by Hope Anika
He knew nothing of love or hope, not since his earliest years. He did not miss them, and he did not particularly care to revisit them. But the sight of Ash’s tears had stirred embers he’d thought long dead, and now they smoldered within him, stubborn and hungry for flame.
Feeding his sense of possession. Because for all of his wariness, the enticing possibility of her pushed him inexorably forward. She made him intensely aware—of himself, of her, of them together—in a way he’d never before experienced; the awakening was piercing, almost intoxicating. He’d spent his entire life outside looking in, and for the first time he felt as though a door had appeared. All he had to do was open it and walk through.
He wasn’t certain anything could stop him.
Standing in the conference room, watching as she hung the contents of the envelope they’d discovered in Joseph Pierce’s apartment along the top edge of the large corkboard that sat beside the grease board they’d filled with notes the night before, Ruslan recognized that there was no place he would rather be. No one he would rather be with.
No matter the difficulty ahead, the risk. The cost.
Ash hung the material from Pierce chronologically and included everything—even the photo of PN4, which she pulled from the inside pocket of her suit and pinned to the board with a quiet solemnity that made Ruslan acutely aware she needed from him things he still did not comprehend. Enigmatic, intangible nuances and subtleties that were as foreign to him as the moon.
The ability to read her and respond accordingly, for one. And right now, he could see her need. But he had no idea how to satisfy it.
“That’s pathetic,” she said, staring at the boards. “We’re screwed.”
“We have been on the case for a day and a half,” he pointed out mildly. “In actuality, we have amassed a respectable amount of information, given the timeframe.”
“It’s not enough,” she muttered. “More questions than answers.”
He couldn’t disagree, and like her, he wanted answers. Answers about the Primaries who had come before those of GenTek’s making; answers regarding the identities of those who made up the unknown Architect and what the organization’s ultimate goal was. He wanted to understand what the symbols of his tattoo signified, and what connection truly existed—if any—between himself and the conspiracy they’d suddenly found themselves embroiled within.
You believe you’re one of them, don’t you?
He’d come to believe it with near certainty.
“Eva, Adam, and Bridger.” Ash hung three pieces of yellow paper, each with a name written in black marker. “Added to the three who were terminated, that’s six. If Ellery is one as well, that’s seven. We’re over half-way there.”
“You are making assumptions again,” he told her. “We have no evidence that either Bridger or Ellery belong on that board labeled as Primaries.”
She looked up at him, her eyes dark. On the drive back into the city, she’d been abnormally subdued, her gaze trained on the vast, barren desert, her silence a shroud he hadn’t known how to strip away. Whatever memories she’d relived, they were not good ones. And she’d made no effort to share them.
That she was reluctant to confide in him was something Ruslan knew he shouldn’t take personally. There were memories he would never share with anyone, memories he would never again relive. He had no right to expect different from her.
But that did not alter the fact that he very much wanted to know what had put that devastated expression on her face.
Young Bridger, Ruslan had concluded, would simply have to tell him.
“Golden Boy is definitely a Primary,” she said quietly.
“Golden Boy?” he echoed.
“Bridger. He took me...away.” She met his gaze, her brilliant eyes shuttered. “He resurrected one of my most powerful memories, and I was there. I was then. I know it sounds crazy. It felt crazy...but it was strangely cathartic, too, and I don’t know whether to thank him or punch him in the mouth.”
Ruslan knew which he planned. “He crossed a line.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “And what he did was nothing natural; he’s definitely a Primary.”
Ruslan had been fairly certain of that the moment he’d laid eyes on Bridger, regardless of his rebuke about lack of evidence, and Adam’s words—ones that had dug into him like long, deep splinters—echoed in his head.
We are one.
“And Ellery?” he asked.
Her gaze narrowed on him. “Deductive reasoning, so don’t get your panties in a wad.”
A smile almost curved his mouth. “Indeed?”
“Everything Ellery’s mother told Butch indicates a way-above-average kid, far ahead of her peers, which is a rare occurrence, too rare to be coincidental. That she ran away from home in order to hop on Kline’s wagon—along with Bridger, who is undoubtedly a Primary, which leads one to wonder whether Kline is being infiltrated by those he’s hunting or if he’s cultivating his own team of Primaries in order to fight fire with fire—would seem to signal that she is a Primary. Not to mention what Bridger said, and I quote, ‘The Reverend will break her, and she'll turn. Then she’ll have to die.’ Which I think means she’ll be turned by Kline against her fellow Primaries—the Exiles, do you think?—and thus will have to be, presumably, eliminated for having done so. Still with me?”
Ruslan blinked at her, bemused. “Not entirely deductive.”
“Pffft,” she said, turning back to the board.
“But plausible,” he added.
A small smile was his reward, a flash of humor warming her gaze. She was beginning to look like herself again, something for which he was grateful. He hadn’t known how to bring her back; he’d only known that she was lost.
“Still, the question begs to be asked how all of this ended up in our hands,” he said. “First there is Joseph Pierce, who seeks out Charlie—and finds you—followed by Ellery St. Clair’s mother, who—out of all of the investigators in the valley, of which there are many—contacts the Firm for help in locating her missing daughter. That two separate Primary guardians would seek us out is an unlikely coincidence.”
“Not us,” she said quietly. “Charlie.”
She looked at him as if she expected a response to that observation, but Ruslan only blinked
“Indeed,” he said.
“Helpful,” she retorted. She turned and studied the boards. “What am I missing?”
“Can we come in or is this room ‘need-to-know’ only?”
Ruslan looked toward the door to see Butch standing in the opening, hands thrust into the pockets of his too-tight suit, a manila file folder wedged under one arm. He looked dour—probably due to his sobriety—and his tie was crooked. Jesse hovered behind him, trying to peer over Butch’s shoulder.
“Your sarcasm is noted,” Ash replied. “Come in. I’ll fill you in.”
Butch only arched a brow. “You sure? We might be a security risk.”
“Get your ass in here. You too, Jesse. This is going to take the whole gang.”
Ruslan straightened from his spot against the wall. “What is going to take the whole gang?”
She didn’t respond. Instead, she waited until Butch and Jesse sat down at the large, oval table. It was ancient, a thick piece of oak marred by ink stains and several small indents.
“What’s all this?” Butch asked, his gaze on the grease board.
“This is...” Her gaze met Ruslan’s. “Where do I start?”
“At the beginning,” he recommended.
As he listened to her summarize their case to date—including Wylie and Wanda’s current predicament, and how they’d tried to get Wylie again on the CB when they’d returned from Kline’s sermon, only to be greeted by static—Ruslan reflected that even though they now knew why Eva Pierce was being hunted, they had been unable to halt her pursuit. Short of putting Reginald Kline in prison—or the ground—there wasn’t much that could be done.
Not that Ruslan was adverse to either.
The Architect, too, may very well be seeking Eva and the other Primaries. And what of GenTek? Surely they were keeping tabs on their experiment; Adam was proof enough of that.
“So let me get this straight.” Butch stared at them with a dubious expression. “You agreed to protect a kid from Vinnie the Bird, only turns out she’s the next step in human evolution, and she’s being hunted by crazies who think she’s one of the four horsemen?”
Ruslan’s gaze narrowed on Butch. “Close enough.”
“And Wylie and Wanda are with this kid trying to outrun the same kamikaze assholes who tied us to chairs and then swallowed cyanide?”
“Yes,” Ash said.
“And the kamikazes, they follow this asshole Reverend Kline...who is the same SOB that helped make the kid in the first place?”
“Yes.”
“And Kline has declared open season on the kid—on all the kids—because he claims they have,” Butch paused and made air quotes, “‘powers’ that will annihilate all of mankind and destroy the world?”
“Bingo,” she said.
“Christ on a cracker.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “You don’t do anything halfway do you?”
“Holy crap,” Jesse said. “That’s...wow.”
“And you found Ellery St. Clair in Kline’s little holy city,” Butch continued, “and now you think she’s one of these...Primaries?”
“The belief that she is a Primary is purely supposition,” Ruslan put in. “We saw no evidence of that.”
Ash rolled her eyes.
Butch sat back in his seat. “Pretty big coincidence.”
“Too big,” she said.
Jesse suddenly sat forward. “He’s fishing for them.” The boy slid the file folder Butch had placed on the table toward her. “Look. We found this on Ellery’s computer.”
She flipped the file open, and Ruslan moved closer to take a look. “I thought it was locked?”
“Kid got it open.” A grudging look of admiration flashed across Butch’s face. “He’s good. Not as good as Wanda, but good enough.”
Jesse only shrugged. His blond hair was in a rough ponytail, and he wore a faded blue sweatshirt, ragged jeans and scuffed tennis shoes. In the light of day, the boy was much thinner than Ruslan had initially realized, his bones pressing against his skin, and circles underscored his eyes, which were dark, bottle green. Freckles dotted his pale skin and both of his ears were pierced by tiny silver studs. He couldn’t have been more than seventeen.
He looked...hungry. And tired. Like he was operating on fumes.
“See?” The boy tapped a bony finger against the top sheet of paper in the file. It was a print out of a conversation that had taken place in a chat room called Brainiac Blues. “He’s visiting sites designed for people with high IQs, and then he’s deliberately baiting their chat rooms. When someone bites, he directs them to another site where they can take a test to determine if they meet his criteria to be a Primary.”
“Do you believe you are more than human? Can you do things that others deem dangerous or unnatural? Are you enhanced in ways you cannot explain?” Ash sighed. “For crying out loud. People actually respond to this?”
Jesse looked at her, his gaze sober. “Everyone feels misunderstood.”
Yes. Humanity was filled with self-doubt and the need to view itself as special. “The test likely narrows down the field,” Ruslan said.
“Yes.” Jesse flipped to the next page in the file. “The test asks specific questions about specific skills. And it can’t be faked. In order to submit the test, you have to complete the equation. It’s a quantum mechanics equation.”
Ruslan leaned over and studied the test. Ash stood beside him, and the scent of jasmine whispered through his senses. He inhaled deeply. “It is a Schrödinger equation.”
Ash shifted; her heat brushed him. She snorted softly. “Figures.”
He arched a brow. “That it is a Schrödinger?”
“That you’d know it’s a Schrödinger.”
Jesse smiled. “Now I know who to ask about my physics homework.”
Ruslan looked at him in alarm. Ash laughed softly.
“I can’t solve the equation,” Jesse admitted. He met Ruslan’s gaze. “If you can, we can submit a test and see where it takes us. That should give us an idea of how and where he’s meeting them.”
“And you’re certain it’s Kline?” Ash asked.
“I traced the IP.”
She nodded. “Good. Great. That’s great.” Her gaze lingered on the boy. “Where are you staying?”
Color touched Jesse’s cheeks. “I’m good.”
She only stared at him.
“I’m, uh, I’m at the hostel. It’s not bad.” He shrugged. “It’s close.”
“How old are you?”
The boy leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. His chin jutted out. “Almost eighteen.”
“And you aren’t living at home because...”
“Because I can’t go home without Jace.”
The words were harsh, and his eyes flashed. Ruslan wasn’t certain if that was because Jesse couldn’t find his brother or because he felt he couldn’t go home until he’d done so.
“There’s a room in the back,” Ash told him. “A bathroom and a shower. You can stay there until we find him.”
Jesse stared at her. Butch sighed loudly.
“One condition,” she added. “We might need a potential Primary.”
Ruslan straightened.
Jesse blinked. “Undercover work. Sweet. I’m so in.”
“Jesus Christ,” Butch muttered.
“Explain,” Ruslan said.
“We need a distraction.” Ash closed the file and slid it back toward Jesse. “Butch and Jesse are going to keep the Reverend busy while I grab Ellery St. Clair. That may or may not require positioning Jesse as a potential Primary.”
Butch shifted in his chair, making the metal seat squeak. “Why not just call Haggerty? Marlene filed a police report. You tell him where to find the kid, he’ll go get her.”
“All Kline has to do is say she showed up of her own free will—and the contents of that file folder will basically corroborate that—and he’ll walk. Cops will just make a mess of it. I want to—”
“Make a mess of what?” Detective LaVern Haggerty suddenly stood in the empty doorway. He took up nearly all of the available space; he could have easily been an NFL linebacker. The long black trench coat that cloaked him made him appear even bigger. “What are you squeezing us out of now?”
Ash rolled her eyes. “The annual Christmas party. Why? Did you want to come?”
Haggerty scowled. He pulled a business card from his pocket and showed it to them. “Yesterday, three fishermen pulled a dead man out of Lake Mead. This was in his pocket.” He flung the card down; it slapped the table limply. It was water marked and creased, but the words were still legible. The Firm, Private Investigation and Problem Resolution. Ashling Kyndal, Investigator. “ID came back as Joseph Pierce Wagner, former military and ex-spook. He was killed by a nine millimeter to the back of the skull, execution-style. Care to explain why he had your card in his pocket?”
Beside Ruslan, Ash froze. “He’s dead?”
“For at least twelve hours.” Haggerty strolled further into the room. “In addition to the bullet hole, he’d been burned, beaten and most of his bones were broken. ME said he’d never seen anything like it.”
“Son of a bitch,” she said.
Haggerty’s brows rose.
“Ex-spook?” Butch repeated.
“CIA.”
Ash turned and looked at Ruslan. She stared at him for a long, silent, protracted moment. He merely blinked at her.
“I figured he knew Charlie,” Haggerty added, staring at the corkboard. “Probably worked with him.”
“Worked with him?” she echoed. “In the war?”
Haggerty looked at her. “At the Agency.”
She took a step back, blinking. “
Excuse me?”
“Charlie used to be CIA. You didn’t know?”
Again, her gaze turned toward Ruslan. Her eyes were sharp, glinting; they bore the same expression as they had in the car the previous evening.
“You knew,” she said, and it was not a question.
He inclined his head. In his chest, something tightened in response to the accusation in her tone.
“Fanfuckingtastic,” she snapped.
He was very still, watching her. “It was not a deliberate secret.”
“Charlie didn’t talk about it,” Butch put in, watching their interaction closely. “Wylie doesn’t know, either.” His gaze narrowed on Ruslan. “How the hell did you find out?”
Ruslan said nothing.
“Goddamn secrets.” Ash turned away. “I’m so over this.”
The urge to reach out and wrap his hand around her arm, to stop her, gripped Ruslan, and he went still. To touch someone deliberately...that was not something he did unless absolutely necessary. Unless there was no other way.
And it was not an act of impulse. Ever.
But his palm tingled, and the nerves in his arm twitched willingly, and only the closing of his hand into a tight fist restored control. He stared at her back, noted her own clenched fists, the tension that made her stiff. And her words of the night before returned to him.
...you need to think real hard on where we go from here, my Russian friend. Because I want everything you aren’t telling me. And if you can’t do that, you will go the fuck away
The darkness stirred uneasily.
“Ashling,” he said.
She shook her head sharply. Then she looked at Haggerty. “Joe was a client.”
The detective slid his hands into his pockets and studied her. “And?”
“And nothing. He was a client; that’s why he had my card in his pocket.”
“What kind of client?”
“The paying kind.”
Displeasure flashed across Haggerty’s features. “Any idea who killed him?”
“Maybe.” She met his gaze. “He hired us to keep his kid safe from Vinnie the Bird. Said he owed Vinnie a quarter of a million dollars, and he was worried Vinnie would target his daughter.”
“Vinnie’s a thug, not a murderer.”
