by C. L. Stone
“Because we’re leaving them behind to deal with it.” I waved my hand through the air. “Yeah, we know…”
“No…actually, I wasn’t thinking about that.”
I blinked at him, unsure of what he was saying.
He stood up, taking a step closer to me, but his eyes were…different. Happy, yes, always cheerful, but there was a weird mix of emotions just under the surface. He reached out and took my shoulders and held them in is palms. “I feel a bit guilty bringing all of this on you.”
“I know. You shouldn’t.”
He nodded shortly. “I can’t help it. I feel responsible.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is exactly my fault.” His eyes shifted as he looked into my face. “That recruiter, Eddie… the one who came around when you first came over that one day, remember him?”
I nodded. He’d wanted to speak to Corey in secret. He said something about a job. Last we’d heard, he was captured by the police. “What about him?”
“I should have known what he was there for and prepared for it. I was just…distracted.” He lowered his head a bit, looking very pointedly at me. “By something I felt was much more important.”
Although I was feeling the rippling emotions coming from his touch and his stare, I tried to be coy. “You really wanted to catch Blake.”
He smirked just a bit and then shook his head. “I wasn’t really worried about that.”
“Yes, you were,” I said and poked him in the stomach. “I saw your formula. You worked on that one and wanted to catch him.”
He laughed and play-slapped at my hand to bat it away. “Fine, I really wanted to catch him. I wanted to show the Academy we were ready to do what they were training us to do.”
The way he’d said that surprised me. “You mean that was the first time you all did something like that?”
“The first time we took a direct approach with a criminal…well, after you of course.” He waved over at me with a hand after the comment. “The Academy generally works without making direct contact at all if it can be helped. Especially if we know the person can retaliate.”
I put my hands on my hips. “So what do they do exactly? I mean we’ve been pretty direct. They sent us to Florida…”
“Yeah, on a suspicion a woman spent all her money on a pyramid scheme, which turned into a kidnapping. Which lead to guns blazing and a car chase and all kinds of hell. I think that’s why we were the experiment. We are able to dive in where the Academy wouldn’t have been able to. We weren’t afraid to face off with kidnappers. And every time, they have to cover our tracks and clean up. Face it. Our time so far with the Academy has been a disaster.” He sat down again at his office chair, rolling it toward his computer so he could focus. “And now we’re about to defy them on purpose. Probably for the last time.”
I felt bad for the guys. The Academy had done a lot for me, including looking out for my brother and now my dad. It was hard not to feel like I was going to let them down.
“But what else can we do?” I asked.
Corey didn’t answer for a long time and went back to looking at his monitors. I came up behind him. Those numbers were moving around pretty fast on one of his screens. On the other, he was looking at some sort of outline of a map. He flipped to another page and there were dots on the screen. Most were moving around the map.
It took me a minute to realize it was a map of the apartment building. I could see out to almost the parking lot on one side, and then almost out to the small lake on the other side. It was of the ground floor. Security was lingering around in the lobby. There was an office, and a laundry center and gym. The only one that had any moving dots was the laundry.
“What are you doing, exactly?” I asked him.
Without looking at me, he spoke. “Do you remember when I was telling you about how I tracked Blake with his cell phone, how we managed to figure out he was heading to the wrong side of town all the time and we couldn’t figure out why?”
“Is he doing it again?” I asked. “Is he here? Is he in the laundry room downstairs?” I pointed to the area on the screen.
He arched an eyebrow. “That’s not him.”
“Is he standing at the security podium?” I was about to ask him another question when another blue dot started to come in from the parking lot side. It went by the podium, through the metal detector and headed to the elevators and then shortly disappeared. It made me realize he wasn’t just talking about Blake specifically. “Are you tracking who comes in and out of the building?”
“Erm…”
Yup. I puzzled things over for a minute, trying to come up with the answers he wasn’t giving me. “You’re tracking people by their cell phones? I thought all you had was an alarm that alerted you to if someone was way out of consistency of pattern.”
“Well, now it’s set for anyone who comes within parking lot range of this building,” he said. “As long as we’re in it, we’ll need to keep an eye out for anyone coming in or out.”
“What’s wrong with the security team downstairs?”
“It’ll give us a chance to warn security if there’s any trouble.” He motioned to the screen. “Blue dots are people who live or work here. Green dots…” Just as he said it, a blue and green dot appeared on the screen, lake side this time, and they stopped just outside the doors, like they were waiting around. Corey tapped at his screen once just to point to the green dot. “They’re known numbers that have been around the last several months. People who are probably friends or something.”
“Any other colors?”
“Reds are people no one seems to have a connection to.” He motioned to the other screen. “I get a phone number and an associated name and some data, like if they’re local, who they work for, etc. Usually pizza delivery or someone’s new date.”
“What if they aren’t carrying a cell phone?”
“Most everyone does.”
“I don’t,” I said. “Children don’t.”
“We’re not looking for kids.” He waved to the monitor again. “But those come up purple, but only in view of the actual cameras. And there’s a camera in the elevator put there by the building’s security. I tapped into it. But we won’t have to watch it unless something blips the screen purple or red.”
“How often does that happen?”
He shrugged. “Not as many kids as I thought live here, but I’m still working on it.”
I smirked. “So you’re still having to sit here and watch.”
“Yeah, but I’m not likely to miss anything this way. And I don’t have to waste brain power trying to figure out who most people are or recognize faces.”
“Are we going to have to take turns?” I asked.
“Brandon and I can handle it. But if you want, we can put you into rotation.”
“Where is your bother, anyway?”
“I think he’s taking a nap. Long night. He’ll take a shift at this sometime later.”
Is that why Kevin was coming from Brandon’s room? What happened there?
Was he really tired or if he was more depressed about losing his garage? I had to wonder. Maybe he needed alone time.
I sat in the other office chair, stretched my legs out and tried to get used to watching the monitors with him. “What are all the numbers there?” I motioned to the screen with all the moving numbers.
“That’s just the algorithm working. I’m just monitoring. Fixing any blips if I come across anything.” He turned in his chair until his knee was touching mine. “If a red comes in, it pauses to show me the number and everything.”
While I was watching, his green and blue dots moved inside and to the elevator. He tapped a button, flipping the screen to an overhead camera view of the elevator, showing it to me. A couple of teens were headed up. “Simple enough, yeah?”
“What happens if Alice or her goons show up?”
He turned off the camera view and went back to his dot screen. “I don’t think they
would. This is just in case.”
“They did once.”
“And they probably suspect we are watching now. They’d have to be really crazy to try again. It’s the only reason we are staying here for now. It’s giving us time to decide the next move. We put in security. Too many witnesses. They’d have to send an army.”
“So we commit a felony following people by their cell phone numbers to catch the bad guys.”
He smirked. “I don’t think it’s a felony.”
“Are you sure?”
“Look, if there’s a line between right or wrong, we’re…walking the line pretty close.”
“Which side?”
“This line is pretty fuzzy. It’s more like a mile-wide gray area. Room to roam around a little.”
I wasn’t going to push buttons on his semantics.
Suddenly, Marc materialized behind us. I didn’t even hear him come in until he was on top of us. He had changed his shirt into a nice blue, collared, long-sleeve one and his hair was combed back respectively, looking like the charming boy next door. He karate chopped Corey on the head. “What are you showing her now? You should know better.”
Corey waved off his arm and guarded himself against another chop. “She can do security monitoring.”
“We’re not even supposed to be doing that.” He aimed a finger gun at me, square between the eyes. “Tell anyone, you’re dead.”
I harrumphed. “Who do I talk to?”
“Coaltar.”
“Besides him.”
“Future. Or Fortune. Did she change her name again yet?”
“Besides her.” I popped him on the back of his hand so he’d get it out of my face. “Why are you here?”
“Came to get you.” He snapped his fingers and pointed to the door. “We’ve got to get you ready to go.”
I pushed myself out of the chair to follow him. “Get ready for what?”
“For leaving.”
“I thought we weren’t leaving.”
“We’re pretending to leave, remember? But to do that, we need supplies.” He spun on me just as we got to the door and then aimed his finger gun at my face again. “Also, what we’ve said in here, don’t say anything out there when we go places, okay? People can listen even from far away, so don’t talk about the Academy or about anything. Try to pretend to be normal.”
I looked around the apartment. “Think they’re listening now?”
“Nope. We’ve got that taken care of. But outside of here, zip it on everything. We’re just going shopping.”
SHOPPING
Marc and I were stuck in the black SUV between an empty school bus and a very large semi with a big red sticker that marked the contents as explosive while trying to get downtown. The after-work traffic was backed up all the way to I-26, and I was suspecting a pileup ahead of us.
“We could walk faster than this,” I told him. I was eyeballing the semi, which had a few too many dents and scrapes to my liking. I didn’t trust it not to roll backward into us.
“Then we’d have to carry stuff back to the car that much further,” he said.
Good point. “Do we have to go to this one? Where are we going anyway? There’s no Walmart downtown.”
“I’m not going all the way out to Walmart. We’re going here. There’s clothes here. I’ve bought some before from this place. Besides, do you see this traffic? To get anywhere else besides downtown, we’d have to get on that Interstate into that traffic mess.”
I hiked an eyebrow up. He said supplies before, didn’t he? “We’re getting clothes?”
He lifted his gaze off of the back of the explosive sticker on the truck and looked at me with those mismatched eyes he had. “We’re starting with clothes for you. Although I think maybe we should start with boots.”
“Why me?”
“I’m literally running out of shoes and clothes because someone keeps borrowing them. And then leaving them all over the state. Sometimes out of state. Or out in the ocean.”
I looked down at the T-shirt and boots I was wearing right now, his. Usually always Marc’s because his clothes didn’t fall off my body most of the time. And everyone else had way bigger feet.
When we got out of line from behind the explosive truck, it wasn’t much better than a crawl all the way downtown. Even with taking side streets and alleys that might not be technically designated as roads, any cross traffic on the other lanes was bumper to bumper.
“What the hell is going on?” Marc asked. “Everyone forgot how to drive today.”
Eventually, Marc parked us near an outdoor tourist market along King Street. I’d been there a few times, including when I got picked up by Dr. Roberts. In December, it was decorated in Christmas displays. The sweetgrass basket weavers had their wares decorated with ribbons. The crowds were in smaller numbers than in the summer, mostly locals coming downtown to eat and stopping by the shops on a day out.
We remained in the car while Marc shuffled with his cell phone, poking a message out on the screen. “Are we buying tourist clothes?”
“There’s some, but there’s normal stuff, too,” he said. Eventually, he put the phone away and looked at me. “Ready?”
I scratched at my forearm absently. “No.”
He lifted a brow slowly. “You’re not afraid of a little shopping, are you?”
“No.”
He squinted at my face. “I think you’re lying. It’s harder to tell when you only say one word, but…I’m pretty sure.”
Okay, so maybe I still was uneasy with the idea of them paying for anything more than they already had with me. “I don’t really need clothes.”
“If you’re taking other people’s clothes, it’s because you need more.” He reached out to stop my scratching and still my hand.
When he touched me, it was like a shock to my system. It was jarring to be alone with him now. I’d been in the hospital for a while, and they’d been completely hands off. But it felt like whenever they touched me now, I was a wild set of emotions.
He seemed to feel it too, and giving in to impulse, he tugged me by the collar of his shirt I wore and kissed me.
For a minute, my senses completely blacked out and I gave in to it. Forgot where I was. Forgot everything we were doing. It was just his tongue thrusting into my mouth and his hands running over my body, tugging at me like he needed me too.
It was a hot moment, right up to when he was tugging me to get into the back seat.
That’s when I had to pull back, catch my breath. “We’re out in public,” I said.
“We could not be,” he breathed out hotly against my ear before he kissed it.
Tempting…
I gripped at his blue shirt. I had things to say to him, and I couldn’t think of how to put it together into words. How there was more than just him, and I was confused by feelings and I had to say something so it was just out in the air.
He pulled his face around to look at me. Those blue and green eyes opened wide. “Is it too weird?” he asked.
“The weird part is that it doesn’t feel weird,” I said. I let go of his collar and pushed a hand to my temple. “Like I’m alone with you here. It feels…good. But then when I’m…with someone else…” I trailed off, because I didn’t want to say anyone’s name. Not while I was right in front of him. “Not that just anyone…not that I’m doing things with everyone.” I made a face. This was making it sound horrible.
He smirked and shook his head, his eyes drifting around my face. “It was weird at first when I thought about it. But I don’t know…” He looked me directly in the eyes then. “When I’m with you like this, it feels right, too. And I’m not angry when you’re hanging out with the others. Maybe Coaltar…”
“You just don’t like him.”
“I’m trying.” He paused and shrugged. “But are we ever going to get to where we’re not talking about it and just make it a thing?”
“I don’t know what this is,” I said, trying to tug away from him just
a little. Not that I really wanted to let go. I didn’t want to really talk feelings either. But I needed to figure this out.
He resisted letting me go a second but then pulled back into his own seat, leaning against the window with a palm over one eye. “Christ, let’s just all get married.”
“I think that’s illegal.”
“It doesn’t have to be real,” he said. He lowered his hand and put it on the wheel as he spoke to me. “If we’re going to do this, let’s just do it. Thinking about it is what’s killing me. Let’s just do it.”
I knew what he meant. “I guess I’m not wanting anyone to feel awkward about it,” I said. “I don’t want to hide things.”
He nodded vigorously. “Right. I agree.”
“And I don’t want anyone fighting.”
“No,” he said, he put his hand over his heart. “Promise I won’t fight with them. Well, no more than the usual.”
“And we’re not adding in anyone else,” I said. “I know that’s not fair. But I really can’t handle anything right now. I should…I mean I know about open relationships, but I really…I can’t…”
In an instant, he was on me again, but just to cup my cheeks in his hands to get me to look right at him.
He spoke in soft tones, so close to my face that I felt his breath on me. “No one else,” he said. “I couldn’t handle it, either. And I don’t want to. I can’t talk for the others, but I…” He paused, just looking at me, and then suddenly burst out, “I’m so fucking in love with you.”
It was on my lips to say it back, and I think my mouth moved, but no air escaped my lips. Just my lips making the motion.
I felt it too.
I think I had for a while and was never going to tell him about it. Not when I was so conflicted by similar feelings for the others. Not when I thought telling him I loved him but I also felt the same for others would break his heart.
And when I couldn’t say what I wanted out loud, I just leaned in and kissed him.
The kiss was different this time, less desperate for sex, more needing to feel he loved me and the reassurance this attraction between us wasn’t just sexual.
