Tony was about to ask what gives, when he realized it must be because of Sloan’s injury from a few days ago. He probably should have been around earlier to check on her.
“Sloan here?” he asked.
Max sucked his teeth, then stepped aside… only for Tony to cop a load of something hot, wet and hard in the face.
“Jesus!” He flinched back.
“That’s for not coming to check on me, dumbass.” Sloan stood two feet in front of Tony, blue eyes blazing, black hair flying like some kind of magical sorceress, and… she held a pizza box in her hand, half empty.
Tony looked down at the floor where a black cat lapped up the fallen squashy yellow debris that had slid off Tony’s face.
“You threw pineapple chunks at my face?”
Sloan shrugged, eyes still furious.
Tony checked her bare arms. No scars in sight. “You’re all healed. You should have come to see me.”
She stared, wide-eyed. “True. But you’re all healed, and you should have come to see me!”
“I just said that.”
They faced off.
“You two need a minute?” Max asked, clearly unimpressed.
Sloan suddenly smiled and trotted over to him and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Nah, we’re all good now. See you at lunch.”
“What for?”
“Wedding cake shopping. Duh.”
“Right,” Max laughed. He hooked her around the waist and pulled her in for a possessive kiss that made Tony look away. When Max was done, he patted Tony on the shoulder. “See you later.”
Then Max left and shut the door behind him, leaving Tony very confused and inside Sloan’s territory.
“You want a slice?” she asked, holding the box out to him.
“Um. Is it poisoned?”
“Yes, I mean, no. I mean…” Sloan burst out laughing. “Look at your face. You…” Then her humor dropped. “You don’t really think I’d poison you, would you?”
He shrugged and wiped something sticky off his nose. Gross.
She bit her lip and jogged to her kitchen, only a few feet away. She collected a towel from a hook, wet it under the faucet, and came back to him. “Sorry, bras. I thought you liked all this prank business.”
He snatched the towel and began to wipe his face. “Yeah maybe I liked it before it became about hanging bloody dolls in my trailer or scratching up the Ducati.”
“Say what?”
Tony paused, mid swipe on his face as the cold hard truth solidified. He kind of knew it already, but now he had no way of pretending it was her. The alternative was to believe his life was in more of a shambles than he admitted. Goddamn it. “Fuck,” he mumbled into the cloth.
“Someone scratched up your bike?”
“Yeah,” he balled up the towel and three-pointered it to the kitchen sink.
“I mean, I knew about the dolls. Max told me.” Sloan waved him in further and indicated to take a seat on her couch. She flicked an empty packet of crisps out of the way and then sat herself. “What else went wrong?”
He lowered himself onto the couch. “What’s not going wrong right now? Between this power that explodes uncontrollably—sorry about that by the way—and my mate potentially investigating me, to the fricking stalker shit, to my goddamned dickwad agent trying to push me into another movie I’m not ready for, to—” he cut himself off. He wasn’t ready to voice the rest of his concerns about Bailey.
“You said you didn’t trust Bailey, but you didn’t say why.”
“Just a feeling.”
“Well, maybe this will help with your feelings.” Sloan reached into the space between her cushion and the couch headboard and pulled out her laptop. Sticking out of the port was a thumb-drive. She pulled it out and handed it to him.
“What's this?” he asked.
“Your wish is my desire. Wait. That’s wrong. Is it wrong?” Sloan screwed up her face, thinking. “What is the saying? Doesn’t matter. The point is, I got your back, bras. I owe you big time for how you helped me get a hold of my powers. I’m here for you.”
“Thanks.” He took the drive from her.
“And if you need help to control yours, just ask. But maybe ask Wyatt. Cos, you know, that burn fucking hurt!”
“Sorry.”
She smiled gently, placed her elbow on the couch, and rested her head in her hand. “She’s not working for the CIA anymore as far as I can tell, but just because I couldn’t find anything, doesn’t mean it’s true. Those guys are sneaky. And the reason there’s not much about her past is that it was a shitty one. You should really ask her about it instead of snooping. She’s volunteering this morning down at Hudson House. It’s a youth addiction center on Fourth.”
Tony lifted his gaze to his sister. “Addiction Center?”
“Like I said, she’s had a shitty past.”
Tony cast his mind back to when he’d broken into her apartment. She’d had a cocktail glass sitting on the kitchen counter. And when they’d left, he caught sight of it still there, untouched. He’d assumed she just didn’t have time to drink it, but maybe there was more to the story.
“How long has she been volunteering for the center?” he asked.
“Since she’s been in the city, working for Nightingales.”
“Could be part of a cover.”
“If it was, she wouldn’t actually be working there. She’d be doing CIA shit.”
“Only one way to find out, I guess.” Tony stood up and pocketed the thumb-drive. “Thanks, Sloan.”
“No problemo, Spazarus.”
Eight
On the morning Bailey walked to the sobriety house, the temperature dropped to around fifty. She blew on her hands and wished she’d brought a coat, but all she’d taken from home was a light yoga style jacket. It went with her yoga pants and Sketchers, so she’d thought it was perfect. How wrong she’d been. Summer was well and truly over and Cardinal City was in the grip of a cool fall. The coming winter would be cruel.
She blew on her hands again, and stomped up the steps to Hudson House. It was just another Brownstone type townhouse in a street of identical soldiers, but inside, it was a haven for any youth needing help to unlock the handcuffs of addiction. The place functioned as a half-way house, a sobriety house, and an education and medical clinic. It survived purely on donations, and lately—Bailey spied the holes in the fly-screen on the door—they were running low on funds.
On the stoop, a skinny, brown-skinned boy with a shaved head flicked through his smart phone silently. Beside him, a Latino girl wearing a pink beret over her long hair tapped her own screen. If they heard her coming, they didn’t show it. Bailey didn’t recognize them, so plastered a pleasant smile on her face in case they looked up. She had to be friendly if she wanted the kids to come to her martial arts self-defense class.
They failed to look up.
Not surprising. Most kids who ended up at Hudson were closed off from the start. Many didn’t last longer than a few days before heading back out into the city. Some came from broken homes, others lived on the street, used, and were in gangs; all had suffered addiction of various substances at some point. Bailey’s job was to teach them something, anything she could, to give them focus, hope and a reason for staying. It was important they knew that no matter what mistakes they’d made in life, they could make something of themselves. They didn’t have to let addiction rule them, whether it was theirs, or their parent’s.
Her own pitiful home life had been far from normal. Her mother and father were no role models. They’d believed their money meant they could get away with anything. Bailey had thought so too, at first. She’d thought drinking copious amounts of booze until you vomited or lashed out was okay. And when her girlfriend had pressured her, she’d thought driving inebriated was okay, too.
“You’re making the wrong turn,” Becca screeched.
“I am not!” Bailey yanked on the steering wheel too hard, and the tires spun on the wet street. The landscape
through the car windows twisted, making her dizzy. She almost couldn’t see straight through her alcohol-induced mind, but the car stayed on the road. She should have never listened to Becca and driven. “I know exactly where I’m going.”
“Oh my God, Bailey. You don’t. That was the turn off!” Becca pointed across Bailey’s face with a red fingered glove.
Tires screeched.
Glass broke.
Bailey shook her head to shake the memory. She still stood on the stoop, knuckles white as she gripped the old wrought iron handle on the door.
Tires screeched again, and she whipped her head around. At the bottom of the stoop, between the two brick pillars marking the beginning of the Hudson House property, a black Cadillac rolled along the street, blowing smoke from its exhaust. Every nerve in Bailey’s body pinged with danger.
The black car slowed. A man with a handlebar mustache and tattoos on his skin watched them with lurking intent as he passed. Bailey caught sight of another two men in the back. Thugs. And they were paying way too much attention to the house.
They stopped and spoke in Spanish to the teens behind Bailey. Obviously, they didn’t think Bailey spoke the language, but it was one of the many she understood, and one of the reasons she’d been a prime candidate for the CIA.
“El canala, we find you,” the driver said.
The teen boy tensed. His eyes widened. But it was the girl who turned a whiter shade of pale. Bailey’s hands balled into fists. If only she had her pistol.
Instead, she recited his license plate out loud. “And I’ll find you, asshole,” she replied… in Spanish. In English, she added, “Come around here again, and I’ll call the police.”
The two men in the back of the vehicle shifted just enough to show they held onto cold metal weapons. Bailey wasn’t afraid. She stared the men down until one in the back made a gesture for them to move on. She waited until they were long down the road.
“Get inside,” she said to the teens. “Come on. Class is about to start.”
The boy scowled up at her, but the girl stood. She glanced briefly in the direction of the black car, then walked through the door Bailey held open. Bailey watched as the girl disappeared around the bend, body hunched.
“What’s your name?” Bailey asked the boy. “I’ve not seen you two here before.”
“Akeef. That’s Elena.”
“I’m Bailey Haze. I teach the self-defense martial arts class.”
“Yeah. So?”
“So, you know self-defense?”
Akeef glanced down the way the car had gone but said nothing. He plugged his earphones in and then shoved passed her to get inside the house.
She sighed. She could speak multiple languages, kick a rogue foreign agent in the ass, but she had zero experience getting teenagers to trust her.
Bailey had posted flyers over the walls of Hudson House for the past month. Each flyer said she’d be there at nine once a week, willing to teach anyone who wanted to learn to defend themselves, and even when she’d popped her head into the media room and spruced the class, not one teenager was interested. There were at least eight in the room, and they all ignored her with dogged determination, Akeef and Elena included.
Agnes, the house custodian gave Bailey an understanding smile as she passed in the hallway. Bailey guessed she couldn’t compete with the Tony Lazarus action movie playing on the big screen. She’d seen it, and it was good.
As she watched Tony on screen, blowing up cars and shooting guns, the irony was not lost on her. She couldn’t even hold Tony Lazarus in her sights long enough to keep him safe. Something strange had happened to him at the wrap party and he’d fled. She couldn’t comprehend those blue lights. Logically, it had to have been special effects like he’d said. But the way he’d fled… She was a terrible bodyguard. The man had hid out in his apartment for the better part of the week, and she’d not a chance to prove she could protect him. She even had some grainy footage of an unidentified woman entering his trailer, but Max had said to leave it with him to pass onto the studio.
Max’s reception had been frosty, and Bailey put it down to her recent string of failures holding her snark and forceful personality at bay. The same qualities had benefited her in the agency. It kept her tough and resilient. Getting a foreign agent to cross to your side took a lot of convincing and sometimes a bit of creative manipulation.
But this was real life.
These kids had been manipulated enough.
Bailey tried not to be disappointed as she leaned a shoulder on the scratched up wooden door frame. The room smelled musty. The couches were old and stained. But there was coffee and tea in the corner on a table, and cookies and snacks on a small tray. Agnes always kept it well stocked. Sometimes, they just needed a place to relax, or somewhere the gang leaders couldn’t enter without causing trouble.
“You sure none of you want to learn how to pull some of those action moves for real?” she asked. “Learning self-defense can come in real handy when you find yourself in a situation you don’t want to be in.”
Tyson, a short, pimply faced boy turned her way, his expression taking on attitude and then suddenly deadpanning when he took in something over Bailey’s shoulder.
“Holy shit.” The pimply kid whacked his hand on the girl sitting next to him.
Then one by one, every teen in the room forgot about the television and paid attention to Bailey.
No. Scratch that. Every eye was focused on an area slightly to the right and behind Bailey. She turned around. Shock skittered up her spine.
Tony Lazarus in roughed up jeans, a designer T-shirt, a blue baseball cap, and his hands in his pockets.
“Tony,” she said. “What are you doing here?”
His lips curved hesitantly on one side. “Yeah, about that. Can we talk?”
Bailey cut a glance over her shoulder. Every kid in the room was finally engaged. Maybe this was her chance to teach them something valuable. She glanced back at Tony. Forceful personality. Use it.
“I need your help first,” she said and hooked her hand around his wrist, dragging him into the room. “Guys, this is—”
“Tony fucking Lazarus,” the pimply kid said and nervous laughter broke out around the room.
She grinned. “Language, Tyson. But yes, this is Tony. Now, wouldn’t you like to learn a few self-defense moves from a master? He does all his own stunts. Did you know that?”
Tony stiffened beneath Bailey’s hand, and she prepared herself for rejection, but it never came. Instead, Tony almost leaned into her touch, as though he wanted more.
“Who’s joining us?” she asked the group.
Every female jumped immediately to her feet, including Elena. The boys were slightly less accommodating, but they stood.
Elation prickled Bailey’s skin. Great.
“You don’t mind, do you?” she asked Tony. “It will only take a few minutes. Thirty tops.”
“Um.” Doubt flickered in his eyes.
“Please?” She leaned in until her lips hovered near the shell of his ear. “I’ve not been able to get them engaged all week, and you’d be great at this.”
Tony tilted his face until his cheek hit hers. Heat scorched along her face. His lashes fluttered closed, and he gave a soft nod. Then the actor replaced the reserved Tony. Excitement livened his expression, and he addressed the crew.
“You’re all in for a treat,” he started, eyes brightening. “You think I’m the best in this room, but this little lady here—” He pointed at Elena. “She will be the one to take me down. For reals. You wanna see?”
Cheers. Actual cheers burst out in the room, and Bailey almost cried. When Tony looked to her for guidance, she gestured for him to help shift the furniture around the room.
Nine
They had moved the couches and television to the side for the class. Tony sat on the floor, cross-legged between a girl named Elena and a boy named Michael. For the past hour, he’d been helping Bailey show various scenar
ios. They’d lost a few of the group when it became clear Bailey would actually teach a class and not turn the session into some sort of exhibition of his celebrity. They were almost done.
“So,” Bailey said to the class. “We’ve learned about an active shooter, and now we will learn how to defend ourselves from an active killer with a knife.” She pointed at Tony. “Once again, first, I’ll demonstrate with Tony as the attacker, and then I’ll need a volunteer to do the same as me and take him down.”
Tony nudged the girl and leaned into her. “Your turn, right?”
She gave him a contentious look.
“Come on, Elena.” He smiled. “Give it a go.”
“Tony?” Bailey gestured at him. God, she was hot when she was all business like this. “You ready?”
He zipped his lips. “Sorry, coach. I’m ready.”
“Okay,” Bailey continued. She paced along the carpet at the front of the room. “As soon as you register the danger, you need to get up. Sitting makes you vulnerable.” She stopped pacing and raised her brows at Tony.
“Oops. That’s my cue.” He jumped up, and shook his hands out, grinning as he turned to the group. This was so much fun. “Roar. I’m a baddy.”
The kids snickered. But Bailey didn’t. “You’re not a lion. You’re a knife wielding fiend. Be serious.”
“Okay. One second.” He crouched before Elena and nodded at the cell phone in her hand. “Do you think that will make a good knife?”
She gave her cell an incredulous look, but handed it to him. Good. That was better interaction than before. He’d get her to open up and take part before the class was done. She wouldn’t be here if she didn’t want to be. She just needed a little push.
“Got it, coach.” He made a jabbing motion with the cell.
Bailey turned to the students. “When you notice an imminent attack, sometimes you need to shake other bystanders awake. Many people freeze in the face of danger. It’s normal. Inform others of the threat and leave if you can. Shout if you have to. If you don’t have time to escape, then this is what you do.”
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