In the resulting silence, Austin and I stared at one another across the kitchen, neither one of us speaking. Of course, I was the first to crack. I’d never been very good at uncomfortable silence.
“Okay so… what did you want to talk about?” I prompted, topping up my coffee cup once again from the almost empty pot. Still, he said nothing, just watched me sip my coffee with his intense emerald eyes, then shook his head a little and looked at the ceiling, sighing heavily.
“It's not so much of a talk as it is a show. Go get changed, we're heading out,” he ordered. Deciding it was easier to just go along with this weird encounter rather than press him for answers, I hopped off the counter and went upstairs to change.
22
Outside my home, Austin directed me towards an illegally parked Dodge Challenger and slid gracefully into the driver’s seat.
“Nice car,” I murmured as I buckled my safety belt and looked around. Like I would have expected from a secret agent's car, it was pristine. Not a single personal effect to be seen or linked back to the owner, in case he needed to dump it anywhere in a job gone wrong. It was the same reason my own car was so pristine.
“Hey, what happened to my car back in Cascade Falls? And all my stuff? Is it still at the house there?” I knew the house was being rented under Omega for the duration of the guys’ investigation but had no idea what the situation was now.
“It's fine; Director Pierre said he would take care of it all. We ended our job there after taking Sergei in. It kind of blew our covers.” He sort of snarled the words, and I got my back up.
“Sorry my kidnapping was such a fucking inconvenience for you,” I muttered and turned to look out the window as we drove.
“That's not…” He gave an irritated sigh, but I kept my gaze on the passing scenery. “That's not what I meant, and you know it. I just meant that we don't have the house in Cascade Falls anymore, so I imagine your shit will all be sent here.” Austin backing down from an argument was not at all what I was used to from him.
“So where are you taking me, anyway? I am pretty hungry. Couldn’t this have waited until after we ate?” I sounded like a whining child, but I was really hungry. All I had eaten since the drugged plane food had been a few canapés during the New Year’s Eve party, and right on cue, my stomach let out a loud rumble.
“I'm sure you will live,” he commented in a dry tone, “Can't you just heal your need for food or something?”
“Not really how it works.” I rolled my eyes at him, but he gave me a serious look before turning back to the road.
“How does it work? Seriously. How does this healing magic actually work?” For once he actually sounded interested in hearing what I would say, and it threw me a bit.
“Um, I don't know,” I said and realized how stupid that sounded.
How could I not know?
“You must know,” he pushed. “You knew how it worked for yourself, before. It's why you and River hooked up that first time, isn't it? To heal your hand?”
“Well, yeah. But that was just from trial and error, and healing someone else seems totally different somehow.” I frowned. “Also, I don't seem to need the whole emotional trigger thing for my own healing anymore.”
He glanced sharply at me. “Really?”
“Yeah, it just… does it. I barely even have to think about it.” I picked at the fabric of the leather seat. I always fidgeted when I was uncomfortable, and Austin made me seriously uncomfortable.
“Okay, so what was going on when you healed Romanul?” He questioned, not obviously trying to start an argument with me, but I wasn't naive enough to think this truce would last long.
“Um, I thought he was dying?” I suggested, and he shook his head.
“Okay, I am just going to spell it out, seeing as I'm not sure if you're being deliberately dense or if you really haven't worked this one through in your head, princess.” His familiar condescending tone was back, and I sighed inwardly. I knew reasonable Austin wasn't going to last long.
“Before your own healing evolved, you needed triggers. Danger, excitement… sex… they were your triggers. So something must have triggered your ability to heal other people, too. You were clearly leaving out some details in your story earlier, so I ask again. What was going on when you healed that Romanian dick? What were you feeling?” His question made me pause.
Had it been that obvious I was leaving details out? I didn't think that my sex dream about Wesley or my attraction to my captor were relevant details. Nothing good could possibly have come from telling the guys that a crime lord had seen me masturbating in the tub. He had a point about the triggers, though; what had I been feeling when the healing had started working?
“Okay, I can see you're thinking really hard there and I don't want you to break your poor little brain, so I'll leave that question with you for now.” His sarcasm made me want to hit him sometimes. Actually, that sounded like a pretty good idea.
Curling my hand into a fist, I smacked a punch into his arm, causing him to yelp.
“What the hell, princess?” he yelled. “You could have caused an accident!”
“Whatever. You deserve so much worse. Why are you always such an asshole?” I demanded, and he flicked an uncertain look at me.
“I'm not,” he replied unconvincingly, and I snorted.
“Oh no? Since the day we met, you have gone out of your way to be a dick to me. You try to antagonize me at every opportunity, and don't even get me started on that stunt you pulled at paintball.” I glared at the side of his gorgeous face while he kept his eyes glued to the traffic in front of us, saying nothing.
“It's like that is it?” I narrowed my eyes, even though he wasn't looking at me. “I wonder what Caleb would say if I told him we made out when you were pretending to be him…”
“Oh look, we're here,” he announced with a tiny grin. Bastard.
We pulled into a carpark inside some tall wrought iron gates and parked in a visitor space. I looked around for some indication of where we were, but could see nothing.
“Okay, I give in. Where have you taken me?” I asked, getting out of the car and following Austin's tight ass up the ramp to the front door of the building.
“Just, cool it,” he told me. “You'll see soon enough.”
Inside the foyer, he stopped us at a reception desk and greeted the uniformed woman in a friendly voice, making me stare at him in confusion. He quickly signed a logbook then ushered me down a corridor to an elevator.
“Okay, but seriously, where are we?” I asked again once we were inside the elevator. “It looks like some sort of hospital?”
He just raised his eyebrows at me and a small smirk pulled at his lips.
Damn him. That smile made me look at his mouth, which made me think of what that mouth felt like on mine…
“We're here,” he announced again, snapping me out of my daze and leading the way off the elevator and down another corridor. He knocked a couple of times on a door, then let himself in without waiting for a response.