Undone (The Guardians Book 1)

by Jessica Roe

  “Melvin said he'd hate it if any Guardians got to this scientist before Gable could gun him down; it'd make Pablo furious, and when he's furious, he lashes out at everyone—elevator operators included. So you can't effing tell anyone I told you, right? Me and Melvin have a good thing going.”

  Nicky stopped listening as she rattled on about her wrinkly old boyfriend. Gable's name echoed through his mind, causing his body to freeze and his heart to pound. Would she forever haunt him, killing the people he was supposed to protect?

  The answer was simple.

  No.

  He wouldn't let that happen.

  Yagoona was looking at Nicky funny, and he realized he'd breathed Gable's name out loud. “You know who she is, don't you?” she asked. “Pablo's Crazy Bitch? Pretty thing, sharp as glass, mean as a troll. You'll want to be careful if you're planning on crossing her.”

  He cleared his throat and tried to stop being a pussy about his evil ex girlfriend. He needed to be in control. “When's Gable supposed to be making the hit?”

  “Tonight at eight.”

  “Eight? It's ten after seven now! Where's it going down?”

  “I don't know where Gable'll be hiding, but I know the scientist will be eating at The Veggie Garden. It's a vegetarian bistro in Brooklyn.” Yagoona rolled her yellowing eyes. “Vegetarians. Psh.”

  “I know the place,” Walker said distractedly, checking her watch. “But it's a very public area. Pablo knows the ramifications of such an open action.”

  “Maybe he's sending a message,” Nicky suggested, and Walker nodded thoughtfully.

  “We need to leave right now if we're going to get Charles and Zay and get there on time. Traffic is going to be a nightmare, we'll have to run.”

  “No time to get Charles,” argued Nicky. “We can call in on the way, but we need to get there now before Gable kills again.”

  Walker agreed and without hesitating, they set off at a sprint.

  “Hey!” Yagoona yelled from behind them. “What about the rest of my money?”

  CHARLES VEHEMENTLY INSISTED that they wait for backup from Zay and himself, which Walker civilly agreed to—and then snapped the phone shut and ignored him. Nicky liked to think his influence was wearing off on her, just a little bit. He was liking her more and more each day.

  When they reached the corner of the street the bistro was on, she grabbed on to Nicky to stop him.

  “What?” he hissed.

  “Gable could be anywhere. We need to scout our location. God, didn't you listen to a word I said during training?”

  “Not really.”

  She huffed, and peeped her head around the corner. At six foot two, he was taller than her by at least eight inches, and he was easily able to peer over the top of her head.

  The Veggie Garden was easy to spot. The outside was painted green and a giant plastic carrot sat above the doorway. Not clichéd at all. From where they were standing, they could see that the place had tables outside as well as in. It was a nice evening and all of the outside tables were taken by diners.

  “Any of them look like a scientist to you?” Walked asked.

  “Yeah, that one over there with the lab coat and the flashing light bulb floating over his head,” Nicky replied. “What am I, psychic?”

  She ignored him. “I don't see Gable anywhere.”

  “She's not just gonna walk up to him and pop him. She'll be hiding out somewhere.” It was then that he noticed the abandoned building almost directly across the street from the bistro. It had once been a sports store, but had closed down for building work. All of the windows had been removed and boarded up with wooden slats. He nudged Walker and nodded in that direction.

  “Well spotted.” And for Walker, that was practically a standing ovation. “Check out the alley that runs behind it. We can probably get in through the back entrance.”

  They dashed down the alley. The back door was also boarded up, but a few slats had been removed from the bottom.

  “Got any weapons?” Nicky mouthed.

  “Just this.” She unstrapped the knife from inside her boot, and Nicky did the same with his.

  “Guess we're winging it,” he whispered and, taking a deep breath, he ducked down and crawled through the gap in the boards. His lessons in stealth had truly paid off because he managed to do it without making a single sound. Charles would be proud.

  The room they entered was huge and dark. The only light came from the street lamps outside shining in through the small gaps in the wooden slats. A set of stairs led to an upper level, probably a storage room, and the ground was covered in a thick layer of dust. A couple of wooden chairs and a table sat unused to one side, but the room was otherwise empty.

  Empty except one thing.

  A woman dressed in black lay on the floor, her eye pressed up against what was unmistakeably a large, ominous looking sniper gun. Her dark hair was pulled back from her face and the barrel of the gun poked between one of the gaps in the wooden slats.

  The woman, of course, was Gable.

  GABLE COULD SEE her target clearly through the small lens of her sniper rifle.

  His name was Zachary.

  She shouldn't know that; Pablo had been quite careful to leave out all the personal details. Said he didn't want her to know anything that could cause her a distraction. She wasn't supposed to get to know the target, she was just supposed to shoot him. She'd been given a picture, a location and a gun, and that was it. But she'd asked Chase to tell her his name, and it wasn't often that Chase was able to say no to Gable, not when she fluttered her lashes.

  Zachary the scientist was an unremarkable looking man. He wasn't ugly, but not particularly handsome either, just...average all around. His brown hair was messy and his smile was friendly; he was the kind of man someone could pass by in the street and forget within seconds.

  None of that was important. Gable didn't even know why she was taking the time to think about Zachary at all. He was a target. Nothing more, nothing less. That was all he could be.

  The target sat outside a vegetarian bistro, waiting for a date that would never show—Pablo had taken care of that. She didn't know what he had done to waylay the date, and she hadn't asked for fear of getting an honest answer.

  He was right there. She had a perfect shot. Her finger rested on the trigger, all she had to do was squeeze. Just shoot the man and it would be over. The scientist would be dead, Pablo would be happy, and she would...she would have to live with it for the rest of her life.

  She would do it. Any second she would do it. She would. She would.

  …

  ..

  .

  BUT SHE COULDN'T. She couldn't shoot the fucking gun, and she hated herself so much for that. He was just a stupid, floppy haired scientist. Why couldn't she just kill him already? Why did she have to be so damned weak?

  Her hand dropped from the gun, and less than a second later, a body crashed into her with the force of a truck and they both went rolling.

  Her assailant pinned her down and she looked up into the face of the sour, blonde Guardian—her least favourite of them all. Out of pure instinct, she brought her legs up and kicked the bitch off, jumping quickly to her feet. A quick survey of the room and she realized the whole Guardian team weren't there, just the one she really didn't want to see. Or the one she really didn't want to see her.

  Nicky was watching them with a wide eyed, horrified kind of look. He seemed torn, undecided, and his eyes flickered between them like he wanted it all to stop. He was stupid. If he had any sense he'd be fighting her like his gal pal Power Ranger.

  He was no threat to her.

  Gable dismissed him and turned back to the blonde. Just by looking at her it was easy to see the goodness, the righteousness—it practically dripped off her in little golden droplets of sunshine. Her life had meaning, duty, honour, and God did Gable hate her for it. She hated her for being so confident and knowing exactly where she stood in the world, which side of the scales s
he rested on. She hated her with everything she had, and envied her right down to the bottom of her heart. But even more than that, Gable hated herself for being nothing like the blonde Guardian woman. She hated herself because she couldn't be good or pure like her, but she couldn't even be evil either. She could do nothing right. She was nothing. Less than nothing. There was no place in the world for her, no point, no meaning.

  Which is probably why when the Guardian punched her so hard she felt something crack in her jaw, she let her do it. And when she threw Gable against the wall and smashed her head into the plaster, she let her do that too.

  NICKY COULDN'T MOVE. His legs were lead and his heart had frozen over and his mind was mush. Useless, soggy mush.

  He needed to do something. Something helpful or practical or maybe even violent—he knew that. He just didn't know what.

  Just seconds before he'd been prepared to stop Gable no matter what, no matter how, but...in the moment before Walker had launched herself at her, Nicky had seen Gable drop her hand from the gun. He'd seen it.

  But what did that even mean? Had she decided not to shoot after all? Or was she merely searching for a better angle?

  Not that it mattered, because Walker wasn't going to be letting her get away. She had the upper hand, although it kind of looked like Gable was letting Walker beat on her, again and again and again until there was more blood on her face than skin. She wasn't even trying to defend herself, and the stupid, foolhardy part of himself that he'd been trying to ignore wanted to jump in and protect her. He wanted more than anything to stop the fight before she was really hurt.

  Every promise he'd made to himself about Gable seemed to have vanished into nothing.

  “Move your ass!” Walker yelled at him, and he finally remembered himself. “Get the scientist out of the area!”

  And leave them both alone? “Walker...”

  “Go!” she screamed, and punched Gable again in the stomach.

  So he left, because Walker was being cold and cruel and he couldn't stand to watch it. He'd wanted to make Gable pay for what she did to Heidi and Becky as much as they rest of them, but what Walker was doing didn't seem...right. There was too much anger in her, and he wasn't sure that it was going to be something she was okay with when the red haze had faded from her eyes. He needed to get the scientist, and then he needed to stop her.

  He slipped under the gap in the boards and jogged out of the alley. It was only when he crossed the street that he realized he still had no idea what the scientist looked like, or even what kind of scientist he was.

  He had two plans; the first was to run up to the diners and yell out for a scientist. He was pretty sure that wouldn't go down too well.

  He decided to go with the second plan.

  Glancing around, it took him no time at all to find a wandering shadow, and he quickly shifted into Shadow Guide vision—something that had begun to take no effort at all.

  The shadow was a young boy, maybe nine or ten when he'd been alive. Hispanic. There were no obvious signs to show how he'd died, but Nicky was getting good at tuning into the shadows, and he could tell that the boy had died from starvation. He'd probably lived on the streets, and it kind of made Nicky's heart ache.

  Where is the scientist? he asked the shadow boy. He wasn't sure why, but the shadows just seemed to know things.

  And sure enough, the shadow boy skipped over to the tables and stroked the messy brown hair of a thin man sitting alone. The man, of course, didn't feel a thing.

  Thank you.

  The shadow boy held up his hand for a high five, which was odd and kind of cool, and Nicky obliged. The moment their palms touched, the boy vanished within Nicky's light.

  Nicky blinked back into normal view and approached the scientist. He took out his not quite legal but very official looking police badge and held it out, wishing he at least knew the scientist's name. “Sir, I need you to come with me.”

  The scientist's eyes widened. “Am I in some kind of trouble?”

  “No.” Nicky lowered his voice. “But you are in danger. It's to do with what you've been working on.”

  The box? the scientist mouthed, and Nicky realized that he must be aware of the dangers. Maybe he was aware of other stuff, too.

  He put his badge away and crouched down. “Do you know who the Guardians are?”

  “I've heard of them.” But he looked unsure. “Why? What's going on?”

  Nicky pulled out his real badge—the legal one. It was kind of like a police badge but for Guardians. It showed the Guardian symbol—two swords crossed over the letter G, surrounded by flames. They only really used them with Outcasts, but for a few exceptions. “I'll explain later. We should leave, now.”

  People always seemed to automatically trust those with badges, and the scientist was no different. He looked worried and wary, but he jumped to his feet to follow Nicky.

  They'd barely made it two steps before a rental car pulled up next to them with a loud screech. Nicky's hand moved to the knife hidden under his jacket, but the window wound down and Queenie's head popped out. Nicky could just see Kain on the driver's side.

  “Nicky!” Queenie called desperately. “Thank God we found you. We just spoke to Charles on the phone; he's on his way with Zay right now, but we were closer. You were right, Nicky! All along you were right!”

  He was surprised to see them and confused and sort of embarrassed because Queenie was speaking loudly and the nearby diners were watching them curiously. He seated the scientist in the back of the rental car and turned to Queenie.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded.

  Queenie's eyes were sparkling with unshed tears, but Nicky couldn't tell if it was because of stress or happiness. “Nicky, you can't hurt Gable,” she told him quietly. “She didn't kill them. Heidi and Becky are alive!”

  GABLE HAD REALLY thought she could do it. She'd really thought she could switch off everything inside her that made her human and kill the Telepath in cold blood; take the final step towards a life of evil. She may even have gone through with it if the kid hadn't screamed right before Gable's dagger pierced her momma's heart. Luckily for all of them, Gable had wicked fast reflexes and she managed to halt the momentum of the dagger just in time. Only the very tip, a millimetre if that, pressed into the Telepath's skin. A tiny droplet of blood stained her almost victim's shirt.

  Without moving the weapon, Gable turned to look at the kid in horror. She was just a little thing, blonde and snotty nosed and clutching a ratty green rabbit like her life depended on it.

  “Please don't hurt her,” the Telepath begged, and when Gable glanced back at her, she saw tears crawling down her cheeks, all the way to her chin where they dripped off onto her chest. “She's just a child. She's innocent.”

  The fact that she, that anyone could think Gable was capable of harming a child was just...it was just...gut wrenching. But then she remembered the dagger that was still pressed up against the woman's skin, so close that if the Telepath even moved to help her kid, it would slide right into her heart. Nicky and the blonde Guardian were laying unconscious nearby. Of course she would think that Gable was capable of that. She'd come to murder her.

  “The kid yours?” Gable demanded, and the woman nodded, her whole body trembling.

  Pablo had never mentioned, never even hinted, that there would be a kid involved. And he knew about it, that she was sure of, but he hadn't mentioned it because it was just another one of his tests. She was supposed to kill the woman, kill the kid, and return with a big ol' smile on her face. Job well done.

  She'd thought she'd known it before, but she truly hadn't; death didn't matter to Pablo, not at all.

  And it was in that second that she realized that she wasn't a killer, and she never could be. If she'd have gone through with murdering the Telepath it would have destroyed her, heart, soul and mind. She was nothing like Pablo, no matter how badly she wanted to be.

  She couldn't kill her. She wouldn't kil
l her.

  But if she left them now, the Telepath and the kid would be as good as dead anyway. The Guardians were good at what they did, even she had to begrudgingly admit that, but Pablo had a way of knowing things, of finding out the impossible. If he even suspected the woman and the kid were alive, he'd hunt them down and kill them in the most gruesome way possible, and then maybe he'd kill her too.

  If she was going to act, she had to do it quick.

  Gable lowered the dagger and stepped back so the Telepath could drop down and scoop the kid up into her arms. For a moment, Gable couldn't breathe. Her own mother had held her like that once.

  She swallowed; it wasn't the time for sentimental memories. “What's your name?” Awful that she didn't even know that.

  “Heidi,” the Telepath answered warily. Heidi's whole body was trembling and she was cradling her sobbing daughter in her arms, rocking her gently back and forth in soothing motions.

  “I won't hurt you, Heidi,” she promised. “Either of you.”

  Heidi didn't look like she believed her. “I thought you came here to kill me?”

  “I did. But then I changed my mind. Now I'm going to save you.”

  As Heidi processed Gable's words, her mouth opened and closed like she wanted to speak but didn't have the words. She looked like there was an intense battle waging inside her head between distrust and hope. “Why?”

  Gable shrugged. “'Cause I'm an idiot, mainly. Look, we need to do this fast before they wake up.” She didn't look at Nicky's battered form again; it did horrible things to her regretful heart.

  Ideas for how she was going to get them out of there with nobody dying flickered through her mind until she finally decided on a plan. It was clumsily put together and rough and ragged around the edges, but it was still a plan.