Ryan’s light eyebrows went up. He was dressed casually in a blue tee and jeans and looked very pale in the white light of the room, but it all made his eyes look very bright, crystal-blue. Jane wondered idly if he was wearing contact lenses. Nobody could have such blue eyes, could they?
“Thanks,” he said finally, dropping his gaze, and she saw his cheeks redden. Would he ever cease being shy in her company? It had been years, she thought with amusement. “It wasn’t difficult to get the book. No big deal for me, but if it helps him to get along with Pain, I’ll be glad. I think he’s a nice guy, and it could work out. Too bad he’s not a Ghost, though.”
She blinked, all thoughts evaporating from her head at once.
“What could work out?”
Ryan stiffened. He frowned a little and ran his hands down the cloth on his long, defined torso in a nervous gesture. Jane had to crane her head back to look him in the eyes, and they were glistening and embarrassed now.
“Well… Him and Pain, isn’t there something between them?”
“Hm… not really,” she answered, perplexed, “Unless… Did he tell you there was something between them??” Her pulse quickened as the idea hit her.
“No, no, he didn’t,” he said quickly, “I just… well, it seemed to me there was something going on, with the way she looked at him, and then him and this book…”
“Looked at him? What do you mean?” Jane’s expression was completely mixed-up now.
Ryan paused, taking a deep breath.
“I don’t know how to explain it, really,” he said, his face a confused grimace, “But there’s something in her look and in the way she behaves… She’s different when he’s around.”
Jane’s eyes widened at that.
“Oh…” She wasn’t sure what to say, because she hadn’t noticed anything like that about her sister at all, but she didn’t want to argue so he wouldn’t shut down. “Interesting… I guess I haven’t been paying attention,” she said. “Well, I suspected something about him, but not about her. I thought he was just trying to be nice, giving her that book,” she explained and noticed that Ryan was looking at her very intently now, his blue gaze cold and piercing.
“So, what exactly happened in that apartment?” he asked suddenly, making her expression change again, this time to a frown.
“You mean the battle?” She wasn’t sure why he was asking. He knew about the attack from Marco already.
“No, I mean the four of you. You’ve been there for three days. What happened between you in all this time?”
She blinked.
“Nothing,” she answered and then realized that he must have meant something between Pain and Chad. “Oh. No, really, there was nothing out of ordinary between them. Maybe he’s interested, of course, but it’s not like he showed it or anything…” She shrugged, trying to recall anything unusual.
Ryan only gave her a thoughtful nod, and then Gina showed up from the door that led to the storage.
“Here’s your set.” She smiled at Ryan, handing him a thick stack of black-colored clothes.
“Thanks.” He smiled back and turned to leave. “See you,” he said to Jane, and she only nodded, seeing how troubled his eyes were before he turned away and disappeared behind the door.
“Hi, Jane,” Gina’s voice brought her back to reality, and she turned to her.
“Hi. Is my gear ready?”
In a minute she was already walking back to her room, replaying the strange conversation between her and Ryan in her mind. Looked at him. What was it that she hadn’t noticed? And she had always believed girls were more perceptive than boys. Only when she was about to walk into the room, she did realize that he wasn’t asking about Pain and Chad at all. He had said, “I mean the four of you,” meaning her and Dave, too.
Oh. Oh.
Ryan was worrying about you like a girl.
She paused, gazing into space with something close to a shock on her face. No, it couldn’t be real. They had known each other for so long, and nothing like this happened before. Ryan never showed as much as a hint of attachment, never had been even a little bit intrusive, never asked questions. But she hadn’t had a job like this one and a ward like Dave, young and good-looking and rich as…
She broke off the thought, getting back to the original question on her mind. Was Ryan jealous?
The door opened suddenly, and she flinched, snapped out of her thoughts. It was her sister, regarding her from the doorway with bemused interest.
“You alright? You look like you just saw Marco walking around naked again,” Pain’s voice was more ironic than concerned.
Jane made a face at her.
“You startled me.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Next time I’ll knock first.” She stepped outside and closed the door with her back. “Okay, we’ve got a small task from Peter,” her voice became a half-whisper on the last sentence.
Jane looked at her quizzically, keeping silent. Her sister stepped away from the door and jerked her head to the window at the end of the hallway. The place was empty at the moment, lit by the clouded afternoon sun, no sound disturbing the silence, as if all the other rooms were empty. Jane followed her sister slowly and dropped her gear on the windowsill so she could take off the light hoodie she was wearing – suddenly it was too hot for her. She tossed it on top of her gear and looked at Pain with cold expectation. She wasn’t in the mood for tasks. Her mind was still on Ryan’s words.
“Peter wants us to find out more about Chad’s family. I told you that Eugene mentioned Chad’s father, as if he threatened him with his son or something. Sounds like total nonsense to me, by the way. I wouldn’t threaten a hamster with Chad, although he could beat it to death if you gave him some books…”
“Back to the point, Pain,” Jane interrupted her.
“…so, as I was saying, we have to find out more details about his parents,” she finished, not disturbed by Jane’s moodiness even a little bit.
“But Chad said his father is just a farmer.”
“Exactly. Either he really doesn’t know something, or he’s keeping back from us. And Eugene could have mixed up something himself, the man’s clearly out of his mind. Anyway, we should make Chad talk about some family topic.” Pain made a sour face. She never liked intrigues or any subtle moves: she was too forward for that, always saying the first thing that came to her mind.
Jane thought about it for a moment, staring at her feet sightlessly. Finally, she shook her head with reproach.
“It’s stupid. How do you see it? Like, ‘Chad, you said your father was a farmer – Oh, yes, and I forgot to add that also he’s Eugene’s undercover spy, stealing innocent farmers’ belongings, such as ginger cookies and chicklings, and besides, his real name is James Bond!’”
Pain held back a smile, a mild scorn coloring her look.
“Impressive, but it’s not how I imagined it, no,” she responded. “I don’t know, we should just start talking and see what he’d say. Maybe he’ll slip or something.”
“Did you tell them what you’ve found out, by the way?”
“Sure. Why, I wouldn’t want them to drive me mad with questions if I didn’t. Everything except the connection with his father.”
“How did he take it?” Jane asked.
“Chad?” Pain asked, unsure, and got an impatient nod from her sister. “I don’t know… Is it okay that he’s still lying on his back wiggling his feet up in the air and crying?” She narrowed her eyes with fake concern, and Jane looked away, annoyed.
“I don’t know. I just can’t imagine Chad keeping back from us. He doesn’t seem like he can lie at all. Even if he does, there’s no way he would spill something that huge accidentally,” Jane said after a moment, letting out a long, weary breath.
“We have to consider every possibility. We don’t really know anything about him. Of course, Peter has checked his record, but there’s nothing besides what he told us. He could be working against us in some big, sophisticated p
lan or something,” Pain said matter-of-factly.
Jane shook her head. Behind her sister’s shoulder, a fighter passed the hallway and vanished in his room without noticing them. Cooper. If only she could be like him, free of these unsolvable problems, having her usual work, living her routine life. All the other fighters at the Headquarters didn’t really know what the sisters got themselves into when they found Chad and Dave. She sighed, wishing for things to get back to normal sooner.
“Okay, I’ll do it. But only because Peter asked, and because you suck at it.”
Her sister grimaced.
“Thanks,” she grumbled. “What do I have to do?”
“Nothing, just be your usual pain-in-the-ass self.”
“Pain—and-the-ass. Sounds like a new nickname for us,” Pain corrected her, but smiled. As long as Jane was going to do what she wanted from her, she would let this one pass.
“Shut up. As for the threatening, Chad killed a Beast while we were in the air. Just so you know.” She looked into Pain’s eyes, seeing her expression go blank.
“Killed? What do you… Like, stabbed-to-death killed?” She stared back at Jane, clearly at a loss.
“Yes. Like, took-my-knife-and-stuck-it-in-the-Beast’s-throat killed. Like he did it his whole life, Pain. I thought he’d throw him off, knock him out, anything. But he grabbed a knife and butchered the guy, all in one second. So don’t underestimate him.” She gave her sister a serious look. “But I still think he was honest with us,” she added, swooped her clothes off the windowsill, and headed back to the door.
Pain shook off the surprise.
“Or he’s very good at pretending,” she said, looking impressed for a change, and followed Jane.
*
An hour later they were still in their room. Jane was scrolling through some web page on her laptop, lying sprawled across the floor. Pain lay on her bed flashing through the pages of “One Day” with such speed as if her life depended on it. Chad seemed moody, sitting low in the recliner, a car magazine in one hand, his face frowned with concentration or worry. It was predictable, Jane thought. Nobody would like to find out that they had some maniac foe, who ran a powerful killer organization, of which he knew nothing about and didn’t have the slightest idea of what he might want from him. Dave didn’t seem very troubled. He lay on his bed engrossed in playing some game on his smartphone. Yummy noises sounded from it every now and then, and if Pain wasn’t so immersed in reading, she would snap at him, of course.
“Hey, do you think we should get in touch with our cousins more often?” Jane asked. Her attention was on some picture, her index finger sliding through the touchpad.
“Why? Do you want to?” Pain asked her, only partly paying attention.
“I don’t know…” Jane chuckled and clicked another link. “I keep hearing all this stuff like ‘family is the most important’, ‘you should keep your family connections strong’, ‘you should get together more often.’ I know we haven’t seen them since we were kids, but still, maybe this is just something we must do, and then we’ll get closer? Remember last year, when they sent us that family Christmas card?”
“You think we should make one, too?” Pain tore her eyes off the book at last and looked down at her. “Can I engage Marco in it? He’d be a great Santa. And I think Skull could be a good background.”
Jane grimaced.
“I think Marco’s idea of Santa is really offbeat. Because a red hat and leather pants just aren’t enough. And he has to wear his belt on his waist, not spank people with it.”
“Without the spanking nobody would recognize him. And without that hat nobody would think he’s Santa.”
“Nobody thinks so anyway, people just get scared.”
“Okay, okay, maybe the Christmas card isn’t a good idea,” Pain gave up, returning to her book.
Jane didn’t say anything at that – just long enough for Dave to put in his word.
“I thought you didn’t have any relatives,” he said.
She didn’t even doubt his curiosity would play its role.
“Well, no close ones, but we have two cousins. They live in the UK,” she answered.
“Why didn’t you move to live with them, then?” he asked tentatively.
Jane looked at him.
“We chose to stay. We wanted to work here someday, and besides, we weren’t that close anyway. We already knew Peter and Luke and some other people here.”
“So… your cousins, they’re not badass like you two?”
“They’re lame,” Pain put in.
Jane made an exasperated noise.
“They’re not lame. They’re just normal. But they don’t fight, no,” she said.
“Normal is pretty lame for me…” Pain commented, flicking another page.
Dave only nodded, his eyes thoughtful. Jane decided it was time for her move.
“You know how it is with cousins. You have to be friends simply because you’re relatives, and it doesn’t matter if you like each other at all.”
Dave pursed his lips.
“No, I don’t know, actually. I don’t have any,” he shook his head.
“Really? What about you, Chad?”
“Nope,” he said without as much as looking at her. There was a frown on his face, and he seemed tense, gripping the magazine with unnecessary force.
“Hm. Maybe we didn’t hang out a lot, but I still think it must be kind of boring not to have anybody for fooling around at that age, isn’t it?” Jane said, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. “I mean, didn’t you ever want a brother or a sister?”
Dave shrugged.
“I have a big sister. But when I was a teenager, I wanted a little sister so I could be the big brother, you know? Protecting her from all the bullying at school and helping her with homework…” He paused to take a breath, and they heard Pain snort. “And then I wanted a brother, because- ”
“Because you were a nerd, and nobody would hang out with you?” Pain cut in.
Jane frowned. Not helping, she thought, but she couldn’t say it to her out loud.
“No-o-o…” Dave drawled with a bit of resentment. “I have a lot of friends, you know- ”
“Yes, one of them is right there drooling all over Lamborghini Aventador. It’s super fun, I see,” she interrupted him again, making Jane roll her eyes this time. Could you be any worse at this?
Chad scowled at her, but she had already turned away. He caught Dave’s surprised look and raised his eyebrows in a silent question.
“Aventador? Really? ’Cause, man, I can get you one if you want,” Dave said simply.
Chad shushed him with an indignant look and returned to his magazine with a slight shake of his head.
Dave only gave him a puzzled shrug.
“As I was saying, when I got older, I wanted a brother so we could do all that badass stuff together. I think, every boy wants to have a brother,” Dave resumed.
“Really?” Jane asked and looked up at Chad, finally feeling like their conversation was heading in the right direction. “Did you want one?”
Chad glanced at her dully. He looked very different; how could Pain not know how he had taken the news? It was obvious from his look. His usually lively green eyes seemed darker somehow, as if the life was sucked out of them. His face was tight, the line of his jaw hard and square. Even the set of his shoulders was stiff, no matter how careless he tried to look slouching in the recliner. Jane wondered if he was scared or just upset. Or maybe, it was something else entirely. Maybe you weren’t supposed to find out that it was him that Eugene wanted, said a small voice in the back of her mind, and she cut it off.
“Not really. I guess I never thought about it,” he answered.
“At all?” Dave seemed genuinely surprised.
Chad turned to look at him.
“Man, I had a horse, why would I want a silly little brother?” he asked dubiously.
“A horse?” Jane’s eyes widened. “So, are you saying you
never got bored living outside the city with just your father?” she asked.
Chad lifted and dropped his shoulders in an indifferent shrug.
“Not really. My father always had something for me to do. I spent a lot of time with him, helping with this and that. I learned how to fix stuff when I was, like, six years old. Later he got me a horse, and I was spending a lot of time with her. I guess, compared to the kids here in the city, I was a lot busier than them. Besides, it’s not like I didn’t go to school there.”
“Does your father still own livestock?” Jane got so curious that she couldn’t help asking.
“Only one cow. He switched to repairing cars mostly, because it’s less trouble.”
“And he lives alone at the farmhouse?”
“No, of course, not. There’s also his assistant, his friend’s son. He’s teaching him mechanics. The guy’s there half of the time. He has a few friends, too. But he likes being by himself, just like me,” Chad smiled a little. “I visit him once a month.”
“Would it be totally inappropriate if I asked about your mother?” Jane said tentatively, her face unsure.
“No, it’s okay. She died giving birth to me. I’ve only seen her on a photo that dad showed me.”
Jane just nodded. She couldn’t continue, and mostly, she didn’t see the point. Chad seemed to be one of the most sincere and attractive people she knew. He was simple, but not in a stupid way. He was open, answering her questions right away without thinking. He was warm and easygoing and clever, and she felt a little guilty for not trusting him.
She suppressed a sigh, fighting with the bitter feeling inside her. The clock in the right bottom corner of her laptop’s screen showed eight PM, and she decided it could serve her as an excuse to leave.
“Are we going to have supper today?” she asked and glanced at the others with raised eyebrows.
Dave flung himself off the bed momentarily.
Sky Ghosts: All for One (Young Adult Urban Fantasy Adventure) (Sky Ghosts Series Book 1) Page 18
