“She’ll have a choice, but while she’s with us, she’ll need to follow us around,” Vincent gave Jasper a tiny smile. “Afraid she’s going to betray us and help the bad guys?”
“No,” Jasper told him quickly. “But-”
“Good, because Jon is apparently already raising hell in Atlanta, and we need to be a unit on this. We can’t have him trying to find weakness in the team.”
“You are so fucking weird.” Zander shook his head at their boss. “One minute you are cold as shit to her, and now, you want her on the team.”
“Not our team, but we would be recruiting her into the IMPO.” Vincent shrugged. “James had some solid points about the situation.”
“If she joins the IMPO, she can use her old ties from being a criminal to help cases, create set ups, helping bring down big names all over the world,” Jasper nodded. It was a smart move, but he felt uncomfortable talking about her future without her in the room. They hadn’t even had her in custody for an hour, and now they were whispering about making her train to become an agent? She was going to blow a gasket.
“I knew someone else would see James’ side.” Vincent nodded. “So, we need to kill time until we can get her on a plane. While she’s dealing with the gym, we’ll pack up all her stuff and get it ready to go. No reason to buy her new clothes in Georgia. She’s got plenty here, it seems.”
“Look at you,” Elijah grinned, “worried about her stuff.”
“Fuck off.” Vincent glared at him. “I don’t want us wasting our money. And it would be our money. James had the tech guys lock out her accounts when I called him. She’s completely dependent on us now.”
“Oh, that’s going to piss her off,” Zander chuckled. “I’m looking forward to this. What about you, Jasper?”
“I’m wondering if everybody will still be among the living when we fly out of here.” Jasper gave Zander a knowing look. They had intended to let her keep her money because growing up semi-poor and dependent on others had always made Sawyer very protective of her resources. She might not have realized it, but Jasper knew she liked having money ready just in case shit went down.
“Blame James.” Vincent rubbed his temples in a circular motion. “He made that call. His reasoning was that, if she was poor, she would be more likely to take paying work that wouldn’t get her arrested. He also reminded me that her money was gained from illegal activities. Charlie doesn’t pay her for anything she does in New York. She doesn’t even take winnings from the fighting ring they are a part of. Charlie gets all of that, as well.”
“Why don’t we give Charlie everything?” Elijah asked. “He could use it, since we’re taking away his employee and his friend.”
Vincent turned back to look at Sawyer’s bedroom door, and shook his head a little. Jasper knew where this was going, so he just spat it out.
“Sawyer has no idea Charlie was in on this,” he told Elijah. “It’s obvious. And she’ll be furious when she finds out, so giving him her money could possibly make this worse.”
“Really? I mean, we’re leaving her car and motorcycle here,” Elijah chuckled. “Surely-”
“We’re actually not leaving those here,” Vincent shook his head again. “They are going to be sent to our place and locked away in the garage with their keys in my safe.”
Jasper looked at Zander, who was frowning. What was Vincent trying to do, wipe her from existence?
“Why?” Jasper asked, turning back to Vincent.
“Because we need to leave no evidence of her here to keep Axel from killing Charlie or any other bystanders who won’t know where she is,” Vincent’s mouth was a hard line, “and that sucks for her, I know; but she can’t come back to New York. Not until Axel is no longer hunting her, which means not until Axel is in prison or dead.”
“You really think he’s going to hunt her to the ends of the earth?” Zander snorted. “We figured maybe six months tops, and then she could walk away.”
“Axel always gets what he wants. He won’t stop until he has her or whatever he wants from her,” Elijah mumbled. “Come on, we’ve been chasing that SOB across the globe for five years. This team was built for the express purpose of catching him. She’s not going to be able to walk away until we have him.”
Jasper chewed on that. He knew that already. He hadn’t wanted to admit it, but he knew it.
“Let’s just play some cards.” Vincent pointed to the deck they always had with them. “Nothing we can do right now with her getting some sleep, and we’re stuck here until we deal with her requests.”
“At least she’s not still trying to kick our balls through the wall,” Elijah mumbled petulantly. They all chuckled softly at him and his plight.
“She was only trying to do that to you,” Zander rolled his eyes.
Jasper waited for her at breakfast while the other guys were down in the gym with Charlie. He had shown up early, expecting them to already be gone. Luckily, the old man hadn’t given anything away when he saw them. Jasper wasn’t sure how Sawyer would take the betrayal, and it wasn’t something he wanted to confront that early in the morning.
“Good morning,” she told him brightly, sitting down with a bowl of yogurt.
“It’s nearly noon,” he reminded her, taking a sip of his coffee. They hadn’t expected her to sleep in like this.
“I don’t teach anything in the morning,” she shrugged, “so, this is my morning. I have too many late nights to be waking up any earlier.”
“I know,” he sighed. “So, your class will be here in an hour?”
“Yeah, enough time for me to eat and get stuff set up for Charlie to take over.” She took a couple bites of her yogurt. “Tell me, did you contact him or the other way around?”
He couldn’t stop his flicker of worry.
“How did you figure it out?” He was looked away from her. “And we cornered him.”
“He would have been more concerned about you all being if he didn’t already know,” she told him quietly. “I’m not mad. Charlie just wants me safe, and if he felt the need to help you, then I’m not going to hold it against him. It’s just how he shows he cares. He’s seen me go through a lot.”
He didn’t know how to take this from her. He thought she would have stormed out and confronted Charlie, but here she was, sitting with her breakfast, shadows and secrets filling her eyes.
“He didn’t tell us much,” he offered her, hoping to relieve any sense of betrayal she might not be showing him. “He just said you showed up a few years ago, needing help. He brought you in, taught you how to fight, protect yourself. Within a few months, you were out in the streets helping other people. He offered a little more in terms of your work, just so we had a better idea of how you pulled off the secrecy.”
“Layers,” she chuckled. “I look at life in layers, compartmentalize different sections so they don’t bleed together. The fact that you are sitting here though, proves I didn’t work hard enough.”
“We have all sorts of technology, and Magi who helped that Axel doesn’t,” he shrugged. “You were smart to keep your face covered for everything. Not your mistake to have the mask knocked off.”
“I could have gotten into the security and wiped the tapes from existence,” she pointed her spoon at him. “I screwed up, and now I’ve got IMPO agents dragging me out of my house. Don’t play with me, Jasper.”
“I’m not playing with you.” He smiled gently at her, hoping to ease her a little. “If it weren’t criminal, I would be incredibly impressed by what you’ve done.”
“You are too nice,” she groaned. “Where’s Zander? He’ll give me the argument I want.”
“Let’s not start that again,” Jasper sighed, taking her bowl from her. At their best, Zander and Sawyer were perfect together; Jasper had always known it. At their worst, he was needed to step in and fix things before they killed each other. They were explosive, temperamental, and passionate people which made it necessary for Jasper to stay between them. “Go get rea
dy. Wear something you can travel in. Elijah and Zander will be packing your things while you and I see your students. Vincent is handling some other details.”
“You think I’m going to let two strangers pack my shit?” She stood up slowly. “You’ve lost your damn mind, Jasper.”
“Fine, then make a bag of stuff you don’t want them messing with, and they will make sure it gets on the plane.” He didn’t want to know what that bag could possibly have in it.
“Fine,” she suddenly sounded cranky. With her, there was no telling what would set her off. Jasper rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and prayed for a moment of strength. Having her back in his life was going to be wonderful, stressful, and, sometimes, downright terrifying. He shouldn’t have expected anything less.
It took the entire hour before her class started for Sawyer to have the bag ready. Jasper tapped his foot, waiting for her. Elijah and Vincent were waiting with even less patience to get in and pack her things.
“Good lord, little lady,” Elijah grumbled when she finally walked out. “Took you long enough.”
“Fuck you,” she growled, shoving the bag into his arms. “Don’t look through it. It’s my fucking underwear. Unless you’re into being a fucking pervert, in which case, I hope you don’t mind losing fingers.”
Jasper coughed, reaching out to grab her arm so he could drag her away before anything else could come out of her mouth. He didn’t make it in time, as Elijah gave a pithy response before Jasper could separate them.
“Considering I could see your underwear by just asking, I’m not sure why I would need to go through your panty drawer,” he teased. Jasper knew it was innocent flirtation, but he also knew Sawyer wasn’t going to take it that way.
“Like you have a chance,” she snarled. What had pissed her off since she had woken up? Jasper groaned, and started dragging her away. “He’s a fucking prick.”
“Elijah is harmless,” he told her on the stairs. “He flirts with everybody, it’s nothing personal.”
“Like that makes it any better,” she huffed.
“Sawyer, I need you to calm down,” Jasper finally sighed. “I get it. This fucking sucks for you. You’ve built up a life and a place for yourself here, but we don’t really have another option. We need to keep you alive. We can’t let Axel continue to leave bodies all over the planet, and we need to bring him down.”
“That’s not why I am upset,” she growled. “You’re about to see why.”
She left him confused on the stairs. He raced after her, wincing at the ache in his knee and the shooting pain up his thigh and into his hip. It was getting worse, and he already wasn’t allowed to do anything too physically active during assignments. He was a geek anyway, so that was okay, but damn, working out was hard when one entire leg didn’t want to cooperate. Keeping up with her was going to be a nightmare.
He found her in a room connected to the main gym and put it together. Nearly twenty kids, almost all of them under the age of sixteen, were waiting on her. They looked at her like a goddess descended to teach them, a big sister that would always love them. Hero worship was an understatement.
And the smile on her face was glorious. Radiant. She hugged the smaller ones, one or two looking like they were probably only seven or eight. She exchanged goofy secret handshakes with the older ones, and laughed when a couple tried to trip her up.
He had known, but he had never witnessed it. Charlie hadn’t allowed them in the gym when it wasn’t Fight Night, and he didn’t have cameras for Zander to break into. Jasper stood awkwardly at the door, watching it play out. These kids loved her, and she loved them. She was relaxed, and the cocky swagger she usually kept was missing. She was at ease in a way he’d never seen her, even when they were young.
“Alright, so I have some bad news for all of you,” she called to them. “Everyone gather around.”
Jasper swallowed a lump in his throat. Tiny hearts were about to be broken. Jasper didn’t like to witness this level of emotion. It made him itchy and uncomfortable, but someone had to keep eyes on her at all times.
“Last night, I learned some bad news, and I’m going to need to leave for a little while,” she knelt to the smaller children’s eye level. “I don’t know when I’ll be able to come back, if I can, but I was told that I’m in danger, so they need to hide me away.”
She was being honest with them, he frowned. Did she really think they needed the gory details? Couldn’t she just say she was going on a business trip?
“But,” a teen interrupted, looking upset, and Jasper knew the boy was a newer one of the group. “What are we going to do?”
“What you do every time I leave.” She smiled sadly at him. “You are going to listen to Charlie, Liam, and Jessie and never miss class. They will take over until I can come back. If anything happens at home, you need to tell Charlie, and he will help with that too.”
“My daddy isn’t scared of Charlie like he is of you,” a tiny one whispered. Jasper rocked back with shock. These kids knew. They knew what Sawyer did for them.
“Your daddy is never coming back,” Sawyer pulled the small one to her as she spoke. Her eyes flicked up to him and back to the minors around her. “He’s not going to do that.”
“Promise?”
“I don’t make promises, but I’ll make you a deal.” She held the little girl’s head to her own. “If he comes back, you tell Charlie. Charlie will tell me, and I will do whatever is necessary to come back and help you.” She looked up from the kids and met Jasper’s eyes again. “Whatever is necessary.”
He gave a small nod, acknowledging her warning. He knew what she was telling him. She would risk her life and freedom to help these kids, and it was something he would need to tell the team. She didn’t give a damn about her own life, not when it came to them. These non-Magi kids from the roughest neighborhoods of New York meant everything to her.
She was mad because she was breaking their hearts and leaving them without her for a length of time that she couldn’t confirm would ever end. They could fail, she could wind up dead, and these kids would never see her again after this.
“This is Special Agent Jasper Williams. He and his friends are the ones who want to protect me,” she told them, pointing over to him. “I grew up with him, if you can believe that. So, if you want to know all my dirty, embarrassing childhood stories, now is the time to ask.”
He froze and broke out into a cold sweat as all the eyes turned on him. The teens were glaring, angry at his intrusion into their lives. The small ones were curious. He didn’t know how to deal with children, and when a couple of the young ones started walking over, he backed away.
“This really isn’t…” he started, looking at Sawyer. She grinned and waved, turning to the teens and beginning a quiet conversation he couldn’t follow.
“Sir,” one of the little ones was tugging on his shirt. He looked down to find the young girl staring up at him. “Are you going to keep Ms. Matthews safe? Are you?”
“I’m going to do my best,” he looked away from her and out the doorway, hoping to call for help. He didn’t appreciate this, and he knew Sawyer did it to him on purpose. She had always been better with the younger kids at the orphanage.
“Will you tell us a story about Miss Matthews?” A young boy asked, and Jasper groaned. He looked around and finally decided to just sit on the floor. He stretched his legs out and glared over to Sawyer, who watched him as a teenage girl said something. “She said you would!”
“She once fell out of a tree,” he told the young boy. The kids were sitting all around him now, and standing the doorway was Zander, grinning at Jasper’s misfortune. “Not really much to it.”
“Now, don’t do that to them,” Zander chuckled. “She was trying to throw rocks at some high school bullies, and then she fell out of the tree.”
“In to a bush, right?” Jasper felt more comfortable with Zander there. Thank God for small miracles.
“Yeah,” Zander launched into the s
tory so that Jasper was saved from having to tell it. Jasper liked books, quiet, and a good video game on occasion. Children terrified him. He stood back up, extracted himself from the crowd of kids, and walked towards Sawyer whispering with the teenagers.
“So, you can watch Jonas when school gets out?” She pointed to an older young man, probably the oldest in the room.
“Yeah, he and Izzy can hang out together with me,” he nodded. “Jonas’ mom causing trouble?”
“Yes, but you aren’t to engage,” Sawyer was stern. “You know the rules, bring them here, and Charlie will keep anyone away and give you all my room in the apartment.”
“I’ve been training with you since the beginning,” he whispered back hotly. “Let me do this.”
“Remember your brother, Liam?” She whispered darkly at him. Jasper saw the young man pale. Liam, Jasper knew, was the oldest. Sawyer paid for his apartment and his education. “Could you do that? Day in and day out? You hated driving the truck, Liam. Don’t think you can be me. I’ve made it clear to all of you how this works. That’s not up for discussion.” She turned and saw Jasper. He crossed his arms. “Well, you might as well come on over, Jasper. I see Zander saved you from my trap.”
“Yeah, he must have gotten the flight scheduled faster than expected.” He looked between them. “What is this?”
“When I leave town, the teens and I make plans on what do in case anyone gives them trouble.” She lifted her chin and met his eye. He only had an inch, maybe two, on her. She was intimidating when she needed to be. “Most of them are in the same foster homes or live close to each other. The plans are given to parents and foster parents so they don’t need to worry about babysitters and things like that.”
“No one takes up your job?” He had to ask.
“Fuck, no. Did you not just hear me tell him that?” she snapped, pointing at the young man she called Liam. “Are you crazy? They are kids. Plus, we don’t talk about that here. Don’t bring it up again.”
A Life Of Shadows Page 11
