Changeling (10 page)

It wasn’t enough. My knees gave out, and I slumped to the tiled floor, water dribbling down my face and into the sweatshirt’s collar. My lungs seized and a sob erupted, echoing around the small public bathroom. A second followed. I slapped both hands over my mouth, but couldn’t stop the torrent.

I cried on my knees, as silently as I could, for what felt like hours. Maybe only minutes passed, I didn’t know. It didn’t seem to matter. The tears burned my eyes, unnaturally hot. It could have been my powers, or my body expelling the chemicals it had absorbed, ridding me of them the only way it knew how. The body expels its poisons, heals itself.

The soul takes a little more work.

The bathroom door squealed open. I scrambled to my
feet, heart pounding, nose stuffed. Flex stepped around the divider, took in my state with a single, careless once-over, and frowned.

“Pull yourself together, Ember,” she snapped. “She’s not dead, and you’re in here bawling like you’re planning her funeral.”

Her words stung. I turned away, facing the mirror and sink. She continued to watch me with a disapproving glare. I didn’t have the energy to wage a verbal battle with her. Let her think whatever; I no longer cared.

“I’ll be right there,” I said.

“Good. The doctor’s coming in a few minutes. Wipe your face and come out when you don’t look like you’ll break into a hundred pieces.” With those precious parting shots she was gone. The door squealed shut behind her.

I stared at my own reflection, at my red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes and puffy cheeks, and couldn’t manage any anger. Flex could hate me for crying. She could hate me for showing weakness, but at least I had emotions. I showed my emotions, instead of keeping them bottled up like warm champagne. Sooner or later, Flex would pop, and the mess would be ugly.

Water adjusted to cold, I splashed it a few more times, and then patted my skin dry with paper towels. I blew my nose, relieving some of the pressure in my aching head. Aspirin was definitely next on the list of required items. I also wanted a rubber band to secure my dirty hair up and away. A pencil would do, but the bathroom offered nothing useful. Second thing to find right away.

My appearance was as good as it would get without supplies. I left the restroom, bypassed the growing gaggle of reporters, and navigated back to our corner. Our group had grown by one. I froze when the new arrival stood up, struck dumb by her presence.

Agent Rita McNally stood there, in a gray skirt and suit jacket, her silver-blond hair as perfectly coiffed as the first day we met. She continued to work for the Los Angeles branch of the ATF, which kept her nearby, a loyal friend to our squad of freelance heroes. Seeing her there made the situation seem much more dire.

“Hi, sunshine,” she said. “I hear you were quite the hero today.”

“So they tell me,” I said.

Heads turned. A female doctor in bloodstained scrubs strode toward us with a very pale Cipher in tow. He walked stiffly, hands by his sides and clenched into white-knuckled fists. Tension bracketed his mouth and lined his eyes. He seemed breakable—a description I’d never before associated with Gage McAllister.

“She’s stable,” the doctor said. “And she’s on her way up to surgery to repair the damage. The bullet missed major arteries. However, it nicked her right lung and caused minor internal bleeding. We’re transfusing her, and we’re very hopeful.”

“What’s hopeful?” Flex asked.

“The odds are in her favor. I don’t want to get specific until after she’s through surgery. Now, there’s a waiting room upstairs that one of our interns can take you to, if you’d rather have some privacy.” She glanced around the filling ER waiting
room. “Dr. Patrick Shelby is Trance’s surgeon. He’ll speak with you when it’s over.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Cipher said mechanically. He seemed to be running on autopilot, not quite aware of his surroundings.

She nodded and removed herself from the group. Flex started to follow. Cipher put his arm out, stopping her. She glared at him. Some of the frost in her stare melted a bit when she met his eyes. They were heartbreaking, raw.

“We don’t all have to stay,” he said. “She’ll probably be in surgery for a couple of hours, if anyone wants to go home. Change or eat or something.”

No one volunteered. Hours or days, we were there until we had news. Good or bad. Our leader’s fate lay in the hands of the City of Angels surgical team.

Eight

Surgical Floor

T
he waiting room on the surgical floor was devoid of good distractions. Maybe they did that on purpose, so nervous families could huddle together and talk, offer up prayers, and think good thoughts about the patients in the surgical suites down the hall. It was an enclosed room, with a single door and two rows of chairs. A central coffee table held an array of nature and household magazines, and a few old newspapers. The blinds were drawn, save the single panel on the door, keeping prying eyes out.

Detective Forney placed a pair of uniformed officers at both elevators, checking everyone without a hospital ID before they were allowed near the waiting room. Reporters were known for doing pretty sneaky things, and we didn’t want guerilla photographs ending up on anyone’s front page tomorrow. Forney herself had taken a call twenty minutes ago and headed out, promising that she or Pascal would call if something else turned up on . . . well, anything.

Gage filled the room with his nervous energy. He’d removed his uniform jacket, and pounded the length of the
floor in a blue undershirt that displayed every tense, bunched muscle in his torso and arms. He wouldn’t engage in conversation; he just paced. The scar on his throat, a pale reminder of a near-fatal wound of his own, fairly glowed against the agitated flush on his skin.

Renee, Marco, and McNally huddled in one of the corners, chatting quietly. Too quietly to pick up any hint of the topic, but the frequent, furtive glances in my direction suggested one. I wanted to know why I was so interesting. Perhaps because I was on the floor, in the opposite corner, arms wrapped tight around my knees. I’d given up on the magazines, and at least from that position, I couldn’t watch the clock tick down endless minutes.

Three hours had passed, and nothing. Not even a whisper from the nurses’ station.

The door opened and Ethan shouldered his way in, arms loaded with vending machine snacks and sodas. He nudged the door shut with his foot, and then deposited his load onto the center table. My stomach growled. I didn’t reach for the food. I’d shown weakness to Renee in the bathroom. I would not lower myself to grab a snack first, not with her watching me so closely.

Cellophane crinkled and can tops popped. I kept my eyes fixed on the carpet and its beige diamond patterns. A shadow passed. Marco sat down next to me and ripped open a bag of cheesy crackers. He offered them; I shook my head, even though their salty-sweet scent increased the rumble in my stomach.

“You are allowed to eat, too,” he said softly, concern in his gently accented voice.

Ouch. Was I that transparent? “I’m not hungry.”

“Liar.” He tossed a second bag of crackers into my lap. “Eat.”

I tore into the bag, swallowing mouthfuls without really chewing. It had been a long, strange day, and I couldn’t remember the last time I ate. Breakfast, probably. The crackers went down dry. A can of cola found its way into my hands. I drank it too quickly. The bubbles made my eyes water.

“Renee is not really mad at you,
Ascua,”
Marco said, voice almost too low. I almost smiled at the familiarity of his nickname for me—the Spanish word for ember. “She is scared, and she does not do scared well.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“She fools a lot of people.”

I appreciated Marco’s words, even though I found little truth in them. Renee hadn’t liked me from the day we met, and she’d made it very clear tonight. I arrived the day William Hill died, and she would always see me as a cheap replacement, weak, no matter what I did to prove myself.

A stray thought niggled at the back of my mind, something I hadn’t realized was bothering me until now. “Teresa didn’t make a shield,” I said.

Marco frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“You know the force fields she can make with her orbs. She’s used them to stop bullets before, but she didn’t this time. Why didn’t she?”

“Perhaps she did not wish to risk the bullet ricocheting into the crowd.”

True, and definitely a possibility. Even in the midst of a
split-second decision, Teresa had been thinking of everyone except herself.

The waiting room door opened again. This time a cop poked his head in. He looked around until he found me. “Sorry for the interruption, folks,” he said, not sounding the least bit apologetic. “But there’s a young man out here asking after Ember.”

My heart sped up. “What’s his name?”

“Noah Scott. You know him?”

I nodded, but made no move to stand. Marco stiffened. Across the room, Gage locked his eyes with mine. He tilted his head. I took it as silent permission and stood, dusting cracker crumbs from my hands. I slipped out of the room, Renee’s eyes drilling holes into my back.

Noah stood across the hall from the door, next to a water fountain. Concern ghosted across his face, replaced quickly by relief. I took a few steps forward, then faltered. Had he come all the way out here for me? He closed the distance between us, eyes searching for . . . what? I didn’t know.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said.

“I’m not hurt,” I said, “but I’m not okay.” How could I just open up to him like that, when I clammed up around Marco? Someone who had been a dear friend for months. No, I felt safer with a near stranger.

Noah stepped closer and warmth wrapped around me. I tensed, surprised by the embrace. His arms were loose, offering comfort without force, and that melted the last of my objections to his presence. I inhaled deeply as I relaxed into the luxury of being held. I had no reason to be strong for Noah.

“The news keeps saying one of you was shot, and you both went down, but the police aren’t confirming who or saying if anyone else was injured.” He pulled me back, hands on my forearms, and gazed at me with his emerald eyes. “Trance?”

My chin trembled.

“I’m so sorry, Dahlia. I can’t imagine how scared you are.”

“Not nearly as scared as Gage is. He loves her so much.”

His eyes narrowed. “Don’t compare your pain with his. You both feel things differently, and you’re allowed to be upset.” Maybe, maybe not. “Um, can we go somewhere and talk?”

“Afraid to be seen in public with me?”

He missed the joke. “No, the guy with green eyes keeps glaring at me through the window. He looks like he wants to turn into a jaguar and rip my throat out with his teeth. It’s a little disturbing.”

Marco. Damn. “Don’t take it personally, Noah, it isn’t you.”

“He doesn’t like you?”

“Kind of the opposite.”

I tugged Noah’s hand. This wasn’t a conversation for the middle of the hallway, where any pink-scrubbed nurse or lab-coated intern could be a spying reporter. I found an open door and empty room. Rows of shelving held boxes of surgical supplies, scrubs, masks, and other things I didn’t recognize. I closed the door so only a sliver of hall light remained.

“He has feelings for you?” Noah asked.

“He did,” I admitted. “I don’t know if he still does, because we don’t really talk much. Onyx—Marco and I were very close when I first joined the Rangers. He was the first one
to befriend me, and we got along so well. He was my best friend.”

Those memories came to life in my mind. Helping me choose my first uniform. Late-night snacks and cheesy movies we religiously tore apart and made fun of. He was there when I called my estranged father and asked for control of my trust fund. Marco came to the bank when I put down the deposit on our current house. He laughed at my bad jokes and cheered me up when I needed it.

“He wanted more?”

I nodded and started to turn away. Noah grabbed my hands and squeezed. “I tried, I really did. I care about him so much, but I wasn’t attracted to him. We haven’t really spoken about it since.”

“How long ago?” His expression remained unreadable, interested by way of detachment.

“A month and a half, maybe.”

“You should talk to him, Dahlia, because I’d hate to spend our relationship wondering if a pissed-off superhero is out for my blood.”

“Relationship?” The word released the butterflies again. “We just met. What makes you think we’ll have one?”

His mouth quirked. “Well, technically, we’ve known each other for years.”

“That doesn’t count, and you didn’t answer my question.”

He grew serious. “I’ve lost a lot of people I care about, Dahlia, I know how short life is. When I see something I want, I go for it. I can’t afford not to.”

Afford—a loaded word and he didn’t even see it. Or did
he? Did he really see me, or did he see a girl with money and power?

“Anyway, that’s not entirely why I came here tonight,” he said.

Oh. “No?”

“I brought something I thought you should see.” He rifled around in the pocket of his jacket and produced a handheld recording device. I eyed it, immediately suspicious. “It’s okay, Dahlia. Most of the footage shot by the reporters was confiscated as evidence, but I got this from a friend who was in the crowd. I thought you’d want to see it.”

I recoiled from the device. “You just happened to have a friend in the crowd?”

“He works for one of those online conspiracy websites and thinks all Metas were originally possessed by aliens, or something. He isn’t technically press, so the police didn’t search him.”

“What’s it show?”

“What do you remember about the shooting?”

Everything and nothing. So many of the details had blurred together. “The gun firing. Someone pushed me down. A lot of screaming, and then Trance bleeding. Why?”

“Do you know who pushed you down?”

It never occurred to me, and I shook my head no. My stomach twisted, eager butterflies replaced by cold fear. Noah turned on the recorder. A paused image of the back of someone’s head popped up. He held the recorder out. Long seconds passed before I took it and pressed Play.