Supernormal (19 page)
The moment of silence that followed was sickening.
Cam stood.
“Don’t,” Brody said.
Cam looked at Brody for a moment, then got some napkins and cleaned up—some of the coffee had spilled during their conversation. It had snaked along the table and was starting to drip on the floor.
“Don’t,” Brody repeated.
Cam shook his head. “It’s not your choice to make. It’s his.”
“And you know exactly what choice he’ll make if you tell him. So don’t. It’s exactly what Proom wants. Then he’ll have his hands on both of them, because if you think for one second he’ll hand her over then you’re a fucking idiot.” Brody caught Cam’s eye, and then Diana’s. “Don’t tell him.”
“What would you do?” Cam demanded. “If it was Ashley? If it was Meg?”
“If it was Ashley, she could damn well get herself out of that situation,” Brody fired back. “And if it was Meg—I sure as hell wouldn’t give them what they want. You can’t trust him.”
“No, you can’t,” Diana interrupted, planting her palms on the table. “But that’s not the issue here. Because Danny is going to find out one way or another, whether or not it’s from us. Proom will make sure he does. The question is not should we tell Danny; it’s whether Danny should hear this from Proom, or from his friends.”
Danny was alone at his house. He listened quietly as Brody told him what Proom had said, and why it would be a very bad idea to go along with it. Danny agreed that it would be a bad idea, and thanked them for coming over. But Cam kept seeing
Danny’s fingers, dialing a cell phone.
“Whatever he says, they’re not going to give her back,” Brody said.
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes, we do,” Tyler insisted. “They’ve kidnapped two people so far. That we know of. You can’t trust them. You can’t trust anything they say.”
Cam watched as Brody put a comforting hand on Danny’s shoulder, but Danny pushed up off the sofa and crossed the room, away from them.
“Now, I’m here because Dr. Mac and Cam insisted you had a right to know. And because I trust you not to do anything stupid,” Brody continued. “And, Tyler, I trust you not to let him do anything stupid.”
“I won’t,” Tyler promised.
Danny didn’t respond, but he thanked them for warning him and held the door open for them when they left.
Two hours later, he sent Cam a text.
Cam met him at the corner of Cayos and Papaya, near the main road out of town. He expected Danny on foot, but he came in his car, and left the engine running and the car door open as he hurried over to talk to Cam.
“You called them,” Cam said.
“I called them. They said to meet in Griffith Park at nine. They’ll bring Liz, I’ll bring me, we’ll do a swap.”
“You trust them?” Cam asked carefully.
“No. But—they hand Liz back, good. She’s there, she’s back, she’s fine. They don’t, then, they’re taking me to the same place, right? Maybe if I can see her—see inside. Maybe I can think of something. A way to get us out of there, I don’t know. I’m a superhero, I should be able to do
something
. And they have Ian, right? Maybe they have other people who don’t want to be there. Who can do things. I want you to come with me. Not like that,” Danny said quickly. “They said to meet at nine, so I’m thinking we go eight, eight-thirty, and you get out and hide in the bushes. They won’t even know you’re there. If they do bring Liz, who knows what state she’s going to be in. She’ll need help. She’ll need someone to bring her back.”
“Tyler?” Cam asked.
“Had to use the bathroom some time. And the second he sees I’m gone he’s going to he’d rat me out to Brody. Or the chief. Both, probably. When I called they told me—they’re watching them. If they leave, if they come with me, they’ll hurt Liz.” Danny glanced anxiously at his cell. “Please. If you’re going with me, we have to go now.”
Cam was already opening the passenger side door.
The drive was tense and quiet, and long enough that it went dark outside. It was pitch black in the park by the time Danny turned off the engine and started scouting for suitable foliage. “Can you climb a tree?”
“I can figure it out.” Cam went to unbuckle his seatbelt and saw that his hands were shaking. “This was a bad idea, you know that? I can’t…see myself. If I’m involved, I can’t see what’s going to happen.”
“All you need to see is Liz.” Danny’s grip tightened on the steering wheel.
“We should have told Brody.”
Danny craned his head back and forth, fighting to peer into the dark. “I told Whitney to wait ‘til nine-thirty and then call Brody and tell him I did that thing he really didn’t want me to do. But they said to come alone or they’d hurt Liz. Besides, Proom knows Brody, they’ll be watching him.”
“You believe them?” Cam asked.
“I believe they’d hurt Liz. I believe they wouldn’t care if they hurt anyone.” Danny nodded to a huge tree stretching out overhead. “That one looks good, you think?”
Cam reached for the door handle. “Let’s just hope if I fall, it’s on one of them.”
A flashlight flared to light outside his window, and Cam only just managed to keep from jumping out of his skin. Danny and Cam looked at each other. “They said nine,” Danny said.
“I guess they had the same idea you did,” Cam replied.
There was a polite rap on Danny’s window. Danny glanced at Cam, then unbuckled his seatbelt and went to get out of the car. Cam followed.
There were men. Cam couldn’t count how many. They were dressed in black, and had guns with flashlights on them.
“Mr. Evans?” one asked.
“Where’s Liz?” Danny demanded.
“You were told to come alone.”
“He’s nobody. He’s here for Liz. He’s going to take her to the hospital. Where is she? I want to see her now.”
One of the other men tapped the first man’s shoulder. He’d been flipping through something on his phone, and he held it out now for the first man to see.
Then he looked up at Cam. “Camron Scott?”
“Run!” Danny shouted, shoving at the man closest to him. “Fucking
run,
Cam!”
They tried to run. They didn’t get very far. It was pathetic how far they didn’t get before they were caught and dragged back and slammed up against the hood of the car.
“Daniel Evans. Camron Scott. You are hereby conscripted under the Xavier Act of 2005, Paragraph 4, Subparagraph E. You have the right to food, housing, reasonable health care, and fair treatment as listed in Paragraphs 12 and 13. You have the right to object to conscription at this time.”
“I
object
,” Cam bit off.
“Your objection will be noted in your file,” the man said. He took out a small pouch, unzippered it, and removed a hypodermic needle.
“People are going to wonder what happened to us,” Cam said. “They’ll come for us.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Cam saw one of the black-swathed men pass another one some money. “They always say that,” the man told him.
Cam felt the small sting as he watched the needle go in, and the odd sense of pressure as the plunger push down. She’ll come for you, he told himself. She’ll find you. Consciousness swirled into a tiny pinprick, and winked out.
“Cam’s been taken.”
Ashley was sitting on the bed when Brody came in and said the words she’d known he’d say. They’d been thumping away in her chest all night, as each tick of the clock scraped against her spine. Still, it took her a second to…process, and understand.
She wasn’t angry now. It was strange. She should’ve felt angry. At Proom, at herself, at…everything. Ashley knew she was angry, on some level, but that was so deep down she couldn’t feel it. It felt like a dream, in that strange way dreams could be both clear and blurry. Everything was new, and simple, and her head swam trying to think about it.
Ashley pushed herself to the edge and put her feet on the floor. The wood was warped and smooth under her feet. Brody built this house, she knew. Knew, but never thought about. He’d come here, he’d told her, to find some peace and quiet, to find the ocean and a place where he could get away from all the ugly thoughts and ugly things he’d done. Things he never talked about, at least not with her, though sometimes she came back from the beach to smell Meg through the open window and catch the quiet voices, and she’d back away again. He’d found this place, and built a home here, and found room in it for Ashley. She’d never thought about it before, not really. She’d been selfish and angry. She’d never thanked him.
Brody had already told Meg. Ashley knew that. She could hear Meg downstairs. She could hear the sobs.
“Proom,” Ashley said.
“Gone,” Brody told her. “Left late last afternoon, not long after coffee.”
As much as she could feel, Ashley felt surprised. She wasn’t screaming. Not out loud. “How—?” She didn’t manage to finish it. If Proom was still in town, it would’ve been simple. She could have just wrapped her hands around his throat and slammed his head into a wall, again and again, until he told her where they were. Without him—
“I may have an answer to that.”
“How?” Ashley’s mouth asked.
Brody was watching her closely. “You know how this will end.” His voice was hard and blunt. “It’ll mean going there, wherever it is. It’ll mean facing him. You don’t have to go; I can take care of this. Ashley,” Brody said, and she looked up at him. His expression surprised her; he didn’t often let people see inside. “Let me take care of this for you.”
Ashley flexed her feet against the wood of the floor again. Her place. Her home.
She stood, and was surprised at how little effort it took. “No.”
Brody stopped her. “Are you sure?”
Ashley nodded.
He stared down at her for another moment, then abruptly turned towards the door. “We’re going now.”
Meg was in the living room, sitting hard on the couch, fingers clawing into her long red hair. She looked up when they came down the stairs, and Ashley had to look away from the expression on her face. Brody didn’t stop, but headed straight to the hall closet, coming back with two large black totes and a metal case under his arm.
Meg stood, swiping at her cheeks. “What is that?” And, when he didn’t answer. “Brody. What are—what are you doing?”
Brody let go of the black totes; they thunked heavily on the floor. Ashley drifted over as he set the metal case on the kitchen table and popped the hinges. Secure in padded foam was an injection gun and what looked like a small tablet. “We’re going to pay Proom a visit.”
“You don’t know where he
is
—”
“We’ll take care of it.”
“‘We?’” Meg echoed. She looked over at Ashley, and there was less anger and more pain and fear. “No—no, you can’t. He’ll—he’ll be at that damn place by now, you
can’t
go back.”
Ashley’s legs carried her over to Meg with jerky marionette movements, and she didn’t understand what she was doing until her arms were wrapped around Meg. Ashley wondered what it had cost her to say that. To think of Ashley and want her safe, even if she could help Cam. Meg’s arms came around her, tight, and rocked her back and forth, and Ashley was aware of…gratitude for the thick blanket of Novocain running through her. If she could’ve thought about this moment, if she could have felt it, she would break.
And, because she sensed that, Ashley eased herself away. Meg sniffed and nodded. “I’m going with you.”
Brody pulled the tablet free of the foam. “No, you’re not.”
“I am going with you.” There was a sob in Meg’s voice. “You are not—you are not going to
leave
me here, you’re not going to tell me to sit here and
wait
and do
nothing
.”
“I don’t have time to argue with you, and you can’t help.” He tossed the tablet to Ashley, and she caught it without thinking. It flared to life at her touch. It showed a map of the western half of the States, in cool electronic shades of blue and gray, and…dots. Two dots, glowing up from the screen, and every few seconds they would
ping
. They were labeled
Evans
and
Scott
.
Brody hefted one of the black bags onto his shoulder. Ashley grabbed the other. It was very heavy, but she still beat him to the car.
Brody’s pre-flight check took some time. He was thorough, though Ashley could smell the nerves and urgency radiating off of him. Ashley spent the time in the front seat, buckled in and ready to go, cradling the tablet in her lap, living for the next
ping
.
Brody had just swung himself up into the cockpit and turned the engine over when the
pings
stopped and the dots winked out.
She should have felt something. She should’ve felt angry. She was so good at it, she’d had so much practice. But she still couldn’t feel anything; she wasn’t really there to feel it. The part of her that felt things was tucked away inside, safe and screaming.
Brody confirmed that the tablet really had lost the signals, then turned the engine off and fished in his back pocket for his phone. “This isn’t unexpected,” he told her, dialing.
“No,” she said. Ashley watched her hands turn off the tablet and carefully tuck it away.
“Proom had to know I’d try it. And I knew he’d know, but I hoped that we’d get a little more time. I hoped we be able to get up in the fucking air and maybe even get a fucking direction—”
“I could go back,” Ashley said. Brody looked at her, phone halfway to his ear. She could hear the tinny ringing of the other line through the speaker. “Proom wants me back. I could call him and tell him…that I want to go back.” She didn’t have very much trouble with that last part.
“I’d never let you do that,” Brody said. “I told you. We go there together, we leave together. Besides,” he added, “Proom wouldn’t let you through the door.”
Something dangerously close to anger flashed in her. “He wants me—”
“And he knows you wouldn’t go back on your own. He’d know you were after your friends. He’d take you somewhere else, or he’d put you on ice. He wouldn’t let you through that door still moving.”
“I can’t do
nothing
,” Ashley said, and had to make herself stop because she felt cracks.
Brody’s mouth pressed into a grim line. He pressed the phone to his ear when someone picked up, their, “Good evening, Sal’s Shwarma
”
perky even through the small speaker. “Brody, J.L.”
“
Could I get your order number?”
“LJX-V9. I need to talk to Cole.”