Adamant (23 page)

“Thank God,” said Jeth.

That still left the obvious question of where we were going next. Jeth had had the presence of mind to retrieve our packed rucksacks from the carnage of the fight, but none of us had a lot of cash. We could either hole up in a hotel for the night, or risk going home. But we might be attacked again. Was anywhere really safe now?

“I’m not leaving,” said Alber, when I brought this up. “I’m staying with Nell.”

“I’m not letting you stay here alone,” said Jeth. “Look, after visiting hours close, we’ll just have to go home. Nell was being paranoid, but the house is pretty secure. You know it is. Ada, you’re really going to the Alliance tomorrow?”

“I guess so,” I said. My chest tightened at the thought. And yet… it might be my chance to make a difference. For real. I might even find out what had really happened to me on Enzar, too.

At that moment, Kay came back into the room, stowing his communicator in the inside pocket of his leather-style jacket. I wouldn’t have minded owning one of those. It was pretty snazzy, not to mention it didn’t have so much as a mark from the fight earlier.

“What was that about?” Jeth asked, eying him with distrust.

“Just made a phone call,” said Kay. “There’s a safe house run by the New York Alliance. You can get there through the Passages. If you know anyone who needs somewhere to stay, I can just ask.”

My mouth fell open. “You’re serious?”

“Of course.”

“Wait,
what
is going on?” asked Jeth.

“The Alliance branch over in America has a safe house for refugees,” said Kay. “I don’t expect you to believe me, but here.” And he handed me his communicator. My eyes practically bugged out, and it took a moment to focus on the screen. Contact details. I scrolled through, disbelief building by the second. Photos. Of… people from offworld. Karthos. Zanthar. This place was legit.

“Thought you might have been listening in,” he said. “I can ask Simon to talk to you directly, if you need any more proof.”

“That’s…”

I jumped when his fingers brushed mine as he took the communicator from my hand before I dropped it. I hadn’t even realised my grip was slipping—hell, I was losing my grip on
reality.

“You’re kidding,” said Alber, staring at Kay. “He’s tricking you or something.”

“So little faith,” said Kay. “What are you doing now, anyway?” He directed the question at me.

“I don’t know. Staying here, I guess. Nell needs us. Well, she will when she wakes up.”

“That won’t be for a while,” said Jeth. “They might kick us out first.”

“Then I’ll camp out on the floor,” said Alber. “Ada’s with me, right?”

“Um…” Central was miles away from here, and Kay’s watching me didn’t make it any easier to think clearly. “Maybe we should go home. I’ll catch the train to Central in the morning.”

“The house… I don’t know,” said Jeth. “I’m tempted to be over-cautious and go to the Knights’ place or something. They’re still secure.”

“Yeah, but they’re miles away,” I said. “It’d be a pain to get to Central from there.”

“You could always come back to my place,” said Kay, directing this at me.

Wait, what?

He read my expression before I could speak. “It’s the only place I can think of where we can stay under the radar. Someone attacked you, and if you travel across London on your own, it might well happen again. I can drive you there, and I have authorised access to Central any time. We can get this mess sorted as soon as the council check in, before it draws any more attention—I’m pretty sure you don’t want another spectacle. There are enough rumours already.”

I shook my head. Started to speak, then realised I didn’t have a clue what I intended to say.

“No freaking way,” said Alber. “I bet you’re planning to murder her. Well, she can kill you with her bare hands.”

Kay actually laughed. “I don’t doubt that,” he said. “Just a suggestion, that’s all.”

“Where do you live?” I asked.

“Ten-minute drive from Central.”

I bit my lip. Of course he wasn’t a serial killer, but did that mean I was willing to trust him? He worked for the Alliance.

He’d offered to help me, help the refugees, in a way I’d never thought anyone could, even after I’d acted like a total ass, insulted and attacked him. What the hell was this?

Alber interrupted the silence. “Jesus, Ada, I know you have bad taste in guys, but this is ridiculous.”

My jaw dropped. “You did not just say that.” I punched my brother in the shoulder. Hard.

“Ouch! I was just messing with—gah!” I had him in one of Nell’s infamous headlocks in a heartbeat.

Kay, who hadn’t reacted at all to Alber’s comment, now looked amused. Which made me even more annoyed. “Don’t flatter yourself,” I shot at him. “I’m not interested in Alliance guards. My brother’s a total ass who’s going to apologise right now, aren’t you?”

“Gah—all right! I’m sorry. Jesus.” Alber rubbed his neck. “That was uncalled for.”

“So was that a yes or a no?” Kay inquired. “For the record, I’m not at all interested in magic-wielders.” Huh. I’d expected him to say
criminals,
not magic-wielders.

“Good.” I glared at him. “What’re you going to do if I say no?”

“Absolutely nothing.”

“And if I say yes?”

“What I said. Drive you back with me. Not murder you in your sleep. No offence, but you look like you’re about to crash.”

“That
was
offensive,” I said. “But all right. Fine.” Maybe I was tripping out from sheer tiredness. I hadn’t slept all night, and it had been a hell of a long day. One freaking bombshell after another.

Maybe I just wanted this whole fiasco dealt with. Like he’d said, I’d made a pretty big spectacle of myself already. Everyone would know who I was, who my family were. They probably thought I was a lunatic, if not a criminal. If I could really clear my name, clear Nell’s, then things could go back to normal. I didn’t
have
to join the Alliance.

I really did have a choice in the matter.

And okay, maybe one percent of me was the tiniest bit curious to learn about the Alliance guard who’d gone from enemy to possible ally within the space of only a few hours.

***

This had to be some bizarre dream. I sat in the front of Kay Walker’s flashy red car as he steered through late-night London traffic. I hadn’t a clue what to say, and Kay seemed content to drive in silence—apart from occasionally cursing at particularly idiotic drivers.

“Damn city drivers,” he muttered, tapping his fingers on the dashboard.

“You’re not from the city?”

“I grew up on the outskirts,” he said, not elaborating.

“The Academy’s… south of London, isn’t it?” I said. “I’ve never been, but Nell used to talk about it.” I bit my lip. Shouldn’t have mentioned Nell. I looked down, but Kay’s eyes were on the road anyway.

He nodded. But didn’t say a word.

Gotta love awkward silences. I fidgeted, watching the traffic instead, the ordinary streets, shops, chattering people boarding red buses, thronging the pavements. People who had no clue what insanity was happening so close by. Outside the Alliance, did anyone know at all? Nell had got all our information from contacts, like Skyla, who relentlessly spied on Central. Back before all this craziness, that was all I’d known—secrecy. I could never tell anyone who, what, I really was.

Kay knew. More than I’d ever intended to tell anyone. And it was only now occurring to me that I knew nothing about him. At all. Including why the hell he’d taken it upon himself to help me, after everything that had happened. I glanced at him out the corner of my eye. He looked… tired? Sad? I couldn’t tell.

Before I could think of anything intelligent to say, he stopped the car next to a row of apartments.

I didn’t know what to expect of Kay’s house. Living in central London wasn’t cheap, and Academy graduates were usually loaded. But his studio flat was pretty modest. Top floor, up four flights of stairs. I was about ready to collapse by the time we reached the room, but I didn’t say a word and followed him into the apartment. First time I’d ever been to a guy’s flat, seeing as most of the guys I’d dated had still lived with their parents. As for my two brothers, Alber’s room was a no-go area, and Jeth’s was the kind of organised chaos only a tech geek could achieve. Kay, though…his one-room apartment was spotless. Almost too clean. The fitted wooden furniture was bare, save for a flat-screen TV on the desk, couch in front. Kitchenette off to the side, bathroom through another door. Nothing lay on the floor, no discarded clothes or anything. No girlfriend, I thought. A handful of boxes were stacked in one corner, next to a punch bag.

“Don’t you have…anything else?” I said, lamely.

“It’s a new apartment,” he said, shrugging off his jacket. “I just moved in a week ago, I’ve been at Central most of the time.”

I felt a rush of homesickness for my own cupboard-sized room, stars on the ceiling and all. Would I ever get to go back?

“Wow,” I said, not sure what else to say. I dropped my rucksack to the floor. “Damn. What a day.”

“I was going to order takeout Chinese. Want some?”

“God. Yes.”

As he dug in his jacket pocket for his communicator, I saw a mark on his left arm that I thought at first glance was a tattoo—but it was a scar, a deep line that ended in a jagged mark on his forearm. What had done that? It wasn’t recent, though it looked painful. As he moved, I saw it was on both sides of his arm, like a sharp claw had stabbed right through it.

Ouch
. I turned my back and nosed around some more while he dialled the number, peering into boxes. Books, mostly. Offworld dictionaries? Academy graduation certificate—damn, he really had just graduated. With top grades.

“What are you doing?”

“Being curious,” I said, shamelessly. “About what Alliance guards do when they’re not beating up monsters or arresting people.”

“We’re not that interesting,” said Kay. “Don’t touch that.”

Whoa. “I’m touching nothing.”

“Good. I have those arranged alphabetically.”

I burst out laughing. “Sorry,” I said. “Wait—you’re not serious.”

“Maybe a little.” The slightest smile lifted the corner of his mouth.

I turned back to the boxes. “Tell me that isn’t the collector’s edition of Tolkien’s
The Lord of the Rings.
Because I might just kill you if it is.”

He was the one to laugh this time. “I’m terrified. That’s what I told you not to touch, by the way.”

“Really? Hmm. Didn’t figure it was your thing.”

“Call it a guilty pleasure.”

“I lent my copy to Delta—my friend from Valeria,” I explained. “Most of the stuff he gives me doesn’t work on Earth, though.” I stopped myself before I said anymore. For someone who’d spent her life keeping secrets, I was crap at not letting information slip lately.

“Valeria?” Kay said. “You’ve not been there. No, you said you hadn’t been offworld.”

“Believe me, I’ve tried to persuade him to sneak me in a dozen times,” I said. “I mean, they have freaking
hover cars.
And hover boots now, too. I’m going there someday, no matter what.”

“How were you planning on doing that?” he asked. “Not to judge or anything. I’m intending to get on a mission to Valeria as soon as I make Ambassador. That is, if this mess doesn’t cost me my job.”

Crap. We were back to that again. Kay looked like he regretted mentioning it. I fell silent, and Kay started pacing the room, like he had in my prison cell—had that really only been yesterday?

I stood, leaving the boxes, and went to check through my bag again.

“You can crash on the bed,” he said. “I don’t mind.”

Well, that was something. And I
did
feel like crashing. I’d been running on pure adrenaline all day.

I managed to rouse myself when the food arrived, the TV playing some old action flick in the background. Kay looked like he was avoiding my eyes, and gave me privacy to go and clean myself up in the bathroom. I’d acquired more bruises, and my knees were scraped raw, but I’d had worse injuries in Nell’s intense training classes. Thank the gods I’d had the sense not to pack the blue rabbit-patterned pyjamas. Because that really wasn’t a level of embarrassment I was ready to handle—this was awkward enough already.

Naturally, because I was trying not to think about it, I wondered how many other girls he’d brought back home. Wait, new apartment. Where did he live when he was at the Academy, then? It was like a university, so probably campus accommodation. And before then? Who were his parents?

Cut that out, Ada,
I told myself. Now was not the time to get overly curious about Kay Walker. We were from different worlds. Though I couldn’t help imagining how Nell would react if I started dating an Alliance employee. She’d interrogated most of my exes, actually scared a couple of them off. Kind of depressing, really. Sign up for an overprotective guardian who assumes everyone’s a murderer in disguise.