A mumbled chorus came in response to the words, more general welcome than anything else. She smiled and said, “I’ll try not to inhibit the process too much, but thank you for permitting me to sit in.”
The next hour illuminated her decision; before, she’d had only an inchoate desire, but after watching Will work—seeing him take mental pain and confusion and help these patients sort through their myriad fears—she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt this was what she wanted to do with her life. She could see that they trusted him, and by the time they walked out the door, she had a new respect for William Reynolds.
“Did you learn anything?” he asked.
“Yes, you’re very good.”
He laughed. “I wasn’t fishing, but thank you.”
Before she could reply to that, an alarm went off and a male voice came over the PA, making an announcement that she figured was in some kind of code. “What’s going on?”
“Someone’s broken out of the secure ward, where they keep the dangerous patients and the criminally insane.”
“Does that mean—”
“Yes, we should find the lounge and wait. They won’t let anyone in or out until they resolve the situation.” He shook his head wryly. “I’m sorry, Grace. I didn’t imagine this trip would take up your whole Saturday.”
“Not your fault.”
While staff hurried down the hall, presumably to widen the net, they went in search of the break room. The situation reminded her unpleasantly of the Exeter facility, but she forced the memories down, reminding herself nothing illegal took place here. The majority had come seeking treatment, trying to get better. While the same wasn’t true of those who had been confined by the courts, they didn’t need to be out in the world, wreaking havoc.
“I think it’s just ahead.” He quickened his step, and those three feet proved the factor that changed everything.
It all happened in a split second; the distance between them, a door opening behind her, and suddenly, she had an arm around her throat, and a makeshift shiv pricking the skin of her throat.
No,
she thought.
I don’t die here.
Her captor was male and he smelled of terror sweat, the demons in his brain driving him on.
She made some sound of distress and Will turned. His whole body stilled, and for an instant, she saw abject fear in his face.
He didn’t move, reaching out with only his voice. “Don’t hurt Grace.”
Step one—use my name. Make me a person to him.
Only silence came in reply, but the blade at her throat trembled, and dread seeped into her bones. The sting meant he’d cut her; warm blood welled up. While the professor might be an excellent hostage negotiator—she had no idea—you couldn’t reason with crazy. There were no words that would convince this man not to kill her if he thought she was a threat.
“What’s your name, sir?”
Step two—establish rapport and use a respectful manner of address.
Longer silence. “I’m not telling you. You’re one of them.” He turned to someone Gillie couldn’t see and snarled, “You shut the fuck up, I’m in charge here.”
Acute paranoid schizophrenia, chased with hallucinations.
But diagnosing him wouldn’t save her.
Will changed tactics. “You’re doing well here. I can see you have the situation completely in control. What is it that you want, sir?”
“To get the fuck out of here.”
“That can be arranged. Just let Grace go.”
“I’m not stupid,” he said to the invisible heckler. “I
know
he’s trying to trick me.”
The voices in his head were winning. She felt his forearm tense, which meant he was about to slit her throat. Gillie sank her teeth savagely into his knife hand, not about to die without a fight. Grace Evans might be too frightened to act, but
she
was not. The bite drew blood and forced him to drop the shiv. But her anger kindled a dark echo; they were both smeared with blood, his and hers, and her awful ability sparked to life, this time fueled by fury, and it sank its fangs into him like a snake. He went down, screaming and clutching his head.
Hands shaking, she swiped a palm across her lips. Will came over and put a hand on her shoulder; doubtless he thought she needed to be steadied and reassured.
You have no idea,
she thought.
I used to face worse than this before breakfast.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
She nodded as hospital staff swarmed them, asking questions, which the professor fielded. From his perspective, it must have looked very odd.
A bite leads the crazy man to fall down screaming.
But Gillie knew the truth: somehow she had forced her disease on him. The cancer that should have killed her as a child had become a weapon in her hands.
CHAPTER 19
Taye knew he
didn’t have much longer. Stomach pain stabbed constantly now. He chased pain meds with whiskey and it barely dulled the agony, even on a good day. On bad days, he chewed the pills without liquor and focused on the bitter grit in his teeth, waiting for the moment when the lightning in his belly would drop to a slow throb. Pulling had become an exercise in special torment, engineered by a particularly sick mind. Rowan would laugh, if he knew; he’d enjoy Taye’s suffering.
He had promised them six missions, and he’d run five. Freed a lot of people. Kicked a lot of ass. More important, he had cost the Foundation a hell of a lot of money. Over that time, he had become closer to Hawk—and Juneau—than he might’ve expected. His partner had broken the rules, taken him home after he nearly fried himself getting them out of the factory trap. His girlfriend inexplicably took a liking to Taye, and now, they were like family to him.
But nobody could replace the woman who had stepped into his heart when she first offered him tea and cookies in hell. At night, he still saw her face, as she had looked when he wished her well.
She deserves to kick me in the nuts if that’s how she feels. It’s time for closure.
Time to go home for a little while. He had wrestled with this and tried to fight his desire, listing all the reasons it was wrong, and why she was better off without him. But he wanted her so badly, and he could no longer resist her magnetic pull. Taye got out his phone and dialed.
“This number is for emergencies only,” Mockingbird said.
He sounded . . . different, somehow. Different cadence, different in a way Taye couldn’t put his finger on. But nothing in his tone said he had just woken up, though he had no idea what time zone the other man was in.
“Yeah.”
“So if you don’t have some Foundation bastards about to end you, I’m curious why you called.” He didn’t sound curious. He sounded tired and impatient.
Taye could understand. With the burden this man carried, it was a wonder he ever slept at all. Everyone counted on him to keep the operations running smoothly and to extricate them if they ran into trouble. And the demands never ceased. That knowledge wouldn’t stop him, however. He was down to the point where he had precious little to lose.
“I’m asking a favor.”
“Really.”
“I’ve completed most of my missions now. They all went better than expected. No loss of life on our side, major hurt to the bad guys.”
“True enough. So what do you need?” A little curter than usual, maybe—he seemed eager to get off the line.
“A vacation.”
“Reasonable request. What’s the catch?”
“I want you to tell me where Cardinal is.”
Silence. The line hummed with the static he’d come to associate with Mockingbird, probably the voice scrambling gear he used. “That’s strictly against policy. It’s for her safety as well as your own.”
Desperation trickled into his tone. “Look, I know you’ve sent people there for recovery, and then had Finch go to work on them. I’m willing to submit to the same treatment afterward.”
“You want to spend time with her . . . that you won’t remember? You got it bad.”
Yeah, I kinda already know that
. Despair made him willing to promise anything, say anything; he missed her so much it hurt. It had all but killed him to let her walk away—to act like the time they’d spent together hadn’t meant everything to him. By now, she might have moved on. She would’ve had time to meet other guys and see he wasn’t special at all. And if that was the case, then she’d enjoy telling him to fuck off in person.
“Consider it a dying man’s last wish.”
“I wondered when you were gonna bring that up. Hawk said you were puking blood on the last run. Not a good sign, my friend.”
“I know. And after this break, I’ll make the final run for you. My word on it.”
If that meant anything.
He might’ve been a compulsive liar in his last life.
Yeah,
he told himself.
It does mean something. You’re a new man now.
There was a long silence while MB thought it over. Taye was prepared to beg if it came to that. The indecision surprised him, though. He’d expected a quick
fuck off
or
we can do this, but don’t tell anyone
type reply. Quietly he wondered if the pressure was getting to MB.
Eventually, he prompted, “So . . . can you help me?”
“It’s against my better judgment, but I’m not unsympathetic to your position.” He hesitated. “I know what it’s like to want somebody you can’t have.”
Interesting.
He never would’ve guessed MB had any softer feelings at all. He always seemed borderline robotic, wholly focused on the mission. Despite his curiosity, he knew better than to press for more. He might just piss the guy off and change his mind.
“Where’s Cardinal then?”
“I’ll get you the address.” There was a pause, and then he spoke it quickly, as if he wasn’t sure of the choice he’d just made.
More unusual behavior.
Mockingbird never seemed less than certain about anything. That was part of the reason why people followed him without question. He was the answer man, magical, mystical, and never wrong.
But Taye was too relieved to push. “What’s the best way to get to Wichita from here?”
“I’ll hook you up.”
“Heron?”
“None other.”
Taye went immediately to his standard-issue agent laptop and did some Googling. “Could you have him drop me off downtown? I have something to do first.”
“Not a prob. We don’t offer much in the way of severance packages, but our fringe benefits are top notch.”
“Thanks. I won’t forget this.”
Mockingbird laughed. “You will actually. And don’t mention it. You’ve got three weeks. Make the most of them.”
“I will,” he answered, and cut the call.
Mockingbird sent Heron right away because he popped into the safe house before Taye had time to do anything other than grab his backpack. Heron scrawled,
Do you get motion sick?
Though it was hard to tell how the whiskey and the Oxy-Contin would affect his travel tolerance, he answered, “I don’t think so.”
Taking that as gospel, Heron seized his arm and jerked him out of the world into a wind tunnel full of melting spiders made of wax. At least that was how his brain processed it, and then they ported back into the known universe. Here, it was still and warm, a pretty day in late spring.
“Wichita?” he asked.
Heron nodded and disappeared. Nobody knew exactly what his deal was. He had a tongue, but his throat didn’t work right; he simply couldn’t speak. Some smart-ass he’d ported for recovery had started an urban legend that Heron screamed his voice away, when the Foundation first locked him up. Whatever the truth, Heron wasn’t talking.
Heh. No pun intended.
Because it was nice out and he had plenty of time, Taye walked the mile and a half to the health center. Maybe it was fucking presumptuous, but he would show up at Gillie’s door with a clean bill of health, papers in hand. It wasn’t like he could tell her about his partners; he didn’t remember them. So before he laid a finger on her—assuming she’d let him—he would make sure he was safe. Emotionally, he wasn’t safe for her at all, but he couldn’t resist the need to be with her, at least for these very short weeks. He missed her too much to keep fighting the endless need. It was funny; her memory had conquered him with distance and absence.
Hoist with your own petard, dumbass. You thought once you got her away from you, it would get easier.
It hadn’t. Every day he’d been apart from her, the wound bled endlessly.
Well, if this last glimpse of her is all I get of happily ever after, so be it.
Still he braced for the worst.
She might have moved on.
And if that was the case, he’d wish her well, and go for good. There was simply no time to make himself worthy of her. Yet he would have felt like he was doing her a terrible disservice if he hadn’t let her explore other options before swooping in to claim her, much as it hurt him, even more than the daggers grinding in his stomach. So maybe it was too late; maybe he’d only had a shot at her as long as she didn’t see there were better men in the world.