Repercussions

by Jessica L. Webb

  While Skye looked out the window, Edie studied her. The porch light bleached her face of any colour; she was contrasts of light and dark. Edie reached across the seat and touched Skye’s cheek, then traced a light line down her jaw. Skye shuddered faintly under her touch. The heat in Edie’s body swooped and spread.

  “What are you doing?” Skye’s voice was hoarse.

  Edie said nothing. She retraced the line back up Skye’s neck until her fingers rested against Skye’s cheek. She wanted so much more, her wanting burning away the lingering questions and the dirtiness of the day.

  Skye pulled away from Edie’s touch. Edie let her hand fall.

  “Let’s get inside,” Skye said and opened the door of the Jeep.

  Edie waited only a heartbeat, hoping to get the moment back. Then she sighed and followed. Skye went into security guard mode, leading Edie inside the cabin and asking her to wait in the entry while she checked the house and secured the alarms. Edie breathed in the smell of cedar wood and wet rubber boots.

  An achy tired was catching up to her. She wanted to outrun it. She saw bruises in the dim light, Skye reaching for her holstered gun, felt the breath of a muttered Russian curse on the back of her neck, heard the drumbeat. Edie shook her head, and it was all gone. She was tired of having her own brain hijacked.

  “You can come in,” Skye said from the doorway. Her tone was completely neutral. “It’s safe.”

  Edie followed her into the cabin.

  “Are you hungry?” Skye said, stopping in the kitchen and opening the fridge. “I can make us some eggs. Or JC brought some cans of soup.”

  “Sure,” Edie said, mostly just wanting to draw out the moment. “Eggs sound good.”

  Skye silently began assembling a meal. Edie leaned against the counter and watched her move easily in the small space. Skye seemed capable of putting the moments in the car behind them. Edie was not.

  “This is Basher’s cabin, isn’t it?”

  Skye looked up from whipping eggs in a glass bowl. “Yes.”

  “You and Basher and JC served together.”

  “Yes.”

  They were back to one-word answers, just like the night they met. While Skye finished cooking the meal, Edie tried to find a way through. She’d done it before.

  Skye silently handed her a plate of scrambled eggs and toast. Edie stayed where she was as Skye leaned against the counter in the kitchen with her own plate and quickly and efficiently finished off the food. She grabbed a clean glass out of the cupboard, filled it with water, and drank it down, no idea of the effect her movement was having on Edie. She occupied space like she owned it and would defend it.

  When Skye had washed her dishes and stuck them in the drying rack, she turned to see Edie still standing perfectly still with the untouched plate of food in her hand. Skye looked at the plate, then back up at Edie.

  “What’s wrong?”

  Everything was wrong, of course. Every single thing. Edie put her plate down on the counter and walked slowly toward Skye. Skye’s eyes widened, and she took a step back. But she was trapped in the small space.

  “Edie,” Skye said. Pleading or warning, Edie wasn’t sure. She wasn’t really interested in finding out.

  Edie took the last step, crossing the clearly drawn line. Skye sucked in a breath. Edie wanted to taste her. She touched Skye’s shirt, tracing light lines against the hard resistance of her abdominal muscles. Then she stretched up to find Skye’s lips. Skye’s mouth was warm and Edie tumbled into the kiss, losing herself almost instantly as Skye moaned quietly. Edie sought more, pressing her fingers more firmly, her mouth needing to consume and obliterate, her head needing to quiet and to forget.

  “No.”

  Skye trapped Edie’s hand against her stomach. There was the stutter of a heartbeat when Edie thought she’d give in again, but then Skye gently but deliberately moved Edie’s hand away and stepped around her.

  “You agreed to the conditions. I’ve already explained why. I won’t be distracted.” Skye’s voice was impassive, but she was still close enough that Edie could see the wild pulse beating in her neck.

  “But you want this,” Edie said.

  Skye shook her head. “I have a job to do. I need to stay focused.”

  “Maybe I want you unfocused.” Edie hated the petulant sound of her voice. This was not a position of strength. She hated the power imbalance, the distance between them. The wanting. “Maybe I need a distraction.”

  It was the wrong thing to say. Skye’s jaw tightened, her eyes went dark, and her expression completely closed down. The finality made Edie flinch.

  “I’m here to make sure you’re secure, Edie. Not to flirt with you and offer a distraction.”

  Edie held Skye’s gaze. Desire still curled in her belly, but it was overpowered by the guilt and the ache sitting on her chest. She hated all those feelings. Anger rose up, unwanted and inexplicable.

  “I’m certain even you are capable of being wrong sometimes.”

  Edie regretted her words immediately. Skye didn’t flinch, though. She held Edie’s eyes for a moment, then two, before she looked down at her watch.

  “I’m going to check the perimeter. I’ll be outside at least an hour. I won’t be far.”

  It was a status report, nothing more. As she walked away, Skye wasn’t angry. Merely controlled. The night swallowed Skye like she had never existed in the first place.

  Edie moved robotically. She grabbed the plate of cold eggs and took them to the living room. She ate slowly, not thinking of anything at all. Her plate clear, Edie sat in the living room with her feet on the coffee table, simply breathing. Then she slowly, very slowly, opened herself up to what had happened.

  In a moment of clarity, far too late to undo the damage, Edie knew Skye was both right and wrong. Edie was pushing her needs on Skye. But there was so much more to how she felt about Skye. Edie only hoped she would have a chance at some point to make amends. Considering how badly she’d messed up tonight, she wasn’t sure that was possible. She pushed her hands against her eyes, pretending she didn’t feel the tears against her palm.

  Edie thought maybe an hour had gone by when she heard the sliding door open and close again behind her. A soldier and her clockwork. She wondered if Skye would be able to see she had been crying. She wondered if Skye would leave her sitting there in the dark. At this point, she wouldn’t have blamed her.

  But Skye moved into the living room, stopping briefly to turn on a small lamp in the corner. Edie blinked into the light and looked at Skye. She was sweaty and still breathing hard, and the knees of her jeans were damp and dirty. Skye stood across from Edie, like she wanted to say something. Edie looked around and realized she was in Skye’s space, where Skye usually spent the night.

  “Sorry, I’ll move.” Edie stood up, embarrassed. But as she passed, Skye grabbed her wrist.

  “Wait. Please.”

  Edie could smell the sweat on Skye’s skin, the fresh night air.

  “I’ve found something more distracting than you flirting with me,” Skye said.

  “What’s that?”

  Skye tugged her gently closer.

  “You being upset.” And then Edie was in Skye’s arms and she had never, not once in her whole life, felt anything that good. The feeling broke Edie, and she started to cry. Skye held her tighter, tucking Edie’s face into the crook of her neck, like they’d done this a hundred times before. The feeling in Edie’s chest threatened to knock her breath out and Edie gulped for air, fisting her hand into Skye’s shirt as the tears continued unabated. Skye gently maneuvered them back down onto the couch, tucking Edie into her side and letting her cry.

  “I’m sorry,” Edie said between sobs.

  Skye shushed her gently and held her. Edie closed her eyes, listened to the soothing beat of Skye’s heart beneath her cheek, and slowly, so very slowly, calmed her breathing until the only place she had to go was to sleep.

  * * *

  Edie woke alone on the c
ouch, covered with a blanket. It had been a restless night. She’d woken when Skye had eased herself out of their embrace and gently laid Edie down. And again, in the deep hours of night, she’d opened her eyes to see Skye sitting in the chair across from her, laptop propped open in her lap, looking out the window. Skye, obviously sensing Edie’s awakeness, had smiled reassuringly and Edie had drifted back to sleep.

  Edie pushed back the blanket and stood stiffly, carefully stretching her aching hip. She headed straight for the bathroom, staring at her haggard expression in the mirror. She considered showering but decided coffee was more of a priority.

  With a full mug of coffee warming her fingers, Edie looked out the windows down toward the lake and saw Skye. She was dressed in shorts and a hoodie, running across the length of the lawn, jumping onto the rocks of the garden in a sequence obviously known only to her, before she ran straight at a tree, jumping into the air and grabbing on with both hands and feet. Edie, astonished at her pure physicality, watched as she shimmied up with apparent ease, grabbed a branch, did ten chin-ups, then dropped an alarming distance to the ground, rolled, stood, and sprinted back across the lawn.

  Edie realized she’d been holding her breath. She let it out shakily, laughing at her own response to Skye’s uninhibited display of strength. Skye was a joy to watch in her element. Edie sipped her coffee, not feeling the slightest bit of shame at her voyeurism as Skye ran back onto the lawn and completed another two circuits.

  Then she stopped, hands on her hips, shoulders rising and falling with her rapid intake of breath, and looked out at the lake. Edie could just see the intense look of freedom and pleasure on her face. She wondered which Skye would walk back into the cabin. What had changed?

  Skye walked back across the lawn and caught sight of Edie framed in the window. She raised a hand as she approached. Edie returned the gesture, then went to the kitchen and poured Skye a cup of coffee. She met her at the door. Skye’s eyes were bright and clear and she murmured her thanks to Edie as she took a sip of coffee. Skye smelled like she had last night, of sweat and fresh air. Edie was beginning to love that scent.

  “Good morning, Edie.” Skye’s words were formal. Her tone wasn’t.

  “Good morning, Skye.”

  “I should shower,” Skye said. “JC will be here any minute.”

  “My turn to make breakfast, then.”

  “Sounds good.”

  Skye didn’t move, and neither did Edie. She wanted to preserve the tension of that moment. Skye ducked her head shyly, as if hiding her thoughts, then walked to the back of cabin. Edie let her breath out as she walked away, unwilling and unable to hide her smile.

  They were talking quietly and finishing breakfast when JC arrived, reminding her why they were all together.

  “Okay, update,” JC said, making a space for herself at the table. She pulled out her laptop and spun it around so everyone could see. She clicked through until a picture of a man Edie didn’t recognize came up on the screen. “We’ve got eyes on Alex Rada, and we’ve isolated the apartment building where Faina is being held.”

  Tension permeated the room. Edie went with the shift. “Any idea how he got into the country?” she said. “And why he’s here?”

  JC clicked her trackpad, and the image changed to a photo of a passport with Alex Rada’s face. “He’s traveling under the name Sergei Sokolov, a Russian businessman with legit local contacts. Obviously a stolen identity. As to why, that’s still a guessing game,” JC said. “Our boys at the RCMP have picked up some chatter in the last few months about arms deals running through North and South America, but nothing solid.”

  “And no ties to me,” Edie said.

  “Not a one. No one knows one reason you would come to the attention of a Russian arms dealer. Which is kind of pissing everyone off. It would be a hell of a lot easier if you were more suspicious,” JC said, grinning.

  “Sorry about that.”

  “You’re cleared on the Khalid front as well, the driver of the car that hit you. No contact with His Royal Doucheness either before or since the accident. Another dead end that kept a whole team of people up until the wee hours. That was quite the shit storm. How did you weather that?”

  “I was in the hospital for a lot of it. I had two surgeries and was on pain meds for the first few weeks. My memory of those first months is pretty sketchy. My brother and my boss at SunNews pretty much handled all the requests for interviews and the media attention. I didn’t know I’d been in the centre of a conflict until it was pretty much over. Even then, it wasn’t so much about me.”

  “It was more about the varying opinions on the lengths that diplomatic immunity should extend,” JC added. “I certainly got that sense scanning the file this morning.”

  Edie nodded. “A tricky conflict to navigate in a city full of diplomats. But it sold papers at the time, and eventually the argument died down.”

  “But not before tearing through your life and publicizing a difficult time,” JC said, sounding offended on Edie’s behalf.

  “True,” Edie said with a shrug. “But as I said, I wasn’t aware of most of it. And as a journalist, I understand you have to follow the story.”

  “But you’d never tear into someone’s life like that, would you?” JC said.

  “No, I wouldn’t. It’s one of the reasons I started freelancing. I could control the expectations a hell of a lot better.”

  Edie took a sip of her second cup of coffee. The media frenzy around her accident had placed the details of her life in full view. She felt a familiar shifting in her stomach and chest, and her thoughts sped up.

  “What if that is the connection? The attention. The media.” Edie spoke slowly, treading lightly.

  “What do you mean?” Skye said.

  “What if the media coverage is how I came to the attention of the Russians? I didn’t meet Faina until after that, when I also started feeling like I was being followed.”

  “You were followed,” Skye said. “That wasn’t a trick your mind was playing on you.”

  “Yes, you’re right,” Edie said softly, glad to hear the possessive note in Skye’s tone. “So what if the fact that my accident, my injury, and my life were in the national media for a few weeks is what caught the Russians’s interest?”

  “The timing certainly fits,” JC said. “But we need a why, or it doesn’t really help us.”

  Edie nodded absently and toyed with the handle on her mug. She was thinking about the interview yesterday with Dr. Crask.

  “I have gaps in my memory,” Edie said as she pulled a piece of paper toward her and picked up a pen. As she talked, she sketched a box that she divided into quarters.

  “The gaps are from the accident. From the concussion.” JC said, clearly not entirely sure where Edie was going with this.

  “Right.” She shaded in three of the boxes with her pen and pointed at the one empty box. “But what if the other gaps in my memory are not from the concussion. What if someone…what if someone did something that caused some of the gaps. Something that reacts to light and rhythm and music.”

  JC leaned forward even as Skye began to pace. Edie absorbed Skye’s tension but kept her thoughts on the paper.

  JC pointed at Edie’s sketch. “And you think that’s what this is.”

  Edie looked at the blank box before answering. Her instinct told her she was close. But this wasn’t about a lack of or an absence or a gap. This was about something she had. Take, Faina had said. She picked up the pen with a shaking hand. She drew horizontal stripes across the blank box.

  “What if they made a hole…No, what if they used a gap that already existed, so they could fill it with something else.”

  The words hung suspended. Skye stopped pacing and whirled around. Edie’s heart rate increased and panic blossomed. What is in my head? What do I know? What did they plant? Edie dropped the pen and ran shaking fingers along her skull, nails digging through her hair and into her scalp, the pressure of her palms slowly incre
asing against her temples until she thought she would scream.

  She heard JC’s voice, but Skye’s touch pulled her back.

  “Easy, Edie. Take it easy. Nothing is happening right now. Easy.”

  Skye stood behind Edie and rested her hands on her shoulders. Her touch was firm and warm, and Edie focused on the feel of her hands. Skye pressed down with her palms against the top of Edie’s shoulders, then eased her hands up over the back of Edie’s neck. She kept her hands there, a calming heat and pressure, then she gently pushed her fingers into Edie’s hair, forcing Edie’s hands down and away. Too soon, Skye had retraced her fingers through Edie’s hair, trailing down the vertebrae in her neck before skimming lightly off her shoulders. Skye sat down beside her.

  “Okay,” she said shakily. “This is a possibility, right? I’m not crazy?”

  Skye took her hand. She seemed incapable of speaking.

  “No, you’re definitely not crazy,” JC said. “It’s a theory without legs, though. We need some way to test it.”

  “You’re talking about her brain,” Skye said. “Not a science experiment.”

  “I know that,” JC said. “We’re just talking here, trying to figure this out. Team, remember?”

  Edie felt Skye’s tension through their joined fingers. She squeezed Skye’s hand.

  “I know this question is ridiculous, but I need to ask,” JC said to Edie. “Is there anything in your head that seems odd or out of place? Anything suspicious, or that doesn’t fit. Numbers, maybe. Thoughts or facts that don’t seem attached to anything.”

  Edie knew what JC was trying to do, gently guide herself through her own synapses and neurons. Like a doctor on the hunt for illness, sorting healthy tissue from damaged, or isolating a virus in a bloodstream. Edie thought of a book she and her brother had as kids, an illustrated journey into the human body. Edie had loved the unlikely adventure of it. Shawn had loved the medicine.

  “Edie?”

  Shit, now I’m drifting. “Sorry. No, there’s nothing I can think of like that.”