Nate couldn’t predict what might happen if Cassie were attacked. Would she even defend herself? And if she did, how many agents might lose their lives because Jacobs had underestimated her abilities. His thoughts weren’t for those agents, but for Cassie.
“Guardian, Section 154 is in play. The only question is, who will it be used against?”
Jacobs folded his hands on the table and smiled. Nate wanted so badly to punch that smile down his throat. At least the other committee members had the decency to avoid looking at him. This was a no-win situation. If he disobeyed the order, they would take the woman he loved, either kill her or lock her away. Worse, they might strip away her powers and all that made her who she was. If he complied, Cassie would never forgive him. Either way, he lost.
The only way to save Cassie is to lose her forever.
“I’ll need a full pardon for Dr. Whelan, in writing. And she gets to live her life, her way. She just wants to be a doctor, to help people. Give her that.”
Jacobs’ condescension reached a record level as he smiled, waving his hands as if granting a wish. “This once, we’ll make an exception.”
“Then I’ll do as you say, Senator.”
“I hoped you’d see things our way. The Captain will take you to Leclair. She can also help with gaining his… cooperation, if it isn’t forthcoming.”
“After I see Leclair, I’ll need that pardon paperwork in my hand before I leave here.”
Jacobs stood and extended his hand. “Of course. No hard feelings, I hope.”
Nate turned and left the room without a word.
*
One moment Nate was walking into the shielded cell that the XAC Enforcers were using to imprison Etienne Leclair. Then, with the kind of transition that only made sense in dreams, he was sitting at a small table in a park with the Frenchman. A toy sailboat drifted across the small pond in front of them, the top of the Eifel Tower just visible on the horizon. Birds sang in the distance and the sweet smell of Honey Locust blossoms surrounded them. Nate stared at the glass of wine in his hand.
“What did...? Where are we?”
Leclair took a sip of his wine and gestured around them.
“This is but an illusion, a construct of the mind. In reality we are still in the luxurious accommodations your government has provided me.”
The wine glass was in Nate’s left hand - ungloved and unscarred. His right hand went to his face. It felt smooth. It was only a secondary realization that his helmet was gone, and he appeared to be dressed in casual clothing. He felt relief that his damaged face wasn’t on display. Not in front of this man.
“I hope you don’t mind this setting. My cell appears to have an infestation problem. It has been, what is the expression, roached?”
“Bugged,” Nate grunted.
“Ah, yes. Bugged. As you say. But here, in this realm, we may speak freely.”
Nate took a sniff of the wine. He usually preferred beer.
“My apologies.” the Warlock nodded, and the glass became a chilled bottle of German pilsner. Nate set it on the table, un-sampled.
“This isn’t a social call, Leclair. I don’t even want to be here, but I don’t have much of a choice.”
The corners of Leclair’s lips turned up ever so slightly. “We always have choices. But I sense that you have selected a difficult path, to spare someone else. It is your nature, this taking of a burden to lessen another’s. I respect that.”
Nate looked down at the beer, wishing he had the luxury of drowning his troubles in it and a dozen more.
“You do not like me,” said Leclair. “This much is clear. You have no reason to trust me, and this I understand. But there is something else, something like... resentment, I think. Yet we have never met. At least not that I am aware of.”
Nate looked away. He hadn’t come here prepared to have Leclair poke around inside his head. Nate wanted to... what? Punch him? Even in an illusion, that struck him as pointlessly brutal. What would it accomplish, whether real or imagined? And why did this man piss him off so bad?
All he said was, “No, we haven’t.”
His only connection with Leclair was indirect, through Bill Walsh and Cassie. Bill had interrogated him, and Cassie had gone to him for advice. More important, Leclair had given Cassie vital protection. As he thought of her, he saw Leclair’s eyebrows go up. He tried not to think of Cassie, which made her image even more vivid in his head.
“Ah, la belle rousse. The mademoiselle docteur has placed an imprint on you, I see.”
“The expression is ‘made an impression,’ not ‘placed an imprint.’ Jesus, how can you be inside my head and still not get words right?”
Leclair nodded an apology, his lips pursed. “I am not, as you say, inside your head. Think of it more as our heads touching, as two deep sea divers might touch helmets to communicate. I do not, will not, pry into your deeper thoughts, but the things on the surface, the things we say to ourselves in the continuous running monologues we all have, those are what I receive. Your head is filled with thoughts of her. She weighs heavy on your mind. That is why you are here, I think.”
Nate didn’t want to trust this man, but circumstances demanded it. “You did something for Cassidy Whelan, some sort of protection spell.”
Leclair’s nose wrinkled, displeasure spoiling his preternatural calm. “I don’t deal in spells or charms. What I did was but a rearrangement of subconscious impulses. I crafted a reflex to shield her mind from intrusion. She could have learned to do the same herself, given years of training and mental exercise. I simply saved her the work to achieve the ends.”
“Okay, well, I need for you to do that for me.”
Leclair raised an eyebrow as he took a sip of his wine. “I see.”
The words hung in the air between them. Leclair had no cause to want to help and every reason to begrudge it. Nate had no reason to trust him either, no reason except for necessity. He didn’t want to do the committee’s dirty work, but he saw no acceptable alternative. The guards standing outside had made it clear they could force the cooperation Nate needed, but that was going too far. What he was being forced to do was bad enough. He wouldn’t pile more evil on top of it.
“Mr. Leclair, I need your help. The committee is threatening to jail Cassie if I don’t do what they want, and I can’t do it without your help. Please, help me protect her.”
“And what is it they demand that they must extort you this way? What is it they want so badly?”
Nate stared at him in silence.
“Leverage,” he finally said. “Something they can hold over my head forever.”
Leclair’s silent stare made it clear he was waiting for a fuller version of the truth.
“They want me to kill a man, the same man you protected Cassie against. But I can’t go near him without that protection or he’ll take control of me, make me his puppet.”
Leclair nodded his understanding. “This committee of yours, you believe they would follow through on such a threat? Imprisoning her?”
“Yes, they would.” Nate reached for the untouched beer and downed a swallow.
Leclair looked at him, into him, for several long seconds. Nate felt as though his soul were being weighed - his sins measured against his virtue. Finally, the Frenchman nodded.
“I have given you what you wish. Your mind is now as impervious as your skin. Your heart? That remains as it was.”
Nate stood up, ready to exit the fantasy but unready to face the real world. Despite his sense of rivalry with this man, he felt a connection - a camaraderie that existed outside of their experiences.
“By the way, they’re not ‘mine’ - the committee. But the law gives them power over me, over our kind.”
Leclair smiled, tight and laced with a recognition of the uncomfortable reality outside of this manufactured façade. “Laws are written by men. And they are not always right. When rulers create laws that are unjust, we call that tyranny.”
“Sounds
like you’ve been talking to Bill Walsh. He’s always on me about exohuman equality and all that. Do I wish things were different? Yes. But I’m only one man, and right now I have to focus on what’s important.”
“Protecting Cassie,” the Frenchman said.
Nate nodded. That was what mattered. It just wasn’t the only thing.
“Then perhaps,” Etienne said, “there is more for us to discuss, non? Because protecting her, truly protecting her, will require more than even your impressive intellect. It will require the cunning of a thief.”
Nate sat back down.
“What do you have in mind?”
CHAPTER 24
Cassie heard the heavy tread of Nate’s rocket boots before he got to the living area. She didn’t look up from her magazine as he entered. He stopped when he saw her on the couch.
“We need to talk,” he said after lifting off his helmet.
“We already did,” she responded, ice hanging from her words. “It didn’t do any good. You went anyway.”
She didn’t need to hear his exasperated sigh as he unbuckled the boots. She could already feel the turbulence of his emotions. All of it was tinged with anger.
Good. The worse he feels, the better.
Nate came around to sit on the coffee table in front of the couch. She still didn’t look up. “I think you should leave,” he said.
The magazine came down, slapping her thighs. She hadn’t meant to react so sharply, but his words had struck her a blow.
“Go?” she exclaimed. “Where? I can’t go home. Thanks to you and Ballantine, everyone thinks I’m dead.”
“Didn’t you say your grandfather has a lake cabin? Sounds like a great place to hide from your responsibilities.”
Cassie couldn’t believe what she was hearing. What could possibly have changed him so much? “I... I thought you wanted to help me?”
Nate looked at her, staring. She felt pain in him and anger, all held in check by fierce determination. It felt like he was a maelstrom of negative emotions and only sheer willpower was keeping him from breaking down under the weight.
“That was before, back when I thought I could get through to you to do the right thing and use your powers responsibly. Now I’ve got XAC breathing down my neck to do something about Ballantine and, since you’re not willing to help, I’ve got to go and do it alone. And if they find out I’ve been hiding you, well, I’ll probably end up in the cell next to his. So, I’m done trying to protect you. You’re on your own now.”
Cassie’s jaw dropped. “What is happening here? Before last night I dared to think I could trust you. But you’re no different from the rest. Hell, you’re no better than Ballantine. You both just want to use me, to make me do what you want me to do.”
Nate said nothing, and she felt his resolve tighten around his pain and anger. He was biting down hard on something. Silence hung heavy in the room. Cassie finally broke it, suddenly finding it hard to breathe in the brittle atmosphere.
“I guess I’ll… go gather my things. Then again, you bought everything. I’ll leave the way I came. At least then I won’t owe you anything.”
His tone was soft, unlike his words. “Take whatever you need. I’ll be gone for a while, dealing with this Ballantine mess. I’d appreciate it if you were gone when I came back.”
She stood and laid the magazine she had been holding, now twisted it into a tight spiral, on the couch. At least the bracelets worked because she hadn’t set it aflame. She started to open the fasteners on one. “These are yours too, I guess.”
“Keep the bracelets,” he said. “No sense in anyone else getting hurt.”
He stood and walked back to retrieve his helmet before disappearing up the stairwell to the rooftop. Cassie’s fists clenched. Her eyes threatened to flood the room. Pain and anger twisted her gut. Memories swelled. She remembered her parents, waving as they boarded a plane for the Caribbean - their final trip - while the child Cassie tried to hold back her tears. The hoarse whisper that followed Nate’s retreating back echoed her younger self’s cry.
“Please. Don’t leave.”
*
Cassie fumed as she stuffed random items into the backpack she’d dug up. She couldn’t find a suitcase and she’d be damned if she’d wait around to ask Nate for one. He wanted her gone.
“Son of a bitch. The least he could have done was take me to the cabin. It’ll take me a week to float there. Oh, and I can only float at night or I’ll be spotted, so make that two weeks. Asshole.”
She scooped up an armful of makeup and toiletries and dumped them in the already bulging bag. Somewhere along the line her idea of leaving with nothing had become a grab-fest of everything she might ever possibly need. It would serve him right if he came home to an empty building. She zipped the bag closed and slung it over her shoulder. It was so heavy she nearly toppled over backwards. She staggered to the living area and dropped the bag. Her eyes swept the area for anything else she might need. Her searching gaze came to rest on the rocket boots, still where Nate had left them.
“Well, he did say to take whatever I need.”
She was about to step into the boots when she heard the sound of the elevator in motion. Part of her hoped he had rethought his demand and was coming back to apologize. Another part wished she had been quicker in clearing out. As the bell dinged, she realized that the elevator was coming up, not down from the roof. The door had only opened a sliver when the Taser darts hit her in the chest. Her healing ability kicked in almost immediately, pushing the tiny darts out of her skin and racing through her nerves to correct the damage. Even so, she was unable to move or focus her thoughts for several long seconds. Those seconds were long enough for the three intruders to slap manacles on her wrists, ankles and throat. She blinked as they cinched a metal band around her waist and attached the wrist manacles to it with steel cables, pulling her hands tight against the belt.
“What the…?” she stammered. “Who are you? What do you want?”
“Do we need to gag her too?” one of the men asked.
The three men were dressed in dark suits. On the surface, they could easily be taken for accountants or bank managers. Only a closer examination revealed physiques that didn’t quite fit the disguise. Biceps bulged under suit jackets and there were badges and guns clipped to their belts. Two of them - one short and the other wide as a door - saw to her restraints while the third remained near the elevator door. It was the third man who answered in a voice she’d heard before.
“Nah, she’s not a Sonic or a Siren. Her only checkboxes are Healer and Floater. If she had anything else, she’d have thrown it at us already.”
Cassie looked to the one who had answered, the one with the familiar voice.
“Sergeant Alfaro. Of course.”
“Cool your jets, Whelan. This is only temporary. If your boyfriend obeys orders, then we’ll be out of your hair in no time.”
The wide one clamped a hand on Cassie’s shoulder, forcing her to her knees. The shorter man attached cables between her ankles and neck. She wasn’t going anywhere.
“Boyfriend? What do you...?” She sputtered to a stop and drew a breath. “Nate Gorman is decidedly NOT my boyfriend. Far from it.”
“Whatever. You’re just a little insurance policy to make sure he takes care of Ballantine. As soon as he brings us the body, we’ll be on our way.”
“Body?” The shock must have shown on Cassie’s face. Now it was the men’s turn to look surprised. Alfaro’s face split in a grin.
“He didn’t tell you. What a putz.”
The short man laughed as he double-checked her bonds. “Yeah, if I was gonna go to all that trouble for some chick, you better believe I’d make sure to get the brownie points that go with it.”
From her new vantage point, she finally got a good look at one of the badges the men had clipped to their belts – the XAC-E eagle and shield. Her secret had caught up with her, thanks to Nate’s slavish devotion to his government overlords. She s
hould never have trusted him.
The Enforcer sergeant made himself comfortable on the couch. The other two moved to the windows and watched the sky.
“Like I said,” Alfaro shrugged, “as soon as lover-boy takes care of the Ballantine threat, we’ll all go our separate ways. You can go back to playing house with Prince Un-Charming.”
Cassie shifted against the restraints.
“Yeah, sure, ‘cause having him rat me out to you clowns is a major turn-on. I was on my way out of here for good when you idiots showed up.”
The sergeant laughed, a guttural, grinding kind of laugh.
“Ha! He never said nothing about you, princess. We’ve had our eye on you ever since you did your imitation of a loose parade balloon last week. There’s software in all the airport radar systems to look for floaters and flyers. We’ve even got some nice infrared home movies of you two foolin’ around up there at night. After that it was simple enough to find evidence of your somewhat remarkable medical successes. So, if you’re mad at him for giving away your secret, then you might want to give the guy a break, ‘cause that cat was never in a bag in the first place. But, it turns out Tall and Ugly has a soft spot where you’re concerned. You’re nothing more than leverage to make sure he follows orders.”
Cassie’s thoughts exploded. Nate must have deduced that something like this could happen. He’d told her to leave to distance himself from her, to keep this very thing from happening. He’d lied, put on an act, to protect her. How had she not sensed it in him when he returned? It must have been the anger. Had he intentionally stoked that fire to mask his other feelings? She kept circling back to what Alfaro had said earlier - the body, Ballantine’s body. She couldn’t believe Nate would take a life. He might blow smoke about killing Martin in the heat of the moment, but everyone said things like that. How could he possibly think she would approve of him committing murder, even to save her? She wouldn’t be able to even look at him again. The shock of epiphany was truly jarring.
He knew that, but he accepted it anyway.
He hadn’t betrayed her; he’d paid the price for her rebellion.
Burden of Solace: Book 1 of the Starforce Saga Page 18