Eight
Shifting Sands
Except for our own check-ins, the walkies stayed quiet the rest of the day. We regrouped at the Pulitzer Fountain ruins at five o’clock, as planned, with nothing new to report. I’d flown around until exhausted. Mai Lynn sniffed her way into a migraine. Simon and Aaron walked more miles than I wanted to count.
Yeah, nice productive day.
“You’re all more than welcome to join us for the evening meal,” Mai Lynn said after she’d put her clothes back on. “I imagine you’re as hungry as I am.” She addressed her invitation mostly to Simon, since he was the only one with someone waiting for him at home.
“I can’t,” Simon said. His answer didn’t surprise me at all. “Caleb expects me by six.”
“Of course.”
“You two are free to stay, if you like,” Simon said to me and Aaron. “I can have the copter come back for you around seven.”
“I would like to stay,” Aaron said, his eagerness shining through in Scott’s dark eyes.
Curiosity had me agreeing to stay, too, and we followed Mai Lynn to the Warren, while Simon hung back to wait for his ride.
The dining room on the second floor was abuzz with activity as the day’s volunteer cooks brought the food out to a buffet service line. Several tables were already seated, with residents waiting patiently and chatting. A few heads turned our way when we entered. I expected suspicion, maybe even annoyance at having two extra mouths to feed. Mostly they just acknowledged us, then went back to their conversations.
Until a munchkin with green hair spotted us and nearly bounced out of her chair. “Ethan! Ethan, you have to sit with me!” Muriel shouted, her pipsqueak voice bouncing all over the dining room.
The woman next to her grabbed her hand and shushed her. I gave Muriel a thumbs-up as my agreement, and she settled back down at her place. Mai Lynn led us to the line for food. I watched the four people ahead of us serve themselves, wanting to adjust my own portions to match, and was surprised that they filled their plates. Mai Lynn hadn’t been kidding, apparently, about their food production.
I still took it easy, hoping for a balance between “not greedy” and “hopefully I’m not insulting your cooking with my small scoop.” The main dish was some sort of vegetable sauté—carrots, broccoli, cabbage, squash—and something that might have been chicken. Or bean curd, I really couldn’t tell. But it smelled nice, sort of sweet and sour, and there was plenty of green salad to fill the rest of my plate.
Each table had glasses and two pitchers of water—filtered, bottled, or boiled, I couldn’t tell, but it was clear. Muriel patted the empty chair next to her, so I sat down, feeling a bit like a man on his way to the gallows. Before I realized I didn’t have a fork, she’d launched into a story about something that had happened on the playground earlier that day.
Fortunately, the woman on Muriel’s right—who managed to introduce herself as Alexia Lowe, Muriel’s mother, while Muriel paused to take a breath—passed me a fork, so I could eat during the auditory barrage coming from my new best friend. Aaron spent the entire meal smirking at me from the opposite side of the table, content to trade idle conversation with the other people eating with us. I placed faces with names and names with powers, all from my research.
Keene passed the table once and nodded. I returned the gesture.
Halfway through dinner, Muriel’s playground exploits faltered and she turned to me with wide, pleading eyes. “Can you tell me a story now, please, Mr. Ethan? Please, please?”
“A story?” I repeated, feeling a little dumb. I didn’t know any stories. At least, no stories appropriate for dinner conversation. “Um . . .”
“About being a hero?”
In the brief span of my superheroing career, I could count on one hand the moments when I’d felt anything remotely . . . well, heroic. Mostly it had been spent being wounded or afraid, or both. My friends were the heroes, not me. Except for the construction incident in Inglewood the day we’d first met Dahlia and introduced ourselves to the public. That was a good memory.
“Well, this building collapsed, once,” I said, modulating my voice for maximum dramatic effect. “Several men were trapped inside, and no one could get to them.”
Muriel’s eyes got saucer-wide. “But you could?”
“Yes, we could.”
By the end of dinner (and the story), Muriel had practically melted into my lap, and Alexia couldn’t stop smiling. Aaron knew the story, but he still paid attention to the telling, and even Mai Lynn listened. I glanced at my watch. Our ride was due in fifteen minutes.
“Damn, we have to go soon,” I said.
“Already?” Muriel asked. That single, plaintive word deserved an award for dramatic presentation.
“Unfortunately, yes. But thank you for having dinner with me.”
She giggled, blushed, then bolted across the room to a table where her playground friends were eating. Alexia slid over into her daughter’s seat.
“Thank you for that,” Alexia said.
“She’s easy to be nice to.”
“I meant for your story.” Alexia smiled, but her eyes remained sad, tired. “For showing her another positive aspect of having Meta powers. For showing her what she could be.”
“A deep core driller?” I asked, remembering my specific contribution to the construction worker’s rescue.
She shook her head. “A hero.”
“I’m not a hero.”
“You are to the men whose lives you saved. And you are to my daughter.”
I nodded, but didn’t reply. Feeling more like a fraud than ever, I followed Aaron and Mai Lynn out of the dining room.
• • •
My nightly check-in with Teresa began with a big fat bombshell.
“The wrecking ball will come down on the old HQ on Monday,” Teresa said after we’d exchanged hellos.
“That soon?” I asked.
“Yeah, that soon.”
“Shit.”
Today was Wednesday, which meant our old home would be flattened in less than five days. Hearing on the news that it would happen was one thing, but getting an actual date felt like a punch to the gut. I pressed my forehead against the apartment window, glad Aaron was taking a shower and that I had a few moments to myself.
“Mayor Ainsworth was kind enough to call and say we had until Sunday if there was anything else we’d like to collect from the property,” Teresa said. Her sarcasm was not subtle.
I grunted. “What did you say to that?”
“Fortunately, Gage took the call and was perfectly diplomatic in his response.”
“Aha.”
“Besides, we took everything we wanted when we left.”
Plus a lot of things we didn’t want, like memories—fighting and killing Janel, a ceiling crushing me, watching the Medical Center explode.
I used the lull in conversation to direct us back to Manhattan, then filled her in on today’s activities and minor progress.
“Do you think they’ll actually use the walkie to contact you?” she asked.
“I don’t know, but it was worth a shot.”
“It was a good move, although there is a downside.”
“I know, they could find the walkie and use it to monitor where we are and avoid us completely.”
A pause. I guess she was surprised I’d thought that far ahead. “Exactly. So, Ethan, what’s your plan if you do come face-to-face with Jinx?”
A chill danced down my spine and spread goose bumps along my shoulders and arms. “What?”
“You heard me.” Her voice was still conversational, but had an iron-sharp edge to it that dared me to deny what she’d implied. “I did a little checking on the nine prisoners you’re searching for—”
“Eight.” We’d technically found Dana Parks.
“Eight prisoners. I know who Freddy McTaggert is and that he’s responsible for your mother’s death. Why didn’t you tell me this before you left?”
I leaned against the windowsill and pressed the back of my hand to my forehead. “Because you wouldn’t have let me come.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Huh?” I’d expected something more along the lines of “Damn right.”
“You don’t know I wouldn’t have still let you go to New York, despite who Jinx is to you.”
You have no idea who Jinx is to me. No idea.
“Ethan, I know you. You think of other people before yourself, sometimes to a fault. And I know how the need for revenge can eat at you, but you aren’t a murderer. You wouldn’t let a personal vendetta ruin what we’re trying to do.”
“Which is what?” I asked, because I’d be damned if I knew anymore.
“Correcting the mistakes of the past. This is about the future of all Metas, new and old. We can’t keep killing each other if we’re going to survive.”
She was right, even if I couldn’t say it out loud. “I went to the castle today,” I said instead.
Teresa didn’t reply right away. “How was that?”
“Terrifying, and yet mildly therapeutic. It’s not as scary in the summer sunshine.”
“I’m glad.”
“Me too.”
“Listen, I can’t chat much longer right now. Anyone else you want to say hi to before you pass the phone off to Aaron?”
Dahlia’s name perched on the tip of my tongue, waiting to be spoken. I wanted to talk to her, tell her about being in Central Park again and how that felt. She hadn’t been with us that day fifteen years ago, but she’d still understand. She’d listen without judgment, like only a best friend could, even if I broke down and told her about Jinx. But I couldn’t do that without Noah hearing too—the only people who got to learn about my personal weaknesses were the ones I trusted completely, and Noah wasn’t on the damn list.
“I’m good,” I said. “Aaron’s in the shower, but I’ll tell him to call home when he’s out.”
“Okay, thanks. Good luck tomorrow and—”
“Be careful, I know.”
I hung up, flopped down across my air mattress, and threw my left arm over my eyes. It was barely past eight, but after today’s excessive use of my power, I was ready to sleep. And I missed my friends. The water shut off in the bathroom. I was contemplating the energy required to get back up and take a shower of my own when the bathroom door opened, releasing a gust of warm, humid air. I raised my arm just enough to peer beneath it.
Aaron always dropped Scott’s mask when we were alone, and he was the man who crossed the room clad in just the boxers he slept in, bare chest still glistening with moisture. He crouched in front of his carry-on bag. The muscles in his back rippled each time his arms moved—oh, hell no. I pressed my arm back down over my eyes. No way in hell was I ogling Aaron Scott.
Fabric rustled.
Please be putting on a shirt. Please be putting—
“Hey, you awake over there?” Aaron asked.
“Yep.” I hazarded another peek under my arm—shirt in place, check—then sat up. And promptly yawned.
Which, of course, made Aaron yawn. He sat down in the lawn chair he’d claimed for himself and stretched his legs out in front of him. “You gave quite the performance at dinner.”
“That’s me, always eager to entertain.”
He quirked an eyebrow at my tone. “You were good with Muriel. And her mom was right. Those kids need to believe in a better future.”
“We can’t promise that to them.”
“You’re right. Does that mean we shouldn’t try?”
“Of course not. Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“I’m just trying to understand you, pal.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m not that complicated.”
“Yeah, you are.” He didn’t add to the statement, though. “It’s funny.”
“What?”
Aaron shook his head lightly. “It’s just that this is the first time I’ve ever really given kids much thought.”
“King or Aaron?”
“Both. Not that it matters, I guess, since my Recombinant side makes procreation impossible.”
I blinked, surprised by the matter-of-fact way he said that. “Does it bother you?”
“Right this moment? No. Can’t say it won’t bother me in the future, though. How about you?”
“No, your inability to have kids doesn’t bother me.”
Aaron snorted laughter, sounding genuinely amused by my smart-ass remark. “I mean, you’re . . . older. Haven’t you ever wanted to settle down and raise a family?”
Hard as it might be to believe, that was the first time anyone in my life had ever asked me that question. Probably because I’d avoided romantic relationships my entire adult life, and given my injury record so far this year, my odds of making it past thirty were pretty slim. No sane person wanted a boyfriend whose job had such a high mortality rate, much less a husband.
“Not really,” I said when I realized Aaron was waiting for an actual answer. “Even before my powers came back, I never had a stable enough life to consider it.”
“What about now?”
“You call this stable? I have literally almost died twice in the last eight months. And before that—” I snapped my mouth shut.
“Before that what?”
“Nothing.”
Aaron tilted his head to the side, an annoying habit he had, and grinned. “You have a lot of stories tucked away that I think I’d like to hear one day.”
“Fat chance. Even my friends haven’t heard those stories.”
“Ouch.” He pressed a hand to his heart, pretending to be wounded. “So what do I have to do to earn the dubious honor of being your friend?”
The genuine and curious smile he gave me cut all my retorts off at the knees. I floundered for an answer, annoyed at my temporary brain stutter. And why? Over a smile?
I needed to get laid. Badly.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I said in lieu of a response. I hauled my tired carcass off the air mattress and headed for the bathroom.
“So, what? No kids then?” Aaron said.
I paused in the doorway and turned halfway around. “Why? You looking to get pregnant?” Good, Sarcasm Brain, welcome back.
He laughed again, long and loud, Adam’s apple bobbing . . . Not again! I darted inside the bathroom and shut the door, cutting myself off from the sight of Aaron and his infectious laughter. When the hell had I stopped seeing him as a deadly Changeling that I barely tolerated and started seeing him as a man?
A funny, attractive man with dirty-blond hair and—
Stop that!
Everything had just gotten way too complicated.