by Liz Schulte
"Are you alone?"
"Yes," she said suspiciously.
I pushed her roughly against the wall, my mouth covering hers. What I lacked in passion, I made up for in force and anger.
How could she not tell me she was back?
Juliet bit my lip, snapping my attention back to her. I leaned back slightly, and she smiled. "I knew you’d come around."
I ripped open the front of her nightgown. Buttons clattered against the floor. "Don't talk." I turned her around, pinning her hands above her head while I searched my mind for Olivia. She had to be here somewhere, hiding. My free hand trailed down Juliet's soft skin along her side before curling around her front yanking her back against me.
"What are you waiting for?" Juliet asked breathlessly.
"Shut up." I growled. Come out, come out wherever you are, Livi.
God, even her name hurt. Finally I found her little hiding place. I found the dim light and pain that had been hiding from me for a year. A. Whole. Fucking. Year. I watched the light as I took her best friend, hoping somehow she could feel it. I took out my anger on Juliet with each thrust, and she begged for more. Olivia became dimmer in my mind, but never disappeared. It was no good. Juliet wasn't the one I wanted. Hers was not the skin I needed to feel beneath mine. She was a cheap imitation. I could fuck her for a thousand years and still every part of me would remain unsatisfied. Olivia was the only one. Juliet moaned, her body contracting. Olivia flared in my head, her presence rebounding and surrounding me for an instant before it shut off again. It wasn't even a contest.
Juliet tried to convince me to move into the bedroom, but who was I kidding? I was done. I’d done what I came to do. I put the final nail in the coffin of our relationship, closed the lovesick chapter in my life. Brushing off Juliet’s hand, I stalked to the door. "I'll see you at the club tomorrow," I said and walked out. I had lost count of the days since I last slept. I needed sleep.
When I awoke hours later, my mind was sharper and more focused. Originally all I’d taken from my conversation with Quintus was that Olivia was back, and she didn’t want me. However, there was more to what he’d said. He seemed under the impression that I was starting a war.
I fought to recollect his words. Something about killing guardians. . . . I had no idea what he was talking about, but I had a feeling Juliet, the warehouse and the glowing crate Baker saw had something to do with it. But why would Danica start a war we couldn’t possibly win? Not that we would lose, exactly. . . . The battle would just rage on for centuries and never go anywhere. It would be bad for business on both sides.
It didn’t add up. Malphas would've mentioned something about it if he knew, wouldn’t he? And why did Quintus think I was behind it? I was responsible for the region. If someone within my area was killing guardians, I’d have to answer for it to my superiors. Surely, they couldn't be happy about war. A guardian here or there wouldn't ruffle any feathers, but a full-blown assault would upset the balance.
Could this be Danica’s ludicrous plan to get her job back? Surely she knew Hell would punish her for an unsanctioned war that would draw human attention to us.
Then again, it was possible that this had nothing to do with Danica—or at least not Danica alone. Maybe something had changed, something powerful enough to set all of this into motion, something bigger than any of us. All I had to do was figure out what it was and how to stop it.
I lay back in bed, letting my mind work. Two things that I knew of had changed: Olivia became a guardian and I became the regional commander. Was this attack about me or about her? Quintus had indicated Olivia was special. Could her arrival have sparked this fuse? Only one person would benefit from seeing me fail and that was Danica. Who would benefit from Olivia’s demise? Danica wasn’t smart enough to pull something like this off on her own, which was clearly where Juliet came into the picture, but I didn’t know the gain. Juliet hated Olivia. Could all of this be about killing Liv? Would such an elaborate plan be worth it? I had my doubts. What were they trying to accomplish and how were they pulling it off?
No matter which way I let my mind run, nothing made sense. A war in no way benefitted either Danica or Juliet, and I had no idea how they were capturing guardians. Obviously, there was a master plan. I just needed time to figure it out, to push in a little closer.
I called Baker and didn’t wait for him to say hello. “I know what they’re up to. I just don’t know why.”
“Where the hell have you been, boss? I called you, left messages, stopped by the club and your apartment. . . . ”
“It doesn’t matter. I know what they’re doing.”
“That’s good because things are getting strange.”
“What does that mean?”
“More jinn are guarding the warehouse, another glowing box was brought in, and get this—two guardians are staking out the building from the roof across the way. Whatever she’s up to, it’s in the majors.”
“They’re starting a war.”
“Come again?”
“You heard me right, a war between jinn and guardians.”
“Why?” Baker sounded as shocked as I was. “Bad business.”
“Can you find the Loki for me?”
“Maybe.”
“Find it. It knows something. I think it was trying to warn me.”
“You want me to stop following Juliet?”
“No, I’ll take care of her.”
I hung up and set out to find Juliet. She’d finally earned my undivided attention. She was leaving her apartment as I arrived. I followed her to a café where she bought coffee and a pastry. She browsed some shops, caused some fights, and didn’t seem to be in a rush. After several hours of mindless shopping and instigating, she went over to the club. I watched her for a while before I ran back to my apartment to change and shower. Half an hour later, I was back at the club and headed up to my office, ignoring Juliet trailing behind me.
“Are we going to talk about last night?" she asked when I tried to shut my office door on her.
I looked at her steadily. "What do we have to talk about?"
Juliet's mouth fell open, and she stumbled over her words. She’d never make it as a jinni.
"Look, sweetheart, you'll never make it in this life if you can't detach. We had sex, that's all. It'll probably happen again if you don't get psycho. But we're not in a relationship. Hell, I don't even like you most of the time."
Her eyes narrowed and her chin tilted upward—still so much pride. That would be her downfall. When I changed, my pride was the first to go. You do what you have to do to survive. I crossed my arms, waiting for her to storm off or come at me.
"You cold son of a bitch." She spat at me, looking like what she really wanted to do was punch me in the face.
I grinned widely. "If you want someone to cuddle with and call your boyfriend, find a fucking human."
"How on earth did you ever get Olivia to go out with you? She should have hated you. You’re everything she disliked in a person."
Well, she does now. "She was a mark. Things are different with a mark. You know that. I can be whatever they want me to be."
Juliet ran her tongue slightly over her lips and walked towards me slowly. "Then you can be whatever I want you to be."
I looked down at her with my own half smile, and leaned in until my lips were nearly on her ear. "But it would be a waste of my time," I whispered and walked back to my desk. "Don't you have work to do?" Juliet frowned, but left.
I worked in my office for a little while, then went down to the club. This afternoon told me absolutely nothing about Juliet except she was lonely. I needed to find something. If she wasn't the traitor, I needed to get rid of her. She was too unstable. If she was the traitor, I needed to maneuver closer to her. Find out who or what was behind all of this.
When Juliet was nowhere to be found, I asked Will, the bartender, where she’d gone. He pointed me towards the back entrance. She was pacing in the alley, softly talking into her cel
l phone. I moved back into the club and sat where I’d see her return. Thirty minutes and ten girls surrounding me later she walked back inside. Now was the real test.
Juliet was headed in my direction. She cut through the gaggle of women, receiving dirty looks every step of the way. "Glad to see you decided to join us on the bottom," she said with a pleasant smile, but suspicion-laced eyes.
"Where have you been?" I asked, having no intention of defending my actions.
"Over on the strip side," she replied smoothly. She was definitely hiding something.
"Is everything going well?" I asked blandly not looking at her. How was I going to get her cell phone?
"Of course I have it covered down here." She looked at me then back upstairs as if showing me where I belonged which made me laugh.
"In case you’ve forgotten, this is my club." I said, sliding her against me.
"And in case you’ve forgotten, I run your club and run it well."
I met her eyes and let lust pour from me. Her cheeks colored, and her breathing became shallow as she willingly moved towards me. My hand folded over her hand that still clutched her cell phone, when I felt a vibration in my pocket.
Damn it. It had to be Marge.
I pulled everything back in and released Juliet, who looked dumbfounded by my sudden change in mood. I’d have to get her cell phone another day.
Twenty Five
It was an understatement to say that my meeting with Holden didn’t go exactly as I had hoped. His reaction to Olivia being alive wasn’t wholly unexpected—I’d known he would be upset. What I’d counted on was there being some remnant of the love he’d seemed to genuinely have for her once—but no. I shouldn’t have told him. And now I had to tell her that Holden knew she’d come back—and that he was unhinged and killing guardians.
What would this do to Olivia’s progress? Maybe I didn’t have to tell her. Maybe she was better off not knowing. Something happened when you put the two of them together. Like dynamite and flame, only destruction followed. Then again . . . if he found her first, it would come out that I hadn’t told her, and Olivia didn’t have a history of reacting well to secrets. She also didn’t have a history of being able to resist Holden. I would tell her when the time was right, I decided.
I arrived at Olivia’s early with breakfast, after plotting and planning our stakeout so she would be hidden, have an easy escape, and the least amount of exposure to jinn. She answered the door sleepily, eyes a little puffy.
“What are you doing here?” she asked in the midst of a yawn.
“I brought breakfast.” I waved the coffee under her nose.
“You’re my hero.”
“We’ve been assigned a mission. I thought I’d fill you in on it, but not until after a breakfast date.”
She laughed hoarsely. “I’ve created a monster.” She took the sack I held in my hand and rifled through it. She emerged with a blueberry scone and snatched the cup of coffee I was tempting her with. She sat at her table with one leg folded underneath her and the other one swinging above the floor. I grabbed a muffin from the bag and joined her.
“How was your day yesterday?” she asked not looking at me.
“Oh, fine. And yours?”
She smiled, but didn’t answer. Instead she inspected her scone and blew on her coffee.
“What? Did something happen?” Holden couldn’t have found her this fast, could he?
“No, nothing happened. I just have a lot on my mind.”
She was hiding something, I could tell. She was different somehow. Our conversation from two nights ago flooded back to me. “You were thinking about what we discussed?”
Her brow furrowed for a moment. “Yes.”
“And . . .”
“And I think you’re right. I should give you a chance.” She took my hand, shoving all thoughts of anything relating to Holden to the back of my mind.
I squeezed her hand, warmth filling me. She had actually agreed to try! There was no way I could tell her about Holden, not now.
“I wish we could just spend today together, no mission. You know, spend time really getting to know one another as people.”
I smiled, not exactly sure what she was talking about. There wasn’t a “me” separate from my job. It was slightly concerning that she felt she was someone different than who she was everyday with me. “We have forever. Before too long we’ll know everything there is to know about one another.”
She frowned. “I hope not. Knowing everything about someone isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.” She broke her scone in half, but sat it on the table as if she could no longer stand the sight of it. When she looked back up, she had a smiled stretched across her face. “And if that is the case, you’ll be bored in no time.”
“I doubt that.” I returned her smile gently. She was definitely acting weird.
“What’s this mission that brought you here at the crack of dawn?”
“It’s top secret. I know you have been asking about this for weeks, and honestly I was forbidden to tell you anything. And even still this has to stay between the two of us, it cannot become public knowledge.” Her face was a mixture of impatience and irritation, but she agreed before I continued. “There’s a traitor among the guardians. Someone is leaking information to the jinn about what our missions are and where we’ll be—and the jinn have been capturing and killing us.”
Olivia inhaled sharply. “And what has been done about it? Why are we just now looking into this?”
I took a sip of coffee, trying to find the right words. “I don’t know what has been done. All I know is they didn’t want any guardians to know about it so I kept their secret.”
“Why do they want our help now?”
“Ezra, a high elder, has received information about where this traitor will next be meeting the jinn. We are to sneak in and find out who is the traitor, then report back directly. It might be our only chance to find out, so failure is not an option.”
“Who would do something like this?”
“I don’t know. Ezra believes it is someone of very high ranking, so be on your guard. It is a very dangerous mission. I told him you were too new for it, but he insisted that your unique powers might be our best hope at accomplishing this task.”
“You told him I shouldn’t be allowed to go?” She tilted her head to the side in a decidedly annoyed expression.
“Olivia, you are doing wonderfully, but you hardly have a full grasp of your abilities.” Now her eyebrows arched. “It doesn’t matter what I think anyway. He insisted you are to help.”
“Quintus, there’s one little point that I’m going to have to make abundantly clear to you: Don’t do anything for my own good. I’ve had enough of that. I don’t want to be kept in the dark or away from assignments because you think they’re dangerous. I’m my own person, and I will make my own decisions.”
I swallowed wondering if she knew and that was why she was acting so strange. “Of course, and as I said it is a moot point because Ezra insisted.”
“Now, is that the only thing you need to tell me?”
I startled and peered at her closely. Could she tell I was keeping something back? Her face softened, so I thought not. . . And I chickened out. I couldn’t do it. She was already irritated about the mission. I didn’t want to make it worse by stoking the fire.
“That’s it.”
“Fine. So what are we going to do?”
“I have the address of the meeting place. We need to get over there and stake the facility out.”
“When will the meeting take place?”
“I have no idea.”
We arrived at a warehouse in an exceedingly rough part of Chicago and made ourselves untraceable to the human eye, so we wouldn’t invite unwanted attention. The building appeared to be deserted. Positioning ourselves on a rooftop of a neighboring building, we had a perfect view of the comings and goings from the structure. It was tedious work. Most of the day went by without anything happening
at all. Occasionally a jinni would patrol by, and Olivia would jot down the time and a description. Mostly though, she sat with her back against the wall, her arms folded over her chest, and her mind a thousand miles away.
“So why didn’t you tell me about the supernatural hangouts?” Olivia asked nonchalantly, but I could hear irritation highlighting her words.
“What are you talking about?”
“You know, the bars, clubs, restaurants where all the people in the Abyss hang out. There are more than just guardian coffee houses. Places I could make non-human friends.”
She thought I’d intentionally held out on her, but the truth was that it hadn’t occurred to me to tell her. I enjoyed our time together so much, I didn’t think about the fact that she didn’t know anyone else. I forgot the socialization part of her training. My feelings for Olivia were seriously getting in the way of my job. I should ask that someone else be assigned to her, but even the thought of it made me cringe. “You haven’t been in Chicago very long.”
She gave me the most dubious expression I’ve ever seen. “Look, I don’t care why you did it, but you really need to stop keeping things from me. No more partial information. Tell me whatever you need to tell me and don’t worry about my reaction. I can’t stand it any longer.”
Guilt ate at me. I needed to tell her. The longer I waited to tell her about Holden, the angrier she would get, but she was giving us a chance. . . . If I put him back into the equation, would she still be willing? I took her hand, loving that I could do that now. “I’m sorry. You’re right. In the future, I’ll make a stronger effort to be more forthcoming.”
She frowned. “That’s a very political answer. I don’t want you to try. Don’t you understand? I need to be able to trust that you aren’t keeping things from me.”
“You can trust me.”
“I hope so.”
“So how did you find out about the Abyss locations?”
“I made a friend yesterday, and she took me there.”
