Burned (17 page)

"You have
no idea how conflicted I am right now. It was my responsibility to
choose which members of my family lived and died, but you took that
away from me. I understand why you did it, but that doesn't make it
right."

"I was
trying to save you from the guilt of having to choose between them,
Adri. I've seen that kind of guilt before, and it would have
destroyed you."

"Maybe it
would have, but at least then it would have been my choice. I would
have felt the guilt, and it would have been on me to deal with it,
just like it had been on me to make the choice in the first place.
Instead you made that choice and I'm left with an impossible mixture
of anger at you for doing so—and getting my parents killed—at
the same time that I'm trying to sort out the gratitude I'm feeling
for you at having saved Cindi and guilt over the fact that you went
into that building fully intending on dying. How am I supposed to
process all of that, Alec? You were ready to lay your life down for
me. Not even to save my life, just to spare me from making a hard
decision."

"I'm
sorry, I never meant to add to your difficulties."

"Didn't
you? If everything had been different and you died failing to save
Cindi while the rest of us succeeded in saving my parents, it
wouldn't have changed any of my feelings. I would still be tangled up
in gratitude and guilt. The only difference is that you wouldn't be
around to watch me try to work through it all."

"I'm
sorry, Adri. You're right, I never thought about the other side of
the coin, never considered just how hard it would be for you to be
whipsawed back and forth between those particular feelings."

It pained me to
make that admission, but I made it because it was the truth and
because it was what I thought Adri needed to hear, but she wasn't
done.

"You
didn't respect me, Alec. You probably still don't, but I know for
certain that you didn't in that moment when you decided to take away
my choices. If you'd really respected me then you would have let me
choose. It's what everyone else does. Taggart, Isaac, Heath, they all
trust me to recognize when I need to lean on them for help making a
decision. You, on the other hand, didn't.

"I don't
know where things are headed between us right now. I don't know if
I'll ever be able to work through everything I'm feeling right now,
but I do know that I can't see myself ever being with someone who
doesn't look at me as an equal partner."

She turned to
go, but I captured her wrist. "You don't get to yell at me like
that and then run off without hearing my response—not if you
want to be treated like a strong individual who can make her own
decisions."

I hadn't
grabbed her with a strong enough grip that she couldn't break free if
she'd wanted to, and for a second that was exactly what I thought she
was going to do, but then my words sank in and she nodded.

"Fine. If
you want to have a chance to respond then you can."

"You're
right, I didn't treat you like you were capable of making your own
decision, and now that you've pointed that out to me I'm even angrier
at myself for how things went down. What I did to you was exactly the
kind of thing that everyone else in my life did for years until I
took Rachel and ran away from home. That wasn't fair to you, any more
than it was fair to me. You're the one who was going to have to bear
the cost of whatever we decided to do about your parents, and it was
only fair that you pick what we did there."

Her eyes
started to soften, and I took hope that my admission would gain me
enough credit with her to get me through the rest of what needed to
be said.

"What I
did was wrong, but I did it because, at the time, I thought it was a
way of taking the worst of those consequences and putting them on me.
I understand now that it wasn't my place to do that, but I'm not
working in a vacuum, Adri. I make decisions every day that have the
potential to cost people their lives, and that is only going to get
worse now that I've manifested my ability.

"I don't
have any equals outside of that door—not with regards to raw
power, not now. Even before, true equals were very few and far
between. I respected Carson and Isaac, just like I respected many of
the rest of my friends, but for weeks now I've been the alpha of my
pack and one of the key players in our alliance. Respecting those
people doesn't mean that I don't keep secrets from them. I have to
keep secrets or even more people would die."

She frowned,
eyes flashing. "I wasn't just an associate, Alec. I was…"

"What you
were to me is exactly the question. I cared about you, but that is
true of many people. We never defined what we were to each
other—every time we tried something came along and upended
everything. As my girlfriend you would have had the right to know
things that the rest of my people didn't know, but I haven't been
sure of your feelings toward me for weeks now. For every step forward
we take, we take at least two more either to the side or backwards."

She ripped her
arm away, but she didn't turn to go. "This is a lousy time to be
pressing me to make a stronger commitment to you, Alec."

"That's
not what I'm trying to do. I've acknowledged the validity of your
position, and now I want you to understand where I'm coming from. My
emotions going into the decision to save Cindi were a snarled mess
too. It's a lot harder to separate our relationship as 'coworkers'
from all of the personal stuff. I'm sorry for not giving you all of
the relevant information before you had to decide what to do with
Cindi, and I'm trying to meet you halfway."

"I
understand, Alec. Like I said, I've never doubted your intentions,
just how things end up as a result."

"I know
that now is a bad time for you, Adri, but it's bad for me too. I've
got a lot going on, and if I make the wrong choices none of us are
going to survive to learn from my mistakes. If you know right now
that you're never going to be able to forgive me, then just say so
and release me from having to constantly worry about trying to make
things right between us."

She took a deep
breath and stepped into me and wrapped her arms around me.

"I don't
know for sure either way, Alec. I wish I did, but all I can do is
continue to try to work through things. Thank you for bringing Cindi
back to me."

I returned her
hug like she was a porcelain doll. It wasn't the same kind of hug as
what we'd shared in Minnesota, but it was a start.

Coun'hij Agent
Caravan RV Park
Tucson, Arizona

The being was
walking across a parking lot when it happened. Puppeteer's presence
had been a near-constant distraction in the back of the being's head
for decades now, but every so often the jumped-up mongrel tried to
take more direct control over the reins.

The being never
liked that, but it was even worse at times like this, times when the
being was in public. Puppeteer was capable of exerting control over
individuals like the being over distances of hundreds of miles, but
he would never be capable of doing so while accessing the being's
more unique abilities. Puppeteer had tried dozens of times, but it
was like watching a blindfolded child try to replicate a Picasso
using nothing more than their feet. The hybrid simply didn't have the
control or finesse required.

The being was
grateful for that fact—it was the only thing that kept it from
complete enslavement to Puppeteer. The hybrid knew that the being's
abilities were too precious to be wasted on brute-force
search-and-destroy missions, so the being was allowed a much greater
degree of latitude than the rest of its captured fellows.

Not all of them
had been captured, but many of them had been, and none of them were
happy about it. The only thing that made their servitude tolerable
was that Puppeteer's existence was no more than a speck on the
continuum of their long lives. Eventually Puppeteer would die—of
old age if for no other reason—and they would be free to go
back to doing what they did best.

Puppeteer's
presence inside the being's mind made it stumble, but even more
concerning, it made the being's seeming—its illusion in the
modern parlance—flicker. The being's lips drew back in a snarl.
It didn't want to have its cover ruined. Puppeteer was very good at
placing the being in situations where it could feed, but the meal it
had been dining on these last several weeks had been a masterpiece of
sorrow. It was a meal that wouldn't be easily replaced.

The
insignificant wolves around the being were unlikely to be able to
kill the being—even if they realized what it was—but the
being wasn't anywhere near ready to give up its current food source.

What do you
want?

A report.
You haven't checked in since before you left your last location. I
wouldn't even know that you'd moved if not for the fact that I can
feel your position.

There is
nothing to report. All is as you indicated it would be. I have
continued to plant the seeds we discussed, and now just await your
order to bring them to fruition. Besides, reporting has become more
dangerous given my current surroundings.

I thought
you weren't scared of my kind.

I'm not, but
despite their inability to kill me, them finding my communications to
you would be…inconvenient.

Very well.
You have permission to implement the next stage of my plan. Make them
wish that they'd never been born.

The being
smiled as Puppeteer's influence receded back to the furthest reaches
of its mind. This was going to be particularly enjoyable.

Alec Graves
The Socorro Motel
Tucson, Arizona

Grayson was
just as good as his word. He arrived within hours of our phone call,
and then after reporting in to me, he retreated to one of the spare
rooms we'd rented in the motel and went to sleep.

He was an odd
individual, but it went beyond this taciturn manner. He seemed made
up of intense flashes of emotions that disappeared as quickly as they
arrived. Given just how useful his power made him, I was more than
ready to overlook that particular oddity though—especially with
how rare it was for him to let his flashes of emotion override his
normal, steady manner.

Grayson had
been the easy part of the last twenty-four hours. I'd made no secret
of our efforts to bring him on board, so there was no reason to
conceal his arrival from any of our people. Vicki and the rest of
Shawn's people were a whole different matter.

Shawn hadn't
explicitly told me that our alliance would be over if I allowed the
rest of my people to know that Vicki and the rest of her fellows were
in town, but the implication was clear. In one sense, the individuals
who'd flown here from Chicago were completely expendable. If it
became common knowledge that they'd taken part in my efforts against
the Coun'hij, then Ulrich—and even Shawn—could disavow
their actions, but I knew full well that neither of the top dogs in
Chicago wanted to lose the services of so many hybrids all at once.
They especially didn't want to lose Vicki—which was a big part
of the reason that I'd asked for her.

I didn't like
leaving the rest of my people all by themselves, but once I received
a text from Shawn indicating that his people had arrived, I slipped
away from my RV and drove over to the motel where Vicki and the rest
had set up shop. It was less than three miles from where my command
RV was parked, but that didn't provide a terrible amount of
reassurance—not given just how much could go wrong in the
slightly less than ten minutes it would take me to cross the distance
back to my people.

Vicki met me at
the door to my SUV, appearing out of the darkness like she'd
teleported there.

"That's
quite the trick—are you going to tell me how you do it?"

She shook her
head at me, obviously biting her tongue, but that didn't do anything
to hide her scent, which made sure that I knew just exactly how
unhappy she was to be there.

"My brief
didn't include anything about revealing the secrets of my pack, Mr.
Graves. I've been commanded to come down here and assist you, and
that's exactly what I'll do, but I won't go one millimeter beyond
what is specified in my brief."

"Okay,
maybe it would be helpful to understand what's included in your
brief—you know, just so that we can avoid any
misunderstandings."

"I brought
along a complete copy of our intelligence briefs and current force
estimates for the area. I'm to provide you with that information and
then serve as your bodyguard as much as is possible while remaining
out of sight where your people are concerned. In extreme situations
I'm allowed to reveal myself and the presence of my people if it is
required in order to preserve your life, but other than that, I'm to
maintain my pack's official position of neutrality."

"Thank
you, that's very helpful. I have to admit that is about what I
expected. I'm not going to lie and say that it doesn't complicate
things for me, but at this point I don't have any other choice but to
accept Shawn's terms. Can I see those intelligence files?"

Vicki nodded.
"Right this way."

I followed her
into her motel room and started thumbing through the thick stack of
paper that she handed me. It took me less than five minutes to find
what I was looking for. The file on the estimated positions and
numbers of werewolves in the area was just as detailed as the
information I was used to receiving from Jack. I read through the
file twice, matched it up with the map of the area that I was
carrying around inside of my head, and then dropped the file on
Vicki's bed.