by Lena North
“I love you, Mary,” Wilder shouted, in no way holding back her laughter.
“Fuck off,” Miller muttered.
“Language,” I smirked.
Then Nick walked out of the house with his phone pressed to his ear.
“Need you here, Johns. Too much shit swirling around Snow. Too many coincidences. I think someone is trying to kill her,” he said.
I blinked slowly, and listened as he grunted a few times, and then ended the call with a muttered, “Yeah, yeah. Fuck you too.”
Oh, God. He was becoming one of them.
“We have to leave,” I said.
“What?” Nick said and put his arms around me. “Are you alright, baby?”
Baby. That’s what Miller called Mary, all the freaking time. I leaned my forehead on his chest and sighed.
“Don’t be like them,” I said quietly.
“Huh?” he asked.
“You come from a place where every man and his dog have a nickname. You call the damned chief of police on the Islands Josie.” He did, and I still laughed my butt off each time he called big, brawny Joao Torres that girly name. “So, what’s up with the Johns and the fuck yous?”
Miller started laughing, and Wilder had never stopped, but I ignored them.
“Freaked out, but you have a point,” he said, and I felt his chest move.
Was he laughing at me?
“Is Hawker coming?” I asked.
“Yeah. He said ten minutes.”
“Okay,” I said. “You’re probably right,” I added.
“Huh?”
“I think someone is trying to kill me. I’ve thought about it for a while, but I can’t figure out why someone would.”
“You’ve thought about it for a while,” he said slowly.
“You had a hole in your heart. I don’t sleep sixteen hours each day. Lots of time to think about shit,” I said as we turned and walked into the house, followed by the others.
“Right,” he said.
While I started making coffee, mostly to have something to do, I murmured quietly, “I think it started with the anchor.”
Chapter Twenty-two
Plan C
Hawker arrived and not in a good mood.
“d’Izia,” he muttered but turned to me and scowled.
“I couldn’t help it,” I snapped and added sourly, “And his name is Nick.”
“What,” he barked.
“I can live with the f-bomb. I can live with grunting and growling. I have a temper myself, so I’ll give as good as I get. But the last name thing?” I glared at Hawker. “That’s crossing a line.”
There was a stunned silence, but I ignored that and kept glaring at Hawker.
“Babe,” I heard Nick murmur.
“Fair enough,” Hawker suddenly said calmly.
Yikes. I’d just stared him down. I made a mental whoop-whoop but turned calmly to Nick.
“Yes, dear?” I said sweetly.
“Nineteen days,” he murmured, and I burst out laughing.
Nick didn’t mind my temper, apparently.
Then we talked about the rusty anchor that had fallen out as I climbed, which Nick swore he’d secured just a week earlier and had one of our climbing buddies double check for him.
“Someone could have been there,” I said. “That rock was weird, too. They usually don’t fall off like that, and it was just one. I expected more to come.”
“Yeah,” Nick agreed.
“What else has happened?” Hawker asked.
“The plane to the Islands malfunctioned somehow,” I said slowly. “Did you talk to Joao about it?”
“He said it was something or other that I didn’t understand which was worn down. Shit happens, I thought, but I’ll call him and ask him to check again.”
“Checked your car. It’s leaking brake fluid,” Olly said from the door.
“Guessed that,” Nick replied. “How?”
“Worn down fastening.”
“No,” Nick said. “I can accept that I made a mistake with the anchor and that the rock came loose for some natural reason. The plane thing could simply be a freak accident. But there are no worn-down parts on my car.”
“Um,” I said because the car really was a piece of shit.
“No,” he repeated. “I know what it looks like, but Tommy and I worked two whole summers to get the cash for that car. I service it regularly, and it’s in perfect condition.” He turned to me, and I swallowed. “This was not an accident.”
“Okay but it doesn’t make sense. Why would anyone want to harm me?”
“It could be about me,” he said hoarsely. “My anchors. I flew in on that plane the night before you arrived. My car.”
“But –”
“It could be,” Hawker said slowly. “The man we’re looking for wanted to kill Jinx. Said something about her being a genius. It isn’t a stretch that he’s got something in it for the ones in that research program.”
“It could be Jamie,” Wilder said, but she sounded uncertain.
“No,” Nick said again.
“You don’t know that.”
“I do know that.”
“How?”
“I asked him this afternoon. He said it wasn’t him.”
“But –”
“They don’t lie,” I interrupted Wilder’s protest. “They promised each other not to lie. I know Jamie said some shit, but based on what he knew, he wasn't actually lying. If he says it isn’t him, then it isn’t.”
“We need to know more about the other people who were in the program,” Olly muttered.
“I can tell you what I know, but it isn’t much,” Nick offered. “I know the first names of everyone. What they looked like. Stupid everyday stuff like what they like to eat. Not much about nefarious plans to murder us all.”
“There’s documentation,” Olly said. “I have friends who are good with computers, but they say it isn’t in any files they can find. They say it’s mentioned but that it’s likely only on paper still. Sensitive data. Classified. No one is allowed to study it, so it isn’t keyed into any systems they know of.”
Wow. He knew people who could access all kinds of records. Just like that?
“Jinx is trying to get –”
Hawker was interrupted immediately.
“She can keep pushing, but we need to go in there and get it. We can’t risk that someone else takes it, and destroys it,” Wilder said.
There was a long silence as we thought about it. Then Hawker made his mind up.
“Okay. Yes. We go in and get it.”
After that announcement, a flurry of activities started. Jinx and Dante were on the phone within minutes, and they didn’t seem too happy about our plans to break and enter but agreed that they didn’t see any other way. Jinx told us which building she thought the documents would likely be in, and Olly walked off to ask his friends if they could confirm it.
While we were busy making tentative plans, Mary and Hawker’s wife Sloane walked in, with their children.
“I can ask the dragonflies to look around,” Sloane said.
She didn’t have the ability to talk to a bird, but she could communicate with butterflies and dragonflies. I’d seen her with a whole cloud of them circling her, and it looked amazing. For some reason, I thought that her ability was magical in a way my own gift wasn’t.
“That’d be good,” Hawker said and stretched his arms out to pick his son out of her arms.
“That is so cool,” I said. “And they’re small so they can into places where our birds can’t go.”
“They can,” Mary said. “I never thanked you for that,” she added.
“For what, honey?” Sloane asked.
“For sending one of your friends in to save me, of course,” Mary said.
“What?” Sloane said slowly.
“When I was kidnapped? I was on the floor in that cell… One of your
dragonflies came. I told it to tell you all where I was. Told it you needed to hurry. Then it left.”
Sloane looked shocked and shook her head slowly.
“Babe?” Hawker said.
“It wasn’t one of mine. I didn’t know.”
Wilder immediately turned her head a little to the side, and indicated with a wave of her hand that she was asking her bird for details.
“Bird says the dragonfly told them and they told us. They don’t know which ones are yours, don’t think like that.”
“Huh,” Sloane said. “There aren’t many of us who can… If it had been one of my cousins, they would have told me.” Then she sighed. “Maybe they forgot,” she said uncertainly, and added, “I’ll talk to Da. He knows everyone.”
My mind spun a little. Mysterious people wanted to kill me, or Nick, and certainly Jiminella. There were drug-cartels and someone hiding in the forests around Norton, fooling a thirteen-year-old girl. And now there was some mysterious, unknown individual who could talk to dragonflies?
“I’m sure it was one of my cousins,” Sloane said determinedly.
“Probably,” Olly said. “Makes most sense.”
It did, so we left the topic and continued making plans. One of Mary’s daughters fell asleep in Nick’s lap, and the other in her father’s. Hawker’s son dozed off on the couch between his parents, and we lowered our voices but kept talking into the evening.
“I’m hungry,” I said. “Pizza or leftovers?”
“Nah,” Hawker said and moved a little. “We’re going home.”
“We’re leaving too,” Miller said, and Mary got up to pick her daughter off Nick’s lap.
“You’ll be a great father,” she murmured.
“We’re not having any kids,” I blurted out.
Everyone froze and stared at me.
“We’re not getting married either,” I added before I could stop myself.
Hawker sank back on the couch, and I heard Wilder snort out something, but I couldn’t look away from Nick. His eyes shifted to his focused gaze, and he tilted his head a little to the side, and then he frowned.
“I get the marriage part, though I have to point out that I haven’t actually asked you,” he said.
“I don’t get it,” Mary said.
“I know about the name, but it’s just a name,” Nick said to me. “I don’t care.”
“Nope,” Mary said. “Still don’t get it.”
“Girl with a bird gets married, husband takes her name. Da was born Black,” Olly explained.
“Oh,” Wilder said. “I did not know that. That’s why I had no clue Snow and Olly were cousins.” She grinned at me, but then she frowned and turned to Mac. “But we both have birds, so what will we do?”
“Have to point out that I haven’t asked either,” Mac said with a smirk that turned slowly into a wide grin.
She punched him in the shoulder, but she did it smiling.
“You didn’t know they were cousins?” Mary asked. “How could you not know?”
“You knew?” Wilder asked.
“Of course, I did. Snow looks just like her uncle.”
I stared at her in stunned disbelief and thought about my huge, brawny uncle with his weathered face and long, unruly beard.
“Maybe not exactly like her uncle,” Mary amended her statement when everyone stared at her.
“Maybe not like her uncle at all?” Mac asked sweetly.
“Thank you,” I sighed.
“They have the same eyes,” Nick explained.
“They do,” Olly agreed. “Snow has the Black eyes. I got the Harper ones.”
“Well it’s not like I stare into Sven’s eyes on a regular basis,” Wilder said haughtily, and added, “Or Snow’s.”
“Why no kids?” Nick murmured.
“There’s no way I’ll ever let you cut off your dreads. They’re super cool, and I love the way the slide over me when –” I stopped speaking, and added quickly, “When we’re swimming. Or climbing.”
There was a short, stunned silence and then the room exploded with laughter and hoots.
“We’re out of here,” Hawker muttered when the laughter had died down to chuckles.
They all left, and as we stood in the door, waving goodbye, Nick squeezed me gently.
“It’s not a law, babe. If you want me to keep the dreads, then I will. Wouldn’t want to destroy your climbing experiences.”
His eyes had started to glitter, and he wiggled his brows a little.
Well crap. That had been embarrassing.
“You’re not giving up your name,” I said.
“We’ll hyphenate,” he stated. “Both of us.”
Hm. Black-d’Izia? d’Izia-Black? Either could work, actually.
“Okay,” I said.
***
Two weeks later we were ready to break into the University building where we’d learned the archives were kept. We started out by going to Double H, all of us, including Mary and Sloane. Wilder’s ranch manager, Andrew, would be celebrating his birthday and we used this as the official reason for why everyone gathered at the ranch. It felt silly to me because surely we weren’t followed, but Hawker grunted and said something about just in case. Late in the evening, the group would leave and go down to Prosper, pop into the Uni archives, get whatever documents we could find, and then leave.
Nick and I went with Mac and Wilder in Mac’s big monstrosity of a car, and there had been a short scuffle as we prepared to leave. Apparently, Wilder wanted to drive. Needed to drive. Would die if she didn’t drive. Mac just looked at her as she whined, and then he said, “Shut up. Get in.”
I was clearly not the only one in the group with an attitude. She huffed as she obeyed, although five minutes after we’d left Norton they were laughing at some stupid joke as if nothing had happened.
Our birds were circling us as we drove. They were on the lookout, Wilder said, but to me, it felt more as if my osprey was keeping me company. We talked silently about this and that as the miles rolled by. She had been eating mice for dinner five days in a row apparently, and I promised to have someone buy some fish for her.
Then Wilder lowered the music and glanced back at me.
“Look, I know we have it all outlined, but I want one more backup plan. I want a plan C if there's someone there who isn't police and who isn’t an agent…”
She trailed off, but I knew what she meant. What if the man who shot Nick came.
“Da says they have the area covered, with them on the ground and the birds circling the area, but this geezer knows about the birds. He's clever.”
“How much stuff will there be to bring back?” I asked
“If shit hits the fan then you carry what you can,” Mac said calmly. “None of it if things turn really bad.”
“I could climb down,” I said slowly.
“We’ll be on the sixth floor of a house,” Wilder informed me, unnecessarily.
“Yeah, so?” I muttered and pulled out a stack of pictures of the house. “There are downpipes, windowsills, levels. I could go out the window here,” I pointed to the corner where the archive was located, “And straight down.”
Wilder had turned around to look, and Nick turned on the light in the roof as he scanned the images carefully.
“No,” he said after a while. “There are cracks in the fastenings, the pipe would come loose.”
“I don’t see any,” Wilder protested.
“Trust me,” I told her. “If Nicky says there are cracks – there are cracks.”
“Useful talent, those eyes of yours,” she said calmly.
I started laughing because that was such an understatement, but Nick was still looking at the pictures.
“You’ll need to find a way to the other corner, there,” he said.
“Yeah, that’d actually be better,” Wilder said, hanging backward so far she almost fell off her seat. “We could make it look like w
e're running to the emergency exit. Then you go out the window, Snow, and I take the fire escape, shouting and making it seem as if we both go that way. They’ll follow me so you can get away with whatever we find, that you can carry.”
“Dangerous for you,” I mumbled.
“Not as dangerous as climbing down six floors on the outside of the house.”
I didn't agree with that but decided to let it slide and looked at the map of the area.
“Then I'd go through the small lane, here, and we could meet at the other side of the block, by the entrance to the park?” I asked.
“It would work.”
“It could all go wrong, but yeah. It could also work.”
Our eyes met, and we grinned a little, knowing that the plan was sketchy and full of flaws.
“Let's just hope we don't have to go to plan C,” I said.
“We probably won't have to,” Wilder said confidently, and since we turned into the driveway leading up to her home, she adjusted herself until she was facing forward again.
It turned out she was wrong.
Entering the building was easy. Kit did something to the alarm, shoved us through the door, and disappeared on the outside again. We climbed the six flights, and then we went into the archives, searching for the part Olly’s hacker friends had said were the most likely. The cabinet was supposed to be labeled with a number series that I had written on my hand, and we found it after a while, hidden in a far corner.
I had expected a huge set of binders, but there was just a box half-full of papers in the cupboard.
“Huh,” Wilder said. Then she pulled out a plastic bag. “Let’s pack it up.”
Simple but effective, I thought and grabbed the papers, tucking them into the black bag.
"Wilder. Could be danger. Men were in the basement. No alarm now so they are coming up the stairs."
I turned to Wilder, but she knew already, from her own bird.
“Plan C,” she breathed as our eyes met.
I pulled out a small roll of duct tape and raised my long-sleeved black tee. She swiftly taped the plastic bag to my back, circling me a few times to secure the package completely. Then we moved.