Broken Shadows (21 page)

Chapter Twenty-Three

“So I married him,” the woman said. Her name was Vivian, and she’d just told me how she’d met James Herring at a magic show when she was twenty-two. He’d been thirty-four, a decade into a career as a magician in Vegas. Of course, his audiences hadn’t known he was a converter. Neither had Vivian, at first.

She was a normal.

“I’ve always been a skeptic,” she said. “I’m an engineer—I knew there had to be an explanation.”

“What did you do when he told you?”

“Oh, I laughed at him, of course. I told him I wasn’t as gullible as I looked. But he let me test him over and over again. He must have been royally sick of moving bricks and guessing what I was thinking.”

“I would have kept doing it for a decade if that’s what it took.”

We both looked up. James stood in the archway between the kitchen and the huge family room overlooking the pool.

“Nothing is too much for a man in love.”

It would have been a cheesy line except for the way he looked at her, and for the way she flushed.

“Have you heard from him?” Vivian asked. I knew she meant Jackson.

“Nothing.” The strain in his supple voice told me everything he was feeling. If Jackson hadn’t told him to stay, he’d be out there with his son.

“I’m sure I’ll be safe here,” I said. “If you want to go—”

“Oh no,” he said. “No, Jack would never speak to me again. But I’ll let you girls talk.” He grabbed a sparkling water from the fridge and walked out.

“We have plenty of guest rooms,” Vivian said. “If you’re tired...”

I shook my head. There was no way I’d be able to sleep.

Vivian couldn’t read minds, but she must’ve read my face well enough.

“I don’t feel all that tired, either,” she said. “How about I make us something to eat.”

She didn’t look like the type, but she was actually pretty good in the kitchen. She took an avocado and a lime from a fridge disguised to look like a regular cabinet and made guacamole from scratch, opening a bag of organic small-batch tortilla chips and bringing all of it to the fancy green marble breakfast bar. We ate and found things to talk about and watched the back door.

It was nearly dawn before Jackson got back. The door beeped twice as he came in and punched the security code into the keypad. We both watched, silent, as he walked into the living room, hardly looking at either of us.

His gray T-shirt was torn around the neck. He sat down on his mother’s silk-covered couch in his sweat-stained pants and put his head in his hands. A moment later, the refrigerator door opened behind us, and a bottle of sparkling water came soaring out. Jackson downed half of it, wiped his mouth and stood.

“I got him,” he said. “One of them anyway.”

My jaw dropped. James came running in from the hallway.

“Where is he?”

“In holding, shot full of tranqs.”

“How—” James said, clearly impressed.

“I knew they’d still be looking for her. I found one of them staking out my building.”

“Oh my God.” What if I hadn’t gotten away? Would they have gone for Jackson next?

“It wasn’t the one you grounded,” he said, turning to me. “We’re going to have to wait until the enhancers wear off before we can get into his head and figure out who his partner was. Maybe who hired him.”

I would have suggested we go immediately, but it was too soon after I’d grounded the other one. I could tell it wouldn’t work.

James folded his arms. “I’ll go in the morning. Try to get him with his defenses down.”

Vivian stood up and went to her son. “Are you hurt?”

He shook his head. She nodded once, her lips thin, and announced she was going up to bed. James followed her. Jackson and I were left alone.

I looked at him through the archway dividing the kitchen from the living room. I didn’t know what to say. Jackson stood, setting the half-empty water bottle on the floor in front of him. He walked with long strides from across the room and into the gold light of the kitchen, and wrapped his arms around me.

“Wha—” I said, and then his mouth was covering mine.

The kiss after the show had been raw and chaotic, full of hazy joy. The one in my apartment had been slow and sweet and careful. This was something else entirely. This was possessive. His lips took mine as one hand gripped the back of my neck and the other circled my waist to yank me against his chest. He didn’t give me any time to react, to pull away. My back arched under the pressure of his arm; my head tilted and tipped back. He’d opened me up like an empty box, and now he was pouring himself into me. His tongue swept mine and then retreated, and I realized I hadn’t felt a power transfer. He pulled away and rested his forehead on mine.

“It’s safe,” he said. “No excuses.”

“What if it wears off?” My voice was almost a whisper.

“It won’t.” He’d laced his fingers through mine and tugged, leading me toward the formal staircase I’d seen earlier. It led up to a hallway, and I glimpsed empty guestrooms, a room full of couches and flat screen TV, a picture window looking out at the fog-covered bay. I followed him, wondering if he was taking me to the room he’d grown up in. If it would still have his grade school T-ball trophies or his seventh-grade honor roll certificates.

It didn’t.

The room at the end of the hall was Jackson all over, simple and clean. The bed was pale wood, the bedding dark blue. He laid me down on top of the covers and methodically took off my clothes, buried his face in my breasts. I was afraid to touch him, already used to my dangerous new reality, and I ghosted my hands over his back, longing to pull off his shirt and press my palms to his skin. Jackson pulled it over his head and let it fall.

“Please,” he said, his lips at my neck. “I’ve wanted you to touch me for so long.”

My breath came in as a shudder. I ran my fingers through his thick, straight hair, and he closed his eyes, nostrils flaring. He tilted his head toward my hand, asking for more, and I slipped both palms around his skull and pressed his face to my body. He moaned, and suddenly he was ravenous, nipping at my skin, sucking. His hands kneaded the flesh of my thigh, my bottom. Wet heat flooded my center, and he drew in a hissing breath, knowing my reaction before he felt the physical evidence of it. Too quickly for me to stop him, he raced his hand up my thigh and thrust a finger inside me. I gasped and spread my legs for him, and he slid down to add his mouth to my center.

I arched up with a cry I couldn’t hold back. Jackson was relentless, driving me up with lips, tongue, teeth. I scraped my nails over his shoulders, urging him on, but it wasn’t enough. I didn’t want this lukewarm substitute, I wanted him, all of him. Now.

“Yes,” he said, and air pressure around me changed.

I opened my eyes.

He’d taken off his pants, his boxers, and put on a condom. His forearm was braced above my head, his body hovering over mine. I looked down and saw his hand on my belly, two fingers disappearing into the curls between my legs, spreading my cleft open.

“Jackson...” I couldn’t be sure his abilities would survive this kind of contact. It was safe now, sure, but would it last?

“Do you want this?”

“Please God yes.”

He sank himself inside me.

Chapter Twenty-Four

“So this is where you grew up,” I said.

I was lying with my head on his chest, and Jackson was idly playing with my hair, teasing it gently with his fingers.

“Yup,” he said, and his voice rumbled in his chest.

“It’s like a freaking soap opera set in here.”

He laughed softly, uncommitted.

“Must’ve been pretty nice,” I said, more seriously.

“You never know any different as a kid.”

“You never told me your dad was a magician.”

He mumbled something about it never coming up.

“Uh-huh. Is there some dark family secret, here? Did he accidentally make someone disappear for real?” I laced my fingers together on his sternum and made him meet my laughing eyes.

“Nothing like that. He just wanted me to follow in his footsteps.”

“And you followed in your mother’s instead.”

“He wasn’t happy about it. He still hasn’t given up, actually.”

I imagined Jackson wearing a sequined dinner jacket, reading people’s minds and making a tiger levitate through a flaming hoop. I had to hold in a laugh and ended up snorting instead. Jackson mock-glared at me. “Well, I think you made the right choice.”

“Tell him that sometime.”

“I will. What about you?”

“Oh, I tell him all the time.”

“No, I mean, do you think you made the right choice? Going into architecture?”

“Most days.”

“The days when you aren’t designing warehouses?”

He rolled both of us over until he was on top of me. “So many questions,” he said, and kissed me.

We stopped talking for a while in favor of other uses for our mouths. Afterward, I lay on his chest again, and he traced the tip of his finger over the dragonfly tattoo on my shoulder. He was following the outline of the wings.

“When did you get this?” he asked.

I braced myself up on my elbows, and he leaned on one arm on his side, facing me. “When I was twenty-one. It was ten years after my mother died, and I told myself that’s why I was doing it. But really it was just that Lionel couldn’t stop me anymore.”

He chuckled silently. “It’s gorgeous.”

“This guy I knew did it. Gave me a discount.”

Jackson laughed out loud this time. “I have a feeling I know why.”

“Oh, shut up.” I smacked him on the arm and lay back flat on my stomach. Jackson leaned over and put his lips where his fingers had been, and I closed my eyes and sighed. His fingers were resting on the small of my back, and his hair tickled my shoulder. I wriggled closer to him.

“What do you remember about her?”

It took me a second to realize he was asking about my mother. “Lots of things,” I said.

“Tell me one of them.”

I thought for a minute. “For a long time all I could remember was her getting sick. It was ovarian cancer. It took her pretty fast, but she prepared us—me and Shane, I mean. My dad had already died, so once she got the diagnosis, she moved in with my Uncle Lionel. She knew he’d be taking care of us, and she wanted to make the transition easy.”

“Was it?”

“No. No, it was the worst time in my life.”

“I can imagine.”

“She kept the pain buried. She didn’t want us to be able to feel it. She was always so strong.”

“Like someone else I know.” He leaned in and kissed the base of my neck.

I laughed, uncomfortable. “Not really. Haven’t you noticed? I’m barely keeping my head above water.”

Jackson shook his head. “Mina, you have no idea how brave you are.”

“If I were brave, I would go home. I wouldn’t be so afraid to be around my family. I wouldn’t be...hiding out here.”

“Is that what you’re doing? Hiding?” The humor was gone from his voice. I turned over so I could meet his eyes.

“I was.” I traced the cut muscle of his forearm with my finger. “I’m not sure about anything anymore.”

“Anything?”

His hair was falling in his face. I tucked it back behind his ears. I wasn’t ready for this conversation. I wasn’t ready to end this stolen season. I tugged him back down to the bed, and the mattress bounced when he landed.

“Where did you get that condom last night, anyway? You normally carry protection when you go chasing telekinetic criminals?”

He let me change the subject. He even had the grace to look sheepish. “Well, I was near a drugstore anyway, and I...Sorry. A guy can dream.”

“I’m not complaining.” I kissed his knuckles, which I saw for the first time were marred with cuts. “What is this? This happen last night?”

He tugged his hand back. “I’m okay.” His joints popped as he stretched his arms over his head, the scar from the bullet wound a faded red. He pulled on his discarded boxers from the floor, leaned down and pressed his lips to my shoulder again. I felt the tingle of a power transfer and slowed it, pleased when I managed to stop it. I was getting better.

“Come on,” Jackson said. “I’ll make you breakfast.”

“Don’t you have to go to work?” I accepted his hand up, then pulled away to get dressed.

“Extended personal leave. Pancakes?”

I smiled.

* * *

I sopped up a pool of syrup with an over-buttered fragment of pancake and ate it. It tasted like heaven.

“These are amazing.” I was wearing a pair of Jackson’s old boxers and one of his sweatshirts. It was blue and said Berkeley Engineering in large gold letters, and there were several holes along the bottom hem.

“I’m glad you like them.” Jackson grinned, leaning in but not quite touching me.

“Where are your parents?” I asked him. They’d been nothing but nice, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be discovered sitting at their breakfast bar wearing their son’s old school clothes.

Jackson shrugged. “You have syrup on your chin,” he said, reaching over and swiping at it with his thumb.

“Hey! Cut it out!” I tried to shove him away, but he caught my jaw in his and kissed me, soft and relaxed and smiling. He tasted like syrup and butter, and I leaned closer despite myself, struggling to stay focused enough to keep from grounding him.

“Good morning!”

I pulled away like a guilty teenager and saw James and Vivian in the doorway.

“Sleep well, kids?” James walked in, eyes twinkling.

I blushed, but Jackson only rolled his eyes. “You’re out of eggs,” he said.

James walked over to the stove and stole a couple of pancakes. Vivian sighed and poured herself coffee.

“So,” James said, sitting down with a plate of pancakes, “I spent the morning with that charming man you apprehended last night.”

“And?” Jackson said, suddenly paying attention.

“Nothing. He’s defended. Like a brick wall in there.”

“Oh, come on,” Jackson said. “Those enhancers should’ve worn off by now.”

James folded half a pancake into his mouth just as Jackson had a few minutes earlier. “Mwoah guwing phwoo.” He swallowed and looked at me. “Think you could help us out?”

Jackson glared at his father. “I really don’t think Mina should be anywhere near—”

“You can shoot him with one of your little darts if you want to. Then there’s no way he can hurt me.”

“I don’t—”

“I know. You don’t like it. But it’s worth it if we can get to the bottom of this.”

“It’s not—”

“It might be our only shot,” James said. “We can’t let him go into withdrawal. Could kill him.”

“Better him than Mina!”

“What’s he going to do with the two of us there?”

“Hey!” I said. “
I
was the one that got attacked. Shouldn’t I get to decide, here?”

“It’s her choice, Jackson.” I’d almost forgotten Vivian was there, but her clear voice cut through the argument like church bells at midnight.

“Of course it is,” Jackson said.

“I want to help.”

Jackson sighed. “Fine. We’ll go after breakfast.”

* * *

Jackson used his key to open the back door to the jail. This time, as we made our way through the tunnel, I noticed more doors and more unmarked passageways. The place was a warren. Something told me I hadn’t seen half of it.

As soon as we got through the cinderblock door, I knew something was wrong. Jackson and James exchanged a look, and James got in front of me, pressing me back against the wall and slipping his knife out of the sheath on his belt. It was four inches long and serrated.

I stared at it. “What? What is it?”

“Wait here.” Jackson strode into the room with the desk while James kept watch, knife by his side, one hand still pushing me protectively back.

“Christ,” James said a moment later. He relaxed and let me step away from the wall. “They’re gone.”

It wasn’t just the man Jackson had caught. It was all of them. Turner, Thomas, the man who’d gone after Simon. I’d expected to see a lake of smashed glass and ripped wiring, but that wasn’t the case. The cell doors were all closed. Nothing was broken; nothing had been taken.

“Check the feed,” James said, but Jackson was already tapping at a computer.

He spun a screen around, and we all watched. It was a security camera feed, divided into quadrants. One showed the room we were in, but empty. The time stamp indicated this had happened last night, a few hours before he’d come back to his parents’ house. The other quadrants showed a rotation of each of the prisoner cells, the entry tunnel, and the alleyway outside. The time stamp hit 4:26 a.m. and a grainy, black-and-white Jackson appeared in the jail room.

He had a body slung over his shoulder. When he dumped the man into an empty cell, I saw that it was one of the men who’d tried to take me. I recognized his sweatshirt. The man moaned and turned onto his back, and Jackson, impassive, shot him with a tranquilizer dart. The man slumped sideways, mouth slack. Jackson slammed the cell door, and we all watched as he keyed in the code to lock it. Then he left, his pale image passing from the office to the tunnel to the alley.

Jackson started fast-forwarding. The men shifted in their drugged sleep. James came in, and he slowed the footage down. We watched James crouch by the man in the sweatshirt, his eyes black with concentration, his expression fierce. He spent fifteen minutes in the same position, then left. Jackson started fast-forwarding. When the time stamp read thirty minutes prior, it went black.

“Shit,” he said.

“Someone wiped the footage,” James said.

Jackson took over the controls and tried again. There was nothing. He started pacing.

“Okay. Who has the code?”

James leaned against a desk. “You. Me. Simon, Malik, Paulie, Caleb and Sebastian. The deputies who bring in meals and run sweeps.” He started listing names, at least a dozen of them.

“We need to match that list with Conner’s contacts,” Jackson said. “See which ones he called the most, something.”

“That’s a lot of people.”

“Then we’d better get started.”

* * *

Jackson called Sebastian as soon as we were above ground. I could hear him yelling on the other end. Jackson held the phone away from his ear until the noise stopped, waited a few moments, and said, “I know.” There was more noise, followed by another “I know,” and then an “I will.” He hung up.

“Seb’s upset,” he said.

“So I gathered.”

“No one’s ever gotten out of the prison before.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

Jackson leaned hard against the wall.

“He’s going to start searching his way. I think you should stay at my parents’ place until we find this guy.”

“I’m working tonight,” I reminded him. “Simon’s expecting me to show up at five.”

Jackson swore under his breath. “Call in sick. It’s not worth the risk.”

“I can’t! I have rent to pay, you know.”

“I’ll pay your goddamn rent!”

I froze and stared at him, my fists clenching of their own accord. I could feel my blood rushing faster through my veins as I struggled to finish counting to ten. Jackson saw the warning in my eyes and didn’t speak, but his face didn’t soften, either.

“I don’t need you to pay my rent,” I said finally.

“I know you don’t need me to, Mina. I—” He stopped himself and looked away. “I just want you to be safe.”

“No one’s going to attack me at Simon’s,” I said. “It’s a crowded bar.”

Jackson opened his mouth, but closed it again when he saw my face.

“Fine,” he said. “But you’re letting me pick you up after your shift.”

“Fine.”

I was still angry after he left me at the speakeasy, and even angrier when James showed up. He ordered a glass of red wine as if it were an ordinary night and took it to a table in the corner with a clear view of the bar. He didn’t drink it.

After an hour, I went to his table and asked him if he needed anything.

“I’m perfectly content, thank you.” He had a copy of the local paper open to the Arts & Leisure section. I narrowed my eyes at him and leaned down.

“Jackson is making you stay here.”

He didn’t answer.

“You don’t have to watch over me.”

“There is a
fascinating
article in here about the impact of painting classes on higher-level critical thinking in high school students. Very important study. Did you know over half the local schools can’t afford to run art programs?”

I glared at him. He smiled back. But I couldn’t force a grown man twice my size to do anything he didn’t want to do, so I went back to the bar and did my job. Malik had the night off, and I stayed busy for most of the speakeasy’s eight-to-ten-thirty rush.

I’d cooled off by the time my shift ended at 2 a.m. The last customer had left an hour before, and James was still at his station in the corner. I didn’t notice Jackson had let himself in until I straightened up from unloading bottled microbrews and saw him sitting at the bar.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hello.” I went back to restocking beer. I was still angry with him.

James got up and stretched, slapped Jackson on the back and let himself out through the back entrance. When he’d gone, Jackson slid a box wrapped in brown paper across the bar. “I brought you something.”

“What’s this?”

“Open it.”

I furrowed my brow. Most guys brought flowers after a fight. The box was heavy. I tore off the paper and opened the white cardboard box beneath. It held a gray foam block, and when I lifted it out, I saw that it cradled a gun.