“Atticus made them,” she says, as if that should explain it. He nods as though it does.
He reaches for his gun and holds it in the air. She flinches when he pulls the trigger but flares rip into the sky and his men hold.
“Who are these people?”
“They’re with me.”
“Recruits?”
She scans for their faces. She can’t see them behind the masks, but a few bodies look familiar, especially one with a massive frame. Rowe.
“You trained them well.”
“Did I train them for this?” she asks, but he doesn’t answer, handing Demetria off to a mask-faced soldier. With only a quick look at Astrid, Draco follows his boss.
Everything smells like smoke. Everything feels like adrenaline—too amped up to identify. She searches the street for Quinn and Owen, but they’re gone. Blaze is surrounded by a group in black. Kincade lies face down on the street.
“I saw you in the crowd. I wanted to warn you.”
“We’ve been watching Holmes and WIND-E for a while, since the Gala. We didn’t know who was behind those fires but she’s unstable enough to have set them herself.”
“She didn’t. It was Kincade.” She watches the troops yank him off the ground. His hands are cuffed and his cheek bloody. “They had a difference of opinion on how the Swamp should be used.”
“So they decided to blow it the fuck up instead?” He laughs bitterly. “Are you going to tell me what was going on with all this? The dragon and that guy?”
Astrid looks at Blaze’s unmoving body on the ground.
“I don’t know if I can.” No more than he can tell her how he knew all of this was going down and how his team knew to be ready.
He doesn’t push. He never has, and when he’s called over by one of his men, he squeezes her shoulder and leaves her standing in the road.
Astrid stares at the scene around her. The burned-out shell of the float. The crumbling streets. The fires and the lack of electricity. Jensen is right, these two destroyed what they wanted the most.
It will be up to her to fix it.
Chapter Forty
Astrid
She wakes in a cocoon of warmth, skin smelling of soap and lingering smoke. There’s a hint of roses and the tang of sulfur; both bring the assurance of protection. The weight of exhausted muscles wraps around her waist and her forehead presses into the hard planes of a well-defined chest.
Astrid is the lean middle of a sandwich, and it may be the best night’s sleep she’s had in months.
She wiggles under the covers, pressing her ass into Quinn. His strong hand lands on her hip. Owen stretches in front of her and she burrows into his chest. He rests his hand on her shoulder and after a tense moment whispers, “Don’t start something you don’t want to finish.”
She definitely, completely wants to start something.
So, of course, all three of their phones vibrate on the dresser across the room.
“Perfect fucking timing,” Owen mutters under his breath. She gets a good look of his face and winces at the bruises from the night before.
Quinn sighs and kisses her on the neck and stands, adjusting his shorts on the way. He picks up each phone and tosses them on the bed. He scans his first.
“Casper?” she asks, easing away from Owen. He’s warm and inviting but he’s right. There’s not time. Not after last night. Not after hell tore through the city.
Quinn shakes his head. They haven’t heard from him since the night before. “It’s actually Draco. He wants to meet downstairs.”
“When?” Owen asks.
“He’s already here.”
*
Draco stands on the gym floor. Mick opened up hours before, even though she told him he didn’t have to come in. Not with the damage to the roads outside, but gym rats are habitual, and sure enough, a dozen regulars are scattered throughout.
Draco waits at the front desk, looking a little less than perfect. Not a lot—a little. He looks as though a weight hangs over his shoulders and it’s clear he hasn’t slept. She’s pretty sure he can still take down a rhino and sweet-talk a crazy woman off the ledge, but he needs a nap. Badly.
“Hey,” she says. Owen and Quinn are back in the office. No one is ready to take Draco down to the Lair yet. He may be a survivor, but he’s not one of them. Not yet.
He lifts up a pink pastry box. “Thought you may need these.”
“How?” she asks, knowing she never mentioned her junk food habits to him. He’s also holding a puke-green smoothie and a cup of coffee. “Do we have any secrets left?”
“I’m sure there’s a few.” The curious glint in his tired eye makes her wonder if knows about her relationship with the others. “Can we talk? I have a few updates.”
“Yeah, come on.”
Quinn and Owen sit around the desk. The monitors are on, each screen a different news channel reporting on the destruction from last night. In the light of day, it looks like an unnatural disaster. The roads are buckled and crumbled. Firefighters still work on smoldering buildings. The streets are littered with broken lanterns and pieces of Demetria’s float.
Astrid turns away and focuses on the guys instead. That’s when she realizes how exhausted they look too. Owen’s feet are propped on the desk, trying to look casual, but there’s no denying his face is a battered mess. She saw the bruises lining his side when they got out of bed. Kincade’s men did a number on him before Jensen’s men finally showed up.
Quinn gratefully accepts the smoothie, even though he does pause to look at the name of the shop. Astrid nods, confirming his thoughts silently. Yep. Draco’s been watching them. The bigger questions is, for who? Demetria or himself?
Is there a difference?
Astrid pulls out a chair and pushes it to him. Then she sits in her own. “What happened last night?”
“They took her,” he says. The guilt he feels is palpable. At least, to Astrid. “To the hospital first—maybe later, jail? I don’t know.”
“She needs help, Draco.”
He nods. “She has a lot of influence, and that can go either way. They may lock her up for good or she may talk her way out of there.”
Quinn sets his empty cup on the table. “We’ll figure out what to do when a decision is made.”
“We?” Owen asks.
“Yeah, we,” he says. “We don’t get to walk away from this mess. She’s one of us. And if someone has to make the hard decisions—like with Blaze—we’ll do it.”
Draco tenses although his heart stays steady—almost intentionally so when Quinn says this—but he doesn’t argue. He’s a rational person. Maybe more so than the rest of us. He knows it could come to it.
“I’ll talk to Jensen and see what he knows. He may have more detail.”
“I’m pretty sure your man Jensen knows more than we thought,” Owen says, pointing to the monitor behind him. Her friend is on the screen speaking with a reporter.
“This is Agent Robert Jensen from the FBI. Can you tell us why your agency is involved here?”
Jensen, like everyone else there last night, looks worn out. “We’ve been monitoring criminal behavior in this area for some time.”
“What kind of crime? Specifically?” the reporter asks.
“Over the last several months there’s been an escalation of arson, the involvement of vigilante justice and the, frankly, weird scenes like the one we saw down here last night. The city called us in to see if we could help track down those involved. Last month we were involved in removing the leader of the Pixie Dust drug business off the street. Or so we thought. We’re reconsidering that now.”
“What do you mean?”
“Ever since the drug hit the streets we’ve noticed more and more unexplainable incidents. The chaos at the Gala. The hysteria at the parade last night. People claiming they see impossible things. Men throwing fire. Dragons walking down the streets. People that can change their attitudes and emotions. There are accusations that someone is sabotaging the electrical grid—”
“Which explains the frequent blackouts.”
“Yes. At great cost to the city to repair.” Jensen looks at the camera. “This drug seems to have the ability to make people do unbelievable things—make them think they see the unreal and the freedom of unbridled destruction.”