Fragmentary

by LeAnn Mason

  The room descended into hushed remembrance, each of us recalling that fateful scene. The fact that we failed to save the downed officers. The memory still snuck up on us, still pulled us under into the abyss of sadness and regret. Into pain.

  Jade felt it more often than the rest of us, her empathy causing the pain to stick with her. Some nights, she had nightmares and would come to my room where we'd stay awake talking about random nothingness until she'd finally drift to sleep. Sometimes she'd fall back into the memory as a nightmare. I'd do my best to soothe her, sending as much calm and pleasantness as I could offer, hoping to push her mind in a less destructive direction.

  I couldn't let this job be the death of the fun-loving Jade I knew. I couldn't be the cause of that destruction. After all, I was the reason she’d joined the task force. Jade was all I’d had, aside from my father, for most of my life. I couldn't be the anchor that brought her down, so I made sure to buoy her any time I could. She was my best friend, and she needed me just as much as I needed her.

  Dane, having realized where Jade's mind had veered, scooped her into a tight bear hug ruffling her golden tresses enough to make it resemble a respectable bird's nest. I wondered if a bird would have attempted to land in it if we'd been outside. I released the tension gathering in my shoulders as Jade squealed and kicked, trying in vain to pry Dane's arms from around her. I had to hand it to the big guy. He knew how to diffuse tension, knew the best way to break through to Jade. I hoped it would be enough to compensate for his rather lacking intellect.

  When all the bad guys were dead and the good guys were miraculously unharmed and saviors of the world, we turned off the television and moved to prepare for bed. Jade and Dane went upstairs; whether together or separately, I wasn't entirely sure. Something to ask about tomorrow.

  My stuff was still in the downstairs restroom, so I hoofed it that direction. With the boot as opposed to crutches, I had a much easier time getting around. I once again had two limbs that could bear weight. Never mind that one leg was three times the diameter of the other and didn't maneuver near as nimbly or that I sometimes had to use whoever was near as last ditch grabbing posts in order to keep upright. Never realized I'd miss my ankle.

  Still, it was a vast improvement over having to swing long metal sticks around wherever I went. Not to mention the fact that they required use of my hands as well. Being on crutches pretty much ensured that you were useless unless sitting or standing still, and neither of those positions were much help in most situations.

  I thought of Rolph, and I stopped feeling pity for myself. Rolph had been nearly paralyzed with injury, half his body in casts. Only the fact that he was ruthlessly determined to have his life back enabled his recovery to present. The fact that he was Primal helped a bit as well.

  Unencumbered movement was something I'd relish from this day forth. It gave me a new appreciation for those Sages who were more infirm than me or Jade. Hell, even Steve was pretty able-bodied though I'd bet in his eyes it only elevated him higher than others rather than humbling him.

  Thinking of Steve made me think of his douche of a dad and his directive for this case to be resolved. As I brushed my teeth, my mouth foaming like a rabid animal, I wondered just what he'd do if we didn't close this case. Rather, I wondered what he'd do if he didn't like what we found out. Would he alter the truth? If it was murder and we didn't catch the culprit, would he say it was accidental? Try to bury it altogether?

  What are you thinking so hard about, Gimpy?

  I jumped when Holden appeared in the doorway, too caught up in my what-would-douches-do game to have noticed him. Get it together, Dae.

  You going to your room tonight?

  I nodded. I'd slept on the couch the last two nights. With the crutches, it had just been easier. My makeshift bed – blankets and pillow – were still there, folded neatly and tucked under the corner table next to the couch and out of the way.

  I'll move your sleeping arrangements back to your bed.

  Then he was gone, and I was left standing alone in the postage stamp sized room, toothbrush in hand and blue bubbles escaping my lips.

  I quickly rinsed and headed toward the stairs. I stopped at the bottom and looked to the top, remembering how much of a pain – a deathtrap really – those things had been when paired with crutches. All those movies of people falling down stairs and breaking their necks had been based off of pairing crutches and stairs. I'd bet money.

  Entering my room, I found Holden smoothing out my weathered and checkered quilt, my pillow back in its designated spot. This bed definitely wasn't as comfy as the bed I'd had at my parents’, but after the days of training we had, any bed that held me was a good one.

  I'd become much better at sleep since beginning my enforcer training. The days were long and usually physically intensive, or maybe it just seemed that way because I had been living my life as a Sage, afraid to expose my healing ability and, as such, stayed away from things that could injure or stress the body.

  In some ways, I missed those days. Those days were predictable; they were easy. Those days were also boring and soul-sucking. So, I guessed I'd take the stressful, painful, nerve-wracking days of “now” any day.

  “Do you want to stay tonight?”

  Holden's busy movements stuttered then stalled as he looked at me. Surprise was written all over his face, reminding me of when he'd learned I could hear his thoughts. In our months together, we'd not kept the same space all night. We might hang out in one room or another for various reasons, but we'd always retired to separate bedrooms. Tonight, I wanted him to hold me.

  CHAPTER 11

  THAT HAD TO HAVE been the best night’s sleep I’d had, especially in the last two years. Holden was like my own personal sleep aid. I didn’t think I’d ever need Melatonin again as long as I could wrap myself around him. Why hadn’t we done this earlier?

  Inhaling, I took in the intoxicating bouquet that was uniquely Holden. It wasn’t easily definable, but pine and sunshine was what I related it to. I wanted to bottle it up, keep it around for when I needed a pick me up. My fingers tangled in the white cotton spread tightly across his chest. A chest that radiated warmth and safety beneath my cheek, a chest I really didn’t want to remove myself from anytime soon. A chest I slapped when puffs of air left his mouth. “Don’t you laugh at me, Mister!”

  I wasn’t. I was just enjoying your touch, your thoughts.

  “But you can’t read my mind,” I shot back playfully, pulling back and sitting up. Reluctantly deciding that I should start the morning routine.

  My girl, he began, eyes smoldering as he lifted up onto his elbows to watch me wrap the boot around my leg. Your thoughts are plain as day when you look at me like that. His tongue peeked to taste his lower lip enticingly.

  That one small movement held my entire attention, the boot forgotten.

  Just. Like. That, he purred, suddenly next to me.

  Man, he was fast when he wanted to be. I didn’t see it often because our training tended to be about subtlety, but I knew I could learn more from him. Maybe I’d get to use my powers of observation soon. In like… a real scenario. I mean why else learn to extend and hone my ability? I’d be like our very own wiretap, only better. I could live with that I think.

  “Let’s get ready, I’m sure there’s something I can do today.”

  I suggest you get dressed before rigging up that boot, the sexy man on the bed said, jutting his chin at the contraption I had been attempting to strap my leg into. You’ll never get your pants on over it.

  “Well,” I sassed, “joke’s on you. I was planning to wear shorts.” I dropped the heavy plastic and foam utensil to the worn floorboards refusing to admit he was right. It didn't matter what I chose to wear. Unless it came from overhead or completely opened in some fashion, there was no way the boot would go through the hole. Insert dirty joke here. “Since I shouldn’t get up without wearing my boot, go find me some clothes.” I thought about the sound of that directiv
e, along with my previous thoughts, and amended, “Some suitable clothes.”

  After falling into our morning routine, Holden and I made our way downstairs to join the rest of the house in scrounging for food.

  “Hey, Gimpy, considering you've been benched for this case, which I find hilarious…” Steve pressed a hand to his scrawny chest and flourished, now completely sidetracked from his original thought. “What timing you have. Seriously, you injure yourself badly enough that you can't walk a day before we get our first murder investigation.” The jackass was definitely enjoying my benchwarmer status.

  “Oh, I'm sorry I missed you vomiting all over the scene. That's a shame. I would have loved to get video. You know… show it to potential girlfriends.”

  “You'll never meet a girlfriend of mine. I'd never bring her around the likes of you guys, not to mention this house!”

  Steve's douchiness knew no bounds and was really beginning to rankle. Okay, so it had bugged me from the get go. I'd never admit how much he got to me. “Why are you here, Boat Shoes?”

  “What do you mean why am I here?” The question stopped his tirade, making him draw up short in confusion.

  Score one for the hybrid! I’m able to confuse a Sage. I was noticing that since this little tête-à-tête started, the others had all gone eerily quiet, thoughts included. It was like they were all too wrapped up in how this would play out to have much of anything else in their heads.

  “I'm here because it's breakfast and I haven't left yet.” He cocked his head like I was daft and squinted at me from behind his dark rimmed glasses. “Even you would have to be able to deduce as much.”

  I rolled my eyes at his haughtiness, “Not in the kitchen at this moment, you douche. Why are you a part of this team? It doesn't mean anything to you. You repeatedly speak about not wanting to be here. About keeping us completely separate from your life.”

  “I'm here because my father said to be. Because I am the best telekinetic in Minefield. Because you need me.” He was all kinds of puffed up, like a peacock fanning his feathers for the world to admire, that little speech enough to re-inflate his yacht sized ego. Problem was I could hear the uncertainty in his mind. That niggle of doubt that no Sage would admit to. The very reason they hated telepaths.

  And I'd call him on it. “Bullshit.” Looking him square in his beady little eyes, I waited, smiling in satisfaction as Steve turned an unhealthy shade of red, which actually quite reminded me of a nice, ripe tomato. Yummy.

  The thought made me want to bite into a sweet and juicy fruit. I knew it wasn't conventional breakfast food, but now I was fairly craving one. Steve was barring my entry to the kitchen, but he wouldn’t stop me. He couldn’t. He knew my hybrid status packed a punch. I think he knew I’d use it too. His mind flashed back to the story of me breaking a guy’s nose and how I physically handled our training.

  His bravado was faltering. A grin I was sure was a little on the sinister side spread across my face at the realization that I could knock him down a peg. Mentally and physically. He was my bitch… as long as he didn’t freeze me. I’d have to play it off like I wasn’t worried about him. The benefit I had was that no one could call my bluff if I was convincing.

  “Scooch,” I waved like he was a pesky fly I wanted rid of and pushed past where he stood as a rotten makeshift door. Not too far from the mark actually. I'd love to be able to sweep Steve aside. To find a more suitable replacement. Someone who was a better team player.

  But alas, Steve was the only son of the guy who had too much influence on Minefield. Of course, replacing him was out of the question. Then there was the fact that he was actually quite a talented telekinetic. I'd die before I ever admitted as much to him though.

  I didn't trust him.

  A chorus of chirps sounded around the open kitchen as each of the team’s phones signaled a message. Almost in unison, we each looked to the devices for information. Commander James wanted us all in the office by zero-nine-hundred to discuss the investigative breakdown for the day.

  That was our cue to be quick about getting to the CP. Breakfasts snarfed or abandoned completely, we all decided what we needed to finish before heading out. I settled for a tomato I found in the crisper and snagged a bottle of water before pulling my head out of the fridge and hip checking the door closed.

  What’s with the tomato?

  I just shrugged and ate it like an apple, making a decent mess which forced me to feast at the sink to avoid having to change my outfit and waste yet more time. Should have known Holden wouldn’t bail while I was still in the kitchen. He was nearly ready anyway and didn’t have to rush, not like I did. I needed to purify and cut all thoughts of Steve and his superiority complex right out of my headspace. I didn't always have a lot of said space, so I needed to keep only the pertinent things in the forefront right now. Steve was definitely not pertinent.

  Just as the clock in the CP rolled to 09:00, each team member scooted their chairs to a comfortable position around the room’s centerpiece conference table. Commander James wasted no time with preamble, immediately circulating papers around to each of us.

  “This is the medical examiner’s report. It came through first thing this morning.” He stood bent over the table and fanned out a stack of pictures to accompany the report we each had. “Looks like she was strangled before her neck was snapped. That being cause of death.” He flipped a picture to the middle of the table. “Bruises were found encircling the throat. The right forearm was shattered as well.” Another picture twirled to accompany the first. “Amazingly, there don’t seem to be defensive wounds. Nothing pulled from under fingernails, which makes me think she was already unconscious from suffocation or that her body was somehow unable to react.”

  His pocket wailed, like it had yesterday afternoon when the councilman had called. Again, he didn’t answer, this time pulling out the device and actually declining to answer which, blessedly, stopped the horrible sound.

  “Unable to react?” Jade questioned, her brows furrowed. The phrasing lost on her.

  Devlin’s answer came quickly, “Pinned. Broken.”

  “The amount of pain her forearm would have put her in would have been debilitating, probably dulled her reactions. Was there anything found at the scene, or at all I guess, that could have delivered such a blow?” Dane asked while inspecting the pics of the body with the eyes of an eagle. “I can go check the body, see if I can see anything else now that she’s cleaned up?” he aimed the last at the commander, essentially asking for permission.

  Commander James shook his head, sifting through the array of photos from the medical examiner: pictures close up, pictures of bruising - including measurements - with a handy ruler-type thing, bloodshot eyes indicating blood vessels bursting in the eyeball and one arm that, even though it was in the correct position, didn’t look quite right.

  Answering Dane seemed almost like an afterthought. “No. The cleaning process, not to mention the autopsy, would make further inspection useless.” He trained his narrowed cinnamon eyes on Dane. “These pictures and the written report are the best we have to go on at this point. You didn’t pick up anything yesterday?”

  The big guy looked dejected. He lived for Commander James’s approval and felt as though he’d failed his assignment. “No, Sir, I didn’t get scents that I could tie to the area alone. We questioned the workers with the scents in the immediate area. Jade and Dev will have to fill you in on what was said, but I don’t believe they came up with a suspect from the lot. The area was exposed to the elements for several days, and there wasn’t any blood for me to find. We’ve had some heavy storms since she was likely buried, the offender’s tracks effectively erased, which only shows that this most likely occurred prior to the recent storms. Or at least the last one.”

  Commander James nodded and changed his attention to Devlin. “Do you have any suspects?”

  Devlin was nearly at the head of the table, directly to the commander’s right. At the question, he stoo
d straight and crossed those bulging arms across his equally expansive chest. If it weren’t for the ridiculous top knot thing he had going on, he’d be the epitome of the Primal male. As it stood, he was just the embodiment of Primals in general, the hair lending a bit of a feminine quality to his otherwise brusque features. I snickered a little thinking of Dev as feminine. He’d kill me if I ever said it out loud.

  “Honestly, there are a few. Apparently, this woman was not kind to her kin.”

  I was shocked by the suppressed heat in his statement. Dev had always been the cool, calm and collected one while on the job… Well, Holden tended to rival him, but no one really paid attention to him when things got hairy. His silence tended to push him out of people’s minds. It was one of the best things about hearing him. I could be the one person who never overlooked him. He deserved that and so much more. We understood each other that much more because we had both been effectively shunned and had to spend a lot of time virtually alone. “Who and why?”

  The sharp question broke me from my wayward thoughts. Geez, Nat, murder case. Focus.

  “There are several female members in their family unit. Each of them say that our victim was abusive. Both mentally and physically. None of them would look at me, especially in the eyes. They hunched in on themselves and almost didn’t speak, just gestured in some way. It was disgusting.”

  “Hey! How dare you say that those women were disgusting for being traumatized!” Dane was hot, had nearly leapt from his roller chair, causing the thing to go crashing into a whiteboard behind him. Markers and taped papers scattered at the impact, floating to the floor with the fanfare of a cannonball explosion. And the commander was on his heels. They were both on the warpath toward my training partner.