He snorted and dropped into a chair, head tipped down.
Lanny came to stand in front of him, arms folded in a way she knew was intended to make his already-impressive biceps look even bigger. “You gonna tell her what you did?”
“No.”
“What did he do?”
“We found this creepy fucking kid in the basement,” Lanny said, voice tight with anger, tendons leaping in his neck. “And this one’s all ‘I’ll take care of it.’” His Russian accent was horrible. “And he killed him!”
“You what?” When Nikita continued to stare down at his lap, she glanced at Alexei, who shrugged. “Nik, did you kill a child?”
“Real badass, your gramps,” Lanny said.
“Hush. Nikita.” He deigned to flick her a sideways look. “What did you do?” If he was this upset over Sasha…if he was growing unhinged…
“I didn’t kill a child,” he said. “I killed a mage.”
“Oh.” Surprise knocked her back in her chair. “They have a mage?”
“They don’t anymore.”
“Because you killed him,” Lanny insisted. “Jesus, is no one else disturbed as fuck about this? He killed a little kid.” He looked to Jamie, to Alexei, finally to her, betrayal in his eyes. “Christ, Trina, say something!”
She took a deep breath. “You didn’t see Philippe. Not the way I did.”
“Oh my God. You’re…you’re okay with this? You’re okay with this.” He scrubbed a hand back through his hair. “How are you okay with this?”
“I didn’t say I was.” But, oddly, she was. She felt that dissonance inside herself again, the part of her that had urged Lanny to seek vampirism as a means of staying alive. She’d always thought that she was reasonable, and moral; shocked by all the things that were supposed to shake her. Properly repelled. But she was finding, more and more, that her hard moral line wasn’t so hard; it shifted. A startling, unwanted realization, but an undeniable one all the same.
Nikita sighed. “Mage or not, he was a witness – a witness we couldn’t enchant into forgetting he’d seen us. A witness who could tell everyone in that building that we’d been there, and then come set us all on fire. Is that what you wanted? You’re a cop,” he said, disgusted. “Think like one.”
“You aren’t supposed to kill kids.”
“I didn’t.” Nikita met his gaze, eyes dangerous and pale. “I killed a monster.”
Trina cleared her throat. “Guys?”
They took a long moment to turn toward her, staring one another down.
“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking while you were gone, and the address confirms it: Sasha’s in Virginia.”
Nikita nodded. “I’ll–”
“We’ll,” she insisted, “need to all be working together on the same page. No heroes, no running off half-cocked. We need to go to Virginia, and we need to find the facility. Maybe you guys can track Sasha by scent, but maybe not. We need some intel, and lucky for us, we’ve got a man on the inside.”
Everyone stared at her.
“Val.”
Nikita said, “No.”
“Yes. He’s there. He’s our only source of information, and unlike these Institute people, he’s never actually tried to hurt any of us. In fact, he’s been a help. So. We need to call him up and have a conversation.”
Lanny snorted, face screwed up like he’d bitten into a lemon. Disgusted with all of them. “Yeah? How you gonna do that?”
“Philippe conjured him with a séance once.”
“You a witch now?”
“No.” She smiled a little. “My grandmother is.”
No one had been expecting that.
“How about a trip to Buffalo?”
*
Lanny was angry with her. He probably thought she was monstrous for not caring about the boy Nikita had strangled. But those were problems for her to worry about later. Now she had to pack.
It had only been two days, but she thought there was a dusty stillness about her apartment, like it was already preparing for her to leave it for longer. For who knew how long. She’d already called the precinct and told them there was a family emergency – not a lie – and that she’d didn’t know when she’d be back in town. She wasn’t sure if she’d have a job when she got back; she wasn’t sure if she cared at this point.
She dragged her suitcase out of the closet and started stuffing clothes in it, some for summer, some for fall, plenty of essentials.
Nikita stood with his shoulder propped in the bedroom doorway, hands in his jacket pockets. “You don’t have to do this,” he said, quietly, and she paused.
Trina set down the shirt she was holding and turned to face him.
Away from the others, he looked younger. Less certain. No, scratch that: he looked terrified. He’d chewed at his lip until his fang drew blood, and the quickly-closing scab looked angry and painful. He’d been running his hands through his hair, and it fell limp and greasy on his forehead.
She stepped closer, wanting to comfort him, not sure how. “You two have been together a really long time.” She tried to duck her head and catch his eye, but he wouldn’t look at her. “I know you love him–” He flinched away from the word, and she put her hand on his arm; he flinched from that, too, but not as violently. He took a shivery breath. “No, it’s okay. I know. He’s the only person you’ve got in the world.”
His eyes lifted, frightened and ashamed through the screen of his lashes. “I should have had him with me. I shouldn’t have–” His breathing hitched. “I shouldn’t have left him. If something happens to him…” He swallowed, throat clicking.
“It won’t.”
His mouth twisted.
“He’s really tough. You know that. You showed me that. Have a little faith, and I promise we’ll get him back.”
“You don’t have to,” he repeated. “Your job–”
“Isn’t the most important thing in the world. My family comes first, and that includes you and Sasha.”
He breathed shallowly a moment, then jerked a nod and pulled back.
She returned to packing, marveling a little at her willingness to abandon the career she’d worked so hard to cultivate. But no, she told herself with a mental shake. She loved her job because it was a way to help people – to right a few of the world’s wrongs. But the second that job prevented her from doing the right thing? Well, it wasn’t worth much after that.
Her phone pinged with a text alert from Harvey: call when u can.
Trina sighed. She needed to make one more stop after this, before she threw caution to the wind.
Speaking of which…
Just before she zipped her bag, she turned back to her sock drawer and contemplated the little bronze bell in its corner. The bell that had rung in Nikita’s pocket a lifetime ago.
“Dark forces, huh?” she murmured, and slipped the bell into her own pocket. She had a feeling they would need all the help they could get.
*
“Huh,” Jamie said when he caught sight of the car Lanny had stored in his building-supplied parking spot. It was a five-or-so-year-old Ford Expedition, plain gray, dirty and unremarkable.
Lanny opened up the rear hatch and started stowing their things in it. “What?”
“I was expecting something…more you,” he said, gesturing to the SUV.
Lanny glanced back over his shoulder, frowning. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know.” Jamie shrugged. “Your apartment was all home gym, and protein powder, and every issue of Maxim ever. I guess I was expected a jacked-up Jeep, or a hot rod or something.”
“A…hot rod? Wow.” He whistled. “First off: insulting. Way to stereotype. And second: you don’t know shit about cars, do you?”
Jamie felt his cheeks heat. “I know…a little.”
“Uh-huh.” Lanny resumed stowing their bags. “This is practical. I can fit my whole home gym back here, thank you very much.”
“Ah.”
“Don’t say ‘ah,’ like you know shit about me.” But it wasn’t said meanly. Jamie was beginning to learn that beneath the muscles, and the broken nose, and the intimidating cop routine, Lanny was actually kind of fun. And funny. “I’m offended you think I’m such a douchebag.”
“I didn’t say that.”