by Tracey Ward
“James has been busy,” I groan to myself.
“Alex!” Campbell shouts.
I wince, stretching out on the ground to turn far enough to see him. He sprints toward me, staying low, his gun still in his hand. It’s when I see the weapon that I realize the shooting has stopped. It’s silent except for the crackling of burning wood next to me.
He slides to a stop on his knees next to me. “Are you hit?”
“No,” I groan, trying to sit up.
He pushes me back down. “Take it easy. There’s blood on your shirt.” He looks up, scanning the park. “Brody! I got her!”
“Where’s Nick?”
“What happened to your stomach?”
“Fry got me with a knife.”
“Let me see.”
I move my hand to let him have a look. “Where’s Nick?” I repeat.
He doesn’t answer. He lifts my shirt to examine my stomach. I wait patiently, letting him do his PJ thing.
Finally he lowers the fabric with surprising gentleness. “It’s not much more than a scratch. You’ll be okay.”
“Campbell, where—”
“He’s gone,” he answers plainly. “Liam took him.”
“No,” I whisper.
“Yes.”
I look around for Brody, desperate to have him call Campbell a liar. When I find him, he’s busy. He and Beck are squaring off with the two remaining guards that came with Liam. I vanished one, Fry is on her own private island, Liam has disappeared with Nick, one guard lays motionless on the ground, and…
“Is that James?” I ask.
“Fire hands? Yeah. He tried to grab you when you jumped Fry. Carver took him out.”
“Is he dead?”
“What do you think?”
I groan in misery and pain as I roll up onto my knees. I sway back and forth, the world swirling the way I imagine it does when others come through a Slip with me.
It sucks.
“Brody!” I shout.
“Little busy!” he grunts.
“Leave one alive, do you hear me?!”
He steps back from his opponent, ripping the gun from the guy’s hand. He promptly backhands him in the face with it. The guard goes down hard.
“What do you need from him?” he pants.
Campbell helps me stand. I lean heavily on him and I appreciate that neither of us says a word about it. It’s nothing either of us is excited about.
“SB,” Campbell nags when I don’t answer Brody.
“A phone number,” I tell him faintly. “Liam and I need to have a talk.”
Chapter Twenty
Nick
It’s different Slipping with Liam than it is with Alex. He’s definitely had more practice. I don’t feel great when we land but I don’t lose my lunch either. It’s a nice change, even with the unpleasant new scenery.
It looks everything like the clinic in the Behring Sea, without the mass destruction—and maybe it is. Maybe it’s a section of that place that we didn’t completely wipe out with the Jabberwocky. I have no way of knowing. There are no windows. It’s hallway after hallway of fluorescent lights, blank doorways, and sterile white walls.
I could ask Liam where we are, but what would be the point? He won’t give me a straight answer and it doesn’t matter anyway. I only want the answer to one question, so that’s the only one I’ll ask while I’m here.
Liam pulls a keycard from the belt of his slacks, swipes it over a panel beside a featureless door, and swings it open wide for me.
I don’t hesitate to walk inside. It’s important—not to mention easy—that I show no fear. I call on my hostage training from my time in Washington and remind myself to keep cool and quiet. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. Watch for an opening. Wait for them to give it to you.
The place looks like an interrogation room from a bad cop show. There’s no ‘mirror’ on the wall serving as a window from another room, but it’s a dingy gray and there are cameras blatantly placed in the upper corners. All four of them. I imagine there are sensors hidden in here as well—something monitoring the temperature of the room, my body temperature.
I’m mildly surprised when Liam closes the door behind himself, no additional guard brought in.
“Turn out your pockets,” he commands. “Put the contents on the table.”
I pull out the cash I have, the cell phone Alex and I shared. I note as I lay it on the table that it has no service. That’s telling.
I also remove the stone, though I don’t give it up. I deftly stow it between my fingers where it hides from Liam’s watchful stare. If he looks too closely at my hand he’ll see it, but he’s more concerned with the contents of my pockets than anything else right now.
“The weapon as well.”
He should have taken that from me first thing. The fact that I’ve had it with me up to this point is shocking, but I keep quiet. I log it away and I do as he says. I pull the warm steel from my waistband, pop out the clip, and lay them both down on the table.
“Is that everything?” he asks.
I don’t answer. I blankly stare at him, waiting for more instructions.
He stares back, his face registering nothing, but he’s already told me too much.
For one, we’re alone. Whatever crew he had with him in Florida was all he had. There was no one waiting for us when we arrived at the clinic. He rushed me down the hall alone like a kid sneaking candy into his bedroom in the middle of the night.
Which brings up another point: his dad doesn’t know I’m here. I wasn’t brought in to make Dr. Evans happy, so why am I here? Liam said point blank that he wants Alex, but what for if not to hand us over to his dad?
Also, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He needs to give me a pat-down to make sure I’m not concealing a secondary weapon, but he’s shown no intention of leaving the far side of the room. He looks down at my possessions spread out on the table, but none of it seems to matter much to him. Not even the gun.
And finally, he has to know I let him bring me in. When he jumped to me on the field, I had every opportunity in the world to put him in the ground. I had my gun leveled with his chest, the shot itching to be taken, but when he reached out with his hand to take hold of me, I let him. I made a snap, split-second decision that will make Alex so worried and angry she’ll see red for a year, but it was the opening I’d been looking for.
Liam shakes himself from his stupor suddenly. He quickly collects the items I’ve placed on the table between us and retreats to his place by the door.
“This door will be locked,” he tells me, his voice more genial than I’ve ever heard it. “I’m not telling you to stay, because I think we both know I more than likely can’t enforce that, so I’m asking. If you wait patiently for the situation to play itself out, I will answer your question. I’ll give you the name you’re looking for. I’ll give you all of the information I have on the subject, but only if you sit quietly and wait. Don’t send sheer nightmare madness traipsing through these halls. Don’t say a word. Don’t make a sound. Most importantly, don’t leave this room. If you do these things I will tell you everything you want to know, but I need you to keep in mind that there’s more at stake here than you realize. More than you and your beloved Alex. Do you understand? Do we have a deal?”
I make him wait because I can. Because it’s frustrating, it’s a power shift in my favor, and it keeps him on edge. He’s acting sloppy because he’s playing fast and loose. He’s bordering on desperate, and I will exploit that to my advantage as much as I possibly can.
After I count out forty-five seconds of silence, I sit down. I don’t give him any more answer than that. Nothing beyond my butt in the seat and my hands clasped placidly on the table.
He nods once before opening the door and quickly exiting out of it. He leaves with a sharp click of the lock, with my entire arsenal in his arms. What he’ll do with it all doesn’t matter to me much. He can keep it, throw it out, make Christmas ornaments
out of it. It doesn’t matter. None of those objects matter.
I open my fingers, letting the stone slide warm and smooth into my palm. It’s both exciting and calming to hold it. To know what can be done with it.
To know I wouldn’t trade a single item in the world for it right now.
It’s my exit. It’s my Hail Mary.
It’s any man’s demise for leaving it with me.
Chapter Twenty-One
Alex
“Holy crow, this thing is old,” I observe in hushed awe. “Do you think it still works?”
Campbell looks up and down the dark, deserted road. “Only one way to find out.”
“We should have done this in a better neighborhood. I’m probably using some drug dealer’s business equipment. I’m putting my fingerprints on state’s evidence right now.”
“No, right now you’re stalling. Make the call.”
I take a deep breath before dropping my money in the slot and dialing the number—the one Beck got off the last living guard by… well, by ‘shaking hands’ with his downstairs. It was brutal to watch and I wish I hadn’t, but it was my call and I needed to be present for it. I can’t ask a man to do something I’m not willing to even witness, and as much as I hated the pure violence of it, it was all in the name of finding Nick. With his life on the line, I’d have done it myself if I were able. If I had the strength.
Beck is a walking contradiction. His body is small, his strength is huge, his manner is gentle, but his power is pain. What he did to the guard he only agreed to because of me. Because of the fact that I’m a woman. By the time he arrived I was the only girl in the fight. Once he saw me land on the grass with a gash on my stomach and zero strength in my limbs, he shot into protective mode. Ever since then he’s been constantly at my side. The only reason Campbell and I were able to Slip away alone to make this phone call was because Campbell swore up and down on the honor of every sword in the Dungeons and Dragons universe that he would protect me with his life.
The ringing on the phone stops suddenly, pulling me back to myself.
“Dr. Liam Evans,” a brisk British baritone answers.
“Give him back,” I demand.
“Who—is this who I think it is?”
“It’s Alex, you dick, now give him back.”
He hangs up on me. I pull the phone away from my ear, staring at it in amazement. I don’t know what I really expected, but I definitely didn’t except to be hung up on. I thought he’d want to gloat, at least. Maybe chat for a while, letting his dad and their minions track the call, arrange an attack, and come tearing down these dirty streets of the very wrong part of St. Louis from every direction to surround us. That actually seemed most likely.
“What’s up?” Campbell asks, catching me staring open-mouthed at the phone. “You look confused. You hold it to your ear. Talk into the bottom piece, listen from the other.”
“He hung up on me,” I tell him in quiet amazement.
“Are you serious?”
“Why would I joke about that?” I slam the phone back on the receiver. “Yeah, he hung up on me.”
Immediately the phone starts ringing. I nearly jump out of my skin, it startles me so badly. The small interior of the last phone booth on earth vibrates with the shrill ring.
I look questioningly at Campbell. “Do I answer it?”
“Yeah, it’s gotta be him. Answer it then hang up on him.”
As I lift the receiver, I heavily consider his idea. “Hello?”
“Are you stupid?” Liam demands angrily. His voice is weird—breathy and jostled, like he’s running.
“Sometimes I think so, yeah. I did spend a lot of my free time with you, didn’t I?”
“You loved it. We were becoming fast friends, just as we were supposed to be.”
I roll my eyes. “Of course you were supposed to make friends with me. What better way to get information?”
“On what? We own every secret you’ve ever had.”
“Oh yeah, how about this one—where am I?”
Liam chuckles. “Give me five minutes and I’ll tell you.”
I turn to Campbell. “Set a timer for four minutes, thirty seconds.”
“How did you get this number?” Liam asks.
“Beck.”
“How did Beck get it?”
“Beck has sticky fingers and a deep, deep sense of loneliness. When you unfeeling assholes cut him loose he had the same thought I did—there must be others out there. So he broke into your dad’s office, ripped the door off the hinges, and stole every file he could find. Turns out he has more than I got. What do you think the odds are that he has the one you tried to hide from me?”
“It wouldn’t matter now if he did.”
I lose my patience with him. The calm veneer I’ve put on since Nick was taken is cracking like china. “I want Nick back.”
“Of course you do. I was counting on that.”
“So you took him to ransom him?”
“Yes.”
“What do you want?”
“I want your help.”
“With something wonderfully noble, I’m sure. Who do I have to kill?”
“Would you do that? If that’s what it took to get him back, would you do it?”
“Is that what you’re asking me to do?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sick. How soulless are you?”
“More than I care to think about. Will you agree to it?”
“No!”
Liam is silent for a long time. “I have to say I’m surprised. As ridiculous as I think you are, I imagined you would do anything to save him.”
I take a calming breath and remind myself Nick has the stone. He would have used it before he’d let them take it from him, so he doesn’t need me to move heaven and earth to get him out. If he wanted out, he’d be out by now.
That doesn’t mean I’ll stand idly by waiting for him to show up.
“He dedicated his life to saving the lives of others,” I explain to Liam. “If I killed to save his… he would never be right with it. Neither would I.” I press my head against the greasy glass, staring blankly at the floor. “I won’t do it, Liam.”
“It doesn’t matter, that’s not what I need of you.”
I stand up straight, my eyes going tight at the edges. “But you said—”
“I recall. I wanted to know how far you’d go. What I want is much simpler.”
“I hate you so much.”
“I realize that.”
“What do you want?”
“Your surrender.”
“It’s yours,” I reply immediately.
Liam pauses. “You’re a terrible negotiator. I’m telling your boyfriend how this conversation went, and hopefully someday he’ll discuss with you the finer points of arbitration.”
“If I’m turning myself in to set him free, when would I see him again?”
“Sooner than you think. I don’t want you permanently. What man would? I only need your help in this one matter, then you’re free to go.”
“I’m free? You’ll stop chasing me?”
“I will. My father won’t. That’s between you and him, just as this is purely between you and me.”
“You’re going behind his back?”
“Behind him is forever where I’ve been. It feels like nothing new.”
“Tragic. I weep for you and your hardships,” I say sarcastically. “How can I possibly help you?”
“I need you to use your abilities to save someone,” he says, his voice tight and reluctant.
I get why. We have the same power. He’s had control for years longer than I have—most of his life, in fact. Him having to ask me for help has got to hurt. It’s a crotch kick right in the pride balls.
“Who?”
“Someone like you. An innocent victim and a prisoner. I want to set them free but unfortunately, try as I might, I cannot do it. Not without you.”
“Who is it?” I repeat emphatically.
“A young woman.”
My pulse jumps. Liam hung up on a woman... “Naomi,” I whisper.
“How do you know that name?” he snaps.
“Brody said when you were a kid you were into a girl named Naomi. He said you and your dad fought about her. He told you to forget her. She’s the file you took, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she is,” he admits quietly.
“Liam,” I breathe in amazement, “you’re in love.”
He tsks with distaste. “Don’t be dramatic. She’s important to me, she always has been. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Whatever you say, Romeo.”
“Do we have a deal?” he asks sternly.
“I don’t like making deals with you. It feels like signing on with Satan.”
“That seems extreme. What harm have I ever caused you?”
“Needle. In. My. Heart,” I remind him clearly.
“Needle in my neck,” he retorts. “I’d say we’re even.”
“You hijacked Nick. That puts us nowhere near close.”
“Do we have a deal?”
“You’re the worst,” I sigh, feeling exhausted.
“So you’ve said.”
“How do we do it?”
“Then you agree?”
“Of course I agree. You thought I’d murder innocent people to get him back, how can you be surprised I’d agree to help you?”
“Killing others costs them, not you. Turning yourself in—that will cost you your freedom. Not everyone is so selfless.”
“Or maybe not everyone is as selfish as you. Speaking of selfish, do I have to see your dad when we do this? I don’t know if I can play nice with him.”
“You’ll never see him—not if all goes according to plan.”
“How do you already have a plan?”
“Because this was meant to happen ages ago. This is why I asked you not to run. This is why I was teaching you to control your abilities.”
“So what’s this plan?”
“Naomi is being held here in my father’s facility.”
“He has a new clinic? That’s so great. You want me to run Mothra through it?”