  "Damn straight, you weren't thinking. Fix this," Jace said, his smoky voice dark and intent.

  I finally looked at them. "Please don't be angry at CJ. It's not his fault."

  Jace turned his glare to me and opened his mouth to say something, but he then closed it as he caught movement from CJ.

  CJ had started to unzip his jacket.

  "What are you doing?" Jace asked, his eyes narrowed at his twin brother.

  "She can have my shirt," CJ said, grabbing it by the back of the neck and pulling it over his head. He held it out to me. “We left all of our clothes at the hotel.”

  "Are you sure? You don't have to." I didn't reach for the shirt immediately, eyeing it instead.

  His eyes warmed a bit, and he smiled at me. "Yes," he said just as softly as I had.

  It made my heart flutter. I reached for it, my hand closing over the surprisingly soft black cotton. It was still warm and smelled like lemons. "Thank you," I said, meeting his kind, bright eyes, so similar yet so different from his brother's serious, dark ones. I wasn’t sure how it was possible since they were the exact same shade.

  They both got up with some unspoken cue and left to give me some privacy. I quickly shucked the damp jacket and pulled the shirt over my head. It went down even farther than the jacket had. The twins were really tall.

  "Callie," came one of the twin's voices. "This might be really weird, and if it is, just say so. But would you like some boxers too? You can have mine."

  Jace hadn't had any boxers on after his dunk in the tank, so it must have been CJ that had asked me.

  I tried to think rationally. My immediate response was to say no, but then I thought about it. He was offering, and from what I knew of CJ, he was sincere. He wouldn't have said anything if he hadn't meant it. Not only that but, since I’d removed the damp jacket for a dry t-shirt, I could feel how cold I really was. My damp unmentionables were painfully noticeable now that I had something dry to compare them to. It would be really nice to get out of them.

  "Yes, please, if you're sure you don't mind?" I asked through the door, but before I could finish speaking, one of the doors had cracked open and a large, tanned hand appeared, holding them out.

  I reached forward to take them, only now just realizing how intimate this really was. I was looking at a man's boxers. I could see what his boxers looked like. I was going to be wearing a man's boxers. A stranger's boxers. Boxers that, like his shirt, were still warm.

  ...and there went my cheeks again.

  "T-thank you," I said. I pulled the panties down as quickly as possible, deciding to also slip the wet bra out as I did so. The flash drive clinked to the floor, so I put it back on the bench. I wouldn't have any pockets, so I'd give it to one of the guys for safekeeping.

  I pulled the boxers up. They were loose and wouldn't stay, but I could hold them up just fine and was more relieved that I was covered and dry than I was about being inconvenienced.

  I went to open the back door, briefly remembered what had caused the whole mess earlier with CJ knocking me out and thought better of it. Instead, I knocked against the door gently. "I'm finished," I said.

  "Back up, Callie. We're coming in."

  I went back to the bench seat, grabbed the thumb drive, and sat. Jace had done a pretty good job of organizing the supplies already. It was how I would have arranged them.

  I picked up one of the rags that had been set and went to work on cleaning up the trails of blood that’d been making their way down my legs. The blood trail on my right, the one from the stomach shot, was longer and thicker. It must've been worse off than the one on my thigh.

  The doors opened, spilling more light into the back of the van, making it much easier to see. On my left leg, I could actually see the faint pink lines in the skin, a sure sign of infection, peeking out from the hem of the boxers.

  I decided that I could just start with that wound and work my way up. At least I could see it and clean it easier than I would be able to the one on my stomach. I would have to do that one mostly by feel alone, but it would be okay. I'd done it before.

  Unfortunately, with only one free hand, I had to put the thumb drive back down again. I poured some peroxide into the rag this time, using it to clean away some of the dried blood and stuff that hadn't wanted to come up the first time.

  The van didn't shift, so the twins hadn't come in, and I couldn't figure out why.

  "Okay, here's the test," CJ’s bright voice sounded more serious.

  I glanced up. Jace and CJ were standing outside the van, shoulder to shoulder, and it really hit me just how identical they were. Now that CJ had given up his shirt and boxers, same as Jace, it was easy to see that everything matched, right down to the definition on their tanned torsos and chests. In resigned jealousy, my brain even took in the fact that Jace's curly hair was already dry, unlike my own dripping mess. Boys were so lucky.

  "What test?" I asked, scrubbing away at some more blood.

  "Which is which?" Jace asked, a small smile on his face. It seemed odd, maybe out of practice or out of place. Even his smoky voice seemed cheerier.

  "What?" I asked. A frown took over my features, despite the twinge I felt from the bump on my head as the muscles contracted and stretched.

  "Who's Jace and who's CJ?" CJ asked seriously.

  Strange. The two must get mixed up a lot with each other. I wasn't surprised either when I thought back to when I thought I'd had double vision earlier.

  "Jace. CJ." I said, pointing to them as I did.

  Their mouths dropped open at the same time.

  "How'd you know?"

  They sounded as if I had just created a cure for cancer. Was it weird that I could tell them apart? People must confuse them a lot, which was confusing to me. Before, I’d thought I’d been hallucinating, but now that I knew they were actually two separate people...it would be hard to confuse Jace’s dark, smoky essence with CJ’s bright, cheery vitality--even if they were identical.

  I didn't want to seem strange though. My mind raced at how to get out of this without making things awkward.

  They were too far away to tell which one smells like lemon and which one smells like oranges. Plus, I didn't want to tell them that I had been scenting them. That was weird, right? At the same time, I didn't want to say that one was dark, and one was light. That was even weirder, and it would make Jace feel...I didn't know what, but probably not good. It sounded too much like a good and evil twin to me which wasn’t the case at all.

  "Well," I said. "Jace still smells a bit from diving in that water."

  CJ's serious face burst into joy. "Ha! Jace, she said you stink!"

  Jace gave him a light shove.

  There. I had dodged that bullet. I started to roll up the hem of the boxers.

  "Callie, what are you doing?" Jace asked.

  I paused. I was covered up this time, so that couldn't be what Jace was asking about. Was I doing something wrong? I didn't want to upset these people. They were so nice and had already done so much for me. I tried to think about what I was doing wrong but nothing sprang to mind. "Um. I'm bandaging myself?"

  "You don't have to do that," CJ said, climbing into the van. Jace followed behind him. They once again filled up the space of the van. "We'll help you."

  Jace took the rag from my hand, upending the bottle of peroxide over it to help wet it.

  CJ knelt down on my other side and went to finish rolling up the boxers that I had started. He sucked in a quick breath and stilled. "Callie...you..."

  Jace's head snapped around, probably to see what had caused that sort of a reaction from his twin. His eyes stopped then narrowed at where his brother was looking at my leg. I didn't have to look down to know what they were seeing. I wasn't sure exactly what it looked like after my time in the tank, but I could hazard a guess.

  Jace's eyes met mine.

  I flinched back a bit and then couldn't move under the weight of the anger in his gaze, but he didn't hold me there for long. Instead, his eyes trailed down to my right leg where the other, larger trail of blood had been before I wiped it up.

  He quickly lifted a hand to pull up the boxers, but, finding nothing there, his hand went further up to the t-shirt, yanking it up out of the way.

  He didn't stop until it was just under my chest.

  He looked back up at me.

  "You've been shot." Jace shook his head, looking very confused. “You've been shot. Twice." He repeated, without any inflection to his tone. His dark-chocolate eye stayed on the wound in my stomach. "Recently. Why didn't you tell us earlier? We didn’t think it was life-threatening."

  I didn't say anything.

  "And then you were dropped in that tank of filth."

  "Tank?"

  Jace didn't acknowledge CJ's question. His hand brushed along my stomach. "They're infected, shit. CJ!" He didn't say anything else besides his brother’s name, but CJ was jumping up and making his way out the back of the van.

  "Wait! CJ!" I said. He turned back to me. I picked up the thumb drive, knowing he'd know how important it was if—as I suspected—he really was the tech guru for their team. I held it out to him. "Will you keep this safe?"