Plastic Smile (Russell's Attic Book 4) (14 page)

“I swear to you this is serious.” Simon’s voice was so intense it shook. “Something happened, didn’t it?”

I was about to mock the ridiculous vagueness of his question until Rio answered, “Yes.”

“I’m standing right here,” I said.

“We need to talk,” said Simon to Rio. “As soon as possible. Now.”

Rio didn’t say anything, but he turned his head a fraction back toward Simon and then swept out the door, his duster swirling as he left. Simon took the invitation and hustled to catch up. None of us tried to stop them.

I considered following, but Rio would be able to lose me.

“I think we might be out of our league,” murmured Checker.

“You want to know what I think?” I said, whirling around to them. “I think every single fucking one of you needs to stop messing with my life. Whatever the two of
them
are on about, you three are ten times worse. I
told
you—”

“You ain’t the only one who was in danger,” Arthur cut in. “We didn’t know what this guy would do.”

“So what was your plan? Keep him locked up here forever?”

“Well, we hadn’t figured that out yet,” Pilar said. Checker glared at her. “What? We hadn’t!”

“If someone can manipulate minds, you’re always going to second-guess what you do with them,” Checker pointed out, in his I’m-trying-to-sound-reasonable voice. “For the record, we kicked ass kidnapping a psychic. It took some ingenuity. A little respect might be in order.”

“Right now you’re lucky I’m not pitching you out a window,” I said. “Every single one of you is on my shit list.”

“We were just worried about you,” Pilar said.

“And ourselves,” added Checker. “Don’t worry, we didn’t try to interrogate him about anything that—about you, or anything that would bother you, or, uh, anyone else.” His eyes darted at Arthur. By “anyone else” he definitely meant Rio. “But having this guy out there following you? Poking in on all of us? Acting like he has some kind of interest? Look at the life you lead, Cas. You can’t ignore something like that. The fact that you were willing to is—it’s suspect.”

“So just the presence of a psychic turns you all against me,” I said. “He doesn’t even have to do anything.”

They all shifted uncomfortably.

“You might think I’m a weak-minded idiot, but these guys can’t get to Rio,” I said. “Whatever he says to do about Simon, you listen.”

“It ain’t about being weak-minded,” Arthur tried to argue. “Dawna got me doing all sorts of—”

“Whatever Rio says to do, you listen,” I repeated. “And don’t you
ever
go behind my back like this again. Not unless you have concrete, iron-clad evidence I’m being manipulated. I was in perfect possession of my faculties when I said to
stop
looking into Simon,
and you did it anyway. Don’t feed me that line about thinking the rest of you were in danger, either, because that would necessitate one of you actually having to be
in danger
from him. I was the only fucking person he talked to.”

“We don’t know that—” Checker tried.

I glowered at him.

“Cas,” Pilar said soberly. “Whether that’s true or not—and you might be right—but it doesn’t change us all being super worried about this. Worried for you,
and
worried for us. You can’t blame us.”

Even if she was right, I wasn’t about to admit it. “I sure as hell can,” I said.

Chapter 13

Rio and
Simon came back in. Simon was pale, and his arms were wrapped around his body as if something had scared him badly. I hoped that something was Rio.

God, I was furious at everybody right now.

Well, except Rio.

“Cas,” said Rio. “Please allow this man to read you.”

And there went the last person I didn’t want to punch in the face.

“
What?”
I exploded.

“It has been brought to my attention that Dawna Polk’s attack on you several years ago may have been more harmful than we knew at the time.”

The reference to Dawna Polk shook me. “I’m
fine,”
I insisted. “Why would this guy have anything to do with all that?”

“As I believe you have already deduced, he is like her,” said Rio.

“Which is why I’d like very much to smash his head in for following me,” I said. “Only he won’t let me.”

“Cas,” said Rio. “I do not believe him a threat.”

“Rio—”

“Besides which,” he continued, “he could already have examined you without your permission, and has refrained. I do not like him, but he is no threat.”

I was suddenly acutely embarrassed Arthur, Checker, and Pilar were in the room.
You were the one who said you’d go with whatever Rio suggested,
a voice reminded me mockingly.

But I hadn’t expected
this.

“Rio,” I said. “I don’t understand.”

He looked down at me, his expression unreadable. “Trust me.”

It was weird. I’d never had Rio ask that of me before. I
did
trust him, but…

I looked back at Checker. He ducked his face away.

“Wait,” said Pilar.

Rio turned to her, very slowly, the way a mountain might reposition itself before it falls on someone. Pilar swallowed and backed up a step. “I just. I wanted to ask, um—why can’t Cas have an explanation? Why so, uh, so mysterious?” Her back hit the wall, and she swallowed again. Rio hadn’t moved.

He turned back to me. “Cas. Trust me.”

Fuck.

“Fine,” I said. I turned away from Checker and Pilar and Arthur and looked Simon square in the face. “You do anything other than what Rio says you can, I will fucking end you.” I ignored the fact that I had no idea either how I would know he was overstepping or how I would make good on such a promise.

Trust me,
Rio had said.

Simon inhaled deeply, and his eyes drilled into mine. Intense. Liquid. The weight of a thousand years in his gaze. I tried to break the stare and couldn’t—

A cottage in the woods, a desert sun, cold and darkness. Stars, pain, danger, a crowded city, racing through the night until our lungs burned—

“Rio,” I choked out.

Rio’s arm whipped around Simon’s throat, and he levered the other man around and slammed him face-first into the cement floor of the warehouse like he was pile driving him. Then he stood over him.

“Cas,” said Checker behind me, urgently. “Cas, are you all right?”

I didn’t answer. Strong hands gripped my shoulders supportively. Arthur.

“Cas?” ventured Pilar.

Simon coughed, curling on the floor. He didn’t seem to be able to form words. “Done?” said Rio.

“What—the hell—” Simon spat out. Drops of blood sprinkled the ground. Rio must have busted his nose against it.

“Walk with me,” said Rio.

“Rio, I want to know—” I started, but he shook his head.

“Trust me, Cas.”

Simon pushed himself to his feet. None of us helped him.

“What the
bloody
hell was that!” he screeched at Rio. Flecks of blood spattered his shirt as he shouted.

“Did you see what you needed to?” asked Rio.

“You don’t lay hands on me, you hear? You do not—”

Rio drove out one arm and grabbed Simon’s throat. His words cut off in a strangled choke.

Rio didn’t even try to push him backward, just stood there with his hand on the man’s neck like a vice, almost blandly. Simon pawed at his arm, but it was like pushing against an iron bar. His face went pale. His eyes flickered to me for a moment.

I said nothing. I trusted Rio.

Simon’s movements started to lose articulation. His hands fell. The lids of his eyes got heavy.

Rio let go.

Simon fell again, gasping, his hands shaking a few inches from his bruised throat. “Good,” Rio said. “You passed.”

What?
“Rio?” I said.

“Cas,” he said. “This is important. Did you feel any urge to stop me?”

“What? No. Grind his fucking face into the ground.”

“Good,” Rio said again.

“You—you—” Simon’s voice rasped. “
You—”

Rio raised an eyebrow.

Simon stopped trying to talk. He pushed himself up, still coughing, and barely staggered upright before he wheeled to find the wall and braced his hands against it, trying to breathe. Eventually he slid back to the ground and sat.

Rio waited. I followed his lead.

Simon buried his face against his hands. “It’s bad,” he murmured.

Rio stiffened. Then he swept down, yanked Simon up by the elbow, and dragged them both outside again.

“Fuck,” Checker said weakly.

It’s bad.
What did that mean?

“He was testing him, wasn’t he?” Pilar said. “Seeing if he would get Cas to, uh—interfere or something? Save his life.”

That did seem like something Rio would do.

“What did he mean by ‘it’s bad?’” she asked.

“Pilar,” growled Checker. “
None of us know.”

He’d said that for my benefit, I was sure. We might not know, but we could suspect.

Two and a half years ago, Dawna Polk had fucked me up.

Well, wasn’t this fun.

Checker must have been thinking along the same lines. “Doesn’t this invalidate their deal or whatever? She was supposed to—supposed to—”

“Put everything back where she found it?” I said, with a heavy dose of sarcasm.

“Yeah,” he said quietly.

“You mean as part of the ‘she doesn’t come after you, you don’t go after her’ thing?” Pilar asked.

“It was more like ‘she doesn’t come after us, Rio doesn’t go after her,’” I corrected. She’d beaten us handily. Of course, we’d beaten her, too. The reminder gave me a jolt of good cheer.

Until I remembered what our victory had cost the world. I thought of Pilar’s cousin and brother, and wondered if she would have agreed with the choice we’d made.

Maybe we should never have gone up against Pithica at all. So what if they murdered a few innocent people every so often? After all, so did Rio. So did I.

“Well, if this guy’s like Dawna, maybe he can, uh—fix you, or something,” Pilar ventured.

I took it as a mark in the “better person” column that I didn’t punch her. She quailed back from my expression anyway, muttering, “Or not.”

Arthur was markedly silent. I avoided his eyes. Dawna had fucked with him, too.

Rio and Simon swept back in. Or rather, Rio swept, and Simon stumbled at his side. Rio still hadn’t given up the grip on his elbow. “Cas,” Rio said.

“Yeah.”

“How is your sanity?”

I choked. “My
what?”

“I told you,” said Simon, “even if she hasn’t noticed it yet, this is a problem—”

“Cas,” Rio said again.

I shifted my weight from foot to foot.
Failing,
was the honest answer.

I wasn’t sure anyone but Arthur suspected that yet. Checker and Pilar might know something was wrong, might know I had a defunct memory with more shreds tearing through all the time, but they didn’t know those shreds were ripping me to pieces. Didn’t know I was losing to them.

“Cas?” Checker asked, and Jesus, it sounded like he was about to cry.

“What does this guy want?” I said to Rio.

“To help you,” Rio answered.

“Help me how?”

“You know what he does,” Rio said. “Cas. You need assistance.”

Stay with him. He’ll help you.

“You want him to go in my head,” I said. “You want him to…to what, rearrange me?”

“You aren’t well,” Simon said earnestly. “It’s all—it’s going wrong. Please. Let me fix it.”

“It,” I echoed. “You mean my brain. Me.”

Simon winced. Rio simply met my eyes, his gaze level.

“No,” I said. “
No.”
The world was collapsing around me, the warehouse too cold and too empty and too full of watching eyes.

“Cas,” Rio said. “As I said, I do not like this man, but this may be the only way.”

“You have to understand.” Simon’s too-earnest voice dug under my skin, sprouted parasites and turned me inside out until I was no longer me. I wanted to shoot him. I wanted to run from him. “Cassandra—Cas—this isn’t going to stop. I saw enough to know—this is going to—it’s going to kill you eventually, if you don’t let me help you.”

“Then it kills me,” I said. My voice felt disconnected, already dead.

“Cassandra,” Simon gasped, and it was almost worth everything to see him so crushed by that.

This was my life. My mind. Not Rio’s, and sure as fuck not Simon’s.

Dying was preferable to ceding control to this man.

Chapter 14

She won’t
last,
predicted a woman’s voice.

It’s flawed, but I believe—

This will work. We’ll fight them. We’ll save ourselves.

I ignored them all.

I stole Arthur’s SUV and drove back to the apartment where we’d been making the fake cell signal boxes.

I can’t save me. Neither can you. Nobody can.

What do you want me to do, disappear?

No. Die.

I loaded them all up, cardboard box upon cardboard box filled with the things. My compact little devices that would deploy my program stealthily, silently, until it was everywhere.

“They’re everywhere,” someone said, and started laughing. Cold filled my mouth and I tried to scream, but only gulped it into my lungs—

I stacked the final load into the SUV and slammed the door. If I did one fucking thing before I fulfilled Simon’s predictions and went insane and died, it would be this. I would save LA, and make that my fucking legacy.

I’d done the calculations: hitting everywhere I needed to would take me more than a hundred hours, even if I mostly avoided bad traffic. But that was okay. A hundred hours was nothing. I was perfectly okay with not seeing anyone for a week, anyway.

Arthur tried to call me, but I didn’t pick up. He was probably pissed I’d left them alone with Rio—well, both Rio and a telepath. But I trusted Rio not to attack them, and I’d run out of patience for their squeamishness about him. As for Simon…

Cassandra, this is the best way. I only want to help you.

Well, I’d told them we’d let Rio decide. Rio could fucking decide.

He clearly didn’t think Simon was a threat, anyway, if he was telling me to let him—