When I’d finished telling the abridged version of events from my end, my stomach was rumbling loudly, but I could see the guys burning with questions. River had told them all to keep quiet until I was done, but the range of frowns I was getting said there were plenty of questions to come.

“So it worked then? You actually healed someone else?” Wesley was the first to get his question in, as I would have expected considering how scientifically curious he was about my abilities.

“Yup,” I said, not really having anything more to elaborate on it.

“How?” he pressed, understandably wanting more information, but I just had none to give.

I shrugged. “I have no idea. One minute, he was dying—I mean, properly dying, blood everywhere—and then the next he came back awake and started complaining that his back was burning where I had my hand. And then it just… healed.” I chewed my lip uncomfortably. Even though I had been able to heal myself for years, the idea of applying it to someone else, that it was magic and not just a genetic quirk, seriously weirded me out.

River cleared his throat, drawing my attention in time to catch his strange look at Cole. “And this… Vali, he was okay when you last saw him?” The look he gave me was crazy intense, and Cole refused to look at me at all.

“Yeah.” I narrowed my eyes at the two of them acting so strangely. “He was fine. On his feet and said he felt incredible. Why are you two looking so shifty right now?” Cole's teeth ground together in an audible creak, and I could see his fists clenching and unclenching.

“So, tell us more about the auction,” Caleb interjected, saving them from answering me. I let it go, for now.

“Uh, what else is there to tell? Mr. Grey must have set it up with Sergei or something,” I replied, leaving my spot on the counter and hunting through the pantry for food.

Why is there no damn food in this house?

“No, it sounds more like he just capitalized on the opportunity when he found out you had been entered,” Caleb said. “Otherwise, why bother with the whole auction house farce? Why not just have you delivered directly to him?”

“I agree,” River added, having recovered from his weird moment with Cole. “From the information we retrieved while interrogating Sergei, he just took you to piss off Cole and I after we had been heating things up for him with his boss.”

“Well that's something, I guess,” I muttered, grabbing an unopened packet of crackers from a shelf and hopping back up onto the counter. I don't know why I liked sitting on kitchen counters so much, I just did. In this room though, it gave me a bit more of a height advantage so I wasn't constantly looking up at everyone. Even Wes was at least four inches taller than me.

“So what's next? We still have another four weeks before we can chase down this lead in Alaska, right?” I looked around at them all in the hope one of them might have a plan ready. I needed to feel like I was doing something. Especially now that Dupree's information about my healing powers had turned out to be correct. I couldn't just sit around for four weeks and marinate in the fear that I had turned Vali into some sort of non-human. Maybe I should call him?

“I think first up we should go and get you some real food,” Caleb said with a grin. “Is that seriously the best you could find in that massive pantry?”

Stomach rumbling, I frowned down at the dry cracker in my hand. “Yeah… Neither Jonathan nor I have been here in weeks, so there aren't any groceries.”

“Where is he anyway?” Cole spoke for the first time since I’d begun telling my story, and his voice was low and quiet.

“I have no idea. He was acting really weird and then said he needed to get back to the office to deal with Zebra's death.” I raised my eyebrows at them all. “Which reminds me, how come I don't know any of your codenames?”

All of them seemed to glance at River with amused looks, but no one answered my question. I would have to try again later.

“Come on, let’s go find you some food,” River deflected, lifting me down from the counter. “We can discuss our next move while we eat.”

“Actually, I have something I need to discuss with Christina,” Austin said with a cough, looking uncomfortable. “Can we meet you guys somewhere in like”—he checked his chunky black watch—“an hour or so?”

“An hour?” Cole remarked. “That's some talk.” He glowered at Austin, daring him to explain himself further, but the younger man just locked his jaw and glared back at him stubbornly.

“All right, come on everyone.” River started towards the door. “Let's go and find somewhere to eat, and these two can meet us there later.”

Caleb protested a bit, clearly upset that his twin had been keeping secrets from him, but eventually River herded them all out the door.

“Austin, I will text you once everyone has decided where to eat. You know what they're like, though, so it could take the full hour.” River gave a barely perceptible eye roll and followed the other three out of my house.

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.