by Erin R Flynn
Me in particular.
They explained to Phil the whole investigation as I kept working, waving them back so they didn’t distract me. By the time Kyle showed up with food and what we needed I was ready for it.
“Found him,” he said, plugging in the drive and showing the right clip.
“Got it,” I promised, pulling up what I needed to get into the right airline records. I knew what PayPal account our bad guy was using from his Uber account, but going through every airline to try and find that wasn’t the right step. This was, and after some grumbling and fighting to get into the backdoor of what I needed, I had his debit card number associated with the account. “He’s not using credit.”
“He’s using debit, but it’s not with his last known address, as we got everything from there and through his social.”
“It’s a business account using an EIN instead,” I muttered as I walked through the backdoor and pulled his account.
“So you haven’t built some crypto key to get into systems, right? You were complaining that the airlines patched up their security and you had to divert how you got in?”
“She’s the key,” Elijah bragged. “No, there’s no magical code from movies that unlocks everything. She’s the key or her brain is. Once she sneaks in, she tapes the lock to use a viable analogy so she can get back in anytime she wants.”
“Which means she will be the target everyone wants when people find out exactly what this all is,” Aidan worried.
“Which is why we don’t ever tell anyone and I have several very deep covers,” I muttered, searching through what I needed. I found it and back traced the IP address that the last transaction was made from. I blinked at the computer and glanced over at Elijah. “I found something, um, bad.”
“Define bad, child,” he sighed. He wasn’t being dismissive when he used that term or even tried to remind me I was a baby, but he was one of the few who knew my real name and he called me that so he wouldn’t use my name.
“Like, um, the guy got money and I followed it thinking he was adding funds to the account, but it wasn’t him or prepaid cards like loading your iTunes with funds. That’s the easiest way to keep doing it because you can buy them with cash at like CVS and they won’t know if you stole the cash. So yeah, good for bad people.”
“What did you find that you’re so nervous?” Dylan worried.
“One of the Kilic’s accounts in the Caymans and apparently they’ll outsource to vampires,” I whispered, giving Elijah a worried look.
“They’re myth,” Dylan muttered.
“No, they’re not,” Elijah whispered, storming over to me, swallowing loudly when I gasped as his power trickled all over me. “Sorry. Show me what you found.”
I nodded, pulling up what I’d found in code and weaseling into the bank’s server to pull up the account. I loaded the picture of the man on the account, moving my hand over Elijah’s when I was right. “I thought that was one of the names we had for him.”
“What is the Kilic?” Kyle asked, the last time we’d found anything before his time. Or maybe he had been with us then but not my right hand and in the know.
“It’s a group of assassins that started in ancient Persia that thrive on chaos,” I explained when I knew Elijah couldn’t. “Think of it like current day arms dealers that work both sides because all they want is the money and war is good for business. They’re the ancient version. Kilic is ‘sword’ in Persian, and they are the sword that will cut down any who try to unify or bring peace to the region.”
“They’re darkness and evil that do more than that and thrive on snuffing out any good or people full of light.” He stood and moved away from us so we weren’t feeling his power. “Like my cousin, and I don’t mean how Jasmine jokes we’re all cousins, my actual cousin. My mother and her three sisters worked at the same brothel, and an angel was with all of them the same night. They all had demons and died.”
“His cousin tried to help refugees and broker peace between warring tribes a long time ago and was good at it,” I added.
“Find the monster for ISLE,” Elijah ordered. “We have a new trail, and we’ll follow it carefully when we can in between saving who we can.” He shot me a warning look and pointed at me. “Don’t you dare dig and try on your own. The pound of flesh I deserve is not worth you. Am I clear?”
“Yes, Elijah,” I whispered, touched he would say that, knowing he meant it. “I’ll be careful. After this case I will pull what I can and we’ll slowly follow the money. That’s all for now.”
He gave a swift nod and came over to me, kissing my hair before turning on his heel and storming to the portal. He activated it and left without another word.
“You really are his favorite,” Natalia teased me to lighten the mood.
I chuckled darkly, knowing more about the situation than she did. “I was the lust demon he could save, who needed saving, when he couldn’t save the one he truly loved.”
She frowned. “He loves you, Jasmine. That might have been how it started, and Elijah would protect any of us, but he would die to protect you, battle any foe to keep you safe. When he found out ISLE was targeting you, it took a few of us to sit on him so he didn’t go burn the headquarters to the ground.”
I nodded. “I know. I’ve saved him too. I just know he sees her sometimes when he looks at me, and that’s a hard image to live up to as she was more saint than demon according to him, and I’m all demon. I might have more light than darkness, but I will absolutely and always act like a demon.”
“I love you and I say this from a place of love, but some of how you see that is your past, not what Elijah really projects.”
That was fair, and I accepted it. I also found our bad guy, draining his accounts so he couldn’t run before ISLE got him.
“What did you do with that money?” Phil asked, his tone suspicious.
I rolled my eyes. “I’m rich. I don’t need it.”
“You donated it, didn’t you?” Aidan asked, his eyes impressed, and I wasn’t sure the reasons.
I went over to the food. “Yeah, to foster shelters that save kids from abusive homes. Maybe this monster’s money can help some kids who need saving from other monsters.”
I hoped so at least because I couldn’t fix or handle everything.
13
That night I had the same dream I’d been having since my grandfather had died, either because I was stupid and felt guilt for a variety of reasons or my brain hated me for working it so hard that day. I wasn’t sure, but I knew how it would end so I just sat there and got ready to watch the show.
Instead, I flinched when Evan sat down next to me. He glanced around and didn’t speak a few moments. “What is this? Where are we?”
I debated what to answer and then after a few more moments I sighed when the court case was announced. “It’s my memory.” I waved to the table to the left. “Those are my grandparents.”
“You’re grieving,” he muttered, reaching for my hand.
“I’m not sure why when I hate him,” I whispered, feeling the tears burn my eyes. “I hated him, Evan.” I sniffled and then told him what I had Dylan about how I’d grown up and the abuse I’d suffered at my grandfather’s hands. “Years and years after I went back I had a weak moment thinking of Mom and decided to pay the local PI to check on them once a month.”
“And he found out about this?”
I nodded. “He informed me that a shady lawyer had been targeting some of the senior citizens of the quiet town I was born in who didn’t have family and was filing to the court for guardianship.” He gave me a confused look. “Basically instead of kids putting their elderly parents in a home, a stranger does it and takes over their everything including voting and a scary amount of anything.”
“That sounds highly… Flawed.”
“It is, and in theory they’re supposed to help the elderly couple not get taken for a ride and paid for it like you would think a lawyer, but the laws and rulings basicall
y give full control to the guardian. It was pretty open and shut with my grandparents though, and they were an easy target.”
We sat there and listened to the lawyer question my grandfather to prove to the judge his mind wasn’t what it was and gone. Except my grandfather had said the same shit a few decades ago.
“I let it happen,” I whispered when it was over and the judge easily ruled my grandparents couldn’t take care of themselves and awarded guardianship to the guy. He even muttered that finally the town didn’t have to put up with my grandparents and their crazy, completely not caring what happened to them. “I could have stood up at any point and said I was their granddaughter.”
“You ran for a good reason, and you owed them nothing,” Evan defended.
I chuckled darkly. “Oh, I don’t feel bad about what I did. I feel guilty that I don’t feel bad. I grieve that there’s so much darkness in me that I sat here and smirked at them getting their bullshit thrown back at them finally.”
“Is that why you pay for everything?”
“No,” I sighed, realizing I had to tell him I wasn’t as bad as I made myself seem. “I might have hated them, but I hate people being cheated more. I pulled the guardian off to the side and used my power to make sure he didn’t steal from my grandparents, only get paid for what he did and he should do it well if he wanted me to come visit again. They just didn’t have enough money given the church went under.”
“That’s still more than they deserved,” he whispered, squeezing my hand. “You’re grieving the chance to make it right. You never got the apology you deserved, and it’s still something that you carry. Death set him free from it all, but you carry it. That’s what you grieve, not him, but that closure you never got.”
I was quiet for several minutes, watching my grandmother break down crying that they would have to leave their house, signs she already had Alzheimer’s pretty apparent as she mixed up the present and the past. I hadn’t gone back much or been involved really, but from what I had been, they were never sorry for what they’d done to Mom and me.
I didn’t think they ever would be.
“I never judged Mom for putting up with it. I didn’t live her life, and she did fight for me, but she was so beat down from it all, like brainwashed she had to accept it and obey them, but I think I hated Grandma the most. She’s a woman and pushed the same shit. Fine, it was never right, but men believing and teaching that shit is one sin, but a woman teaching women were below men is un-fucking-forgivable.”
“It is,” he agreed. “And it is bullshit. I will say that I understand people going so into their own heads that they lose sight of what they really believe. I didn’t know your mum, but I could understand that.” He squeezed my hand. “Let me show you.”
“How? This is my dream, right?”
“Yeah, but I can control it if you allow.”
I glanced back at my grandparents, nodding. “Yeah, get us out of here. Enough of this shit haunting me.”
“We all have too much that haunts us, love.” He raised our hands and kissed mine before the scene changed. We were at some sort of inn. I stood with Evan and watched Evan from his memory wake and glance around, finding a letter on the nightstand. He quickly read it and started crying. I gasped as he pulled off the sleeping cap he wore and was bald.
“What was the letter?” I asked as his memory jumped to his feet and quickly changed and got packed.
“Owen left me,” he answered, letting out a shaky breath. “He kept getting it into his head that he was the problem we faced somehow. That if he hadn’t been born, the light elf that was illegal to a dark elf princess, my life would have somehow been rainbows and roses. This was the first time the git left me with a note that I would be better off without him. He kept getting into his own head that was the answer.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered, hugging his arm and then him when he let me. “He loves you.”
“I know. He just struggled with the situation more than I did. Our mother is insane and would have done the same even if it had just been me. If it had been just me, the only change would have been I was alone to run way too long and probably wouldn’t have survived. We survived because there were two of us and we worked together. It was never about him being a light elf but us being born.”
“Let’s go somewhere happy,” I offered when I saw how upset he was.
He nodded. “Show me your happy place, love. I want to see a good secret next.”
I thought about it a moment and then nodded. Evan had been so patient and sweet with me, not pushing for us to have sex or rush me, and I didn’t mean with the physical. We could be physical all over the place, but he wanted more than that and was clear he wanted me more than my body.
“Just picture it and we’ll go there,” he guided.
I nodded again and thought about where I wanted us to be, smiling when the scenery changed and I felt myself relax instantly. I chuckled when he gave me a confused look. “This is my penthouse apartment in Berlin. It’s my real home.”
His eyes went wide as he glanced around. “You have a dance studio in your apartment?”
I nodded. “I own the building. When I bought it there was a lot of work that needed to be done anyways, and Elijah helped me realize that if I was going to be all different types of people and dive into danger, I needed a place where I could only be me and felt completely safe. No one can portal in here but me. No one but him knows where this place is. You’re the first person besides him to see it.”
“Thanks,” he whispered, understanding I was reaching out to him. “Can I have a tour?”
“Sure, but I’m really spoiled here, so don’t tell Aidan when I gave him so much shit about being a rich douche originally.”
“Your secrets are safe with me, love.”
I believed him, which was why I showed him.
“So this was originally the fourth bedroom and like office conference room that I combined into the studio,” I explained as I pulled him with me, showing where there was a stripper pole installed along with silks and enough space to do the Cyr wheel. There was ample space for sure.
I showed him the large living room with a full bar and the balcony. I skipped over the master bedroom and showed him the two guest rooms and the library/study. I waved to the kitchen, muttering I had no idea how to use any of it.
“This is a ridiculously large and fancy kitchen for someone who can’t even cook,” he teased me.
“A small kitchen would look stupid in a place this big,” I grumbled, rolling my eyes when he laughed. The dining room was next with the table for ten on the dais. Then I brought him out on the rooftop terrace that had a gigantic hot tub, day beds, grilling area and setup, seating for a few dozen, and another table that seated ten or more.
“Sure, yeah, spoiled,” he chuckled, glancing around. He gasped as he pulled me over to the side and took in the view. “Love, this is amazing.”
“Yeah, it is,” I agreed, staring out at the Berlin skyline, the sun setting in the background even if that wasn’t actually the current time, which was sort of cool. “I love this place.”
“Where’s your office, and most importantly, where is your bedroom?” he teased me, snuggling me to him and kissing my neck.
“I’ll show you my office and toys but maybe not the bedroom just yet,” I answered as I pulled away, chuckling as he growled and chased after me. He was impressed with my state of the art office and ridiculously cool setup, more toys than he probably all understood. He was smart, but Evan didn’t seem the type that was all into tech and gadgets like I was.
Hell, my whole apartment was voice activated everything. I wasn’t sure that would translate completely in a dream though.
I brought him back to the studio and glanced around before heading to the stereo. “How interactive is a dream?”
Evan chuckled. “This is new for me too, love. Last time we saw what you were dreaming but couldn’t reach you or see you. I got a few glimpses since, but this
is—I only know a bit because I met two people who could do this. Well, one I’m pretty sure was full of shit now, but the other seemed legit.”
I nodded, loading one of the songs I wanted to try on the Cyr wheel, changing my outfit somehow to a revealing figure skating style with flowing short skirt. The leotard was actually a thong and the top was mostly see through, but I liked wearing those when performing on the wheel as the sparkles and sequins would really pop in the light.
Giving Evan a wink, I changed the lights to what I normally did in my home studio so it wasn’t so bright and catching that as I spun around. I grabbed my wheel and started the music, jumping right into it spinning slow with the intro but changing into flips when the Martin Garrix started singing. When the music picked up I did the splits and hung by my hands, feeling like I was flying for those moments.
It was why I loved the Cyr wheel. It was the closest most could ever come to flying like a bird. The gravity pulling on you, the coordination needed to not crash, and it was like your own private bubble and symphony in one. That was how I saw birds flying in their own world almost that most would never understand.
I changed to rolling in a big circle, careful of my feet and hands, when he started singing of echoes and waves. I picked up speed and pushed up so I was above the wheel, spinning it horizontally faster and faster until I almost hit that line no one would believe I was still human and could do it. Pushing off the wheel, I flipped off of it, giving it a spin to head towards me as I did.
I caught it after I twirled a few times and jumped right back in, moving my right foot up to my hands so I was doing the splits in the wheel. I went through the steps again with the music, timing it out so I changed with the music and flow. I finished big but then went right into the next song by Fifth Harmony when I felt how into it Evan was.
Fine, I was showing off a bit. The Cyr wheel was not easy to do at that level.
Not at all.
This time I did a bit more of a ballet style, bending my leg so it touched my head when I angled back. I went through several other moves before spreading out when calmed down, leading into the boom of the chorus. I rolled around close to the floor, sort of like a quarter when it lands on a table. At the last second when the chorus played I did a back flip out of the wheel and then kicked it up with my foot.