"I'll talk with him," Logan said on his way out the door.
"Are you ready for us to bag evidence?" Gordon asked before Logan left.
Logan glanced at me before addressing Gordon. "If you can get us started, then that would be great."
Gordon agreed, and Logan left, to be quickly replaced by Taylor.
At the table, Gordon took a few pictures before pulling out some evidence bags. "What do we know about these items?"
We had approval from AIR to work with MyTH, and Gordon was technically an agent with clearance, so I filled them in on what we knew so far about the jewelry. I stayed across the room while Gordon and Taylor bagged each piece and sat them back on the table. It was interesting how each one of them checked the seals on each bag multiple times to ensure they were firmly sealed.
"Do we know if this is all of it?" Gordon asked.
I couldn't tell if Gordon was asking Taylor or me.
"I'll be able to look around more once what we have is out in the van." My skin felt itchy being this close to it. I wanted to walk over and put my hands on each piece of jewelry. I was already leaning against the wall, so I couldn't back further away. I was about to walk out when Rider reentered holding a box.
"Any other pieces picked up?" I asked.
"One more and I think another piece or two left earlier. I am not sure if it was before, during, or after the authorities entered the building." Rider dropped the box on the table and reached out to grab a bag.
"Wait," I said.
Rider drew back and looked at me impatiently.
"Let's wait until Logan gets back," I said.
Rider stalked to the other side of the room and then paced back to the table. We weren't sure how the Lost would react to the fragments in the jewelry, but I didn't know how to say that in front of the others.
Gordon looked at Rider. "We'll finish bagging each item. Why don't you help Agent Heidrich check out the rest of the place?" He winked at Rider.
Since I didn't know Gordon, I didn't want to leave him alone with the evidence. "It might be easier once the apartment is cleared out."
Gordon went back to work. Rider paced around the room, throwing jittery yellow streaks onto the Path.
Watching my friend, I worried. "Rider?" I reached out to him to stop his pacing, but he shook me off. Nothing from the room appeared to be interfering with Rider, but his Path was becoming more vibrant, and increasingly wild. "Rider, I think you should slow down."
Gordon continued putting the evidence away, but Taylor was now watching Rider pace. Taylor waited until Rider had walked across the room again before slowly approaching, which caused the werewolf to issue a low growl. Taylor stepped back and Gordon, after a quick look, moved away and put his back against a wall, putting space between himself and Rider.
Rider moved quicker and he looked lost in his thoughts.
"It's not the jewelry, but there's definitely something wrong." It was said more to myself than the others. Feeling anxious, I stepped in front of Rider, blocking his way. "Rider, stop for a second."
Rider reached out and grabbed my arm in a vice-like grip. His fingers elongated and claws dug into my skin. Looking into his eyes, my heart froze and I stopped breathing. Rider's normal calm and curious eyes were gone, replaced with an intensely animal presence.
Rider's wolf showed through. It was the first time I'd seen it, and nothing in those eyes looked like they knew me.
"Get out of my way." Rider's voice was soft, but the menace it contained made the hairs on my arms stand on end.
Rider's eyes narrowed and he tossed me aside. There was barely time for me to think when I left the ground, but true panic jumped in when I landed on the table.
Chapter 15
My body tensed as I slammed into the table. Tiny bits of essence flew straight into me. Before I could really think of options, I ripped through the Path and molded it into a shield around myself. I could feel a few alien bits of energy ratcheting around in my body. The new essence wasn't mixing well with what had already claimed me as home. As other pieces began clinging to my shield, I put as much focus as possible into keeping it up. This was becoming more and more difficult with the chaos of the room.
Rider attempted to rush over to me, whether to help or throw me again, I wasn't sure. For the second time today, I had Taylor to thank. He barred Rider's advances.
Rider looked like he was trying to get himself under control and he didn't lash out at Taylor, but it also looked like he was losing the battle.
Gordon came over to me to try to help, but I shuffled away from him, further into the wreckage of the table. I wasn't able to articulate the warfare going on inside.
Gordon took the hint and backed off. "What the hell is happening? Is this the jewelry? He didn't touch them."
It didn't take Taylor long to come to a conclusion. "It's meth. It looks like he's hopped up on meth."
"Isn't he a werewolf?" Gordon hissed the words, trying to keep his voice low. "A tweaked out werewolf is not ideal in a small room."
"In any room," Logan said.
Relief flooded me when I heard my partner enter. It didn't last long however, my bubble of protection wavered. Logan could handle Rider at least, and I could concentrate on my own issue.
Rider turned his head to Logan and back to the others a few times. His Path was becoming gray and muddled with the greens and browns of his non-human side.
"Confusion. Paranoia." I couldn't form complete sentences, but I would be damned if I wasn't going to help.
Doctor Taylor looked ready to launch himself against Rider. Fleetingly I thought, how stupid can you get? I've seen Rider beat a demon to death. I'd hate to see what he could do with a man like Taylor.
Logan was prepared. He took out his tranquilizer and actually threw the dart at Rider. It didn't put him to sleep, but it took a little of the wind out of his sails.
Logan turned to Taylor, "This isn't going to last long." He glanced at me before he continued. "How do you treat meth?"
"He needs an opiate. I have some in my med kit." Taylor looked hesitant to leave.
Rider was calm enough for Logan to reach into his pocket. Logan took the tranquilizer that had been meant for me and drove the point into Rider. Rider was on his feet, but his Path was looking sluggish.
Logan looked at me again before turning to Taylor. "Bring everything you have."
Taylor left the room at a run while Logan stayed between Rider and the door.
"What's the situation over there?" Logan asked me.
Rider was shaking his arms and rolling his shoulders, burning through the tranquilizers.
I leaned against the wall, watching the blurs of light roll around on the enclosure keeping them at bay. "Take care of him."
Rider was wearing down the carpet again by the time Taylor came back. Taylor had a bag in one hand and a needle in another.
"What's his metabolic rate?" Taylor asked.
"Fast," Logan replied. "Why isn't the meth out of his system?"
"It must be in the air. We need to move him out of here."
"Dope him up and we'll get him into the truck," Logan said.
"Will it hold him?" Taylor asked.
"Those things will hold a rampaging chimera. It'll hold him," Gordon said.
Logan took care of Rider while I immersed myself in my own issues. I struggled to maintain my shielding and watched tiny bits of sparkling light trying to break through the shield. Almost breaking my concentration, I heard a scuffle, but when I managed to look beyond my shield, Rider was calm, and Logan took him away.
"Watch over her, but don't touch her," Logan said as he left the room.
"The meth indicators were clear earlier," Gordon said. "We shouldn't get a higher concentration after it's removed. I'm going to poke around more." He left me and Taylor alone.
Taylor crouched down and watched me from a short distance away. I looked at him, but my focus was internal. Weariness settled in as I burned myself up to ke
ep those bits of energy from reaching any further. Even the essence that had jumped into me were being burnt out through the effort.
"I've seen looks like yours on battlefields." His gaze was intense.
I didn't answer. If you looked at me, you'd see me sitting there, doing nothing. However, my grip was slipping. I'm not sure what would happen if everything jumped into my system at once. Could I handle that?
"Can you tell me what you need?"
I wanted Logan here, but I had Taylor for the moment. He was a doctor, maybe he knew how to help better than we did. I closed my eyes, trying to think of anything useful.
"Not sure what she's going to need, but we have an idea about what's happening." Logan stood nearby, which made me feel stronger. "That jewelry holds fragments of the Lost. She attracts it to her, like a fairy is attracted to plums. My guess is each and every one of those necklaces and rings are empty now. Did you keep them off ya?"
"Mostly," I managed to say.
"Well, let’s get you out of here," Logan came towards me, but I backed away along the wall, clattering through our evidence on the way.
"They're here, surrounding me." I shuddered. "If they jump, a raging elf won't help."
Taylor lifted an eyebrow and looked at Logan.
Logan answered his unasked question. "She's afraid they'll jump from her to us, and she's right, it's possible." Logan squatted and watched me. "Anyway to get rid of them?"
Feeling myself drain away, I made the only decision I could to keep everyone else in the room safe. Looking straight into Logan's eyes, I said, "Be ready."
Before he could form a response, my barrier crumbled.
My body went rigid as everything punched into me. Power whipped together. My own essence felt drained but began to revive as it joined the rolling turmoil. Whatever mores my shattered soul had made in my body were ripped away as it mixed with the new fragments that were swarming into me. I went slack and couldn't move.
The reaction wasn't only internal. The Path around me didn't fall away, but instead it began to fight. Empty spaces in the Path broke out around me, trying to erase traces of my presence from the room. The Path didn't want evidence of me removed. I had been there and it knew it, so it struggled to sweep the empty spaces away.
As I watched, Logan's face appeared. He moved me into a flatter position on the ground. Taylor also appeared and looked like a professional at work. My vision clouded around the edges, but I saw Taylor lean over me with a stethoscope. If I could have spoken, I might have protested when he ripped a few buttons off my shirt, but he was completely clinical in his examination. He listened closely to my heartbeat.
A familiar feeling crept over me as my vision clouded over completely. I could fall away, out of this existence and into the next. I'd taken that route once before and I wouldn't let it happen again. Sweat broke out as I made an effort to stop the aberrant activity of my soul. The confusion inside slowed, but I could no longer tell what was foreign energy and what was my own. Maybe they were the same now?
Bright blobs of Path danced above me when I was moved. My mind refused to stop reading. When I closed my eyes, a falling sensation met me, and I jerked them open again. I couldn't leave, too much would be left behind.
Chapter 16
Time passed in lurches, and occasionally I heard voices, some familiar, and some unknown. I had no idea where I was moved to, but I felt safe each time I heard Logan's voice.
Reality bent when I went from working to keep my eyes open, to trying to close them. People asked me questions, but I was having a hard time sorting through their words. My skin felt dry and stretched, but relief came when a lulling sensation spread over me.
There was blissful darkness until arguing woke me up. Everything was too bright when I opened my eyes to an unfamiliar room.
"You sobered me up for this?" A young man, maybe twenty, looked mad, and all his anger was directed at Taylor. "You're the damned doctor."
Taylor spoke through gritted teeth. "You're the one with firsthand experience."
"How the hell am I supposed to know how one of the Lost is going to be affected by energy?"
"She’s not a Lost."
"Don't be retarded dude." Even through his agitation, he sounded like he jumped from an 80's version of a Californian, getting ready to catch the next wave. "That elf told me what she can do. If you had read my research, you would know that having that much of an aberration could only be caused by the introduction of DNA that doesn't exist naturally in homo sapiens. On top of that, she hasn't ingested any drugs."
"It acts like a drug in the system," Taylor argued.
"Drugs are chemical compounds. This is not. Not knowing the parameters or extent of her ability, I cannot adequately judge her capacity to ingurgitate the power. Seriously, did you get your medical degree from the pixies?"
Taylor rubbed his forehead and muttered. "Christ, you're such an ass."
"Which is a well-established fact. So I'll ask again. Did you seriously bring me around for this?”
"Look, you little shit," Taylor grabbed the front of the man’s T-shirt, "we need research. Take yourself into your little lab and Frankenstein this problem together. We want to know where the jewelry came from, what is anchoring the energy, and then I want you to get in touch with your dealers and find out where the hell this stuff comes from."
"Dude, I can't go to my dealers with this? Unless you’re going to suck it up and start writing me scripts, the dealers stay out. If I turn narc, my supply dries up."
"Just get to work," Taylor said, dropping the shirt and turning away.
The man gave Taylor the finger. With his back turned, Taylor couldn't possibly see it, but he stiffened all the same. The man blinked and looked panicked, but he was able to duck out of the room before Taylor could turn around.
With the newcomer gone, Taylor came back over to me. In his agitation, he didn't immediately notice I was awake. When he looked at me, I glanced at the door and back at him.
Taylor took out his penlight. "That was Neil. Never mind him. Follow the light with your eyes."
I did as I was told.
"Tell me how you’re feeling."
"Dazed," I admitted. A squelchy, bloated feeling squirmed through my system, but it felt like it was coming from the Path, not a physical symptom. "I'm not feeling myself at all. Where am I?"
"You're at the MyTH offices in the infirmary."
"Is Rider okay?"
"He's fine. He had some mood swings for a while, but he metabolized the drugs quickly once he left the apartment."
"There was that much meth in the air?"
"Not when we got there, but Gordon found a supply hidden in the duct work. When the AC was turned on, it was blown throughout the crime scene. That was also our cover story for taking you and Rider out of there the way we did."
"Is Logan okay?" I asked.
"It never fazed him. He's with Gordon now at the local PD. The DEA is getting an earful, leaving the drugs in the vents was sloppy work. We took out the evidence AIR needs."
"Rider said some left the apartment before we got there."
Taylor checked my pulse. "They found it pretty quickly. Two items were mixed in with the drugs removed earlier in the day. At least that's what we were told. I'm going to draw blood."
Taylor tied a piece of plastic around my arm, and I cringed at the sight of the needle.
"Anything you want to tell me about the bruises?" he asked. "The old ones I mean."
As he stuck the needle in, I looked at the patchwork of bruises, new and old. There was also a large fresh bandage.
"Job hazard," I said as I tried to puzzle out the new injury. "Doctor, what happened to my arm?"
"It's Taylor," he said, "your partner ripped through the skin. He's in another room while we finish up blood tests. I wasn't sure if you wanted him in here right away."
"If he's not cracked out, let him in," I said.
Taylor hesitated. "We'll confirm the blood tests ar
e clean before he comes in. Even without drugs, werewolves are known to become dangerously aggressive without provocation."
A flash of anger took hold and I had a sense of churning inside, but I turned it aside and managed a normal tone of voice. "It sounds like you have issues with werewolves. Is that prejudice? From someone working with the Lost?"
Taylor's forehead creased, and he sounded serious, if not offended. "No, it’s been my experience with them. I've been lucky enough to have a few call me friend in my lifetime, and I learned their habits."
The conversation was becoming too weighty for me and my anger fizzled away, so I coerced myself to smile. "My gran would chop off his tail and put a stop to his sugar supply if Rider acted like that."
Taylor laughed. He looked good with a smile on his face.
"And believe me, she'd know about it. Probably before I did. Speaking of which, can we wrap up here so I can call her?"
"I think we're done for now."
Taylor handed me my phone and left the room with vials of my blood. Paranoia bubbled up, but it dissipated quickly. What could he do with my blood?
Gran picked up on the first ring. "Darlin- I am so sorry."
It was good that I didn't have to fill her in. "I'm okay. How much did you see?"
"Enough to know that you might be dinged up."
"It's not that bad."
"There was another thing, but I don't know what it means."
"Maybe it will make sense later on. What was it?"
"It was you, but at the same time, not you at all."
My hair on my arms raised and I broke out in gooseflesh. "Was I doing anything?"
"No, it was you, but something else at the same time."
The thought wasn't comforting. "Will the 'something else' go away?"
"I'm not sure..." she trailed off.
"I'm sure it will make sense when the time comes." Trying to sound upbeat was becoming hard work. "Everything okay at home?"
"We're good here. Susan and Gerald are with me, and we're baking lemon bars."
Broken Paths (AIR Book 2) Page 13