by Rachel Caine
The Church, on the other hand, taught that the Wardens were ruthless, cruel mutilators who would rip the talent away from the children, leaving them psychic cripples at best, or dead at worst. That could happen, of course, if a child manifested a talent that was dangerous to everyone else, and had to be stopped. It was rare, but possible. The Wardens didn't always err on the side of mercy.
The Church preached it as an everyday occurrence, as a plan. And many people had believed, and given the Church children to train--or the Church had, in some cases, abducted those it thought were the most valuable, the most vital, to its cause.
Such as Isabel.
Those children--the few we had managed to free from the Church compounds across the country--were dangerously gifted, trained too early, burdened with power that they were not equipped, either emotionally or physically, to handle.
I had warned the FBI not to keep the children here, in their offices. At the minimum, Wardens should have been kept on duty to ensure that the children didn't panic and use their abilities irresponsibly.
As one of them clearly had.
Guilder didn't argue the point. "We thought we knew the risks," he said. "We underestimated the situation."
In earlier months I would no doubt have informed him just how badly they'd miscalculated, but I had learned, at great cost, when to let a subject go, for politeness' sake. Tact was not something for which I had a natural gift. "How many casualties have you sustained?" I asked.
"Zero, since you got Agent Littleton out." There was a slight warming in his tone, and he glanced at me, finally. "Thanks for that."
I nodded and coughed a little more, but the pressure in my lungs had eased. I was beginning to feel a monumental wave of exhaustion building, and knew I'd have to rest soon, but in the meantime there was a pleasant feeling of warmth and relaxation. Even my burns stung only lightly.
Impossible, in my state, to miss the surge of feeling that had come from the FBI agent--a complicated mix of gratitude, worry, and ... love. Not for me, of course, and it was rare that I could feel emotions from anyone save Luis, but it appeared that Agent Guilder had at least a latent Earth-based ability, something too mild to be called a true power.
The love was not for me. It was for the agent I had saved. Agent Littleton.
I met his gaze and said, "Is there not a regulation against agents becoming ... close?" So many euphemisms, in human speech. But the imprecision helped, I'd found; I didn't know his relationship with the other agent, but I sensed its depth. And secrecy.
He hadn't expected that question at all, and I caught the surprise and discomfort in his expression, despite the reserve that he had surely learned as a law enforcement professional. He just as quickly smoothed it away. "No code against being happy a coworker survived," he said. "I'm pretty sure there isn't. I read the rule books."
That made me smile, as he no doubt intended. "I'm sure you're correct," I said. "The children are not harmed?"
He shook his head. "The rest of the kids are all okay. The only one unaccounted for is the boy who kicked off the fire, and he took off once he got the whole thing revved up to Mach Three; this was basically a big, fiery distraction to cover his escape. Your niece and another boy protected the other kids and as many of the agents as they could."
"She's not my niece," I said. It was an automatic response, but I almost immediately regretted saying it. I cleared my throat and tried again. "She is the niece of my partner, Luis Rocha. Her name is Isabel."
"Hmm. She calls you Aunt Cassie."
"I know." I looked away from him toward the fire. "She was recently orphaned. It's been--difficult for her."
"From what I've heard, it's been difficult for all of these kids," Guilder said, and finally rose to a standing position, still looking down at me. "We're going to need a statement about what happened inside. Not tonight, though. Tomorrow. We'll call you and Mr. Rocha in for that."
"You'll have offices again so soon?" I asked. He smiled. It was a deep, charming sort of smile, a professional weapon he wielded with surgical accuracy.
"That's why God made laptops," he said. "And cell phones. Not to mention credit cards."
He nodded and walked away toward the ambulance, where he bent over the agent I'd pulled from the fire. She looked very small on the gurney, and he was quite tall, bending over her. I was certain he did not intend to reveal what his body language so clearly communicated.
It was probably a good thing for him that Agent Littleton was unconscious. If she returned his affection, it would be awkward for them both; if not, it would be heartbreaking.
My attention drifted from Agent Guilder to Luis Rocha, who was sitting on the curb beside Isabel, with his arm around the child. He looked tired and smoke-stained and singed around the edges, but the smile on his face was genuine and very lovely. The smile was for Ibby, but as he looked at me, the smile ... stayed. If anything, it grew warmer.
I looked away, suddenly unsure what an appropriate social response might be. The feelings that ripped through me were too jagged and confusing to sort out now, and the exhaustion wave was cresting inside me, drowning me in a need to lay my head down and rest. He felt that, of course; it was almost impossible for me to hide that sort of exhaustion from Luis, as closely as we were connected. He hugged Ibby and stood up, with her hand in his. The light from the fire caught and flickered on his skin, especially his bared arms, where flame tattoos twisted in skillfully inked patterns.
I watched the tattoos flex and move as he walked closer. It was easier than looking into his face.
"You're tired," he said, and it wasn't a question. "I'm taking you home, Cass."
I nodded, because it sounded like a very acceptable idea. Isabel and I were almost on eye level, since I was sitting down, and when I glanced at her I saw she was watching me with wide, luminous eyes. I couldn't read a thing from her expression, and her emotions were closely concealed within as well.
Until she threw her arms around my neck and hugged me.
I embraced her in return and put her on my lap. "Hush," I whispered, even though she was making no sound at all. "Everyone's all right. Even us."
"I'm sorry," Ibby said. "I tried--He was so mad, Cassie. I couldn't make him stop. He thinks you want to hurt us. Hurt him. I just couldn't make him understand."
"Nor should you have to," I said. "It was brave of you to try, little one. And to get the others to safety."
She shrugged that off. "It's only fire," she said. "That's easy."
"For you. Not so for others." I nodded toward the firefighters and their hoses. "They risk their lives against fire daily, without a scrap of power to protect them. Don't underestimate how dangerous your element can be, Ibby. Even to you, if you lose control."
She nodded, but not in a way that meant she really understood. I wondered when she'd learned to be so diplomatic; it wasn't a child's usual response. I supposed that part of the training--no, the abuse--she'd undergone had taught her how to avoid conflict. It was sad, because Ibby had been such a forthright girl when I'd first met her.
I sighed. "Yes, I believe it's time to go home." I kissed Ibby's clean, sweet-smelling hair, all too aware that I reeked of smoke, singed cloth, and very human sweat.
Luis lifted Ibby off my lap and offered me his hand. I took it, and felt an immediate surge of fresh energy cascade into my body. "Stop," I said. "You need--"
"Don't tell me what I need, chica," Luis said. "I know, believe me, and it involves a beer, a shower, and a bed, in that order. But anyway, this will keep us both going a while longer."
Luis's truck was parked a few blocks down--a big, black, shiny thing, with painted-on flames down the sides. Still flawless, even after all the damage the two of us had heaped on it--or else it was a new replacement. I wasn't sure. Likely the latter, I decided, since the interior smelled and felt fresh. He hadn't told me, and I hadn't bothered to ask.
My motorcycle, a new Victory Vision in smoky silver, was parked just a little distan
ce away. Luis, without a word to me, slid a ramp down from the tailgate of the truck and walked the bike up into the bed, carefully laying it down on a padded blanket. When he got into the cab with Ibby and me, he caught my stare and shrugged. "What?" he asked. "You'd just get up in the middle of the night and come back for it anyway. Better do it now so you don't wander around scaring people at four in the morning."
He was right about that. I loved my motorcycle with a devotion I reserved for only a few things, and I knew I wouldn't rest easy unless I'd made sure it was taken safely with me. Having successfully second-guessed me, Luis was almost grinning. I schooled my face to its customary mask of indifference, and wiped my hands again with a moist cloth from the package sitting on the dashboard. My pale skin still looked ashen with grime. I wasn't sure I'd ever get clean.
Luis started the truck, and the engine caught with a deep rumble. Air-conditioning blasted out of the vents and bathed me in a soothing chill, and I sighed in pleasure. Instead of putting the truck into gear, Luis reached for the cloth in my hand. "You missed a spot," he said, and gently wiped my face with the moist fabric. It felt ... unexpectedly intimate. I blinked, and found myself smiling, just the smallest amount. He stared at me for a few long seconds, then handed the cloth back. "That's better."
"Yes," I said. "Better."
I was acutely aware of him--his warmth, his strength, his power--all the way home.
I lived in an apartment--a spare, empty place with only a few sticks of furniture and the occasional mistaken gifts people had given me to try to "warm it up." I didn't understand the need to stamp a personality on a set of rooms that was, essentially, temporary. It was shelter, and a place to rest. A storage unit with a bed and some hanging space for clothing.
For instance: I had no idea why I would need a ceramic statue of an angel (a gift from a well-meaning neighbor who'd been moving away), but Luis had said it was polite to accept. It was, in fact, the only thing I possessed that was of no practical use, which made it seem awkward and singularly strange. I thought often of throwing it away, but the more I stared at the thing's serene porcelain face, the more irritated I became with it. Becoming human, I'd discovered, seemed to come with a thousand invisible strings tugging at you, and each and every one of them conferred an obligation, and unexpected benefits.
Luis didn't take me back to my apartment after all, so I didn't have to gaze at the blank-eyed angel and wonder how long the grace period would be before I could safely dispose of it.
Instead, Luis took me home--to his home. This home had once belonged to his brother Manny Rocha, my first Warden partner, and in contrast to the awkward sterility of my apartment, it felt ... warm. Permanent, and saturated with the loving life of those who'd inhabited it. Manny's and Angela's deaths had stained it, but Luis was slowly repairing that psychic damage, and the house now felt ... welcoming. Even to me, even with the guilt that always struck me when faced with the reality of Manny's and Angela's absence from the world.
"Yo, Ib," Luis said as we entered the front door. "You want some dinner?"
"No, thank you," she said, primly polite. "I'm tired. I just want to sleep."
"Right there with you, kiddo." He kissed the top of her head. "You need me to tuck you in?"
"I don't need tucking in, Tio," she said. "I'm almost grown-up." His smile faded, and I saw the concern in his eyes as she walked away.
It wasn't, I understood now, the correct developmental behavior for a child of Isabel's age. And yet it didn't seem there was any way to undo what had been done to her, body and soul, during that time after she'd been taken from us. We still didn't know all that had happened; Ibby was reluctant to talk about it, and Luis wanted to respect her wishes.
But it worried us both, deeply, that she seemed to have aged so quickly.
She was almost to her bedroom door when she spun around and ran back to Luis, threw herself into his arms, and gave him a kiss on the cheek. "Good night, Tio," she said, and then wiggled free to run to me and receive a hug, though I could tell that she did it more from duty than enthusiasm. "Good night, Cassie."
"Sweet dreams," I said, which was something I had heard Ibby's mother, Angela, say to her once. I missed Angela. She would have known what to say, what to do ... but it appeared I had not done so badly, because Ibby smiled and kissed me on the cheek, too.
Then she ran down the hall, suddenly acting her age, and shut her bedroom door with a slam. Luis winced and shook his head. "Kids," he said. "They don't know how to shut a door without breaking the hinges, but I guess I shouldn't complain; at least she's not breaking my heart so much as she was. So. Food?"
"No."
"Ah. Beer, then?"
"Yes."
He disappeared into the kitchen and came back with two frosted bottles, tops already removed. He handed me one and clinked the glass. "Cheers," he said, and took a deep, thirsty gulp. His eyes closed in almost indecent pleasure. "Ah, damn, that's good. I've been thinking about that all night."
It was good, chasing away the ashy taste from my mouth and burning bright and cold down to my stomach. I sighed and sat down on the couch, only belatedly thinking of the state of my clothing and its effect on his furniture. But Luis motioned me to stay seated, and sank into place next to me. "I'll flip you for the shower," he said. I had a mental image of him tossing me head over heels, and couldn't imagine why that would be any kind of decision-making choice. He must have seen my confusion, because he laughed and clarified. "A coin. Two sides, heads and tails. Understand?"
"Yes," I said. I took another long, considering drink of my beer. "But there are two baths in this house."
"Yeah, there are," he said. "It was kind of a figure of speech, but anyway, the hot water heater's crap. One shower at a time or we both shower cold."
"Oh." I considered that. I had experienced cold indoor showers before; it was surprisingly less pleasant than being caught in the rain. Perhaps it was the fact that one deliberately chose it. "Then I will let you go first."
"Oh?" He was draining his bottle quickly, and cut a sideways glance toward me. "Thanks." He didn't sound especially grateful. I wondered what subtext I had missed in the conversation. Again. It was especially frustrating when I was tired and felt so grubby. I would have been glad to go first, and the fact that I had offered so selflessly seemed, to me, to be worth some gratitude on his part.
And yet, when his gaze lingered on me, I felt all that melt away. Luis and I had been ... close ... for some time, but never close, in the euphemistic way humans sometimes used the word. When he gave me that kind of considering look, it felt unexpectedly intimate, as if a door had opened between us. I wasn't under any illusions that it was a change in our relationship; one of us always slammed the door shut at some point. My background didn't lend itself toward absolute trust and honesty, and his--well, I suspected his didn't, either.
And still he watched me. I stared back, my eyebrows slowly climbing, and finally said, "What are you thinking?"
"Nothing," he said, and tilted his bottle up for the last of the beer.
"Really." I sipped mine. I was less than half finished, but the beer combined with the exhaustion from the effort made me feel light-headed, in a pleasantly drifting sort of way. "That's odd. It looked as if you had something on your mind."
"Don't you think I know when I'm thinking of something?"
"I would assume you would."
"And you think I would tell you all about it."
Ah. There was the interesting point. "Why wouldn't you?" I asked. "Unless you think I am thinking something entirely different."
"Cass ..." He sighed. "Damn, girl, I never know which way to jump with you. When it's all action and danger, we're synced like a sound track; when it's just you and me, I never know what you're thinking, or what you're feeling, if you're feeling anything. I look at you and you just ..."
"Just what?"
He shrugged, frowning. "You just reflect," he said. "Like steel."
That surprise
d me, and it hurt a little. "I am not steel," I said. "I am human. Blood and bone and muscle, heart and feeling and vulnerability. Don't I show that?"
"Not even a little. Not here." He sounded almost apologetic about it. "Probably not your fault, you know. You've adapted so well to everything else, it's not surprising you can't shed that last little bit of Djinn."
I drank a quick, cold mouthful. "I was a Djinn for aeons. I've been a human for months. Maybe you're judging me a little harshly, Luis."
"Oh, yeah, I know. I see your point. It just doesn't make it any easier to get a vibe off of you, that's all."
"What vibe are you trying to feel?"
That made him look away at the empty beer bottle in his hands, which he turned slowly, finding something intensely interesting in the label. "Just want to make sure you're okay, that's all. And you get all closed up."
He was lying. I was expert enough in human feelings to feel that, at least. And suddenly I understood what it was he was seeking--what it was that I'd been holding back, hiding behind my Djinn mask. I had not lied. I was human, and vulnerable, but my instincts were never to disclose that soft, unprotected side to anyone. Not even to Luis, who most needed to see it.
And the thought of letting down that wall, of exposing my true feelings to him ... that was terrifying, in the same way that it would be to stand on the fragile edge of a cliff with a killing drop below. If what the humans said was correct, I would float, not fall. But all my instincts went against it.
I reached over and touched my fingertips to his cheek. It felt rough against my skin, stubbled with a day's growth of beard, and the sensation roused all kinds of odd feelings inside me--instinctive feelings, nothing summoned by my conscious mind. Curiously powerful rushes of chemicals in my bloodstream that overrode, for the moment, all that caution and hesitation.
He looked over at me, startled. The contrast of my pale fingers resting against his dark bronze skin made my heart run faster. I held his gaze this time, and the wall I'd put up weakened, melted, and was gone. "Now can you see?" I asked him very quietly. "There's much between us, good and bad, but can you see past all that, to what I feel?"
