Wired (16 page)

“Wake up, now. That's a girl. We've got to get out of here.”

Mason put his arm around my waist, heaved me out of the wrecked Mustang and to my feet. Still bleary, I just looked at him and let him rush me to the waiting taxi. He got in after me and I ducked my face into the warmth of his neck.

Mason wouldn't let me rest, though. “Rox, listen to me. Focus. We're too far behind. Leonardo will be on us any second. I want you to remember something.” He looked back through the rear window, then shouted to the driver, “Go faster!”

“Remember what?” I asked, lolling against the seat back, doing my best to focus on Mason's face.

He looked flat-out panicked. Bruised, bloodied—panicked. “Nothing is absolute until the last possible moment. Until we reach the sweet spot and make that final move. Until then, it's as simple as stopping
an old lady from stepping into oncoming traffic, and as complex as making sure your code stays out of Leo's hands. And this goes on every day, every minute, every second. Bump into the kid and make him drop his soda. Run into a woman on her way to a meeting and stall her while pretending we know each other. Head off Leo's splices at the pass so that what's truly real can still happen.”

He was talking a mile a minute, and it was a struggle to keep up. “This seems like more than a bump or a stall,” I croaked.

“This one is. And sometimes the good guys lose. Sometimes we can't pick up the thread for a splice somewhere else, or to do so would create an even worse situation. There's always a best sweet spot, Roxanne—the moment where if you act, you limit the ripple effect and provide your opponent with the fewest number of opportunities to splice reality to their benefit. When you find it for your desired outcome, when you've truly found that sweet spot . . . well, whoever gets to theirs first, wins.”

I stared at him, uncomprehending. He hastened to elaborate more than ever before.

“What we as wire crossers do is lay out wire between the infinite number of possibilities for outcomes. Fate is the straight line between now and the end. Leo wants to splice reality, splice the wire, to link to an outcome to suit his own needs. I want to splice the wire back and try to re-create the original path. While nothing is absolute until the last moment, until one of us finds the right sweet spot, what we do has its limitations.”

He looked behind us again, then turned back to
me. “Think of it as Leo and I standing on opposite ends of a field holding a section of wire. There's a limited amount of wire, which means there's a limited amount of splicing that can be done. Splicing reality uses up wire, because as Leonardo and I move closer to the sweet spot on any given case, we're getting closer to locking in fate. It's all about making it to the right sweet spot first. That's where a Major's fate is decided.”

He was speaking faster and faster. I focused hard on every word. Why was he explaining this now? Everything hurt, and it was hard to concentrate, but I didn't dare miss out on a piece of the puzzle; he'd said this was important. “A case with a finite solution in a life of infinite possibilities. And no do-overs?” I mumbled, my head lolling to one side against the vinyl seat back.

“No do-overs. Well, before we hit the sweet spot, we can take our final length of wire and gamble on a reset. But I've never resorted to that.”

I wanted to ask him more, but the taxi stopped and we were home. Mason handed the driver a bunch of money and pulled me out of the backseat. I stumbled, my head throbbing, and Mason awkwardly picked me up in spite of his cast and climbed the stairs with me in his arms. Always looking out for me.

He managed to get the key in the lock and kicked the door open. If the whiplash from the car accident hadn't been enough, I got a second serving when Mason suddenly lurched forward as though he'd been shoved. I went flying out of his arms over the threshold into my apartment.

I untangled myself, and was in the process of cataloging the various aches and pains in my body when I saw a hand come down on Mason's shoulder and spin him around. Leonardo Kaysar. He began to punch the crap out of Mason. To my horror, I realized that Mason was at a disadvantage with his cast—that damn cast I'd put on him as a kind of joke. It was far from funny now; the plaster might be a good bludgeon, but it was obviously heavy and slowed him down.

“Leonardo, stop!” He ignored me. I stared at him, the picture of concentration as he held Mason's collar with one hand and systematically rained blows on Mason's face, adding the odd knee to Mason's gut in between.

I thought about shutting the door on them, just shutting the door on the whole thing. I even crawled to the door and grabbed its corner. Mason managed to get his good arm hooked around Leo's leg. He tried to pull it out from under Leo, but I knew it was futile from the beginning.

Mason bellowed with rage, and from the chaos, a gun went spinning out onto the hardwood floor. Leonardo lunged for it, his foot hitting the door. I had to leap back to avoid getting smacked.

Mason managed to hold his rival back from the weapon, and it was clear I had an opportunity. The gun lay near the threshold to my apartment. I could have easily reached out and grabbed it, but I didn't, muddled still with sudden indecision and fear, and all I could do was start to cry at my inability to rise to the occasion.

“Rox, we still have a chance,” Mason said, his
movements sluggish and his voice weak. “We're near a sweet spot. Do you understand?” Blood poured from his brutalized nose, but he never gave up, not for a second; he kept struggling. “Rox, pick up the goddamn gun and shoot him.”

Leonardo paused as Mason writhed in pain at his feet, then casually reached over and picked up the gun. I fixated on the spatter of blood on Leo's crisp white sleeves and sat there, frozen. “Roxanne,” Leo said to me. “Do you remember how I warned you about Mason?”

Mason was putting up a good fight, but he was definitely on the losing end of things. I had the ability to save him now.

I looked between the two men. Leo waited patiently, massaging his shoulder with his opposite hand as he continued to hold the gun on Mason.

“You can't decide?” Leonardo asked. “Let me help you.”

I looked at him in disbelief.

“I can help you, Roxanne. I
understand
you.”

God,
I
didn't even understand me.

But Leonardo simply smiled knowingly and said, “You try to keep your feelings far inside you, but one cannot stay hidden all of the time. And there is one thing you are not so skilled at concealing; the body never lies. I know this and Mason knows this, and he took quite some time to study the things that make you tick.”

“You're disgusting,” I said uncertainly. “He never tried anything on me all those years ago. You, on the other hand, you touch me and whisper in my ear, and then you use it against me.”

Mason suddenly groaned in pain. I wanted to go to him but Leo grabbed my arm, holding me fast. “You can't imagine I would be attracted to you?” he asked softly. “You think my interest in you is all head and no heart? Perhaps you accuse the wrong man. What do you think Mason is doing? Your history together doesn't mean as much as you think it means, no matter how he tells the tale.”

“How can you possibly know what it means?”

Leonardo gave a languid shrug of his shoulders and let me go. “He didn't want you in the past when he was flaunting his relationship with your lovely roommate in your face. Are you so sure he wants you now? After all, you said yourself, ‘he never tried anything on you all those years ago.' Did he tell you he was afraid of impacting the case back then? Impacting your future? It must have been so difficult for him to resist, poor fellow,” he said sarcastically. “But how thoughtful of him. So very thoughtful to think of you before himself.”

He must have read the expression of horror on my face. With a look of pity that made me want to be sick, he went on, “I told you, Mason and I have worked against each other on many cases, Roxanne. Has he been as forthcoming with information as I have been? I think not. I told you the truth of this the first time we spoke. Mason kept secrets from you. It is his modus operandi. You look at me as though you can't understand how I know these things, but it would not be untrue to say that I know him even better than you do.”

I'd explained Mason's relationship with Louise away in my head because I wanted to believe that it
meant nothing to him. But maybe it wasn't how I remembered it. So many things weren't how I remembered them. Maybe the pranks and the jokes weren't the flirtation I'd imagined. Maybe they were his way of creating a history for us, the “thing” between us he was taking advantage of now. He'd said he'd been working on my case since sophomore year, and in light of Leonardo's explanation, the sterility of those words Mason had used to describe our early connection was painful.

“I can prove all this,” Leonardo said.

It was the phrase I'd been longing to hear all this time. I stared at Leonardo, not daring to say a word, not daring to make a move. I wanted proof more than anything.

I waited to see what he would do, but he simply folded his sleeves. The stains on them of Mason's blood vanished from sight. With his free hand, Leonardo pulled his cellphone from his pocket and fiddled with it, using his thumb. I saw then that it wasn't just a cellphone—the same way as Mason's smartie. They both had the same advanced equipment, the same impossible technology, and it couldn't be a coincidence.

I turned and watched Mason make a feeble effort to crawl forward, but was too disoriented. Tears pricked my eyes and I had to look away. Mason had never proved anything.

Leonardo finished with his smartie, tucked it in his pocket and looked down at Mason. With a look of disgust, he took Mason's pistol and stuck it in his waistband, making it clear that he didn't see Mason as a threat anymore. The he reached one hand out to
me. “Come here. I told you Mason would be the first to hurt you if it would serve his purpose, and I know how I will prove it. I will show you the truth.”

“No,” Mason moaned. I wasn't sure how he meant it, because it sounded odd. Resignation, despair. Not so much the lilt of a villain, but not entirely innocent either. Was it that he knew he was about to be exposed?

“She's not trained for that, Leo,” Mason said, wobbling to a kneeling position.

“Trained for what?” I asked.

“She can't get her heart rate up high enough . . . and if she does, it won't be good for her.”

Leo smiled. “It will be good for her. Trust me.”

Which one to believe? I studied their faces for clues; it was like watching a jungle cat squaring off against an alpha dog on a chain. Leo murmured my name again, and it occurred to me that though we'd been too close for comfort once before, I'd never really had a good look at him out of shadow and darkness.

I glanced at his outstretched hand and this time went to him voluntarily, though almost as if he had me under some kind of spell. He brought me close. All of the details I'd missed before were incredibly vivid. The longish hair that curled over his ears, the lock that skimmed his eyelashes. His white linen shirt billowing over naturally tanned skin.

And then I couldn't see anything at all. All I could do was feel Leonardo Kaysar's lips on mine, his tongue sliding sensuously into my mouth. He was kissing me as if we were lovers who had all the time in the world on a calm, Sunday afternoon. My body just couldn't fake nonchalance. I went hot; my limbs
buzzed with excitement. I seriously thought I might have a heart attack. I'd imagined many times what it would be like for Mason to kiss me, and the reality had been so much better, but Leonardo Kaysar . . . my fantasy had never really extended to this. Never. And I knew this act was meant as much as a slap in Mason's face as anything else.

He let his lips slip away from mine and I gasped for air. Leonardo brought his palm up to caress my cheek, then down again. His hands slid over my shoulders and down, his fingertips grazing my breasts. I just stood there under his spell, the faint sound of Mason yelling somewhere in the back of my mind while Leonardo's lips followed the curve of my ear. I could feel the heat of his breath as he whispered, “Open the door, Roxanne.”

What door?

My heart raced furiously; from the corner of my eye something metal flashed in Leonardo's hand. “A punch,” he murmured, as if that explained anything. I felt a prick on my neck.

I staggered back, my weight suddenly unsupported as there was nobody around. There was just me . . . holding a plastic bag with a goldfish in it and feeling a sense of certainty that the doorbell had just rung.

Kitty's goldfish. Kitty never came back from Europe. Or at least, she never came back and called. I'd never pursued it. The goldfish—Existential Angst—and I had reached an understanding, and he lived with me for several more years.

I felt a strange pang of loss. Kitty had been my best friend. I'd never had a close friend like that since. Not really. Why did I let us lose touch?

And why the hell was my graduation gown out on the table, still unopened, wrapped and folded in its plastic square?

The phone was ringing.

The phone was ringing; the doorbell was ringing. . . . Last time, the last real time—
God, what do you call it, even?
In my memory, I'd gone to the phone first, thinking it might be my interviewer needing to reschedule.

Existential Angst swam merrily around in his tiny plastic confines.

“I don't want to open the door,” I said to him.

But I reached out and opened the door.

“Mason,” I said. It was as if the weight of the world slid off my shoulders. The sound of my inhalation filled the room. Mason Merrick stood on the threshold, the raised collar of his motocross jacket scraping the side of his jaw as he looked down at me.