Until It's You
Authors: C.B. Salem
UNTIL IT’S YOU
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Time in the apartment had, for several beats of Landon’s heart, come to a complete stop. The dull glow of the vid screen on the wall stayed a dull glow, the walls its unsuspecting canvas. He froze in his seat on the still-stiff organic leather couch he’d had delivered just a few weeks prior and watched Kristina’s face. It was still a struggle to comprehend what had just happened.
Only a few moments ago, she had been with him on the couch, underneath him, their situation temporarily forgotten. Even still, his blood pumped through his veins, his face flush from the flash of intimacy they’d shared hours earlier. The salt of her skin was still on his lips, the echo of her pulse in his fingers.
He wanted more—so much more than he’d had—but that had been put on hold. Everything had been put on hold by the call she’d received.
The call she'd answered.
He knew they were in a mess.
He
had dragged her into this mess, and now they were stuck in this safe house while someone who was after them both prowled the city. Someone Kristina wouldn't have escaped from had it not been for a lot of luck.
Then
where would he be?
To add to it, every fiber of him knew that the reason for this call was news that things had gotten worse.
But still, she could have just called back. They had been right
there
.
Instead, she’d answered.
Now she paced back and forth in the kitchen, talking on the comm she had bought from a 7-11 hours earlier. The kitchen’s off-white fluorescent light shone above her, the only one turned on in the entire apartment. From his perspective the scene looked like she was on a stage. Occasionally she would disappear behind the stretch of wall between the doorway and the pass-through window, and then she’d be there again, talking quietly. Her dirty blonde hair would sway with the movements of her head, her thin brows would arch, and he would want her so much it physically ached.
Why did she have to answer that call? He knew, and yet . . .
The expression on her soft features fell—her shoulders slumped, the corners of her mouth turned down—and a cold dread settled into his stomach. Then the world came back to life and time flooded forward as fast as he could handle, one moment after the next of saturated reality, his mind unable to do anything but try and keep up, flailing.
Of course she had answered.
Of course.
Their lives were in danger.
She brought the slim, dark blue device down to her side and walked into the living room, her face a stunned mask.
“Oh my god,” she said flatly, to the air as much as to him.
He shot up to his feet and what remained of his frustration faded away. “What happened?”
She took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling under the thin white fabric of her blouse. “That was my brother Kevin.”
“Is he okay?”
Another pause. Another deep breath. “He said his security company’s office just got raided by some gunmen. Tore the place apart. Cops are on the way by now but everyone’s out so they won’t find much.”
Landon’s throat went dry. This was his fault. Not just her, but her family too. All of it was his fault.
“But is he fine?” he asked quietly. “Did anyone get hurt?”
She nodded, scowl still in place. “Place got shot up but he’s fine. I guess he had an escape route planned for this kind of thing.”
“That’s smart.”
“Kevin’s pretty sharp.”
"Still, though. How did they get to him?"
"I don't know," she said, shaking her head slowly. Her eyes flicked into life. "What is the security situation like here?"
His head spun. "Here?
Nobody
knows about here, if that's what you mean. I kept it all to myself. It's just me and you."
"Are you sure? They got to Kevin."
"They got to you and then lashed out at him. Some simple searches will take care of that connection. Unless we got followed here, there's no way anyone knows about it. And we didn't get followed."
Something shifted in her again, and her eyes went down. "No . . ."
Landon held very still. That was not a good tone. Whatever was coming, it wasn’t good.
Her eyes glistened. “There's a bigger problem. Kevin said Tom is missing.”
Landon blinked and took a quick breath like he'd been punched in the gut. There wasn't much to say to that.
Her face had the holding-it-back expression of someone about to cry. “We’re both worried they went after him,” she said, her voice on edge but not tipping into sobs just yet. “Whoever ‘they’ is.”
He pressed his lips together and took a step toward her, to hold her. To support her. But she turned away. She hadn’t crumbled, and she wasn’t a person who crumbled easily. He could understand that. Admire it, even.
“He might have run away with the same suspicions I had,” he said, keeping his voice quiet and steady while he gave her the space she needed. “He could be fine.”
She shrugged, then shook her head and stared blankly at the wall. Second by second she appeared to be backing away from the edge of tears and into a personal cocoon that closed everything else out.
“He could,” she murmured.
Landon took a deep breath. She could stew on this for hours if he let her. The best thing he could do to support her would be not allowing her to do that.
“What do you want to do?”
She swiveled her eyes to his for a moment, then looked away. A shudder simmered over her body, swelling up to a boil.
“What the hell is the matter with these people?” she exploded. “And how the hell did me and my brothers get caught up in their stupid pile of shit? None of us even know anything!”
“I don’t know,” Landon said.
“It’s stupid,” she continued. “Stupid and incompetent. They’re grabbing for anything they can.”
“I think you’re right.”
Her eyes flashed. “This is your fault.”
His jaw clenched. She was right, of course. People just didn’t usually talk to him like that.
“I’m going to fix it,” he said steadily.
“These people are obviously desperate idiots, and you have no idea who they are! Excuse me for being skeptical that you’re going to ‘fix it.’"
She paused, bit her lip and shook her head. Landon's jaw clenched.
"Dragging me into a giant question mark is one thing," she continued. "But this is an active warzone of nonsense. And you’re giving me nothing but a list of people who might have some inkling of what you’ve been trying to do since this mess started. That's not exactly a roadmap for solving this!”
He stiffened. “I know I dragged you into this, and it disgusts me. The least I can do is everything I can to make it right.”
Her nostrils flared. “What’s that going to be? To start, even.”
He picked up the paper on the coffee table that contained the names of everyone who knew anything at all about Landon’s disappearance and Kristina looking for him. Waving it, he sat down on the couch.
“Come here,” he said, patting the seat next to him.
She froze and eyed him suspiciously.
“We’re going to make a plan tonight,” he said, his voice gaining an edge with every syllable. “Okay?”
“How can I trust you?” she said.
“Trust what? That I’m trying to help you?”
She threw her hands up. “Any of this? Do you realize how normal my life was yesterday? Or last week?”
Landon shook his head. “I’m sorry. I will say it a thousand times if I have to. Then I’m going to figure out who these assholes are and how I can ruin their lives.”
She stared at him, though not in shock. There was a fire in her eyes and yet she looked unsure of what to do next.
“Look,” he said, doing his best not to yell. His blood pounded through his veins. “You can either help me plan this or you can take orders. Or, if you won’t trust me, we can go our separate ways and that’s that. But this time next week either I’ll be dead or the assholes who are coming after us now are going to be begging for my mercy. And I’m going to ruin what lives they have left anyway. I can do that.”
He shot up to his feet and motioned again toward the couch with both hands. “Now are you going to help me figure out how to do that or not?”
***
Kristina stared at Landon as the two of them faced off, desperately trying to wrestle her thoughts into some semblance of control. Her cheeks burned, and her eyes felt sticky with the salt of tears that had welled up for a long time but only slowly fallen.
She had to be tough in the face of this shitstorm, and things were continuing to get worse with every minute. Desperate cretins could be even more dangerous than smart enemies. Kevin had taught her that at a very young age.
Could she trust Landon? Part of her—a large part of her—felt intuitively that he was a good person, but another part of her thought he was either in deeper than he knew or he was holding something back from her. She couldn't afford either of those right now. Not while they might have her brother.
The walls of the apartment felt closer every minute. She heaved a deep breath and looked to her right at the white door to the apartment. Who was out there and what the hell did they want that they were losing their mind over it?
“If you decide you don’t trust me, you can have a hundred thousand dollars in cash to go out on your own."
She froze and turned to Landon with his patient, intense face. Those words had come from him.
“I’m not trying to trap you, Kristina.”
He must have seen her looking at the door. His eyes were still hard and fiery, but his brows arched up in a show of some slight vulnerability. “If we work together on this, I think we have a better shot at coming out the other side, but if you don’t trust me then it’s better if we work apart.”
Kristina licked her lips once and swallowed. What would it accomplish to go out on her own? Landon would feel she didn’t trust him one bit. Yet, she would ostensibly be working for him. That would be just one more problem added to the list, really.
She decided to give him a chance. Gingerly, she walked around the coffee table to the other side of the couch, then sat down. Only once she was seated did he sit down himself, leaving a few inches between them so their knees did not quite touch but she could still feel his warmth.
"Maybe we can work together," she said. "But if it's going to happen, we need some ground rules. Otherwise I'm out."
He nodded. “I'm listening."
Her attention went briefly to the space between them, then back up to his eyes. "One: if we're going to do this, we're doing it my way. This thing's already spiraling out of control and if it keeps going I'm going to lose it. It's my job to rein things like this in. That's what you hired me for, and that is what I am going to do."
He held her gaze but said nothing.
"Two: no more kissing or anything else until I know both my brothers are safe. Three: if I’m uncomfortable with something, I’ll say so, and then you stop. I don’t have time for this shit when my family is in danger. Okay?”
He nodded. “Understood. But just so we're clear, this is only our arrangement as long as I'm satisfied with it.”
A heavy feeling sank from her throat to her stomach. She pushed it aside. It was time to get to work. "That feeling is mutual. Let's figure out who the hell is after us."
"Let's."
"Show me that list we had earlier."
He put the paper in his hand down flat on the table. Seven names, scrolled in two sets of handwriting in black ink on ruled note paper: Anna, Kevin, Tom, Dunn, Brantley, Bruman, Carter.
“So this is our list of everyone who could know anything about the fact that you wanted me to follow up when you disappeared. Right?”
"Yes."
"So it's people with the opportunity. And means is trivial here, obviously. But what about motive? Why would any of these people want to get to you?"
"I have no idea. None of them are obvious, but who can guess why anyone does anything. Right?"
She shook her head. "Someone, somewhere had a motive. You don't chase someone down Lakeshore and shoot them without motive. We just aren't seeing it yet."
"How do you propose we find it?"
She slid the paper over and took the pen in her hand. "Another list. Just purely people with motive, even if they don't have a connection to the leak itself. Something this big is going to have a lot of moving pieces."
They went through methodically, trying different possibilities. By the time they were done, they had a pretty short list: people connected to Fordelli and people connected to the government. Beyond that, it was hard to narrow down.
Landon shook his head. “Phobos could be used a million different ways. Could be anyone.”
Kristina's brow shot up. "Phobos?"
"That's the name of the project."
"Okay. So we have either a competitor or something political through the FBI, right?"
He nodded. "But like I said, it could be used many ways. Almost anyone could find
some
use for it. Take your average high school girl who has a crush on a boy. She slips him the pharm, he's her slave for all intents and purposes."