The Imaginary (The Imago Trilogy Book 2)

by J. J. Stone

  “Convince me you’re fine.”

  She knew this wouldn’t be a quick fix, but she hadn’t expected James to interrogate her mental health. She clung to her waning core of inner strength. “I’ve never been good at trusting people. When I start to feel betrayed, I lash out. Close off. That’s what happened in the hotel. I let myself trust you and I thought that you were betraying that trust.”

  James remained silent but Ada could tell from his expression that she hadn’t convinced him yet.

  “I was trying to be more open. I really wanted to let everyone on the team in. And I thought that I had done a good job at that.” She chose her next words carefully. “I should have been smarter about letting Janice in.”

  “I’m used to Janice saying things. She was a brat, but one that I tolerated. It honestly didn’t surprise me that she said that to you.” James stopped and pressed his lips together. His eyes flicked to the windshield. “I just thought you’d be able to filter through what came out of her mouth.”

  “James, I’m sorry—”

  “Stop.” James held up a hand. “Part of this mess falls on me, too. I made mistakes that I never should have, Janice being the biggest one. I shouldn’t have trusted her to tell you what I was going to say at the press conference.” His head dipped down and a sad, almost embarrassed, smile appeared. “As a leader, I screwed up. I’m lucky the whole Janice mess hasn’t blown up in my face.” His head lifted. “This team can’t afford for me to make any more mistakes.”

  “I know I’m another mistake—“

  “I didn’t say that.” James gave her a look so full of regretful endearment she felt her stomach clench. “I really did want us to be friends.” She watched the kindness fall away only to be replaced with disappointed resolve. “But to be the leader this team needs, I can’t be everyone’s friend.”

  Try as she might, Ada could not think of a word to say. She knew she needed to contribute to the conversation, to verify what he was saying for the both of them.

  “I need you to understand that I will never betray your trust.” His tone was serious and even. “As this team’s leader, I need to know that everyone I’m working with trusts me and my actions.”

  Ada knew what he was doing. She’d spent enough time around psychologists to know when her mental health was being gauged. She locked eyes with him and said, “I trust you.”

  Her placid tone seemed to appease him. James nodded once. “Good.” He turned back in his seat and pulled the car back down into drive.

  Ada wasn’t ready for their talk to be over. While it seemed that James no longer loathed the sight of her, she wondered what state their interpersonal relationship was in. “So what are we now?” Ada heard herself saying the words, like she was watching from another vantage point.

  “A team leader and a team member.” James’s response lacked a single ounce of friendly warmth.

  While Ada had gotten the closure she’d been craving, it was far less satisfying than she’d imagined. She was grateful that James seemed to have moved past Sacramento. But she knew that something had shifted. In the back of her mind, she had hoped to regain that brief friendly reprieve they’d found back in the hotel gym. Instead she felt like she was sitting next to the James Deacon that had shown up at Uncle Mike’s house. While not ideal, she knew that this James was still more than her actions deserved. “OK,” she said, trying to make herself sound as definite as she could.

  James nodded again. “OK.”

  And the conversation was done.

  “We still have a few miles before we reach this guy’s house.” James glanced out his window as he pulled back onto the road. Ada marveled at his lightning fast ability to jump back into business mode. “We need to keep this quick and get out of here before the snow makes this road completely impassable.”

  “I guess this is more snow than you’re used to in Virginia,” Ada said.

  “Yes. But we’ve all had extensive driving training.” He glanced over at her. “I’m not going to kill us, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “I’m not,” Ada said quickly. “Just a little nervous, honestly. I’ve never seen this much snow.”

  “I’m from the Northeast and this snow makes me nervous.”

  “How is that supposed to make me feel better?”

  James slowly steered them around a bend in the road and the faintest of smiles touched his lips. “Sorry.”

  Ada gripped the edges of her seat as she heard and felt the SUV’s tires begin to protest their terrain. “What part of the Northeast?”

  “Massachusetts. My father was in the Army, stationed at the research institute in Natick. Then we moved to New York so he could teach.”

  “Were you in the Army, too?” Ada tried and failed to keep herself from looking out her window at the road drop-off that was growing steeper the more they drove. “Is that how you got in with the FBI?”

  “No, I wasn’t in the Army.”

  The acidity in his voice drew Ada’s gaze back to him. All mirth had drained from his features. His eyes darkened as he stared down the road ahead. The car’s engine became more audible as James increased their pace up the winding road. Not wanting to further prod the nerve she’d exposed, Ada cleared her throat and decided to try a safer topic.

  A sharp pop cracked from the back of the SUV. The vehicle jerked to the left as James fought to keep it straight. Another pop and the SUV careened to the right. Ada’s body locked up as she saw the trees she’d been watching out her window slide around and frame themselves in the windshield. Then her stomach felt like a giant fist had taken it prisoner, like she was on a roller coaster about to drop.

  She tried to close her eyes, but they were fixed wide open. Her breath left her lungs as the nose of the SUV ran out of road and abruptly dove down the steep drop-off and plowed down an embankment and into the forest. She gripped the handle of her door with her right hand as her left hand clenched her seat belt. She saw a particularly thick tree appear directly in the SUV’s downward plunge and knew she had two seconds before her side of the vehicle would hit it dead-on.

  Her lungs found air and she let loose a piercing scream. Something clamped across her chest, shoving her body back into her seat. Then the blurry speed of the vehicle came to a bone-crushing halt as the corner of the car hood accordioned against the tree trunk. The airbag erupted from the dashboard toward Ada’s face and then blessed blackness took her away.

  ——

  Eli slung his rifle over his shoulder and began a controlled slide down from his perch to the road. The skid marks on the road were already starting to fill up with the torrent of snow pouring from the gray sky. Within the hour, there would be no sign that a car had ever been up this way. He crunched across the dirty ice-snow encased road and stopped at the edge of the drop-off. About 100 yards below, the black FBI SUV had come to rest against a giant tree trunk, the right front end completely flattened against the bark.

  Whipping the rifle back around, Eli trained the gun’s sight on the SUV and waited for movement. He watched for almost a minute before he was satisfied that no one was exiting the car to return fire. A quick jog a few yards to the left and Eli found a tree strong enough to hold him. He took the coiled rope off of his shoulder and swiftly wrapped it around the trunk of the tree a few times before securing everything with a strong knot. He gave the thick rope a few tugs before walking over the edge of the road and down the steep snow bank. Using the rope, he reached the floor of the valley and sank into almost knee-high powder.

  Cursing as the snow sucked his legs down, he trudged through the drifts to the SUV. As he neared it, he glanced at the back tires and proudly smirked at the blown-out shreds of rubber radiating from the rims. He was a good shot, blizzard or not. He brought his rifle back up to his shoulder and trained the end of it toward the driver door as he neared it. />
  The driver door’s window had a large spider web circle of broken glass with the side of a head pushed against the middle. Blood was slowly working its way through the lower tracks of the broken glass. Eli continued to the front of the SUV and peered as best he could through the crackled windshield. The man in the driver seat was slumped against his window, his arm lying unnaturally in the lap of the woman flopped back in the passenger seat. Eli’s heart leapt as he recognized the woman from the surveillance photos he’d been sent.

  Eli looked through the gun sight and watched the woman’s chest. When it rose almost imperceptibly, he let out a relieved sigh and quickly rotated the sight to the driver. While the woman needed to stay alive, Eli was not obligated to grant the man the opportunity to live. After ten seconds of observation, however, the man’s chest didn’t move. Satisfied that he didn’t have to risk another gun shot, Eli slung his rifle around and waded around to the back of the SUV.

  He bent down and gave the underside a quick scan before spotting a solid-looking section of frame. Eli straightened and turned to look at the shed barely visible almost 200 yards from where he stood. “My legs are gonna be barking in the morning,” he grunted as he summoned his stamina and heaved a giant stride toward the shed.

  CHAPTER 12

  The scrape of Dade’s phone across the conference table grated against Brenda’s eardrums. She snapped her head up from her computer and glared at him. “Really?”

  Dade shoved his chair back and heaved out of it. “I have been trying Deacon for almost two hours now.” He came down to Brenda’s end of the table and swiped his phone back. His finger hovered over the screen, ready to dial again, then he thought better of it and stowed the phone in his pant pocket.

  Brenda looked to an officer across the room and waved her hand at him. As he trotted over, she gave him a pleasant grin. “Sorry to pull you away, but I just have a quick question.”

  The officer returned Brenda’s grin with a much more boisterous version. “Shoot.”

  “Two of our agents were headed here,” Brenda slid a scrap of paper with the hunter’s address on it toward the officer, “and I was wondering what the cell reception was like there.”

  The officer huffed as he glanced down at the paper. “I mean, everyone there still has landlines. We’re lucky to get a bar of reception out there. Even our radios are a little shoddy in those woods.”

  “Thank you, officer, I appreciate the help.” Brenda flashed a wider grin at him and held it until he turned and walked off. Then her usual stoic expression returned as she raised a brow at Dade. “Satisfied?”

  “No.” Dade glanced out the window at the swirling white chaos. Almost a foot had fallen and the snow showed no sign of leaving. “If they were on their way back, they would have reception by now.”

  “Maybe they can’t head back. Deacon would know better than to try driving in this. It’s probably worse up in the woods than it is here.”

  Dade shook his head, gnawing on the inner corner of his mouth. “Maybe I should call in, have someone track the car.”

  “Because they’re a couple hours late getting back?” Brenda swiveled her chair to face him. “I think being cooped up in this station is messing with your head.” When Dade’s expression remained, Brenda leaned toward him and lowered her voice. “They will laugh at you if you call in asking for that.”

  Dade crumpled into the seat beside Brenda with a full-body sigh. “I just can’t deal with sitting around. I need to be doing something.” He propped his boots up on the shiny tabletop.

  Brenda could sympathize. She had been staring at her computer screen for almost two hours. That dull ache in the back of her eyes was becoming a roaring migraine. She gladly pushed the laptop screen down and put the computer to the side. “Talk me through Jake’s statement.”

  Dade shrugged. “That poor kid was still coming off the painkillers. When he was awake, he wasn’t really able to put sentences together.”

  “Did he tell you anything about his time with the suspect?”

  Dade shook his head. He tossed a sideways glance out the window. “He wasn’t coherent enough. And then the snow started and I had to get out of there before spending the next day or so in a hospital was my only option.”

  Brenda took in Dade’s downtrodden, blank stare and her mind leapt to action. She stood and gave one of his feet a gentle shove, chuckling as he nearly fell out of his chair. “The gas station where the hunter picked up Jake isn’t too far from here. Do you want to chance a quick drive over there?”

  Dade doused her with an acidic glare for the boot shove but still stood and grabbed his parka from a nearby chair. “At this point I’d walk. I just need to get out of here.”

  Brenda pouted her lower lip at him. “You get so grouchy when you’re bored.”

  “Just for that, I’m making you drive.” Dade tossed the keys over his shoulder as he left the room.

  ——

  The world was a dark blurry glob of murky shapes. The shattering pain in her skull manifested itself in brilliant white static stars before the half-slits of her eyes. Ada took a few breaths, as deep as she could, and mustered up just enough strength to push her eyelids all the way back. She sat there gasping for a few seconds, focused on stifling the crushing urge to slip back into the unconscious darkness she’d just emerged from.

  As her body continued to rouse, different levels of pain shot back to her brain. She gingerly rolled her gaze down to the flaccid airbag jutting out from the ruptured dashboard. That must be why her face felt like it had been slapped for an hour straight. As her eyes journeyed higher, she took in the cracked windshield. The glass looked like one solid sneeze would cause it to disintegrate into sharp confetti.

  Her eyes focused on what lay beyond the SUV. It was dark, but something told Ada that the car wasn’t outside. The fog that was her brain couldn’t land on any concrete reason as to why she would question where the car was. She just knew. This spiked her breathing and with each rattling rise, her chest erupted in pain. Something that sounded like a broken squeaky toy climbed its way out of her throat. She felt the urge to cough, but the thought brought tears to her eyes.

  Ada shifted her attention from her chest to her hands. She pictured her fingers flexing and sucked in sharply as her joints cracked. Frustrated with her limited visibility, Ada began to tip her chin toward her chest. The static stars intensified as she moved. Then suddenly they faded. Her chin hovered above her chest as she looked down at her fingers. Her right hand was still wrapped around the handle of her door. Her left hand gripped a fleece-encased wrist. Her brain spun for a moment as she tried to place who the wrist belonged to. Then she remembered.

  “James?” Ada said as she forced her neck to the left. Instead of “James,” her mouth produced, “Jay.”

  When she saw him, she had to choke down the hoarse sob that came to her throat. He was dead. There was no way someone could be lying like that and not be utterly lifeless. The arm whose wrist she was still clutching was dangling from his sunken shoulder at an unnatural angle. The left side of his head was cradled in a web of shattered glass, his chin resting against the door. His body looked thoroughly broken.

  Ada’s body screamed at her to move. She had to help him. She couldn’t look at him like that. Something—adrenaline, maybe—powered her right hand to her seat belt and popped it open. A giant pressure retreated from her chest and she took in a deep breath. Her legs tried to move, but something was holding her right foot. She turned her head and saw that the floor had buckled and pinned her foot against the underside of the glove box. She braced herself before straining her foot against its captor. Despite the flares of pain, she felt her foot loosen. She took a few moments of rest then tried again. It took three tries before her foot popped free of its boot.

  Ada pivoted in her seat and pitched forward, bracing her right palm again
st James’s seat. She continued to hold his wrist in her other hand, knowing that any further jarring of his broken arm would just mean more trouble. Carefully, she pushed the latch on his seat belt and winced as it quickly retracted, smacking into the side of his battered face.

  Drawing on the small supply of strength her body had produced, she rose to a crouch and cupped her right hand against James’s left cheek. As gingerly as she could, she dislodged his head from the window, trying to avoid looking at the bloody shards protruding from the window as James’s face pulled away. As she brought his head up, she found deep cuts from the shoulder belt streaking across his throat. When she’d removed the belt, the wounds had reopened and were now trickling red streams down under his fleece pullover.

  She hovered over him, supporting his head and waiting breathlessly for any sign that he was still with her. Carefully, Ada squatted down in the space between their seats and brought his broken arm to rest against the tops of her legs. She cautiously pressed her left palm against his chest and closed her eyes. She waited breathlessly for his chest to rise or his heart to throb against her hand. She thought she felt the smallest of thumps and reflexively pushed harder against his chest.

  A sharp croak fell from his slack mouth and Ada’s eyes flew open. She watched her left hand rise a few centimeters as his lungs tried to fill with air. Hot tears flowed out of her eyes at the movement. He was still here. Her brain yanked her focus back to the task at hand and she rose, mindful of his arm. She lowered it against his side then stood as much as she could and stepped into the middle section of the car. This particular SUV had a middle bench seat instead of two individual chair seats. If she could get him out of his seat, James could lie stretched out across the middle seat.

  Ada spotted something red in the very back of the car and without thinking slid her battered body over the middle seat. Her back cracked and her bruised ribs screamed, but she pushed herself over the backseat and into the storage area. The impact of the crash had shuffled the contents into a pile behind the backseat. The red she had spotted was a giant medical kit. There was also a flat of bottled water, some dry food, and a few rolled up emergency blankets.