Lost Causes

by Mia Marshall

  Luke glanced around the crowded Bronco. He paid no attention to Mac, glowering next to me. “I’m not much for groups.”

  “Most groups aren’t as awesome as we are. We almost never hold sing-alongs or braid each other’s hair.”

  Reluctance gave way to amusement. There might be hope for him yet.

  “Welcome to the gang, Luke. Try not to be a psychopath, okay?”

  CHAPTER 6

  “You’re kidding, right?” Sera circled the vehicle as if unable to believe it was real, or that there would be any circumstance in this world that might convince her to step inside.

  “You got a better idea?” Luke sat on the hood of an avocado green Ford Pinto that was missing all its doors.

  The junkyard was full of such treasures. A powder blue Cadillac limousine. A rusted-out El Camino with a kiddie pool in the rear. A pickup truck and an old Volkswagen Beetle welded together by the automotive equivalent of a mad scientist.

  And an old school bus, painted gray, with “First Baptist Summer Camp” stenciled on its side.

  “She has a point.” I examined the bus alongside Sera. “There’s a good chance we’ll be struck by lightning if we even step foot onto this thing.”

  Miriam slammed the hood shut and wiped sweat from her brow, leaving a thick grease stain behind. “It’s in decent shape. Has all its parts, at least, which is more than I can say for most of the cars here. Needs some oil, but it’ll run.”

  Sera was unconvinced. “And when the waters catch up to us? Do we ask them to wait while we get out and push? It could reach a whole thirty miles an hour if we all work together.” She pointed toward a couple of old muscle cars in the corner. “You guys do what you want. I’m taking the Chevelle.”

  “I kind of put the fear of, well, me into them,” I said. “Maybe they’ll leave us alone for the next month.” The group was silent, but not a thoughtful silence. More a “let’s humor the delusional woman” kind of silence.

  “I guess it’s possible,” said Vivian. It would have been more convincing if her voice hadn’t risen on the last syllable.

  Simon made no effort to indulge me. “They cannot let you dictate the terms of your own capture. Or your own escape, for that matter. It will make them feel weak and ineffectual, and that would be unacceptable to ones as old and powerful as they are.”

  “Fine,” I grumbled. “But we still need to switch cars. The only way they could have followed us to Luke’s super-secret hideaway is some kind of satellite imaging. You said it’s unlikely, Vivian, but it’s the only possible solution. We change cars and maybe buy some time while they keep searching for the Airstream.”

  Vivian grumbled. She was crouched on a bucket seat that hadn’t seen the inside of a car in a long time, using the shade from the bus to stay marginally cooler in the sweltering heat. “Let me check. Give me ten minutes with my laptop and I’ll find a way to block any satellite access they may have.” Her hand was already moving toward her computer bag.

  Sera shook her head. “Why risk it?”

  I took a hesitant step inside the bus. Simon followed, examining the worn vinyl seats with the air of a man who’d lost all hope. “Is it too much to ask that, someday in the future, we no longer live in a state of squalor?”

  I still hoped that, someday in the future, we all got to live, but I doubted that needed to be said aloud. “Regretting that you didn’t stay with Carmen and the other Tahoe shifters?”

  His scornful expression suggested only a fool would question his judgment. “Of course not. I would not mind a few of the pleasures of home, however.” He hooked a finger under a strip of duct tape that kept the thin stuffing from escaping one of the seats. “Carmen’s house may lack personality, but at least it is not held together with tape. Also, my room had a walk-in closet.”

  A shadow fell over me as a man large enough to block most of the front window joined us. “You assume her house is still standing.”

  “It is,” I said. “If the house was already burnt, they wouldn’t be able to threaten us with its destruction. We need to give them a heads up, though. At least make sure their insurance is up to date. Sera has their number.”

  Simon took advantage of the excuse to leave the musty-smelling bus. He delivered the message to Sera, who still stared at the vehicle with an expression somewhere between horror and amusement. She dug through her bag and found the notebook with everyone’s phone numbers. We’d call the Tahoe shifters as soon as we reached a gas station with a payphone.

  I knelt on a seat and pushed the window down. It made it half an inch before becoming irrevocably stuck. “Carmichael, any chance you’re friends with someone who can help erase some bogus health violations? Frank could probably use some help with the Rat Trap.”

  He seemed dubious, but he and Johnson conferred.

  I returned to the aisle and found my way blocked. Mac had that determined look, the one that suggested I wasn’t going anywhere until he’d said what he needed to say.

  I began with an apology, hoping to save a bit of time. “I’m sorry this is happening. I know what your uncle means to you.”

  “It’ll take more than a fire to hurt Will.”

  “And I’m sorry about the whole using magic thing, though let’s be honest, Sera already punished me for that.”

  He kept watching me. I couldn’t think of anything else I needed to be sorry about.

  “I’m not so mad about that. Not right now.”

  It took me a second to realize that his determined look wasn’t so much about what he wanted to say as what he wanted to do.

  Though the windows were grimy, they weren’t opaque. We were visible to anyone who cared to peer inside. I squirmed backwards, putting space between us.

  Intent brown eyes followed my every movement.

  I tried distracting him. “They’re threatening to hurt shifters. Your people. You aren’t okay with that.”

  “They’ll be fine. Even if they get the buildings, the shifters will be safe. We’ll make sure of it. They can always rebuild. Are you really saying I should give you to a council that wants to kill you to protect a few pieces of wood?”

  “When you say it like that, you make it sound crazy.” I raised my eyebrows, daring him to laugh.

  He rolled his eyes. Close enough.

  “What’s your opinion on the new guy?”

  The hint of humor vanished. “We need to be careful. All we’re sure of is he’s a dual magic, and that makes him dangerous. He said there’s a cure, but hasn’t given us any information about it.”

  To be fair, Luke hadn’t ridden with us. When we’d picked up the Airstream and camper from the overhang near his hut, he reclaimed an old Indian motorcycle, a black cruiser with a low seat. From there, he’d led us to this automobile graveyard.

  We were all itching to learn more, but our first priority needed to be ditching the council—and that meant changing vehicles.

  “Hey, I’m dangerous, too.” I stood tall and tried to channel a fraction of Sera or Miriam’s badassery. I suspected there were fluffy bunnies who appeared more threatening than I did at the moment. “Well, I can be.”

  Mac placed his hands on my hips and drew me against his chest. One hand wrapped around my waist, and the other threaded through my hair. His body put off as much heat as any furnace. Although the outside temperature was transitioning from “unbearable” to “hotter than the devil in a Texas sauna,” I felt no desire to move.

  “And being dangerous is the worst thing for you. You don’t need to be that woman, Aidan. Let me be dangerous, instead.”

  Some primitive part of me responded to his vow of protection, but another, much louder part disliked being told to be weaker than I was. Mac was wrong. Until we were all safe again, I did need to be dangerous. I just needed to figure out how to do that without endangering myself as well.

  “What is it?” The words were whispered into my ear, the breath warm.

  I ignored the question. I might not be able to hide my
transparent face, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t allowed some private thoughts.

  “You two planning on breaking it in already?”

  Mac bent his knees slightly, positioning himself to see out of the filthy windows. Luke still leaned against the Pinto.

  “We’re coming out now,” I said, glad for the distraction.

  Instead of moving toward the door, Mac turned his head and captured my lips with his own. My breath stopped for a moment as I forgot where I was or who might be watching, then a melting warmth that had nothing to do with the day’s heat poured through my body. I wrapped both arms around his waist and slipped my hands beneath his t-shirt to feel his back, thickly muscled and damp with sweat. I dug my nails into his skin.

  Mac tilted my head, adjusting the angle, and deepened the kiss. He resisted my efforts to pull him closer, to push the pace into something a bit more frantic, a bit hungrier. Instead, he chose a slow, lazy exploration, and only his hand tightening around my waist hinted at the need building within him.

  My magic rose, fire and water together, and met the small piece I’d left behind the night I healed Mac. They mingled and fed off each other as our lips did the same. Most of the time, I felt fractured, but not with Mac. When Mac touched me, I was whole.

  He ended the kiss, pulling back enough to see me clearly. We wore matching expressions of affection and longing, but there was another emotion on his face, one I knew wasn’t mirrored on mine.

  The bastard looked smug.

  I stepped back, out of arm’s reach. “What, was peeing on me too messy?” I pointedly didn’t check to see if Luke was watching.

  He had the grace not to act confused. “I thought this would be more pleasant.” He smiled. “Are you complaining?”

  I wasn’t entirely sure. The modern feminist side of me was annoyed that he wanted to assert a claim. The primitive side thought it was kind of hot.

  “Have you finished marking your territory?” I said.

  His eyes flashed. “Not even close.” He stepped toward me, erasing the small space I’d bought for myself. “If you check my back, you’ll notice you also marked me.”

  I blew out my breath, hoping to expel some of the rampant lust. “Maybe we can make Miriam steal a van for us.”

  “The kind with curtains in the windows?”

  “And shag carpeting. Hell, yes.” I grinned, almost wishing we weren’t joking.

  Mac and I slept together most nights, but that’s all it was—sleep. In the past, we’d come close to doing a lot more, but that was before I started losing my mind on a regular basis. Until we found a cure, any loss of control, even the good kind, wasn’t an option. I knew Mac agreed. Neither of us made any effort to sneak away from the others for more than a quick word or a few rushed kisses.

  It was the right decision, and it sucked.

  “We should join the others.” I needed to get away from Mac before my libido decided it didn’t give a damn what was going on in my brain.

  Mac blocked the aisle. I pushed him lightly toward the door. He didn’t budge, but he wouldn’t have if I’d put my full strength behind the move.

  He threaded a hand through my hair and pulled me in for another kiss, hard and fast. This one had nothing to do with Luke and everything to do with the two of us. “Soon. Soon you’ll be cured, and the minute that happens, we’re going to discover what we’ve been missing all this time.” Before I could catch my breath, he headed for the door.

  Once my knees were again able to support the rest of my body, I followed.

  I’d only been outside a second before I heard a heartfelt “Damn it!”

  I spun in surprise, unaccustomed to Vivian raising her voice, let alone swearing.

  “What is it?” I asked. “Oh, Vivian. Didn’t we agree…?”

  “You agreed,” she said. Her fingers flew across the keyboard, typing commands the rest of us couldn’t hope to understand.

  “Viv?” Sera came running. “What’s wrong?”

  “Damn it. Damn it!”

  “Is it Olivia?” I was almost afraid to ask about Vivian’s ex-girlfriend, the woman she’d left behind to help us find a cure. “Is the council going after her?”

  “No, no, not that… fuck.”

  Now I was worried. “We’re going to need some verbs, Vivian.”

  She glanced up from her laptop for a second, long enough to find Sera. “You were right. They were using satellite maps to track us.”

  Normally, I didn’t understand the numbers and images that scrolled across the screen while she worked. At that moment, I knew exactly what I was seeing.

  It was a low-quality picture of Vivian, a bit blurry around the edges. The sort of quality found on a photo taken in a moving vehicle. It had been badly Photoshopped so it looked like Vivian was holding a tablet. The tablet screen faced the camera, and the screen held a satellite map. The map indicated our current location.

  “What the fuck, Vivian?” I thought Miriam spoke for all of us. “I thought you said they couldn’t access real-time satellites.”

  “None of the ones I was monitoring,” Vivian’s voice rose in a panic. “I think… this shouldn’t be possible, but they accessed Homeland Security.” Her eyes were wild. “That’s not the worst part. They sent this image to me. To my computer. Whoever did this broke through every protection I set up.”

  Miriam shook her head. “Tell me you’re fucking kidding. Didn’t we count on the council barely understanding how to turn their damn computers on?”

  Vivian gnawed on her lip as the flipped through one screen after another. “It was a reasonable guess. Other than their Swiss bank account, there’s no evidence the council ever went online.”

  “You hacked a Swiss bank account?” Luke gave a low whistle.

  If they knew where we were, we needed to hurry. I imagined the council had already formed a plan B after the disastrous confrontation outside Luke’s hut. “The flash of blue.”

  The others stayed silent, waiting for me to make sense.

  “In the SUV. I thought I saw someone when they opened the door. The person wore blue. Then the council tried to run us over and I kind of forgot about it.”

  Vivian slammed her palm against the ground. “They hired their own freaking hacker. I can do this. I’ll anonymously alert Homeland Security and they’ll break the connection for us. As soon as I figure out how they even got in. Simon, get me another battery pack.”

  “Are they on their way? Do we need to run?” Carmichael’s eyes darted around the yard, perhaps expecting the council to leap out from behind a retired limousine.

  Vivian glanced at another window on her screen. “They’re still fifty miles away. Maybe Aidan scared them enough to give us some space, but they’re telling us we’re not getting a lot of space.”

  While Vivian worked, the rest of us grabbed supplies from the Airstream and camper and loaded up the school bus with several duffel bags. We’d already been traveling light. Now we aimed for spartan.

  Miriam shoved a cooler under the dashboard. It was filled with sandwiches and fruit and, if I knew Miriam, several six-packs of beer. I didn’t argue. We all had our own definition of “necessities.”

  “Hide the vehicles over there.” I pointed. “The Airstream can fit between the moving truck and the pile of… whatever those are. If we pull some sheet metal around it, it can stay hidden for a bit.”

  “No.” Mac was certain.

  “We have to,” I began. “It’s your home, but…”

  “No,” he repeated. “They’ve already seen where we are, so they’ll expect us to switch vehicles. We need to prove them wrong.”

  “We’ll do it.” Carmichael called over his shoulder to Vivian. “Give us ten minutes before you shut them down.”

  “We’re setting a false trail,” Mac explained, loud enough for all to hear. “Maybe they’ll buy it, maybe they won’t, but they’ll at least need to follow the Bronco to be sure we’re not in it.”

  “Good thinking, bear.
” Miriam tossed the Bronco’s keys to Johnson. He caught them one-handed.

  I was less certain. “We split up, we’re less powerful,” I argued. “And these two will be sitting ducks. Sorry, guys.”

  Carmichael wasn’t offended. He’d seen what elementals could do. “And if they do catch us, we’re humans and FBI agents. Agents who check in regularly with our higher-ups. If we disappear, the Bureau will want to learn why. From what you’ve told us, elementals avoid anything that could draw the attention of human authorities.”

  “If the agents return to Tahoe, they would be in a better position to protect our friends,” Simon pointed out. “Even if those friends do not trust humans. Or the FBI. And they may remember that Carmichael almost killed Mac.”

  “No, they should go.” I wished that wasn’t true. “Give us a few minutes to grab some items.”

  Vivian’s face was strained. “I can’t hold the connection very long.”

  In the end, there were no long goodbyes. There were a few handshakes, an overly enthusiastic hug from Miriam for Johnson, and a complicated look between Carmichael and Sera. Carmichael drove the camper van, while Johnson took the Bronco and Airstream. The men adjusted their seats and mirrors, waved goodbye, and pulled out of the junkyard. We saw them turn north, and then they were gone.

  Vivian waited long enough for them to hit the highway, then sent the alert that would have our nation’s primary security agency scrambling to shut down the elementals’ connection. If we were really lucky, they’d also find themselves being interrogated for several days in a windowless room.

  Vivian stood, stretching her muscles for the first time since we arrived at the junkyard. “They may find another connection, but we’ll be far away by then.” Her satisfied smile lasted only so long as it took her computer to emit a single loud beep.

  “No no no,” she whispered, crouching by the machine. “No.”

  We’d thought she was panicked before. We were wrong.

  Her movements were both tiny and frantic. Eyes scanned the screen left to right while her fingers flew across the keys. Windows opened and closed as Vivian typed commands in a language none of us knew. It only took a few minutes, but Vivian grew more desperate with every passing second. When she finally sat back, she looked as exhausted as any marathon runner. Worse, she looked ashamed.