by Lin Lustig
Getting through the hotel wasn't a problem but getting outside was. Paparazzi and press swarmed the building like raptors, testing the entrances for weakness. Inside the lobby, a camera clicked repeatedly. John spotted the half-hidden paparazzo: a young woman with bright pink hair hiding behind a ficus tree—not the best for covert photography. The hair or the tree.
“Shit.” John nodded towards her for Prisha's benefit, as did Henry. Prisha lurched towards the girl, her body a blur of movement, but before she reached her, the pink-haired woman sank to the ground with a vacant stare.
“I've got this. You two get out.” Licia nodded at them. Prisha stared at Licia, her brow scrunched as she struggled to make the connection between Licia and the girl's reaction.
“Like we're leaving you behind,” Prisha scoffed and shook herself. “They'll crush your tiny bones. We’ll get my car and get out of here.”
“The Plaza's parking is off site.” John reminded her.
“Shit. Right. Henry—”
“On it.” He charged off at full speed.
She pulled out her phone and started typing while moving towards the north exit. John and Licia struggled to keep up with her long legs. A crowd clustered outside on 59th. More cameras. So many cameras. Another time he’d have been thrilled, but not tonight. Prisha changed directions without missing a beat. “I messaged Henry to bring my car to the entrance off Grand Army Plaza. Come on.”
Prisha seemed to know where she was going, so John kept with her, and Licia kept with him. They transitioned from the hotel maze to a series of high-end shops. John felt totally exposed, but none of the shoppers did more than compliment their costumes. Beside him, Licia focused ahead, a strand of her disinterest touching him, but not forcing him to look away. Her gaze didn’t wander from the end goal of the doors. The three of them spilled outside.
A crowd of paparazzi and press spotted them. Licia took a sharp breath.
He brushed her sleeve with his hand. “It's okay. This was bound to happen. Stay close.” He let Prisha lead them through the cluster.
“Mr. Beechum! Is it true? What are your powers?”
“John, John! How long have you been Abnormal?”
“Ms. Devi, are you and John dating? What's it like to sleep with an Abnormal?”
Prisha skirted through the crowd, knocking into cameras with too much precision to be accidental. John tried to keep up. He lost track of Licia as she lagged.
The crowd pressed in. Someone banged into his bruised shoulder and sent him off balance. He hissed against the pain. Voices blended into a din of unrecognizable noise. Unwashed bodies and his own nervous sweat filled his nose. Where was Licia? He couldn't see Prisha anymore, either. Fucking hell, this was all going wrong.
“Licia! Prish!” John shouted but doubted either of them could hear him. People pressed in on all sides even as he pressed forward towards the street. He couldn't believe he’d missed being the center of this kind of madness, though he'd never wanted to be in the tabloids for something like this.
The noise level dimmed to his right, and a couple people cried out to his left. He followed the cries. Prisha! She maneuvered back through the crowd, conveniently tripping and nudging photographers out of her way like toppling dominoes. From the right, everyone stepped back and away as Licia walked straight through what had been chaos moments before. She rubbed her temple with a half squint, waving John on towards Prisha. The crowd continued to back away as Licia followed. Prisha took John's arm and dragged him off towards the red Porsche pulling up.
“Pick up the pace, shorty!” Prisha lobbed back at Licia with teasing urgency.
“Please don't antagonize her,” John said, slightly out of breath. If there was ever a time for Prisha to be less Prisha, this might have been it.
Prisha snagged the key from Henry as he stepped out from the driver’s seat and ducked into the back.
“Get the fuck in ass-chaser,” Prisha said to John.
John lurched the front seat forward and all but shoved Licia in the back with Henry, ignoring his usual caution touching her. Then he jumped in as Prisha turned the engine and hit the gas.
“Where to?” Prisha asked.
“My place.”
“They’ll be expecting that,” Henry cautioned.
“Stay with me,” Prisha offered as she slowed to avoid a pedestrian crossing the street towards the fountain.
“Can't. Others are staying with me. I have to get to them.” John checked the rear-view mirror and saw Licia curl her knees into her chest and rub her temples.
Prisha seemed to chew on her words. “It's true then? You're really one of them?” She merged onto the street, jumping the curb and swearing.
“Yeah, it's true.”
“Fuck. You should have told me.” Unlike earlier, there was no frustration and anger in her voice, just sadness.
John checked back on Licia. She'd said she loved him. He loved her, too. Then there was Prisha behind the wheel and he had this overwhelming need to have her look at him. To be seen. If he could beg for her acceptance, he would. The why of it didn't matter. It didn't make sense, but he needed her in a different way than he needed anyone else. “I was afraid I'd lose you, too.”
Prisha swore and slowed to a stop at a red light. “You are a short-sighted owl just slamming into windows all over the place. For Shift’s sake you asshole, I'm your best gods-damned friend. You aren't going to lose me over this. Plus, the sex is too good to give you up. What were you thinking, though? Why would you out yourself to the world at a stupid gala you didn’t even want to attend in the first place?” The light turned green and Prisha sank her foot on the gas, lurching them onward.
John took off his vest and fluffed his hair out from the wig now that they were through with the gala, knowing he must look ridiculous but not caring. “UHP already knew. I couldn't let them blackmail me. Just drop us off. Don't contact me. Don't support the Abnormals, not yet. Keep your head low. Promise me.”
“They saw me run out with you.”
“Say you were confused, you thought it was a stunt—throw me under the bus. Whatever it takes.”
“John, wait. I have to—”
“Promise me.”
Prisha waited for the gate to scan her entry code, then pulled into the parking structure of his condo. “I don't think I can make that promise.” Her expression turned pensive as she parked.
John got out and pulled the seat forward so Licia could clamber out. He ducked halfway back into the car so Prisha could see how serious he was.
“Promise me,” he repeated. “I have to know you're safe. I don't know how this will play out. Please don't cut your feet walking through my shattered reputation.”
She closed her mouth into a thin, petulant line and nodded. “Promise,” she whispered.
“Glad you think the sex is good.”
“Oh, shove off.” She revved the engine and pulled away.
CHAPTER 53
John
There was a stillness inside the condo that pressed in on John until his ribs squeezed. He could practically feel their held breaths as he and Licia walked through the foyer doorway. Azami huddled on the couch, her face pale and devoid of expression. Glen steepled his fingers with a calculated intelligence behind his eyes, and Emerson...
“Where's Emerson?”
“He left,” Licia answered beside him.
Em left? But John had asked him to watch over Licia. Of course, if she wanted something there were very few things that could actually stop her, but he hadn't expected Emerson to just leave.
The TV flickered silently in the background. He caught his own face on the screen with a scrolling text bar that said: John Beechum announces he's Abnormal.
That's right. He’d announced it, no one else. That was his and he'd own it.
Glen stood and stepped past Azami, leaving her in her tortured bubble. Then he faced John eye to, well, chin since he was shorter, and said, “You should have told us that was part of
your plan.”
John shook his head. “It wasn't.”
“They'll hunt me again.” Azami's words were hollow.
“Because they need you, at least that's the impression I got.” Glen's words were clipped.
John couldn't break through Azami's empty stare, but Licia crossed the living room and sat next to her, taking her hand and squeezing. Azami leaned into her shoulder. John had grown up alone, no siblings to fight with or love, but those two were like sisters. Completely different, unrelated, but perfectly suited and unbreakable. Glen seemed to chew on his tongue as he watched the two being close.
He could never let Glen know what Licia had admitted at the gala. None of them needed to know.
“I'm sorry it went down like this, but I needed to take control of the situation. Aubrey was ready to blackmail me. I had to take that option away.” Sort of, he mentally added. “And I had to let the others like us know that I chose this.”
“Not the best time to be noble.” Glen crossed his arms, his attention still on Licia.
“What's done is done,” Licia said, catching Glen's eye in challenge. Was she sticking up for John? He reeled knowing how she felt, except if she'd acted this way for who knows how long to keep him from knowing, then how would she act now?
“I wish you hadn't done this. They'll examine every relationship you have. They'll figure out why people are staying with you.” Glen shook his head like John was a child misbehaving. His phone rang then, the tune an old theme song from a cartoon John recognized but couldn't remember the name of. “Hello?” Glen answered, then sat down at Emerson's laptop and popped it open. He pinched the phone between his shoulder and ear and started typing. He paused and looked up at John, his expression unreadable.
Licia said, “Get cleaned up. You look ridiculous and you taste like salami about to turn.”
He made a face at that but realized his blend of emotions wasn't helping the situation. A moment to calm down would be good.
He washed his face and stripped out of the costume, donning the sweats and a day-old t-shirt from earlier. It took him less than ten minutes to change, but it was long enough that when he came back to the living room Licia was on her feet with Glen, and Azami had moved to the far corner of the couch.
“We have a problem,” Glen said.
“I'm aware.”
“No, a new one.” Licia stepped ahead and John paused a few feet back. Something in her stance made him feel on edge. Was she protecting the others from him?
“Arissa called.” Glen still held his phone in a tight grip. “I know you don't know much about her, but she works as a liaison between the D.C. headquarters and several local branches. She, uh, overheard a situation unfolding. They lost a patient.”
“Tarrah’s dead?” John twitched forward, but Licia blocked him. They were too late. Aubrey had gone too far, and he hadn't been able to stop her. It was his fault. Shit.
“No, sorry. Not like that, it seems UHP has a program operating out of one of Columbia University's locations, and it looks like Emerson has been seeing a doctor there for the past year. It wasn’t Aubrey, but I found her listed at the hospital under a pseudonym.”
Licia swore. “I knew I should have checked out the teaching program up there, but all this bullshit got in the way.” She kept swearing at herself.
John paled as buzzing filled his ears. Emerson had transferred doctors when they moved because of his thyroid condition. All he was doing was getting check-ups and adjustments to his meds. Every time he went, he came back with the tape on his arm and a complaint of new tests. They were taking his blood.
They knew what he was.
Cold earthworms wriggled in his belly. As confused as he was towards Licia, he glanced at her for strength. Licking tendrils latched onto his heart, quelling something ugly and painful as it clawed up his throat. He swallowed, waiting for the kicked nest of wasps in his head to settle.
“He's the other source for the Jammers,” Glen cleared his throat. “But he seems to have run out on his doctor with his files.”
“Do you think he—” he couldn't say it. Betrayed us.
Licia shook her head. “I haven’t tasted that level of deception from him. He's trying to bury some emotions, and they slip occasionally, but I don’t think they’re about this.”
He swallowed, realized his fist was so tight his arm shook, and then said, “We need to move on this before things get worse. My place isn't safe for any of you anymore. If you're seen with me there will be speculation.”
His declaration was met with silence, except everything inside him was too loud. The beating of his heart was a punch to the chest, knocking the breath from him, and all his thoughts were half-finished conspiracy theories. UHP. Emerson. Aubrey. Tarrah. He ran his hands over his face and hair.
Wherever Aubrey was, that’s where Tarrah would be. Now they finally knew where that was. They even had someone who knew the layout inside. All John had to do was get his friends somewhere safe, then he could free Tarrah and end this.
He was ready and suddenly so very tired.
“John.” Licia said his name so gently he almost didn't recognize it. It drew Glen's attention back to John as well, a touch of irritation to his expression. He was not in the mood for Glen's possessiveness.
The elevator dinged, the sound soft and cheery and enough to make the bottom drop out of John's belly as he spun.
Emerson didn't look up at them as he stepped through the foyer and into the living room. His gaze stuck miles away, much like Azami's.
Emerson glanced up and jumped to see everyone on their feet staring at him.
John's head became white noise. His heart was tired of this and ready to give up. Licia's coil around him slipped. He surged forward, moving without thought and grabbed Emerson's shirt collar. He wanted to hit him. He wanted to kiss him. He was all mixed up and so fucking lost.
CHAPTER 54
Emerson
Emerson jumped when he noticed the room staring at him. Did they know he'd been feeding UHP exactly what it needed for the better part of a year?
He’d done this to them.
The entire ride home, all Emerson could think about were the people harmed because he'd been too stupid to realize his doctor was shady as fuck. He was to blame for the success of the pills, which led to UHP openly admitting that Abnormals existed. There was no seeking forgiveness for that, but he’d brought the proof they needed to build a case against UHP. He grabbed every bit of paper he could get out of there with, including most of his file. But now he could see the pain he'd caused them all. Betrayal laced their expressions.
He dared look at John, who's lips were a thin line, his body tight and electric.
John rushed forward, his hand harsh as he ripped at Emerson's collar, their faces close enough that Emerson could see every line of uncertainty around his mouth and eyes. Yes, he thought, hit me. Punish me... kiss me.
Then his training instinct took over and he side-stepped, twisting John's hold so he was forced to release him and then trapped his wrists. Emerson held tight, not so hard to bruise, but not soft enough for him to break free. John didn't try to escape, not really. He struggled against his hold, exhausting his stamina, but Emerson's muscles only strengthened as he accidentally drank from John's vital energy.
Then, because he was already one of the monsters, Emerson opened the hollow intentionally, taking from John until he stopped fighting. John's breathing settled. Emerson released his hold.
Now that he wasn't focused on John, he saw that everyone in the room had tensed with knowing in their eyes.
“You’re already aware, then,” Emerson said to the room, rather than anyone specific. John bent over with his hands on his knees. He shook a little. Perhaps Emerson had drained too much from him.
“Did you know?” John's rasping voice scraped through the quiet room. “Is this why you have so many blood draws? You're sending UHP what they need?”
He recoiled. “I didn't know the
y were using me. They took my blood a lot, but I thought... I'm sorry. I didn't know my doctor was working for them.”
“Whether you knew or not, your lack of judgement has screwed us.” Licia slid to the front of Glen and Azami, a whip of anger seeming to lash at Emerson’s raw chest. John spun between them, touching Licia's shoulder and forcing her to look at him.
Licia stilled, her eyes defrosting enough to flicker across John's face, searching for something that Emerson couldn't decipher. Then the weight of her anger eased back until Emerson felt like he was seeing clearly. Her power over him, even if he supposedly negated abilities, was terrifying. There were limits, probably, to what the hollow would eat, but her empathy was beyond him.
“I'm not going to doubt Em.”
A spark of hope lifted the dark fog from Emerson's heart. After everything, after doubting John for so long, accusing him of lies and betrayal... he was willing to believe Emerson just like that?
It took John a heavy moment to release Licia, then he turned to face him. “It would be so easy to play me. You could be working with Aubrey against me, but I don't believe that. For one, you're not that great of an actor. I would know.” John slid him a sly little smile, something soft and private between them.
Emerson's heart beat a strange pattern, one that nearly had him reaching out to John, but he stopped himself.
“I'm not playing you. Any of you.” It was hard to swallow, and his eyes stung, but he kept his composure. Now wasn't the time to crumble. He and John were the same. Linked by the horrors they never meant to start. Emerson's head hurt, his heart ached, and all he wanted was to hold John and apologize for everything. Everything.
John slid his fingers through his hair, letting go of a deep breath. “I want everyone”—John's attention hit Emerson then flitted away—”to find somewhere safe to hole up outside of the condo until we know what tonight will trigger.”
“Sounds like something happened at the gala?” Emerson pressed his mouth shut when they all looked at him like a kid in the corner eating paste.
