by Dean Murray
"You're right. If we'd been close together and waiting for them we wouldn't have lost most of the people who died that night."
My words came out rough, but that wasn't a surprise, not considering the way that my throat seemed to be trying to close itself off. Alec pulled me close again, but this time there wasn't any passion to his embrace, just the comfort that I so desperately needed.
"I'm so sorry, Adri. I know how much Carson meant to you. I wish I'd been there to help him."
I shook my head. "It's not your fault. If things had gone even a little bit differently your mom would be dead. Besides, Carson died the way that he lived—protecting someone who couldn't protect themselves. He wouldn't have wanted it any other way."
"I'm not sure it was a worthwhile trade. I'm not sure even now that Mother really understands that Rachel is gone."
Part of me wanted to pull back in shock, but I understood why Alec had said it. It wasn't that he didn't love his mother; he was just struggling with losing so many people.
"She's still there somewhere, Alec. You just need to give her more time to come back from that kind of a loss."
Alec sighed, but he finally met my eyes again. "How can you be so sure when I'm plagued with doubts? Tactically speaking, going after my mother was the worst decision I could have made."
"I'm sure because you couldn't have made any other decision and still have been the man I love. I'm sure because I knew Carson much better than you did and I know that he hated the fact that his life had been spent pursuing violence. The only thing that made his choices bearable was the fact that he was able to use his skills to protect people who were weaker than him. He never would have agreed to let your mother die in exchange for saving his own life.
"More than that, I have a pretty good idea just how devastated I would be in your mother's position. It was all I could do to keep on going when I left you and that was my decision. It would be a hundred times worse if you were taken from me. She's retreated inside of herself because she's trying to protect what's left of the woman who must have been head over heels for your father. That's good though because it means there's something there to protect, some fragment worth trying to preserve. I'm not sure I could have done as much in her place. I would have just gone catatonic."
Alec kissed my forehead, a chaste brief kiss, but one that still left my skin feeling like it was on fire, a pleasant, energizing fire. "You're a lot stronger than you give yourself credit for, you know."
I snuggled in closer to him, tucking my head into the spot where his shoulder and neck joined up. "Maybe you're right, but I didn't start out this way. Before I met you I was a shallow little girl who was little more than a collection of razor-edged shards. You are the one who put me back together and gave me a chance to become a real person again."
"I think in this instance we're going to have to agree to disagree."
Alec's words were little more than a whisper that teased stray strands of my hair into motion. He was making me feel tingly all over again, but this time it didn't have to do with the otherworldly energy that he gave off by virtue of being a shape shifter. This was wholly the result of him making me feel like someone who was special enough to be worthy of him.
"There aren't very many people who could have done what you just did, Adri."
"What do you mean?"
"Dream Stealer's power is dangerous, but it wouldn't be half as bad if everyone was strong enough to tell someone when they thought he was after them. You are strong. A weak person would have just stayed quiet and hoped that they were just having a string of normal bad dreams."
"I almost didn't say anything."
"But you did. You're going to make a fine queen someday, Adri."
Normally a comment like that would have been enough to give me the shakes, but I was too blissed out to let it worry me very much. I'd raised the possibility that I was being attacked. I'd done my part and now I could happily stay where I was, cuddling with Alec, for as long as he would hold still.
Unfortunately a few seconds later my phone started ringing. I tried to ignore it, but Alec wasn't the type to ignore calls.
"Adri, are you going to get that?"
"No, voicemail was invented for precisely these kinds of moments. Nothing that anyone could be calling me about this early in the morning could possibly be important enough to get in the way of spending more time with you."
"Isn't that your mom's ringtone?"
"Yeah."
"I really think you should answer it. Your mom doesn't call very often—she probably has something important to tell you."
I shook my head, still steadfastly refusing to open my eyes. As long as I couldn't see Alec's face he couldn't employ his most dangerous weapon against me. His words were already persuasive enough—I definitely didn't want to have to try and resist the earnest, concerned look I knew was currently being directed at me.
"My mom doesn't call about important stuff, Alec. You get important calls—you know the ones where someone's life hangs in the balance. My mom just calls once a week or so to make sure she's fulfilled her motherly duties."
"She's trying to change, Adri, but if you don't give her a chance you can't complain that the two of you still aren't as close as you'd like to be."
"Fine. You win, but don't think that there won't be consequences later on. The last thing you want is for my mom to decide to relocate to wherever we end up living once all this is over. It's going to be very difficult for me to look very queenly if I've always got my mom hounding me about the fact that I'm not going to college like a good, sensible girl."
"No consequence is too dear if it means a happy future mother-in-law. Be sure to tell her it was me who convinced you to answer her call."
Alec rolled off the bed and ducked out of my room with a twinkle in his eye while I was still struggling to come up with a response. I threw my pillow at the swiftly closing door and then reached over and answered the phone.
"Hi, Mom."
"Hi, Adri. Did I wake you?"
"Normally you would have. We just left Oregon yesterday so I'm still on Pacific Time, but I had a bad dream that woke me up earlier than normal."
"Sorry, sweetie. I didn't know. I just figured that you were still in Utah."
"It's okay, you didn't know that we've been travelling lately. If I get really off of Utah time I'll put my phone on silent before I go to bed. How did your latest shoot go?"
Talking about her work was always safe territory and it was a good bet that she'd just finished an assignment sometime in the three days since we'd last talked. Russ was having a good effect on my mom when it came to convincing her to be less of a workaholic, but it was going to probably take years before she toned things down to the level most people would have called normal.
"It was really good. That's the first time that I've been down to Belize. You wouldn't believe how beautiful it was down there and the shoot went acceptably. The models were all great to work with, my equipment all arrived on schedule, and the weather cooperated completely."
"Wow, Mom. I think your standards are getting even more stringent. If the weather and models were all taking orders and you had your gear it seems like that's the definition of perfection to me."
"Adriana Paige, you may be a millionaire and living on your own, but that doesn't mean I can't show up and spank you if you get too big for your britches."
Part of me wanted to take exception with her tone, but mostly I was too busy envisioning Mom storming into the RV and being served tea by Donovan while he calmly explained to her that it simply wasn't done to administer any kind of physical discipline to the future queen of the North American shape shifters.
Alec, on the other hand, would probably hold her coat for her while she tried to administer said punishment.
"Sorry, Mom. You do have to admit that there isn't much more you could ask for on a photography shoot, though…"
"I suppose you're right. The work side of things was fine. I guess I w
as just sad that Russ wasn't able to fly down with me. We were scheduled to go down together, but then Patrick called at the last minute with something urgent and everything changed. It put me really out of sorts. Then you throw in the fact that my bodyguard was hassling some of the support staff, and it felt like the whole world was collapsing in on itself."
Bodyguard? That was new—I'd thought I was the only Paige forced to deal with having a minder less than twenty feet away at all times. I went to ask Mom what she meant, but she'd already moved on, talking as fast as always.
"Adri, Russ hasn't been acting like himself lately. Do you think that he's losing interest?"
I almost dropped the bottle of water that I'd just finished uncapping. "Seriously, Mom? This is Russ we're talking about. He's the last person you need to worry about stringing you along."
"I don't know, Adri. He's acting really different lately. He's been travelling a lot more than normal, and he's stuck me with a bodyguard. It was bound to happen really. Once the initial excitement wore off, there was no way I was going to be able to keep someone so eligible interested for the long haul."
I recapped my water bottle as I reflected on just how alike we were. We had so many differences that it was sometimes hard to remember that my mom and I shared a lot of the same insecurities.
"Mom, I don't think you're being fair to Russ. He's not the kind of guy to leap without looking. If he proposed to you then you're exactly what he's looking for. I know he could have almost any girl he set his eyes on, but I know a little bit about dating those kinds of guys. If something is bothering you then you need to sit down and talk to him about it."
There was a long pause as my mom digested my words. "You're right. You're not telling me anything that I haven't already told myself, but I just haven't been able to bring myself to broach the subject with him. What if I don't like the answer he provides? I'm not sure I'm ready for all of this to end."
"Who says it has to end?"
"There's something going on, Adri. Maybe you're right and he's not losing interest in me, but that doesn't mean that things are okay. For all I know, he's started trafficking drugs. Actually, that would explain a lot."
A chill worked its way up my spine. "What do you mean, Mom?"
"I don't know. There's the bodyguard, despite the fact that Belize isn't any more dangerous than any of the other places I've been to recently, but there's also the fact that when I stopped by for lunch last week Russ was seeing some guy out that isn't one of his usual associates."
"Some guy?"
"Yeah, you know the type. Tattoos, piercings, looked like he could bench-press a small car. It didn't look like they were on the best of terms either."
I closed my eyes for several seconds and then took a deep breath. "You said that your bodyguard was causing problems at the shoot—tell me more about that, Mom."
"I don't know, I wasn't watching. I was changing lenses and looked up as Jonas put some poor guy in an arm bar and then threw him off of the location. I'm right, aren't I? Russ is working with the Mafia or something, isn't he?"
"Is Jonas there with you now, Mom?"
"No, he picks me up whenever I need to leave and then checks the house when he drops me off, but he doesn't stay here in the apartment with me. Adri, how bad is this? Is Russ some kind of criminal?"
"I think it's too soon to be jumping to those kinds of conclusions, Mom, but I don't think it's too soon to begin taking some precautions."
"What do you mean when you say precautions?"
"I mean you need a bodyguard of your own, one who's on your payroll rather than on Russ'. Ideally you ought to get two bodyguards until you get to the bottom of whatever is going on right now."
"I don't…wait, you seriously think that I need three bodyguards? I wasn't even thrilled about the prospect of having one bodyguard and now you're telling me that I need three?"
"No, I'm telling you that you need a bodyguard you can trust who can worry about external threats without having to worry about what Jonas is going to do."
"Adri, you're completely overreacting! What has gotten into you?"
She was aiming for indignant, but she wasn't succeeding. She sounded exactly like what she was, scared but trying very, very hard to hide it.
"Mom, this is my world now. If I had questions about photography I'd come to you and I'd listen to your advice. Worrying about bodyguards and assassins is my photography. You need to pay attention to what I'm telling you."
I had her on the back foot for the first time in a very long while and I wasn't going to let up now, not when her life might very well depend on it.
"Listen, Mom. As soon as we're done you need to call the two most successful models you've worked with and ask them for bodyguard suggestions. Models, the really successful ones at least, probably deal with stalkers on a regular basis. I'll go talk to Alec and see if he has anyone he can put you in contact with, but his guys are going to stand out like a sore thumb in the kind of circles you run in."
It sounded like she was on the verge of hyperventilating.
"Mom, get a pencil and some paper and write this down. You need to get two bodyguards hired before the day is out and then you need to schedule a conversation with Russ. Make sure that you pick the location. Make it somewhere public, but run it past whoever you hire before you finalize things with Russ."
"Adri, you sound like a spy."
"Mom, I don't hear you writing. This is important."
"Russ is going to feel like I don't trust him. I don't think I can do this. I'm not sure I can afford to hire one bodyguard, let alone two."
"Right now you already don't trust him, Mom. Best-case scenario right now is that he's keeping something back from you, something dangerous enough that he thinks you need a bodyguard. The worst-case scenario is that he's put Jonas there to make sure he can control you. If Russ is just worried about you then he's not going to resent you taking your own precautions. As for the money, you aren't paying that ridiculous tuition now that I'm here, but if you need more money I can send you anything within reason."
I could hear the sound of a pencil on paper and some of the tension inside of me started to loosen now that she was taking the situation seriously.
"Okay, Adri. I'll start making calls as soon as I hang up. What should I be looking for as far as qualifications for a bodyguard?"
"I don't know for sure, Mom. I've never been the one actually hiring our people. Once you've got some names ask the candidates to evaluate the other names on your list, that should help weed out the guys that are totally unqualified, but it's still not perfect. I guess if you can find someone who helped protect a head of state that would be a bonus. Let me go ask Alec."
I stood and started towards the door, but my mom brought me up short with a single question.
"Adri, how much danger are you in? When I was in Utah last time you made it sound like Alec was just being paranoid with all of the security arrangements. That wasn't the case, was it?"
"I didn't say anything that was untrue, Mom, I just let you think what you wanted to think."
"Adri, I'm serious, how much danger are you in?"
"A lot. Probably more than you, but the difference is it was my decision to get involved with Alec and put myself in harm's way. I knew what I was getting into. Russ is keeping you in the dark, which means you can't even make an objective evaluation regarding how much danger you're in."
"What has he gotten you into, Adri? Is Alec some kind of drug dealer? I always thought it was suspicious that he had access to so much money. Have you even met his mother? The rumor back in Sanctuary is that she's been dead for years."
"Yes, I've met Samantha Graves and Alec didn't 'get me into anything,' Mom. Like I said, I chose this. Alec isn't doing anything wrong. The danger I'm in—that we are in—is because Alec is trying to stop some very bad people from doing terrible things."
"Then he should call the police, that's what they are there for, Adri. Don't let him drag you into so
me kind of vigilante-inspired quest for glory."
I wanted to yell at her, but I forced myself to keep my voice under control. My mother was older and more experienced than I was, but she wasn't ready for the world I'd been living in since we'd arrived in Sanctuary. She was obsessing about my situation as a way of denying the seriousness of her own circumstances.
"The police can't help us, Mom. They can't do anything until after a law has been broken, and even then, sometimes there are criminals they aren't qualified to deal with. You're in the same situation now. The police aren't going to be able to save you—you need to take steps of your own to make sure that you're not a soft target."
I opened the door to my room and looked out at the rest of the RV, but rather than the calm, ordered environment I'd grown to expect from our time on the road, I found the desperate motion of a group of people who were one step away from disaster. Alec was talking on the phone and the hand holding his cell had gone white from the effort of not crushing the device.
"What do you mean you don't have eyes on them? I specifically told you to keep their compound under observation. Buildings don't just disappear. If the satellite is still working then you should be able to see the compound and be able to confirm whether or not they've started evacuating."
Alec turned towards Donovan and pointed at the laptop the butler was working on. "Fine, send the feed to Donovan's machine. I want to see what you're talking about for myself."
Donovan's inbox chimed as an email arrived, and then his screen flickered as he clicked on a link and a video feed started playing. It took me several seconds to realize what I was seeing. There was so much smoke filling the center of the screen that it was only the large fountain on the bottom left-hand corner that made it possible to tell that we were looking at an overhead view of the Bishop Compound in Chicago.
A heartbeat after I finally registered what was going on all of the phones in the RV started ringing at the same time.
"Mom, I'm sorry, but I have to go. I'll call you back as soon as I can, but in the meantime make sure that you get those bodyguards."
