Hidden Steel

by Doranna Durgin

  Mickey hummed the Jaws theme under her breath. Steve desperately stifled his amused reaction, arrows clinking faintly in their quiver.

  And then the men decided on the bold approach. They threw the door open and strode into the darkness, silhouetted by the stairway light. One of them slapped futilely at the wall, finding the expected switch and not getting any response from it.

  That’s all the time Mickey gave them.

  She made her first throw count, feeling the heft of the knife, judging its balance—and even then knowing that too much rode on luck. Overhand, smooth and swift, she released straight and true at the end of the arc, letting the knife handle slip unhindered through her fingers. The blade’s impact came heavy and muffled, a distinctive and unforgettable wet thump.

  Steve might have heard it; he certainly heard the man’s reaction. The twang of the string sang loudly in the darkened room; the thump of impact came tidier than that of the knife. As close as he was, a full draw would have sent an arrow the better part of the way through a man’s body.

  One man staggered against the light; the other threw himself down, a deliberate movement. Gunshot split the room, the noise staggering Mickey even though she’d half expected it. “Go!” she told Steve, throwing three more knives one after the other and reaching for the slingshot even as she ran over the man on the floor—literally ran over him, feeling the give of flesh beneath her sneakers. She and Steve collided in the doorway and burst through it together, leaping down the stairs two and three at a time until Mickey jumped the last five, landing in a crouch and twisting back just in time to see a man stagger through the second-floor doorway, leading with his gun. She snagged Steve’s arm and bolted around the corner of the enclosed stairwell, her ears ringing from a second gunshot and a third that was purely wasted on plaster.

  For an instant she found herself disoriented, blinking in the strong light, but Steve had his bearings and took the lead, heading down the back hallway for the alley door.

  That door slammed outward, blocked by another large body. Mickey had a reeling moment of deja vu—this was the man she’d collided with outside the building during her first escape, and this time he was ready for her. Ready for Steve, too, who had no room to draw the bow in this hallway.

  “Down!” she cried, dropping a bearing into the slingshot pocket and pulling it back at the same time, low at her hip where she had the most power. At this distance, aim was no issue.

  Steve threw himself to the side as another damned gunshot rattled Mickey’s head—she had no idea if Steve had been hit and no idea how he couldn’t have been, but she loosed the ball bearing on the fly, diving at the other wall on the way. Stay on the move, split the targets—

  The man’s head jerked back; his arms windmilled as he lost his balance, teetering back, gun waving.

  Mickey didn’t waste time on finesse. While Steve pushed away from the wall, she bounced past him and hit the teetering man feet first, riding him right out the door and then flinging herself aside, into the corner where the dumpster met the back of the building. “Wait!” she called back to Steve, and took the moment to assess the alley and all the shadows where the city light didn’t reach. But nothing out there moved, not even in response to the man who now rolled around on his back, hands covering his face. Safe enough, for the little time they could spare. She returned to the man, wrenched the semi-auto out of his hand without paying attention to his groans, and gestured Steve out.

  Iron fingers clamped around her ankle as Steve leaped out the door right over the man; Mickey reacted with decisive callousness, stomping her other foot on his already damaged face and making no attempt to keep from going down—she simply rolled, coming right back to her feet and already grabbing Steve’s arm, tugging him away from the open door, the cursing man, and the clatter of noise from inside that meant one of the two invaders was coming to join the fray.

  They made it only to the end of the alley before reaching a dark shape on the ground, one Mickey barely managed to vault as Steve dodged around it. With a gasp of both effort and shock, she recognized the man from the underpass, the one who had given her a hard time. He seemed entirely out of place here, as though two worlds had inexplicably collided.

  And just that fast, she understood. Betrayal. The poster at the police community bulletin board. The man hadn’t wanted her in his world, and he’d found a way to get rid of her—to gather up a reward in the doing of it. He just hadn’t counted on who he was dealing with—or he’d else gotten wise to their nature and they’d realized it.

  This time it was Steve who pulled Mickey onward. “C’mon,” he said, panting with effort, the bow and quiver turning his dark shape into something bizarre. “We can’t—”

  It was all he needed to say. Mickey tore herself away from the body and put herself into a serious sprint, running down the cross-alley with Steve beside her and everything she knew of her past and present pounding at her heels.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  Chapter 12

  “They knew I’d been there,” Mickey said. “What did he say to them to bring them back? Why?”

  They hadn’t spoken during their flight across city blocks, breaking pattern to reach the hotels near the convention center. Nice hotels; pricey. Willing to take them even at this hour. Steve put a room on his credit card without batting an eye, and Mickey …

  Mickey somehow felt right at home. The classy furnishings, the padded carpet … the whisper of silk and chiffon, the strut of high heels, the caress of beautifully draping cloth and a hint of expensive perfume.

  Whoa. She shook herself out of the sensory conflict, putting herself back into the sneakers, lightweight drawstring yoga pants, and sporty top that she’d been in all day. Back into a hotel that was nice, but not opulent … following Steve Spaneas into an elevator to their hotel room after evading capture, stumbling over the dead man who had probably betrayed them, and bolting through the city streets with such unrelenting drive that she still felt breathless. No conversation, no debate about how to proceed, just hasty, somehow tacit retreat to this place.

  The room had two beds with mints on the pillows and nothing else worth notice. Steve dropped his backpack and bow on the bed—the hotel clerk had been very careful not to look at the bow—and Mickey …

  Mickey’s things were still at Hotel Fleabag.

  She sat. Steve sat across from her. And for a long, silent moment they only regarded one another in silence, until Mickey absorbed the signs of pain drawing on Steve’s Mediterranean-cast features and the lingering disbelief in his eyes.

  Mickey thought she should probably feel the same … but somehow it hadn’t taken her by surprise at all. Not the violence, not the death, not the betrayal.

  That’s it, then. I don’t want to remember who I really am. I don’t think I’m going to like me.

  She broke their silence with quiet words. “You knew him, didn’t you? I’m sorry.”

  Steve shook his head; he didn’t look as though he’d truly absorbed any of what had just happened to them. “He was a hermit more than anything … just didn’t fit in, and liked the freedom of that life. He got odd jobs regularly … he isn’t one of the ones I worried about—” He cut himself short, there, as though that were the crux of it—and Mickey thought she understood. Steve worried about them all; had seen too many of them go down. Sad endings, difficult destinies. But this was one he hadn’t expected.

  She mused, “I just met him the one time. I took some stuff to the underpass, after I left you at the hotel … this morning.” Only this morning? “He grilled me. And he said—”

  He’d said she was sweet on Steve.

  He wasn’t so shell-shocked that he didn’t notice she’d stopped—or the significance of it. He caught her gaze; he stood, filling the small space between the two beds.

  She let him loom over her. In a moment he’d feel silly and sit back down; Steve Spaneas wasn’t the kind of guy who used size against someone—or who often had the opportunity. �
��I think,” she said carefully, “he may have felt he had to make a choice. He—”

  “Anthony,” Steve supplied, and he’d already taken a step back, looking almost confused to find himself pulling intimidation tactics.

  “Anthony … he was concerned about me. That I was trouble. He could have seen me on that poster, and felt that having people looking for me would be a problem for the underpass people. Or someone from our cast of characters might have come looking for me. And he knew I was swe—I mean, he had accused me of being sweet on you—he had no reason to keep that a secret.” It seemed obvious to her, but this caring man wasn’t getting it. Couldn’t think that way. She tried again. “It’s possible that the Irhaddanians weren’t coming after me. That they weren’t expecting me to be there at all.”

  He looked stricken, those dark deep eyes widening; he finally sat again. “You think he told them they should use me—”

  Mickey was the one to get up; she found herself half-kneeling beside him, taking one hand in hers. “Steve. He’s not—he wasn’t—used to playing these games. There’s no reason he would think that way. More likely he mentioned it and the Irhaddanians took it from there.”

  “Then why—” he stopped, turned his head away, his jaw working. “Why?”

  She tightened her hand over his. “We may never know. Could be they killed him just because he’d talked to them, could identify them if anything happened to you. Could be they said enough so he realized what they were up to and came to warn you.”

  He took a sudden deep breath. “That works for me. I’m going to go with it. And if you hear otherwise—”

  “I’m not expecting to,” she told him. She didn’t add that it wasn’t because she felt that scenario to be correct … it was because she simply never expected to learn anything else about it. In her own heart, she felt the man she’d met at the underpass was perfectly capable of doing and saying whatever he thought would keep him safe—keep the whole underpass area safe. He’d had no way to understand the kind of people he was dealing with.

  “So now they’re after me,” Steve mused. “Not just you anymore.”

  “Looks that way.” She rubbed a thumb over his, suddenly realized what she was doing, and backed off to reclaim her seat on the bed. “Just a guess. But they had no reason to think I’d be at the gym, and they came loaded for bear. Makes me think it’s a good guess.”

  Wearily, he reached down to pull his sneakers off, standing to toss them at the chair in the corner. “I suppose I should be flattered. Three of them.”

  “Well,” she said, and looked him up and down most obviously. “You do teach self-defense for a living. And work out regularly. And have lots of pointy weapons.”

  And she really, really, hadn’t meant to be looking just below waist level when she said that.

  He was kind; he merely raised one eyebrow at her and let it pass. “Then where do we go from here?”

  She tried to keep her voice upbeat. “A couple of days here should do it, I’d think. Close the gym, keep your people safe.” He didn’t look happy at the idea, but he didn’t protest. “It’s me they’re really after, and I don’t think they’ll spend a lot of time on a failed strategy. They seemed to be in a real hurry to get the information they wanted.”

  “And exactly what was that?” He yanked the covers down, scattering mints, his brusque movement the only clue to his state of mind.

  She shrugged. “What has Naia said to you? Where do you see Naia? Who does she spend time with? How did you meet Naia? How do you feel about Naia? Is she important to you?” Another shrug. “Honestly, I got the feeling they wanted to ask me something more directly, but as soon as they realized I couldn’t remember anything—even before they really believed it—they started playing coy. Trying to get answers without giving anything away.”

  “And of course you have no idea what they were really driving at.” He picked up a pillow, scrunching it in his hands.

  Mickey winced. Wouldn’t want to be that pillow right now. “I think it’s obvious I’m involved with Naia somehow, and that they’re concerned about what Naia might have told me. How those pieces fit into the larger picture … not a clue.”

  He gave the pillow a blank look and tossed it aside. “Any plans for getting a clue?”

  Her throat suddenly felt clogged. “Steve,” she said, “I’m so sorry. I never meant to get you involved in anything like this when I asked to stay. I had no idea—”

  He gave a short laugh, bitter-edged. “That’s the whole problem, isn’t it? Doesn’t answer the question, though. Where do we go from here?”

  She tipped her head at him, puzzled. “I thought I had. Just stay here a couple of days … by then they should be trying something else. I probably shouldn’t even stay the night, but I’m so tired … I’ll clear out tomorrow morning and keep poking around.”

  “No,” he said, and his voice was as hard as she’d ever heard it. Suddenly he loomed over her again, and this time he meant every bit of it. This time he pulled her up by the arms, and pulled her close. Close enough so he could look straight in her eyes, showing her every bit of determination there. “You don’t get it. I’m past running away. It’s good for the moment … it’s good for the kids. But not for me. Not this time.”

  As if he deserved to be dragged further into a mess she couldn’t even define—didn’t even know in which direction lay safety, or if he’d be on the side of good guys or bad guys. “Steve—”

  “No,” he said, a word heavy with finality. “Now … where do we go from here?”

  * * * * *

  She didn’t have an answer for him. They’d gone to bed without such things, sleeping in the unfamiliar silences of the hotel room with mere feet separating the beds and an overwhelming and awkward awareness of each other’s presence. Mickey felt it; she heard it in his voice. But soon enough his breathing deepened, and the sound of it lulled her into a light sleep.

  Not for long.

  She woke straight into alertness, so alert that she felt for the knives she’d left on the bedside table. But moments of listening revealed nothing other than Steve’s deep breathing, his occasional soft snore. Moments of listening revealed that the noise was all in her head, panicked clamorings of responsibility and need.

  A man was dead in her wake.

  NaiaNaiaNaia …

  She’d learned very little about Naia on the web. Stanford was close-mouthed about her, and wisely so—Irhaddan’s president wouldn’t allow his daughter to attend a school where she was easily exposed to examination and speculation. Stanford had already established its ability to keep high-profile students away from the limelight—various actors, another president’s daughter—they’d been vulnerable, too, and they’d been protected.

  From basic news sources she only gathered that the girl had been home-schooled and yet passed her college prep tests with flying colors, that she returned to her country at every break, and that although she wasn’t worldly, she was plenty intelligent.

  The perfect asset.

  Mickey stiffened, her hands clenching around the covers. The perfect asset? What did that mean? What part of her had said that?

  And thinking about it, as usual, made every trace of the memory flee into the inaccessible recesses of her mind.

  She could have screamed. Would have screamed, if not for her sleeping companion—a man drawn into Mickey’s shifting world of too many dangers and too few answers.

  She shoved the covers aside, baring her legs to the cool air-conditioned room. She wore her stretchy sport top, but had rinsed the bottoms out and devoutly hoped they would dry before morning. Because come morning … she had to do something. Anything. And for that she needed a hook … something that would help her answer Steve’s question of the night before. Where do we go from here?

  That’s how she found herself on his bed, a queen-size with plenty of room for her to ease beside him and sit cross-legged on top of the covers. On second thought she pulled a stray pillow onto her
lap, and then she just sat there. Getting here had been so easy, so natural—but waking him up was another matter.

  Finally, she whispered into the darkness. “Steve. Wake up.”

  He slept on.

  No wonder. Still recuperating from that beating, and she’d dragged him across town on foot. Quietly, she leaned over to rap a knuckle against the headboard, not far from his ear.

  His hand flashed up to close around her wrist. Her startled gasp turned into a grin quickly enough. Steve, for all his caring save-the-world ways, underestimated himself when it came to his physical nature. “Shh,” she said, all too aware of what those first, disoriented moments of wakefulness could be like. “It’s Mickey.”

  Slowly, he released her. “You’re on my bed again?”

  “I am,” she confirmed.

  “You woke me up again?”

  “I totally did.”

  Silence followed, into which he finally sighed.

  “But this time you’re wearing something,” she pointed out, most helpfully. And then winced at the pained noise he made as he pushed himself up to sit beside her. The bed shifted beneath her and darned if it didn’t feel almost companionable.

  “What’s up?” he said, and the words were muffled as he rubbed a hand down the side of his face and reached for the bedside light.

  Mickey would have preferred the darkness. If she was hidden from herself, she should be able to hide from everyone. Too bad it wasn’t working out that way. She squinted as her eyes adjusted. “I can’t sleep.”

  Yeah, that had come out well. “I mean …there’s just so much going on in my head, and I can’t reach it. If I go after it, it slides away. I thought … maybe if we talked …or maybe if we did word association.”

  His reaction was more perceptive than she expected. “You remembered something else?”

  “Something,” she admitted. “It just doesn’t make sense on its own. I was thinking of Naia—who she is, both as a figurehead and as a person.” Huge dark eyes, fearful but trusting. “And I thought that she’d be the perfect asset. And then I had no idea what I meant.”