Silence.
“Wow,” Lauren finally said softly.
“Are your parents still alive?” Jacko asked, eyes narrowed. “Is this about them?” Lauren jabbed him in the side with an elbow, but he just looked at her then back at Felicity. “Are you caught up in some Cold War thing?”
“I don’t know,” Felicity answered truthfully. “I’ve thought about it, but I don’t see how. The Russians at the time were satisfied that my parents died. Then they—” Her voice caught. She waited a minute to steady it. “They really did die in a car accident but years later, in 2009. Whoa.” She wiped the moisture from her eyes. “Sorry.”
“You’re entitled.” Metal’s deep voice was very gentle. “That’s quite a story. I imagine after they defected they were relocated by the Marshals Service, given new identities.”
She nodded. “Aleksandr and Anna Valk. My parents’ English was never really good, certainly they couldn’t pass as native speakers. So they were relocated as Estonians. This was the period in which the former peoples of the Soviet Empire were starting to rebel. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. Ukraine. There were lots of dissidents emigrating from the countries of the former Empire. My father worked as an engineer at a factory near Chicago but he disappeared for weeks at a time.”
“Being debriefed, probably,” Metal said.
“I suppose so. We never really talked about it. My...entire childhood, we never talked about big things. We never talked about the past and certainly not about the future. My mother spoke only Russian to me and I learned to read Russian before I learned to read English. I was twelve when they told me the truth. Soviet Russia was only a vague concept to me, pure history. It imploded when I was two. I guess they figured I was old enough to keep secrets. There were these huge black holes in our lives. Like an astrophysicist I had to try to figure out things from the size and shape of the black holes. My parents told me very little, except for the story of their escape the night my father received the Nobel.”
“What kind of physicist was he?” Jacko asked.
“Nuclear,” she answered and a deep silence filled the room. Metal and Jacko exchanged glances.
“Well, that’s...interesting,” Metal said finally. “So we have nuclear weapons here in the mix.”
“This was over twenty-five years ago. A generation ago. I don’t know what bearing it could have on what’s happening now.”
“Tell me about the names,” Lauren said suddenly. “How you have so many names.”
“Actually,” Metal said, “I’d rather talk about nukes.”
“Yeah,” Jacko growled.
“We’re hardwired to respond to nuclear threats,” Metal added apologetically.
“Names first,” Lauren said, her tone so decisive the guys looked at each other and shrugged. “How you ended up having lots of names.”
“Okay. Names.” Felicity blew out a breath. “The name on my birth certificate was Katrin. Katrin Valk. Estonian for Katherine. I think someone simply went to an encyclopedia and looked up Estonian names. My parents had no say in naming me. They were simply presented with it. My mother hated it. But then she hated more or less everything about her new life. We were in a small town about fifty miles from Chicago and the Marshals Service discouraged trips. So my mother, who was a biochemist and a highly cultivated woman, was forced to stay in a small town and she wasn’t allowed to work. They said it was bad enough my father insisted on having a job. My mother never called me Katrin, not once. She called me Alina, after her sister. I was in first grade when I discovered I was actually named Katrin because when the teacher did roll call I didn’t answer to Katrin. And my English was very shaky. It was...a lesson.”
God. Coming home in tears because she’d fought the teacher on the issue of her name and she’d done it in a language she didn’t speak well. And in the end she was wrong. She’d felt frustrated and ashamed and angry.
Her father had listened to her telling the story, gulping with sobs, and retired to his study. Her mother was just angry and told her that she had to use Katrin in school. But never in the home.
“So,” she said with a sigh. “That was Katrin. When I was twelve something happened. I never understood exactly what and of course no one talked to me. With hindsight I realize that someone in the Marshals Service or the FBI—because they followed my father’s case closely too—thought that someone had been leaking information. That there was a mole in the system. We were uprooted in the middle of the night, transferred to a small town in Iowa and given new names. So I became Emma. Emma Lukas. We became Lithuanian. My mother hated Iowa too.”
Lauren was listening wide-eyed. “How many more to go?”
“Names?”
Lauren nodded. “My mom had a friend who had eight names, seven marriages. Are you going to break that record without the fun of marriage and divorce?”
“Nope. Just one more name.”
“Piker,” Lauren smiled and Felicity smiled back. “So we’re now at Emma Lukas.”
Felicity nodded. “Emma didn’t last long. After my parents died, the Marshals contacted me. I was an adult and no longer under their protection in any way. But this old marshal, together with another old FBI agent, got together to give me a going-away gift. A new identity, birth certificate, passport, the works. And this time I got to choose my name. First name. They’d already chosen the last name. Ward.”
“So you chose Felicity.”
She nodded. “I was ready to apply to MIT. I’d been using Felicity as my internet handle for a few years. I probably shouldn’t have chosen Felicity as my name but I love Felicity Smoak and I wanted a name that meant something to me. So they created Felicity Ward from the ground up. I had a straight A average except for a journalism class my sophomore year. I was acting out and got a C. They wiped the C out and gave me a perfect score.”
“Whoa,” Lauren said. “That’s quite a story.”
“Okay. That’s it with the names,” Metal said. “Now the nukes.”
“I can’t imagine that we’re talking any kind of nuclear threat.” Felicity was sad and tired. The sky outside the window was turning dark but there was still enough light to see the snow falling.
All of this needed to come out, but it was so wrenching. “My father was a scientist. I don’t know much about what he did back in Russia but he was a good man. I think he worked in the field of energy, nuclear reactors. But I’m not certain. He never ever talked about his work, certainly not his work in Soviet Russia. He worked in a city called Chelyabinsk.”
Metal came to attention like a dog coming to a point. “Chelyabinsk. A naukograd. A science city. Cities that were closed off to the outside world because they worked on top secret stuff. They worked on all kinds of weapons in those cities, bioweapons, chemical weapons, nukes.”
“They also did basic research,” Felicity said stiffly. “That was what my father got the Nobel for—uncovering the structure of neutrinos in magnetic fields.”
“So why did he defect?” Jacko asked. His tone was aggressive and though Felicity couldn’t blame him, she felt worn-out. Yes, her father had defected, had betrayed his country. But the country had been a dictatorship and in any case, the country he betrayed was no more, hadn’t been a country for a generation.
These were battles that had been fought before she was born. The Cold War, the hostility between the United States and the Soviet Union, had cost her family dearly. Her father had uprooted himself and her mother from what her mother said had been a comfortable existence in search of some ideal he never found. Her mother had spent the rest of her life embittered at the move, unable to settle in the United States, living through a daughter she steeped in Russian culture and literature as compensation.
Felicity had been a battleground from the moment she’d been born. A child of divided loyalties, of a decision whose effects were felt a generation later, st
ill painful like a sword to the heart. The only answer was—had always been—to lie low, curve in on herself like a small animal in a forest of predators.
She was so freaking tired. Tired of the drama of her parents’ defection, tired of switching identities every few years, tired of dark secrets she couldn’t understand—and now never would—swirling around her head. Those dark secrets had affected every second of her childhood and now were spilling over into her adult life, like a curse she couldn’t shake. She’d spend the rest of her life in its shadow, keeping secrets that weren’t hers.
Her eyes closed under the weight of them.
Metal rapped his knuckles on the table, hard, and she started.
“Okay,” he said standing up. “I’m the medic here and my patient has had enough. She’s been cut, she’s bled, she’s had stitches. We’ll go over this when she’s rested, and we’ll consult with Bud. Bud’s our Portland PD guy. Good guy, really smart.” This to her.
“No,” she said. “I’m fine.” But she didn’t sound convincing, even to her own ears.
Jacko was up, cupping Lauren’s elbow. Lauren walked around the table, bent to hug her. “I brought you some clothes in the carry-on, and some other stuff. You should have everything you need. It’s going to be okay,” she whispered. “Metal and Jacko are good at this stuff. So’s the company they work for. And Bud Morrison will definitely help. You’ve got some amazing people on your side. You’re safe.”
Everyone kept saying that. Felicity didn’t want to rain on anyone’s parade but she couldn’t see how anyone could say she was safe. Except for right this instant, of course. She was safe right now.
She’d seen her attacker and though he’d been young and fit, he wasn’t anything like Metal, who all but had don’t mess with me tattooed on his forehead and whose muscles had muscles. As a former SEAL, he’d know weaponry and martial arts and stuff. God knows she’d played Call of Duty enough. He knew what he was doing. If he’d been the one who wanted to kidnap her no way would she have escaped. It just wouldn’t have been possible.
Right now, right this minute, even weak as she was, with Metal in the room and Jacko, too, she was as safe as safe could be. It would take an earthquake to hurt her and she had no doubt that Metal would throw himself over her to protect her.
So maybe that should be enough. She was safe. For now. Maybe that’s all it ever would be. Safe. For now.
“Thanks.” Felicity hugged Lauren back, savoring her soft warmth. Absorbing through her skin the affection Lauren felt for her. They’d only just met in meatspace but she was as sure as she could be that they were friends. Like Beast Boy and Cyborg.
Lauren held her by the shoulders, a frown on her pretty face. “You look really tired, honey. We shouldn’t have kept you up talking for so long.”
“Well.” Felicity shrugged. “Considering we were talking about how to find the guy who attacked me and how to stop him, I think it was a conversation worth having. And I’m fine. A little tired, as you say, but fine. I got really good medical care.” The corner of Metal’s mouth lifted.
Lauren’s frown deepened. “Listen. I’m really sorry but—” She glanced at Jacko. “I have an out-of-town appointment tomorrow morning I can’t put off. This media mogul who is building a brand-new house...mansion...palace actually. He wants me to take sketches of the house in various stages of construction and then I’ll make a series of watercolors. I had a sketching session scheduled for tomorrow morning. The place is on the south slope of Mount Hood. It’s near Timberline Lodge, and Jacko and I made reservations to spend the night. We’ll be back tomorrow afternoon. I can cancel if you want—”
“Oh God, no!” The words escaped her mouth without even thinking them. Lauren had been on the run for two years. She’d nearly been killed a couple of weeks ago and Jacko had been shot. They needed—they deserved—a little getaway. “I couldn’t bear the thought of you canceling your stay. Metal is taking very good care of me and besides, I think I’m going to sleep for, like, two solid days.”
“After she’s rested, she’s going to have to look at a lot of footage and nobody else can do it for her.” Metal’s deep voice chimed in. “Airport, hotel. If she finds the guy in the footage it’ll go to facial recognition databases. That’s all stuff she has to do and the computer systems have to do. Come over when you get back from Timberline.” He glanced at her, his gaze like a sudden wash of heat, then focused again on Lauren. “She’ll feel better by the time you guys get back. Promise.”
Lauren nodded. “Yeah, okay.” She rubbed her cheek against Felicity’s. “You’ll be fine here,” she whispered.
Felicity squeezed her hand. She would. She felt utterly safe with Metal. Though she felt something else too, something so new and scary she wasn’t sure she welcomed it.
Patting Lauren’s hand, she smiled up at her. “I’ll be fine. I told you. Right now I feel like sleeping for a week.”
Metal’s voice was hard. “Felicity is going to sleep and eat and do nothing else for the foreseeable future. Except check footage when we get it.”
“Sounds like a plan,” she sighed. Some switch somewhere had flipped and she was exhausted. The restorative effects of sleep and good food had worn off. She had to fight to keep from laying her head down on the table and falling asleep again.
“Okay.” Jacko clapped his hands and stood, taking Lauren’s elbow in what looked like an affectionate but unbreakable grip. He looked down at her and Felicity could so easily see what he was feeling. He probably imagined himself a tough guy who didn’t show emotions but she had grown up with Russians who had a thousand emotions a day. He wasn’t hard to read at all. He liked her but he loved Lauren. So to the extent that Lauren cared for her, he was okay with everything. But he was not okay with anything violent touching Lauren.
Man, Felicity was down with that. She didn’t want anything to touch Lauren either. Lauren had had enough violence for ten lifetimes.
Metal and Jacko had had violence in their lives, too, but every line of their bodies showed that they were perfectly equipped to deal with it.
“Take care,” Lauren said. Jacko held her coat up for her, and then they left.
It was late afternoon and the weather was scary bad. The sky was already dark, swollen with bruised-looking clouds. When Lauren opened the door to leave, Felicity saw huge icy snowflakes blowing diagonally and a gust of cold air blew in. There were several inches of snow on the ground.
That was fine. Snow was in her DNA. God knew how many Darin ancestors had lived through seven-month winters. Snowstorms didn’t scare her. When the weather reports indicated snow and cold coming to Vermont, she just planned to spend even more days in the house than normal.
Thinking about it now, though, she realized that she never acknowledged the sadness that had laced through her at the thought of spending days and days on her own without hearing a human voice that didn’t come through a screen.
Now? Now she had Metal who was going to look after her. She could be weak and it wouldn’t matter.
“To bed with you.” It was as if he was reading her mind. “Lauren brought you some stuff from her house. A winter coat and yoga pants and sweaters and socks and underwear and stuff. You’re a little taller than she is but you both have more or less the same build. So you’ll have some stuff to put on when you wake up.”
He looked her up and down thoroughly. Usually Felicity didn’t like scrutiny. For as long as she could remember, her family had avoided any kind of attention. But this didn’t feel like scrutiny, it felt like...appreciation. Male appreciation.
And it felt delicious.
She shivered and that gleam in his eye was instantly replaced by concern. “You’re cold. I’ll turn the heat up. In the meantime let’s get you back to bed with some hot tea.”
Without even questioning it, Metal bent and picked her up, as if she had l
ost the use of her legs. Maybe she had. Between feeling weak because she’d been stabbed and feeling weak every time Metal got close, she didn’t trust herself to walk back into the bedroom.
There was no thought involved, she simply reached up and wound her arms around his neck as he picked her up and carried her through the living room to the bedroom. Time slowed to a crawl.
She was aware of every single thing, with a shocking intensity. Mostly she lived inside her own head. She could finish a meal and not realize what she’d just eaten, at any given moment she wouldn’t remember how she was dressed. She could spend entire days without noticing the time going by.
Now everything was hyperintense, each object glowing, a heaviness to the air, every second imprinted in her brain.
Just as when he carried her into the kitchen, Felicity was aware of the play of Metal’s muscles against her arms and her side as he walked easily into the bedroom. Everything was saturated with color, deeper and richer. With her nose so close to his neck, she could smell him. Nothing overt like a cologne, more like soap and man and something delicious that was probably sex. She nearly sighed at the thought.
Though she was weak and wounded, though she’d only just met him, Felicity recognized—more from reading novels than actual personal experience—that she was wildly attracted to this man. It didn’t have any known rational reason behind it, it just was. He wasn’t in any way good-looking. His features were rough, his nose was crooked, his skin was weather-beaten, which made him look a little older than he probably was.
Her hormones didn’t care.
Because the entire outer package was pure sex. He hadn’t even really done anything, either, other than a few looks that could be interpreted as male interest.
She knew she wasn’t ugly and she’d had more than her share of male interest. It was rarely reciprocated. Mainly she dated nerds and had gone to bed with a few in entirely unmemorable encounters lasting, on average, about five minutes, start to end. As a matter of fact, overt male stares made her uncomfortable and was one of the reasons she mainly just stayed home.
Midnight Promises (Midnight series) Page 11
