Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine (29 page)

Jon winced, glancing at Balidor in surprise.

The Adhipan leader rarely swore.

He never swore like that.

If Balidor heard him, he barely gave Jon a glance, still thinking at both of them angrily.

We knew it was about Lily and Allie, even then,
Balidor sent.
He asked me to teach him all of the things Allie learned when she infiltrated him at that
u’hatre davos
rebel compound in China…along with a few tricks Tarsi designed after we mapped that construct in New York. He had us do everything we could to activate that fucking trigger in his light too, to see if we could replicate what that shit-fuck, Menlim, had done to him in Dubai…

Jon winced again.

He didn’t look at Balidor that time, though.

Why the secrecy?
Wreg sent.

Jon glanced at his mate.

Wreg didn’t look away from Balidor’s face. His dark eyes were focused, intense, infiltrator-sharp. Jon definitely got the sense that Wreg intended to milk this talkative mood of Balidor’s for all it was worth.

Even as Jon thought it, Wreg added, …
Was it really about some inner-circle leak that Feigran warned the Bridge about? Or was there more to it?

Balidor exhaled, emanating a darker, more complex set of emotions.

I don’t know,
he sent, making a vague gesture with his hand.
I think so, yes. And if it reassures you, brother…I’m not in any way sure he trusted me, either.

What makes you say that?
Jon sent.

Balidor glanced at him, raising an eyebrow.

Instead of answering his question, however, he only shrugged, using the hand that lay on the wooden table not far from a porcelain cup filled with black coffee. The coffee had to be cold by now, Jon thought. It didn’t look like Balidor had even touched it.

I suspect he chose me because I had no prior history with Menlim,
Balidor sent, addressing Wreg as if Jon hadn’t spoken.
I think after Dubai we were all on the potential enemies list, my brother. Me. You. Jon. The Children of the Bridge. The ex-rebels and ex-Seven. The Adhipan as a whole. Tarsi didn’t seem to have his full confidence anymore, either.

Balidor shrugged, pausing before adding,

Perhaps his own wife had made that list by the end.

You think she had?
Wreg pressed.

Clicking, Balidor sighed, shrugging again.
I honestly do not know. I know they were fighting a lot. And that he refused to sleep with her…until last night at least. He would not do it without others present…and she was not happy about this.

Wasn’t that just a security thing?
Jon said, skeptical.

Balidor gave him a look.
There were ways around that, my brother,
he said.
The Sword chose not to pursue any of those other ways. Not alone with her.

Jon shook his head, still skeptical, even if he couldn’t articulate to himself why exactly. He remembered something else.
He was pretty pissed off about Chandre,
he pointed out.
Did you hear about what he did in that downstairs restaurant? How he went after her?

When neither answered, Jon looked between them, adding,

I was there. He dragged her out of a booth and hit her…in the face. I haven’t seen him that pissed off since San Francisco. It took me and Deklan getting between them to get him to back down. He was shouting at her. He threatened her, too…

Jon frowned when neither of them answered.

He watched Wreg and Balidor look at one another.

Some kind of understanding seemed to pass between them.

Jon found himself thinking that it was more than what Balidor had just said, but he couldn’t feel anything at all about what it meant. He definitely got the sense that Balidor and Wreg were in perfect agreement about…something. Perhaps simply where their own loyalties lay now, even apart from Allie and Revik themselves.

Jon wasn’t sure that reassured him.

At the end of that silent stare, Wreg only nodded.

He picked up his own coffee cup in the same pause, sipping the remaining dregs as he stared at the surface of the wooden table.

Then, simultaneously it seemed, both infiltrators shifted their gazes to the female seer sitting across from them at the long rectangular table.

Allie’s light eyes reflected sunlight, once more focused distantly on the horizon. Jon could feel nothing in her light again. It was like she’d already died.

Perhaps she simply watched that death approach.

Perhaps she could see it, somewhere in their not-so-distant future.

I was in our room, packing.

Well…my room now, I guess.

It wouldn’t be mine for much longer, though.

I’d given them a short window. I had twenty minutes to get downstairs. Thirty if I decided to slide past the deadline I’ve given my small team. I didn’t really want to do that, though. I wanted to catch Chandre before she got to Mumbai, which meant we had to get moving.

I didn’t bother to look up when the door notification went off.

I didn’t check the virtual feed for who it was, either. With twenty minutes remaining before I left this group behind, there was only so much yelling they could do at me before I walked out that door.

I’d already said goodbye to the people I’d needed to say goodbye to.

Lily had been the hardest. She’d seen Revik before he left too, which had been difficult to take, but also strangely reassuring. I hadn’t gotten a real goodbye from him, but at least our daughter had. It didn’t make her any less confused, of course.

She’d cried when I told her I was leaving too, and no amount of explaining why really reached her.

I cried, too. I tried not to, to smile and reassure her, but yeah, I couldn’t help it.

Lily would have felt it on my light anyway. Why pretend?

Neither Revik nor I had ever really been those kind of parents.

They were moving her out that night, but I wouldn’t let anyone tell me anything about where. Kali and Uye were waiting for them. Maygar, too. Balidor, Wreg and Jon would take her, along with the tank inside the armored truck and most of our team. Most of the civilians would be going with them, as well.

Hell, just about everyone I knew would be a part of that convoy now.

But yeah, even apart from all of that, only a handful of people knew where I was.

Right now, I mean.

Even fewer would have come up here to bother me.

I just hoped it wasn’t Jon.

Jon was the one person I honestly wasn’t sure if I could take right then.

He’d already come after me once after that initial meeting. He’d cornered me up here and all but accused me…or Revik, really…of planning this thing in advance. He accused me of going along with some fucked up plan of Revik’s, of Revik blackmailing me into being complicit with some martyr bullshit infiltration scheme that would get all three of us killed.

He’d accused me of letting Revik bully me, or maybe he thought I was in on it…or that I might be bullying Revik…I honestly couldn’t tell.

Jon himself didn’t seem to know, which was a lot of it. He was just operating on some kind of hunch or maybe a hunch of Wreg’s…or Balidor’s…but it didn’t make it any easier to deal with when he started yelling at me. Or when he started crying.

The truth was, I couldn’t get out of there soon enough.

I knew they’d keep hammering me and hammering me about Revik.

I knew Jon would never understand why I wouldn’t go after him. I knew his anger and disbelief wouldn’t end as long as I was here, so I figured I’d let them chuck a few more rocks at me as I aimed my feet for the door and that would be the end of it.

And I hadn’t been lying.

I needed to go the United States.

I’d planned to go there anyway…not only to talk to Brooks, but to see if I could speed things up by leading my own hunting party for Network seers. With Revik gone, the Network seers were totally on me now, and it wasn’t safe for me to hang around the others anyway.

There was also the Feigran thing.

Or the Dragon thing…whatever.

So yeah, with all that in my head, I didn’t bother to check who stood at my door.

Using a mind-trigger command, I let them in even as I lugged the heavy canvas bag I’d been filling with clothes and equipment up onto the bed. After crawling under the bed frame, I yanked out the weapons cache Revik had left behind, too.

Tossing that on the bed near the satchel, I unlatched the black case and flipped up the lid, looking through the guns and magazines pressed into organic molds. I found myself weighing the advantages of bringing the whole case, even though most of these guns were more fitted to Revik than to me. I could always use them as back-up for the team more generally.

I tended to go with Berettas, like Balidor and Neela. But my favorite gun these days was the same kind Jorag wore a lot. It was also one of the first guns I’d learned on, back when Revik and Ullysa had been teaching me to shoot: an organic-modified Desert Eagle.

Most of the guns in the case were in line with Revik’s “highly-modified Glock fetish,” as Wreg jokingly termed it––although he had a Desert Eagle and a few older models pressed into the molds, too. I knew Revik wore other guns besides these, as well.

One of his favorites was actually a Browning hi-power, which I’d already noticed was missing from the drawer when he left.

Forcing that out of my mind, and the tightening in my throat that accompanied it, I stared down at the case without really seeing it for a few seconds more.

I was still staring down at it, hands on my hips, when the person I’d let in addressed me from the doorway to the bedroom.

In spite of what I’d told myself, the voice made me jump.

Not the tone of it, or what he said, but who it was.

It wasn’t one of the five or six people I’d maybe expected.

“Hello, Esteemed Bridge,” he said.

I turned at once. Hand on my holster, I blinked at the seer’s face in confusion.

Maybe some part of me was fighting to confirm his identity.

Or maybe I was just in denial, since this wasn’t a seer I was prepared to deal with emotionally right then. He also wasn’t one I knew well enough to know what to expect. Him being Revik’s ex-boyfriend didn’t help…particularly in terms of the “zero emotional reaction” thing.

Because yeah––rather than Jon, Balidor, Wreg, Tarsi or even Yumi––it was Dalejem who stood there, wearing full combat gear and holding an automatic rifle.

He wasn’t aiming the rifle at me, which I guess was a bonus.

He didn’t smile when I turned.

Rather, his forest-green eyes with the violet rings studied mine, his face infiltrator blank. His hands adjusted themselves on the rifle when my eyes drifted down to the combat gear he wore. When I didn’t speak, he let out a clicking sort of exhale.

“I’m coming with you,” he said.

I looked up at his face. Blinked again.

Then I shook my head, clicking sharply under my breath. Without another thought, I turned my back to him, settling my eyes firmly on the case filled with guns.