“Why?” Sean muttered around a mouthful of eggs and potatoes.
“She’s a cook. Owns her own little restaurant in Chicago.”
“Never been.”
“You’ll have to visit one day soon.”
Sean eyed her over his mug of synthcaf, unable to read the expression on her face. “Okay?”
Katie pointed her fork at him. “You and Alexei.”
His first instinct was to deny, deny, deny, but lying wasn’t an option here. Not now, not when he’d tasted Alexei and knew exactly what it felt like to come undone in the younger man’s arms. If London had taught Sean anything, it was that Alpha Team looked after their own and closed ranks against all comers. They protected each other, and Sean would go through countless uncomfortable conversations if it meant he could still keep Alexei by his side.
“Me and Alexei,” he finally said, not bothering to hide the truth from her.
Katie nodded, finding whatever answer she wanted in his eyes, maybe his mind, but that was an uncharitable thought Sean quickly chased aside. Katie would never read another person’s mind without permission or unless cleared and ordered to do so.
“Paperwork’s going to be a bitch. Alexei hates it, and he’ll push it off as long as possible. You better be the one to register your status.”
Sean laughed tiredly, cutting at his omelet. “Speaking from experience?”
“Babysitting comes with the chevrons. I wish it fucking didn’t, but there you go. Now finish your breakfast. We got places to be.”
He saluted her with his fork. “Yes, ma’am.”
They ate; he stacked the dishes in the compact dishwasher and turned it on. Locking the door to the apartment behind him, he followed Katie to her car. The drive back to base went through morning rush hour traffic, but since he wasn’t behind the wheel, Sean didn’t care.
“Stirling is overseeing your family’s security clearance meeting,” Katie said after a while.
Sean nodded. “That’s what Agent Flores said last night.”
“What she didn’t tell you is that JAG had a recommendation that Stirling and Nazari both signed off on.”
“What sort of recommendation?” Sean asked slowly.
“Your mother and father are in professions where keeping quiet is second nature to them for legal reasons. The MDF isn’t worried they would compromise your identity and their own safety.”
Sean could see where this was going. “But my brothers?”
“Are a different matter entirely. They’re in a band that travels internationally, which is its own set of problems logistically from a security standpoint, but the more critical issue is the MDF doubts they can keep who and what you are now a secret.”
Sean chewed on the inside of his bottom lip as he tried to bury the simmering anger rising up in him. Logically, he knew the MDF would always have an issue with the spotlight his brothers performed under, the same way the CIA had. Fame brought with it a life lived beneath the eyes of the world, where his brothers’ everyday habits were splashed across media gossip sites and picked apart by fans and critics.
When Atomic Grace hit it big, Sean had pulled away from his brothers even more, knowing that he couldn’t be seen with them in public because it would put his job and his life at risk, to say nothing of his family’s. His efforts didn’t seem enough at this point.
“What did the director authorize?” Sean asked. He had an idea of what was decided, but he needed to hear Katie say it.
“I was ordered to put a mental block in their minds where you are concerned.” She glanced over at him, frustration and a tiredness in her eyes he couldn’t ignore. “It’s not a mindwipe. It’s not even full memory alteration. They’ll be able to talk about you as family, but they won’t inadvertently say anything about the MDF or your position as a metahuman.”
Sean looked out the window, grinding his teeth against anger and the sense of shame he felt at being relieved the MDF had authorized Katie to use her telepathy in such a way. He couldn’t blame the director for handing down that order, because he knew how his brothers acted on stage, on camera, and on their social media platforms.
“Thank you for telling me,” Sean eventually said.
“I’m sorry the director deemed that order necessary,” Katie replied.
“But you’re not sorry for doing it.”
“No. Your family knows who you are and knows our identities now. That’s information we can’t allow to be released.”
Sean knew she was thinking about Jamie and the entire Callahan family. The presidential election was next year and Jamie’s father, Senator Richard Callahan, was leading in the polls by a wide margin for the Republican candidate nomination. If word got out that Jamie was a metahuman, it would throw the entire race into disarray.
Metahumans made up a tiny percentage of the world’s population, but they were always on people’s minds. Most governments controlled the lives of their citizens who were turned into metahumans, and America was no different. Yes, people here could choose not to fight for the MDF and reveal their status to the world at large, but that led to a lonely life most of the time.
The general public was wary of metahumans, and that colored much of the politics governing their existence. The MDF grew out of a need for control, but that didn’t mean people approved of the agency in general and metahumans in particular. If Jamie’s status as a metahuman got out, there was a strong possibility that knowledge would complicate his father’s chance at winning the presidency.
“I’m sorry,” Katie said after a moment.
Sean closed his eyes, forcing down his anger. He had no one but himself to blame for the position his family was currently in. “No, you’re not.”
Katie hummed a soft agreement. “I’m sorry my power is needed.”
“But that doesn’t stop you from following orders.”
“Not this time, no.”
Sean nodded, reaching out to pat her shoulder. “I understand.”
That still didn’t make it easy, didn’t make it right. But he understood why the director had made this decision and he couldn’t find it in himself to argue against it. In this instance, it was the right decision to make.
Right just didn’t necessarily mean better.
The rest of the drive happened in silence. By the time they made it back to base, Sean was as clearheaded as he could be for the upcoming confrontation with his family. Katie parted ways with him once they were past security, off to track down Jamie. Sean went to his office first, metaphorically dragging his feet as he checked his terminal and all the unanswered emails, messages, and reports he still needed to get through. Most of it couldn’t be dealt with today, unfortunately. He did respond to a couple of emails from Elena that were the most important ones before locking the terminal and running both hands through his hair.
“Ceres, where is my family?” he asked.
“Level 19. They have been sequestered in several suites since their arrival, though they are currently in their assigned conference room,” the AI promptly replied.
“Anyone with them?”
“A JAG Corps representative. Shall I inform her you will be interrupting?”
Sean very badly wanted to say no, but knew he couldn’t. “Yes. Tell her I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”
“Very well.”
Sean took a moment to mentally steady himself before leaving his office and heading to where his family was. When he arrived, Sean swallowed thickly and palmed open the door before he could talk himself out of it. He stepped inside on quiet feet, scanning the room.
His family sat around the table, the remains of breakfast plates piled on the side credenza. The JAG Corps representative had disappeared, her terminal locked down, but some data was still available in the table’s center holographic displays. One command window held two holopics of himself taken by the government from when he was in the CIA and when he first joined the MDF. What little the MDF had authorized to share from his personnel
file was highly selective, redacted, and probably posed more questions than answers for his family.
Everyone looked up at his arrival. They stared blankly at him for a couple of seconds before his mother got to her feet, one hand coming up to briefly cover her mouth.
“Sean,” Naomi said in a raw voice.
He swallowed nervously. “Hi, Mom.”
Sean didn’t know what to do for a moment—sit, stand, beg for forgiveness—but his mother took the decision out of his hands. She came around the table, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, even if she’d washed off all her makeup last night. She looked paler than he was used to, but that could’ve been the stress.
His mother pulled him into a hug, holding onto him so tightly it hurt to breathe for a second or two. Sean’s breath hitched in his throat as he squeezed his eyes shut and hugged her back.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice cracking a little.
Naomi sniffed discreetly, her fingers digging hard into his back. “Why didn’t you tell us? You should have told us.”
“The CIA advised against it at the time.”
“I don’t care what the damn CIA wanted. We’re your family. You should have told us.” Naomi pulled back, wiping at her cheeks with the back of one hand. “God, Sean. You were hit with Splice. We had a right to know what you were doing before you died on us!”
“But I didn’t die.”
She shook her finger at him, the frantic look in her eyes that of grief only a mother would know. “The percentage of people who survive a Splice bomb is so small that you should have. We’d have found out about your double life after you were already dead. Is that something you were okay with when you decided to join up?”
“I was thinking more about keeping you safe.”
“Didn’t really work out, did it?” Zach said in a low voice.
Sean winced. “To be honest, none of this should have happened.”
“So if a mistake in your mission hadn’t occurred, we would still be in the dark about your life,” Greg said. His father sounded like he did when presiding over his courtroom from the bench—serious and stern, no hint of his thoughts showing up on his face.
“The mistake wasn’t on my end, nor the MDF’s,” Sean replied evenly, meeting his father’s gaze.
“We were still put in danger.”
“I know. And I’m sorry. I did my best not to let what happened in my life and my job spill over into yours.”
“Why didn’t you trust us? Like your mother said, Sean. You should have told us.”
Sean sighed, taking his mother’s hand and guiding her back to the seat next to his father’s. “Because most of my missions involved deep cover and there were rules governing who I could tell about my status. It seemed easier at the time to just not tell anyone. You and mom had your careers, and Zach and Caleb and Parker had the band.”
“Which you dropped out of,” Parker said, leaning forward. “Did the CIA make you drop out of it?”
“I couldn’t join up and be in a rock band, Parker.”
“So you didn’t believe we could make it?”
Sean looked across the table at his littlest brother with tired eyes. “I believed in my country more.”
It was a belief that had been quite thoroughly broken in the last twenty-four hours, and that realization had yet to completely sink in. Knowing that a faction of the government had targeted his family for reasons he still didn’t completely understand left Sean feeling numb and sick to his stomach.
Caleb fiddled with the handle of his synthcaf mug on the table, staring at Sean. “So you lied.”
“I did,” Sean said while sitting down.
“Then why should we believe you now when you say you’re sorry?”
“Caleb,” Naomi said in a sharp voice.
“What, Mom? Sean lied to us for years. He’s a spy, he said it himself. He worked deep cover missions, whatever the hell that means. How do we even know what he’s telling us is even the truth this time?”
“I don’t know, the car chase yesterday seems like a good enough answer to me,” Zach replied. “Walking through walls, that’s another good one.”
“That was fucking weird,” Parker agreed. “Are you part of Alpha Team?”
Parker seemed excited at that prospect, but Sean shook his head. “I’m on secondment with them right now for a mission, but I’m not officially on their roster. I usually work alone.”
Greg cleared his throat. “The agent yesterday told us your power was phasing?”
“Yes. What else did they tell you?”
“That you nearly died in the Belfast Market Blast,” Naomi said, looking at him as she folded her hands tightly together over the table. “Is that why you don’t like farmers’ markets anymore?”
Sean flinched at the question, thinking of all the times in the last few years his parents had tried to get him to go to the local farmer’s market in New Seattle for lunch on the weekends whenever he visited. It was an activity they all used to enjoy as a family when he and his brothers were kids. Now, the mere thought of going to one left him cold and breathing fast.
“Yes,” he managed to get out. “Because I was at ground zero for the Belfast bomb and it’s not something I like to think about.”
Not that he would ever forget. He’d lived with the results of that horrific attack every day since.
The silence around the table was more than a little awkward. Touching a finger to the terminal in front of him, Sean logged on and tapped in a command to pull up the documents the JAG Corps representative was painstakingly going over with his family. He skimmed through a few of them until he got to their alibi, because there was no hiding the fact that someone had shot up his parents’ apartment.
The MDF was apparently spinning the attack as a failed hit by the Sons of Adam, drawing on his father’s status as a United States District Judge as a likely target. It would have been a headline-making story to begin with, but throw in his brothers’ band, and their fans were blowing up social media, giving the story legs it wouldn’t ordinarily have. The MDF had written up a quote, matching his brothers’ cadence perfectly—Sean knew he had Elena to thank for that—putting out that they were safe, but to respect their privacy in this trying time.
So far the media was running with the story and not really questioning it. The government was good at creating believable spin, but he didn’t doubt that some journalists would start to dig deeper at some point in the near future.
“Look,” Sean said slowly. “I know this comes as a shock to all of you. I know your opinion of me isn’t going to change in the course of a day, or just because you found out what I really do. I get that.”
“The MDF apparently lets its agents tell their immediate family of their change in status. I don’t know about your time in the CIA, but you’ve been with the MDF for years now. You could’ve told us so we didn’t have some telepath mess with our heads,” Zach said.
“The director would have still ordered Sergeant Ovechkina to put mental blocks in your minds even if I’d told you sooner. You three travel internationally all the time. You share your entire lives in front of the camera, even when you’re not on stage.”
“So what you’re saying is you didn’t think we could keep our mouths shut, is that it?” Caleb asked angrily.
“I still don’t,” Sean shot back. “You splash my identity across your media platforms and my work as an MDF agent is compromised. Not to mention you’d be too tempting a target for whatever terrorist group was looking to get leverage over the MDF.”
“We can keep our mouths shut.”
Sean pinned him with a look that had his younger brother freezing in his chair. “Too much to drink and one slip up would be enough to get you dead. Not to mention you’re forgetting the most important fact, which is that the United States government doesn’t negotiate with terrorists. Telepathic blocks are about keeping you safe as much as they keep me safe. I don’t like that the MDF resorted to that option, but I can
’t say I disagree with it.”
The tense silence in the room buzzed against Sean’s skin. His dad was the one who finally broke it.
“They didn’t do the telepathic blocks to your mother and me,” Greg said.
“You’re a judge and she’s a doctor. The director figured you two would know how to keep quiet.”
Before anyone else could ask a question, the door slid open, letting in a short, middle-aged woman. She gave Sean a little nod. “Agent Delaney, I’m Meghan O’Leary. I’m with JAG.”
“Judge Advocate,” Sean said politely in greeting.
O’Leary took a seat at the head of the table, logging into her terminal again. “Will you be staying for the rest of the discussion?”
“Yes.”
Sean thought his presence could give more clarity if his family had questions, but it ended up being a fraught three hours of arguments and explanations and apologies that tasted bitter on his tongue. By the end of it, his family was aware of the restrictions on what they could and could not discuss in public, but they didn’t like it.
Sean felt that they didn’t like him at the moment, and it was that feeling which chased him out of the conference room when O’Leary broke up the meeting for lunch. He left without a word, ignoring his father calling his name. As much as he loved his family, as much as he cared about them, he couldn’t be around them for much longer right now. It hurt too much.
Waiting for the elevator with a couple of other people, he was more than a little surprised when Alexei stepped off the next one that arrived. Alexei’s face lit up with a smile and Sean could only stare at him stupidly.
“What are you doing here?” Sean asked as everyone else got on, the doors closing.
“Work here,” Alexei said blithely.
“I know that. But this isn’t a level you’re normally on.”
“Asked Ceres where you are. Thought I find you and get lunch. Keep you company unless you not want?”
Alexei looked so hopeful at the possibility of sharing a meal together that Sean hated to tell him no. “I’m not good company right now.”
Alexei studied him, gray eyes almost too-knowing. “Not go well with family?”
In the Shadows (Metahuman Files Book 3) Page 24