“I just hoped…” I said even though everything inside me wanted to lash out at him, but in truth, it wasn’t him I was angry with. I was angry with myself because, despite everything, I had hoped. God how that made me hate myself…
“I know,” Stephen said, grabbing my good arm and hauling me to my feet. “It’s why I asked to be removed as your guardian. You were getting too attached.” He shook his head. The sneer on his face making what was left of my heart sort of harden into an aching amorphous blob. “I tried to play up the evil villain thing, but it didn’t seem to be working, so I made a call. Got your friend to shoot me. It was risky since if you blow off my head, I’d actually die, but it all worked out in the end.” He mimed shooting himself in the head with two fingers, which seemed unnecessarily macabre. “Then I got to leave you. Thank God. I was starting to worry I’d have to sleep with you…” He shook himself like it was the worst thing he could imagine.
I said nothing because I knew if I did, I’d start crying and screaming. I didn’t want to do that. Part of me knew he was just trying to hurt me, but I didn’t quite understand why. I thought about asking him, but I sort of didn’t want to know the answer… besides, he’d just lie anyway.
When I didn’t respond, he harrumphed and spun on his heels. He began limping toward the door, leaving bloody footprints in his wake. It opened as he reached it though I wasn’t quite sure why. Shouldn’t it have stayed shut? Then again, maybe Stephen had access to walk the grounds. Graham had liked him after all. Okay, more than liked him. My eyes widened. Was Stephen gay?
I walked after him, the revolver still clenched in my white-knuckled fist. Stephen hadn’t seemed to notice it. So he’d deliberately said all those mean things to me when I’d been armed with a gun. I’d have liked to think it was because he was ballsy, but we both knew the truth. I wouldn’t shoot him. Not for this. If I was going to shoot him over being a jerk, I’d have done it already.
And with that sad realization settling down around my shoulders like a thousand pound chain, I followed him. I trudged forward, barely even bothering to look around the white halls. He didn’t seem worried, and if he wasn’t worried, why should I be? Besides, I was a little too depressed to care.
The revolver came up before I could stop myself, and I pressed the barrel against the back of his head with my shaking hands. He stopped in midstride, body stiffening. He was scared. Good. I pulled back the hammer on the gun as my eyes narrowed.
“You’re a jerk,” I said, glaring at the back of his head. “A jerk I should shoot, but I think we both think I won’t do that.” The weapon felt good in my hands, and in that moment, I knew I could shut my eyes and pull the trigger. It might break me, might send me into a freefall from which I might never recover, but I could do it. Sadly, that realization didn’t scare me as much as it should have.
“Okay,” Stephen replied, voice full of that same emptiness he’d had before. “I already told my family I love them.” He shrugged, and it pissed me off.
“I doubt that is your real family,” I said, closing my eyes and pulling the trigger. Nothing happened. Nothing at all. I stared at the weapon, barely able to believe what I’d done. I’d tried to shoot him just for pissing me off. Granted, he had it coming for multiple reasons, but still, still. What I’d done was a whole new level of bad.
Stephen stood stock still, probably surprised I’d done what I had done. I knew I was. I still couldn’t really believe it. Him being alive after I’d tried to shoot him didn’t even make what I’d tried to do better. If he’d been dead, I could try to get over it, but now, I had to look into his face and have him know I’d tried to kill him. It was worse. Way worse.
Applause filled my ears. The long slow drawn out sound of one hand smacking against another. The door at the end of the hallway opened to reveal the director walking toward us, slowly clapping. He was dressed in a tight black shirt and black pants. I’d expected to find him roughed up, or worse, but for some reason, he didn’t even look like he had a hair out of place.
“You passed, Abby,” he said, voice somehow filling the hallway as he approached, his unseeing blind eyes strangely focused on me. “How does that make you feel?”
“Wha?” I said, the revolver slipping from my fingers and smacking against the white tile floor with an echoing thud of finality.
“The director is telling you that you passed your final exam,” Stephen said, turning around and looking at me like I was some kind of putz.
“You mean?” I asked as a horrible thought filled my head. “You mean this was all another lie?”
“Yes and no,” the director said, smiling at me like he was the goddamned devil. “We had several scenarios designed to test your limits. To see what you’d do. It’s why we brought agent Jacobs back in.” He nodded to Stephen. “In case you wondered, Chuck lost his bet.”
“Bet?” I asked because if I didn’t focus on that, I was going to leap across this room and grab the director by his stupid bald head and smash it like an egg on the tile. As it was, I couldn’t will myself to stop clenching and unclenching my fists. How could it all be a lie?
“He didn’t think you’d kill me,” Stephen said, his voice full of disdain. “It wasn’t actually a requirement of passing per se, but this mission would have gone on a while longer while I tried to push your buttons enough to make you do it.”
“Why? Why would you do this?” I asked, and my voice didn’t sound like my own. It sounded sort of empty and far away, like I was yelling down a tunnel.
“We needed to know how far you’d go. There’s a world of difference between someone who would kill because she has to for a mission or to survive, and someone who will do it just because she’s feeling angry and betrayed,” Stephen said, glancing down at the revolver I’d dropped. “Congratulations, Abby. You’re a sociopath.”
“No…” I resisted the urge to slug him in his smug face and instead forced myself to be calm. He was baiting me, but why bother if everything was over? That didn’t make any sense. “How much of it was real?”
“The Israelis were really a threat,” the director said. “None of that was planned, but we improvised well. I’m standing here because Agent Jacobs freed me while Graham was busy trying to kill you.”
“So Flash and Bang are your people?” I asked, already pretty sure I knew the answer.
“Yes. Two of our best.” The director took a step forward and placed a hand on my shoulder. It was strangely cold and scratchy, reminding me of some kind of serpent. “We’ve spent a lot of resources on this test for you, Abby. On this final training.” He smiled. “We had to make sure you were worth it.”
He glanced at Stephen. “He said you had potential, but I’ll be honest, I didn’t quite believe him until you broke into our base after he was put down in the cabin.”
“So why all this?” I asked, gesturing around. “Why make me go through all this? It’s insane. All those people…”
“They needed to be eliminated. Graham’s Israelis were already targets, so when they decided to step in and get you, well, it sort of worked out in our favor. Two birds with one stone.” The director smiled, and it chilled me to the core of my being. “Life isn’t always so helpful, but in this case wishes were, in fact, horses.”
That was when I tried to deck him. Only, I missed. My blow sailed by him as he effortlessly stepped to the side. One of his hands lashed out, and the next thing I knew, I was laying on the ground, my ears ringing.
“Sir,” Stephen said and the director tore his sightless eyes away from me and looked at Stephen like the vampire was a particularly disgusting thing on the bottom of his shoe.
“Is this where you tell me to go easy on her because it’s been a traumatic time for her, and we’ve spent a lot of time and resources on her? As if I don’t know that?” the director asked angrily. “News flash, I have a whole town full of potentials. I don’t need anyone.” His gaze swiveled back to me, and the look in his eyes made me feel even more irrelevant th
an his words had. To him, I was nothing, just an asset to be used and discarded. All of us were. This man would chew us up and spit us out, and we would mean nothing to him. To think I’d wanted them to be proud of me made it a particularly bitter pill to swallow.
Stephen shut his trap even though he looked like he was about to say more. It was a little strange because I got the impression he’d been about to defend me, but why? Why would he do that if everything he’d felt for me was a lie? Maybe… maybe it wasn’t? No. No, I was not going down that road. I wasn’t even going to entertain it. Especially since he had a family. Assuming that was real. Maybe it wasn’t?
“Was that even your family? Or was that another trick? Another lie to see if I’d kill you, knowing you had a wife and daughter?” I asked, and as I said the words, I felt sort of hollow and cold. I had been willing to kill him even though I thought he had a family. Even though I was sure it was a lie, I couldn’t be certain… and I hadn’t cared. What kind of person did that make me?
“Does it matter?” the director asked, waving his hand to silence Stephen before the vampire could speak. “That is a serious question, I want to know.”
Before I could respond, Stephen shook his head once. I wasn’t sure if he was telling me to tell the director no, or if he was saying he didn’t really have a family, but something about the look in his eyes gave me the feeling he was trying to help me. It didn’t make any sense. Or was this another trick too?
“No, it didn’t matter.” I shrugged. “I was more curious. I would have thought his family would be in Folsom with the rest of us, if he had one…”
The director smirked like I was missing something huge and instead clapped his hand on my shoulder. “Good to know, Abby. I’d hate to think you were sentimental. That’s bad for agents like yourself, especially given the mission we have for you.”
“What if I refuse to help you?” I blurted before I could stop myself.
“Then I’ll have Chuck shoot your father in the face, and Stephen will kill you. In the odd event you somehow win, well, I’ll have you hunted down like a dog. It would be much easier for both of us if you agree to do one more mission for me.”
“What makes you think I’m scared of you?” I asked as calmly as I could because he had just told me he didn’t care about me at all. If he didn’t care what happened, why did I think he’d keep his word about saving Roberto? No, the more likely scenario was I’d be eliminated as soon as my usefulness was over. Strangely, as I started to get up, the director reached out, offering me his hand, which I so did not take.
“It doesn’t matter. Joining me is honestly the easier path for you,” the director said. “I have a roomful of guys just like Chuck. You aren’t special. Well, you are special, Abby, but you’re not that special. You wouldn’t last fifteen seconds if I actually tried to kill you.” He shrugged as if to say he wouldn’t mind that outcome either.
“So why do you need me, then? Why not send Chuck and the goon squad?” I replied, folding my arms over my chest.
Before he could respond, the wall next to us exploded, flinging all of us down the hallway like toy soldiers. I hit the tile hard, but somehow it didn’t hurt even though I knew it should. My ears rang so hard, I couldn’t hear anything besides a high-pitched whine.
That’s when a guy about my age dressed in blue jeans and a gray polo shirt stepped through the hole in the wall. He was just under six feet tall and had eyes the color of storm clouds just before they spilled rain onto the earth. His black hair was cut short, but not so short I’d have called it buzzed. His nose was crooked to the side like he’d broken it a couple of times, and it hadn’t healed quite correctly.
He moved past me, not even bothering to look in my direction as he did so. Evidently, I wasn’t the target. Stephen started to stir, and without so much as a glance, the man raised his hand like it was a gun and pointed at the vampire. Blue electricity arced across Stephen’s body. They weren’t killing shots, but I doubted Stephen would be doing much of anything for a while as his head lolled to the side. I don’t know why, but something about seeing him get electrocuted made the deepest darkest part of me smile. He deserved it, the bastard.
“Hello, director,” the guy said, and he had one of those hunky, surfer voices. “Miss me?”
“Abby, stop—” the director’s order was cut off by an electrical bolt to his forehead. The director’s body slumped backward to the ground as electricity arced over his smoking form. The surfer knelt down and pressed his fingers against the director’s throat and fired again, blowing a hole clear through the guy’s throat. He stood up and grabbed the director’s body by the foot before dragging him back toward the hole in the wall.
“What are you doing?” I asked, and the boy glanced at me like he was seeing me for the first time. Without thinking, I put my hands up in surrender. He smirked at that.
“I’m going to burn him to ash. You can’t trust just shooting these guys. They’re like bad pennies. No matter how hard you try to get rid of them, they always seem to turn back up.” He shrugged. “I’m guessing you’re my replacement. Here’s a word of warning. I don’t mess around. They made sure of that.” With that, he vanished out the hole along with the director.
I shot a glance at Stephen who, while pale, was starting to stir.
“Is this part of the training?” I asked, and the vampire shook his head.
“No,” he wheezed. “That was who we were training you to stop.”
“Oh. Good to know.” I got to my feet, not sure how I felt about finally seeing the person they’d gone through so much effort to ensure I’d kill. But that was the strange thing. If I was so replaceable, if a squad of the director’s goons could take me out in a breath, why bother? Why not send them after the target. The short answer? The director was lying. I could walk out of here right now, and he couldn’t stop me, even if he somehow wasn’t incinerated.
I threw one last glance at Stephen before leaving him there and walking outside into the sunlight. It was brighter than I’d expected.
28
I’d barely made it ten steps outside the compound when my cell phone rang. It was weird because I hadn’t realized I still had a cell phone. Shouldn’t Graham have taken it? I reached into my pocket and pulled out the hot pink phone. I glanced at it as ‘unknown’ scrolled across the screen where I was sure the number should have been.
I let out a little huff of breath before answering and putting it to my ear. The jungle around me stared back at me, strangely quiet and ominous, but that was likely because everyone had either retreated or been killed during our earlier assault. Who knew what Flash and Bang had done once I’d gotten inside?
“Abby, thank god!” Chuck cried into the phone, and I could hear him breathing hard, which was weird because he never breathed hard. “You’ve got to get back here quick.”
“Whatever, Chuck. I’m not helping.” I pulled the phone from my ear intent on tossing it into the jungle and forgetting about the whole thing.
“Abby,” he cried before the whump, whump of gunfire exploded from the speaker.
“Chuck, please don’t call me again.” I shut the phone. It sort of made me feel bad because they still had Roberto, but I was headed back there anyway. If the director was really gone, this was my chance to save the supervillain. If I couldn’t, well, I’d try to tell myself he wasn’t really my father. I wasn’t sure if it would work, but I was never really good with plan B’s.
The phone rang again. “What?” I snapped into the phone.
“Abby. They have your father. I’m trying to get him, but there’s so many. I need your help. How soon can you get here?” Chuck screamed into the phone as an explosion ripped through the earpiece. It got really quiet on the other end. A single gunshot rang out, close enough to the phone to make me pull it away. Was Chuck okay? Had that guy hurt Chuck? No, no they couldn’t have. Chuck was unstoppable. They couldn’t have killed him, right?
“I’m sorry. Phone calls aren’t allo
wed,” said a strangely familiar voice on the other end. The line went dead. What the hell? Was he okay? No… no, this was another trick, and I didn’t care. I shoved the phone back in my pocket angrily.
But I did care. I didn’t know why I did. Even after what Stephen had done, even after everything everyone had done… I did care. I wasn’t sure what happened to Chuck, but he’d always been a pretty good guy, as much as any agent could. Besides…
No, no they were just tricking me.
“Abby, I just got a call,” Stephen said. He was slumped against the hole in the wall behind me. “The agency’s network is going down. We’re the only ones who can stop them.”
“I find that hard to believe,” I said, whirling around to face him with my fists clenched when a strange thought struck me. “Where are Flash and Bang?”
The words had barely left my mouth when a helicopter streaming smoke and debris from its tail rotor crashed into the earth a few yards away. I craned my head upward in disbelief to see that same guy from earlier flying off through the air with one hand clamped around the director’s ankle. Blue energy wrapped around his body, propelling him forward.
The smell of gas filled my nose as I turned back toward the burning helicopter and took a step toward it. It was hard to believe someone could have survived the crash because the machine was pretty much a pancake. Even still, someone was moving inside. I sprinted forward even though safety was the opposite direction.
It was Flash! Flash was inside the thing, desperately trying to free someone or something from inside as flames enveloped the downed vehicle. Was she trying to save Bang?
“I’m coming!” I screamed as the helicopter exploded. The shockwave threw me from my feet, and I landed hard on my back and skidded across the sand.
Magic for Hire: An Urban Fantasy Novel (Found Magic Book 3) Page 17
