“Same to all of that,” she said, sighing heavily. “Vincent may be mad at me tomorrow, but don’t freak out if he’s acting differently.”
“Oh?”
“I told him to stop holding back because he’s scared of being compared to his brother,” she whispered, hoping James didn’t hear.
Jasper stopped cutting and looked at her on his shoulder. He didn’t say anything, but those stormy blue-gray eyes were full of concern.
And James did hear. “Bad move. He hates knowing he and Axel have similarities. Thought you would know that.”
“I do. It’s why I’m assuming he’ll be in a mood.” She glanced at their handler, wondering why he was staring at her so oddly.
“I mean, with everything going on, I think reminding him of Axel right now is a really bad idea, especially since he got that invitation.”
“What invitation?” she and Jasper asked at the same time.
James looked between them from his spot over the stove, comprehension dawning over his face as he realized they didn’t know what he was talking about. “Fuck,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Forget I said anything.”
“No, finish that,” Elijah snapped, walking in. “What invitation?”
“My brother asked for me to go visit him,” Vincent said, following Elijah into the kitchen. “I hadn’t had the thought to tell them yet, James. Thanks for that.”
Sawyer turned her gaze on him. She knew she was glaring, but didn’t soften it for him.
“Don’t,” James ordered, waving a hand at her. “He was undecided about it. I’m-”
“You were invited to go see him and didn’t fucking tell me?” she demanded, pointing at her chest. “This month, of all months?”
“He was attacked in prison a few weeks ago and it left him severely injured. Scarred. He’ll be fine in the long run.” Vincent was trying to remain cool with her, but she could see it cracking. “I was planning on turning it down. Quinn and I spoke about it.”
“You didn’t tell me-”
“And what would I have said?” he snapped, losing his composure. “‘Oh, Axel wants to see me for the fucking holidays?’ He made a request that the WMC decided to pass along because he’s been a model prisoner. I’m not planning on visiting. I found out the day you went to Atlanta with Elijah. Other things obviously fucking came up. ‘Oh, Sawyer, your identity was exposed last night, but let me tell you what happened with the man who gave you the damn reputation that doesn’t let you have a normal fucking life?’” He was even yelling at the end of it.
“Yes.” She was still glaring at him as she stormed out of the kitchen and grabbed her bag from the dining room table. She went down to the SUV without saying anything else for the night, her anger driving her to just leave. She would talk to Vincent again at dawn. She was going to use the anger to focus on her job instead.
She couldn’t fucking believe he would keep something like that from her. She could have helped him. She could have said something, anything to make him feel better. It would have kept her from bringing Axel up again, so that Vincent didn’t have to have that shoved in his face again.
She was just angry, and she needed to focus on the case.
When they got to the safehouse, she went to her room without a word, waiting. Another night in the dark, just wondering if they were going to take her bait. If they never did, that worried her. It meant they had other plans, ones she couldn’t get a grasp of. Like Vincent, she was moving nowhere in all of this. She had a plan and it needed to work. She couldn’t afford to fail, not in this. It would leave her dead, not because of the danger involved, but because she was another target.
If the Triad succeeded for whoever they worked for, her head would be on the proverbial silver platter.
“I hope you’re doing okay, babe. I know you’re mad at Vincent, and I am too, a little, but he didn’t think it was a big deal for everyone.”
She cracked a small smile at Zander’s words. Damn him for growing up and being the fucking rational one. When the fuck did that happen on her?
“I’m harassing Elijah right now, because I’m very bored.”
She snorted. Of course he was. There went that idea that he was suddenly mature and serious.
“I’m not stupid enough to mess with Quinn, or I would. Did you know he doesn’t really like telepathy? He loves the wolves and the animal bond, but telepathy kind of freaks him out. He’s fine with it when it’s necessary, but you’ll notice Vincent never uses it to call him anywhere.”
She hadn’t known that, but it made sense. It would be an invasion, in a sense. It wasn’t as bad as mind reading, but there was no way to block someone shoving their thoughts into your head.
“I should stop messing with Elijah.” He said it with a mental sigh. “When we’re done with this, I want first dibs to have a day with you.”
She wasn’t even going to address that later. There were no dibs, but mentally, she knew she needed to spend time with Vincent and Jasper since they were separated from the team. Maybe Quinn, since he was stuck in New York with her. In December.
In the quiet night, with Zander finally done being ridiculous, she realized that outside was a Christmas wonderland. She’d been ignoring anything that wasn’t related to the case.
They were in New York for the holidays. Wasn’t that something.
Her smile broadened as the night continued. When this was over, she needed to make sure they all took a day to go see the lights. She wanted to see those ice blue eyes of Quinn’s dancing in the Christmas lights. She wanted to see what sort of trouble Elijah and Zander would get into with all the snow. She wanted to drink hot chocolate with Jasper and have Vincent visit her kids with her. They weren’t Henry, but they were hers and maybe he would like it. She had them because of the impact Henry made on her life. He would understand, she hoped. Maybe even appreciate them for that.
There was so much she wanted to do with them.
A small thump in the room, but she didn’t react. She continued to stare into the darkness like it didn’t happen. She remembered how angry Vincent had made her and refocused it on the Triad. They were the source of her problems at that point. If it weren’t for them, Vincent would have eventually told her about Axel. The team wouldn’t be here, where she had to play a game to catch whoever hired them.
A second thump. The room grew a little colder as her anger grew.
Then a third.
In her room, which she had let her magic take over and make cold, were now three very empty spots. She felt nothing from them.
Got ‘em.
“Well, well.” A smooth voice whispered. “I wondered if the whore was smart enough to make a neat little trap for us. I guess Axel wasn’t the entire brain behind the Shadow after all.”
Naseem.
Her fury boiled, but she didn’t move. The room just grew so much colder.
“If you knew it was a trap, why are you here?” she asked softly.
“Because we have unfinished business.”
That had her moving. Her kukri was drawn before she even stood up, spinning to deflect a short sword aimed for her ribs. She didn’t have time to stop the dagger from slicing her left arm, though.
She jumped away, able to see in the dark after hours of getting used to it. Before her were all three of them, the members of the Triad.
And they weren’t there for the WMC. They were there for her. They had figured her out.
This was about to get very messy.
22
Elijah
Elijah heard several large thumps and stood up, moving quickly to his door.
“HERE!” she roared and he knew.
The Triad was in the building. They had taken the bait.
He shoved out into the hallway and ran for the door to Sawyer’s room. Quinn was already there, yanking it open. Zander was down the hall, falling out of his room and hauling ass.
Elijah was right behind Quinn, as he shifted into a wolf and jumped into the room,
a vicious snarl startling whoever was in front of him enough to make them pause. Fangs met flesh and a scream tore out of a terrified throat.
Elijah manifested a fireball to throw at another of the dark figures in the room, knowing it wasn’t Sawyer. There was no magic in the area where he aimed.
Zander came in last, and shields wrapped around them, tight, close to their clothing. It was a tricky way to make shields, something Zander had practiced with for years, but it drained his magic considerably and was even harder to do when they were active.
He was impressed.
“I’m the target,” Sawyer called out, grappling with the third member on the far side of the room. “They’re here for me.”
Elijah didn’t need to hear any more. He wasn’t letting that fucking happen. This was what they had wanted, but something about them going after Sawyer specifically pissed him off. The flame in his hand grew and he sent it for the one he wanted. It didn’t make it to his target, whose white grin could be seen in the dark.
“I’m the fires of hell, boy,” a feminine voice taunted. “Don’t think you can blow me up.”
Fuck. He should have known better.
The fireball rebounded back to him and he took his to his chest, but it didn’t hurt. Instead, he let go of his control and let the fire lick over his skin like it was part of him. It proved he was more powerful than her. She didn’t take the fire like he could.
“Well, doll, looks like we’re at an impasse, then.” He knew it was burning off all his body hair. It always did when he let it play on him like this. He never let it touch his hair. He saw her eyes go wide, then narrow in anger. “Did you think you were going to be the strongest Magi with fire in the room? And why the dramatics? The fires of hell? Really?”
“I’ll kill you,” she snarled.
She jumped for him, but he knew how to handle a little spitfire. She didn’t have the muscle mass of Sawyer - or the height. She was a tiny thing. He made sure not to underestimate her speed as she tried to slice open his gut. He grabbed her wrist and twisted, hoping to disarm her, but she did a fucking sideways flip thing and took him to the ground.
Holy shit. Thank god for Zander’s shield, because it made her blade bounce away when she tried to drive it into his chest.
He could smell smoke in the room now as his fire took over the carpet. Fuck. He put it out before the chick had the chance to think of ramping it up and taking the building down. As he removed the fire, water soaked the carpet, probably from Zander.
He jumped up before the little brat could try and stab him again. This time, he didn’t make the mistake of putting his hands on her, using his telekinesis to pull the blade from her hand and throw it into a wall, loud enough to hear the twang of metal vibrating.
“No more of that,” he told her, pointing. She glared at him, glancing over to another section of the room. Then he saw her eyes go wide.
He turned to follow as well, to see Quinn back in his human form grab the third Triad member by the hair and slam his face into the wall.
“Stay down,” Quinn snarled.
“Adaih!” the little fire user gasped. “Naseem!”
Elijah didn’t have a chance to say anything, as something invisible shoved him into a wall. He was able to see Quinn keep hold of the one she called Adaih, as Naseem tossed Sawyer back into a wall as well. Elijah winced at the sickening crunch of her making a large dent in the plaster.
He didn’t have the chance to find his feet before Naseem grabbed the little woman and they sank through the floor together.
“Fuck!” Sawyer snarled. “Quinn, Zander, keep that one and get fucking handcuffs on him. Elijah, you’re with me.”
He didn’t have the chance to say anything or react as she blinked to his side and they also fell through the floor.
He’d never phased before, and the sensation wasn’t pleasant. He wasn’t sure how anyone really liked using the power. It made him feel sick, as he could tell he was in something and something foreign was in him. He was lucky he didn’t fall face-first to the floor below. Sawyer had somehow yanked him into a standing position before they landed.
“Move,” she ordered and that got him going. They ran out of the room to catch the backs of Naseem and the woman running into the stairwell. They took off after them, letting their legs fly as guards came out to look at the ruckus. Most were smart enough to come out armed but not shoot the two IMPO agents hauling ass.
In the stairwell, Sawyer jumped into the hole in the center, grabbing Elijah’s arm at the same time. One moment, he was standing there and the next, he wasn’t anything. She had sublimated them and flown them to the bottom of the stairwell in a matter of seconds. He wanted to puke when he was solid again, but Sawyer was already moving and he had to keep up.
This was what she did. Urban runs, fights in tight corridors, using her abilities to make distance and find ways to get places.
They ran out the fire escape door at the bottom of the stairs, instead of the door to the lobby.
“Fuck, a getaway car!” she growled as they ran down the dark alley after an Explorer that was trying to speed up and get into the parking lot.
“SUV. Give me the keys,” he demanded and as they ran, she tossed them to him. As they detoured to the SUV in the main parking lot, he could hear her making a call.
“I need everyone in this city on a black Explorer. It holds two assassins who just made an attempt on the life of the WMC. They are armed and dangerous. The license plate is YHX 8988.” She took a breath as they hit the SUV and jumped in. “We are in active pursuit. Get a visual.”
Elijah got them moving. He was in the fifties before they left the parking lot.
“Visual acquired. They took a left here.” Sawyer pointed and he made the turn. He slammed the gas, focusing on the road and only the road. “They have a helicopter over the getaway car. Roadblocks being put up by IMAS.”
“Won’t be fast enough,” Elijah countered, keeping the pedal down as far as he could get it. Part of him wondered if the automatic was going to be able to handle what he was doing to it. He hoped the engine didn’t blow from his treatment.
Finally, he had the Explorer in his sight. He kept the speed, dodging any unfortunate civilians on the road. He could hear the helicopter above them, but it wasn’t a distraction.
“Get us close enough and I can sublimate into their car and get it stopped.”
“Roger that, little lady.” The getaway Explorer wasn’t driving nearly as fast as he was, probably trying to dodge and avoid traffic. Or the driver wasn’t as experienced as him.
He was pulling up on them so fast that he caught up to them in a turn, nearly hitting their tail lights with his front end. Sawyer cursed.
“There’s three fucking people in there. They had a god damned driver waiting for them.”
That meant they had more help than expected. They would talk more about the implications of it later. He did know that if they had a driver, she would jump into that vehicle and go against Naseem and the woman at the same time.
“Sawyer, you can’t make the jump,” he told her, keeping on the Explorer’s ass. “You can’t do it. Naseem, if he’s not driving, will kill you if you become smoke.”
He heard her curse.
“I can’t blink into a moving vehicle. It’s the only option!” She sounded like this was the only chance they had.
It wasn’t even that.
A shield formed, only feet in front of him. It appeared too fast. In a second, a very long second, he hit the brakes.
“ELIJAH!”
A hand tried to grab him. It grazed his shoulder before falling away, unable to find a grip.
The front end of their SUV slammed into the shield, causing the magic to blast out from the impact. He was thrown forward, then slammed back into the seat.
The shield shattered, and still they kept going forward.
He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. He lost consciousness as he left the seat and went through the windshi
eld, glass raining around him.
23
Sawyer
There are moments in life where there’s no time. They seem too long, those moments - every second dragging out to feel like an eternity. Yet, no matter how long those moments feel, there’s no time. The body can only move so fast, and in those moments, it’s like everything is weighed down. Slow motion.
Too slow.
She was always too slow.
She screamed, reaching for him, trying to find a way to grab him.
The impact knocked her into the door and dashboard. She shut her eyes against the pain and was thrown one more time, out the windshield. She sublimated the moment she knew she could, instinctively knowing it was safer to be smoke, through the pain.
Even in her smoke form, she had enough momentum to go nearly thirty feet, the crumpled metal following her. Reforming as soon as she could, she staggered in the debris around her, dazed.
She couldn’t focus on anything. She must have hit her head in the collision. Something warm trickled down her forehead. It had to be blood.
Smoke came off the wreckage. She didn’t recognize the SUV she had just been in. Blinking, hoping she could focus enough to see anything, she looked for him. Where did he go?
If she went thirty feet from the SUV, she thought he would have landed between her and wreck, but that wasn’t the case.
She turned away from the wreck and saw him, another twenty feet down the road.
Not moving.
She stumbled as she tried to run for him. She tripped on metal pieces and nearly fell when she reached his side. Everything hurt, but none of it hurt so much as her heart, seeing the twisted form of her cowboy on the asphalt.
Not moving.
“Elijah?” she asked, croaking it out. She didn’t touch him. She hoped his back wasn’t broken. She couldn’t risk hurting him anymore. He was face down. She couldn’t even see his wonderful face. “Cowboy? Elijah?” She could hear the tears coming to the surface as the realization finally settled in.
The Redemption Saga Box Set Page 124