by W. J. May
“Would you?”
“No, but that’s never stopped him before.”
Rae had to admire her pluck. “The Council has apparently known who you are for a long time,” she assured her, stringing two and two together even as she spoke. “They could have come at any time, but didn’t. Mallins has some other reason for doing this. One that doesn’t have anything to do with you.”
Angel pursed her lips, but continued to watch Julian with a worried frown. “Let’s hope.”
Let’s hope…
The words struck Rae as almost funny. Because they’d been having such great luck lately, right? With another sigh she dropped her head into her hands, wishing Molly would hurry up.
What the hell were they supposed to do? Was another Council confrontation on the way?
She was hyper-aware of the fact that the entire hybrid-exposing conversation she and Julian had the night before had been right there in her bedroom. Granted, she hadn’t found any disks in there, but who knows how much just one of them could pick up?
“Rae?”
She glanced over and saw Angel looking at her with concern. She paused for a moment, then, in a most uncharacteristic move, she actually reached out and squeezed Rae’s hand.
“Devon’s alright, by the way. We stayed with him until he was able to walk up the stairs on his own. Jules also called your friend Alicia about twelve more times, and she swore up and down he’d be fine. He even went out this morning to the gym.”
To the gym. Yeah, sure.
But still, the icy fist gripping Rae’s heart relaxed a fraction of an inch. “That’s…that’s really good to hear. Thanks, Angel.”
“Sure.”
She would have liked to grill her further, but at that very moment Molly burst through the door—Luke hot on her heels. “Guys! We need to talk!”
Julian threw up his hands. “Yeah, we do! You won’t believe what Rae and I found this—”
“It can wait,” Molly interrupted him, looking pale. She turned to Luke and gestured him forward. “Tell them, babe. Tell them exactly what you just told me.”
Luke stepped into the middle of the room, looking extremely uncomfortable as he glanced around at their tightknit circle. “I was at the office this morning, going over some intercepted communications, and…” He faltered. “Now, keep in mind, I could be drawn and quartered just for telling you this, but—”
Molly stamped her foot. “Babe, there’s no time!”
He sighed and dropped his eyes to the floor. “They’re going to arrest you, Rae.”
It was like someone had poured a glass of icy water down her spine. She stiffened automatically, every muscle in her body on high alert as she got slowly to her feet. “Who is?”
Luke’s face tightened. “Your own people. The Privy Council. Victor Mallins put out the order about twenty minutes ago. I think they’re gearing up for it right now…”
Molly raced forward and took her hand, while Julian stepped protectively in front of her.
“And what exactly are they arresting her for?” he demanded. “If it has anything to do with those files, we were perfectly within our right to—”
“No, it wasn’t anything about files,” Luke interrupted. “Apparently, she’s been officially labeled as too great a risk. Something about having ‘dangerous potential’…”
In spite of the gravity of the situation, Rae’s lips turned up in a hard smile. “Then it looks like you got it wrong, Luke. I’m not being arrested.”
Her eyes locked with Julian’s.
“I’m being disappeared.”
Chapter 14
It was like looking down in a dream, only to realize the floor you were standing on had suddenly disappeared. In this town, in this lifetime, things could change just that quickly.
Julian, Molly, Luke, and Angel circled around Rae in a bizarre kind of orbit. Each a blur of movement, each throwing out suggestions. Each keeping their eyes simultaneously on the door.
“Rae! You’ve got to call Carter!” Angel commanded. Within a second, Luke had seconded the idea.
While, ironically, they were the only two people in the room not to have any personal loyalty to the man, based on his reputation alone they were willing to trust him.
“Carter will know what to do,” Luke continued. “He can put a stop to this!”
“Julian!” Molly demanded, her voice shrill. “What do you see?”
Julian paused a minute in his rotation, his eyes glassing over to iridescent white. Rae glanced at him quietly, watching while Angel rushed forward to give him a steadying hand, but she didn’t need to see his reaction to know that the news wasn’t good.
“There isn’t…” He bowed his head, brow furrowing in concentration as he tried even harder, but it was to no avail. “No decision has been made. Everyone’s just been given orders.” His eyes cleared and focused on Rae. “Luke’s right. It’s orders to come here.”
“Call Carter,” Angel said again, tossing her hair back as she simultaneously kept an eye on both the front and back door.
Julian shook his head. “We can call him, sure, but whatever Mallins put in motion is already too late to reverse. By the time he gets to Rae, she’ll be…” His voice trailed off as she shot her a panicked look. “Call him anyway,” he instructed Luke. “Tell him who you are and tell him to get here immediately.”
Luke nodded and whipped out his phone, getting the number from Molly.
“I’m calling Gabriel,” Angel murmured, pulling out her own phone. “If this thing’s about to go flying off the rails, there’s no way I’m leaving without him…”
Molly’s enormous eyes locked on Rae in fear. “Maybe you should call your mom. Beth would know what to do. She could think of a way to hide you, or appeal to the PC or something…”
At the same time, Julian stepped suddenly forward and took Rae’s hand. “Rae, you’re not going to like it, but you need to call Devon. If you don’t, then I will. I don’t care what sort of weird fight you two are in. If he knew what was going on here, he would—”
“He would come charging straight in here to rescue me,” Rae cut him off. “And end up getting hurt, or fired, or arrested right alongside me.” The room fell silent when Rae finally spoke. Her chest rose up and down with quick, shallow breaths, but when she spoke again, her voice was soft and sure. “Call Carter, call my mom, call whomever you like,” she breathed. “But no one, do you hear me, NO ONE is calling Devon. This is the exact reason I wanted to keep him out of this.” Her eyes travelled around the circle. “This is the exact reason I wanted to keep all of you out of this.”
Julian shot her a look of strained patience, but finally nodded his head. “Fine. Whatever. He can come and meet up with us once we find a place. Molly, why don’t you start making travel arrangements? Afterwards, you can call Beth. Angel, if you want Gabriel to come along then get him here right now. We don’t know the next time we’ll be in London. And Luke—”
“Hang on!” Rae held up a hand, halting the sudden flurry of movement. “What exactly are you talking about?”
Julian and Molly shared a quick glance, before she said, “Rae, we’ve got to get you out of here. If you think that we’re going to let you get arrested by the Privy Council again, then you’re out of your—”
“I’m not running.”
The room stopped cold, all eyes turning towards her at once. Angel even lowered the phone away from her ear, ignoring Gabriel shouting something on the other end.
Julian glanced at Molly again, before stepping forward. “Rae, I know you’re freaked out right now, but this is when we need to pull together. If we don’t get you out, Mallins and the PC will throw you into a black hole somewhere, and no matter how hard we try to find you, we won’t—”
“If I run now, that’s the ballgame.” She met his look of panic with an even stare. “I’ll be running for the rest of my life. My freakin’ ETERNAL life. And I can kiss goodbye any sort of life I wanted to have here.” An ima
ge of Devon’s face flashed through her mind. “Any sort of future…” She pulled herself together and straightened up to her full height. “That’s not something I’m willing to do.”
Molly glanced again at the front door, tapping her foot nervously. “So, what precisely do you suggest?”
Rae’s breath caught in her chest as she stared around the room. Four beautiful faces stared back at her. Four of her closest friends in the whole world, ready to march with her into the fire.
Only…she couldn’t let them.
“This isn’t something I can let you do,” she murmured, almost to herself. “This isn’t something I can let you risk.”
No one here had Devon’s super hearing, so they all looked at her curiously, unable to make out what she had said.
“Sorry, Rae,” Molly began, taking a step forward, “what?”
Rae met her eyes and gave her a sad smile. “I said…I suggest we say goodbye.”
“OH, NO YOU DON’T—”
But the next second, Rae had turned invisible.
She watched their horrified reactions as she moved silently towards an open window, each one whirling desperately around as if hoping to catch her bumping into something so they could grab her then and there. Except she was too skilled for that. The Council hadn’t labeled her a hazard to public safety for nothing. In her time since Kraigan had taken her first tatùs, she had accumulated more powers than anyone else on the planet. The limits of her ink where unmatched and unlimited. She was fairly sure she could slip away from four unarmed teenagers—
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
An iron grip closed around her upper arm, and Rae shot back into focus with a gasp.
She always forgot that one of those unarmed teenagers was a psychic…
“Jules, you can’t—”
A sharp crack shot across her cheek, followed by a rush of pain.
She fell back a step, clutching her face in shock. But it wasn’t Julian who had slapped her.
It was Molly.
In all their years together, Rae had never seen her best friend so upset. People always underestimated Molly. Labelling her as a fashion nut, or a chatterbox, and generally looking the other way. Sometimes Molly would gleefully take advantage of this. Most of the time she simply didn’t care. But looking at her now, watching as angry blue sparks shot out of her fingers and reflected in her eyes, Rae didn’t think she had ever seen anything more terrifying.
“Rae Kerrigan,” her low voice cut across the room, “I’m only going to say this once, so you listen up and you listen up good. If you ever try something like that again, if you ever try to sneak out in some brainless attempt to protect us…” Her eyes glowed ice blue. “I don’t care how many powers you might have—so help me, I will walk right over there and kick your ass.”
For a moment, Rae didn’t care how many powers she might have either. She believed Molly with all her heart. Her face crumbled and she looked at her shoes. “I was just trying to—” A volt of electricity knocked her straight onto her back, and she pulled herself up with an obedient, “…okay.”
For a second, no one seemed to know what to do.
Angel was looking at Molly for the first time with a bit of respect, and Julian was staring at Rae like he couldn’t believe she got slapped. Only Luke looked unsurprised.
And, of course, there was Molly herself. “So, I’ll ask again,” she repeated calmly, straightening her jacket, “if you don’t want to run, then what exactly do you suggest?”
Rae paused for a moment, thinking, before turning to Angel. “Is that still Gabriel?”
Angel glanced at the phone and nodded.
“Tell him we’re going to Guilder.”
“Guilder?” Luke exclaimed. “Rae—are you crazy?”
A ghost of a smile flitted across Rae’s face. “We’ll see.”
“Kerrigan—no!” Julian took her firmly by the arms, looking deep into her eyes. “You expect us to let you walk straight into the lion’s den?! What exactly are you hoping to find there?!”
Rae’s heart was fluttering away in her chest like a deranged sort of butterfly, but for the first time all morning she felt remarkably steady.
“Proof.”
* * *
They were to meet Gabriel in the middle of the park about halfway between Guilder and where they lived, close enough that they could see the fronts of both of their homes, but far enough away that they couldn’t be seen by the PC guards. According to Julian, none of the Council guards were making any decisions for themselves. However, the five of them were, and that was enough for him to guarantee their safety.
There was a rustling in the trees behind them, and they spun around to see Gabriel sauntering towards them with his cocky smile.
“So, Kerrigan,” he checked his watch, “by my estimation, it’s been about a week since the last time you did anything reckless or crazy. Is it about that time?”
Julian shifted impatiently, but Rae offered him a small grin. “I got some good advice earlier, and I’ve decided to follow it. I’m going to get proof. And then tell Carter.”
Gabriel’s eyes twinkled as he nodded. “Good girl. In that case, I’m assuming you summoned me here for my shocking good looks and—”
“—and you’re still one of the best fighters I’ve ever seen,” she cut him off.
His whole face lit up with an adrenaline-fueled smile. “So there’s going to be a fight, is there? Where exactly is this proof of yours…?”
Rae bit her lip. “In the Privy Council Headquarters at Guilder.”
“Oh.” For the first time, the smile faltered a bit. “So when you say there’s going a bit of a fight, it’s really going to be more of a slaughter—”
“Not as much as you might think,” Julian inserted. “Mallins has ordered most all the PC guards to arrest Rae. We think they’re on their way now. With any luck, by the time we get there the underground chambers between the Council buildings and Guilder will have just minimum security.”
Gabriel met his eyes for a moment, before both men looked away. They knew firsthand the perils of even ‘minimum security.’ That same ‘minimum security’ had trained them. “Well, that’s…great!” Gabriel shook it off with forced cheer. His eyes flicked around the nervous group of teens, before landing on Rae. “Lover boy isn’t here amongst us?”
“No, he isn’t,” she said firmly. Then she raised her voice and repeated, “No, Devon isn’t here,” towards Julian, who looked like he had plenty to say on the matter.
She expected Gabriel to be smug—congratulatory, even. But he was none of those things. In fact, he was quite the opposite. “That’s a bad idea.” His smiling face had grown suddenly serious as he stared thoughtfully into her eyes. “He should be here, Rae, and I think you know it.”
Her mouth dropped open in shock. “Why the hell are you of all people advocating for—”
“It’s a bad idea,” he repeated simply. “Devon can fight. He loves you, and he would fight for you. He should be here.”
Behind him, Julian turned away and paced a couple of steps toward the trees. Rae’s eyes followed after him, unsure as to where to look. But when she turned back to Gabriel to defend herself, he simply held up his hands.
“It’s your call. Just know that while you might think it’s what’s best for him, it isn’t. It’s not what he would choose for himself.” He left her with that and walked over to join Angel. Rae stared after him for a moment before darting a few steps after Julian, who was just slipping his phone back into his pocket.
“Julian Decker,” she thundered, “you better not have just—”
“Relax.” He shot her an icy glare. “It was just Carter. I told him where to go.” His eyes drifted up to where Gabriel and Angel were talking by the trees. “Gabriel’s right, though.” He shook his head and muttered, “Like I ever thought I’d say that…”
“—they know who I am, Gabriel.”
Rae’s head snapped up, a
nd she looked over to where the two makeshift siblings were having a hushed conversation. While Gabriel looked protective, Angel was equally as stubborn.
“And they would punish you for it,” he hissed, placing an automatic hand on her arm. “But there’s nothing wrong with who you are, Angel. It’s nothing they can shame you for. It’s nothing you have to apologize for.”
Her lips turned up in a crooked smile. “But it’s something I’ll have to answer for.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” he insisted. “So why go? There’s a villa in Tuscany with your name on it. We can meet you there when we’re—”
But her sapphire eyes rested on Julian, still pacing back and forth between the trees. Her face softened to an exquisitely tender gaze, and when she looked back at her brother she simply shook her head.
He followed the movement with a hopeless sort of resignation, raking his fingers back through his hair with a sigh. “This is why I never fall in love. It makes you stupid.”
Angel’s eyes flashed to Rae before returning to him with a smirk. “Is that right?”
“Shut up.” He stalked off. “I should have smothered you as a child…”
Across the grass, another hushed argument was being waged between Luke and Molly.
“It’s not the same for you as it is for us,” Molly insisted, standing up on her toes in a rather futile attempt to bring them to the same height.
“How is it not the same?” he fired back. “These people are my friends! I care about them. I want to help.” He took her hands and lowered his voice softly. “I love you, Molly. I’m not just going to let you go in there alone—”
“This isn’t your fight!” She stamped her foot as the garden suddenly went quiet. “This is our Council, our agency, our old school. Luke, I love you, too, but you work for the other side, and by now I’m sure all of them know it! If we were to get caught, I’m sure the repercussions will be severe. But if you were to be caught? A Knight on Guilder soil?” She shook her head as all the blood drained from her face. “Luke, I have no idea what they would do to you…”