When Darkness Builds (The Caldera Series)

by M. C. Sutton

  Jon smiled. “For starters.”

  He could feel the warmth of her breath against his lips as he pulled her in to kiss her. She melted into his arms, as if just being that close to him could make her forget about everything else. Jon completely understood that feeling. It never ceased to amaze him how, even after all these years, kissing Emma could still do strange things to his head.

  “You know,” he said, slipping his hands into her back pockets and pulling her tighter against him, “I could be wrong, but I don’t think we’ve marked this room off our list.”

  Emma’s eyes widened. “Jonathan Grant.”

  “What?” he answered with a grin. “Come on, Em, it’s been over a month.”

  As he leaned in to kiss her again, his heartbeat quickened. Caused, in part, by the spark he always felt whenever they kissed. He’d noticed it the very first time he’d pressed his lips to hers, and the intensity had never faded.

  “That’s not my fault,” she pulled away long enough to say. “I’m not the one that drugs you every night before bed.”

  “Well, you’re not drugged now.” He started to move down her neck.

  “And Matt’s home.”

  “So? The room is soundproof.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to stop Matt from knowing what you two are doing up here,” said Jacob.

  Emma jumped so fast Jon thought she might scream. Standing at the top of the stairwell was Jacob, a big grin on his face as if he’d just caught them doing a lot more than kissing. Emma buried her face in Jon’s shoulder.

  “Is there something I can do for you?” Jon snapped.

  “I am really sorry to interrupt,” said Jacob, “but Mom, I wanted to let you know I stopped by the library before I left campus and found those statistics you were looking for.”

  Emma raised her head from Jon’s shoulder and drew her eyebrows together. “Really?”

  “Yeah, I’ve got them downstairs. So, whenever you’re ready to get started again…”

  Jon smiled. Jacob adored his mother and tried hard to find ways to spend time with her. Too bad it always had to involve her work. Emma never seemed to make as much effort with him.

  “But there’s no hurry or anything,” Jacob added as he backed toward the stairs. “Feel free to carry on with… whatever you were doing,” he said with a wink before leaving.

  Emma narrowed her eyes at Jon. “You know he gets that cheekiness from you, don’t you?”

  “He does not,” Jon answered, though he knew perfectly well she was right.

  He smiled down at her, suddenly realizing how little time they had gotten to themselves over the last month. Jon had no idea how long she’d be in Dallas, but from what he understood about the original Constitutional Convention, it could be months before he saw his wife again.

  “Hey, why don’t we get out of here, just you and me?” he said. “It’s still early. We could drive down to Eureka Springs, spend the night at that little place on White River, and be back in the morning just in time to get you to the airport for your flight. What do you think?”

  “I thought that’s what the cabin was for,” said Emma, referring to the small cabin Jon had built on the other side of the lake years ago. They used it during holidays and special occasions when they couldn’t travel, or every now and then when they wanted to be alone. Like now.

  “Yeah…” He nodded slowly, remembering that no one had cleaned it after the birthday party he let Leah and the boys have up there without telling her. “But then we couldn’t go to Ermilio’s for dinner.” Or Anglers for breakfast, for that matter. “So… is it a date?”

  Emma sighed. “I’d love to, but…”

  “But?”

  “I’m not done with my presentation.”

  “Oh,” said Jon, his face falling. The thought of spending a night with Emma—a night without kids or school or presentations to interrupt them—had sounded fantastic. So much for that. “Rain check, then?”

  “Absolutely,” she answered, putting her hands on his chest and giving him one of those incredible, bright-eyed smiles that lit up her entire face. It had been months since he had seen her smile like that, and it wasn’t until that moment that Jon realized how much he’d missed it. He never would have thought it possible to love someone so much that just watching them smile could fill him up inside. It was too bad she didn’t have enough faith in them to tell him what was wrong.

  “I love you,” he said. “You do know that, don’t you?”

  “You mean despite my many flaws?”

  Jon grinned. “Because of your many flaws.”

  Emma’s smile slowly faded, and she rested her head on his shoulder, turning to look out over the lake again as if she had suddenly come to some bleak realization. He wrapped his arms tighter around her and pressed his lips to her hair, breathing deep the familiar scent of awapuhi and almond.

  A few dark clouds began to roll in above the tree line.

  “Em,” said Jon. “This isn’t just another convention for you, is it? This is really something you feel like you have to do.”

  Emma lifted her head and looked up at him. There was a sense of security in her eyes, as if she knew, regardless of anything else, she could always trust him to watch over her. “Yes, Jon, it is.”

  Jon sighed. “Then I guess you should probably finish your presentation.”

  Emma nodded slowly, then kissed him and headed down the stairs.

  Jon took a long deep breath and turned back to the window. Over the years, he had learned to live with the eccentricities. The premonitions. The sudden attacks of anxiety and nausea, the occasional request to turn left when he normally would have turned right. It was the dreams he couldn’t deal with. The sleeping pills helped, but they couldn’t take away what she had already seen, and whatever it was had had such a profound effect on her that Emma was beginning to snap.

  Unfortunately, it wasn’t so much what she knew, but what she chose to do with what she knew that was the problem.

  The first time he saw it happen, it had scared the hell out of him. They were both lying sound asleep in their little one-bedroom apartment in Leesburg, Virginia, over twenty years ago. Emma was still working in the field for FEMA, and he had flown for the Guard for close to a year.

  It was just after dawn when she woke up screaming.

  In a frantic frenzy of blankets, Jon somehow managed to find the lamp on the bedside table and flip it on. Emma was sitting up in bed, coughing and gasping for air.

  “Emmy?” He knelt on the bed in front of her, his hands on her shoulders. “Are you okay?”

  Just when he was about to call 911, her breathing steadied. But instead of calming down, she burst into tears.

  He had never seen her cry before. Or at least, not like this. Emma was one of the strongest people he had ever met. He’d watched her command entire teams of emergency personnel, snake her way through collapsed buildings, and go head-to-head with high-ranking military officials without so much as batting an eye. Seeing her so vulnerable was unnerving. He held her, her face buried in his shoulder, patting her gently until she finished.

  When she finally pulled back and looked up at him, her eyes were puffy and red.

  Jon wiped the tears from her cheeks. “What is it, Princess?”

  In a rush of words, she told him what she had seen in her dream. Emma was able to describe in great detail a woman driving through a tunnel, with her toddler son strapped into his car seat in the back. There was suddenly a deafening explosion, and everything went dark. Then the water came. Her eyes began to tear again as she told Jon what it felt like to watch the mother reaching helplessly for her son as the icy water flooded in around them.

  No wonder she was so upset.

  Jon knew Emma was terrified of water, so he assumed it was just a nightmare. He cradled her in his arms. “It’s all right, sweetheart. Everything is fine. You’re safe. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” He coddled her unsuspectingly, wanting to do whateve
r he could to make her feel better. She told him that a bar of chocolate usually helped, which seemed odd, knowing Emma wasn’t big on sugar, but he offered to go down to the corner store and bring her back one anyway.

  At the convenience store, Jon grabbed the candy bar and headed up to pay. The cashier was staring at a tiny TV on the counter in front of him as if he didn’t even notice Jon was there.

  Jon cleared his throat.

  “Man, I just can’t believe this,” the cashier said, almost to himself.

  “Believe what?” Jon asked.

  The cashier looked up at Jon. “Dude, where have you been?” He turned the TV around to face Jon and raised the volume.

  Jon watched the newscast live from New York. The cashier had said it right. Jon couldn’t believe it either.

  When he returned to the apartment, Emma was dressed and standing behind the couch in the living room, watching the same newscast. She hung up her cell phone as he walked through the door. Her pack lay on the floor at her feet.

  Jon grabbed the remote and turned up the volume.

  “Again, for those just tuning in, there has been an explosion in the Holland Tunnel. There is no word yet on whether this explosion was accidental or a terrorist attack. Emergency personnel report that some people are trapped inside the tunnel, and those people are at significant risk both from structural collapse and from the potential for flooding…”

  Jon turned off the TV and threw the remote onto the couch. “Why didn’t you just tell me?”

  “Why should I, Jon? You’ve already made it clear you don’t believe in any of this. You won’t even accept what you are. What would make me think you’d accept this?”

  She was right about one thing. He’d told her from the very beginning that the Mark—the emblem that signified from birth that their kind were different—meant absolutely nothing to him. But still, he had a right to know about her gift. Especially considering what she chose to do with it.

  “I don’t know what I am, Emma,” he said, “but I do know what you are. You’re a Seer. I don’t know why I didn’t figure it out in Seattle. That’s how your team made it there so fast, after the quake. That’s how you knew exactly where to go, isn’t it?”

  Emma picked up the bag at her feet. “Look, Jon, I have to go to New York.”

  “For what, Emma? You just got here!”

  “I have an obligation to those people!”

  “Fine,” said Jon, slapping the candy bar in her hand. “Here’s your chocolate. I hope it makes you feel better.”

  He turned, strode into the bathroom, and slammed the door behind him. He only faintly heard the front door open and close as he started the shower.

  Since then, Emma had never again shared with him anything she saw in one of her dreams.

  Sarah had been right about what she said on the night of the cookout, though. Things were a thousand times better now than they were back then. But it had taken a war, cancer, and years without the dreams to get to that point.

  All Jon ever wanted was a normal life, and he’d grown far too used to it over the last nine years to give it up now. He wasn’t about to let her get swept away by some obligation she felt toward everyone else but him. To let everything they’d worked so hard for get taken away just because of some obscure images she’d seen in her sleep.

  He’d be damned if he ever came that close to losing her again.

  Jon waited for the distinctive click of the door closing downstairs, then picked up the phone on his desk.

  And called his father-in-law.

  “Hey, Dad,” he said once Richard answered. “I have a favor to ask. Could you come up and keep an eye on things for a little while? I’m not sure for how long, I just…” He closed his eyes and rubbed a hand across his face.

  In the distance, a crack of thunder broke the silence.

  “Dad,” he said, taking a deep breath, “I’m going to Dallas with Emma.”

  CHAPTER 5

  EMMA JUMPED HALFWAY ACROSS THE back seat of the car as another bottle shattered against the window beside her.

  Jon wrapped an arm around her and pulled her closer. Emma welcomed his protectiveness, so shaken she wasn’t even sure she could make it inside the building on her own once they arrived. Even though Jon, the smoothest pilot she knew, had insisted on flying them down to Dallas himself that morning, she had been unnaturally queasy from the moment they took off. And the crowd of protestors wasn’t making her feel any better.

  “I thought you guys said this location was supposed to be confidential,” Jon said to their driver.

  The driver had slowed to a crawl just to get through the crowd, which spanned several blocks of downtown Dallas. “Yes, sir, it was. In fact, we even changed the location last minute because we received a tip the previous one was leaked to the media.”

  “I guess this location got out, too,” said Emma.

  “Don’t worry, ma’am,” said the driver. “I can assure you, we at the FBI have made the security of this conference our top priority.”

  “And a lot of good that’s done, apparently,” Jon whispered to Emma.

  The inside of the hotel was much quieter, but almost as hectic. Hundreds of people scurried around an extravagant lobby. Most of them were dressed in what Emma guessed was the hotel’s uniform, crisp white button-up shirts and jacquard vests. The others, all of whom were surrounded by their own circles of security guards, were barking orders and being handed glasses of chardonnay.

  One older gentleman had a much larger and more serious-looking security detail, but insisted on walking out in front of them and shaking people’s hands instead.

  Jon’s “uncle” Jack.

  He caught Emma’s eye and headed straight for her and Jon.

  Emma relaxed slightly at seeing Jack there. Jack, along with Jon’s parents, Robert and Alyssa, had been best friends from the time they were young. The three of them were once so inseparable, from what Emma understood, that Jack and Robert had competed for Alyssa’s affections. In the end, of course, Jon’s father won. Robert and Alyssa were married, and nine months later Jon was born—and Alyssa was gone. Jack had made a special point to look out for Jon from the time he was little, going out on a limb to bail him out of every bad situation he ever got himself into. Emma suspected that Jack’s watchful eye over Jon had more to do with the fact that he was Alyssa’s son than that he was Robert’s.

  “Mr. Vice President,” said Jon, grinning and shaking Jack’s hand. He glanced at the Secret Service men hovering around him and lowered his voice. “I’d hug you if I wasn’t afraid I’d get tackled.”

  “I know what you mean. I’m sorry about all this security.”

  “We can see why it’s needed,” said Jon. “What’s going on out there?”

  “You mean the protesters? Most of them are out of work and have been for a long time. Some of them are here to protest Bennett. A lot of them don’t really even know why they’re here, just that they’re desperate and angry and looking for someone to blame.”

  “It’s hard to believe it’s gotten that bad,” said Emma. “I mean, we’d heard about the Movements, but we’ve never seen one where we are.”

  “They’re much worse in the bigger cities, I’m afraid. More people out of work and fewer resources to go around.” Jack put a hand on each of their arms. “Regardless, I’m glad you’re here. It’s really good to see you.”

  Jon smiled. “It’s really good to see you too, Jack.”

  Jack smiled back with the warmth of a father greeting a son he hadn’t seen in far too many years. But when he turned his gaze to the front doors, his smile faded. “Well,” he said, shifting nervously, “I should probably make sure things are in order. Why don’t you go ahead and get yourselves settled in? I’m sure you’d like some rest after your flight. Emma, how about you go on into the atrium and sit down while Jon checks in and picks up your room key?”

  Jon looked over at the front desk. A significant crowd was gathering just inside the doo
rway to greet one of the newest arrivals. “Yeah, sure. I can do that.”

  “Good, good,” said Jack, his eyes darting toward the door again. “And Jon—” He pulled him in and hugged him close for several moments before finally letting him go. “I really am glad you’re here, son.”

  Jon raised an eyebrow at Emma.

  “Both of you,” Jack added quietly, then stepped away, his entourage following behind him.

  Jon shrugged and turned toward the front desk.

  Emma headed for the atrium. It surprised her how many people were there, considering the level of commitment—and, apparently, danger—involved in attending the conference. Emma barely noticed their inane chatter, thanks to the ringing that grew steadily in her head. She scanned the room for a place to sit down, but the few chairs and tables spread out across the spacious atrium were already taken by fat cats, shaking hands and clinking glasses.

  Through all the commotion, Emma somehow noticed two men in white shirts and hotel vests talking to each other all the way across the room. She wasn’t quite sure what about them caught her eye, but she did notice that they were the only hotel employees just standing around.

  She walked straight through the atrium to ask them for a bottle of water. One of them was slightly smaller than Jon, probably late twenties, with sun-bleached hair and an east Texas complexion. He smiled at her as she approached. The other one wasn’t as friendly. He was big and burly, and looked rather uncomfortable in his small uniform. Emma froze the moment their eyes met. She wasn’t sure if it was the stark contrast of the whites of his eyes against his dark skin or the snarl that formed on his lip, but she suddenly got the sense that, if he could, he would pounce on her from across the room like a panther.

  And that’s when it hit her.

  In an instant, all the foreboding and anxiety of the last few months swelled into one vicious wave. Her heart skipped a beat, then pounded so hard inside her chest she was sure everyone in the hotel could hear it. A coldness washed over her from head to toe and she fought to breathe, as if her chest were being crushed. Emma closed her eyes and concentrated on taking slow breaths, determined not to have an incident in the middle of all these people.