Call Out (28 page)

I tried to clean myself up, but my hands
didn’t seem to want to obey the commands from my brain. London
ended up washing my hair and soaping my skin. The act should have
been sexy as hell, but under the circumstances, I didn’t feel much
of anything.

Once we were clean and dry, London draped my
amulet around my neck and pulled me down onto the bed to snuggle,
still naked. It wasn’t about sex, but about comfort, about the
simple, basic need to hold and be held. Sometime later, I slept
–fitfully- my sleep punctuated with nightmares. Only after the sun
had risen did we both finally fall into the deep, restful sleep of
sheer exhaustion.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

When I woke, the daylight was fading and I
was alone. Memories of the night before filled my head, but I
shoved them away as best I could and climbed out of bed. Someone
had been kind enough to find clothes for me and leave them where I
could find them. I carried them into the bathroom with me, and by
the time I started dragging them on I was awake enough to realize
that my nameless benefactor hadn’t bothered to include a bra. Not
Dylan then. I frowned at my Medusa-like reflection and ran a brush
– not mine, but I didn’t give a damn – through my hair. It didn’t
help much, but at least I could say I tried.

I wandered into the living room where I found
London and Ashe deep in conversation – conversation that halted as
soon as I walked through the doorway. Ashe turned to see what had
interrupted their discussion and gave me a smile.

“Come join us,” he said, and I crossed the
room toward the couch where they were sitting.

As I moved past Ashe, he pulled me down to
cuddle on his lap. It didn’t feel the least bit sexual or romantic,
more like my vague memories of my dad holding me when I was little.
London took my hand and leaned in to kiss me. They were treating me
like I was fragile, and I wanted to be pissed about it but couldn’t
summon the energy to care. I leaned against Ashe and closed my
eyes, an action which I immediately regretted.

The nightmare images from the night before
flooded back into my mind. Brian’s seizure, Adrian crumpled on the
floor beneath a pile of rubble, the gaping hole in Quinn’s
shoulder, his blood on my hands, and, most of all, the surprised
look on Julia’s face and the wounds that had blossomed on her
chest. I started shaking, and it only got worse when I remembered
Peterson’s absence the night before and what it must mean.

“Ron’s dead, isn’t he?” I asked.

Ashe held me closer, like he could stop my
shaking through sheer force of will, and London gripped my hand a
little tighter.

“Doc Amy says he never even knew what hit
him,” Ashe said. “He didn’t suffer and he never had a chance to be
afraid. It’s not much comfort, but we take what we can get.”

Tears blurred my vision and burned my nose. I
hadn’t known Ron Peterson well, but he’d been a decent guy. He
hadn’t deserved to die, for sure. I wondered if he had a family,
and said a silent prayer for everyone who would have to face life
without him in it.

“Where’s everyone else?” I asked as London
brushed tears from my cheek.

“Here and there,” Ashe said before London
could answer. “Carmichael’s holed up in one of the bedrooms with a
fifth of whiskey. He’s convinced that Ronnie knew what he was
setting himself up for when they traded places. And hell, he might
even be right. Ron had a knack for prescience. Might have been he
knew the risk he was taking.”

“Everyone else is at the hospital,” London
added. “They’re releasing Adrian today, and Quinn’s apparently
flirting with all the nurses.”

“And Brian?”

“He’s not doing so great,” London said,
looking away.

Ashe tightened the arm around my shoulders,
giving me a little squeeze. “What your idiot boyfriend meant to say
is that Brian’s got a long recovery ahead of him. He’s not in any
danger. He’s gonna be all right.”

I leaned my head against the back of the
couch, my face half-buried in Ashe’s hair. It was the first time
I’d seen it down instead of tied back. Up this close it was more
blond than grey and smelled like summertime.

“The doctors aren’t sure how ‘all right’ he’s
going to be,” London added. “Right now, it’s not looking too
good.”

“He’s still breathing, Stretch,” Ashe said.
“And he’s got that pretty little blonde of his to play nurse for
him. He could be doing a lot worse.”

“And he has hope,” another voice chimed in
from somewhere. I lifted my head to smile at Adrian. He was moving
slowly, like every step hurt, which it probably did, but he smiled
back at me. “He’s getting better, London,” he added. “I’m sure
he’ll be fine.”

“What are you guys not saying?” I asked.

Adrian eased himself down onto the sofa. He
looked at Ashe and at London, studying their expressions, and then
answered me.

“Whatever Julia did to him caused some
neurological damage. His brain’s been pretty fuzzy, but that’s
improved a lot.”

“That’s good,” London interrupted. “Last I
heard, he wasn’t even recognizing anyone.”

“Yeah, that’s gone. His head’s clearing. And
the rest of it...well he’s taking it in stride. He says he’s happy
just to still be alive.”

“Rest of what?” I demanded.

Adrian took a deep breath, winced, and blew
it out. “His fine motor control is shot to hell.”

And just like that my tears were back. I
covered my face with one hand and buried it in Ashe’s hair. Brian
without the ability to play his guitar....

Music was his greatest love, next to Dylan.
It was more than just a hobby or a job, it was how he dealt with
his emotions, how he connected to the world, how he expressed
himself. His music was the core of who he was. Without it, I wasn’t
sure what would happen to him. I didn’t figure it could be anything
good.

“He’s gonna be okay, princess,” Ashe said,
stroking my hair. “One way or another, he’s gonna be just
fine.”

I just held on to Ashe and cried until I
couldn’t anymore, grateful for his and London’s efforts to comfort
me even though they didn’t do a damn bit of good. Maybe later I
would be able to believe that Brian would be all right, but just
then I didn’t think anything would be okay ever again.

After I’d cried myself out and washed away
the tears, I felt more in control. I marched back into the living
room, ready to demand to be taken up to the hospital, but the sight
of Martine sitting on the sofa next to Adrian stopped me.

“Where did you come from?” I asked
instead.

A smile curved her lips ever so slightly.
“The hospital,” she said. “I brought Adrian home, but I stopped to
talk to the investigations team.”

“The what?”

Her eyes flickered to Ashe and then back to
me, her smile fading.

“We hadn’t gotten that far,” Ashe said. He
held out his hand to me, and I took it, but I slid down into the
tiny space between him and London rather than curling up in Ashe’s
lap again.

“This place has been crawling with agents,”
London said.

“So much for staying under the radar, huh?” I
snuggled against London, and he hugged me to him.

Martine’s smile was back. “I can make sure
any file on London mysteriously disappears.”

“What has your team found out?” Ashe
interrupted. “They won’t tell me a damn thing.”

“Did you think they would?”

She launched into a detailed recap of
everything that the army of agents had learned, and I managed to
dig the pertinent information out of the avalanche of data: the
explosion had been caused by good old-fashioned explosives rather
than magic; Quinn and Peterson had been shot by rounds from some
sort of high-powered, long-range sniper rifle; between logic and
what Vanessa had told Martine, she’d determined that the two agents
had been targeted because they presented a double threat, wielding
both martial magic and mundane weaponry; and Julia wasn’t working
alone, but with a man who seemed to be her lover or boyfriend or
maybe something more.

“Wait, whoa,” I said. “Vanessa? When did you
talk to Vanessa?”

“She was waiting for the field team last
night,” Ashe explained. “It was her, not Julia, that they spotted.
One hell of a glamour enchantment laid on her, but it didn’t fool
Carmichael for a second.”

“We took Vanessa into custody,” Martine
added. “I questioned her. It was difficult to sort out the facts
from the fantasy, but I don’t believe that the man she mentioned –
the co-conspirator – is a figment of her deluded mind.”

“What’s going to happen to her?” I asked,
pressing closer to London.

“Likely she will spend a long time in a
mental facility. Perhaps they can even help her.”

London tried to speak, but his voice cracked.
A moment later, he tried again. “Do you have any idea who the man
she mentioned might be?”

“None at all,” Martine said with a slight
shake of her head. “But if he exists....”

“Then this isn’t over,” I said, my voice
little more than a whisper.

“That may not be true,” Martine said. “From
what Vanessa said – which may not be entirely accurate – calling
out London was all Julia. The man in question helped her, but only
because he thought London might be a useful part of a larger plan.
Essentially, he didn’t care whether London was on board.”

“So....what? We spend the rest of our lives
looking over one shoulder?”

“It’s that or live with a guard detail from
the agency,” Ashe said. “It’s your choice, but I’d choose a little
healthy paranoia.”

“I’m okay with that,” Adrian said.

I thought about it for a moment and then
nodded. “Me, too.”

Martine looked pleased. I guess she agreed
with Ashe that paranoia beat hell out of an agency detail.

“If you guys are done heaping bad news on my
head, I’d really like to go to the hospital. I need to see Dylan
and the boys. And I’m sure Dylan needs me, too.”

Adrian nodded. “She’s been missing you.”

Ashe took my hand again and gave it a little
squeeze. “Actually, princess, we’re not quite done here.”

Martine looked puzzled, and Adrian concerned.
Neither of them knew what was going on either, but that didn’t make
me feel any better. I felt even worse when London inched away from
me to sit on the opposite end of the sofa. I looked over at him,
but he was staring at his clasped hands where they hung between his
knees.

London just looked at his hands for a minute,
then moistened his lips and ran his hands up and down the thighs of
his jeans. He opened his mouth to speak a couple of times, but he
couldn’t seem to find any words. Finally he shook his head and went
back to staring at his hands.

“Right there at the end,” Ashe said, his
voice hushed in the quiet room, “Julia sent London another
projection. Another threat.”

“There was a little girl,” London said. “She
said...she said I wouldn’t like the consequences if I didn’t
cooperate. I couldn’t....”

“She threatened violence against a child?”
Martine snapped.

“Not...I don’t know. I don’t know what she
was threatening. But...she....” He broke off, repeating the nervous
thigh-rubbing gesture before sitting back and tilting his head so
that he was staring up at the ceiling. “The sending sort of implied
that the little girl is mine. Mine and Julia’s.”

Ashe’s arms wrapped around me, maybe to
comfort me, maybe to keep me from bolting. “If she even exists,” he
said.

“I know, I know. I was listening. But I have
to know the truth. I have to try to find her.”

Adrian and Martine both agreed at once. I
agreed, too, but I was too much in shock to say it aloud, and by
the time the world finally righted itself, the moment was long
gone.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

London and I visited Brian in the hospital.
Brian was in good spirits, despite his health problems. His speech
was slightly slurred, his movements jerky and painstaking. As much
as it hurt me to see him like that, I knew it had to be worse for
Dylan.

While London filled Brian in on everything
he’d missed, Dylan and I wandered the hospital hallways in search
of caffeine and chocolate.

“I’m going to LA,” Dylan told me as she
twisted the cap off her Coke.

“That’s not news, hon. Let me know what I can
do to help with the move.”

And that’s when Dylan did something I’d
rarely, if ever, seen her do. She burst into tears. I hugged her
for a long time, fighting a losing battle against my own tears.

Afterward, we wiped our eyes and noses on
cheap dispenser napkins and drowned our sorrows in Reese’s Peanut
Butter Cups. It’s cheaper than liquor, and works a helluva lot
better.

It’d be hard, being that far away from my
evil twin. But I knew it was time for the next chapter in her
adventure, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to stand in her way –
especially when Brian needed her so much more than I did, at least
at the moment.

“What about you?” Dylan asked, licking
chocolate off the peanut butter cup wrapper. “Any chance I can
convince you to come to LA after you graduate?”

I shrugged. “Depends on where I find a job.
And anyway, I still have that damned internship to get through. I
won’t be joining you for a while, I don’t think.”

“Brian knows a lot of people....” she
began.

“Don’t even start,” I said. “I’m going to get
an internship – and a job – based on my own merit or go live under
a bridge. I don’t do charity any more than you do.”

“It’s not charity. It’s networking.”

“Whatever. I still say ‘no’.”

Dylan sighed. “I’m going to keep asking until
you change your mind.”

“Fair enough,” I said, taking a swig of her
Coke. “Ugh. Doesn’t go well with chocolate.”

After we’d finished our junk food binge,
Dylan and I went back up to Brian’s room. After a while, Dylan
urged us to go home and sleep, saying there wasn’t anything we
could do for them at the moment. London and I said our goodbyes and
looked in on Quinn, who was sleeping, before heading back to the
safe house.