Call Out

by L. B. Clark

  “What exactly do you think you’re going to be able to do?” Quinn asked us.

  We all looked at each other. I’m not sure any of us had any idea what to do about Julia, but there was one thing I did know for certain.

  “I’m not letting London, Brian, or Dylan out of my sight just yet,” I said. “That shouldn’t be so hard to understand.”

  “And you can’t keep them in sight in another state because..?”

  I sighed, and Ashe clapped Quinn on the shoulder. “Leave it be,” he suggested.

  Quinn frowned and turned away to fiddle with his laptop. Let him be unhappy with us; we weren’t going to go play ostrich while some covert agency squared off – or failed to square off -- against the evil ex-girlfriend.

  Chapter Seventeen

  With the stay-or-leave question settled, everyone began to go their separate ways. The other boys in the band headed off for showers and sleep, Brian with Dylan on his arm. Quinn and Ashe wandered off to do whatever it is that secret agents do, Ashe pausing at the door to fling a simple “behave yourself” back at London. If he meant what I assumed he meant by that comment, then London ignored the admonition. The second the door closed, London turned my face toward his and kissed me.

  Our first kiss – had that really only been the night before? – had been tentative, uncertain. When he’d kissed me earlier in the night, it had been all heat and lust, demanding and damned near brutal. This kiss was neither uncertain nor demanding, but tender and passionate and confident. Maybe it wasn’t one of the five perfect kisses in the history of the world, but it was definitely one of the most perfect kisses in the history of Elizabeth Morgan.

  That kiss led to another and then another, as they usually do. The desire I thought I’d buried earlier proved to have been lying in wait for just such an occasion, and for a moment or two I let it sweep me away – away from worry and fear and not knowing what would happen next. Only when I felt London’s shields waver, felt the beginnings of the dreaded echo effect, did I force myself to draw away, just a little, resting my forehead against his.

  London sighed and traced his fingertips up and down my bare arm. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

  I leaned back a little and cupped his face in my hands. When he raised his eyes to meet mine, I smiled at him. “What exactly are you saying ‘sorry’ for?”

  He opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again and thought for a moment. “For being complicated.”

  I laughed. I couldn’t help it. Smiling, I wrapped my arms around him in an awkward hug. “I’m the Queen of Complicated, sweetheart,” I said. “If you’re smart, you’ll turn tail and run now.”

  London grinned at me. “I’ve never been all that bright,” he said and kissed me again.

  I giggled into the kiss, and London’s grin widened into a full-on smile. It made kissing awkward, sure, but the silly sweetness was a helluva lot easier to deal with in that moment than stronger, more serious feelings. And it just plain felt good.

  The moment didn’t last long. London cupped the back of my neck and pulled me in closer, kissed me a little harder. I pulled away again, and I guess something of what I was feeling must have shown on my face because London apologized again.

  “I really hate having to be ‘the responsible one’,” I said, my words coming out harsher than I’d intended. “It’d be nice if you could not make things hard on me.”

  “I’m....”

  “Don’t fucking say you’re sorry again. Just....” I pulled away with an almost-growl of frustration and got to my feet.

  “I am, though,” London said, catching hold of my hand. “I’m not trying to be difficult. I just want....”

  “To be normal?” I guessed.

  London nodded and inclined his head, his damp hair falling forward like a curtain, hiding his expression.

  “Normal is kind of boring.” I reached out to stroke his hair, then changed my mind and cupped his chin instead, urging him to look up at me. “The idea of losing myself in you again, in your emotions - or, I guess, our emotions – well...I’m not gonna lie. That scares the hell out of me. Even though it felt really damned good. Maybe because it felt really damned good.”

  “I get that,” he said. “It...it kind of worries me that it doesn’t scare me. That...it’s what I want right now. What I feel like I need.”

  “It makes sense that you want to lose yourself. Hell, it’s not just you, London. I want that, too. Being able to let go and forget every damned thing for a while sounds awesome.” I sighed. “And the more I babble about it the less I know why I’m resisting.”

  London smiled up at me. “Good to know.”

  I smiled back and tugged on London’s hand as I took a step back toward the bed. He surprised me by letting go, though he timed it so that I was steady on my feet and didn’t stumble.

  “There are other considerations.”

  I frowned, uncertain what he meant. Then I remembered the mad scramble for a condom the night before. Brian’s suitcase wasn’t here to save us tonight, and once the cumulative effects of London’s empathy hit us full force, we wouldn’t stop at making out. Maybe that's what he was talking about.

  “There’s a reason Ashe told me to behave,” London added. He leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, hands clasped in front of him.

  “What am I missing here?” I asked, perching on the foot of the bed.

  “Um.”

  “London?”

  He looked uncomfortable. Embarrassed even.

  “It’s like Ashe knew what would happen after the show. Like he knew I’d throw myself at you.” He shook his head. “He warned me that I should think of you as off-limits until I get better at shielding. Well, until I learn to shield properly. Using magic to throw up shields is only making things worse.” He paused. “I’m talking in circles.”

  “Yeah, kind of.”

  “The stronger my abilities get, and...and the stronger my feelings for you get, the stronger the...whatever you want to call it. The cumulative effect, I guess. The stronger that gets. If we give into this...it could be bad.”

  “How bad?”

  London sat back, leaning his head against the wall, and rubbed his face. “I think Ashe’s exact words were, 'Imagine giving Viagra to a 16-year-old'.”

  “Yikes.” I took a moment to process the thought. “So we’d...what? Screw until it hurt?”

  “More like until one of us passed out.”

  “And that concept didn’t bother you enough to think with your brain instead of your dick?”

  London sat back, frowning. “Are you referring to right after the show, or just now?”

  “Just now,” I answered. I started to pull my legs up to sit cross-legged, remembered I was wearing a skirt, and settled for crossing my legs at the ankle, all ladylike and proper. “I know that you just...kind of...broke earlier.”

  “Yeah, I did. And just now...I didn’t push things anywhere near the point of no return. I wouldn’t do that.” London moved to sit beside me on the bed and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, pulling me against his side. “I care about you, Elizabeth. I’m not gonna take a chance on hurting you. Especially not after what happened last night.”

  I snuggled closer to him. “Now it’s my turn to apologize. I know how freaked out you’ve been about that. And I know that you wouldn’t risk going down that path again.”

  London hugged me closer and kissed the top of my head. “Let’s call it even and go to bed.”

  I agreed and we took turns washing up and brushing teeth and, in my case, changing into pajamas. I crawled into bed beside London and he shut off the bedside lamp. In the darkness, I curled against his side, my head on his bare chest. Somehow, I resisted the invitation offered by all that smooth, naked skin, concentrating on the beat of London’s heart and the soft sighs of his breathing. Halfway through my silent bedtime prayers, I felt myself begin to doze. I raced through the rest of my prayers before my brain could wander off course again and th
en drifted off to sleep in London’s arms.

  Chapter Eighteen

  I woke screaming, drenched in sweat. My heart hammered out its rhythm double-time as I huddled against the headboard, afraid of the dark but just as afraid of drawing attention to myself by flipping on the lights. A soft, wounded sound reminded me that I wasn't alone and brought me a step or two closer to reality. The nightmare had been vivid, intense, but it had been just that – a nightmare. Nothing in it could hurt me now. I knew that on some level, but that knowledge wasn't quite enough to chase away the fear.

  The details were already fuzzy, but I knew the dream had something to do with Julia. I thought, but wasn't sure, that she'd hurt London, tortured him. She hadn't been using her mystical cattle-prod on him, but something more sinister. A knife maybe? Or, no....a dagger or an athame.

  Someone pounded on the door, and I jumped, a whimper escaping before I could clamp down on it. I could hear a muffled voice through the door, but couldn't place it. Everything seems alien and strange in the dark even at the best of times, which this certainly was not. I pulled the blankets up around me, clinging to the childish believe that the thick duvet would somehow hide or protect me from the things that go bump in the night.

  The door opened, and I whimpered again, curling up into the smallest ball possible.

  "Forgot I had a damn key," a familiar voice said, flipped on the lights.

  I blinked against the sudden brightness, my terror easing as I recognized Ashe. Adrian came into the room behind him, disheveled from sleep. Ashe moved to kneel on one side of the bed, and only then did I realize that London was not beside me. Glancing around, I saw no sign of him; I could only assume that he lay out of my line-of-sight, near where Ashe was now kneeling.

  Adrian stumbled across the room, rubbing his eyes. He glanced toward Ashe – or London - and then over at me, hesitating for only a moment before crossing to the bed. With slow, exaggerated movements like you'd use with a wounded animal, he crawled onto the mattress to sit beside me. He stroked my arm, my hair, anything within reach, with those same slow, calm movements, and began to sing to me, his voice hushed and soothing.

  By the time that Ashe had London calm and on his feet, Adrian had worked his own brand of magic, bringing me the rest of the way out of the nightmare and back into myself. London crawled onto the bed to sit with his back against the headboard and reached for me. I shied away from his touch, and tried not to feel guilty about it. The gesture probably made London feel worse than he already must, but I couldn't help it. It was pure instinct.

  I forced instinct to take a backseat to logic and moved to curl against London's side. Ashe still had a hand on London's shoulder, so it would be safe, I knew. London's arm tightened around my shoulders, and he turned to face me. His eyes were wide and tear bright. I couldn't read the emotion in them, and for once I wished there were no shields to keep his feelings from me.

  "What happened?" Adrian asked, dragging one of the straight-backed chairs up beside the bed.

  "Nightmare," I muttered.

  "That was no nightmare, little bit," Ashe said. "It was a psychic attack. I felt it, too."

  "Julia," I said.

  "Maybe. Maybe not. There's nothing in her dossier that makes me think she's capable of something like this, and the agency is pretty damn thorough."

  "You think it was someone else?" Adrian asked.

  "I don't know what I think," Ashe admitted. "I'll talk it over with Quinn. Later. Right now, we all need to try to get a little more sleep."

  "I don't think I'll be sleeping again tonight," I said.

  "You need rest," Ashe insisted. "We all do, if we're going to have enough wits about us to stay safe."

  I couldn't argue with the logic. Still, I knew sleep would be hard to find now.

  "Do you think it'll happen again?" London wanted to know.

  "I just don't know, Stretch."

  "What can we do?"

  "Not much," Ashe replied. "Whoever attacked you was damn strong – strong enough that I felt the projection through my shields. I've been in this business a long time. Shielding is second nature to me. I can even do it in my sleep. You're a long way from that still."

  "What about that whole third party thing?" I asked.

  "I can't do that in my sleep," Ashe said, "And I can't stay up all night keeping watch."

  "And we wouldn't ask you to," London said.

  I nodded in agreement. "Of course not. So...we just hope we don't keep getting ambushed while we sleep?"

  "That's about the size of it."

  Sighing, I looked over at Adrian. "I so wish I were you right now. That whole immune to magic thing would be pretty awesome."

  Adrian half-smiled. "Kind of. Not sure that nightmares would have been worse than waking up to the sound of you screaming. You scared the hell out of me."

  "You could hear me through the walls?" I asked, embarrassed.

  "I'm surprised you didn't wake the whole floor," Ashe chimed in.

  "Awesome," I said, turning to hide my flushed face against London's shoulder. He cuddled me closer and stroked my hair, and I felt a little better.

  Everyone was silent for a moment or two, and then London said, "I don't want you to have to go through that again."

  "I don't want either of us to have to go through it again," I replied.

  "If I understand this whole distance projection thing right, then only the target or another empath is actually affected by it. Am I right?"

  "Most of the time, yes," Ashe confirmed.

  "So Elizabeth's nightmares were because I was bleeding magic and not because of the attack itself."

  Ashe nodded. "Yeah, but she's not gonna want to hear what you have to say on the subject."

  "Hello. I'm right here," I said. I hate when people talk about me like I'm not even in the room.

  "Sorry, Elizabeth," Ashe said with a slight inclination of his head. "But I figured I oughta warn your boy here to keep his trap shut before he pisses you off again."

  "Probably a good plan," I said. I stretched up to kiss London on the temple and said, "I'm not going anywhere, so forget it."

  London laughed. The unexpected sound startled all of us, London included, but it also chased away a few more of the emotional shadows.

  "Now who's making things difficult?"

  "Queen of Complicated," I said. "I warned you."

  The laughter faded from London's eyes, but a slight smile stayed on his lips. "Please don't fight me on this, Em," he said, brushing my hair back from my face.

  The concern in his eyes melted something in me, and I couldn't fight him. Dammit. "Fine."

  London winced. "It's never good when a woman says, 'fine'."

  "It really is fine. I promise."

  "You sure?" I glared up at him, and he smiled back. "Okay, okay, you're sure." He looked up at Adrian, who answered London's unasked question.

  "Elizabeth can have my room. I'll stay in here with you, just in case."

  "I don't want her alone," London argued.

  Winking at me, Ashe put on his best leering lecher voice and said, "I'll be glad to keep her company."

  "I bet you would," London replied. He sounded a little jealous, a little possessive, and he held me just a bit tighter. "Adrian, do you mind staying with Em tonight?"

  "It'll be torture,” Adrian teased, “but I think I can handle it."

  We all said our goodnights, London and I kissed, and then I followed Adrian back to his room, wishing I had taken the time to put on something more substantial than boxer shorts and a camisole. Even the t-shirt and shorts ensemble I’d been favoring the past few days would have been a little better. There was something disturbing about crawling into bed half-naked with a similarly half-clothed married man, even though there was no attraction between us.

  I lay curled with my back to him, trying to relax enough to sleep. I failed. There were too many thoughts whirling through my mind.

  After what seemed like ages but couldn't have
been more than half an hour, Adrian sat up with a sigh. I guess sleep wasn't working for him either. The bed shifted as he climbed out of it, and I could hear him pad, catlike, across the room. I heard some sounds I couldn't put a name to, and then music pushed away the silence. These boys and their guitars. Not that I minded.

  Unlike the other guys, Adrian chose to sing along with the songs he played, his voice low and dreamlike in the dim closeness of the room. Just like earlier, his singing soothed and comforted me, and the next thing I knew, I woke to daylight filling the room. I'd slept, and slept well, with no more nightmares. I wondered if London had fared as well.

  Leaving Adrian to whatever dreams were making him smile in his sleep, I crept out of the room, willing to take a chance on waking London. I needed to see him.

  I wasn't expecting anyone to be up and about, but Kent stood in the hallway, leaning against the wall with his luggage piled around him. He looked up as the door closed behind me, his eyebrows shooting up.

  "Not a word," I said.

  He mimicked zipping his lips shut and gave me a little smile. I answered it with a scowl and turned toward London's room, only to turn around again at the sound of a door opening. Brian stepped into the hallway, flashing me a broad smile. I scowled at him, too, and he moved to hug me.

  "What are you doing awake this early?" he asked me.

  "Sneaking out of Adrian's room," Kenny answered.

  "You and London fighting again?"

  I shook my head. "It's a long story."

  "You can fill me in later," Brian said, shouldering one of Kenny's bags. "We've got to get going."

  "You're not going alone are you?" I asked.

  "Quinn's meeting us in the lobby,” Kenny explained. “He's bringing a friend, someone who's agreed to play bodyguard for me. I was planning to go back with the rest of our crew, but everyone thinks I’m too much of a target. They wanted Jimmy to go with me, but he left earlier. He had the sudden urge to get the hell out of the country.”