by Raine, Meli
This is all I know now.
Duff is sitting in the driver’s seat of the black SUV Silas guides me to. I wonder how he knows which car to bring me into, how he communicates with his team, what it takes to make everything move so smoothly. I plan to ask when we’re settled into the SUV, but as I try to climb up into the backseat, I pause.
And begin to shake.
My blood turns cold, like someone is flushing pipes, as I look at objects around me–the back door handle, the button on Silas’s cuff, the distance between my eyes and the black asphalt. It all starts to spin, pulling in and out, toward and away, and I am nothing more than a human version of a wax doll.
“Jane?” Silas’s voice comes to me from the end of a long tunnel that separates us. “Jane!” His voice is urgent and softer.
And then it’s gone. I’m gone.
What a relief.
Chapter 4
My ear is stroking something so soft and smooth. It’s comforting and inviting, so I rub against the softness, reveling in sensation, sighing.
And then the something moves.
“Hey,” Silas says, his voice coming from above. “She’s awake.”
I open my eyes, then shut them quickly to make the spinning stop. The world is full of random objects that move in and out, forward and back, my depth perception put in a blender and puréed.
“What?” I whisper, his hand on my shoulder. I want him to stroke my hair, to bring me ginger ale, to keep me safe and let me relax.
“You fainted,” he says, voice somehow both taut with worry and gentle with concern. “Right into my arms.”
“You have good arms.”
“I like them.”
“So do I.”
I roll in his lap and look up into those bright eyes full of mirth and worry. “Can you sit up?” he asks.
“No.”
“That bad?”
“It feels so nice here. I could sleep here forever.”
Someone clears their throat in the distance. It’s a masculine sound.
“She okay?” the throat-clearer asks from another continent away. Or maybe the front seat. It’s hard to tell.
“I think so,” Silas responds, easing me up slowly.
“I did not consent to sitting up,” I murmur, snuggling in.
“And I didn’t consent to being your pillow.”
“But you’re a good pillow. The best pillow ever.”
“Jane?” Silas asks slowly. “Are you on something?”
“On something? I’m on you.” My muscles go slack, body in need of this all-too-short moment to enjoy being at rest in a place of sanctuary.
Rumbling makes my head move lightly as he–is he laughing? “No. I mean, did you take a drug, or a pill? You’re acting very weird.”
“Have we met? Come on. You try going through what I’ve been through these last few days, then faint, and come out of it perfectly sane,” I grouse.
As I come to a full upright position with my back against the upholstered seat, I realize it’s not just me, Silas, and–oh. The throat-clearer is Duff.
Drew is behind him, their heads huddled together as they speak through the window.
“I’m fine,” I lie. “Just tired and a little weary from having my entire life blitzed to smithereens.”
“That would exhaust anyone,” Silas assures me.
“I need my own place,” I say, the plaintive tone so obvious to me. In any other situation, I’d be mortified. But right now, I just want home. Any home.
My home.
“You do,” Drew says, breaking away from his conversation with Duff and looking into the backseat. “And we’ll get there. Right now, we’re trying to figure out how best to handle this new complication.”
I bristle. “I am not a complication.”
“I don’t mean you,” he clarifies. “I’m talking about Monica.”
“Oh.” Asking him to elaborate will get me nowhere. Silas slides out of the seat next to me, opens the door, and stands with Duff and Drew, talking in low voices. In the door, I find an unopened bottle of water, grateful for a moment to meet my body’s needs. As I drink, I realize how little I’ve been able to focus on this bag of flesh and bones that carries my personality, my soul and mind, around. A flash of memory in Alice’s studio, posing, makes me feel more connected.
The body will not be ignored. Deferred? Sure. Ignored?
No.
Secretly, I watch Silas, my face tipped down but eyes cutting to the right. His hands are on his hips, pulling back the sides of his suit jacket, showing his belt with a small pistol on it. His white business shirt is wrinkled and a little lopsided. One part of it is untucked. That was my fault, I’m sure. The way he held me back from injuring Monica was no small feat.
The water hits my stomach and soothes my parched throat. I smooth my hair and straighten myself. Posture, clothing, thoughts. Being in order is never more important than when you’ve been in nothing but disarray.
And I’m the very definition of chaos right now.
My skin feels like electric impulses multiplying by the second. I’m hot. I’m cold. I’m tired. I’m wired. I’m a bundle of conflicting emotions and sensations that don’t add up to anything substantive, but that suck all the energy out of me.
But I am here.
I got angry.
I defended myself.
And I left on my terms.
A cracking sound, like a slab of marble snapping in half, fills the air. The glass window to my left explodes. I flinch, a rush of annoyance flooding my veins, making me turn and look. Instantly, my irritation turns into pain as little shards of glass rain down on me. The open car door slams and all the men outside drop out of my sight like they’ve fallen through trap doors in synchronicity.
Crack!
Crack!
Crack!
Silas shouts, “Get down, Jane!” and I want to tell him I can’t, I need him back in here, it hurts, I am tired, so tired, please make it stop.
“JANE!” he bellows.
I open my mouth to answer and a chunky piece of glass falls in, my tongue stinging as it gets trapped between the tip and my lower teeth. Copper wetness floods my mouth and I spit the piece out, red blood all over the back of the front seat.
Ringing is all I hear. It’s maddening. The world has gone slow.
So slow.
The door with the shattered window opens slowly and Silas crawls in, ignoring the glass everywhere. I want to warn him, to make sure he doesn’t bleed like me, but the ringing is so loud, I can’t speak. He wouldn’t hear me if I said a word because everything is a tinny cloud of sound. The whole world is glass and high-pitched ringing and movement and fuzzy. Blurred edges dominate everything. I see nothing and eternity with every movement of my eyes.
I can’t feel my heart. Is it still there?
He pulls me down to the floor of the vehicle, his hard yank unyielding. My shoulder feels like it’s been ripped out of its socket. The reactive scent fills the SUV’s cab, an unpleasant odor that sets every nerve firing, mingling with the blood until I can’t think, can’t move, can’t process.
Can’t save myself.
Silas is inches from me, eyes combing over my face, my body. His hand goes to my jaw, thumb brushing against my bloody lip.
“You’re not shot.” His words carry no question. Just an affirmation. I barely hear him, but I know what he’s saying.
Crack!
Another gunshot outside.
I start to shake, my vision pinpointing, but a wave of nausea cuts through it all and shoves a big bolus of adrenaline through my body. We’re on the floor, my calf painfully pinned beneath me, my skin being cut by glass. The sting feels deliberate and cruel, as if the glass is trying to hurt me on purpose.
Just like whoever is shooting.
“Why?” I ask Silas, coming out of it, the ringing like a mournful chorus. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why are they shooting? Why are they here?
They aren’t supposed to be here.”
Ignoring my words, he holds his gun in one hand, the flinty metal odor of fresh gunfire mingling with the taste of my own blood, making my stomach curl.
And then a series of gunshots, a rapid mixture of sounds that make it clear multiple people with different firearms are going at it, followed by screams.
Oh, no.
Sounds like Lindsay.
Drew is calling out orders. Her screams mute suddenly, like a radio turned off with a quick flick of a wrist. Abrupt and fractured, the sound of that scream ending is like hearing the devil smother an angel. Was she shot?
Please don’t let Lindsay be shot.
All of the men pop up outside the window into standing positions. Silas cocks his ear, listening. He doesn’t drop his weapon but he sits up, peeking through the intact back window.
“Gentian!” Drew barks.
Silas crawls backwards out the slightly open car door and stands.
I hear the rustle of leaves, strangely, even beyond the bright ringing in my ears. It’s a loud, furious sound. Noise that a big animal in the bushes makes. Not what I expected to hear.
I sit up, brushing glass off the seat, pieces scraping against the butt of my hand. As I turn to the right, my attention caught by movement, I realize the big animal is a human.
A very dead, very bloody human.
Duff opens the SUV’s door and looks at me like Silas did, only without emotion. He’s cataloging my injuries, triaging me, his expression changing as he sees blood. “You’re bleeding, Jane. Any serious injuries?”
“No. Just copper,” I say, pointing to my mouth.
He frowns. “Copper?”
I wave him away. “I’m fine. Just scratches. It hurts, but no more.”
Duff appears to be older than me, older than Silas and Drew, with a long scar at the corner of one eye that drags his skin back tight. It gives his eyes a lopsided look, like it changes the color of the injured one, that orb more the shade of the sea mixed with sand. He’s tan and tight, skin stretched over muscle and anger like it’s a sentry. I’ve never seen him smile, his resting face severe. He smells like sweat and lemon and old wood.
Then copper overpowers everything again, in my mouth, my nose, my memory. It sears.
His hand reaches for mine, offering to help me out of the SUV, but I don’t move.
Duff waits two beats. He looks to his right as a black SUV rolls up, intact. The driver rolls his window down.
It’s Silas.
“Get in,” he orders. His command makes me move, taking Duff’s outstretched hand, gliding like I’m a robot being programmed. Duff boosts me up to get in the passenger’s seat, snaps the door shut, and before I can reach for my seatbelt, Silas peels out.
“What was that?” I squeal as I struggle to find the buckle and secure myself.
“Someone got past the perimeter and started shooting.”
“I can tell that. Who was it? Someone after me? Someone trying to kill Harry?”
“We don’t know.”
Silas’s phone rings. He pulls it out of his jacket and tosses it on a flat spot on the console, pressing the Talk button and putting it on speakerphone.
“What the hell was that, Drew?” he asks, shaking with adrenaline and rage.
“You sound like the senator. He’s pissed. But we have a complication. The guy got in by using the slip.”
What’s ‘the slip’?
“What?” Silas sounds incredulous. “There are only two passwords for that special entrance, and–”
“He used Spider’s password.”
Silas’s eyes bulge out of his head. I assume “Spider” is Harry’s code name.
“You’re shitting me.” I know from Lindsay, way back in high school, that her dad’s — er, my dad’s — security team changed his code name every week. From the shock registering on Silas’ face, I take it this is still the case, which makes it even worse.
“I am not.”
“Why would he give it to someone?”
“Claims he didn’t.”
Silas lets out a low whistle. “This just went from bad to worse.”
“No, Silas. This just went from worse to apocalyptic.” Drew’s voice has a resonance to it I’ve never heard before. He’s livid but level headed, calculating quickly to determine sequences of events and projecting out to the future. Constantly in vigilant mode, Drew’s life revolves around outsmarting the enemy and protecting the client.
A breach like this is huge.
“The intruder was trying to shoot Jane, though. Not entering the house to get the senator or his wife.”
“We don’t know who the intended target was. The guy’s dead. We’ll never know.”
“But he used Bosworth’s private code? You’re sure.”
“Positive.”
Silas sighs. “I need to get her to a safehouse. Not Alice Mogrett’s. Too much movement already. She needs a place to land.”
“I can hear everything you’re saying,” I blurt out. “Quit talking about me as if I’m not here. This is getting really old.”
“We’re working on getting you an apartment, Jane,” Drew says, his voice professional. The difference between the way he talks to Silas and me is stark. “It’s taking longer than expected.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because no one is willing to rent to you.”
“But you’re renting for me!”
“It’s... complicated.”
“I told you my solution,” Silas says to Drew with more authority than I’ve ever heard.
“Gentian.” Interesting how he changes to Silas’s last name. “I told you it’s too risky. You’re crossing a professional line.”
“Happened a long time ago.” The look he gives me makes it clear I’m on the other side of that line now.
“Fine, but I won’t enable it. I have a company to run, and you know how politics works. Word gets out and...” A barely concealed growl lurks in Drew’s words.
“What are you two talking about?” I demand.
“Silas offered to have you stay at his place,” he tells me in a sick, nasty voice.
Shock makes me touch his arm, my voice going breathy. “You... did?”
“Yes. Only as a temporary solution.”
“What about your mom and Kelly?”
“They’re on their way to my sister’s place. Mom thought it would be more stable for Kelly to live at the home she knows best during the initial–you know.”
“Adjustment period?”
He looks relieved. “Yes.”
“I don’t want to live in your apartment, Silas,” I say evenly, with confidence.
Drew clears his throat, the sound the equivalent of Ooo, burn.
“I respect that,” Silas replies, but I can see he’s troubled. He’s nodding to himself, then suddenly his expression changes.
“Give me a minute.” He holds up one finger and hits mute on the phone, brows turned down and tight, his face a mask of concentration. He pulls over, the car skidding slightly. Suddenly, a second car barrels up behind us, pulling a three-point turn until Drew is facing the house, his window down, looking up at Silas in the driver’s seat. There are three guys in the car with him, all wearing suits and sunglasses, like a really bad imitation of The Matrix.
Great. I’m back to being an entity. An item they move around. A logistics problem. So much for being treated like a person.
With great disgust, Silas kills the phone call and looks at Drew. He opens his mouth to say something, but I cut him off.
“Drew!” I call out, surprising myself.
“What?” he shouts back, not bothering to look toward me. Why should he? I’m just a client.
“You can’t do this.”
All of his guys freeze. More eyebrows go up.
“Excuse me?”
“I was just shot at. I am covered with glass shards and cuts. I need more than that,” I announce.
“Oh, right. Medical attentio
n. Duff can take you to the emergency room and–”
“I need more information. I need more freedom.”
He gives a dismissive sound. “Medical care we can manage. Information? No. And freedom?” His eyebrows shoot up. “Are you crazy? After what just happened?”
“I just found out that I am a presidential candidate’s daughter. I don’t care what people think I’ve done or not done, but show some compassion for the fact that I’ve just been thrust into a spotlight that has the potential to be worse than everything I’ve been through for the past seven months, and trust me–it’s been hell.”
“How do you think my wife feels, finding out he’s not her father?” he hisses back at me. I’m the target of his anger now. I’m sure it feels good to unleash on me, but here’s the problem.
I’m pissed, too.
I need a target.
“I’ve gone along with being turned into an object you moved around at will because I felt like I had no choice. Now I do. And now I’m leaving.” I start to climb out of the car and sprint toward the main passageway from The Grove’s backyard to the front of the house. A big red bloodstain covers the edge of the sidewalk, the dead body covered with a sheet. Bullet casings litter the ground. As I move, the air chills the thousands of small cuts all over my skin. My mouth stings with pain, and my vision starts to fade in and out.
I grind my teeth and make myself keep moving.
Silas comes up behind me. “Jane.”
“No.”
“Jane,” he says, voice firmer and insistent.
“No!”
“Jane.” His hand touches my shoulder. I shake it off and, on unsteady legs, look straight ahead. Eyes on the prize. I want to walk through a cluster of flowering bushes and get to the front of the house. From there, I have no idea where to go, but it’s better than here.
“If you leave, you’ll be dead in twenty-four hours,” he declares, matching my steps.
“You’re just saying that to control me.”
“Have I ever lied to you before?”
“I don’t know.” I pause. “Have you?”
“No.”
“But I have no way of verifying that.”
“True. But I think you want to trust me.” His voice is softly urgent.
“I want to trust someone. Alice is the only person I really trust.”
