Waging War (34 page)

I suddenly ducked behind a big oleander
bush, and a moment later, Ringo was next to me. I Shifted, in a
shimmer of colors, and didn’t even register the surprise on Ringo’s
face until I had time to think again.

“Clothes,” I said, thrusting out my hand. He
took my clothing bundle off his back and re-adjusted the sniper
rifle to fit the extra space while I got dressed.

“Their truck will be stashed someplace
close.” My whispered voice came in gasps, and Ringo was nodding his
agreement.

He jerked his head to our left. “The bridge
is blown, so ‘e’ll ‘ave to go past us to get back to Limoges. We’ll
do better on our bicycles than on foot.”

“If he goes back for Grunty, we might have
time to get them.” I shoved my feet into my boots and quickly did
up the laces.

Ringo made an indiscernible face. “Not sure
there’s anythin’ to go back for.”

I looked at him sharply. “He was still
breathing when we left.”

“’E was bleedin’ and ‘e wasn’t movin’,
neither of which is promisin’.”

Now I had an idea what the tears had been
about, but we were already burning up precious seconds, so I just
said, “I say we go for the bikes, and maybe Archer and Nancy will
stake out Grunty.”

He nodded sharply and hauled me to my feet.
“I’m leadin’ this time.”

Ringo didn’t once look back to see if I was
still with him, which I took as a compliment. He just knew I’d be
there. I kept anticipating the zing of sniper fire whizzing through
the air, but the woods were silent around us except for the
pounding of our boots on the dirt.

A few minutes later we were back at the road
where we’d left our bicycles. We propped them up just behind a bush
by the road so they’d be ready to ride at a moment’s notice, and
then we settled down into the gully to wait for Loogie’s vehicle to
drive by. I was struck by how very silent the night had gotten. The
explosion seemed to have distracted the crickets from their
chirping, and even our breathing had gone quiet.

“Thank you,” I said quietly.

Ringo looked at me a long moment before he
spoke. “I’m not goin’ back to ‘Is Lordship without ye.”

My breath caught in my chest. There were so
many motives for why we did what we did, and I probably had ten of
them for running my Cougar out into the open to draw the snipers’
fire away from Archer and Nancy. It actually didn’t surprise me
that one of Ringo’s motives would be to make sure I got back safely
to present-day Archer. But until he said that, I hadn’t quite
realized that he was still holding onto the idea of two different
Archers, which meant every time Ringo saw me hold Archer’s hand or
get kissed by him, a part of him might think I was cheating on his
friend.

We were lying on our stomachs with our heads
toward the road, and I rolled over onto my back and nudged him to
do the same. He did, fitting his arms behind his head as he looked
up at the sky, now streaked with dark gray smoke. I laid my head on
his shoulder and folded my fingers together across my stomach.

“You know what I was thinking about earlier
tonight?” I said to the sky.

“No idea,” Ringo answered.

“Time travel rules.”

He made a non-committal sound in his throat.
An owl swooped overhead noiselessly. The silence was becoming
unnerving, and I felt like it needed to be filled with good
things.

“Archer couldn’t go where he already was,
right? That’s why he didn’t come with us.”

“Right. I know.” Ringo was quiet a moment
before he continued. “But it’s different knowin’ a thing in yer
‘ead, and knowin’ it in yer ‘eart.”

“What makes your heart feel
differently?”

Ringo sighed deeply, and I thought I could
almost hear the tension in his chest. “Yer Archer trusts me. ‘E
trusts me to be yer friend and to take care of ye. ‘E doesn’t
wonder if ye’d ever choose me, because ‘e’s so sure of what ye are
to each other.”

I opened my mouth to protest, or say
something, or maybe just catch flies, but Ringo’s scoff cut me off.
“Ye remember when we first got ‘ere, to this time? I wouldn’t stay
in ‘is secret library room with ye? Yer Archer’s the one who told
me to step carefully around ‘imself. This war was ‘ard on ‘im, and
there are still ‘oles in ‘is memory.”

I nodded. “Yeah, he told me about the
PTSD.”

“The thing ‘e called shell shock? It wasn’t
just about the fightin’ though. ‘E also told me about Marianne and
Marcel.”

“He did? Why wouldn’t he have told me?”

“Because he didn’t remember what ‘appened to
them. It’s one of the gaps, and ‘e feels damaged for not
knowin’.”

My voice came out in a whisper. “Didn’t he
try to find them after it was over?”

“Saira, ‘e wasn’t the same then … now, I
guess. Whatever ‘appened in this war changed ‘im.”

“He said he went to live in the cellar at
St. Brigid’s after the war.”

“Seems a lonely existence for a man who
broke secret codes at Bletchley Park and worked with the French
resistance, don’t ye think?”

“You think he was hiding?”

“Yeah, I think maybe ‘e was.”

It made sense, what Ringo said. Archer had
given me only the broadest strokes about his time in World War II,
and what he had told me had seemed fraught with … I didn’t know,
maybe guilt? Well, whatever had happened to him in this time was my
problem now. I faced Ringo, propping my head up on my elbow.

“It’s not a reason to hold them as separate
people. If anything, it’s our chance to maybe help him heal
whatever it was that happened here.” I considered my words. “Think
about it as pre-emptive friendship. Worst case, we’ll know the
truth of this time for him and maybe understand him better in our
own time. Best case, we might actually be able to take away some of
his burden.”

Ringo had turned his head to regard me but
stayed on his back, and eventually his eyes went back to the stars
above us. He finally nodded. “Right. Ye’re right. We’re not just
‘ere to find Tom, we’re ‘ere with Archer.”

“It’s a chance to know a part of him we
could only otherwise take his word for, and maybe bring back his
memories in the process.”

“Right.” Ringo sighed as if the conversation
had exhausted him.

I leaned over and kissed his cheek. “Thank
you for saving my life.”

He smirked, and my heart smiled. My Ringo
was back. “Who else could watch a Cougar’s back? A Wolf wouldn’t be
caught dead, and a Bear … too important. Only me.”

I poked him in the ribs. “Yup. Only
you.”

Archer – Present Day

It was utterly irrational to feel this way,
and yet entirely reasonable at the same time. I hated Ringo with
one breath and loved him with the next.

My memories from the war were becoming
clearer with each day Saira and Ringo were gone, and I was startled
to realize how very much she had impacted that period in my
history. For so long I had assumed that the missing pieces were the
result of wartime trauma and of choosing to forget. It was
unsettling to know the memories had never fully been there in the
first place.

I woke to an overwhelming sense of envy. I
had always known Saira’s connection with Ringo was unique and
remarkable, as my own connection with her had been since the
beginning. Yet the memories of France that were becoming clear were
laced with a sense that I had invaded something private between
them; that I was the interloper, and they played the central
role.

My thoughts were full of these contradictory
emotions as I sought out the greenhouse laboratory, a beacon of
light in the darkness, as a moth would seek a flame. Shaw was
working alone, as no doubt Connor had been called into the garage
flat for the night. I had instructed the brothers to tell their
mother about the things they’d been doing to help us prepare for
the tunnels, but I doubted that conversation had happened yet. I
had a letter for Liz Edwards in case Connor and Logan decided it
was, as Saira would say, easier to ask forgiveness than permission,
and it would be dropped off with more than enough time to make sure
they’d be well and properly grounded when I descended into the
tunnels.

Shaw looked up at the sound of the door
closing, but his expression was blank for the second it took to
register who I was.

“I’m interrupting,” I said, preparing to
turn and go.

“So?” Shaw’s tone was gruff, and it was a
forcible reminder of the Bear he became.

“So, you look as though you’re on the verge
of curing cancer or ending world hunger. In my experience, it’s
best not to interrupt things like that,” I responded dryly.

He smirked at that and ran his hands through
his ginger mane. “You, of all people, are welcome to interrupt
this.” Shaw stepped away from his microscope, which had left a
pressure ridge around his eyes. “I believe I’ve eliminated as many
variables as I can control in a lab. The only further tests that
can be run on the telomerase inhibitor are practical.”

I leaned back against the desk as casually
as one can when one needs to support one’s shaky legs. “The cure is
ready.”

Shaw shook his head grimly. “I don’t believe
I can say it’s ready with the degree of certainty I’d like,
however, it’s as ready as I can make it.”

I stared at him. “What’s next?”

“I believe that’s up to you.”

“You said before, I would have to sustain
some sort of massive injury in order to overload my own system so
it didn’t attack the virus.”

He nodded solemnly. “That is true.”

I exhaled sharply. “It’s what Saira is
afraid of.”

“I can’t say I blame her,” he said in a tone
I could only describe as gentle.

I looked at the work table in front of him.
“In what form would the cure be administered?”

Shaw picked up a small plastic syringe.
“This. The carrier virus is blood-borne, therefore, direct
injection into a vein will be most effective.”

“Do you, by chance, have a cap for that
needle?”

Shaw scowled. “Of course I do.” His gaze
rested on me a long moment before he spoke. “You want to carry a
loaded syringe with you.”

“Two of them, if I may.”

“One for you. and one for Tom?”

I smiled, though without any real humor
behind it. “One never really knows when one might encounter a
mortally wounded Vampire.”

Shaw looked entirely thoughtful as he pulled
two plastic syringes out of their wrappers, then brought a
rubber-capped vial out of the locked cabinet behind him. I was
mesmerized by the syringe-filling process, and fascinated that
something as enormous as life or death could be contained in a
vessel so small. When both syringes were filled and capped, he
wrapped them up in a foot-long strip of silk and handed them to me.
“You can use the silk to tie off an arm, or it can be a bandage in
a pinch.”

My smile was slightly more genuine at that.
Shaw’s preparedness was something Saira had always admired about
him, and I could see that it had rubbed off on Ringo as well.

I didn’t really think through my next words
before I said them. “I’m beginning to remember things.”

Shaw stopped the workspace fussing he’d been
doing and fixed his gaze on me. “About the time that Saira and
Ringo are in now?”

I nodded, silently debating the wisdom of
continuing. It had been a very long time since I’d sought anyone’s
opinion but Saira’s. “I find I’m struggling with residual anger.
Some of it is at myself, for the things she is experiencing with me
now, and some of it is directed toward Ringo.”

I could tell that surprised him, but he
merely waited for me to continue and said nothing.

“I know it’s irrational to feel this way
about a young man I consider my brother, and yet I believe it is
the reaction of my younger self to the trust she has in him and the
ease with which they relate to each other.”

Shaw considered for a long moment before
speaking. “It seems to me it was your younger self who felt
threatened by Ringo.”

“You speak of it in the past, and yet I feel
as if it is happening right now.”

“It may be happening now, but it is your
past, and the younger man you were did not have the benefit of all
of your experiences with Saira and Ringo. It is you who is enriched
by this time they’re spending with you in the past. The man they
know there is less complete than the one you are now.”

I sighed in frustration, and then shocked
myself with painful honesty. “Perhaps that’s my concern. The man
they know there isn’t … whole. What if Saira decides I’m not enough
for her after spending time with that version of myself?”

He arched an eyebrow at me. “Did you forget
how young and naïve you were when she originally fell in love with
you? I believe there was a time you were concerned that you had
become too sophisticated and world-wise.”

I scoffed at myself. He was right. “When do
we believe we’re enough for the people who love us?”