Authors: Dean Murray
"You'll
still be here?"
I
could hear the impending tears. A part of her was convinced that I
would leave and she'd never find me again. The fear was nearly
all-consuming, but she was forcing herself to deal with it because
she knew the alternative would be to defy me and watch as I walked
out of her life.
"Yes,
I promise. If I'm not in this exact spot ask one of the others to
help you find me. I won't leave the school without you."
She
nodded, a quick, choppy motion, and started for the door as if eager
to start the countdown so she could return as soon as possible. I
called out to her before she disappeared from view.
"I'm
sorry, Brindi. I don't want to hurt you like this, but you've
changed—even in just the last couple of days. I need you to be
the strong young woman who saved me from death, not someone who will
try to manipulate their way to an extended high. One of those people
will be welcome in my life, the other won't be."
She
nodded and strode quickly from view. I turned back to Rachel and
found that she had wrapped her arms around herself as though trying
to hold herself together. That or maybe force herself not to reach
out and touch me.
"I'm
sorry, Rachel. I didn't think about what it would be like for you to
be all alone with only a bunch of shape shifters you can't ever touch
for company."
She
mustered a brave smile, but I could tell that my words had hit home.
The revelation made a lot of other things suddenly make sense. She
didn't approve of Brindi, but she'd still taken every possible
opportunity to touch her.
Brindi
was the only other human, the only other person Rachel didn't have to
keep a careful distance from in order to avoid Brindi's fate. I'd
taken Rachel away from our mother to save her from a terrible
situation, but in a lot of ways her life had gotten even harder since
leaving home.
"It's
okay, Alec. I think a lot of it is just that seeing Brindi hang on
you like that makes me think of Mom. I'm worried about her."
"Don't
be, Mom will be fine, she always is."
"You're
still mad that she didn't find a way to stop Dad from giving me to
Vincent?"
My
hand clenched into a fist and I suddenly had an overpowering urge to
put it through a door. I took a deep breath and forced myself to
relax.
"It's
more than that, Rach. She didn't just fail to stop him, she wasn't
going to tell you, wasn't going to even tell me. She didn't just
fail, she never even tried."
"That's
not fair, Alec. I understand why you're disappointed in her, but I
also understand what it's like to be a human in a world filled with
shape shifters. Mom's not perfect, but she's doing the best she can."
Rachel
had moved towards me as though to wrap her arms around my middle in
another hug, but I stepped back away from her.
"How
can you even say that? I know she couldn't have fought off Vincent or
Kaleb, but she could have at least told me what was going on."
"Why,
so she could lose both of us? I'm glad you got me out of there, Alec,
but even at the time I wasn't sure that I should be going along with
your escape attempt. You and James both nearly died. If things had
gone differently you
would
have died and I would have still ended up with Vincent."
My
beast wanted to shout her down, but that wasn't fair. She'd turned
away from me when I'd avoided contact with her so I reached forward
and took her by the shoulders. She was trying to be brave, but I
could feel her trembling underneath the thin material of her t-shirt.
"You
can't live in might-have-beens, Rach. I could have died, or I could
have been just a little faster and killed Brandon that night, thereby
saving the world a lot of trouble. I did the best I could and this
time things worked out. That's what Mom doesn't understand. I would
have rather done my best and died than lived knowing that I didn't
even try to save you."
Rachel
reached up and brushed away the tears that were threatening to break
free.
"I
know, Alec, but she's all we have left and she's trying to do better.
She's the one who got Jack the information about Agony. Not just that
he'd been captured, but where they've been holding him and the route
they are taking to move him back into the States. That had to have
been dangerous for her, but she did it anyway because she knows that
she's going to have to do better if you're ever going to forgive
her."
I
still wanted to be mad, but Rachel's revelation took the wind out of
my sails. It was all still just straws in the wind, but they were all
blowing the same direction.
I
cleared my throat. "She's been telling everyone that you're the
reason that I turned against Kaleb. I mean, there isn't any proof
that it's her, but the evidence is all pointing that direction."
Rather
than being happy, Rachel looked even more worried.
"That
can't be safe, Alec. Kaleb will eventually find out that she's the
one leaking all of this stuff and then he'll hurt her."
"Yeah,
you're probably right, but there isn't anything we can do about it
right now. Once we're through the next few days we'll see if we can
find a way to warn her off. In the meantime, at least she's trying to
do what she can to help."
Rachel
studied my expression for several seconds before venturing to say
anything else. "You haven't forgiven her yet, have you?"
"No,
but I don't hate her quite as much as I did a few minutes ago and I
can see a path to maybe eventually forgiving her."
"That
will have to do for now."
I
gave Rachel my best fake smile and then pulled out my phone. "I'm
glad we had a chance to talk, Rach. We should spend some more time
catching up once we get to the hotel, but if there isn't anything
else urgent right now, I'd really like to make a couple of calls
before Brindi comes back."
"Actually,
there is one more thing. I want to come with you guys when you go to
try and break Agony out."
"Absolutely
not!"
"I'm
not asking to be in the middle of the fighting, Alec, I just want to
help. Let me babysit the cars with the Petersons. I'll be as safe
there as nearly anywhere else."
"That's
a lie and you know it. You'll be
safer
,
but you won't be safe. Jack has contingency plans in case everything
completely falls apart up above, but you'll still be at risk. You
could be looking at a cross-country hell ride where you're trying to
keep one step ahead of a bunch of Coun'hij enforcers who don't need
to sleep as much as you and who have access to all of the NSA's
satellite feeds."
"Which
is no different at all from what the Petersons will be dealing with
and a heck of a lot less risky than what the rest of you will be
facing. I want to help, Alec. Please let me do this."
I
could tell her no. She couldn't force me to let her into the
operation and nobody was going to fault me for keeping her out of
danger. A refusal was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't force
it out.
Rachel
had spent her entire life on the sidelines, wanting to help and
having nothing to offer. If I told her no there was a chance that she
would never offer again. Rachel put on a brave front, but she was
more fragile than most of the rest realized.
"Okay,
you can help with the cars."
"Thank
you, Alec! Thank you so much."
That
was the other reason it was so hard to deny Rachel anything. Her
smile lit up the entire room.
"Just
be careful, okay?"
A
minute later it was just me alone in the classroom and there wasn't
anything to stop me from making the calls I'd come here to make. I
put a portable noise generator in front of the door and then dialed
Shawn's number. He picked up on the second ring.
"Hey,
this is Shawn."
"Hi,
Shawn. It's been a little while. I'm hoping that you have some good
news for me."
Shawn
was silent for so long that I almost thought we'd lost our
connection. "I've been waiting for you to call. The things you
said have been on my mind a lot lately. This hasn't been an easy
decision."
He
wasn't using my name. That could just be because he was being extra
security-conscious. If someone was listening in on our conversation
they'd probably be running some kind of voice recognition software,
but it never hurt to be careful.
Of
course that might not be the case at all. Maybe he was trying to
maintain some kind of deniability. As long as he didn't say my name
he could always claim that he'd thought he was talking to someone
else.
"I
can't promise the kind of force you want, but I've decided that
you're right. This is important, and if you tell me that you've got a
good plan, one that will let us get in and out without leaving any
witnesses behind, then I'll bring eight of my closest two-legged
friends to your party."
That
was code for hybrids. He was bringing a total force of nine hybrids
down to the ambush. It was like a huge weight had come off of my
chest. For the first time in days I felt like I could breathe.
Shawn's people would make the difference for us. Even if Carson
couldn't get his mystery hybrid with the game-changing power to join
up we should still have enough people to make it all work.
"I'm
not going to lie to you, Shawn. I think our plan is good. I fully
expect for us to be in and out in minutes, and I'm not planning on
leaving anyone alive to tell tales, but there's always a chance that
we'll miss someone."
Shawn's
voice was remarkably relaxed considering that I'd just told him there
was a chance that his cover would be blown.
"That's
what I like about you. You never pull any punches. If everything goes
according to plan then I'll be back in Chicago two hours after we
finish up and nobody but us will ever know that I even left."
"And
if things don't go according to plan?"
"Then
my friends and I will spend the next several decades on the run. It
will suck, but like I said, this is just too important for me to just
sit around and do nothing. Send me an address and a time—I'll
be there."
"Thanks,
Shawn. I appreciate this."
"No
problem. Someday you can come bail me out of a bind and we'll call it
even."
He
hung up and I stared at my phone in amazement. If I hadn't been
operating under a time limit I would have just sat there and basked
in the sense of accomplishment. Shawn coming down with more than half
a dozen hybrids wasn't an accomplishment on the same order of
magnitude as bringing the entire Chicago pack out in open support of
the rebellion, but it was much better than I'd actually expected to
achieve.
I
forced myself back to the present and dialed Carson's number. I
almost thought his phone was going to go to voicemail by the time he
picked up.
"It's
me. Did you have any luck bringing on the star talent you told me
about?"
"Yes,
his name is Grayson and he's onboard along with six other hybrids and
a pair of wolves. I must caution you once again not to depend too
heavily on him. He's failed, quite dramatically, in the past and the
consequences were…severe."
The
force composition was odd to say the least. Shawn could bring all
hybrids because he was cherry-picking the best talent from the
Chicago pack. He was obviously concerned about keeping things on the
down-low, so he'd brought the best fighters he could as a way of
maximizing his group's lethality while still economizing on numbers.
Carson
on the other hand didn't seem to represent any kind of big
organization. I'd come away with the impression that he was drawing
from a small group of close associates, probably dispossessed like
him. Based on that, I'd expected a lot more wolves and fewer hybrids.
It was one more oddity where Carson was concerned, but his worries
about Grayson seemed the more pressing item to explore.
"What
happened, Carson? Who is this guy and why are you even bringing him
on the operation if he's so completely undependable?"
The
silence on the other end of the line remained unbroken for nearly a
full minute before Carson finally mustered a response.
"I'm
sorry, there is simply too much there that I can't tell you. Suffice
it to say that Grayson failed to protect people who were important to
me. Among those people was someone who was important to more than
just me. As to why I'm including him, that is a more complicated
answer. I'm including him because we lose nothing by having him
along, but it's more than that. He needs a chance to redeem himself
just like I need a chance to forgive him."
His
answer hung in the air for several seconds while I tried to decide
best how to respond.
"I'm
sorry to press, but the safety of everyone involved in this operation
is my responsibility. Isn't there anything else you can tell me?"
"The
king is dead, long live the king."
"I'm
sorry, I don't understand."
"I
know and I apologize, but I can't say any more than that. You'll have
to accept my word that he's an acceptable security risk or we'll have
to part ways."
I
was tempted to tell him that what he was describing was a deal
breaker for me. With the eight hybrids Shawn was bringing, the odds
were good that I wouldn't need Carson or his people. Part of me
didn't want to deal with the headache of dealing with someone Carson
was so unsure of.
I
resisted the temptation though. Even if I could get by without Carson
and his people on this particular operation, I couldn't afford to
offend potential allies that I might need at some point in the
future.
"Very
well, I accept your terms. Do you have an encrypted e-mail address
that I can send a meeting time and place to?"