Inescapable (Talented Saga #7) (7 page)

Nor were the countless nights in random
hotel rooms around the world when I’d tried contacting Talia using
my mental abilities. Tried, and failed. Either the drugs on Vault
made mental communication impossible, or my girlfriend had
purposely blocked my attempts. Eventually, the anguish of being
separated from Talia—particularly when I desperately needed her
support—was too much to keep getting my hopes up, and I stopped
trying to reach her.

Guilt made my chest tighten.

Yes, I needed Talia. But she needed me, too.
Particularly now. Why had I stopped trying? Why had I given up so
easily?

It doesn’t matter now. Tomorrow you will see
her. Tomorrow you can apologize for being such a crappy
boyfriend.

As a reward for my good behavior, and a
bribe for an additional peace rally on the night before the vote,
Victoria had moved heaven and earth to get me a visit with Talia.
Though it would be a supervised meeting, I didn’t care. I just
wanted to see her, to know that was she okay.

Finally setting my eyes on
Talia—the
real
Talia, not some image I’d conjured in my head—would be enough
to get me through until her release. Whenever that would
be.

Penny’s hand was still resting on my
shoulder, but her mind was no longer linked with mine, so she was
unaware of the dark turn my thoughts had taken. Patting her hand, I
sent a wave of gratitude her way. The small reprieve she’d given me
was more helpful than she knew.

Over and over again throughout our
diplomatic travels, Talia’s best friend had provided me with those
calming waves that kept me moving forward. Though she was no
substitute for Talia, Penny’s presence had proved to be a total
lifesaver.

Miles turned to face me again, his dark eyes
sympathetic and expression grim.

“
Game time, buddy,” he
said.

“
Game time,” I echoed
hollowly. With a deep breath, I steeled myself for the mayhem that
was about to descend upon my handlers and me.

Just this one last time
before seeing Talia
, I reminded
myself.
You can handle this.

When I emerged from the helicopter, five
UNITED agents converged on me like a swarm of bees surrounding
their queen. The reason for the over-the-top security was twofold:
to protect me from angry norms who would have preferred my head on
a spike rather than my shoulders; and also to protect the norms
from me, in the event I flipped my shit.

Brushing by the other agents, Miles appeared
by my side. He nudged me in the ribs and gave me a knowing look.
“Smile,” he hissed. “That’s your adoring public down there. After
today, after you get through this, it’s back to the islands. Just
keep that in mind for the next hour.”

“
Easy for you to say.
You’re not the one they want to put in their pocket and take home
like a souvenir, or the one they want to string up by his toes and
flay alive,” I grumbled.

“
Yeah, well, that’s why
UNITED picked you, kid. For better or worse, you inspire people to
do all sorts of crazy shit.”

After taking an elevator down to the lobby
of the UNITED building, I plastered on the best smile I could
muster, knowing full well that it didn’t reach my eyes. Nodding to
indicate I was ready for the guards to open the doors, I slammed my
mental barriers into place, effectively cutting off the flood of
emotions from the crowds outside.

We began to make our way from the building
to the stage in an adjacent plaza, my protection detail a
synchronized unit that moved as one. A wide path had been roped off
for us, but the surging crowd pushed in on the barriers from both
sides, all straining to catch a closer look at me.

The throngs of people at
the New York rally were no different from the crowds in Vienna,
Bangkok, Rome, Alberta, Dubai, and numerous other cities around the
world. People—norms, Talented, and even some ballsy Created—came
out in droves to hear me speak.
Me.
Like I was a political candidate on the campaign
trail.

Though I absolutely was not a politician, I
was sort of campaigning, in a sense; I was soliciting votes on
behalf of my people. The Coexistence Treaty was up for renewal, and
it was my job to convince the norms that both the Talented and the
Created were capable of safely continuing to live among them.

Though “Poster Child” captured my role, I’d
been given an official, pedantic title, too: Diplomatic Relations
Officer for the Expansion of Goodwill and Understanding. Needless
to say, I didn’t use it very often. I couldn’t even go by a cool
acronym, because DROEGU wasn’t a word in any language. I’d looked
it up, just to be sure.

“
We love you, Erikson!” a
girl shouted from the crowd, grabbing my attention.

Erikson was my real first
name, while Erik was a nickname I’d been using for as long I could
remember. Now that I was
so
important—also famous, hot shit, or whatever
other snide descriptor Miles offered up —Victoria insisted that I
use my formal, given name in public. Even after almost a month, I
wasn’t quite used to it.

I glanced in the direction the girl’s voice
had come from, more out of habit than actual curiosity. Making eye
contact with the people near me was a rookie move—it was much
easier and friendlier to bustle past under the pretense of being
busy or late, rather than dismiss or ignore the attendees—and I
instantly regretted it.

A guy about my age in the
front of the crowd held a digital sign as large as his wingspan.
The words
Marry me, Erikson
alternated with
Powerfuls Deserve Praise, Not Persecution
in green and red flashing letters. When he saw me looking,
the guy began jumping up and down and screaming my name as though I
was a member of the latest pop music group. Even without the
Australian national flag emblazoned on his t-shirt, I would have
known his country of origin by his sign—“Powerfuls” was the
Australian equivalent of “Talented.”

Declarations of love were, as I’d quickly
learned, par for the course at these rallies. Girls and guys who
knew nothing about me as a person suddenly announced that they
loved me, wanted to marry me, and asked to have my little
dark-haired, turquoise eyed babies. Yes, signs in the crowd
actually requested impregnation. To say that the whole dog-and-pony
show was overwhelming was putting it mildly.

“
Just smile, kid,” Miles
reminded me again as he followed my gaze toward the sea of
gawkers.

His gifts didn’t include telepathy, and I
wasn’t projecting my thoughts onto him; Miles just knew me that
well. After spending eighteen hours together every day for the last
month, he damn well should have.

“
Demon spawn! God hates
you! The bible doesn’t speak of your kind, you’re an
abomination!”

This chant and others like it were staples,
too. Religious extremists, anti-Talented organizations, and hate
groups with no other agenda than hating on people dissimilar to
themselves came out in droves to yell profanities and slurs. As if
that weren’t bad enough, they also threw everything and anything
they could get their hands on at me. Just yesterday, a rotted onion
meant for me exploded on Miles instead. It had taken him three
showers and two gallons of tomato juice to eradicate the smell.

“
Let’s pick up the pace,
Agent Kelley,” one of my bodyguards called, his eyes never straying
from the people clamoring to get closer to me.

“
Whatever you say, Dan the
Man,” I responded.

His face betrayed no emotion, though I knew
he hated when I called him that. It was sort of the point.

Miles elbowed me in the ribs again, and then
spoke directly into my ear. Even then, he still needed to shout to
be heard over the crowd. “It’s not their fault, kid. Cut them some
slack.”

My subtle annoyance at being saddled with
protection detail had turned into obvious resentment over time. I
wasn’t a helpless child. I wasn’t a weak man. I was a trained
assassin. A solider who’d been to war and survived unspeakable
torture. Not one of my bodyguards could say the same. And yet,
UNITED thought them more capable of protecting me than I was.

“
I’ll make you deal,
Miles,” I said. “When you stop calling me ‘kid,’ I’ll start
addressing the goon squad by their real names.”

“
Dan the Man it is,” Miles
pronounced.

Ahead, the makeshift stage came into view.
From a white awning, the flags of each member country of the Joint
Nations flapped in the breeze. UNITED’s emblem was emblazed on a
backdrop to the rear of the stage. Ten chairs sat to the right and
left of the podium, with a place card on each seat cushion to
indicate whose important ass was to sit there.

If the crowd lining the tarmac was
impressive, the one in front of the stage was downright
awe-inspiring. A sea of heads stretched as far as the eye could see
in the enormous open space of Rockefeller Center. Signs and flags
rose high above the throngs, showing off the bearer’s support for
one organization or another.

When we’d covered about half the distance to
the stage, steady movement in my peripheral vision caught my
attention. I glanced to the right, and felt my mouth curve into a
genuine smile. A small girl, roughly waist-high to those around
her, had ducked under the rope barrier blocking off our walkway. I
was the only one who’d noticed her so far, probably because she
stayed just on my side of the rope, instead of straying too far
into the no-fly zone.

When she turned her head from side to side
to take in the spectacle before her, sunlight highlighted threads
of pure gold in her chocolate ringlets. From where she scampered
fifteen feet ahead of us, I could see her golden irises when they
landed on me. Smooth, tanned skin dotted with a smattering of
freckles covered a bone structure that was almost too perfect to be
real. She raised one slender arm and waved, a smile as dazzling as
any I’d ever seen lighting her face.

“
I love you, Erik,” she
called in a melodic voice that, against all odds, reached my
ears.

Reflexively, I smiled and waved back.

Miles was the first of my entourage to
follow my gaze. The others quickly joined him, each bodyguard
dismissing the little girl as harmless the moment they saw her.

“
I want to say hello,” I
told no one in particular.

“
I don’t think that is a
good idea,” Dan the Man declared. “We should keep
moving.”

Protocol strictly forbade interactions with
the crowd, and Victoria had coached me on remaining polite, but
distant. She was afraid a fanatic might assault me, either
maliciously or sexually. I wasn’t as concerned with the haters; I
was confident in my ability to hold my own in a fight. It was more
the sexual advances that made me cautious—Talia was currently a
model prisoner, but if she got word that someone made a move on me,
she might well sink Vault to avenge my honor.

I smiled. At one time, her fierce jealousy,
though not entirely her own fault, had been a point of contention
in our relationship. Tamped down, it was actually pretty hot.

“
She’s a kid. If he wants
to ruffle her curls, let him.” Miles’s gruff voice pulled me from
daydreams of my girlfriend.

My gaze refocused on the little girl,
causing an almost comedic double take. Atop the shoulders of the
small girl was not the cherubic face of the beautiful child I’d
seen just moments before. This face was older—that of a teenager,
at least. A wide-gauge ring with black dice on either end was
threaded through her nose like a bull, each die showing one
dot—snake eyes. Thick blue liner ringed her eyes, tails winging
from the corners towards her temples and punctuated with
rhinestones. The chocolate curls were still there, but spiky blue
bangs hung low on her forehead.

Then I blinked, and the little angelic face
was back.

“
You’re losing it, dude,” I
mumbled.

“
Say something, kid?” Miles
asked.

I cleared my throat. “Nah. Well, yes, I
did.” I turned to the other agent. “Look, Dan, I know it’s against
protocol, but like Miles said, she’s a harmless kid. Isn’t kissing
babies part of my job?”

A hand settled on my shoulder. “I don’t
know, Erik. We’re already behind schedule as it is,” Penny
said.

I sensed the hesitancy in her voice. She
cared about protocol as much as I did, which was not at all. I
lowered my mental shields and reached out to her.

“
What’s up?”
I sent.

“
I’m getting a weird vibe.
I can’t really describe it.”

“
From the kid?”
I asked, wondering if Penny and I had experienced
a shared delusional.

“
Yeah. No. I don’t know.
From that general area. Does that make sense?”

“
Make a decision, kid,”
Miles said. “I’m in charge here, and I’m making the call. You want
a photop with some rugrat, go for it. Just make it quick. Like the
girlie said, we’re already running late.”

Penny scoffed. Miles referred to her as
“girlie” just as he always called me “kid.” She wasn’t a fan of the
nickname.

“
Let’s—” I started to
say.

The child darted forward, her arms stretched
wide as if preparing to hug the first person she encountered.

My security detail moved to meet her advance
head-on, one cohesive unit of military force ready to pounce on a
harmless child.