by Daniel Gage
Keep it together, Emma thought. Save the emotions for later. You can do this.
Emma steadied herself with a breath as she picked up the box and turned to see two security guards standing in her door.
“Your ID, badge, and gun please,” one of the guards said. “And the keys to your company car.”
She shifted the box to one arm and handed over the requested items one at a time, and with each hand-off Emma felt part of herself slipping away, each piece representing a part of her, a part of her sacrifices.
Once the ritual was complete, the guards stepped aside and allowed her out the door, then fell into step behind her. They didn’t have to say where she needed to go, or that they were to escort her.
She had to leave and never come back.
The stares of everyone she passed rolled over her, a tide of pity that couldn’t penetrate the numbness coming from her core. Even Colton, the young analyst who had quickly become her go-to technician, just stared, his eyes darting from her empty stare to the box she held.
Even one of the only people she felt close to at her job, she was distant from. She knew nothing about him, and all Colton knew about her was that she worked way too much.
It wasn’t until she was escorted out the front doors that the gravitas of the situation hit her, and she almost dropped her meager box of belongings. After all that she had done and been through, she had nothing to show for it.
She had failed.
She failed, people lost their lives, and another unborn child would fall victim to birthright theft.
CHAPTER 24
Cam waited on the bench, watching people shuffle by, absorbed in their daily lives. And he was surprised he was able to do it so calmly, and for so long, and enjoy being in the moment.
Normally, time to reflect would result in dark thoughts starting to fester in the core of his mind, thoughts that would slowly grow into desires. By now he would have had to find a distraction to protect him from himself.
But there must have been something he had taken away from the week he just had, from risking his life for another, to being attacked, shot, and diving into a gunfight when he hadn’t even fired a gun in years. Death didn’t scare him, which wasn’t anything new. And he’d risked his life plenty of times. But this time, it felt different.
Like when he saved his boss from falling off a skyscraper. Doing something selfless felt satisfying in a way he hadn’t known before. It wasn’t like caring for his mom when he had to before, which mostly came from a feeling of guilt. It was, after all, his fault she was like that.
For the first time in his life, Cam felt good about himself and his actions. And as much as he desired to keep it going, he had a sinking feeling that Emma was losing the battle for their jobs.
And when he saw her dragging her feet along the sidewalk, he realized she had lost.
Instinctively, he wanted to run to her, take the box from her hands, and ask her what happened, to tell her it would be okay. But nothing about the woman made him think that she ever wanted to be coddled or pitied. She was too strong to ever need anything like that.
Hell, she was stronger than most of the men Cam had encountered in his life. She shouldered so much responsibility, so much determination, that even with his newfound strength, he never wanted to cross her.
Cam fought the urge to smile. Despite being able to see the angle of bullets and punches before they happen, and fighting someone who could regenerate from lethal injuries, a five-foot-and-some-change woman scared the shit out of him.
Instead, he let her walk to the bench and sit down, letting her arrive at the moment before greeting her.
She sat there for a long minute, clutching the banker’s box as if it was a part of her, unwilling to set it aside or on the ground. Finally, she glanced at Cam’s leg, the one that Dealer X had savagely kicked.
“How’s your knee?” she asked.
“Oh, you know,” Cam said. “It only hurts when you look at it.”
She looked up at him, her face scrunched. But after a second, she started to laugh.
“Fuck you,” she said through a tear-filled grin.
“What?” he asked.
“For making me laugh,” Emma said, before staring back at the box in her lap.
“It’s actually feeling better.” Cam extended his leg while holding his knee. It simultaneously made it ache and relieved the soreness. “I wouldn’t try running, though.”
Her grip eased as her hands fell to the bench, and she let out a long, tired sigh. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days, and for all Cam knew, she hadn’t. The shootout at the airport weighed heavily on her, and Cam wondered if Emma resented him for not showing up sooner and saving the strike team, or for intervening at all.
“It’s over, Cam.” Emma shook her head as she stared at the ground. “I’m so sorry.”
“For what?” he asked. “For giving me a job, a chance? Not many have done that.”
“But it’s gone,” she said. “Both our jobs are. Don’t worry about your mom, though, I’ll cover the bill and help you move her out. I promised I would do that.”
“Emma,” Cam said, “you don’t have to. I’ll find a way to pay it.”
“I don’t think you realize how much it would cost,” she said. “Please. Let me do this.”
Despite every fiber of his being not wanting to put his burdens on her, Cam realized that Emma needed this more than he did.
“Okay.” He nodded. “Thank you, Emma.”
“No, thank you,” Emma said. “You saved me back there. One day, you’ll have to tell me how.”
“If I knew, I’d be happy to explain.” Cam shrugged. “But ever since that attack at the hover station, something’s happened to me.”
“What is it?” she asked, turning herself to face him better.
For a moment Cam was hesitant to tell her, but considering what they had witnessed from Dealer X, it no longer seemed crazy or farfetched. If someone could heal like that, maybe his thing wouldn’t sound impossible.
“I’m stronger and faster than I’ve ever been, and I heal faster,” Cam said after a pause. “The cut I took in the hover station, it’s healing faster than any cut I’ve ever had. But that’s not the weirdest part. Emma, I … I see angles. Trajectories. I can see the path a bullet will take from a gun, or where someone will try to hit me. Sometimes. And then I can do something about it before they stop me.”
Emma sat there looking at him, blinking repeatedly.
Anxiety crept into his chest, and he suddenly regretted telling her anything. Healing, speed, and strength was one thing, but time slowing down? That was nuts.
“That explains a lot, actually,” she finally said.
“Really?” He adjusted so he could comfortably look at her.
“Yeah,” Emma said. “You seemed to know what the dealer was going to do before he did it, and avoiding bullets was impressive. Do you also move fast when this happens?”
Cam shook his head. “No. Well, if I do, I don’t think so. I could still move wrong and get hit, and it’s disorienting at first. Also, I can’t control when it happens.”
“That’s … that’s pretty damn awesome, Cam.”
“Seriously?”
“I’m a bit jealous,” Emma said. “Any idea why it’s happening to you?”
“Not a clue,” he said. “But it has to be related to that guy healing, right?”
“That guy … he was the one who said your name on the recorded phone call in Monaco.”
“That was him?” Cam asked. He almost leapt up from the bench before his knee protested from the sudden tension in his body. “Why? Did you find out anything about that?”
“You know about as much as I do,” Emma said. “I’ve seen some crazy things in this line of work, but until that fight, I thought it was all technology based. Too bad I won’t find out, now.”
Cam let that sentence hang for a moment before speaking.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because we don’t have jobs, Cam,” Emma said. “Or resources. Or a lead.”
“Then let’s go find one,” Cam said. “You hired me to do a job. It’s not over, yet.”
“Cam—”
“Do you want to stop, Emma?” he asked.
She opened her mouth, but didn’t speak right away. She seemed to weigh the recent events versus the losses already suffered and the outcome if she didn’t stay involved.
“All right, Mr. Detective,” Emma said. “How do you suppose we do this?”
Cam reached over and pulled the box out of Emma’s lap.
“Let’s start with you, Agent Jennings,” he said with a grin.
“Hey, give that back!” she said with a smile of her own.
Cam turned so she couldn’t easily reach into it, and he started to ruffle through her belongings.
“Let’s see,” he said. “A scarf? You should be wearing this. It’s cold out, in case you didn’t notice.”
Emma snatched it from his hands, and he wasted no time reaching back in.
“A romance book?” he asked, lifting up a book with a half-naked woman and a mostly naked man. “At work?”
“It was a gag gift,” Emma said. “Well, I thought it was. Now, well, I think it may have been a hint.”
“How about this?” Cam asked as he pulled a thin manila folder from the box. “An empty file?”
Emma let out a sigh as she took it from Cam. “No. But it may as well be. It’s my dad’s.”
A frown crossed Cam’s face, but he otherwise didn’t speak.
“Remember the talk I had with my cousins?” Emma asked as she opened the file. “It was about my dad. He started going crazy, and going on about some conspiracy. No one believed him, but he was family, you know? And the things they said about him …”
Her voice trailed off as she looked over his scribbled notes, but she had deciphered them long ago. She had memorized what little they said, but the most important thing was his last words to her.
“It drove a wedge between us. Me and my extended family. Drove Mom to drink. It didn’t go well, Cam. So I buried myself in the job; it made the pain … bearable.”
Cam could relate to that, how his family had behaved toward him and his ma. Seemed like they went out of their way to make his life difficult, and Emma had experienced something similar. She could have taken the easy way out and condemned her dad, and Cam could have done the same with his ma, even though she had never done anything wrong in his lifetime.
But neither of them did. Maybe it was that resolve he saw in her, maybe that’s why he felt like he could work with and trust Emma.
Before he could say any of that, his phone buzzed. He pulled it from his pocket to silence the ring, but instead of a number on the screen, it was a single message.
Answer me.
Cam almost didn’t accept the call, but he wasn’t exactly in the world he had been used to anymore.
“Yeah?” Cam asked.
“Hand the phone to her,” a voice whispered. He sounded younger, maybe fresh out of college.
“Who is this?” Cam asked.
“Just do it! We don’t have long. Tell her it’s … never mind, just hand it to her.”
Cam, exhausted, handed the phone over to Emma. She took it with a confused look on her face.
“Hello?” she asked.
A mumbled voice could be heard on the other end, and it did all the talking. Cam couldn’t determine what was being said, but gradually, realization replaced the perplexed look on Emma’s face.
“Got it … thank you, really. I’ll be in touch.”
She ended the call and handed the phone back to Cam, who accepted it.
“What was that?” he asked.
“It was one of our analysts, a good kid. Name’s Colton,” Emma explained, a grin on her face. “He hacked my phone, got your number, and decided to call you in case my line was tapped … he’s clever.”
“Okay, so … what?”
“Oh, right,” Emma said. “He was relaying a message from Michael, my old partner. He’s at the downtown hospital, and is expecting me. Now we just need to find a way downtown.”
“I’ll get us a cab,” Cam said as he stood, making sure to favor his leg.
He glanced back at Emma, and saw that the phone call seemed to transform her. Despair no longer filled her eyes, but had been replaced with determination.
They had no resources, no weapons. Not even a car.
All they had to go on was the need to go talk to Agent Sapien, and hope that the agent had a lead, or something, for them to continue their quest.
And for Emma Jennings, that was more than enough to fuel her fire.
CHAPTER 25
She couldn’t explain it, but Emma felt like she was walking into an ambush when she and Cam arrived at the hospital.
It was the middle of the day, and everything seemed normal. Cars drove in and out, and people from all walks of life entered and left the large complex, everyone there for their own personal reasons.
Though Emma wagered her reason for being there was unlike anyone else’s.
Rationally thinking, she realized the odds of actually being attacked were low. If the dealers wanted her dead, there were cleaner, more efficient, and less public ways to take her out. And these dealers weren’t stupid, they clearly recognized that.
But she was learning more and more about Michael Sapien, and it scared her how little she knew about her former colleague. He could have anything to say or show her, and chances were, she couldn’t imagine what it was.
“You okay?” Cam asked, snapping Emma out of her trance.
“Yeah, I’m good,” she said.
“You sure?” he asked. “We’ve been standing outside staring at the door for about five minutes. Any longer and people will have every right to get worried.”
“It’s nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “Let’s go.”
Emma started moving before she finished speaking, leaving Cam to fall behind a step and a half. He meant well, but she didn’t need anyone asking questions or poking around her mind.
She had to focus on her goal, and that was to find Michael. And likely have a very, very challenging conversation. Emma had no clue why Michael was here. Was Michael ill? Did he have a family member who was sick? Was there something pertaining to the dealers within these walls, that he was looking for or perhaps had found?
There were too many questions, but only one way to get the answer. She had to find Michael.
“Hello,” she said, greeting the nurse behind the welcome desk. “I’m looking for—”
The nurse silenced her by holding up a single finger, her attention on the screen in front of her. Emma glanced to either side, and other than her and Cam, no one was around. The nurse wasn’t even on the phone.
The nurse held up the solitary finger for thirty more seconds, and just before Emma considered showing her different finger, the nurse looked up with the harshest of possible scowls.
“What?” she snapped.
It took all of Emma’s willpower to maintain her composure, and she didn’t dare look to see Cam’s reaction.
“I’m looking for Michael Sapien,” she asked once she was able to loosen her jaw.
The nurse turned back to her computer, clicked the mouse a few times, typed something, and waited.
“No one by that name here,” she said, the scowl never leaving her face.
“Anyone with the last name Sapien?” Emma asked.
The nurse let out an annoyed sigh and typed again.
“Third floor, pediatrics,” the nurse said, and didn’t look back up from her computer.
“Thanks,” Emma said as they walked away. She wasn’t sure why she said anything, since the nurse didn’t hear her, and she didn’t mean it whatsoever.
As they neared the elevator, Cam tapped on her shoulder, and gestured back to the nurse at the welcome desk. Now that they had moved past, they had a clear shot of what the nurse
was so absorbed with.
A bright and colorful video game was plastered on the monitor, and the nurse was beyond engrossed in the activity.
“Figures,” Emma mumbled as they boarded the elevator.
**********
“Do you want me around for this?” Cam asked as the elevator doors opened onto the third floor.
Emma stepped off the elevator and looked around, appraising the situation. Nurses, doctors, and other aides darted about, clearly absorbed in their work. Parents of all kinds waited or paced, their demeanor ranging from bored to worried to exhausted.
When Emma spied Michael, sitting hunched over in a chair down one of the hallways, she saw that he easily fell into the worried and exhausted categories.
“Maybe. Don’t know,” Emma said.
She started down the long hallway toward him, with Cam falling in a few steps behind. She noticed that her new partner kept his hands in his coat pockets, doing his best to seem calm and unthreatening. Emma appreciated the sentiment.
Emma slowed her pace when she neared Michael, and then brought herself to a quiet stop before him. She wasn’t sure if Michael saw her, or if he did, how much he cared in that moment. The bags under his eyes showed he hadn’t slept in days, and it looked like he hadn’t changed his clothes since she last saw him.
“Hey, Michael,” Emma said, her voice quiet.
Michael slowly looked up and met her eyes. His were bloodshot, and it appeared as if he had recently been crying.
Seems we have something in common after all, Emma thought. We’re both human.
“Emma, hey,” Michael said. “Wasn’t sure if Colton ... I’m guessing this is him? Cameron, right? Looks like the picture in his file.”
Cam bristled, but otherwise held his composure.
“Michael Sapien, is it?” Cam asked. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
“Nothing good, I trust?” Michael asked as he managed a small grin.
“Michael, it’s not—” Emma started, but Michael cut her off with a wave.
