Wind-Scarred (The Will of the Elements, Book 1) (29 page)

“
Sarah, listen, calm down,” Mat spoke carefully, soothingly.
“It's gonna be alright. I mean, bad things-”

“
Shut up, Mat,” she snarled at him. “You're just as mad as I am
and you know it. Bad things like this don't just 'happen'. This has
never happened! Don't you get it? It's over. We're going to be
stuck in this stupid bubble with people like him for the rest of
our lives and there's nothing we can do about it.”

“
What else can I say?” Ezra asked quietly. “What more do you
want?”

“
Want?” Sarah's voice cracked. “What do I want? I want to get
away from you damned Legacy tyrants. I want to have never gone on
that stupid mission. I want to have seen that thunder-struck
bastard five seconds earlier. I want-” Her voice broke with sobs.
“I-I want Rob back.” She stood there, shaking with fury and grief,
a tragic, broken thing. “And I want to never see you again,” she
whispered before staggering away, wiping at her eyes.

Mat watched her leave, his eyes hooded,
fists clenched. He let out a long, shaky breath, then offered Ezra
a hand. He took it gratefully. “Give her time, man,” Mat said
seriously. “Just... just give her some time.” He shook his head and
quietly picked up Sarah's things along with his own, heading out of
the room. “Give us all some time.” The door whispered shut behind
him.

Ezra stood there, glaring down at the bench
he and his teammates had shared. He wondered if his day could
possibly get any worse.

==

As it turned out, it could.

Ezra arrived home to find a very agitated
Kirsten O'Donnell pacing the front hall. “Ezra! Good, I'm glad I
caught you,” she spoke in an urgent, hushed voice. “You didn't...”
She looked at his face, a spectacular bruise already blooming on
his jaw. “Did you get into a fight? Of course you did. Who did you
talk to? Tell me what you said immediately.”

“
I... what? Talk to? No, no, I just got back, and I haven't
seen anyone since I left Mat and,” he paused, remorse swiftly
catching him off guard, “and Sarah.”

Kirsten paid no mind to his morose tone.
“Well, that's something anyway,” she muttered to herself. “Now
look, I know you've been busy with...” she glanced around
surreptitiously, “with you-know-what, but I'm a little distressed
with your apparent lack of concern, considering the situation. I've
been trying to contact you for days. Were you in a shielded
facility? Why didn't you return my messages? I've managed to hold
them off for as long as I can but they're here, right now, and
I-”

“
Wait, what?” Ezra quickly scanned his net transmissions, and
saw his in-box was full of urgent messages from Kirsten starting
the day after he had left. “Kirsten, I don't know what you're
talking about.”

“
You don't... how...” she sputtered. Glancing around furtively,
she pulled Ezra toward the kitchen. “Come on, quickly!” Ezra was
dragged along after her, through the kitchen, down the stairs, into
the pantry, then out a secret door behind what Ezra assumed were
some decorative barrels. How had he lived here all his life without
knowing that they had a secret door? A small spiral staircase led
down to another hidden door, which opened for them. No sooner had
he stepped through than the false wall behind him clicked closed,
and he suddenly found himself squeezed into a closet-sized room
with Kirsten. Her body pressed against his as she turned to place
one serious finger over her lips, then cracked open a door opposite
to where they entered and peaked out. Ezra's heart was racing as he
tried to beat down his libido. He kept telling himself that he was
not attracted to Kirsten O'Donnell, but all he could think about
was her trying out that stretch that Mat had shown her. She put a
hand to her chest, took a deep breath, and let it out in obvious
relief. He only noticed because, as a scientist, he took a keen
interest in his surroundings and, to be fair, Kirsten's heaving
bosom was the most interesting thing surrounding him. In his
surroundings! He needed to get out more. Or less. He wasn't
sure.

Kirsten opened the door and stepped out into
a hallway on one of the lower levels. Ezra looked around and
recognized it as a storage section where they kept family heirlooms
and keepsakes. “It should be safe to talk here,” Kirsten said, all
business. “We'll hear anyone coming down from the main hall when
the far door engages.”

“
I...” Ezra shook his head, wrangling his thoughts back into
something resembling coherence. “I... wow, um... so we have a
secret passage?”

Kirsten folded her arms and began drumming
her fingers in irritation. “Ezra, I know that you've clearly had a
rough day, but I honestly don't see how you can be so clueless
about the past three days. The warrant is all anyone has been able
to talk about.”

“
Warrant?” Ezra blurted out. “Like, for my...” he looked around
cautiously, then dropped his voice lower. “For my
arrest
?”

Kirsten froze, staring at him in disbelief.
She closed her eyes and whispered, “Oh what did I do to deserve
this?” Her head snapped back up as her intense eyes locked on his.
“Ezra, listen to me very carefully. The Department of Ordinances
and Lawful Temerity is holding their elections for chief
commissioner in just over two months. One of the officers running
for the position has decided to be a sort of 'people's hero' and
has targeted the Legacy houses, trying to rally support from the
grunts. I was aware of his position but didn't see much of a threat
until the space station wormhole misfire the morning after you left
for your project.”

“
Wormhole misfire?!” Ezra exclaimed in shock and terror. “Oh
no, no no no, what did it do? Did it dump out into space? The
structural damage to the Sanctuary Center must have been enormous!
I walked right by there today and didn't see anything, but I-I
wasn't looking. Oh this can't be happening... why wasn't I here?
How many people died? Kirsten, I can't-”

She clamped her hand over his mouth and gave
him a warning look. Without removing her hand, she continued. “The
misfire prevented a scheduled jump to the space station when one of
the power couplings shorted out.” Ezra sagged in relief. “The
generators poured power into the Center's converters, but it had
nowhere to go and fed back into the rest of the gateway system. Two
thirds of the network went down, severely disrupting commerce for
nearly six hours before the automated system restore found the
problem and got everything rebooted. Before I could even begin to
do damage control, there was a warrant out for a general search of
your lab for anything of a suspicious nature in relation to the
accident. I've been able to keep them out by pretending to
sympathize and because no-one could get hold of you to open your
lab. They haven't been able to force their way in, but I'm at my
wit's end dealing with this-”

“
Miss O'Donnell? You down there?” A man's voice echoed from far
end of the hall as the door began to slide open.

“
Mmmm!” Ezra said in alarm from behind Kirsten's hand. Without
looking away from the opening door, she pushed him back into the
closet they had just come from, pulling up a data terminal and
keying the door closed with a deft flick of her wrist.

“
Miss O'Donnell,” the man's voice was muffled by the door, but
there was something familiar about it. “I thought I heard you
talking to someone down here.”

“
Oh, no detective, no-one here but me,” Kirsten replied warmly.
“Just letting off some steam while I take stock of the
inventory.”

“
They get you cleaning up after them even while they're not
around, don't they?” the man growled, much closer now. “You're
wasted on a place like this.” Ezra knew he'd heard that voice
before, but just couldn't quite place it.

“
And are you here to take me away from all this?” Kirsten asked
playfully. “Going to topple the Legacies and save all of us
helpless maidens?” The door to the hallway shuddered, as if someone
had just landed against it.

“
I
don't know about the maidens,” the man whispered huskily. “But for
you...” A horrible sucking, smacking sound came through the door,
and Ezra shuddered in revulsion.

“
Oooh, Mr. Jeffries,” Kirsten moaned, “we shouldn't! One of
your men could be here any moment.”

Jeffries. That horrible little DOLT, and he
was here, touching Kirsten O'Donnell, kissing her while pinning her
up against the... Ezra desperately searched for a way to open the
hidden passage from his side.

“
Relax,” Jeffries chuckled, “we're still looking for a way into
that little Legacy punk's lab. I told them to take a long lunch. As
far as they're concerned, I'm just too dedicated to the case to let
up.”

“
No, really, I need to finish up here,” Kirsten pleaded with
him, sounding reluctant. “Mr. Hawkins is due back at any time now,
and I really don't know what he'll do if everything isn't in order.
I can't afford to make him suspicious of me, not now.”

The man sighed in obvious frustration.
“You're right, of course,” he grumbled. “We have to put the needs
of the people above our personal... needs.” Ezra gagged as he
fought not to be sick. “But we'll get him, just you wait. Did I
tell you that I had the little weasel, had him practically crying
for his mommy when those government types swooped in and pulled him
out of there? Makes me sick. They think they can just push us
around, just because mommy and daddy did a little science. I knew
he was up to something, I just knew it. And when you and I blow
this case wide open... oh, I'm going to cherish the look on that
pompous little Legacy's face, and then it's straight to the top.
And people will say-”

“
Shh! Be careful!” Kirsten hushed him mid-speech. “He has spy
devices all over, you have to watch yourself here.”

“
Oh, uh, right... yeah, spy devices.” Jeffries suddenly sounded
nervous. “I mean, of course he needs spy devices! They're all
afraid of their own shadows, you know, every one of them. That is,
uh,” he continued in a much louder voice, “you just let me know if
you have any problems, Miss O'Donnell. The Department of Ordinances
and Lawful Temerity is always at your service.”

“
Thank you so much for all your help detective. Or should I
say, commissioner.” Ezra could hear her smile as her lips caressed
the title.

“
Mm, I like the sound of that.” There was an awkwardly long
pause, and Ezra did everything in his power to keep his mind on
math, psychotic water-seer assassins, exploding wind-scarred
lunatics... anything more pleasant than whatever Jeffries was doing
in that hallway. “I'll see you later, Kirsten.” His stomach
demanded that he either kill his imagination or remove his ears
immediately. He was considering the best way to tear them off when
Kirsten opened the door.

He stepped out cautiously, watching as
Kirsten calmly entered data on her nebulous screen. She didn't look
up as she asked, “I trust you understand the gist of what you're up
against and will take the necessary steps to control the
situation?”

Ezra nodded slowly, still staring at his
secretary. They sat in silence for few moments. “Did you-”

“
Not. A. Word,” she snapped, tone frigid. She continued typing
for a few moments then abruptly stopped, shuddered, and cringed a
little. She took a deep breath to regain her composure, then
serenely continued, “If you'll excuse me, I have some...
cleanliness issues to address. Will that be all, Mr. Hawkins?” She
quickly walked into the closet and closed the door. Ezra heard a
soft click as the hidden passage opened, followed by the sound of
Kirsten O'Donnell being violently ill.

==

The industrial shower near the lab - in case
of any chemical spills - must have run for an hour. Ezra was able
to sneak in to his testing area and straighten things up fairly
easily, since all of the investigators had been dismissed for a
long lunch and Jeffries was off doing god knows what. And god was
the only one who needed to know, as far as Ezra was concerned. He
suppressed another shudder.

After carefully securing
all of his testing equipment and running a fresh encryption
algorithm on his research notes, Ezra smuggled the Guild of Sundry
data sheet back up to his room, hiding it underneath his personal
workspace generator.
Need to make some
kind of secret compartment for that
, he
thought to himself.

Satisfied with his
preparations, he went downstairs to hunt for dinner when he saw a
flickering light coming from the sitting room.
Does someone have the fireplace on
?
Ezra wondered. Curious, he peered into the room to see Kirsten,
bundled in a giant fluffy pink bathrobe, curled up on a big
armchair facing the fire. Her hair was down, and she held a mug of
what looked like hot chocolate with both hands as she sat staring
into the cheery fire with haunted eyes.

Ezra felt bad for her. It wasn't her fault
that she'd ended up looking after him. And while she was a
righteous terror when it came to his schedule, he knew that, deep
down, she really only had his best interests at heart. So before
his brain could tell him that a swift and stealthy retreat was
called for, he found himself asking, “Is everything all right, Miss
O'Donnell?”