by A A Woods
Did it matter?
“What do you think?” Moose forced himself to ask, watching her with the eyes she had no idea existed under his reflective goggles. “About them?”
Delilah cocked her head, watching the scene play out on the TV. “I’m not sure. The whole thing seems real enough to me. I mean, what do I know, right? I basically live under a rock. But if it was just a joke, I don’t think they’d stick with it, you know? With all the negative press? I feel like they’d back off.”
“Unless they wanted the press,” Moose said, not sure why he was pushing. For some reason, it felt very important to know what Delilah thought, what she might say if she ever found out who he really was.
She shrugged. “Maybe. But I really don’t buy the whole all publicity is good publicity thing.” She chuckled. “I’m not so sure any publicity is all that great.”
Moose jerked back. “You don’t want to be famous?”
Now Delilah laughed in earnest. “Not a bit. I mean, the whole business thing pays the bills. But I like my anonymity. It’s nice to be a nobody.”
Moose frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“I’ll bet you don’t, Mr. big-shot DJ.” She bumped his arm with her elbow. “But believe it or not, some of us are perfectly happy being wallflowers.” She winked at him and Moose felt a strange flutter in his chest.
He scoffed, brushing off the moment. “Naw, I don’t buy it. Everyone wants to be a star.”
Delilah pointed at the screen. “I’ll bet he doesn’t.”
Moose was about to respond with you don’t know the half of it, when he saw the footage shift again. Whoever was holding the camera was in front of the police station now, watching as Aquila was pulled out of the car, wings catching on the car door. But it wasn’t his brother’s pained expression that caught Moose’s eye, at least not only that. It was the man lingering in the background, standing beside an unmarked black car.
Hans.
Turning fully away from Delilah, Moose stared at the footage, at the blue-eyed man watching his brother being led into the station. Hans was there, paying attention to his brother. Was Aquila in danger?
…was Hans’s hotel room empty?
Ricardo had already given Moose the instructions for tomorrow night, along with a labeled hotel keycard. So Moose knew the building, floor, and room he had to go to. But Victor had made himself clear. Moose was supposed to wait for tomorrow.
He stared at Hans, out in the world and not protecting the whatever-it-was.
If Moose acted quick, he might be able to scout the territory. Plan his attack.
Maybe even impress Victor by getting the job done early.
The guilt was still there, eating a hole through his stomach lining. Aquila might be in real trouble. But no, Aquila was never in trouble, at least not for long. He was the strong, wise leader after all. He could take care of himself. And besides, what could they do to him in the police station?
No, Moose told himself. Aquila would be fine.
And he’d just provided the perfect opportunity.
“Hey, you ok?” Delilah asked from beside him, frowning in concern.
“Gotta go!” Moose said, darting for the door.
“What? Wait—”
But Moose was already gone, through the door and down the hall and on his way to glory.
Chapter Fifteen: Unwelcome News
With Tero’s help, Eliza managed to figure out where Aquila had been taken. She’d hailed a cab—paid for with the family credit card Ian had given them—and found the police station. Texting Tero, she felt some relief that news of Aquila’s arrest hadn’t yet reached their adopted father, who not only didn’t need that kind of stress right now, he probably would have insisted on getting involved. She was trying to stay calm, trying to hold up.
But now, standing in front of the huge, square, imposing building, her control was fraying.
She clenched and unclenched her fists, trying to convince herself she wasn’t useless. People went through this all the time, right? He’d been arrested, not disappeared. She should be able to see him at least.
Only one way to find out.
Swallowing thickly, Eliza marched up the steps and pushed through the door. The lobby was bright and open, more like an office building than a place where prisoners were held. There was a woman behind a reception desk, middle-aged and friendly.
“How can I help you?” the receptionist asked.
Clearing her throat, Eliza approached the desk. “My, um, boyfriend was arrested earlier today. I’d like to see him please.”
The woman’s eyes softened, as if she was used to this kind of request. “Of course dear. What’s his name?”
Eliza hesitated, unsettled by how difficult it was for her to answer a simple question. “Aquila Eckelson.”
The woman’s warm expression hardened. Her sympathy evaporated as if it had never been there at all. “I’m sorry, that won’t be possible.”
“What? Why?”
“He’s being held on special charges. No visitors.”
“What does that even mean? I don’t—”
“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
Eliza’s mouth opened and closed, like a suffocating fish. This was illegal. It had to be. The police couldn’t hold someone without charge, right?
Or could they?
What were the rules here?
Eliza wished she’d paid more attention in her government and history classes. From the woman’s expression, she felt like there must be something going on, something less than normal, but Eliza was helpless to stop it. Helpless even to understand it.
“Please leave, dear, before I call security.”
Unable to think of anything else to do, Eliza stumbled away from the desk.
Don’t make things worse, said a numb, distant voice in her brain.
Throwing a last glare at the woman behind the desk, Eliza drifted to the door, to the steps, raking through her brain for ideas. Who did she know who would, or could, help? Ian? Too far away. Joe’s parents? No, they hated her.
Joe?
Barely keeping it together, Eliza stepped blinking into the sun. Her attention was jerked back to the present as she registered a flock of reporters clustered out front, snapping pictures and calling instructions.
Paparazzi…
But they weren’t pointed at her.
No, the commotion was focused on someone else, a man walking up the steps. Huge, blonde, blue-eyed, powerful. Two figures flanked him on either side, both much younger and smaller. Eliza stepped aside, squinting at him. He wasn’t familiar, exactly, but there was something about his expression or the set of his shoulders that made her scalp prickle. Was it the gold rings on his fingers? Or the obviously expensive suit? Or maybe just the way he moved through the world, with the confidence of a man who owned more than his fair share of it?
Without warning, he paused, turned to face her. His blue eyes were chilling and sharp.
“Miss Mason,” he said in a deep voice.
“How do you—?”
But he was already gone, entering the police station with all the confidence Eliza could no longer summon.
She stared after him, overwhelmed by a sense of foreboding.
That man was here to see Aquila. She knew it.
And, with equal certainty, she knew it meant nothing good.
Stumbling down the steps and fleeing the attention of the cameras, Eliza whipped out her phone. There was only one person in the world who she could think to call right now, and she prayed he was in a position to help her.
Chapter Sixteen: Questionable
Joe was deep, deep in an Internet hole and had still found no sign of the strange reporter from the night before.
He’d scoured every picture he could find of the event, of any event from the last year. He’d dug through the staff pictures of every major and minor news site. He’d searched YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.
No lu
ck.
The woman seemed to be a ghost as well as a chameleon, so invisible that Joe was beginning to wonder if he’d imagined her. Ruffling his hair, he smiled ruefully at his wall, giving his tired eyes a rest. Maybe his bored, frustrated brain had invented another person with supernatural abilities, just to give him the company. It seemed like something he’d do.
As a kid, Joe used to pretend to be Wolverine, holding sticks between his fingers as he swiped at trees. He’d invent elaborate scenes in his head, scenes in which the manicured hedges were villains, and the squirrels were his team.
The problem with a lonely childhood was an overactive imagination, and Joe’s life had been filled with plenty of both.
Sighing, he rubbed his face.
She’d been there for someone. To kill someone. But who? Who’d been at that party who wasn’t also at every other party?
A special evening…
On a whim, Joe typed Hans Schneider conspiracy into Google.
A smattering of stories popped up, most of them about a new drama film funded by Hans’s media company, one with a conspiracy rumor of some business fraud.
But on the second page of the search results, Joe found an anonymous blog post titled, ‘Hans Schneider’s House of Cards.’
He clicked it.
The page it brought him to was dark and subdued, with white text on a black background, scattered with pictures. Joe scanned the article, blinking at one accusation after another. Hans has been collecting media personalities for years… he makes sure certain stories stay buried… with his cadre of connected persons, not to mention abnormally talented assistants, he’s positioned himself as the secret kingpin America never elected.
Joe blinked.
Secret kingpin?
Who was peddling conspiracy theories now?
Clicking on the name of the writer, Joe read over the bio. Tasha Williamson is a journalist with Liberation media, an outlet dedicated to overthrowing the hegemony of the modern-day oligarchs.
Liberation media? Modern-day oligarchs?
Who was this person?
Shaking his head and scoffing to himself, Joe Googled the name. Tasha Williamson. A LinkedIn page came up, complete with a picture of a pale, blond woman with hair that curled at the bottom. He stared at the profile for a moment, wondering how she could make such a clean, professional picture look so fierce. Now that he was looking for it, he could see that the tone of her skin was slightly different than the first time he’d seen her. A tiny bit darker. There was a birthmark on her cheek that hadn’t been there the first night, he was sure of it.
A mistake?
An intentional confusion?
Or was he the one losing his mind?
Joe was staring at the picture so hard that when a message popped up on the screen, he almost jumped out of his chair.
“What the…?” he muttered, rubbing his chest.
It was a direct message from Tasha herself.
Swallowing terror he couldn’t quite explain, Joe typed back a response.
Joe swallowed.
Joe decided not to take that personally. Tapping his fingers ineffectually on the keys for a moment, he considered his options. She was standoffish, rude, and had a clear chip on her shoulder. Maybe several. But she was here, talking to him, if with insulting directness.
Well, Joe could be direct too.
Typing out the words and sending them before he could second-guess himself, Joe wrote back,
She didn’t respond for a long moment. Finally, her answer popped up.
Joe swallowed again, unsettled.
Don’t be a coward, he scolded himself, replying
There was another long pause. Joe was half certain he’d scared her off when her next message appeared.
The hair on his arms stood up, prickling with instinct. He hated how familiar this was, how every time he seemed to understand the world, someone came along and pulled the rug out from under him.
But he was too curious to stop now.
Joe coughed out a laugh. She sure was audacious. He shook his head, composing a reply in his head. But by the time he’d blinked away his shock, she’d already signed off.
Well, he thought wryly, settling back in his seat. That was… unexpected.
He stared at the computer screen for a moment, squinting at the little blonde version of her avatar. Would she show up looking like that?
Somehow, he didn’t think so.
Six o’clock. That gave him a few hours to—
Bzzzzzz.
The sudden vibration made him jump and send his iPhone flying.
“Dammit,” Joe muttered, tumbling to his knees to grope around on the floor.
He found his phone behind his computer tower, checked the screen.
Eliza was calling.
Sliding his finger across the screen, Joe smiled as he answered.
“How goes the search?” he asked, returning to his desk chair and kicking his feet up, as if he could convey nonchalance over the phone.
But the frantic, wordless sobbing on the other end jerked him straight.
“Eliza?” Joe asked, leaping upright. “Eliza, what’s wrong?”
“I n-need your h-help,” she managed, and Joe knew right away, no matter what she wanted, he would do it.
Chapter Seventeen: New Players, Old Game
It turned out jail wasn’t anything like the movies. Or at least, not for Aquila. He wondered if they gave all criminals the same treatment, or if they’d put him in a clean, manicured, windowless cell to keep the other prisoners from panicking. There were no bars to speak of, no double-sided mirrors. Just four blank walls, a bench, and a door that he’d already tested twice.
“Aren’t I supposed to get a phone call?” Aquila called. After all, someone must be watching.
But there was no response.
He paced the length of the room again, feeling claustrophobic despite its generous size.
When they’d first dumped him in here and taken off the handcuffs, he’d snapped his wings out to steady himself. Maybe also to intimidate the officers a little. But a wave of nausea had taken him by surprise when the tips of his feathers brushed the walls on either side of him. He hated being so contained and cut off from the sky, no escape, no room to breathe. Not even enough space for his wingspan.
He would have gladly kept the handcuffs in exchange for a window.
Doing his best to breathe, he thought of Eliza. She’d seen him being forced into the cop car. If anyone could come up with a plan to get him out of here, it was her. But if Aquila was being honest with himself, he was worried. Eliza had been unsteady since October. She spooked quickly, reacted strongly. Sometimes he even heard her screaming at night. Even though they’d basically been living together for the past four months, she’d kept him at arm’s length, both emotionally and physically. It was as if she thought that, if she let him close, he’d see too much, realize what the fight at Fitzgerald had done to her.
Well, he did see it, and her attempts to hide what was clearly some serious PTSD only made Aquila more agitated. He wanted to help. She wouldn’t let him. He wanted to keep her safe. She insisted on coming along and being a part of the action. It was in her nature to be strong and put on a brave face,
and Aquila was trying so hard to be understanding, to make space for who Eliza was and what she needed.
But dammit he couldn’t be worried about Moose and her at the same time.
Collapsing onto the bench and curling his wings around him, Aquila let his face fall into his hands.
Is everyone’s life this complicated? he thought, groaning softly.
The sound of a key in the lock made him leap back up, fists clenched, ready for anything.
But Aquila was still surprised by the man who walked in.
He was tall and broad, with wide shoulders and chillingly blue eyes. The ice-white hair gave him a vague Scandinavian appearance, but he was too tan to be just that. Gold rings glittered on big, square fingers. Strangest of all, he was dressed in a stylish suit that looked as out of place in the cell as Aquila himself.
“Aquila Eckelson,” said the man as two other figures walked in, shutting the door behind them.
Aquila didn’t answer, glaring at the strange man and his even stranger associates.
One was short, thin, and reedy looking with glasses perched on his nose and a vacant, bored expression. The other was a curvy woman, her shape accentuated by tight jeans and a low-cut top, hair cropped short and spiky. She was grinning.
For some reason, it made Aquila nervous to be locked in a room with these three people.
“My name,” the man said, recapturing Aquila’s attention, “is Hans Schneider.”
“Never heard it,” Aquila said, trying to channel some of Eliza’s rebelliousness, even though it didn’t suit him.
The man, Hans, strode over and sat on Aquila’s bench, settling one ankle on the opposite knee. “Unsurprising, seeing as how you and your brothers were raised. Although even in the business world I do my best to keep a low profile.”
Aquila eyed the gold rings and pale suit, wondering how much wealth the man was wearing.
He noticed Aquila’s interest, flexing one hand. “Expectations of the business, I’m afraid. It would be more notable to be seen without them.”
“Look, I don’t know who you are, but I should be allowed a phone call so—”