by L. B. Clark
I heard the bathroom door open and turned to ask Dylan’s opinion, but I kind of forgot what I was supposed to be asking. I hadn’t seen what she’d picked out to wear tonight, lost as it had been in the pile of clothes she’d tried on. I couldn’t have been more shocked if she’d come out of the bathroom wearing a flour sack. Dylan – who still hadn’t admitted that grunge was dead, believed a flannel shirt goes with everything, and swore that she’d wear jeans to her wedding if she ever married – was wearing a dress. A cute one, too. With the sandals I had decided not to buy.
“Wow, Dylan. You look like a girl.”
“Yeah. Watch out for falling icicles.”
I laughed. “I don’t think you wearing a dress qualifies as hell freezing over. I mean, I do seem to recall it happening at least once before.”
A lovestruck smile spread across Dylan’s face. “Yeah, I think I remember that, too.”
I smiled, too. Seeing my soul sister happy made me happy – it’s just that simple.
A knock on the door drew us out of our musings, and I went to peek out the peephole. It was Ashe, so I opened the door. Only after the door was open did I realize that another man stood in the doorway, out of sight of the peephole. I went on alert, that good old fight-or-flight response kicking in.
“Stand down, princess,” Ashe said. “He’s with me.”
I shook it off and stepped back to let the two men into the room.
Ashe shut the door behind them, and then turned to me and Dylan. “Are you two ready to get this trainwreck on the road?” The other man elbowed him. “Yeah, yeah. Ladies, Quinn. Quinn, ladies.”
“Quinn?” I asked.
“Robert Quinn,” the man said, offering me his hand.
“Elizabeth Morgan,” I replied, giving his hand a firm shake.
He introduced himself to Dylan as well, and then I asked again, “Quinn?”
Quinn laughed. “I get that a lot,” he said.
I could only imagine. With his golden skin, glossy, deep brown – or was it black? – hair, and dark, tilted eyes, he couldn’t have looked less like a ‘Quinn.’ Maybe a Nguyen, but not a Quinn.
“My mom’s Korean,” he said, “and Dad’s a Scot.”
“If show and tell is over,” Ashe interrupted, “I’d rather not leave London alone any longer than is necessary.”
“I take it you didn’t have much luck teaching him to shield,” I said.
“He picked it up just fine, but I want to be near to hand, just in case.”
I knew he was in a hurry to get back, but I was tired of having questions and no answers. “He said he had a hard time learning the shielding thing before. But it worked today?”
Ashe sighed and rubbed his temples with one hand. “Every practitioner has different abilities – you’ve seen enough to have guessed that. Now, what I’m about to tell you goes no further than this room.” He met first my eyes and then Dylan’s. I knew he was deadly serious.
“Different people have different abilities. Mine are pretty much limited to empathy, pyrokinesis, and the ability to erect shields. London’s a natural empath, and he seems to have some natural ability with foresight.”
“And the pyrokinesis thing,” I added.
“No. That’s not his. I’m afraid that one is my fault.”
“What do you mean your fault?” Dylan asked before I could.
“London’s what we call a mimic.”
“And what does that mean, exactly?”
It was Quinn who answered. “You know how everyone jokes about learning by osmosis? Mimics can more or less do exactly that. They aren’t limited to their own natural abilities, but can learn new ones, usually just be seeing them performed.”
“Wait, whoa. What?”
“When you came to Key West, I showed London my abilities and told him a little about my past. I didn’t know then what he is,” Ashe explained.
“So you showed him how to do the fire trick and...he could just do it?”
“Emergency situations tend to bring magic into play unconsciously,” Quinn said. “That’s often how someone finds out he or she has abilities.”
“I figure London’s magic gave him what he needed to save you,” Ashe added.
I shuddered, remembering the pain. Remembering how I’d thought I would die, and that I would welcome it because it would make that pain stop.
Dylan hugged me, and I wrapped my arms around her for a minute.
“So...what’s her name? Shelley. She didn’t know how to do the shield thing, and that’s why London couldn’t learn it?”
Ashe shook his head. “For most people, shielding is just learning to control your powers, to open and close your mind. That’s a hard thing for a teenager to learn under the best of circumstances. It’ll be easier for London to learn now that he’s older and wiser. Hell, he’s already making good progress. But it’ll take time. We needed a quick fix.”
“Ashe has a fairly unique ability,” Quinn added, “in that he can put up metaphysical walls. He can shield himself from outside influence, and he can shield others from third party influence.”
“You showed London how to do that,” Dylan said.
“Yes and no. I showed him, but until he’s worked with it quite a bit he won’t be able to protect himself or others from another practitioner. But he can use the shields to keep his empathy in check.”
“So he’ll be okay tonight.”
Ashe snorted. “Between the shields and all the other precautions I have in place, he might be able to get through the night without making too much of a mess of things. Now, do you girls want to keep talking metaphysics, or do you want to go watch 3,000 screaming women drool over your boyfriends?”
“Well, when you put it that way....let’s go.”
Chapter Sixteen
I’d never been backstage at a concert before, and I felt a little giddy as we wove our way past security and techs and who knows who else to make our way to the green room. Kent, Brian, and some men I didn’t know were deep in conversation, but I didn’t see Adrian or London anywhere. Brian turned around as if he could sense us, his eyes going directly to Dylan. They widened a little at the sight of her in the dress.
Dylan went to hug her man, and I turned to ask about London. Either Ashe knew where my mind would be or he felt my concern, because he answered my question before I could ask it.
“They’re in one of the dressing rooms. London needs the quiet time, away from people, and Adrian’s keeping him company.”
“Can I....” I began, but Ashe cut me off.
“Probably not the best idea, princess. Distraction isn’t what he needs right now.”
“I just kind of need to see him. Like, literally see him. Just to know he’s okay.”
Ashe nodded. “Keep your distance, you hear?”
I agreed, and Ashe led me to a nearby room. I peeked inside to find London and Adrian roughhousing. Boys.
Much the same way Brian had, London knew I was standing in the doorway even though I hadn’t made a sound. With Brian it had been some sort of soulmate thing, but with London I knew it was his magic, his empathy. He looked up at me, and I gave him a little wave.
Adrian disentangled himself from whatever faux wrestling move London had him in and headed for the door, surprising me with a hug on his way past. He surprised me even more by getting Ashe to leave the room with him, without even saying a word. He just touched Ashe’s arm in a ‘come with me’ gesture, and Ashe followed. I wondered if Adrian had some superpowers of his own.
The door closed behind the men, and I just stood there, not sure what to do or say. I finally settled for asking, “Are you sure about this? Playing tonight I mean?”
London sighed, plopped down on the sofa, and leaned his head back against the wall. “You’re like the 100th person to ask me that. I’m absofuckinglutely sure, okay? Can everyone just stop fucking asking me that?”
His reaction didn’t really do much to reassure me. “Okay. Sorry. I’m just a littl
e concerned is all.”
“You and everyone else. I’m fine. I can do this. I want to do this. Playing live is the best part of what I do. It’s who I am.” He crossed his arms tight across his chest.
“And you don’t want the metaphysical stuff to get in the way of that.”
“No. It’s not that I don’t want it getting in the way, it’s that I can’t let it get in the way. I play music. It’s who I am. Without that...I don’t even want to think about it.” He hugged himself a little harder, and I could see his blunt nails making crescents on the pale skin of his arms.
“I get that,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean you have to play this show, tonight. It’s not too late....”
“Yeah. Yeah, it really is,” he said, cutting me off. “I really need you to go now. I can’t seem to keep you out of my head, and you can’t be there right now. I know I scare you, and that’s not what I need right before I go on stage.”
Scared of him? I wasn’t scared of London. Was I? He didn’t give me a chance to think about it.
“Please just go,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper.
I went.
Ashe met me at the door, disapproval written across his face. He brushed by me and went to do damage control. Adrian, who’d been waiting with him, hugged me again.
“I don’t know what happened in there, but by the look on your face it was nothing good.”
I shook my head. “I’m not sure what happened, either. But I have a bad feeling about tonight.”
“It’ll be okay,” Adrian promised. “We’ve got backup plans for our backup plans. We’re gonna go out there and play a great show, and everything’s going to be just fine.” He sounded like he believed it, and that helped me to believe it, too.
We went to join the others, and Brian greeted me with a hug. I held onto him a little longer than might be considered appropriate, but neither he nor Dylan minded.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” I lied with a big smile. Brian gave me a look that said clearer than any words that he wasn’t buying it. “Okay, I’m not fine, but it’s nothing to worry about. Besides, you have other things to deal with.”
“Yeah. It’s almost that time.”
Ashe joined us a moment later. “He’s all right,” he said to me before I could ask. “I’m going to keep an eye on him during the show and stay close by in case of emergency. You girls go with Quinn. He’s your bodyguard tonight, just in case.”
“Ladies,” Quinn said, with a slight nod. “I’ll show you to your seats.”
“Seats?” Dylan and I asked in unison.
“Who the hell sits at a rock show?” I asked.
“You do,” Quinn replied. “At least you do tonight. General admission area is too risky, too hard to watch. We’ve got you in a box.”
“But....” Dylan started to protest.
Brian stepped forward and cupped Dylan’s face in his hands. He looked her in the eye and said, “I’ll be able to see you, and you’ll be able to see me. And you’ll be safer.” He leaned in and kissed her, a soft press of lips that silenced any protest.
From her, at least. It didn’t do a damned thing to shut me up. “And what about keeping you guys safe? How is the stage somehow safer than the crowd?”
“I’ll be near to hand,” Ashe said. “Besides, anyone would be a fool to try something with 3,000 pairs of eyes focused on the stage.”
I still wanted to argue, though I wasn’t sure why. Even if I were close to the boys, there wasn’t much I could do if danger did rear its ugly head. With a feeling of foreboding, I followed Quinn and Dylan to the box that had somehow been procured for us. We found our seats and settled in for what I suspected would be a very stressful night.
There isn’t a lot to do while you’re waiting for a rock show to start. You can listen to whatever canned music is blaring over the sound system. You can people watch. If you’re there with friends, you can talk about the band and what songs you hope to hear.
In my case, I didn’t care about any of that, so my mind reverted to its favorite pastime – worrying. I thought about what London had said in the dressing room, that he knew I was scared of him. That meant he felt fear coming from me. What had I been afraid of in that moment?
I closed my eyes and tried to remember everything I’d thought or felt – not an easy task. Bit by bit, it came back to me. I had been concerned about London, unsure whether his shields would hold under the emotional weight of thousands of people. I had been both frustrated by his stubbornness and admiring of his courage and determination. I had also felt a tenderness toward him that I hadn’t let myself feel for any man in a long time. As I realized and accepted that fact, I knew why London had felt fear from me. He was right; I was afraid of him. More to the point, I was afraid of the feelings I’d developed for him in such a short period of time. I was scared to death that I was falling in love with him.
Before I had a chance to fully process that realization, the canned music went away and our boys took the stage. I tried to push my thoughts and emotions aside and lose myself in the music, but it wasn’t easy. Music is emotional and thought-provoking under most circumstances, but more so here and now. Somehow, being unfamiliar with the songs made it worse. Hearing some of the lyrics for the first time in this setting under these circumstances gave them more impact and made me see them in a different light than I might have otherwise. It also didn’t help that Brian kept looking up at us, as if to make sure that we were still there.
With every song the guys played, I felt a little more hopeful that we would all make it through the set without any kind of catastrophe. Though Quinn maintained a constant vigil, there seemed to be no trouble on the horizon. On stage, London seemed fine, feeding off the energy of the crowd no more than any other musician might.
Just a little over halfway through the show, Brian said something to Adrian out of reach of the microphones and then made a little hand sign to the other boys. As soon as the song they were playing ended, most of the band left the stage, leaving Adrian alone with his guitar for a solo acoustic number. Near the end of the song, the rest of the band came back – all except London. Jimmy took London’s place behind the drums, and I fought down a wave of panic as I turned to Quinn.
“Where is he? What’s going on?”
“I’m sure he’s just backstage with Ashe,” Quinn said. “This was all part of the contingency plan.”
“I take it he told Jimmy then?”
“Yeah. Kid took it pretty well. Started calling London a jedi.”
I shook my head and turned my attention back to the stage, trying to keep my worry down to a manageable level. Whatever was happening, there wasn’t a damned thing I could do about it. The song ended, and Adrian took a minute to talk about something or other. I’ll never know what he said, because London walked back out on stage just then. I guess some of what I was feeling must have been obvious, because Dylan laid her hand on my shoulder in a gesture of comfort and concern. I flashed her a smile to let her know I was okay.
The show went on. Nothing cataclysmic happened, and London didn’t leave the stage again until he walked off with the rest of the band before the first encore.
“Time to go,” Quinn told us.
He led us back to the green room where we watched the rest of the show on monitors and waited for the boys to join us. Two encores and a big, dramatic bow later, the band strolled off the stage and came directly to the green room. Dylan greeted Brian at the door, and they shared a brief, sweaty hug. London came in right behind Brian; his pupils were blown and he was sort of bouncing as he walked. He looked like he was strung out on speed, but I knew better. He was high all right, but it had nothing to do with drugs.
London spent a minute or so exchanging verbal pats on the back with his friends, and then he turned his head and our eyes met. I felt a sudden spark of need, of lust. The spark flamed up so fast it should have scared me, but it didn’t. Now that I knew what to look for,
I recognized the multiplier effect Ashe had described, but I was still powerless to stop it.
London bridged the distance between us in a few long strides, capturing my face in his hands and bending low to kiss me hard. The desire built between us, and London gave into it. He pulled me hard against him, his mouth eager and demanding against mine. His hands slid up beneath my skirt, gliding over skin and satin and lace. I pushed up onto my toes, trying to make up some of the difference in our height, and London spun us around so that my back was against a wall. He lifted me up a little, and I wrapped a leg around his waist.
Raised voices and the sound of a scuffle cut through the fog in my brain. And just like that I realized that I was all but having sex in front of an audience. I’m so not an exhibitionist.
The cognitive dissonance Ashe had talked about rose up and put a wall between me and London. He let me down, his face shuttered, and backed away.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice hoarse. “God, Elizabeth, I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head and stepped forward, intending to lay my hand on his arm in a gesture of comfort. London backpedalled until he hit the opposite wall.
“Don’t touch me,” he begged. “I can’t handle that right now.”
“Well that’s pretty fucking obvious,” I snapped. “You couldn’t have figured that out before you tried to fuck me in front of our friends?”
I clapped a hand over my mouth, not sure where the words or the anger had come from. I concentrated on my feelings and thoughts, and once again I recognized the ripple effect of our combined emotions. I shook it off.
“London, I don’t want to be pissed at you, dammit. Get your shit together.”