Any Port in a Storm (22 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Gregor follows me all the way home, and I let him come up to the apartment with me. My front door, usually the gateway to peace and serenity and my neglected silk robe, now looms in front of me like a hells-hole. How am I supposed to live with Carrick after this?
 

I remember his touch on my shoulder, that greeting he showed me for the first time just days ago.
 

Nana scampers up to me as soon as my feet hit the white tile in my foyer, her little nose as busy as usual. I can see Carrick in the living room, but I don't make eye contact. Gregor latches the door behind me. The sound traps me in my own home.

My chest feels fluttery, as if Nana's nose and whiskers are in there twitching away. The walls are closer than I want them to be, and unlike Carrick, I can't shimmy down seven stories safely.

He walks toward me with a wariness I don't usually see from him. Behind me, Gregor's footsteps halt on the floor. My eyes want to keep watching my feet, but I force my gaze upward, afraid Carrick will see that I know what really happened at that plantation.

But all I see on his face is concern. "You're okay?"

I nod, not trusting my larynx to form the right sounds. Walking to the couch takes too long. Each second with Gregor at my back makes me feel more exposed. Beyond naked. Skinless.
 

Nana follows me all the way to the sofa. The couch feels too soft. Everything but Nana feels wrong. She doesn't notice, only settles in to nudge a ball around the floor at my feet, her little hops making muted thumps on the carpet. She looks well fed and happy. For that, at least, I can thank Carrick. I look at him, wondering how long they planned this together. And if they wanted me out of the way or dead.

Gregor clears his throat. "You did good, Storme," he says. His voice sounds even more like a bear's growl than it normally does.
 

The chill in my apartment is normal, but today it makes me stifle a shiver.

"Well, not dead is a good way to end the day," I say as lightly as I can.

"Can it, Storme, I'm trying to give you a compliment."

This is an interesting strategy. I give him a fake smile, knowing he'll just take it as me being a smart-ass.

If only I didn't feel like throwing up at the memory of all the bodies piled around the plantation guest house.
 

"What happened after I left?" I ask. Maybe if I keep them talking, I won't have to.

"I went looking for you," Carrick says. He's not looking at me though; he's looking at Gregor. Something passes between them, and my muscles tense up, but this doesn't feel like conspiracy territory to me. It feels like something else.

Gregor gives the tiniest shake of his head, and Carrick's pupils dilate, the rest of his body very still.

"I have to tell you something," Carrick says.

Gregor gets up from his chair and paces by the breakfast bar. I ignore him.
 

When Carrick is still silent a moment later, I poke him in the ribs. He has yellowing bruises across his torso in the shape of a baseball bat. I feel a surprising wave of respect for any hells-worshipper who would go at a shade with a bat. That takes guts and a distinct lack of smarts.
 

"Miles is dead," says Carrick, and any respect or amusement I felt vanishes into the air conditioned box of my apartment.

I can hear the whir of the HVAC and Gregor's raspy breathing. Nana's whiskers tickle my foot as the ball bumps into it.
 

My throat crawls as if worms are tracing the length of it, squiggling and writhing. I want to throw up. I can't speak.

"I'm sorry." Carrick reaches out as if he's going to take my hand, but something makes him stop.

The thoughts in my head bump into each other like bumper cars. How did this happen? Miles is — was — competent and savvy. He knew how to stay out of the way and to find his own ground, and when he found it, he was unstoppable.

How quickly the past tense comes.

Miles. Dead.

And then, a moment later, when my eyes fall on Gregor's feet, I forget to breathe.

Did he do this? Did Carrick?
 

I can't read Carrick well enough to know lies from truth. The other shades are terrible at lying, but he's had four hundred years of practice. When I make myself look at him, eyes burning but dry, his face is earnest, the crease in his forehead pronounced with worry.

I get up from the couch, toes sinking into the soft white carpet.
 

"I need to be alone," I say.

"Ayala, you're still injured," Gregor says. He makes a move toward me, and I freeze.
 

"I'm fine. I'm going to bed."

"It's noon."

"It's Sunday," I counter. "I can go to bed at noon on Sunday if I damn well please. I'm going to rest. For my injury."
 

The anger in my words is no act, and I scoop up Nana, ignoring her flails. She hates being picked up. I stalk to my room and shut the door behind me with my foot, putting Nana on her bed next to mine.
 

I sit down, wondering how I am going to live here with one man who might be made of lies and working for another who deserves a prize for his.

I can't even call Alamea.

I sit there, the thought of Miles dead and torn apart sapping every ounce of comfort from me.

I want to cry.

The tears don't come.

When I get to the Summit Monday at noon, the Mitten at the front desk — I don't know her name — stops me. Her eyes are all a-sparkle with excitement.

"Everybody's talking about it," she says. "Did you really kill all them demons yourself?"

My shoes skid on the marble floor. Sunlight filters in through the skylight above, and the floor reflects enough to cast my startled face back at me. I always forget about that damn skylight. I'm usually here at night.
 

"Uh," I say.

"You really did!" The Mitten actually claps her small hands together. "And Gregor — he tried so hard to protect those —"

The girl cuts off sharply with a squeak as the click of heels sounds in the lobby.

I don't have to turn to know it's Alamea. The Mitten sits back in her chair with a thump and starts furiously typing at her computer.

It'd be more believable if her fingers weren't situated between the number row and the QWERTY row.
 

Without a word, Alamea nods at me and pivots on her heel. I follow with a knowing wink at the Mitten, though her little outburst unsettles me. I don't have time to think about it.
 

Alamea isn't walking in the direction of the elevators. How she walks in those four inch spikes on the polished marble without breaking a kneecap is beyond me. I follow her down a side corridor, and when a glint of memory resurfaces with a shift of the air and a smell I can't quite place, a sheen of perspiration begins on my upper lip. She leads me to a smaller bank of elevators and presses the button. There's only one. Down.

My feet feel like rubber as the realization sinks in. The sliding doors open, and I have to walk in. Inside the elevator is a keypad. Alamea makes eye contact with me, and when she's sure I'm watching, she clearly and slowly enters the code with one long finger. 743367. She presses the button for sublevel four, and we start moving.

I've been here before. Even though I was kept blindfolded, I feel a strange hum that is at once familiar and terrifying. I know what's down here: the grey-walled honeycomb of doom. Last time I was here, it was as a prisoner in one of the cells.

No honey, either.

Also, thank the gods, no bees.

Alamea still doesn't speak as the elevator doors open with a hiss.

Stepping out into the grey corridor, all my strength goes to putting one foot in front of the other.
 

The walls have that faint shimmer. Around me, they turn at strange, obtuse angles. Behind me, the elevators are gone, replaced by that same identical grey, flat and seamless.

The perspiration on my lip forms beads.

Alamea starts walking. I don't know where she's going down here. It's impossible to know if even she knows; the walls bear no markings, no direction, no indicators. There are no emergency exits, no variations, no handy ball of string to guide you.

For several minutes, we just walk. My apprehension grows with every step. Even the sounds of our footfalls feel wrong. The noise ricochets in a way I instinctively feel it shouldn't, coming back to me and escaping at once like a boomerang in a dream I can't quite remember.

It's not hot down here, but I'm sweating like a hog in a hot spring.

Alamea finally stops in front of a wall. Her hand goes straight to an unmarked place at chest level — and the wall opens.

She goes right in.

I stop in the threshold.

I don't know if I can walk back into one of these cells or if I can trust Alamea not to close that seamless grey wall behind me.
 

743367.

She wanted me to see that code. For whatever reason, she wanted me to know it.
 

If this is just a trap to get me in the cell with her and she closes the door? She's going to rue the moment she had the idea to lock herself in with me.

I step through the threshold and stay there with my back to it. She's in the center of the cell.
 

"Ayala," she says quietly. "I need to close it."

"No." I swallow, making myself look only at her and not at the cell surrounding her.
 

She takes a step toward me, and I take a step back. For a flash of a moment, I regret not wearing my sword belt. I've only got my two knives stashed in my boots and one at the small of my back. I'm in jeans, not leathers, but I'm never unarmed.

Faster than I could expect in those damned heels, Alamea darts around me and hits the edge of the opening with her fist. I react without thinking, sweeping my leg under hers and knocking her to the floor.
 

It's too late. The wall is shut, and we are enclosed in a seamless grey honeycomb cell.

It's then I realize Alamea isn't fighting me back.

Instead, she watches me calmly from the floor, eyes wary, massaging her elbow where it hit the ground.

"We have seven minutes before the sensors pick up that there are people in here and surveillance turns on, so you need to listen to me now."

I'm stuck in a prison cell four stories below the surface; I'm not sure I have another choice.

Alamea gets to her feet and pulls something from her pocket. Two identical somethings. She hands one to me.

It's small and circular, like a lid to a bottle of Coke. It's all black, though, and the edges are curved and sleek. It reminds me a little of the beacons we use.
 

She points to the walls, her arm moving across the entire room. "Each one of these is a door if you know how to open it. I will show you how to get out of any one of these cells and find your way back out to the exits."

Alarmed, I look back and forth between her and the device in my hand. "Why are you telling me this?"

But I know, even before she responds.

"There is a possibility that some are seeking to have me removed as Summit leader," she says, her voice far more serene than mine would be in such a situation.

There is no stepping down for Summit leaders. If there's a coup, she won't be imprisoned. She'll be beheaded. I'll be the one they throw down here, and she's teaching me how to get out.

Fuck me.

"It may not happen, but if it does, it could happen at any moment. I thought this information could be important to you."

That's a nice way of saying,
I don't want you locked away down here forever.

"Why me?"

She gives me a wry smile. "Lack of other options."

"Thanks awfully."

"Not only that, but your recent experience showed me that you weren't allied with Gregor. It also puts you in an excellent position to relay information about his plans to me. It's unlikely he'll let anything important slip in front of you, but even he gets sloppy now and then." Alamea points me toward the far wall opposite where we came in. "I want to trust you, Ayala. At the moment I need to trust you. Forgive me."

"For what?"

"For putting you in this cell once before."

She brought me back to the exact same cell? I wipe away the perspiration from my lip. I'll be damned. I'm not sure which news is stranger: being back in the same cell, or Alamea apologizing.

"You were doing what you thought was best," I say finally. She was, and it was mostly Ben's fault anyway.
 

"I shouldn't have had Wheedle spying on you. His emotions clouded his judgement and affected his relaying of information. I think also jealousy may have played a part." She quirks an amused eyebrow, and I know she's referring to Mason.

"Ben needs to fall into a pit," I mutter.

"Yes, well. I believe I'm starting to agree with you." Her tone is lighthearted, but her eyes seem to look through the wall in front of us. She pauses for a moment, and I can almost hear the buzz of her mind thinking. Alamea turns to me.