Broken Shadows (25 page)

Simon picked up the tranq gun Paulie had dropped, shot her in the back with it and pulled out the emptied dart. Bridget’s eyes rolled back and she fell forward with a crunch I hoped wasn’t her nose breaking. I pressed myself against the metal shelving, feeling as if I were going to throw up. The pool of Paulie’s blood had reached the far wall.

“What do you want?” I said.

“You’ll see,” he said, and he shot me in the chest with the tranq gun.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

I woke up in jail.

It wasn’t a normal jail. It was freezing, and it smelled like fish. The cell was painted beige, and the paint was flaking. I was sitting on a blanket on a concrete floor. There was a cot with no mattress beside me, a steel sink in the corner, and a black hole where I assumed a toilet used to be.

“Simon!” My voice echoed through the place. The ceilings were immense, with tiny barred windows near the top. Wind whistled through them. “Simon, where the hell are you?”

Footsteps sounded, and a moment later he came into view in front of my cell.

“What is this place?” I asked. Might as well try the direct approach.

“Alcatraz.” He smiled.

That explained the flaking paint and toilet hole. At least he’d given me a blanket. Then again, maybe it was one of the props they set out for the tourists. I debated asking what, exactly, we were doing here.

“It won’t be long,” Simon said. “Don’t worry.”

His cell phone rang, the tone sounding ridiculous in the vast empty space of the former prison. He answered it and walked away, but I could still hear his voice bouncing off the cinderblock walls.

“You came alone? Good...Stand by the dock and wait...Don’t worry. You’ll get your trade.”

I scooted as close as I could to the bars and levered myself up. My feet were still tied together, but there was enough slack that I could stand if I was careful. Then, there was a loud alarm and a creaking sound, and the entire front of the cell slid sideways. I toppled over and hit the floor with bruising force.

“Come on.” Simon grabbed me by the arm and hoisted me up. “We’re leaving.”

“But we just got here,” I said, struggling to keep up.

He ignored me, using telekinesis to bring me up a flight of stairs and through a dark hallway. We left the building and walked down a wide concrete path that switched back and forth down the mountain. The fog was thick and a strong wind was blowing, and I wished longingly for the sweater Paulie had brought me. I wondered if anyone knew he was dead, if Bridget had left the state or the country. If she’d go on thinking she’d killed him for the rest of her life.

“You know,” Simon said as we walked, “at one point I was hoping you’d end up working for me. Once I got Charlie to confirm your abilities, I knew you’d be valuable. Too bad you had to take up with Herring.”

I resisted snapping back with “Too bad for you, you mean,” but he must have heard it anyway, because he laughed at me.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “I agreed to hand you over alive.”

I didn’t find this reassuring. After what felt like hours, the path widened and sloped down. The moonlight was faint through the fog, but when I saw a figure standing by the dock at the base of the path, I knew immediately it was Jackson.

For a moment, my heart soared. He was alive. He was unhurt. He’d come for me. But Simon didn’t seem surprised to see him, and that was definitely not a good sign. An even worse sign: he stopped walking, pulled a gun out of his waistband and pressed the barrel to my head. Jackson stood absolutely still.

“Mina.” There was a torrent of emotion in his voice. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m okay. I’m not hurt.” I wanted to run to him. I wanted to feel the place where Paulie had stabbed him with that dart, sweep my hands over his head and make sure he was uninjured, feel his arms wrap around me and block out the cold.

“Did you bring it?” Simon said.

Jackson threw a black duffel bag down at his feet. I recognized it. It was the one we’d filled with drugs and money from Conner’s safe deposit box.

“It’s all there,” Jackson said. “Now let her go.” He was looking at me.

Simon ignored him. “Out of curiosity, how did you find it? I searched that asshole’s apartment high and low.”

“Safe deposit box,” Jackson said. “I guess you didn’t search hard enough.”

“That fuck-up was smarter than I gave him credit for. Though trying to take over my operation wasn’t his brightest move.”

“Maybe you should think about that,” Jackson said. “Taking things from dangerous people has consequences.”

“Back away.” Simon gestured with the gun. “Slowly.”

Jackson kept his hands up and took slow steps backward, coming up against a low building. I expected Simon to pick up the bag, but instead, he dragged me with him toward the dock. There were two boats tied there, a sleek white yacht and a small speedboat. He kept the gun on me, and I watched as the outboard on the smaller boat snapped off of its bracket and sank below the dark water. Jackson’s face was like stone.

“She’s coming with me.” Simon brought the duffel bag soaring over telekinetically and looped the straps over his shoulder so he could keep the gun on me. He wasn’t paying attention, and his arm grazed the exposed skin below my elbow.

“That wasn’t our agreement,” Jackson said, but I barely heard him. I focused every bit of mental energy I could on that spot of skin.

I couldn’t ground him fast—he’d notice. But I knew the contact wouldn’t last long, and I had to make it count. I pulled as deeply as I dared through the tiny path of connected skin. Simon shifted, and the transfer cut off. It wasn’t nearly enough to disable his powers.

“You agreed to let her go,” Jackson was saying. “Leave her here, and I’ll let you go.” I could hear the threat in his voice, but it was lost on Simon.

“I won’t hurt her. I’ll drop her off down the coast. As long as I’m not followed.”

“Be reasonable. How could I follow you?” He glanced toward the disabled boat. He was moving closer, very slowly, very carefully.

Simon gripped my arm more firmly, the edges of his fingers meeting the skin of my forearm where my sleeve had inched up. I met Jackson’s eyes, held them, and hoped he could hear the message at the top of my mind.
Keep him talking.
Power was slipping into me, out of him. I kept it slow, controlled. I prayed it would be enough.

“Not another step.” Simon shoved the gun into my cheek. I couldn’t control a whimper of fear.

“Okay, okay.” Jackson stopped moving. “Tell me where you’re going to drop her. At least tell me that.”

“Do I look like an idiot?”

Simon pulled me back toward the dock, heading for the yacht. He shoved me up the gangplank, and I stumbled, twisting so I fell to the deck on my butt instead of my face. Simon followed me and untied the boat.

“Think about what you’re doing,” Jackson called. He’d stayed where he was. “Think about what your life is going to be like if you do this.” He was walking forward again.

I’d managed to shift so my ankles were right by Simon’s feet. He was starting the motor, checking the control panel. I inched my legs up until my exposed calf grazed his leg. Another little sip, another chance to gain an advantage.

“You know,” Simon said, “you might be right.” He turned from the control panel to face Jackson, a few yards of deep water between them. Then he pulled his gun from his waistband, pointed it at Jackson and shot him twice in the chest.

“No!” I couldn’t stop the scream, I couldn’t stop myself from struggling like a landed fish to get to the back of the boat, to get to him. He hit his knees, his face still with shock. He fell forward onto his chest. I kept screaming. Simon caught me by the shoulder and dragged me back to the cockpit.

“Shut up, just shut up!” He hit me across the mouth when I didn’t quiet. Jackson wasn’t moving. His arms were splayed at his sides, his legs at odd angles. All the air left the world in an instant.

My screams faded to a litany of denial. This wasn’t possible. I loved him, and he couldn’t be dead. I made a deal with myself that if I could get to that dock, if I could just touch him, I could stop the bleeding. That everything would be all right.

Simon started the boat. The rumbles of the motor made my body vibrate through the teak decking. We were gaining distance from the dock. Ten yards, fifty. The farther away we got, the less chance I had of being able to swim the distance. I wasn’t thinking about the fact that Jackson still hadn’t stirred—I was thinking only about my goal. I had to get to him. It had to be now.

I hadn’t stolen enough of Simon’s power to make a dent in his telepathy or telekinesis. I didn’t have enough energy to zap him and knock him out. But in the clarity of desperation, I knew I had enough for something else. I turned my face toward the steering column.

If my brother Shane had been in this situation, he would have known exactly which wire to hit or which component to disable. I was going to have to take a less subtle approach. We were clearing the dock, picking up speed, and there was no time left to figure out the electronic workings of a pricey yacht. I struggled to my feet, lurched forward and fell face-first onto the control panel.

I was used to discharging energy through my hands and feet, but I figured any body part would do. I let the power I’d stolen rush out through my temple and right onto the yacht’s control board. Sparks flew. The panel sizzled and smoked and went dark, and smell of burning plastic stung my nose as the hum of the motor died. I slumped to the deck as Simon grabbed me.

“You stupid bitch! What did you do?”

I let him shake me. Nothing mattered. I let him shake me and drop me to the deck.

“Goddammit!” He kicked me in the back, and I barely felt it. I rolled away from him as he turned his attention to the panel, still cursing.

A circular life preserver was tied to the bench at the back and I made for it, walking backward on my knees, letting Simon think I was afraid of him. If I could get to that life preserver, I had a shot of making it to Jackson.

Even if I was too late to save him, maybe he wouldn’t have to die alone.

Simon was distracted by the utter destruction of the yacht’s control panel. He had the cover off, and smoke still wafted from the plastic. He clearly didn’t think I’d do anything as insane as jump into the freezing San Francisco Bay while handcuffed. Just a few more feet, and I’d be there.

We’d drifted even farther from the dock, but I didn’t dare turn around and see how far. I kept my eyes on Simon, who was still cursing at the control panel. I made it to the life preserver and put my back to it, standing on tiptoe so I could use my bound hands to untie it. One knot came free, and then another. Almost there.

“Oh no, you don’t.”

He’d seen me. He reached into his waistband for his gun—and came up with nothing.

“What the fuck?” He looked at me, obviously assuming I’d stolen the gun. I wished I had, but as he advanced on me, I turned around and saw something I didn’t dare believe. Jackson, standing in the motorless speedboat, pointing Simon’s gun and moving smoothly closer over the choppy water.

“Don’t move,” he called.

I almost sobbed when I heard his voice. Not a mirage.

It took a couple of moments for Simon to take in what was happening. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bottle. Enhancers. He took two, swallowing them dry.

“Don’t think I can’t get out of here under my own power,” he called to Jackson.

“Don’t think I can’t kill you where you stand.” Jackson had to yell over the water, but there was no threatening bluster in his voice. I believed him. Simon clearly did too. He spun, grabbed me around the torso, and flung my bound legs over the railing. My toes brushed the cold water.

I didn’t dare struggle. Simon’s arm was the only thing holding me up, there was no way for me to reach a handhold with my wrists bound. We were close enough now for me to make out Jackson’s face. How long would it take for the enhancers to kick in, for Simon to win the telekinetic battle?

“Drop the gun, or I let her go!” he yelled.

Jackson met my eyes, and all at once, I saw where he was aiming the gun. I took a deep breath, and then another.

“Do it!” Jackson called back. “Seb cares more about taking you down than one woman’s life.”

Simon hesitated. I was his only bargaining chip, after all. I could almost hear him thinking it out.
He’s lying. Drop her, and he’ll dive in after her—even if it’s just a distraction, it gives me time to get away.
A sensible enough plan. He’d protected his skin well this time, and I couldn’t tell if the enhancers had done their work on his powers or not. But I could tell from the way his muscles tensed when he decided.

“I warned you!” he yelled, and he let me go.

I had time to take one final breath before I hit the icy water. I didn’t struggle. I didn’t try to kick for the surface. I let the water cover me, let my body slowly sink. I’d trusted Jackson with my secrets, my body and my heart. It was no great leap now to trust him with my life.

Chapter Thirty

It took a few moments, but I felt the percussion wave jolt through the water when the yacht exploded. The gas tank. Jackson must have hit what he’d been aiming for. A moment later I was rising, rocketing toward the surface, my lungs burning for a breath I couldn’t take yet, water rushing all around me as the air above blazed gold.

I rose out of the water like a bizarre fish and took one painful, gasping breath after another. I couldn’t hold myself up, but Jackson was there, treading water, his arms and his power surrounding me and keeping me afloat. He buried his face against my neck.

“Thank God, thank God, thank God,” he said, his voice thick. He was crushing me, using telekinesis to keep us both from sinking, and as much as I wanted to lose myself in the safety of him, I had to focus to keep from grounding him.

“You’re alive.” I was truly sobbing now, unable to chase away the image of him falling to his knees. “How are you alive?”

He leaned away from me and unbuttoned his shirt at the top. A bulletproof vest covered his torso, and there were two ragged marks where Simon’s bullets had hit him.

“Oh my God.” I leaned my forehead on his shoulder, oblivious to the cold. “I thought you were gone.”

“Well, I already knew he aims for the chest.”

We smiled at each other in the freezing water. All around us, things were burning. The yacht was overturned, half of its hull splintered. Deck cushions floated by on fire. A miniature bottle of vodka bobbed in the choppy water.

“Nice shot,” I said.

“You trusted me.”

“Of course I did.”

He pulled out his knife, bringing it up through the water, then ducked below to cut the ties around my legs. The handcuffs fell off a moment later—he’d picked the locks. I let them sink.

“Where’s the speedboat?”

He gestured toward a burning hunk of yacht decking to our right. It had centerpunched the smaller boat and cracked the hull in two.

“That’s unfortunate,” I said.

“Come on. We’ve only got a few more minutes in this water before we both get hypothermia.”

I kicked for the dock, relieved to be able to use my limbs again. As we swam, more fragments of the boat surfaced, shattered plexiglass hull fragments and splintered teak decking. Then Simon’s body bobbed up amid the wreckage. I couldn’t look—I didn’t want to know if he’d died from the explosion or drowned. I didn’t want to see if fire had made a wreck of his face.

“You don’t need to see,” Jackson said.

“But what should we do?”

“Leave him.” His voice was hard. “We don’t owe him anything.”

* * *

We spent the night on Alcatraz.

I felt like I deserved a T-shirt.

After we pulled ourselves, dripping, exhausted and freezing, onto the dock, we broke into the guest bathrooms near the gift shop and cleaned up as best we could. It was the first time I’d seen myself since this whole ordeal started, and it was worse than I’d imagined. My hair was a frizzy disaster, and my clothes made me look like a reject from a zombie movie casting call.

We met back outside, neither of us looking that much better. Jackson took off his own shirt—one of his ubiquitous striped button-ups, now made more interesting by bullet holes—and wrapped me in it. It did a fair job of covering the bloodstains, and it was dry. He must have used his power to warm it. He stood in his thin white T-shirt in the cold, rubbing my arms through the fabric while a slow, gentle warmth bloomed all over my skin. He was drying my jeans and socks.

“Thank you,” I said, but he was looking at the blood on my shirt.

“It’s not mine,” I said, knowing he wanted to ask. “It’s Paulie’s.”

Jackson closed his eyes. “I should have wondered what happened to him. I was so focused on finding you.”

“Simon killed him.” I told him the whole gruesome story, including the part about Bridget. “I feel responsible. I kept neutralizing him...I should have seen how dependent he was getting.”

Jackson’s hands tightened on my shoulders. “No. This was not your fault.”

“I’m still sorry.”

“I know. I’m sorry too.”

Jackson’s cell phone was waterlogged beyond repair, and mine was still back at the cabin. No one knew where we were. Jackson had taken Simon seriously when he’d said he’d kill me if anyone else showed up.

“Marooned on a prison island no one’s ever escaped.” He looked over the dark, choppy water.

“Someone will come looking for us eventually, right?”

“I think our best bet is the morning tourist ferry.”

We decided to spend the night in the old prison cafeteria. It wasn’t warm, exactly, but it was protected from the worst of the wind. We huddled together under the prop blanket from my former cell, and eventually I fell asleep against Jackson’s warm, broad chest to the sound of the water and the creaks and groans of the old building.

I didn’t know whether he’d slept, but when the sound of footsteps and clanging metal woke me, he was already awake.

“Park rangers,” he said. “We should get out of sight.”

“Crap.” I gathered up the blanket and followed him out of a side door in the adjacent cell block. The wind was bitingly cold, and we waited on a small concrete pad just out of sight while the thud of footsteps and the click of light switches sounded in the empty room. I held my breath, sure we’d be discovered, but the footsteps faded.

“What now?” I whispered.

“We wait for the tourists.” Jackson grinned.

It took a little while—and the wind only grew colder—but eventually, I heard the unmistakable sound of a herd of tourists clomping and chattering through the cavernous space.

“There they are,” Jackson said. “Shall we join them?” As if we were meeting friends for brunch.

“I have been meaning to come here.”

“Well, now’s your chance. I think we have about thirty seconds to look like we belong with the group.”

I almost laughed. Jackson’s hair had a geography all its own. Mine was probably much worse. Our clothes were wrinkled and stiff with dried seawater. I didn’t want to contemplate how we smelled. I smiled.

“Ready?” I asked.

“Always.”

We left the blanket where it was and slipped back through the door. A man with a set of audio tour headphones gave us a disapproving look, but we ignored him and pretended to take in an informational plaque about infamous Alcatraz prisoners. When the group began to wander out again, we fell into step with them.

Back at the dock, a small swarm of Coast Guard boats told me that the night’s events had not gone unnoticed. But no one stopped us as we boarded the ferry and found seats in a corner. Once we were underway, Jackson bought coffees and pastries from the snack bar with a couple of still-damp bills.

“Your dad is probably worried out of his mind,” I said as I devoured my pastry.

“Probably,” Jackson said. “He’ll live.”

Despite his cavalier tone, James was the first person he called—collect, from what must have been the city’s last working pay phone—as soon as we got to dry land. James arrived so quickly, I thought he must have already been in his SUV, circling the city and looking for his son.

I sat in the back while Jackson explained what had happened. Everything was catching up to me. My entire body ached from all the times I’d fallen on hard floors. Every time I closed my eyes I saw blood. Paulie’s, Simon’s. I saw Bridget’s face and Jackson’s body on the dock. There were raw spots on my ankles and wrists, and even I could tell how badly I smelled. I wanted to go home, take a scalding shower and burn everything I was wearing. I wanted to eat something comforting, like Lionel’s chicken and dumplings or an entire batch of chocolate chip cookies. I wanted to read a funny romance novel and forget the past forty-eight hours ever happened. But I fell asleep in the back of the Escalade, my face slumped against the window.

When I woke up, I was in Jackson’s bed. Someone had brought me up here, changed my clothes. My hands were clean, and so were my legs. There were bandages on the raw spots around my ankles. I was ravenous.

From the sound of things, there was another council of war going on in the living room. I got out of bed and went out to the living room to find Jackson, James, Sebastian, Malik and Bridget all drinking coffee.

“Mina!” Bridget stood up so fast she spilled coffee on her hands. “You’re all right.”

I hugged her back. “You’re okay too.”

“She was halfway to Mexico by the time I caught up with her,” Malik said.

“I’m so sorry, Bridge. He was going to kill you if I didn’t do it.”

“No, no, no, it was all my fault. I should have known it was weird, him asking me to look for you like that. I never should have let him manipulate me like that.” Her voice grew uncharacteristically hard.

“The way I see it, you saved my life,” I said. “Who knows what Paulie would have done.”

Sebastian had been released that morning when the San Francisco Police Department had been unable to find any record whatsoever of a warrant for his arrest. He’d promised not to sue the officer who’d arrested him, and it was all smoothed over as a case of mistaken identity. But if Simon hadn’t already been dead, I had no doubt Sebastian would have killed him. It was odd to hear that many expletives come out of the mouth of a man who looked like an angel.

“By the way,” Sebastian said. “If anyone asks, you two are FBI.” He pointed at James and Jackson.

“Impressive,” James said.

“You owe me.”

Someone had made breakfast, and I helped myself to a plate while the conversation swirled around me. James was being tasked with rounding up the remaining dealers. Charlie had become highly cooperative once it was clear that was the only way he’d ever see daylight again, and we had everything from their home addresses to their mothers’ maiden names. But the drugs themselves were a different story.

Once everyone had eaten, we split up to search for Simon’s base of operations. Jackson and I drew his apartment. We spent most of the morning searching the place—a spacious two-bedroom in a gorgeous old Victorian—but all we found was his collection of high-end electronics and expensive furniture. No cash, no pills, no mad scientist lab.

Sebastian hadn’t turned up anything in a storage unit he was keeping, either. It was, surprisingly, full of the kinds of things most storage units contained, books and furniture and a barely used home treadmill. Our next stop was the speakeasy.

Four of us—Sebastian and Malik and Jackson and I—split up and searched the warren of tunnels connected to the underground bar. Jackson and I started in the main stockroom, peering behind the shelves and looking for anything out of place. It was as disorganized as ever, but it didn’t seem to be hiding any secrets. We left it behind and walked down the hallway.

There were half a dozen doors in the tunnel walls, and Jackson picked the locks on the ones that were secured. Most were old storage rooms, tangles of wires for the speakeasy’s convoluted and illegal electrical system, a hot water heater and, near the end of the tunnel, a huge room full of canned goods and dry rations, all from the fifties and covered in dust.

“Holy shit,” I said. “Has this all been sitting here that long?”

“Probably.” Jackson peered at a tin of baked beans, the label still bright. “Looks like it hasn’t been touched.”

“Ugh. Let’s keep it that way.”

We left the storeroom and walked back down the tunnel, but my hopes were pinned on Sebastian and Malik. If Simon had a supplier, it was going to be a lot harder to make sure we’d shut down the drug supply for good. We had enough pills from the stash in Conner’s safe deposit box to wean off everyone who’d gotten addicted—we didn’t need another wave of dealers.

I ran my hands along the wall as I went. We were in a cinderblock section, and I grew accustomed to the regular frequency of the blocks and the mortar between them. Otherwise, I would have missed it.

It was only a tiny gap, a kind of ledge where one cinderblock was higher than the other. I stopped and ran my fingers down to the floor. The crack was remarkably free of dust, and the gap was the same from block to block. I looked back at Jackson, who’d stopped to watch me. I put my shoulder against the raised section and shoved. It didn’t move. I backed up, considered the wall and shoved against the adjacent block.

The whole thing slid inward a quarter inch.

“Help me,” I said to Jackson, heart pounding with possibility. He was already getting to his knees in front of the spot.

“On three,” he said, and he counted. This time, when I shoved, the section of blocks moved inward, revealing a narrow hole in the tunnel wall. Jackson created a light orb and sent it bobbing into the space, illuminating cobwebbed corners and layers of dirt. In the dirt, though, were the imprints of many sets of shoes running in both directions.

“Pay dirt?” I said.

“Let’s find out.”

Jackson’s light preceded us as we ducked and waddled through the tunnel. It was a good thing I wasn’t prone to claustrophobia. It went on for several yards before it opened up into a larger room with enough space to stand. The entrance to the tunnel appeared to have been hacked out of the drywall inside. Jackson let the light blink out—the space was already brilliantly lit.

It took me several minutes to take in what I was seeing. The room was like a bizarre underground greenhouse. There were rows and rows of stunted bushes under rows and rows of buzzing lights. A system of plastic tubing ran beneath them in a web. The place must draw a mansion’s worth of electricity. It smelled of earth and mold and growing things, with a sharp chemical odor underneath.

“I’m going to get Seb,” Jackson said.

I nodded, still dumbstruck.

While I waited, I walked through the rows of plants and found a second room, a kind of makeshift lab set up on folding card tables. There were jugs labeled
sulfuric,
industrial size boxes of baking soda
,
rolls of mesh-like cloth, blenders, clear glass bottles in strange shapes. On one table sat a thing that looked like a meat slicer but turned out on closer inspection to be a pill press. He’d been extracting the stuff himself.

The rooms themselves were obviously older than the speakeasy. The walls were crumbling plaster, and mold decorated the ceiling. But underneath the sheets of plastic tarp that lined the floor, I saw planks of golden hardwood flooring. Near the ceiling were the remains of decorative plaster molds, some crumbling, but some still intact. I peered behind a shelving unit stacked with glassware and found a mural painted right into the stucco.