by Brenna Lyons
“Great. What else can go wrong?”
“When are you meeting these delightful souls?”
“Sunday. Family dinner. My cover better be foolproof by then. If these guys are trained, they’ll be checking soon.”
“No one has checked yet.”
“That’s good news,” Jonas grumbled.
“Your cover is tight. It’s been tight since day one. You can start showing up to work any time you want to. The sooner the better if someone is going to start checking.”
“Tomorrow. Anything special added to the usual that I need to know about?”
“Analog? What’s new there? You took some online audits at Pitt before reporting in to the North Side plant from the one north of Boston. I’ll have a printout of what was placed in the Pitt computers for you tonight.”
Jonas nodded. The Analog headquarters north of Boston, with its three plants in that area, allowed Jonas to use his knowledge of the area and claim he had been moved elsewhere in their infrastructure. Analog was more than willing to play along for two reasons. The first was that they had the exclusive government contract for producing shields. The second was that they got Jonas or one of his counterparts as free expert labor whenever they needed cover in an area where Analog had a plant.
“Guess I better beef up on my semi-conductor knowledge,” Jonas sighed.
Evan scowled at him. “Like you ever forget anything.”
*
April 9th
Jonas willed his heart rate to slow as he stepped through the doorway into the two-story house on Primrose. Sarah squeezed his hand in reassurance, as the mob of people turned their way.
“Oh, man,” he breathed around his smile. “You have a lot of family. They don’t bite, right?”
“Four are missing. Looks like the Thompsons didn’t make it tonight.” Sarah was biting back panic, though she was good at hiding it.
Katheryn moved first, smiling as she crossed the room. Jonas waited for the brush against his shield but none came. Either she knew he was shielded, or she really didn’t believe in using what she had, as they stated before the Supreme Court.
Sarah released his hand to hug her mother. The two chatted while Jonas shut the door, feeling his skin prickle at the eyes trained on him. Those were confident, professional eyes.
He turned back and clasped Katheryn’s offered hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Randall.”
She laughed heartily. “Lesson one. I’m Katie. My husband is Keith. No one is formal here. Come meet the bodyguards.”
Jonas cracked a smile. “Bodyguards?” His senses were never wrong.
“Humor them. We’re two of only three women in a family of men. It makes them feel important.”
He nodded, trying to decipher the situation. They were trained, and they weren’t family. He wasn’t sure what the game was, but it was making him distinctly nervous. Jonas wound his left arm around Sarah as they made their way into the center of the room.
Keith came first, taking Jonas’ hand and welcoming him. At least, Sarah’s parents were reasonable people.
Alex came next. The young man had a firm handshake but wary eyes. Jonas resisted the urge to rub his ribs. He’d seen boys broken like that before. Steven wasn’t broken. Despite his psych profile at exit, he wasn’t broken.
Katie waved Steven over. “This is my oldest, Steven. Come meet Jonas.”
“I’ve met him. Hello, Jonas.”
Jonas nodded to him. “Steven.”
Steven’s stance was relaxed, but Jonas could read the aggression in him. This was what the academies did to Steven. He wasn’t broken. He was untrusting and angry. He was also protective of his twin.
Every pair of eyes examined Steven and Jonas carefully, trying to make sense of this new piece of information.
Katie looked to her older son. “You have? When? Why didn’t you mention it?”
Jonas willed his reaction away as Sarah and her twin exchanged a flurry of discussion via telepathy. So much for shields being all she has.
Sarah blushed deeply.
Steven shrugged. “When they started dating. I figured Sarah’d subject him to the firing squad when she was good and ready.”
Katie’s eyes narrowed. “Spill it. Don’t make me find out on my own.”
Steven shoved his hands in his pockets and gave his sister a bland look, as if inviting her to get herself out of the mess she was in. Katie looked from one to the other with an assessing eye. When her eyes panned over Jonas, Sarah snapped.
“Oh, all right.” She scowled. “I got mugged, and Jonas happened along at the right time.”
Steven looked unimpressed with her quick thinking. Jonas, on the other hand, was amazed. Sarah told the absolute truth without telling them the things that would cause them the most concern.
Katie’s eyes widened in shock. “Any particular reason you didn’t tell us this?” she demanded of her daughter. She swung her eyes back to Steven and offered him a venomous look. “Or you?”
Sarah rolled her eyes. “Look at the reaction I’m getting and ask me that again with a straight face.”
One of the men on the couch stood, and Jonas gasped. He was a bear. He was at least six foot five and three hundred some odd pounds, almost all muscle despite the gray hair and lined face that marked him in his late sixties or seventies. Jonas found himself wishing that he had liberated some stun-spray from Evan’s stash. This man surely had some training in hand-to-hand if not more than Jonas had. There was a fury rising in him as he stood, though his face remained impassive.
Sarah backed off a step, and Jonas wondered if she felt his rage with psi talent or knew him well enough to know what he was doing.
The man’s voice was calm despite what he was feeling. “I didn’t see a police report on that, young lady.”
Sarah hesitated, at a loss for answering that accusation. Steven raised an eyebrow at her discomfort. That annoyed Jonas, Steven’s taunting even more than her discomfort.
Jonas stepped in, taking his life in his hands as he tightened his hold on Sarah in comfort. “She didn’t want to worry anyone, and since we saw on the news that he got picked up that night on another charge—” He swallowed hard as the larger man turned his dark eyes on him. Jonas put his hand out, willing it not to shake. “Jonas Paige.”
The man folded Jonas’ hand inside his giant mitt. “You chased this mugger off?”
“I couldn’t just leave Sarah at his mercy, could I?”
He nodded. “Tentatively, you’re okay with me.”
Jonas cracked a smile. “Until my background check comes up clear?”
Keith laughed heartily. “Don’t put it past them. They did one on me.”
Jonas swallowed the sour wave burning his throat. He’d have to warn Evan about this development, though his cover was secure. He found his ability to think on his feet taking a vacation, so he nodded quietly.
Sarah stepped in. “Oh, back off, Uncle Bugsy.”
She turned to the next man on the couch, a thin, pasty man with a spray of freckles and angry green eyes. “And you, can it,” she warned him. “I can see you firing up. There will be no interrogation tonight. Got it, Prentice?” She didn’t wait for his agreement before moving on.
Sarah simply stared at the final man. Jonas waited for a flurry of telepathy that never came. Whatever passed between them was an understanding beyond words and without need of pleasantries or tricks. The man nodded his agreement.
Sarah sighed. “Thanks, Mac. Now that we’ve settled that, let’s get dinner on the table. I’m starving.”
Dinner passed enjoyably enough. Jonas learned that the blue-shirt uncles were police officers with Katie’s father. He got a good feel for the three men during dinner. Bugsy was quietly protective. Prentice was noisy about it, and Mac was watchful.
Jonas held his breath at two light, questing touches on his simulated E-shield. The first touch was Steven, and the second was Alex. Their examination didn’t bother him. His E-sh
ield would be the perfect imitation. What did bother him was the discussion they had by telepathy afterward. Worse, at the touches on his shield, Sarah gave her brothers dirty looks and sent a flurry of telepathy out that had Steven raising his eyebrow and Alex blushing deeply.
Jonas feigned confusion at their reactions, his heart pounding. He pretended not to feel the touches on his shield, because he wouldn’t feel them if it were a neuro-mechanical shield. He acted the part he needed to play, all the time worrying about her reactions. Sarah felt what they were doing. What else could she do?
The interrogation took place despite Sarah’s warning. Jonas answered countless questions about his job with Analog, his education, his family and his life growing up. His cover kept much of the information factual. It was always easier to bend the truth than to lie outright.
Of course, his cover story made Jonas the only child of dead parents. It listed his move to Clinton as moving in with his Aunt Rose after his father was killed in the Iraqi bombing of 2007. It also listed schools he’d studied at, schools that, in reality, Jonas had only been permitted a short visit to in order to gain personal experience of the campus. He’d audited courses at the schools, so he showed on the rolls as a student, but Jonas had never been permitted to attend any of the high schools and colleges he listed in his cover story. He’d used this cover many times, and sometimes Jonas wished it were true.
All the uncles took mental notes while he talked, but Mac was the loudest about it. He was the one Jonas had to watch. He was also the only one who dared broach the subject of the mugger again.
“Tell us about the mugger, Sarah.”
She nodded, as if he’d commented on the weather. “Not much to tell. He was just some punk after my wallet.”
“And?” His eyes took in everything. Mac could be a formidable enemy.
“What, Mac? What are you asking?”
His eyes narrowed. “You know what I’m asking.”
Jonas pretended to ignore that. Was she a mind reader?
Sarah sighed. “I had a split lip and a bump on the head.”
Katie sent Steven a sharp look that had Jonas wondering if he was considered his sister’s keeper. Maybe he was. After all, Sarah knew he’d be waiting for her at home though she didn’t use telepathy the night she was attacked. The Randalls could link. Was Steven her closest link?
Steven shrugged. “She told me to put the phone down.”
His mother rolled her eyes. “Since when do you listen to your sister?”
“Since when does she listen to any of us?”
“What else isn’t she telling us?”
Jonas noticed that she didn’t ask Sarah. Was Sarah superior to her stronger siblings in her shield? Baker insinuated that she was.
Steven eyed Sarah and sighed. “He had a knife.”
Sarah shot him a look of dismay. “Steven, how could you?”
“She can tell,” he answered uncomfortably.
Sarah blushed and nodded. “Yeah, I know.” She smiled at Jonas. “See why I live away from home?”
Jonas nodded, wondering what the reaction would be to their usual nightly activities or to the fact that Steven withheld the fact that her mugger was a now-dead renegade. Despite the show the twins put on, Jonas knew Steven was still covering for her.
*
April 12th
Jonas pulled his NEXTEL radio up to the hood of his clean-room blues. “Yeah, Mike?”
“Someone downstairs to see you. Julian MacRey.”
“Be right down.” He cycled out of the room, stripping off his suit and smoothing his hair before leaving the area. Jonas hit a head on the way downstairs. Stripping and resuiting unnecessarily was something Jonas avoided, so it was a definite need by the time he came out of the fab. He checked his watch on the way down the stairs. It was lunchtime. He would have had to strip down anyway.
Jonas nodded to Mac as he passed the security desk and swiped out. “Can we talk over lunch? I only have thirty.”
“Sure.”
The coffee shop was two blocks away. Mac turned down Jonas’ offer of food, though he did get a coffee. Jonas kept it light: a hoagie, chips, triple espresso, and an oversized cookie.
“What’s up, Mac?” He took a bite of his sandwich.
“What’s up with you and Sarah?”
Jonas surveyed Mac as he chewed and swallowed the bite in his mouth. “That’s a little personal, don’t you think?” He took another bite before he could say something self-righteous.
Mac sipped his coffee. “Maybe, but considering you’ve spent five of the last six nights at her place, Grandpa Mac asks the question.”
Jonas choked, biting back pure rage as he forced the mouthful of sandwich down. “You’re watching us?” Mac had been watching them for three days before Jonas went to dinner, if the six days was accurate. He escaped the DoPT only to have new keepers making their bets on him and Sarah?
Mac shrugged. “Old habits die hard. Carol and Katie. Now Sarah—”
“What did your background check show, Mac?”
“Except for that little case of assault when you were sixteen, I think you know you came up clean.”
Jonas blushed. They’d used that touch in his file before, but Evan forgot to tell him about it this time. “It was necessary, justified.” The actual incident happened at Clinton. Jonas had been eleven. The girl he had been protecting had been fifteen. She gave him his first kiss.
“Yeah. I heard that.”
“What’s the problem, Mac?”
“No problem. Just grandfatherly concern.”
“Having me spied on goes a little beyond grandfatherly concern.”
“Not in this family. Keith used to complain that APBs on their vehicles were commonplace.”
“So, you’ve always done this. That makes it right?”
“Maybe not. Why is it so hard for you? Keith could look me in the eye and tell me what he wanted.”
“It’s private, Mac. It’s between Sarah and me.” If Jonas wasn’t debriefing to the DoPT, he wasn’t doing it for Mac.
“You’ll stick by that?”
“Absolutely.”
To his surprise, Mac smiled. “Perfect. If you did any less, I’d wonder what Sarah saw in you.”
Jonas tried to work his mind around that. “Did you wonder what Katie saw in Keith?”
“No. Keith was what I would expect for Katie. You are what I’d expect for Sarah.”
Chapter Five
May 10th
Sarah kept her shield firmly in place, as she had all day. Steven would wonder at it, but better that than have him pick up her distress and come here where he could actively pick her thoughts after he goaded her into dropping her shields.
She glanced at her watch and groaned. She had put this off long enough. Sarah sat on the couch and closed her eyes as her hand closed on the wand on the table. Her hands were shaking. She couldn’t seem to stop them from shaking. Sarah took a deep breath and opened her eyes. She stifled a sob as she dropped the test back on the table.
Sarah curled up in the corner of the couch and wrapped her arms around her stomach. “Oh, Christ. What do I do now?” Pregnant? But they were always careful. The condoms were near one hundred percent effective. They never forgot or passed on them. They never had a break, and the condoms only failed with a break. Okay, they never noticed a break.
She groaned again, putting her face in her hands and feeling incredibly sick. “He won’t even believe it’s his,” she decided miserably. Even if Jonas did, what would his reaction be? It wasn’t like either of them were aching for this.
Sarah scooped up the test and box, making sure she had all the inserts, wrapping them up in the CVS bag and tossing them in the trash. She shifted her weight from foot to foot then pulled out the garbage bag and jogged out to the dumpster. Sarah didn’t know what she was going to do yet, and having Jonas find that in the trash would be a colossal blunder. She stared at the dumpster with a lump in her throat before she went ba
ck in.
She heard the phone ringing as she locked her door again. Sarah answered, though her heart screamed at her to let it ring. “Hello?”
Steven didn’t beat around the bush. “What’s wrong, Sarah?”
“Nothing. I’m just tired. I’m fine.” Liar. What am I doing?
“Bullshit. Hiding behind that damn shield doesn’t do you much good when you let it flicker because you’re so upset. Do I need to come over there?”
“No. I’ll be at dinner tonight.” She would be, but she’d have to tell Jonas before then. Either Sarah would show up with Jonas, announcing that they were having a baby, or she’d show up alone, announcing that she was an unwed mother deciding between moving home and having an abortion. Sarah couldn’t hide this from Steven in close quarters even if she tried.
“You better, and the explanation better be good.”
“It will, Steven. I promise.”
He hesitated. “Let down your shield, Sarah.”
She groaned. He wanted to gauge her state of mind since he couldn’t read her at this range. “No.” Sarah rolled her forehead against the tile next to the phone.
“Drop your shield, or I’m coming over there.”
“Steven—”
“I mean it.”
Sarah sighed. She did her best to calm her emotions and offered him a lighter version of her shield.
Steven sucked in his breath. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”
“No. I’ll see you at Mom and Dad’s in two hours, but I have to get ready now. There’s really nothing you can do, Steven. I have to figure this one out on my own.”
“Is this about Jonas?”
“No. This is about me.”
Steven sighed. “Don’t be late. Will Jonas be with you?”
Sarah took a ragged breath. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
“This is a story I have to hear.”
Sarah held the phone long after Steven hung up. She retreated to the shower and let the water work on her tense muscles. She willed her heart to slow.
She had an hour to figure out how to tell Jonas he was a father. No. That was the wrong approach. That assumed he wanted to be a father. Sarah was the one who was pregnant. His place was optional whether she kept the baby or not. She had to remember that.
