by D. N. Hoxa
“Mind if I come in?” I asked when she answered the door. She was surprised to see me, too.
“Sure,” she said with a wave and made way for me to enter. Her room was almost the same as mine. Probably all the rooms in the Base looked like that.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing. Some interesting things about the supernaturals that were killed recently,” I said and took a seat on her perfectly made bed. “I’m leaving in the morning.”
“Oh.” Her head lowered, and she sat next to me.
“I thought maybe we could skip training today, go see Dad and just hang out with a snack or something.”
There it was. I hated it that it still got awkward between us, but it did.
“Sure. Sounds good.”
But her heart wasn’t in it. Still, I wasn’t complaining. I enjoyed her company regardless.
20
——————————
We stepped into the cold air outside, and Jack closed the door on the ground behind us. Ella immediately hugged herself. Her thin cotton shirt wasn’t much of a cover. We left the monster metal building behind. In daylight, it looked as if it were some wicked creature’s nest.
Aaron was already there, Jack said. He and Thomas were waiting at the chopper, which would take flight exactly where the protective spell that covers the Base grounds ended. So we had another five minutes’ walk ahead of us. I took off my leather jacket and put it on Ella’s shoulders. She smiled in gratitude.
That jacket had been a gift from Arturo, no less. He always thought I looked sexy in it, and I didn’t argue. The leather was so soft, it was extremely comfortable. That was why I’d held onto it for the past two years.
Ella’s body no longer shivered from the cold. I watched her face through the corner of my eye and smiled at myself. We said some things the night before. I finally apologized for leaving. I told her that I knew I should’ve gone back to her, and that I regretted it with all my being. And that I knew she needed time to accept all of this, but she didn’t.
“I don’t need time, Star. I need my sister.”
I would probably die and never hear more beautiful words. And that was why the goofy grin was spread across my face. My heart had all but mended that night.
The chopper’s rotor blades cut the air and made a deafening noise when we finally made it. I saw Aaron at the open doors while his clothes struggled to hang on to his body. I couldn’t see Thomas anywhere, but I knew he was there, so I didn’t even entertain the idea that the Elders had changed their minds.
“I’ll see you in a week,” I said to Ella. The time had come to leave.
“You better call me, Star. And be safe. Be careful,” she warned.
“I will. And you just make sure that Jack-o here doesn’t turn this place upside down while we’re away,” I said with a wink, and we turned to look at Jack who was already grinning.
“Oh, I’ll get you, Star. You just wait,” he said, shaking his head.
It sucked to turn away from my sister. I already missed her, and she was right there still!
“Do I need to remind you that wherever she goes, you go?” I said to Jack. I’d already spoken to him before Ella joined us, but I just had to remind him.
“Star...” Ella complained, rolling her eyes, but I ignored her.
“She eats, you stay with her. She trains, you stay with her. She goes to the bathroom, you wait by the door.”
Ella’s cheeks turned bright red, and she watched me with her arms crossed in front of her. Jack laughed, but he knew I wasn’t kidding. He knew how important this was to me.
“Rest assured that we will all be safe here. Just make sure you guys are, too,” he said.
I nodded my thanks to him, already in debt for this favor.
“And take care of my boy for me,” he added, and with a wink, no less. In front of my sister. I raised my brow, but Jack didn’t seem to mind. He kept on grinning.
He was an asshole, because he knew I was going to take care of Aaron whether he asked me to or not, but I didn’t comment further. Without another word, I reluctantly turned with a wave to head for the chopper. The rotor blades blew wind on my face and body, and I had to keep my hands in front of my eyes the whole way to fight the current of the wind.
Aaron was waiting for me inside. He offered his hand to help me get up, and I took it because I didn’t want to be rude. I sat across from him and made myself comfortable. There was no one else in the back, probably because Thomas was sitting in the front with the pilot. That way, at least I could pretend that he wasn’t just a couple of feet away from me. I kept my head turned to the side, so I wouldn’t catch any glimpse of the pilot cabin. No matter that I respected Thomas’s courage to speak his mind to protect his son, I didn’t have to like it.
When we finally rose into the air, I put my headphones on. They immediately turned the chopper noise down enough so I could relax. I allowed myself a peek at Aaron, who was focused on some device he had in his hands. In fact, he was completely lost in it. I should’ve turned away or closed my eyes. I shouldn’t have let myself analyze every inch of him the way I did. Things like that only hurt me, I knew, but I still didn’t stop.
I watched his hairline, the way it hugged his temples in a perfectly straight line. The blue of his eyes was obvious, even though he wasn’t even looking at me. His nose, his lips…my fingers itched to touch him…
“You’re staring at me. It’s very distracting,” he said, never even looking up at me.
My breath caught in my throat, and my heart skipped a long beat before it started pounding in my chest again. There was no way in hell he could’ve seen me staring!
Shit, shit, shit.
“I’m not staring at you,” I mumbled, a second too late.
He raised his head only slightly and looked at me from under his thick lashes as the corners of his lips turned slightly up. Goddamn him. How did he always know?
I kept my eyes on his from fear that if I looked away, it would be like admitting to the crime. A second later, Aaron turned back to his screen, and I turned to the window.
We’d decided to skip the plane altogether. Airports were probably being guarded. Why risk it when the chopper could get us there, too? The trip would be longer, but it would be safer.
I watched the sky change colors after every passing hour until we finally landed on top of a twenty-story building on Jackson Boulevard in Chicago. It was only a fifteen-minute car ride to Kyle’s apartment. Jack had done a pretty good job.
I jumped from the chopper first, eager to get to my hacker as soon as possible, hoping he’d be home even though I knew he rarely left his small apartment. I also wanted to avoid seeing Thomas as much as I possibly could. We descended the stairs without a word and walked out through the back entrance, where a security guard just nodded at us
I didn’t exactly know all the connections the RR had, but I didn’t have time to study their system. There would be time for that if we ever got out of this alive and human minds were still theirs by the beginning of January. I stepped out into the streets of Chicago, the place where I’d planned to start a brand new life. I’d bought a new apartment close to campus, I’d even enrolled in college classes. Such a distant dream now…
The streets were as crowded as ever. I inhaled deeply, enjoying the feeling of being in the middle of civilization again. I was never a nature person. I liked buildings and noise and the fast-paced life too much.
When I stopped on the sidewalk, Aaron and Thomas stopped a few feet behind me. Thankfully, the man hadn’t said a word to me. Yet. Talking was inevitable, I knew, but I was determined to take all the time I could get. Except for us, the streets were packed with only humans. People, whose biggest problem was how to put food on their tables; people, who were in danger of becoming slaves to the Council full of supernaturals they didn’t even know existed yet. So many innocent lives…
Hailing a cab wasn’t too much trouble when you were a woman. As soon as
the cabdriver saw me, he stopped abruptly. The tires screeched loudly, but he managed to stop in front of my feet. Without wasting a single second, I hopped into the passenger seat.
The traffic was a mess, but we expected no less. A silent, fifteen-minute ride later, we arrived.
“Is this it?” Thomas asked when I stopped in front of the entrance stairs to Kyle’s apartment building to search for any threat near us. My senses washed over the entire area for a couple of minutes. When I was certain that no other sup was around, I made my way to the entrance, and they followed.
The old metal door of the entrance made a scratchy noise when I pushed it open. The hallway looked empty, but I looked around again, just to make sure. When everything seemed to be in order, I headed upstairs. The wooden stairs were old, and they made a terrible cracking sound when we stepped on them. Two stories up, I stopped at the end of the hallway and in front of a white, mud-stained door. Who knew how many people had kicked the poor door to get it to open? They probably had no idea it was triple reinforced.
“Just let me do the talking,” I said to Aaron and Thomas, and I could swear they both rolled their eyes at me, though I didn’t turn to look. With a deep breath, I knocked on the door.
Footsteps on the other side, so light I barely heard. Kyle was definitely not a heavy guy.
“Password?” he called from the inside. This time, I was the one rolling eyes.
“Open up, Kyle.” I’d already run out of patience.
“If you don’t know the password, you have no business here.” Don’t know why I was surprised. Kyle had always been a paranoid guy.
“Open the damn door, Kyle, or I swear I’ll break it, right before I break you,” I said a little louder than I intended.
Silence for a long second.
“Raven?” Kyle’s voice was now filled with surprise. A second later, he began to turn the locks of the door, and after what felt like an eternity, he opened it just a little to peek.
He looked exactly like I remembered him. Long, messy brown hair, because he thought it was a waste of time to cut or brush it. Thin, heart-shaped face with a pointy chin. Light blue eyes hidden behind big, thick glasses. He would’ve even pulled that nerdy look off if he actually took the time to check himself in the mirror every once in a while.
“Is it really you?” he whispered now as he studied me.
Impatience got the best of me, and I kicked the door open. I didn’t want to be a bitch, but really, I couldn’t wait a second more. I walked in, too, before he could invite me.
“Do you know anyone else who looks like this?” I pointed at my face, a little annoyed. Aaron and Thomas followed me, and they looked as out of place in Kyle’s living room as I did.
It took Kyle another long second of staring at me to come around and close the door.
“I thought you were dead,” he finally mumbled, not even giving Aaron or Thomas a second glance as he made his way from the messy living room—or what was supposed to be a living room—and into what was supposed to be his bedroom.
“I was, but hell turned out to be really boring, so I came back again.”
He dropped in his leather swivel chair before he turned it to me again, his eyes wide.
“Really?” Definitely not the time, but I burst out laughing anyway.
“No, you idiot. I’m kidding! You can’t just die and come back whenever you please.” I slapped the hell out of the top of his head, still laughing. “What is wrong with you?”
Aaron was trying hard to make his laugh sound like a cough. The attempt was unsuccessful.
“Geez, relax!” Kyle said. “I’ve heard worse from you freaks. Nothing surprises me anymore.” He rubbed his head where I’d hit him and pretended to be annoyed, but I knew better. He absolutely loved those freaks more than anything. It was why he worked with them.
The room we were in was big and also messy. The once beige carpet looked brown now with stains everywhere. In the left corner was a small bed for one, where piles and piles of dirty clothes were thrown. I was surprised the room didn’t stink—badly.
Stretching from one corner to the other was a long computer desk with five monitors of every size on it, and two wireless keyboards. You could see everything on those screens, from countless, pointless—to me—numbers, to security camera footage, pictures, news articles, cryptic codes and everything that could be monitored on a computer. The thick drapes were drawn, and the only light came from the monitor screens.
Kyle turned back to his computers again. “Who’re they?” but he didn’t even look at Aaron and Thomas, not once.
“Friends,” I said reluctantly. “Why’d you think I was dead?”
I couldn’t help but wonder if my Council friends paid him a visit. They never knew about Kyle, but they could’ve found out. I wouldn’t put anything past them.
“It’s been two months,” Kyle said with a shrug, his eyes moving from one screen to another way too fast to be normal.
“So?”
“So, you never go more than a month without knocking on my door.”
I rolled my eyes, but the suspicion cleared. Kyle didn’t lie. It wasn’t his style. And if he’d tried, I would’ve known. So I turned back to the important stuff.
“I need info asap. It’s urgent.” I pulled the sleeves of my shirt around my hands and pushed Kyle’s clothes from the bed to the floor so I could sit. Aaron and Thomas just stood there awkwardly. See why I’d said it was a bad idea they followed me around? I was used to doing this alone, and I didn’t have the time—or patience—to make sure they were comfortable.
Kyle turned his chair toward me, completely neglecting the existence of Aaron and Thomas, too. “You know you can't come back like this and expect me to turn everything else off because you need info asap.”
“Yes, I can.” In fact, that was what I always did.
“Okay, you can,” he mumbled. “But I'm busy. I got something major going on that can't be pushed back so whatever it is you need, it has to wait.”
That almost made me laugh again.
“Why didn’t you text me back?” I asked, just barely smiling my evil smile. I knew just how much that scared him.
“I was on vacation.”
“Bull.” Big time bull. “You don’t go on vacations.” And that was no secret.
He sighed. “Okay. I wasn’t on vacation, but I was working on a freaky application project, and I turned all of my customers off,” he reluctantly admitted.
“Well, then, now I need you to dig into some things for me, and I need them fast.”
“Didn’t you hear me?” Kyle said, shaking his head. “I just told you I'm busy with impor—”
“How much?” I cut him off.
“What?”
“How much are they paying you?” Fucking money was all it always came down to, in the end.
“A hundred grand,” he said, looking at me with his complete attention now. A knowing smile spread on my face. I’d already won.
“I’ll give you two.” The smile that broke over his face made him look more like a nerd than ever. I was glad to see that his teeth were clean, at least.
“As always, it’s a pleasure doing business with you, Raven. You’ve got yourself a deal.”
He held out his hand for me to shake, but it looked so…greasy. No, thanks. I wasn’t about to touch that. So I just looked up at him again.
“It’s Star now. No more Raven.” I eagerly walked over to his computer screens, impatient to see what he’d show me on them as soon as I gave him what I had. He was that fast.
“Star? You mean like rock star or something?”
Ugh, “No, Kyle. Just Star, no more and no less.” I was right to hate my name. Kids had always made fun of me. Mom had always loved the moon and the stars. And when she saw the star mark on my ankle, there was no talking her out of it—or so Dad said.
Aaron gave me the files Edison had sent together with the summary Thomas made, and I dropped them in front of Kyle on his k
eyboard.
“You’ll deal with this only, Kyle. Undivided attention, twenty-four hours. I need to know anything you can get on these sups. Everything from what time they got out of bed to who they were doing at night. And I need them faster than you’ve ever gathered information in your life.”
Kyle nodded, already reading through the files.
“You start now, and you call this number,” I said, writing the new number Jack gave to me on a piece of paper, “when you’re finished. Oh, and next time you see me, I’ll have something important to talk to you about so be prepared.” He raised a curious brow but didn’t say anything. “Now give me your number so we can be on our way.”
***
“Where the hell do you think we’re going to get two hundred thousand dollars? And all that for information?!” Aaron asked me as we walked out of Kyle’s building.
“Relax. I have money. And information costs, especially since we just dropped in on him wanting details on nine dead sups right away. I just hope he’s as fast as he used to be. Money won’t be a problem.” Money was the least of our problems.
“You’re willing to pay that young man from your own pocket?” Thomas sounded even more skeptical.
“Yes,” I said, but I doubted I convinced him.
“And what do you want to talk to him about next time?” Aaron asked, but wasn't going to tell him that I wanted to hire Kyle to work with us from the Base. Permanently. Kyle had to say yes first. He always spoke like he hated supernaturals, but I could see the fascination in his eyes. He loved to be surrounded by sups. I just had to find the right switch to turn.
“I’ll tell you when I know for sure,” I said to Aaron.
“Are you sure he can be trusted?” Thomas asked next in barely a whisper.
“He’s the best and the most trustworthy guy in the business. That’s why his services cost so much,” I said as I hailed another cab. “And I wouldn’t have brought you here if I hadn’t been sure.”