by R S Penney
Anna stood up from the couch, giggling softly and she stared down at herself. “Oh, this seems familiar,” she teased. “I can't shake the funny feeling that maybe, just maybe, we've been here before.”
“Stay?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Less than five minutes later, he was lying in bed in a room lit only by a touch of purple moonlight, watching as his door swung open to reveal Anna standing there in his shorts and an oversized t-shirt.
She scooted across the room and sat down on the edge of the bed, smiling down at him. “I have to admit I wasn't expecting this,” she said softly. “But I'm glad you asked me to stay.”
Jack closed his eyes, his head sinking into the big, fluffy pillow. “I'm glad that you agreed,” he whispered. “I…Well, look, I'm a little bit vulnerable right now; so, you'll have to forgive me if I get sappy.”
“Sappy is good.”
She got under the covers and snuggled up with her arm wrapped around his belly, her head resting on his chest. “Mmm…” she said. “All this time, I thought I imagined it. That I was remembering wrong.”
“Imagined what?”
Anna rolled on top of him, strands of hair dangling as she hovered just a few inches above him. Every instinct told him to pull her close and kiss her, but he was able to resist that inclination. But not the urge to wrap his arms around her, trailing his fingers up and down her back. “How safe I felt,” she answered. “That night…when we fell asleep in each other's arms? I felt so comfortable. And with every partner after that, it was never quite the same. I started to think that I imagined it.”
His eyes fluttered open, and he gazed up at her for a very long while. “I know what you mean,” Jack said. “I kept thinking that maybe we were just young. All those teenage hormones making it seem like fate itself had brought us together.”
“But now…”
“Here we are…”
Anna smiled, breathing in through her nose, and then her hair tickled him as she collapsed against him. “And feels just as special as it did all those years ago.” Her body trembled as she laughed.
He blinked at the ceiling and then took a moment to collect his thoughts. “So,” he whispered in her ear. “You really don't think I'm terrible?”
Anna lifted herself up.
Her lips brushed against his in the softest, gentlest kiss, and then, before he could formulate a thought, she did it again. On the third kiss, Jack felt her hunger, her aching need as her tongue slipped into his mouth and her body tensed against his. “What do you think?” she murmured.
“I think I love you.”
Jack forced his eyes shut, a shudder ripping through his body. “I'm sorry,” he said. “I shouldn't have told you that. I know this is all very sudden, and I don't want to scare you off by going-”
“I love you too.”
He couldn't think; he could only reach up with one hand to caress her face, then pull her down and kiss her hard on the lips. Anna moaned with approval, and her hands started grabbing at his shirt.
Jack rolled her onto her back and rained kisses down on her lovely face. Then her neck. Her soft skin was so perfect. Anna put a hand on the back of his head, grabbed a fistful of his hair and held him to her as he gently nibbled on her collarbone. “Oh, yes!” she gasped.
He started tugging at her shirt, lifting it inch by inch, when a sudden wave of guilt froze him in his tracks. The pain of everything that had happened was still too fresh. For a moment, he had forgotten, but…
Jack grimaced, then groaned as he shook his head. “I'm sorry,” he panted. “I want this more than you can possibly imagine, but it still hurts. I don't want the memory of our first time to be tainted with guilt. I'm-”
She touched two fingers to his lips.
Anna was smiling up at him, her eyes full of love and compassion. “It's all right,” she whispered. “I'm a patient woman. I love you, Jack; just hold me close, and that will be all I need.”
She turned onto her side, and Jack snuggled up behind her, wrapping an arm around her tummy. When Anna put her hand on top of his, he sighed with contentment. The pain would still be there in the morning, but right now, he was warm, and he was safe, and he was happy.
Chapter 18
The first thing Anna felt upon waking was a sense of warmth, a gentle warmth that surrounded her, and then she became aware of Jack's arm wrapped around her belly. She couldn't help herself; she snuggled a little closer against him.
With her cheek pressed into the pillow, Anna opened her eyes. She smiled a lazy smile. “A perfect morning,” she whispered. “Even if it is all gray and ugly.”
Her back was to the window, but she could tell by the lack of sunlight on the walls that it was an overcast day. Likely, it would rain. That was the thing about living in a city near the ocean; you got plenty of rain.
She turned over.
Jack was lying on his side, facing her, half his face hidden by the fluffy pillow. His eyes were closed, and he was breathing slow and steady. Right then, she wouldn't wake him for all the stars in the universe.
Anna propped herself up on her elbow, smiling as she watched him sleep. “You really are the most amazing person I've ever met,” she whispered. “I think I figured that out about thirty seconds after I saw you for the first time.”
His eyes opened slowly, and then he let out a soft sigh of contentment. “Morning,” he croaked in a voice still hoarse from hours of not speaking. “I almost didn't believe you were really here.”
With a slow smile, Anna leaned in to kiss his forehead. “I didn't want you to wake up,” she whispered. “You needed rest after the ordeal you've been through…and I wanted to watch you sleep.”
“I dreamed about you.”
“Yeah?”
“It was nice.”
Caressing his cheek with the tips of her fingers, Anna kissed him softly on the lips. “I would hope so,” she said. “And if it just happened to leave you with an irresistible urge to rip off my clothing, so much the better.”
Jack sat up, and his head sank with the weight of early-morning sluggishness. He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “I have to go to the office in a few hours,” he mumbled. “Tell Larani everything that happened.”
“You should do that,” she agreed. “But first you should have a little breakfast and try to collect your thoughts…And maybe recognize that you don't even have to start to get ready for at least an hour?”
“So?”
“So, that's an hour that could be spent cuddling with me.”
He laughed but acquiesced to her request, laying back down so she could rest her head on his chest. Pretty soon, his fingers were stroking her hair, and she was tempted to just go back to sleep. But she didn't. She just sat for a while and enjoyed the closeness.
As she sat behind her desk, reflecting upon the events of the last few days to the sound of rain pattering against the window, Larani found herself unable to stop thinking about Tanaben. Less than one week ago, he had marched into this office and demanded that his gadgets be returned to him. She couldn't help thinking that maybe he would still be alive if she had complied.
Larani sat forward in her chair, practically folded in half, and shook her head as she tried to calm herself. “You can't second guess-your every decision,” she muttered. “If he had demanded access to particle weapons, that might have protected him, but that doesn't mean that ordinary citizens should be walking around with plasma cannons.”
The glass door to her office swung inward.
Jack strode in unannounced, his eyes fixed on the floor as he crossed the distance in mere heartbeats. “I need to talk to you,” he said. “Specifically, I need to submit myself for disciplinary action.”
Planting her elbows on the desk, Larani laced her fingers and rested her chin on top of them. “This should be interesting,” she said. “What exactly would compel a man who consistently bucks authority to ask for disciplinary action?”
“I misused my power.
”
“That's…unfortunate.”
The boy was chewing his underlip, scanning her desk with such intensity she half wondered if the cleaning bots had done their jobs. “I tried to use a Bending to kill Leo,” he said. “I wanted him to suffer.”
Craning her neck to meet his gaze, Larani blinked several times. “A very atypical reaction for a Justice Keeper,” she said softly. “I presume that this happened after Leo slit Tanaben's throat.”
“Yes.”
“And you succumbed to rage?”
“Yes.”
It was hard not to feel aggravated. With the ever-growing list of problems she had to deal with, a serious breach of ethics by one of her officers – the one who was known for holding her own feet to the fire, no less – might just compel her to pull her own hair out. On some level, she understood, but on another…
The fact that Jack had come in here, confessing to his crime, meant that she could still respect. But a Keeper had to embody the ideals they claimed to believe in. Still, what could she do?
Larani sat back, closing her eyes as she thought it over. “All right,” she said at last. “A formal reprimand will appear on your service record. As such, you will be ineligible for promotion for a period of at least one year.”
“That's it?”
“You wanted more?”
He stood before her with his head down, his cheeks flushed to a deep red. “It's not that I want to be punished,” he began. “But I committed a serious crime. Shouldn't I be suspended from duty, or something?”
“I can't afford to suspend you from duty right now,” she explained. “You were the Justice Keeper who brought down Leo the last time he was on the loose. Your expertise will be invaluable. And besides, I'm not sure I see the point.”
She turned her chair and then rose, sighing as she paced a line behind her desk. “A transgression such as yours should bear consequences,” she went on. “But the purpose of such consequences is to impart a lesson, a lesson you seem to have already learned.”
When she turned, he was standing there with hands gripping the hem of his shirt, refusing to look at her. “Harry,” he mumbled. “And Ben. You told Ben that there was no place for him on this team.”
“And I later recanted that.”
“But Larani…”
After all this time, there were still moments when Jack surprised her. The boy held himself to the same impossibly-high standards that he expected of everyone else – Larani knew that much already – but he seemed to crave punishment. “There is a very important difference between what you did and what Ben did.”
“And what's that?”
“Tanaben made a premeditated decision to violate a prisoner's rights; he did so with clarity of purpose, and when confronted with his transgression, he remained intransigent. You, on the other hand, acted poorly in a moment of pique. And you have since admitted your mistake and taken responsibility for it.”
Larani sat on the edge of her desk, folding her arms and stifling her exasperation. “If it haunts you, Jack, that's because it should,” she said. “Punishing yourself won't make that feeling go away. You'll just have to live with it and do your job.”
“Yes, ma'am,” he mumbled.
“You're dismissed, Agent Hunter.”
Gabrina paced around a long conference table in a room lit by the gray light of an overcast afternoon. So many faces that she didn't expect to see again for quite some time were assembled there.
Just inside the door, Anna sat with hands folded in her lap, a smile on her face that seemed oddly out of place. It had been a few months. What had her feeling so chipper? Gabi had her suspicions, but she wasn't sure.
Next to her, Harry was in a chair with his cane clutched in one hand, his grimace betraying the pain of his wounds. And then there was Harry's daughter.
Melissa seemed restless.
She sat forward, her hands clutching the armrests as she followed Gabi with the most intense gaze imaginable. “No offense, Gabi, but I really hope you have something clever up your sleeve,” she said. “Leo seems to outwit us at every turn.”
Normally, this would be the part where Jack made one of his smart-alec quips, but he just stood by the door with his hands clasped in front of himself, his head bowed in a posture that seemed entirely too meek.
“Patience,” Gabi said.
She stood before them in beige shorts and a navy-blue t-shirt with a round neck, her hair half-up in a barrette. “We've been through this before, Melissa,” she added. “And we have proven to be quite effective against Leo.”
“We caught him by sheer dumb luck,” Jack muttered.
“Negativity isn't helping.”
Gabi closed her eyes, taking a moment to collect herself, then nodded to them. “In cases such as this,” she said, “understanding the underlying psychology that motivates a violent criminal is key.”
She tapped at her multi-tool.
A transparent bust of Leo appeared above the table, the man's mouth contorted into a sneer. “This is your subject,” she said. “We know that he's Rathalan, that he most likely suffered a violent childhood.”
At the head of the table, Larani sat with hands folded over her stomach. “While we appreciate your efforts, Professor Valtez,” she broke in. “A recap of Leo's childhood isn't likely to lead us to him.”
“On the contrary,” Gabi said. “Let's examine everything he's done since making his presence known.”
Adopting the posture of a lecturing teacher, Gabi stood with hands folded behind herself and ran her gaze over all of them. “First he claims that he killed me in an attempt to throw Jack off balance,” she said. “And what happened next?”
“Our botched attempt to capture him,” Harry said.
“Exactly…And then?”
Jack stiffened and looked away, no doubt trying to hide his pained expression. “Leo killed Ben,” he replied in a surprisingly even voice. “Somehow, he gained access to Ben's schedule, followed him to Tareli and tried to make Ben's death into a public spectacle.”
“Correct,” Gabi said. “And I'm sorry for making you relive it. Which brings us to our next question. Why?”
A scowl was Jack's first response, and then he shook his head with a frustrated sigh. “For me, of course,” he said. “He wanted me to witness Ben's death.”
Turning on her heel, Gabi paced a line behind the table with arms crossed. Perhaps she shouldn't have made Jack answer that question; she was still used to thinking like a teacher. “We know that he seems to be targeting all of you,” she said. “and that causing Jack pain is at least part of his motivation. Which means-”
“I'm next,” Anna said.
“Precisely.”
Anna stood up with a sharp inhalation and fixed narrowed eyes upon Gabi. “Well, if that's the way he wants it,” she said, nodding. “I'm more than happy to grant his wish.”
Gabi licked her lips and then looked down at her own shoes. It seemed her friend Anna was still very much a firebrand. “Perhaps, it would be wise to assign you a security detail for the time-”
“I'm not walking around with cops following me.”
“At least consider it,” Gabi pleaded.
Jack came forward to stand over the table, his face tight as he surveyed the lot of them. “There's not much cops could do in any event,” he said. “Besides, if Leo attacks you directly, it's only a distraction from his real plan.”
“Which is?”
“I don't know,” Jack said. “He's cagey.”
“If I may make a suggestion.”
They all turned to find a woman standing in the doorway, a tall woman with dark skin and buzzed hair. Gabi recognized her immediately. The telepath that Anna, Jack and Ben had rescued from Ganymede over a year ago.
Keli smiled and nodded to them. “You all seem to be forgetting that you have been blessed with a lethal advantage.” She strode into the room, planting fists on her hips and laughing softly. “An advantage that you forgot to invi
te to the meeting.”
“You want to go up against Leo?” Larani asked.
The look in Keli's eyes could only be described as predatory. “I had developed a passing fondness for Tanaben,” she explained. “I would happily take any opportunity to make his killer pay.”
Jack shut his eyes, breathing in through his nose in an obvious attempt to stifle his irritation. “Leo carries a symbiont now,” he said. “So, you can hit him with a plus-nine whammy, and he's just gonna laugh it off.”
“Perhaps you've forgotten how I escaped your station.”
“Believe me, no one's forgotten,” Anna said. Her posture was tense for a moment, but she relaxed and let out a breath. “However, I think I actually have to agree with Keli. It is an advantage we shouldn't squander.”
“We have to find him first,” Harry said.
Resting elbows on the armrests of her chair, Larani steepled her fingers and studied her subordinates. “I believe,” she cut in. “That you have been making some headway on that issue, have you not?”
“Some,” Anna replied. “Not enough. I put out an APB for the ship that brought Leo to Leyria, but space is vast. Unless they decide to dock at one of our colonies, we've got pretty much zero chance of finding them.”
“Well,” Larani said. “Then perhaps we should get back to work.”
Melissa stood up a little too quickly, clearing her throat to get their attention. The girl's anxiety was plain on her face. Odd, that. From what Gabi had been told, this child had gone up against Isara without a moment's hesitation, but she seemed to feel uneasy about being the centre of attention. “There is one other angle we should pursue,” Melissa said. “Leo had an accomplice when he attacked my house…Actually, I suspect that Leo was the accomplice, but the woman…My symbiont recognized her.”
“You think we can track her down?” Harry asked.
“If she's willing,” Melissa began, “I'd like to work with Professor Valtez, tell her everything I can, and maybe construct a psychological profile for her.”
