All the King's Men

by Krys Janae

  “For crying out loud, no one is here to fight, Morgan! We’ve done enough of that.” Danika snapped. She knew she was her own worst enemy when it came to shutting others out and antagonizing things, but it had been a long day and she was not willing to stand here and continue their bickering banter back and forth. Well…maybe a little. “But if you have any more secrets hiding in that closet of yours labeled: Things I’m keeping from the group, I’m gonna need you to share it with the class so they don’t think that I’m a complete fuck up.”

  “No one thinks that, D,” Frost replied quickly, to nip that argument in the bud, but Danika wasn’t buying it.

  Her dark eyes met Morgan’s and they stayed there for a few moments before he broke away. Her comment was directed to him and she waited for a retort that never came. His silence meant that the remark hit him harder than it should have, as he was trying not to react. Danika started to leave. “Thought so.”

  “Do you want me to…” Sloane caught her before she stepped away.

  “No. I’ll be fine just…” She waved her hand, wanting to wave around the middle finger and be done with it, but she stopped herself. “Deal with him? Debrief or whatever the hell he wants to do to us now.”

  She must have been in a blinding sort of rage, since the trip to the Ward felt shorter than normal. When she opened the door, the old healer was already waiting in the room, fixing up some sort of herbal concoction on the far wall, facing away from her.

  “I wish I could say it’s been a long time Dani, but…” Aldo mused. He didn’t even have to turn toward her to know her condition. “Why are you limping through here like a pathetic old drunk after a bar fight?” He sniffed the air, “Ya sure fit the bill, too.”

  She snorted. He was one of the few people who could make her laugh in the face of trials and tribulation. “Yeah, you know, Doc? I can’t even storm off properly, I just end up back in this fucking place. Not that I don’t mind spending time with you, Sunshine. But I’m as tired of seeing my ass in here as you are.”

  “Well I can’t see your ass but hey—If you want, I can just leave your arm as is—and all these cuts on your face, too?” he smirked, “how does that sound?”

  “Oh, what the hell. They add character.” She grinned haughtily.

  “They add jack shit, kid. Just sit still,” Aldo scoffed, placed his hand on her back to brace her, and in one forceful tug, there was a loud pop of her shoulder, her elbow and forearm all settling in place.

  “Shit, motherf—!” she exclaimed, the pain so intense it put spots in her eyes. “Warning next time, yeah?”

  “What can I say? I like the element of surprise…” He grinned from ear to ear, emphasizing the word surprise with a devious tone.

  “Yeah, thanks.” she muttered.

  Light footsteps approached, which meant it could be one of two people coming in to check on her now. When she looked up, she saw Callie, her lavender eyes blinking at her worriedly. She was like a damn shadow. “You alright, Danika?”

  She sighed, the undertones of a groan beneath it. “If I had a dollar for every time I was asked that…”

  Callie laughed nervously, but she tapped on the tablet she always lugged around with her and looked like she was going to give her report. “Mr. Matthews—”

  “It’s Charlie, Callie. Just call him Charlie.”

  Aldo softly chuckled to the bashful girl as he applied antiseptic to the open lacerations on her face, before starting in on her wounded leg. Danika hissed and tightened her grip on the edge of the table as Aldo poked her with a needle, looking at Callie with a forced smile.

  “Okay. Charlie.” The younger girl blushed. “Is he really gone?”

  Of everyone at HQ besides Danika, Callie was the only one who got close to him. To her, Charlie wasn’t just stats on a paper or an asset of importance. He was her friend. So, as much as Danika wanted to ask her to bugger off and stop fangirling about the hotshot, she understood her concern.

  “I dunno. We were just talking and the next thing I know…boom. Gone.” She tried not to move her face as she talked, since Aldo was already in one of his moods. Danika had a sweet thought of the last moments she’d spent with him…They were talking, and then some, but she’d never tell anyone about the kiss. It was no one’s business.

  Callie put her hand on Danika’s shoulder and gave it a friendly pat. “We’ll get him back. He can handle his own out there.” She’d seen what he could do, on more than one occasion, so her confidence in him was solid. “Just think, this will all blow over and you guys can settle in and finally get that dog you’ve been wanting, right?”

  “What did you say?” Danika narrowed her eyes.

  Frost wasn’t in the room but it sure as hell dropped a few degrees. Callie’s oh shit! look, completed with shock written all over her face, as Danika kept a suspicious glare over her. How could she have forgotten she was in the room with a Powered psychic? Did she read Danika without her consent? Her jaw clenched for a moment, and Aldo pat her lightly on the top of her shoulder to dismiss himself as his job was done. She didn’t move until the old man stepped away, moving back to his work on the counter where he’d been when she first arrived.

  “What dog, Callie? I have never told anyone that, did you—” Danika tilted her head, and it almost instantly struck her. The dog. The dog from her constant daydreams with Charlie in them, was a focal point of her happy place, when she started to feel overwhelmed. “You know you should never fiddle around with someone’s head without their permission. Do you understand me? That’s psychic etiquette 101.”

  Callie’s lavender eyes were wide, like a deer caught in headlights…headlights attached to the eighteen-wheeler named Danika, heading for her at full speed.

  “I’m sorry, Danika. Director said that I should assist with your recovery and that you might need the images would help—”

  “He said what?!” She shouldn’t have been so surprised, but this was making her sick. Everything dropped on her like a one-ton weight was just too intense for her blood. Charlie’s father being King, now all of this? Next thing she knew, they were going to tell her she was pregnant, and she’d just have a laugh until this all blew over, right?

  Danika thanked Aldo for his assistance and stormed through the steel and concrete fortress, ready to barrel through the blast doors to the command center.

  Frost swiveled around in his chair.

  “Not now.” She pointed at him as he’d opened his mouth to greet her. She made a brisk stride up the steps, as fast as her injured leg would take her. Callie was right behind her, bumbling and blubbering about how sorry she was for the deception, but Danika didn’t care to hear it now. She was gunning for someone else, the man at the top of the Alliance food chain.

  “What now?” Morgan groaned when he saw it was his angered niece come to scold him again, but once he saw Callie peek in behind her, his brows raised in surprise.

  “Can I have the room please?” Danika leaned onto the chair as she swiveled her head towards Olivia and Erik who were seated in the room. She started to feel warm under her skin, which meant her anger was getting the better of her, or whatever Aldo stuck her with had finally kicked in.

  “Danika, dear—You should probably lie down…” Morgan added, as everyone in the room looked over to him for permission to leave.

  “NOW,” Danika bellowed, and a rush of wind swept through the room. Most of the them flinched when she raised her voice, and when Morgan stood at ease, not debating or refusing to meet her demand, the others took that as their cue to take off. The room emptied as quickly as she’d barged in, and rightfully so because her blood was beyond boiling. “Except Sloane, you stay.”

  As he heard his name called, Sloane raised his hands and sat back down.

  Morgan’s stance stiffened as he put his forearms on the back of his chair. “Something the matter? Or are you just here to yell at me a little longer since you got cut short earlier?”

  Danika huffed, her neck pulling ba
ck in surprise at that. “All that time, it was you? All of those sugar sweet thoughts about marrying Charlie, having a nice little “normo” life? You had Callie put those thoughts in my head and dig ‘em out when they were nice and ready like a lobotomy biscuit, thinking I wouldn’t have a fucking clue? You’re sick, you know that? Maybe you should get your head checked,”

  Morgan looked down at his hands. He was fidgeting. He knew he was in the wrong. “You have to understand…”

  “I fucking hate hearing that, lately…” Danika growled when she pointed her trademark scowl toward her uncle yet again. “Understand what, huh? That you used your little psychic buddy to invade my head? I gotta say, I expected this from Aunt Tess, but this is pretty damn low from you.”

  Tess. Danika’s bump, set, spike. This was personal now; Tessa Carlisle was a psychopath, a controlling bitch who barely had the privilege of calling herself Danika’s relative. She’d been absent for quite some time, and Danika didn’t even know if she was part of the equation anymore, seeing that Morgan wasn’t wearing his ring as often as he used to—if at all. The Turning affected their marriage in the worst possible way, and Danika resented the woman with every fiber of her being. Danika was one wild force of nature, but Tessa was a force of pure destruction.

  “Don’t bring her into this,” he growled, something ferocious and a little spine-tingling for her tastes.

  “Oh, what? Afraid if I say her name three times she’s gonna appear? Because I highly doubt even that will bring her back to this hole,” Danika snarled back. “Just because your marriage failed doesn’t give you the chance to play God and lay blueprints to shape someone else’s future. Especially not mine.”

  The noise died down and silence settled in. Danika and Morgan were staring across the room at one another, eyes aglow with vehemence fueled by their anger. Sloane was caught in the crossfire and wondered for a moment why he was trusted as a key witness, but knew he was the only one close enough to both of them to play damage control. The Carlisles had a lot of skeletons to unpack from their closets, and without much to add to the conversation, he sat back and let them have it out before intervening. This was their fight, not his.

  Morgan was still fidgeting, rolling something invisible under his fingers. His hands kneaded something intangible, a focal point, to mask the fact that he was strategizing, finding the words that wouldn’t come out offensively. He’d even opened his mouth at some point but couldn’t speak until he calculated and phrased everything properly. “Monroe changed you, Dani. You came out different, you strayed from me. From us, from everything and just…” Instead of rolling now, his hands were balled, wound up so tightly that everyone could tell he was irritated for not getting the words out fast enough. “Listen. I went and I asked Callie for help—”

  “Help me fall for your perfect little protégé?” There was so much hot wrath vibrating off her as she grew angrier just listening to him as he tried to justify his actions. “I can fuck up my love life on my own, Morgan. Sending her into my head, putting these fake ass dreams and hopeful moments like they’ll ever happen? You had no fucking right.”

  “You’re my flesh and blood and I was just trying to—”

  “Flesh and blood? You are not my father!”

  Morgan’s lips parted and he sucked in a short breath. That comment was lower than the mention of his estranged wife and caught him right in the gut like a Gale-charged uppercut. Danika never pulled this card with her uncle, as he’d become her guardian after she’d been left alone. But she saw an opportunity to cut him where it hurt, because she felt betrayed.

  “You had NO RIGHT!” Danika caught sight of Callie in the corner of her eye, looking up at the office from the command area. She didn’t address her right then and there, because her beef wasn’t with the girl. The girl was just following orders as an eager assistant would to their commander. “I cope with my losses my own way. I don’t need some mega-intrusive psychonaut diving into my head, planting good thoughts of what my life would be like with someone I hardly know. A life that maybe I could have fucking had if Carter…”

  “Dani—”

  “No. Don’t. You want to know why I don’t stick around? Because of this bullshit. Check your protocol, Major, because you try doing that on someone who isn’t your flesh and blood and I’m sure they’ll sue your ass or better yet, take a jackhammer to that stubborn as hell boulder head of yours.”

  “No—hey, will you calm down for one damn minute?” Morgan asked, his eyebrows furrowed. Insults were always Danika’s specialty, but he’d had enough.

  Danika didn’t realize it until now, but their tempers flaring was shaking the room. The windows were warping with his thundering voice and she’d caused the room to fill with bursts of chilly air that tossed around of the items in his office. The Carlisles were evenly matched when it came to their tempers, and if they weren’t careful, between an earthquake and a hurricane, they could probably level the base.

  “How can I stay calm? My own uncle uses one of his minions to reach into my brain like I’m some sort of psycho.”

  “That’s not why I did that. You don’t get it—”

  “So, you admit to having someone I thought I could trust, pry into my mind?” Danika pointed behind her, at Callie.

  Morgan sighed heavily, “No. I admit to utilizing our resources to help you.”

  “How is false hope supposed to help me? Like I’m supposed to see this new guy as a replacement? You’re gonna have to do better than some lawyer who happens to be related to our damn enemy!”

  “Losing Carter didn’t only affect you, Danika. He was a valuable asset to the team, and I accepted him as family because of you. Would you at least see that?” Morgan’s fists were pressed against his desk so firmly that she could hear the wood groan beneath his weight. He was a relatively patient man, especially when it came to Danika and her attitude, but that patience was wearing thin. “Of course, all of us who were there wish we could have traded places with him.”

  “So, why didn’t you?” Danika regretted the words as soon as the left her, and she sighed. “Fuck.”

  Morgan pushed himself off the desk and stood up straight. He looked at his niece and shook his head. “Just say it, then. You wish I died instead of him.”

  “No.” Danika gasped softly, and furiously shook her head, “No I don’t, what—Morgan, that’s not fair—”

  “After all, Carter ran back in to save me, as well as Mr. Frost and even though it was an order to step back and evacuate, he ran back into that building to retrieve another survivor.”

  “Did you know it was Charlie that he saved?” Danika knew this would be her chance to shift the balance of the conversation again. “Did you know that the reason why I am a goddamn widow right now is because of him? I don’t know what sort of dynamic you want here for your fucking dream team, but news flash, Uncle. This? Not ideal.”

  “I was aware of Mr. Matthews—”

  “His name is fucking Charlie, stop making this a formal affair!”

  “Charlie. I was aware of his involvement with Monroe.” Morgan sighed heavily and the bones in his neck and shoulders popped. “I knew he was there. But that’s not why I brought him here.”

  “So why then? I’ve already been cut up twice by some cat and then Dmitri came up and blew up my place. Both of whom are related to Charlie in some way. And don’t get me started on his relationship to that piece of shit, King. Maybe if you had properly vetted him, we wouldn’t be dealing with this.”

  “Dani…” Sloane finally chimed in, finding an appropriate time to step into this merry-go-round of rhetoric and emotional spewing that was doing nothing but running them in a damn circle. He probably could have done something, a spell to ease the tension but he kept his hands to himself, since the Carlisles had both mentioned to him on more than one occasion that they didn’t want his power used on either one of them.

  “Danika, open your eyes. This is a lot bigger than you and me and Charlie. It’s big
ger than Carter. It’s bigger than everything. King’s already on track for Mayor and that’s going to give him more pull in the city. He’s out to get our people, those missing need to be found, and that facility taken down. Monroe was devastating, the loss of our man was not something to be taken lightly and there were mistakes made with Callista and what I did…it was wrong and I’m sorry—but right now we need to focus.”

  Danika’s lip trembled, but she quickly stopped it as she closed her mouth tightly. After months of feeling nothing and letting everything roll off her back, it had finally caught up with her. She hated this. This was why she found the numbness at the bottom of her whiskey bottle almost every night. This was what drove her to smoke…Without even thinking about it, she had a cigarette in hand, the tip was lit, and the filter pressed between her lips. For the first time, Morgan kept quiet while she started in on a fresh cigarette, the bitter stench hitting the already intense air in the room.

  “Where are you going?”

  She was walking away. “Home.”

  Morgan didn’t need to tell her to stop, or to get back there, because he knew Danika better than that. She’d leave anyway.

  *

  Danika returned to the wreckage to see what remained, and what could be salvaged. The police were gone, and it had been completely torn apart by King’s crew. The initial blast had done some damage but while she was down, they must have really gone looking for something that couldn’t have been done in an orderly fashion—they simply had to rip her stuff to shreds.

  She heard the door creak open, but she didn’t even turn to look to see who was standing there, watching from entrance way. “Come back for round two?” She huffed, casting a sideways glance at the intruder.

  Sloane held his hands up, waving an invisible white flag. Danika couldn’t see them clearly, but she did spot a bottle of whiskey in his hands. The glass pieces were heard under his steps as he slowly walked through the wreckage towards her.