“Not exactly.” The lie comes too easily. “But I got the feeling he’s not used to getting no for an answer.”
Jensen’s phone beeps. “You call me if he comes in here again.”
“I will.”
The phone beeps again and he gives her an apologetic look before checking the message.
“Gotta take this one,” he says, standing. With her hands behind her back, she stands too.
“That’s okay. Thanks for coming in.” She forces a smile. “It was good to see you. I miss having you around.”
He meets her at the door and spreads his arms. She steps into them. “I miss you too. And Atticus. Things have been hard since he’s been gone.”
His voice is low and gravely when he invokes Atticus’s name, and all resolution of checking his echo vanishes and she balls her hands into tight fists. Jensen is her family, not a criminal or a bad guy she needs to read. He has a dangerous job, dealing with shady people. She understands how that can compromise your views.
He releases her and tugs at the tail end of her braid. “Call me if you need anything, hear?”
She nods and watches him leave the room, hating the way life has changed so drastically over the last few weeks. It makes her angry. Tired and frustrated.
It also makes her more resolved to kick the trash out of the city once and for all.
*
Overheated and dripping with sweat, Astrid unzips her hoodie and drops it on the floor next to the treadmill. Music blasts in her ears—her angst play list—specifically chosen for when she needs to blow off steam.
Today is one of those days.
After Jensen left, she got pissed. Freaking pissed about being shot at and threatened all in 24 hours. About the questions she has about Rowe. She knows Jensen can’t tell her anything if she asked. It’s his job, but that doesn’t annoy her any less.
She’s also mad she let her emotional feelings for Jensen keep her from checking his echo. She had her chance and wimped out.
Pressing the button that ups the speed, she pushes herself harder. The man is dangerous and they’ll all need to be in top shape to deal with him. It’s her only choice, unless she plans on confronting Brutus Kincade about his blackmail.
She’s convinced this is what she gets for taking time off. Flirting with Owen and finding pleasure with Quinn. Is she being punished for finding a loophole around her abilities? The others call them gifts. She calls it a curse.
She pretends they aren’t watching her right now. They’re training. Owen asked Quinn for some help with parkour and they run the course over and over. But she feels their eyes on her. Feels them. She hears their chatter even over the music. Her name. Their scent.
Faster she runs.
A glance at the TV up on the wall makes it worse. Channel Five insists on following the fires—speculating up and down if they were arson or code violations. Demetria’s face flashes on the screen and the closed-captioning says something about being framed. Astrid just turns her music up louder. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
She slams a fist on the stop button and the treadmill rolls to a standstill and she hops down, grabbing her hoodie and wiping down her face. The guys are breathing just as heavy when she meets them midway across the gym.
“I don’t like this,” she says. “I don’t want to work—or rather, cave—to Kincade. I don’t want to punish the people in Crescent City because two big-bads can’t agree on who’s the biggest and the baddest.”
“I don’t think he was bluffing about destroying the gym,” Quinn says. His t-shirt is soaked through with sweat.
Owen lifts up the hem of his shirt and wipes his forehead, revealing a strip of muscular stomach. Damn. He asks, “What do you want to do?”
Her mind spins. She’s been trying to come up with something—a way out since they left the warehouse. Other than burning down the building herself, all roads lead back to the same thing. They’re stuck.
“I’ve got nothing,” she says, truthfully. She doesn’t like this feeling of being out of control.
Quinn takes her hand. His heart ramps up the way it does when he’s near her and it makes her already-tired legs shake at the knees. “We can play along for a while. He’s right about keeping down crime—it’s what we do. But we won’t just focus on the Swamp. In the meantime, we’ll try to get some evidence to prove he’s starting the fires.”
“And continue to work on strengthening our abilities,” Owen adds.
She shoots him a glare. Quinn didn’t know about that. So she flips the subject. “What about Demetria? What are we going to do about her?”
“Yeah,” he grimaces and darts his eyes at Owen. “I need to talk to you about that.”
She pulls her hand away from him and rests them on her hips. “What did you do?”
“Nothing…well, not really. I had a run-in with her the other day, sort of on purpose.”
“Quinn!” she shouts. Mick and two other trainers look over, but she ignores them. “Alone? Are you crazy?”
“No,” he shakes his head. “I’m not crazy, but she may be. Casper got me her psych evaluation. Beyond her abilities, she’s not stable. I wanted to talk to her myself.”
“What happened?” Owen asks.
He describes the scene and Astrid listens carefully. Demetria was her roommate, probably her only real friend at the group home. She’s terribly conflicted over how to handle her.
“She called you a Lost Boy?” Owen asks, immediately curious.
“Yeah, it was weird. She said she recognized me from the Gala and that her fairies told her I was there. She said it was time for us to come home.”
Owen’s expression turns grim and he shifts on his feet.
“What?” Astrid asks. “Does that mean something to you other than her standard nonsense?”
“There’s some stuff I haven’t told you about my time working for James.”
Quinn’s jaw tenses. There are too many secrets between them. Small ones. Potentially deadly ones. He holds her eye and says, “It sounds like we need to talk. Throw it all on the table before we go out in the field again.”
Owen nods in agreement.
“Everyone clean up and we’ll meet in the Lair,” she says. “Call Casper. He should be in on this, too.”
*
The instant Casper’s avatar appears on the screen, Owen starts talking.
“When my Aunt Sylvie died, I freaked. I don’t know if it was PTSD from my parents dying or just all the blood, but when I found the Pixie Dust baggie on the floor I knew I had a clue.” The words come out in a rush and none of them speak. Astrid waits for the story. The way his heart hammers makes her nervous. This is his secret. What he’s been hiding.
“Sylvie made it clear I was never to let anyone know about my power. Not to trust the police or any authority. I ran that day, terrified of what would happen to me. I had to call the police—so they would find the body—but I left the house and hit the streets. The next couple of days were a blur but the first thing I remember is sitting on Front Street looking out at the harbor, feeling like shit for leaving my aunt on the floor. Trying to figure out who killed her. What the hell was up with the Pixie Dust?”
“Did you go back?”
“Not then, because this gorgeous girl came up to me. She had on all blue and a ribbon in her hair. She sat next to me on the bench. There were these little toy fish in the water. They bobbed along but while I watched they transformed—shifting from toys into something more life-like. At the time I thought maybe I was just messed up, but the girl next to me laughed and pointed into the water. She saw them too.”
Quinn shifts uneasily in his chair. Casper is uncharacteristically quiet.
“She noticed how upset I was, or at least that’s what I thought, and she scooted next to me on the bench. She pressed her hand to my cheek and whispered that she’d been looking for me. That she knew about me and look, she had powers too. She called me her Lost Boy and said her name was Wendy and that she knew how to make it better. How to get back at the bad guys and make them pay for our pain.”