Ambushed

by Dean Murray

  Mallory hadn't ever been wrong before. Part of me was afraid that she was wrong now, that it had been too long and I wasn't ever going to manifest a power, but mostly I just hoped that I was going to manifest a spectacular, unbeatable power soon. That was the only way I was going to keep Kaleb and the rest of the Coun'hij from rolling over us sometime in the next few months.

  "Go to Jasmin and tell her that I want her to begin training you. Given the lack of room and privacy it's probably going to be a while before she can do much with you, but she's the best we have and she might as well start thinking about what she wants to teach you."

  "Thank you, Mr. Graves. Thank you."

  The two of them backed away from me with smiles still plastered across their faces, and then they disappeared around a corner and it was just Brindi, Rachel and me.

  "Alec, can we talk?"

  I wanted nothing more than to call Carson, but I nodded. Rounding up the additional bodies we needed was more important than almost anything else right now, but a few minutes wasn't going to make any difference.

  "Sure, Rach. What's up?"

  "No, alone."

  Rachel had the grace to look embarrassed. She reached out to take Brindi's hand and gave her an apologetic smile.

  "I'm sorry, Brindi, but I really need to talk to Alec alone."

  Brindi shook her head and latched onto my hand even tighter. "No, I'm not going anywhere."

  Rachel shot me an imploring look, but that probably wouldn't have been enough to sway me if I hadn't spent far too much time lately worrying about Brindi's increasing attachment to me.

  "Brindi, please go help James and the rest cross-load the supplies we bought into Jack's vehicles."

  There was a flash of something in Brindi's eyes that disappeared so fast that I wasn't sure I'd correctly categorized it.

  "They don't need my help. They're stronger and faster than me and I don't want to be there, I want to be here."

  "Those are all true statements, but I want you to go help them regardless."

  "I saved your life."

  Her words came out in a low hiss, but that didn't surprise me. It was just the next step of the behavior I'd been noticing ever since I'd taken her with me to see Carson. I still meant everything I'd told him, but I hadn't counted on just how much her addiction would change her or how fast it would all happen.

  "Let go of my hand, Brindi."

  "Or else you'll hurt me?"

  "Listen to yourself. You just tried to use the fact that you saved my life to compel me not to make you help James and the others. Did you even stop to think about the logic behind your argument? They have all saved my life dozens of times over the years."

  It was like I'd hit her with a club. She was trying to come up with some rebuttal to what I'd said but she couldn't seem to get any words out.

  "Your having saved my life means that I owe you in at least some small way, but it doesn't make you more important to me than the friends and family who've been there for me again and again. I'm sorry if I've given you the wrong impression by keeping you so close since you were hurt in Chicago, but you're not the most important person in my life."

  "So what, you're going to just toss me aside like so much trash now that it's not convenient for you to have me around? I would have done anything for you, I tried, but you told me not to."

  I looked pointedly at her hands, both of which were now desperately wrapped around my bare arm.

  "If you ever want to touch me again then you need to let go of me right now."

  I could see the calculation going on behind her eyes. If she didn't believe I'd go through with it then now was the time to refuse, to play on my guilt for having addicted her and force me to back down. It was the surest route to some kind of twisted codependent relationship where she'd never have to go without a fix.

  If, however, there was even the slightest chance that I was willing to cut her off completely, then she would be cutting her own throat by disobeying me. For the barest of seconds she refused to let go, and then she pried her fingers off of my arm with an almost tangible effort of will.

  "Now what?"

  She was refusing to look at me, so I reached out and gently pulled her chin around so she had to meet my gaze. It was risky, but I wanted to reward her for having forced herself to let go.

  "Now you can go help James and the others, and when you are done moving everything I want you to stay out there and strike up a conversation with one of the others. If all else fails find the Petersons and talk to them, or listen to their conversation with Jasmin if they are having one. You can come find me once forty-five minutes have passed."

  "You'll still be here?"

  I could hear the impending tears. A part of her was convinced that I would leave and she'd never find me again. The fear was nearly all-consuming, but she was forcing herself to deal with it because she knew the alternative would be to defy me and watch as I walked out of her life.

  "Yes, I promise. If I'm not in this exact spot ask one of the others to help you find me. I won't leave the school without you."

  She nodded, a quick, choppy motion, and started for the door as if eager to start the countdown so she could return as soon as possible. I called out to her before she disappeared from view.

  "I'm sorry, Brindi. I don't want to hurt you like this, but you've changed—even in just the last couple of days. I need you to be the strong young woman who saved me from death, not someone who will try to manipulate their way to an extended high. One of those people will be welcome in my life, the other won't be."

  She nodded and strode quickly from view. I turned back to Rachel and found that she had wrapped her arms around herself as though trying to hold herself together. That or maybe force herself not to reach out and touch me.

  "I'm sorry, Rachel. I didn't think about what it would be like for you to be all alone with only a bunch of shape shifters you can't ever touch for company."

  She mustered a brave smile, but I could tell that my words had hit home. The revelation made a lot of other things suddenly make sense. She didn't approve of Brindi, but she'd still taken every possible opportunity to touch her.

  Brindi was the only other human, the only other person Rachel didn't have to keep a careful distance from in order to avoid Brindi's fate. I'd taken Rachel away from our mother to save her from a terrible situation, but in a lot of ways her life had gotten even harder since leaving home.

  "It's okay, Alec. I think a lot of it is just that seeing Brindi hang on you like that makes me think of Mom. I'm worried about her."

  "Don't be, Mom will be fine, she always is."

  "You're still mad that she didn't find a way to stop Dad from giving me to Vincent?"

  My hand clenched into a fist and I suddenly had an overpowering urge to put it through a door. I took a deep breath and forced myself to relax.

  "It's more than that, Rach. She didn't just fail to stop him, she wasn't going to tell you, wasn't going to even tell me. She didn't just fail, she never even tried."

  "That's not fair, Alec. I understand why you're disappointed in her, but I also understand what it's like to be a human in a world filled with shape shifters. Mom's not perfect, but she's doing the best she can."

  Rachel had moved towards me as though to wrap her arms around my middle in another hug, but I stepped back away from her.

  "How can you even say that? I know she couldn't have fought off Vincent or Kaleb, but she could have at least told me what was going on."

  "Why, so she could lose both of us? I'm glad you got me out of there, Alec, but even at the time I wasn't sure that I should be going along with your escape attempt. You and James both nearly died. If things had gone differently you would have died and I would have still ended up with Vincent."

  My beast wanted to shout her down, but that wasn't fair. She'd turned away from me when I'd avoided contact with her so I reached forward and took her by the shoulders. She was trying to be brave, but I could feel her tremb
ling underneath the thin material of her t-shirt.

  "You can't live in might-have-beens, Rach. I could have died, or I could have been just a little faster and killed Brandon that night, thereby saving the world a lot of trouble. I did the best I could and this time things worked out. That's what Mom doesn't understand. I would have rather done my best and died than lived knowing that I didn't even try to save you."

  Rachel reached up and brushed away the tears that were threatening to break free.

  "I know, Alec, but she's all we have left and she's trying to do better. She's the one who got Jack the information about Agony. Not just that he'd been captured, but where they've been holding him and the route they are taking to move him back into the States. That had to have been dangerous for her, but she did it anyway because she knows that she's going to have to do better if you're ever going to forgive her."

  I still wanted to be mad, but Rachel's revelation took the wind out of my sails. It was all still just straws in the wind, but they were all blowing the same direction.

  I cleared my throat. "She's been telling everyone that you're the reason that I turned against Kaleb. I mean, there isn't any proof that it's her, but the evidence is all pointing that direction."

  Rather than being happy, Rachel looked even more worried.

  "That can't be safe, Alec. Kaleb will eventually find out that she's the one leaking all of this stuff and then he'll hurt her."

  "Yeah, you're probably right, but there isn't anything we can do about it right now. Once we're through the next few days we'll see if we can find a way to warn her off. In the meantime, at least she's trying to do what she can to help."

  Rachel studied my expression for several seconds before venturing to say anything else. "You haven't forgiven her yet, have you?"

  "No, but I don't hate her quite as much as I did a few minutes ago and I can see a path to maybe eventually forgiving her."

  "That will have to do for now."

  I gave Rachel my best fake smile and then pulled out my phone. "I'm glad we had a chance to talk, Rach. We should spend some more time catching up once we get to the hotel, but if there isn't anything else urgent right now, I'd really like to make a couple of calls before Brindi comes back."

  "Actually, there is one more thing. I want to come with you guys when you go to try and break Agony out."

  "Absolutely not!"

  "I'm not asking to be in the middle of the fighting, Alec, I just want to help. Let me babysit the cars with the Petersons. I'll be as safe there as nearly anywhere else."

  "That's a lie and you know it. You'll be safer, but you won't be safe. Jack has contingency plans in case everything completely falls apart up above, but you'll still be at risk. You could be looking at a cross-country hell ride where you're trying to keep one step ahead of a bunch of Coun'hij enforcers who don't need to sleep as much as you and who have access to all of the NSA's satellite feeds."

  "Which is no different at all from what the Petersons will be dealing with and a heck of a lot less risky than what the rest of you will be facing. I want to help, Alec. Please let me do this."

  I could tell her no. She couldn't force me to let her into the operation and nobody was going to fault me for keeping her out of danger. A refusal was on the tip of my tongue, but I couldn't force it out.

  Rachel had spent her entire life on the sidelines, wanting to help and having nothing to offer. If I told her no there was a chance that she would never offer again. Rachel put on a brave front, but she was more fragile than most of the rest realized.

  "Okay, you can help with the cars."

  "Thank you, Alec! Thank you so much."

  That was the other reason it was so hard to deny Rachel anything. Her smile lit up the entire room.

  "Just be careful, okay?"

  A minute later it was just me alone in the classroom and there wasn't anything to stop me from making the calls I'd come here to make. I put a portable noise generator in front of the door and then dialed Shawn's number. He picked up on the second ring.

  "Hey, this is Shawn."

  "Hi, Shawn. It's been a little while. I'm hoping that you have some good news for me."

  Shawn was silent for so long that I almost thought we'd lost our connection. "I've been waiting for you to call. The things you said have been on my mind a lot lately. This hasn't been an easy decision."

  He wasn't using my name. That could just be because he was being extra security-conscious. If someone was listening in on our conversation they'd probably be running some kind of voice recognition software, but it never hurt to be careful.

  Of course that might not be the case at all. Maybe he was trying to maintain some kind of deniability. As long as he didn't say my name he could always claim that he'd thought he was talking to someone else.

  "I can't promise the kind of force you want, but I've decided that you're right. This is important, and if you tell me that you've got a good plan, one that will let us get in and out without leaving any witnesses behind, then I'll bring eight of my closest two-legged friends to your party."

  That was code for hybrids. He was bringing a total force of nine hybrids down to the ambush. It was like a huge weight had come off of my chest. For the first time in days I felt like I could breathe. Shawn's people would make the difference for us. Even if Carson couldn't get his mystery hybrid with the game-changing power to join up we should still have enough people to make it all work.

  "I'm not going to lie to you, Shawn. I think our plan is good. I fully expect for us to be in and out in minutes, and I'm not planning on leaving anyone alive to tell tales, but there's always a chance that we'll miss someone."

  Shawn's voice was remarkably relaxed considering that I'd just told him there was a chance that his cover would be blown.

  "That's what I like about you. You never pull any punches. If everything goes according to plan then I'll be back in Chicago two hours after we finish up and nobody but us will ever know that I even left."

  "And if things don't go according to plan?"

  "Then my friends and I will spend the next several decades on the run. It will suck, but like I said, this is just too important for me to just sit around and do nothing. Send me an address and a time—I'll be there."

  "Thanks, Shawn. I appreciate this."

  "No problem. Someday you can come bail me out of a bind and we'll call it even."

  He hung up and I stared at my phone in amazement. If I hadn't been operating under a time limit I would have just sat there and basked in the sense of accomplishment. Shawn coming down with more than half a dozen hybrids wasn't an accomplishment on the same order of magnitude as bringing the entire Chicago pack out in open support of the rebellion, but it was much better than I'd actually expected to achieve.

  I forced myself back to the present and dialed Carson's number. I almost thought his phone was going to go to voicemail by the time he picked up.

  "It's me. Did you have any luck bringing on the star talent you told me about?"

  "Yes, his name is Grayson and he's onboard along with six other hybrids and a pair of wolves. I must caution you once again not to depend too heavily on him. He's failed, quite dramatically, in the past and the consequences were…severe."

  The force composition was odd to say the least. Shawn could bring all hybrids because he was cherry-picking the best talent from the Chicago pack. He was obviously concerned about keeping things on the down-low, so he'd brought the best fighters he could as a way of maximizing his group's lethality while still economizing on numbers.

  Carson on the other hand didn't seem to represent any kind of big organization. I'd come away with the impression that he was drawing from a small group of close associates, probably dispossessed like him. Based on that, I'd expected a lot more wolves and fewer hybrids. It was one more oddity where Carson was concerned, but his worries about Grayson seemed the more pressing item to explore.

  "What happened, Carson? Who is this guy and why are you even b
ringing him on the operation if he's so completely undependable?"

  The silence on the other end of the line remained unbroken for nearly a full minute before Carson finally mustered a response.

  "I'm sorry, there is simply too much there that I can't tell you. Suffice it to say that Grayson failed to protect people who were important to me. Among those people was someone who was important to more than just me. As to why I'm including him, that is a more complicated answer. I'm including him because we lose nothing by having him along, but it's more than that. He needs a chance to redeem himself just like I need a chance to forgive him."

  His answer hung in the air for several seconds while I tried to decide best how to respond.

  "I'm sorry to press, but the safety of everyone involved in this operation is my responsibility. Isn't there anything else you can tell me?"

  "The king is dead, long live the king."

  "I'm sorry, I don't understand."

  "I know and I apologize, but I can't say any more than that. You'll have to accept my word that he's an acceptable security risk or we'll have to part ways."

  I was tempted to tell him that what he was describing was a deal breaker for me. With the eight hybrids Shawn was bringing, the odds were good that I wouldn't need Carson or his people. Part of me didn't want to deal with the headache of dealing with someone Carson was so unsure of.

  I resisted the temptation though. Even if I could get by without Carson and his people on this particular operation, I couldn't afford to offend potential allies that I might need at some point in the future.

  "Very well, I accept your terms. Do you have an encrypted e-mail address that I can send a meeting time and place to?"

  Carson's laugh was surprisingly boyish. "I'm afraid that using a cellphone is currently the extent of my technological prowess. If you'll give me a time and a place we can meet the day before the operation and I can review your plans then."

  "Okay, that works for me. There's a city in New Mexico called Roswell. If you travel an hour and a half in the direction you had me travel from the car the last time we talked, you'll find me. I'll be in the hotel."