Going Under

by Lauren Dane

  Tears pricked her throat but she kept them back.

  “Thank you for that. It does help, knowing.”

  “This is unfair and wrong. I have spent my life trying to do the right thing and I will continue that. I’m not the only human being who will. Please be patient and have faith.”

  “Thank you for sharing that with me. It means something. As for faith? I’m trying. But when shifters who were attacked in their own neighborhood are in jail while the humans who burned homes and businesses down are being hailed as heroes, it’s hard to keep that faith. Moreover, it’s hard for me to convince Others to keep that faith.”

  She considered telling him about their growing power, but decided not to. The time might come when they needed that secret as a weapon.

  “I understand. You’re good at what you do, so I have faith in you.”

  “I need to say this and I hope you’ll take it in the spirit I’m offering it in. We are not cartoons. Push a shifter too far and it’s going to end badly. They’re up against the wall. They’ve held back time and again. But they’re not going to much longer. So if this stuff goes forward, they will defend their family and their land. The vampires are already on the fence, they tend to stick to themselves so the fact that they’re actually listening to me and agreeing to this Council of Others thing is unusual. They may be old, but they do not have unlimited patience. They don’t mess around and so far they’ve been left alone for the most part. Make sure you keep it that way. The stakes here are a lot higher than humans seem to realize.”

  “Are you saying we have a problem?”

  “I’ve been saying that from day one. It’s like humans turn their hearing off. You can come up with all the cages you want, but if you think we’re going to go into them without a fight, you’re so sorely mistaken. I’m being as plain as I can here with you because I respect you. But we are not victims.” She held his gaze for long moments, letting it settle in. There seemed to be some sort of impression that because they looked like humans and had been quiet before the Magister that they were malleable and easily controlled. She needed to dissuade that perception without overdoing it and freaking them into a knee-jerk reaction.

  He sighed. “Fair enough. Thank you as well for sharing. Let’s go in. I ordered some food so I hope you’re hungry.”

  Chapter 25

  “SAY that again?” Molly blinked, reining her temper in the best she could.

  “The chair of the committee has chosen the panel of speakers. You’re not on it. Senator Sato and Representative Carroll are working on this now.” Sato’s aide sighed.

  “There’s not a single Other on this list.” Molly held the page up.

  The aide blushed. “I know.”

  “How can you have a legislative hearing on concentration camps for Others without the voice of a single Other being heard? This is outrageous.”

  Gage paced just behind her, his anxiety battering her. Faine just stood like a big giant boulder of dude a few inches away.

  Representative Carroll came into the alcove where they’d been standing. He clasped her forearm and bowed his head slightly. “I know.” He held up a hand. “I’ve spoken with a few others in my caucus and we’ve banded together to give you our time.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “This entire hearing is . . . a new take on the rules. It’s in violation of established rules, but as you know, many rules are being broken right now. So because of that, yes, we can do that. You won’t be sitting at the table in front though. But there’ll be a comments portion, you’ll come up then. My aide will escort you up. We’re going to keep that as a surprise, all right? I’m not giving these bigots another chance to silence us.”

  She thanked him and turned back to Gage. “Did you hear that?”

  “Yes. I don’t like this, Molly. This feels all kinds of wrong.”

  Molly nodded. “Yes. I can’t believe how this is all playing out. It’s like a bad cable movie.”

  Gage stepped close and spoke in her ear. “There are a lot of people here who want to hurt us. You, more specifically. I can feel it. We should go.”

  “If I go, this whole debacle goes unchallenged. How can I do that? They want to put us in camps and not give us the opportunity to rebut that. If I go, who’ll speak for us?” She put a hand on his arm, locking her gaze with his. “They have metal detectors here. You’re here. Faine is here. Cade Warden’s team of bodyguards is here along with an assortment of other big paranormal badasses. We’ll leave as soon as we can.”

  “I don’t like this.” But his back lost some of its tension and she knew he’d relent.

  He escorted her in, Faine at her back. The hostility in the room made her slightly ill.

  Senator Hayes caught sight of Molly and sneered her way. She simply stared back, holding his gaze until he broke away. “He should be ashamed of himself.”

  “He has no shame. His aura is dark and full of thin spots and holes. He’s sold his integrity for power and he wants to cloak it in self-righteousness.” Faine’s lip curled as he said the last.

  The outsider perspective from a being as old as Faine and Simon was really useful. It enabled Molly to see other facets of these issues.

  Hayes was the chair of the hearing, which meant he was running the show. So he gave a long, sanctimonious speech about how there was always a balance between the right to safety and other sorts of rights.

  But that wasn’t the worst part. The humans on the panel were like textbook villains. Beyond the blatant bigotry and anti-Other rhetoric, there was a liberal smattering of nonsensical fabrications about what Others did and didn’t do. A bunch of outrageous drivel about bands of wolves tearing through small towns and stealing pets and infecting humans against their will. Humans had been, from time to time, infected without their permission. But not a single documented case had occurred in the last year. And they sure didn’t rampage through Mayberry to eat Fluffy and the kids.

  Sato, to his credit, along with several other people on the panel, did manage to ask the right questions and set the record straight, but the damage was done and she knew the things said by the humans on that panel of so-called experts would be passed off as facts in the PR blitz for this bill.

  Finally, Representative Carroll spoke from his seat. “It was under protest from our caucus today that this hearing went forward without a single Other on the incorrectly named expert panel you see here. This caucus is made up of men and women, human and Other, from both sides of the aisle. We have a total of twenty-five minutes for comment. As such, we cede that time to Molly Ryan.”

  Carroll’s aide came up to escort Molly to the front as Hayes and Sato disagreed on procedure. She was going to say her piece no matter what or they’d have to drag her out.

  She didn’t need notes so she reached the podium with nothing but herself. The humans on the panel started hooting and hollering about rules and the pitch in the room got higher as the arguing worsened.

  It was so loud she couldn’t be heard and that was not going to happen. She’d come thousands of miles with the hopes and dreams of her people riding on what she had to say that day and Molly wasn’t going to let them down.

  So she tapped on the mic to be sure it was hot and then she gave a loud whistle, which did get everyone’s attention.

  “Now then. My name is Molly Ryan—”

  “You have not been recognized by the Chair of this committee. You need to be quiet!” Hayes barked at her.

  She knew she did a little head whip at his tone, like she was a wayward animal.

  “Senator, with all due respect you either have to give me a seat on your expert panel or let me speak now. You changed the rules, but either way I can speak.”

  Without really even doing it on purpose, she knew she worked her magick to be heard. Which, she supposed, was better than using it to send this asshole through the wall.

  Her othersight revealed a human who was devoid of much heart and soul. Faine had been right about that. Bu
t he was afraid as well. More than he’d been at the television studio the day before when he’d called her a power-hungry whore of Babylon. They’d cut that from the West Coast feed, but it had left her so angry the top of her head nearly blew off.

  “Turn her mic off!” he screamed into his own. Molly looked to Sato, who was as confused as she was.

  “Senator Hayes, this is a violation of your own procedure. She has time ceded to her by members of this committee. She has a right to use it to speak.” Sato remained calm as he attempted to speak over the rising din.

  Molly knew when her mic was turned off and rage built from the tips of her toes. Enough was enough. She called her magick then and used it to be heard.

  “You cannot take away our voice. I will not allow it. This is our country as well. I was born here. I am a citizen of this nation and you will not violate the Constitution to keep me silent.”

  Her voice rang clear and strong throughout the room.

  “Have that thing arrested,” Hayes called out to the Capitol police, who began to move toward her. When that happened, Gage was at her side in moments and Faine blocked access to her up the aisle.

  “We need to go right now.” Gage put a hand on her arm.

  “I will not. He just called me a thing!”

  Gage’s anger wisped away for a moment, replaced by amusement. “Baby, I promise you can make mincemeat out of him once we’ve gotten you out of here. Things are dangerous. I can feel it. We need to go right now. They’ve already taken Cade from the room.”

  “I can’t imagine he did so willingly.”

  Gage’s hesitation told her she’d been right.

  “In the end, he listened to reason. Just like you have to.”

  And then it was as if all the air was sucked from the room. The pressure changed, making her ears pop. Terrible knowledge ghosted over Gage’s face as he shoved her to the floor.

  She put her arms over her head protectively, up to her knees to watch as she could. All around her dust and debris flew. Glass seemed to flitter to the ground like rain. Chaos reigned. They were being attacked, that much was obvious. But how bad it was she didn’t know.

  Another punch in the air and she left the ground and flew a few feet. This time there was white-hot pain like she’d never experienced before and even though everything around her was deafeningly loud, she heard the crack of her bones as they broke.

  Gage shoved the podium to the ground next to her, using it to shield her. “Hang on, Molly! It’s going to be all right.”

  The pain grew and grew, worsening each time Gage shifted, jostling her. Waves of heat passed over her and she realized it was magick. Gage was throwing his magick at whatever, whoever had attacked.

  She tried to move, to shift, but Faine put a hand in the small of her back. “Stay,” he snarled so she did. She kept her focus on Gage’s face, so intent as he protected her. And she tried very hard not to think about what might happen if he got hurt, or how many people in that room had been hurt. Or worse.

  And then one more boom, this one from a different direction, sending more debris up into the air and across the room. She had a hard time wrapping her head around exactly what was happening. The entire thing was surreal. A surreal capper on a surreal several months.

  She might have laughed until something heavy hit her left leg and the bone snapped. The scream she heard came from her lips and that made her very sweaty. Her vision went sort of gray at the edges.

  She looked up at Gage, trying not to panic at the panic on his face. He was scared. That was bad. Molly wanted to say something. She might have actually done it, but then she couldn’t say anything at all as consciousness fell away.

  Gage and Faine shoved the heavy oak desk from her leg. She’d passed out just moments after it hit her. He’d been looking at her face, and then horrible pain flashed over her features. Her scream still echoed through his ears. She’d whispered, ow, before she’d gone white and her eyes had rolled back.

  He’d had to choke his fear back until he verified she had just fainted and wasn’t dead. He managed to use his magick to keep her unconscious for a little while. Once she woke up the pain would be pretty bad and he didn’t want that for her.

  The room had descended into chaos after the first explosion, people running everywhere. It had been his plan to get her the hell out but he didn’t want her to get trampled in the process.

  Screams. The stench of burning flesh. Cries of pain and rage. He’d spooled up his magick so fast and hard he tasted it on his tongue as the smell of ozone came. He thought of nothing but her has he sent blast after blast in the direction of the bomb.

  The second explosion had injured her and he’d been about to bend to pick her up when she’d grabbed her arm, blood everywhere. The scent of it had wrapped around his magick. Viselike, it held him, driving him to protect and defend.

  Then the third and more injuries as he’d been helpless to do anything but keep her unconscious.

  Finally, the Capitol police managed to secure the space and Gage stood, noting the carnage.

  “Bombs.” Faine’s voice rumbled from where he knelt, next to Molly. “Three of them from what I could tell. They all smell the same.”

  “Gonna guess they were all the work of the same people.” He looked Molly over. “I want to pick her up but I don’t want to hurt her any worse.”

  One entire wall was gone. The hallway beyond was full of cops, debris and gawkers. Investigators had already started work in the hearing room; paramedics had begun to stream in and were dealing with the wounded.

  Gage didn’t want any human doctors touching her. Didn’t want any humans anywhere near her.

  “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.”

  Faine nodded. “Succinctly put. We need to get her seen to.”

  Sato made his way through the rubble between where they stood and where he’d been shoved out a back door by his security people. “Over here!” he shouted to the medics.

  “No. I want an Other seeing to her.” Gage nearly snarled it, his rage made the words bitter on his tongue. He wanted to burn shit down, she’d been so hurt.

  “There aren’t any here right now and she’s clearly in need of help.” Sato weighed his words. “I understand your anger. Just let us help. We’re not all Hayes.”

  “Fat lot of good it does Molly.”

  “Be pissed at me all you want, but let’s get Molly treated. Please.”

  Faine stood, looking to Gage. Gage knew the Lycian would back him no matter what he decided.

  “Fine. But she’s not leaving my sight.”

  The paramedic who’d paused at Gage’s anger moved in and another joined him. Gage scanned them both and got nothing but some fear and a desire to help.

  “What the fuck happened?” Gage demanded of Sato while they began to look Molly over.

  “We don’t know yet.”

  “I will have someone’s head if Hayes claims it was Others. And why aren’t you getting video of this?”

  The men turned to look at Molly, who’d regained consciousness and valiantly tried not to wince as they cleaned the wound on her neck. She was all right enough to issue orders. At least there was that.

  “Hush you. Let them fix you up. Then you can make threats.” The words felt like such a lie. Not that she shouldn’t let them fix her up, but his upbeat delivery. Like it was no big deal.

  When what he really wanted to do was start kicking the shit out of everyone in the vicinity.

  “We need—” She broke off on a whimper and he and Sato both knelt down. Gage wanted to touch her but he wasn’t sure where he could without hurting her more. He should have known even broken bones and bombs couldn’t stop her from doing her job. “Use your phone. Don’t know how they will spin it. We need truth.”

  “Didn’t I just tell you to hush? Bossy woman.”

  She smiled sideways and he got his phone out and began to film the outrageous destruction all around them.

  But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going
to be sure she was taken care of. “Can’t you give her something for the pain?”

  “Yes, in a moment. She needs to get these broken bones set and casted. We need to transport her to the hospital. She might have a concussion. She’s got multiple lacerations on her face and neck from the flying glass.” The paramedic spoke into a radio at his shoulder, requesting an ambulance and a gurney.

  “Not yet. We need to set up a press conference. Right now.”

  “You’re out of your mind if you think I’m going to let you have a damned press conference instead of going to the hospital.”

  The paramedic spoke with her briefly about any allergies she might have and the gurney arrived. It was easier—slightly—to watch it through his camera on his phone.

  “I’m not”—she swallowed hard as they put in an IV—“out of my mind. They need to see this, Gage. Every damned human in this country needs to see the price of their silence, indifference or, worse, their bigotry. There is a cost. We’ve been paying it over and over since the Magister. They need to be confronted with it.”

  He turned the camera off for a moment, leaning in close to speak to her quietly. “You’re killing me, beautiful. How about this? We get you to the hospital and patched up and then you can go straight into a press conference. We’ll know more, at least a little more by that point. I can call Meriel and fill her in so she can tell you if she wants you to say anything specific.” He knew the last part would be an appeal to authority and that it would work with her. It was dirty pool, but he’d do whatever he had to to get her into that ambulance.

  “I broke a few things.”

  He laughed and found himself kissing her forehead. He turned the camera back on before he did anything else like that.

  “Molly, I’d be honored if you’d allow me to help these males get you onto the gurney.” Faine spoke to her in a gentle voice.

  “Fine. Thank you.” She looked up at Sato and Gage knew by the way her face had relaxed that the pain relief had kicked in. “Are you all right?”