“Yes. I am.”
Sisko, his right hand man, caught his eye, sending a silent message. Good luck with that, my friend.
Simone crossed her arms over her chest. “This is about us, isn’t it?”
“This has nothing to do with us,” Noah assured her.
Simone’s red lips curled. “Like hell it doesn’t.”
“Simone, this is not the time or place!” Batello growled.
“Actually it is.” Her voice had a bell-like clarity. “I’m entitled to know why he stopped wanting me.”
Chairs scraped and the table rattled as all present scrambled to get the hell out of there. Batello alone stood his ground, breathing heavily. “Don’t waste words on this son of a bitch,” he said. “We’ll let our lawyers deal with him.”
“Give us a minute, Rand.” Simone didn’t even turn to look at him.
Batello snarled an obscenity and stumped out of the room.
The door shut behind him and a freshly awful silence fell.
“So?” Simone said. “Do you have anything to say to me worth hearing?”
He didn’t.
“Like I thought.” Her voice was soft and bitter. “You’ve got nothing.”
Jesus, this was heading right off a cliff, and he couldn’t think fast enough to head off the inevitable nosedive. “Listen. Simone. I’m sorry that I—”
“Just tell me one thing, Noah. Were you even aware that I was sitting next to you while that girl was shaking her tits in your face?”
He closed his eyes, took a moment. “I knew you were there,” he said.
Some answer. Simone was just warming up.
“I’m thinking you did me a favor,” she hissed. “First during the dance when you forgot that I existed and went off into your porno fantasyland right in front of everyone. Then just now when you broke the deal. I don’t like being blindsided, Noah.”
“It wasn’t intentional.”
“Just . . . shut . . . up. I’m not interested in your bullshit.” Her voice snapped like a whip. “I’m not sorry this happened, Noah. Better now than after ten years and two kids. Much better now.”
Listening to her was like holding a live electrical wire. All he could do was hang on, letting the charge buzz until his teeth rattled and his hair stood on end. The pain in her eyes was very real. The raw anguish in her eyes said it all. He’d thought that she was cool by nature and he’d liked her coolness, hoping it would mesh with his own preference for control. Hoping she might not need the intimacy all the other women he had sex with always wanted.
He’d bought a ring. Proposed. Entered into an actual engagement. He’d promised something that he didn’t actually have to give.
He cleared his throat. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Asking you to marry me is the biggest compliment I could pay a woman. I admire you. You’re brilliant, accomplished, beautiful. And I . . .” He searched for more. Found nothing to say.
“And you thought that was enough,” Simone finished. “Until you didn’t.”
He didn’t dare reply. He was in over his head.
She turned away so all he could see was the sharp line of her jaw, the small gold drop earrings. “You know what, Noah? I really thought you were different.”
He had no idea where she was going with this. Certainly nowhere good.
“How?” he asked.
“All that old-fashioned courtship. You, telling me you were happy waiting to have sex. I thought, aw, how sweet. How quirky and unusual and romantic. I thought you must have hidden depths. And that there would be so much more to discover. Hah.”
“Simone—”
“But it’s all a front. You have no hidden depths. There’s nobody home in there. I’m glad I never had sex with you.” She tugged her finger, pulling off the square-cut diamond he’d given her. “Take this back.”
He held up his hands. “Wait. Simone, can’t we talk first?”
“Take it, or I’ll flush it in the ladies.” She grabbed his hand, and closed his fingers forcibly over the ring. “Do you think I want to remember this feeling? Oh joy and fucking rapture. You want some advice, Noah?”
He wanted advice from her about the way he wanted a fractured skull, but he had no right to show her any attitude. He clenched his teeth and gestured for her to have at. Stick it to him.
“Give yourself a birthday treat.” She flung the words at him. “Celebrate your freedom. Play out your pathetic sexual fantasy right here on the conference room table. Better her than me.”
She walked out, her elegant back very straight.
Noah stared at the door. The diamond ring dug deep into his palm. He breathed slower, slower . . . until Simone’s kill plan winked off his inner screen in the absence of visual stimuli. He was glad when it did.
He’d held back on sex with Simone, and he finally understood why. Because he was afraid of that inevitable moment afterwards. When she’d cuddle up to him with a hopeful, expectant look on her face, and there he’d be, like he always was. Wondering what the fuck to do with her now. And how soon could she leave.
He pressed his hand against the table. The sensual grain of wood made him think of the dancer’s hair. That sexy fanning flare it did as she dipped and spun.
Play out your pathetic fantasy right here on the conference room table if you want. Simone’s words unleashed vividly erotic images. Lust shocked his unstable AVP into action again. Enough. He’d never analog dived to stall a sexual fantasy before, but there was a first time for everything.
When he had himself more or less together, he stepped out of the conference room and into an unnatural silence. Everyone in the place who had an office with a door that closed was behind it. The ones assigned to cubicles hunkered down and made themselves small while he stalked through the place.
Hannah stood in the corridor by his office door, obviously worried.
“Noah?” she asked.
He shook his head and went into his office. Tossed Simone’s ring on his desk. He looked out the floor to ceiling glass window at Mount Rainier, towering in the distance. Barely visible in the fading light of the afternoon.
His office door opened silently. He turned to find Hannah gazing at the ring on his desk. “If a four minute belly dance could break your engagement, then it really needed to be broken,” she said flatly.
“Thanks for the advice. Like you know what you’re talking about. Your last relationship was over in less than a week.”
“So?”
He ignored her mulish look. “So what the fuck did you think you were doing? Was this your idea of a joke?”
“Oh. Well, actually, no,” Hannah admitted. “We had a very good reason for calling her. The belly dancer was one of Mark Olund’s mistresses. Maybe.”
Noah stood there, speechless. He couldn’t process that info. The warm, vivid woman he’d just seen. The ice cold killer Mark Olund, formerly of his rebel Midlander group. Those two didn’t go together in the same breath. Or even the same thought.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he demanded.
Hannah sighed. “Remember a couple years ago when you told Zade to keep track of all the women Mark hooked up with?”
“Of course I remember,” he snapped.
“Well, Zade did. He has bots tracking them, using facial recog,” Hannah said. “And the belly dancer was one of them. Zade called me this morning and told me one of Mark’s girlfriends was cruising around Seattle within a mile of Angel Enterprises. So we decided to check her out more closely.” Hannah shrugged. “I suppose we should have told you. But we thought it would be more interesting this way.”
Mark had once been one of them, years ago. He’d undergone the same Midlands brain stim program as Noah. He and Noah were the only two of the Eyes Guys to survive the rebellion.
They had parted ways years ago, when Mark chose another path. A darker one.
“I can think of a lot of reasons why not,” Noah said. “And not one good reason to keep me in the dark about it.”<
br />
“I wanted you to look at her, preferably with AVP,” Hannah said. “But she ran away too fast. Skittish. Not that I blame her, if she’s had anything to do with Mark. Did you catch up with her outside?”
“No. She was already leaving.” He shot Sisko an accusing look.
Sisko threw up his hands. “No clue,” he said hastily. “Not my idea.”
“This girl showed up on the surveillance vidcam that Zade planted on Bea McDougal’s sandwich truck,” Hannah told him. “Zade tailed her. Saw her do a belly dancing gig last night. We thought, great. Your birthday was all the excuse we needed.”
“Without clearing it with me.”
“Clearing it my ass.” Hannah’s voice was defiant. “We knew exactly what you would say. Grit your teeth. Wait and see. Be patient. Fuck that, Noah. We need leads to find Luke. If Mark sent her to spy on us then she already knows who we are. And you’d know a lot about her right away if you just AVP scanned her.”
“You know that I can’t take off my shield specs in front of outsiders.”
“Outsiders?” Hannah snorted. “Oh, you mean, like, the woman you were about to marry? That outsider? The one who can never be allowed to see your real irises?”
“Hannah,” Noah warned. “Don’t push me.”
“We have to start somewhere. You could’ve organized to see her—”
“In front of my fiancée. Yeah, I can see it. Hey, girl, loved your sexy dance. What do you say we meet for coffee after you put your clothes back on, just us two? Sounds like a genius move, Hannah.”
“I was trying to speed things up,” Hannah said, annoyed.
“Don’t,” he said. “It was stupid. And it puts us all in danger.”
“You think everything puts us in danger. You have to relax.”
“Really?” He laughed harshly. “After a stunt like this?”
“Well, it got weird really fast, when you tore out of the room,” Hannah admitted. “And why on earth did you kill the Batello deal? Without even giving us a heads-up?”
Noah pulled Asa’s message up on his display, and handed the phone to Hannah.
Her face went white. The dusting of freckles on her face came into sharp focus.
Asa had been Hannah’s favorite big brother. Noah was doomed to be the pain-in-the-ass eldest, forever trying to take the place of their absent parents. That left Asa free to be the fun brother, the cool brother. The one Hannah admired and adored. The one who never annoyed or lectured or pestered her. The one who “understood her.”
She’d blamed Noah when Asa left. She’d cried for weeks afterwards.
And in exchange for her favorite brother, Noah had given her the Midlands horror show. What a trade-off. He usually managed not to think about that.
Just not when her eyes had that look.
“He tracked you down?” Sisko’s eyes widened. “Figured out your identities? Shit. He’s good.”
“Damn right,” Noah said. “He encrypted my message using your private code.”
Sisko lunged for the phone, outraged. “What the fuck? He’s an unmod. No one cracks my code. Not even Zade.”
Noah turned away from him to check out Hannah, who was unnaturally silent. Her eyes had taken on that blank Midlands stare. Her lips had gone blue. Blood pressure drop. His bar had a small espresso machine, so he slid in the coffee capsule and brewed a cup. He sugared up the resulting beverage, and pressed it into Hannah’s hand.
“Drink that,” he directed. “You’re fading.”
Hannah’s attitude revived enough for her to roll her eyes. She sipped, grimacing.
Noah hit the switch on the wall that engaged the window shades. It was made of the same material he used for shield specs, to filter out all the frequencies that disturbed him and left just enough light to function. The motor hummed as the shades descended.
Sisko sighed as darkness engulfed them. “Great,” he muttered. “This again.”
“Now?” Hannah asked plaintively. “Really?”
Noah ignored them and popped out the contacts. He could only do a bare-eyes scan in near darkness, and he needed to scan Hannah right now.
Sisko and Hannah exchanged resigned glances. Every time he called a meeting of the Midland rebels, he scanned them. Made sure everyone was chilled. Dangerous secrets hidden. Identities intact. No erratic thought patterns or chemical imbalances.
Everything smooth, normal. Move along, folks, nothing to see here.
He’d lost too many of them already. Some during the Midlands research trials, some in in the rebellion day battle. Some after, lost to traumatic stress, depression and suicide. He’d been the one to persuade them to rebel, at Midlands. But they’d had no real choice. They’d been fighting for their lives.
Obsidian would pay someday. But in the meantime, he would keep an AVP enhanced eagle eye on the ones left, and the very second that one of his people skipped a beat, he’d be all over his or her ass. He’d be damned if he’d lose another one.
Hannah checked out, more or less. Coffee helped. The shock was passing. She was burning too hot with excitement in some places, and too patchy in others, but he’d seen her worse. Sisko looked worried but otherwise normal.
It was his Midlands legacy. All of them had one. Together, they were a circus freakshow, but Noah’s hounding kept their weirder stuff under the radar. Mostly.
Hannah gave him a resigned eye-roll. She was the only one who could meet his eyes when he used AVP. The rest of his group avoided his gaze, which took on a luminous, reflective amber glow like a night predator. It made their skins crawl.
He didn’t give a shit. They’d survive skin crawl. He was all about survival.
Sisko stared out the shielded window, bored and stoic. Humoring him.
“Let’s call him,” Hannah said suddenly. “Instead of just sitting here, wondering about him. Call him, right now. Ask him where the hell he’s been for thirteen years.”
“No,” Noah said.
Her mouth tightened. “But if there’s such a big hole in our security—”
“He knows too much about us.”
“His message doesn’t sound like he wishes us any harm,” Hannah argued. “Why warn us about Batello and Obsidian if he wanted to hurt us?”
“We don’t know anything about him,” he snarled.
“That’s bullshit. I know him. He’s my brother, goddamnit. And I’m not asking for your fucking permission.” Hannah spun and marched for the door.
“Stop!” Noah punched all the force of his will into the word. Hannah froze with her back to him, her hand on the door handle. Her slim shoulders vibrated with tension.
“Ease off, Noah.” Sisko had a worried frown between his dark brows.
“Do not contact him,” Noah said to Hannah, enunciating with harsh clarity. “Do nothing, unless we talk it through first. Do you understand?”
“Oh, yes. I understand perfectly. You were jealous and competetive with him before, and surprise, surprise . . . you still are. Happy birthday, Noah. Fuck you, too.”
She slammed the door after herself.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Sisko demanded. “You having trouble with your combat programming again?”
“I’m fine.” Noah handed his phone to Sisko. “Take this number. Find out everything you can about Asa. And follow Hannah. Make sure she doesn’t do anything stupid. Thirteen years is a long time. I have no idea who this guy is now.”
“I’m on it.” Sisko gave the big block of data a swift glance and handed it back. They all had the photographic memory mod, but Sisko’s talent for data-gulping and ferreting out information was uncanny even by Midlander standards.
“Find Zade, too. Tell him to get his ass in here to talk to me,” Noah said. “But be careful on the phone. We’ve definitely been hacked.”
Sisko gave him one final worried stare before the door fell closed.
Finally, he could just sit alone in the dark and try to chill. These massive back-to-back adrenaline dumps were goin
g to take a long time to metabolize. Good thing he didn’t actually need sleep.
Or at least, not what an unmod would call sleep.
There were several episodes in his life that he made a point of not remembering. The one in his mind now made the short list. That day he woke up after Dad’s death and found Mom gone. He’d been seventeen. Asa, fifteen. Hannah, nine.
She never came back. CPS had been farming them out to foster homes when Noah took his younger brother and sister and ran away.
He’d kept them going for quite a while. Scrounging, stealing and scamming was all he knew how to do at the time, so he’d clenched his teeth and done it. They had to eat.
He and Asa were both skilled, having learned the craft from Mom and Dad. Places to stay were more complicated, but they managed, sleeping in flophouses, or on the streets. They might have gone on like that indefinitely but for a run of bad luck. Hannah had pneumonia when the Midlands recruiter found them. Asa was being surly and secretive, sneaking out at night. All of them were hungry, dirty and cold.
The recruiter overdid his promo spiel. The way he told it, Midlands was an elite school for magical superkids. Like any elite, desirable place would be free, ever. The guy said Midlands would give them powers, abilities that would make them special.
Riiiight. It sounded like a big fucking fairy tale to him, but he figured, why not go with it for now? Get some hot food, a shower, antibiotics for Hannah. As soon as they were on their feet again, they’d pick a lock and breeze on out of there.
Asa had disagreed violently. Fuck, no, he said. Don’t get near the place. Those scumbags would shackle them and eat their livers.
Noah lost it. Told Asa to fuck off. Big fist fight. And Asa had fucked off.
Permanently.
His brother never did get to gloat about being right. Midlands had been worse than he’d ever imagined. And Noah had led his baby sister in there by the hand.
He shoved that thought down into the dark where it belonged. Or tried to. Despite his best efforts, he could still feel its cold dead weight inside him. He needed to leave that stuff behind. He had problems enough to deal with right now.
Like Asa’s mysterious message. Aside from its content, the message implied other alarming things. Asa knew Sisko’s codes, Noah’s cell private number, the secret Batello deal. He knew about Noah’s engagement, which had never been announced.
Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1) Page 4
