by Tl Reeve
Two minutes later Aubrey was at the door, looking at Nate like she suspected the worst.
“Bree, come in,” Dalton said with a huge smile on his face. He motioned to the chair in front of his desk that people rarely used.
She remained standing, leaning against the wall beside Nate. He wondered where the nickname Bree came from. Shortened version of Aubrey? Seemed reasonable, but it wasn’t really Dalton’s style.
Dalton continued, “We were discussing the best way to proceed with regard to your protection.”
“Okay.” She folded her arms, mimicking the agents in the room. Nate grinned and focused on the photo of Dalton with his family on his desk. It seemed like a safe place to look. Certainly better than the photo of Aubrey sitting next to it. That was her graduation photo, and he had studied it earlier, trying to determine when exactly she’d finished school. She looked young, but looks were deceiving. People often thought he was in his early twenties instead of pushing thirty-four.
“We thought perhaps you’d like to be involved in this conversation,” Dalton added.
“How kind.” Her voice was tight.
“Until we know more, and until you’ve had time to learn a few things, we believe it would be best for you to either take up residency with one of my detectives, or allow one use of your apartment.” Dalton sounded like he was talking to anyone other than a family member and Nate didn’t have to look at Aubrey to know she was ticked off.
“So you want me to move in with one of your men, or let one of them move in with me.” She translated.
“Hobbs is available,” Dalton said quickly, picking up on the mention of men, less than taking note of the Aubrey’s mocking tone.
“I don’t suppose anyone has volunteered for this mission with an unknown end date,” Aubrey said dryly.
“I was informed you’d already vetoed me,” Davis said as his gaze slid down her body. Nate frowned at him. Did he always have to be a douche?
The room took on an unnatural silence and Nate looked up to find everyone looking at him, including Aubrey. Dalton cleared his throat and raised an eyebrow.
“Blondie, I didn’t feel like you’d appreciate me volunteering to take over your guestroom.”
“I see,” she said coldly. Nate frowned at her. What was that about? “Uncle Walt, I appreciate your concern, and I understand that disregarding your suggestions is dangerous, but I’ll be fine.”
“Of course, you have a say in this. We can’t make you accept our assistance, but Aubrey, please be reasonable.”
She bit her lip and stared at the floor. Nate dug in his pocket for his phone. It might be childish, but he couldn’t very well talk to her in front of the team, and certainly not in front of Dalton.
Nate: I thought you’d be tired of me.
Aubrey pulled her phone out, muttering an apology to her uncle and the others. Then she looked up to Nate and sighed before bending her head down and typing a response.
Aubrey: I’m not going to ask you to move in with me.
Nate: Are you wanting me to volunteer?
Davis groaned. “Are you two seriously texting right now? We’re all right here. Just talk like normal people.”
“Sir, I can stay with Aubrey,” Nate said, ignoring his phone as it buzzed in his hand.
“I’m fine alone, honestly.” Aubrey argued.
“You’re not fine alone,” Dalton said sternly. “But if there is some problem here—”
“No,” Aubrey and Nate said in unison.
“Good. Then it’s settled. Evans will stay with you for a few weeks until we can figure out a long-term solution.” Dalton woke his computer and began typing, his usual indication that he was done discussing a case with the team.
Finley led the way out with Davis and Hobbs arguing over a detail of another case they were working on. Nate motioned for Aubrey to go first, and then took up the rear. He was pulling the door shut when Dalton spoke.
“Evans, a word.”
Shit.
“Yes, sir?” He pushed the door to behind him and waited.
Dalton was still looking at his computer. “What is going on between you two?”
“Nothing, sir. We don’t really know each other, so it’s a little awkward, is all.” That was certainly true. He didn’t tell Dalton that his niece had offered to heal him, should he need it again in the future, or that the gentle buzz he felt whenever she stood too close was pulling at him. He was still trying to figure out both, and knew how the latter would look. He certainly wasn’t going to tell Dalton that he’d rather have Aubrey naked and under him than assigned to him.
“I appreciate you volunteering. I know Bree is going through a hard time right now, and she could use a friend—not that I’m suggesting you should fulfill that role, but it’s nice all the same for her to have some consistency.”
“Yes, sir.” I’m not that interested in being her friend.
Dalton finally looked away from his computer screen. “And Evans, I don’t think I need to tell you how much Bree means to me.”
Nate held Dalton’s warning gaze. What bothered him was not what Dalton said, but the nervousness in his eyes. Dalton was scared of something. And it wasn’t Nate. “No, sir.”
“Good. Head out for the day. I’m sure Bree has better things to do than sit around Gaius Aeden’s offices, and for now, this is your sole assignment. The others can take over your Mansfield case.”
“Yes, sir.” Nate nodded and kept his face blank, but internally he was pissed.
Thoughts of the reason for Dalton’s unease disappeared as Nate’s anger rose. The Mansfield case was going to be his way of showing Dalton he was ready to take on larger cases, ready to move from cold cases to something more serious. And now he was babysitting. Not that he didn’t enjoy watching Aubrey. And it certainly wasn’t her fault, but it still annoyed him. He’d have to shadow her for weeks, keep his hands to himself, and his big case was being reassigned. Fucking fantastic.
Nate and Aubrey spent much of the day running miscellaneous errands while a security system was installed at her apartment. Aubrey filled the day with useless tasks, avoiding going back to her barren new home. Did she really need to apply for a library card today? No. Of course not. And yet now she had one in her wallet.
They’d gone by a hole in the wall gyro joint for dinner and talked about Waldenburg. Good places to eat. The history of downtown. None of it was personal. None of it masked that Nate was stiffer now than he’d been before they’d talked to Dalton.
She tried to recall how he’d been before they went to Gaius Aeden’s offices. Had he been this uptight after she’d kissed him? Was he mad about that? Or was it work?
On the drive back to her apartment, Nate pulled off the road at one of those Christmas tree lots. Growing up, Aubrey’s friends who were human thought she celebrated Christmas. She never bothered to inform them the tree in her living room was for the winter solstice. Her family’s traditions looked close enough to most other holiday traditions that she didn’t see the point in explaining how they were different.
Walking through the lot with Nate, Aubrey thought maybe she’d be mistaken about him. Maybe he wasn’t more withdrawn. He laughed when she picked out a short four-foot tree and insisted she go with something larger, something that would take up a good quarter of her living room. And then he hadn’t complained at all about transporting the six-foot tree back to her apartment, even when he had to carry up the stairs.
“The tree will make it smell like winter solstice,” he explained when she asked why he was so insistent she buy a tree. “You have all these boxes, but nothing set up, nothing ready for the holiday. This will get you started.”
“It does brighten the room, doesn’t it?” she asked, staring at the naked tree. She’d always liked best when her mom decorated with only the white lights. The traditional decorations of fake birds, and pine cones, the random berries, all felt too forced. Too much like they were trying to make their tree fit with other
people’s idea of what a holiday tree should be. The point was to bring the outside in, to be more connected with the spirit of the season.
Nate took a deep breath with his eyes closed and smiled. “Smells like home.”
She grinned. “It really does.” Looking to the sofa, her smile fell away. “I’m sorry that I don’t have a guest bed for you. I’ve slept on this sofa before, and I know it’s not the best.”
“The sofa is fine. It’s a good size,” he replied. He’d previously tossed his duffel onto the floor by the coffee table.
“I should buy a guest bed.” She didn’t know why she’d said it. It was absurd. He’d only be here a few weeks—she’d decided that would be long enough for Walt to sort out another arrangement. But she felt bad having him sleep on her sofa for more than a few nights. That sounded miserable by anyone’s standards.
“Blondie, it’s fine,” he grumbled, working his jacket off and then unbuttoning the top few buttons on his shirt. The good mood that he’d been in seemed to have evaporated. Aubrey wished they could get back to talking of Festival. He’d seemed more like himself—or at least who she thought he was—when he’d been distracted by the tree.
She gathered blankets and a pillow for him, and dug out an extra towel before turning in for the night. She kept thinking of the last time they’d spent the night in her apartment and how poorly that had gone. She purposefully focused on that instead of how good he’d tasted in the diner. Cool mint from his toothpaste had lingered on his tongue, but beneath that something entirely earthy and Nate.
The next morning, Aubrey laid in bed attempting to read but wondering what the medical test results had revealed. She knew Walt had them, but he hadn’t shared them with her. Discarding her book, she slid from bed and wrapped her robe around her body before heading down the hall. The blankets she’d given Nate were folded neatly on the sofa, the pillow resting on top.
His voice came from the kitchen and she held her breath while she listened. “We’re going to meet with them, but I don’t know, Madison. I don’t like this. He asked me to lie to Gaius, if Gaius comes around. That’s nuts. I’m not sure what he thinks he’s protecting her from. I don’t think—I’ll have talk to you later.”
Aubrey frowned, realizing she must have leaned just enough weight onto a squeaky floorboard. A second later, Nate was standing in front of her, holding a steaming cup of tea in one hand and his cell in the other.
“Blondie, it’s rude to eavesdrop.”
“I hadn’t meant to—” She stopped when he raised his eyebrows, clearly enjoying her attempt to lie. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, well, I don’t suppose I blame you.” He moved past her to the sofa and sat, chucking his phone onto the coffee table in the process.
“Walt asked you to lie to Gaius? Isn’t Gaius the founder and owner of GA?”
“Thomas Gaius, yes, he’s our faithful leader.”
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
Her uncle was proud of his team, and had bragged on occasion that they were the best men and women he could have asked for, war heroes, good officers, dedicated to their work and each other. She doubted Nate was often in the position of dividing his loyalty.
“Nothing about this is your fault, Aubrey. I only wish Dalton would explain why he’s asking me to do this. If he knows something. . .if I should know something about Gaius for instance. . .” He shook his head as he trailed off.
“How is your shoulder?” she asked, unsure what else to say. When she reached out to touch him, a spark leapt from her finger to him. He winced but didn’t pull away, his eyes on her hand. “I didn’t do that intentionally. I don’t know why that keeps happening.”
“Well, that makes two of us. We’ll get it figured out, I’m sure,” he replied.
She hoped the thing about Gaius was why Nate’s mood had changed. Even if he wasn’t interested in her, she wanted them to be friends.
“I wish I was sure of that. I’d have thought Walt would have at least called with the medical results.”
“I think if there had been anything alarming in the results, he would have called. They probably came back negative,” he said.
“Probably,” Aubrey mumbled. She moved to the kitchen table where she’d left her laptop, and then brought it back to the living room so she could sit across from him. He scrolled through his phone while she booted her machine.
Confident that he was lost in his own world, Aubrey went to The Forum and opened a thread she’d been following where people talked about the unexplained. She read through the updates that had been posted in the two days since she’d last checked in. There weren’t any more reports of witches losing power, but there was a lot of speculation about what was causing the problem.
She clicked through to the sub-thread named Many-Worlds Collide. It was the whole reason she’d started reading The Forum in the first place, long before she looked to them for hints about what might be ailing her. Now they offered her a nice distraction from everything else going on.
Many-Worlds Collide was written by a scientist in France, Alexis Vipond. Alexis had a blog on quantum theory and inter-dimensional travel. She wasn’t a witch. Her lab partner, Emile Morel, also was not a witch. Aubrey was pretty sure Alexis didn’t know that the sub-thread she’d found herself in after Emile disappeared was on a forum created and maintained by members of a super-human community.
The Forum was innocuous, and appeared to be geared toward those who believed in the possibility of more in the world than the mundane. For those not in the know, The Forum was a little weird, but nothing mind-blowing or earth shattering.
Aubrey wanted to know how Alexis was doing. Emile had disappeared nearly three months before, and the police were starting to ask questions. Alexis wrote that she’d been questioned several times about his disappearance, and that she had trouble herself believing the truth—their experiment had worked. He’d slipped into an alternate reality. And he hadn’t come back.
Many-Worlds Collide readers left comments, suggestions, for Alexis on how to get Emile back. The latest idea was to find what the reader called a runner. Runners didn’t need fancy science and theory to travel from one dimension to another, the reader explained. Runners held enough energy in their bodies to make the journey alone. Other readers had left comments arguing that runners didn’t exist. And some argued it was too dangerous.
“Reader of Many-Worlds?”
Aubrey jumped at the warm breath on her neck and the sound of Nate’s voice as he bent over her, reading the screen from over her shoulder.
“Uh—” She flipped the screen shut and turned, only to flush when she found his face inches from hers. “Yes.”
“I’ve yet to meet a runner. Do you think they’re real?” He hadn’t moved and Aubrey found herself distracted by the distinct buzz in her skin. She must have been so engrossed in The Forums that she hadn’t noticed it before.
“I don’t know,” she whispered.
Nate dropped his gaze to her lips then he smirked before standing and shrugging, “I have my doubts too. But I’m intrigued by the idea. I mean, if I were human, I’d probably think the idea of witches, real witches with real power, was amusing and a cute story for children but improbable. Or absurd. And yet. . .” he grinned and held up his hand. His cell phone slid across the coffee table and then flew into his hand. “Here I am, right?”
She chuckled at the display. Was he trying to impress her? Or just making a point? “Telekinetic, huh?”
“It’s what comes easy. Water is so fickle.”
“Water?” She wasn’t sure she understood.
“It’s what I should concentrate my time on. It’s what I’m supposed to be good at, if you listen to old women with grand plans. Telekinesis isn’t a real use of power, right? It’s not an elemental. If you channel power into an elemental, you can be fiercely strong.
“The universe is already strung to be played a certain way, and so if you use the horse hair presented, you can play t
he world until your fingers bleed. But trying to add strings. . .it’s not as elegant.” As Nate spoke, Aubrey watched the way his eyes danced. He was passionate about his practice, she could tell.
“I think telekinesis would be more fun. And useful,” she said, wishing she had more to add on the topic.
“So you follow Alexis’s work?” He was now leaned against the back of her sofa, arms folded against his chest as he spoke with her.
“I have for years. I think the theory of it is fascinating,” she admitted.
“A literature professor who enjoys theoretical physics.” Nate considered it and then nodded. “A brainiac.”
“I’m actually not a professor yet. Just an adjunct,” she corrected him. He nodded and Aubrey continued on track with Many-Worlds Collide. “Anyway, do you follow Alexis’s blog?”
“The news about Emile, you mean? Yeah, I’ve heard. It’s alarming. Do you think he really found a way through? Or do you think she’s trying to rationalize him leaving? Most people seem to think he abandoned the project, and Alexis, and went off on his own.”
She liked that they were talking again, and not about Walt. “I can’t imagine him doing that. Maybe he’d leave Alexis—which I really doubt—but his work? That’s his whole world, Alexis and their work. Why would he do that?”
“The pressure? Maybe it was too much, trying to take the theoretical and make it physical, make it concrete.” Nate shrugged and pushed off the sofa. “What are your plans for the day?”
“Excuse me?” She was confused by the shift in conversation.
“You start work tomorrow. As an adjunct not a professor, but still, you’re teaching, right? I’m assuming you have stuff you either need or want to do today.”
“Sure, but nothing particularly exciting. I need to go to the grocery store, and do some laundry, and I’d like to do some more unpacking. Maybe re-read a few passages of this text so I can work on my syllabus tomorrow.” She rattled off the tasks as they came to her. “None of that is fun for you.”
“I’m not really here for fun, Blondie,” he reminded her.
