Chapter Sixteen
Astrid
“Jensen just pulled up outside.”
She looks up at the surveillance video that picks up the parking lot and perimeter. Jensen parks near the curb in his government-issue, basic sedan. She scans the other screens and locates Quinn training a client in the gym.
“Thanks, Casper,” she says, then looks over at Owen. “I’m heading up to the main office. You stay down here.”
He lifts his hands and disappears, vanishing behind a protective shield. She shakes her head. “Nope. Let me have a minute alone with him.” She looks at Casper’s avatar. “You too.”
“Hiding something?” Casper asks.
“He’s family. I just need a minute alone, okay?”
She leaves them in the Lair and slides into her seat behind the desk just a few seconds before he knocks on the door.
“Hey girl,” he says, entering the office after a quick knock. She smiles when she sees him. He is family. But there are secrets between them now and she’s not sure where they stand. Even so, he doesn’t hesitate to give her a hug across the desk.
“Hey, didn’t know you were coming by today.”
He releases her and sits in the chair opposite of the desk. “I had a few minutes and wanted to check in on the next group of recruits.”
She locates the file with her list of candidates. “We should start next week. I’ve got eight candidates. Three women and five men. Four are former military. One cop, and then two culled from MMA programs around the country.”
“Sounds hopeful.” He leans back in his seat and crosses one leg over the other. Jensen studies her. She knows why—it’s unspoken, and finally she just acknowledges it.
“Are you concerned about me doing this without Atticus?”
“Are you concerned?” he asks back. “I know you’ve got a lot on your plate.”
“He and I built the training program together.” What Jensen doesn’t know is Astrid really ran the project. Atticus was busy with other things—like building super suits and locating missing Project 12 survivors. “I’m confident I can manage. I’ve taken Quinn on to handle the gym management. Mick is still out there too—he’s good with the staff and clients.”
“Hire anyone else?”
She pauses, getting a feel for that question, or rather the intent behind it. She scans his pulse. His breathing. The dilation of his pupils. All are steady. “No, no other new hires. I’m keeping it tight around here, like always.”
He nods. “Good. The program is doing well. I’ve assigned missions to all of the candidates that just graduated. You’d be proud.”
She tilts her head. “Even Rowe?”
“He’s a son of a bitch, isn’t he?” Jensen laughs.
“That’s the nice way to put it.”
“I’ve assigned him a specific case. We’ll see how he does.”
Astrid knows that case involves Owen. What she wants to know is does it involve her. For the first time she wants to dig into Jensen’s head—hear his echo to find the truth. Her fingers tingle under her gloves. But she’s also afraid.
“I do have a question,” she says. “What do you know about the Metamorphosis Group?”
“The real estate company?”
“Yep, that’s the one.”
“Not much. Mayor Steed likes them—keeps giving them tax exemptions to develop the Harbor Line.” He frowns. “Has he approached you about the gym?”
That’s a nice way to put it. “Kind of.”
“He’s doing good things for the city, but it’s also causing tension among the new and old residents. Standard side effect of progress.”
It’s an interesting way to put it. Progress. Does he not know about the fires and the battle over the property? Maybe not. Maybe he’s hiding something. There’s one simple way for her to find out. Under the desk, she tugs the gloves off her fingers.
“I’m not sure I like his tactics for getting property, is all,” she says. “He was a little pushy.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. Did he threaten you?”
“Not exactly.” The lie comes too easily. “But I got the feeling he’s not used to getting no for an answer.”
Jensen’s phone beeps. “You call me if he comes in here again.”
“I will.”
The phone beeps again and he gives her an apologetic look before checking the message.
“Gotta take this one,” he says, standing. With her hands behind her back, she stands too.
“That’s okay. Thanks for coming in.” She forces a smile. “It was good to see you. I miss having you around.”
He meets her at the door and spreads his arms. She steps into them. “I miss you too. And Atticus. Things have been hard since he’s been gone.”
His voice is low and gravely when he invokes Atticus’s name, and all resolution of checking his echo vanishes and she balls her hands into tight fists. Jensen is her family, not a criminal or a bad guy she needs to read. He has a dangerous job, dealing with shady people. She understands how that can compromise your views.
He releases her and tugs at the tail end of her braid. “Call me if you need anything, hear?”
She nods and watches him leave the room, hating the way life has changed so drastically over the last few weeks. It makes her angry. Tired and frustrated.
It also makes her more resolved to kick the trash out of the city once and for all.
*
Overheated and dripping with sweat, Astrid unzips her hoodie and drops it on the floor next to the treadmill. Music blasts in her ears—her angst play list—specifically chosen for when she needs to blow off steam.
Today is one of those days.
After Jensen left, she got pissed. Freaking pissed about being shot at and threatened all in 24 hours. About the questions she has about Rowe. She knows Jensen can’t tell her anything if she asked. It’s his job, but that doesn’t annoy her any less.
She’s also mad she let her emotional feelings for Jensen keep her from checking his echo. She had her chance and wimped out.
Pressing the button that ups the speed, she pushes herself harder. The man is dangerous and they’ll all need to be in top shape to deal with him. It’s her only choice, unless she plans on confronting Brutus Kincade about his blackmail.
She’s convinced this is what she gets for taking time off. Flirting with Owen and finding pleasure with Quinn. Is she being punished for finding a loophole around her abilities? The others call them gifts. She calls it a curse.
She pretends they aren’t watching her right now. They’re training. Owen asked Quinn for some help with parkour and they run the course over and over. But she feels their eyes on her. Feels them. She hears their chatter even over the music. Her name. Their scent.
Faster she runs.
A glance at the TV up on the wall makes it worse. Channel Five insists on following the fires—speculating up and down if they were arson or code violations. Demetria’s face flashes on the screen and the closed-captioning says something about being framed. Astrid just turns her music up louder. She doesn’t care. She doesn’t. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
She slams a fist on the stop button and the treadmill rolls to a standstill and she hops down, grabbing her hoodie and wiping down her face. The guys are breathing just as heavy when she meets them midway across the gym.
“I don’t like this,” she says. “I don’t want to work—or rather, cave—to Kincade. I don’t want to punish the people in Crescent City because two big-bads can’t agree on who’s the biggest and the baddest.”
“I don’t think he was bluffing about destroying the gym,” Quinn says. His t-shirt is soaked through with sweat.
Owen lifts up the hem of his shirt and wipes his forehead, revealing a strip of muscular stomach. Damn. He asks, “What do you want to do?”
Her mind spins. She’s been trying to come up with something—a way out since they left the warehouse. Other than burning down the building herself, all roads lead back to the same thing. They’re stuck.
“I’ve got nothing,” she says, truthfully. She doesn’t like this feeling of being out of control.
Quinn takes her hand. His heart ramps up the way it does when he’s near her and it makes her already-tired legs shake at the knees. “We can play along for a while. He’s right about keeping down crime—it’s what we do. But we won’t just focus on the Swamp. In the meantime, we’ll try to get some evidence to prove he’s starting the fires.”
“And continue to work on strengthening our abilities,” Owen adds.
She shoots him a glare. Quinn didn’t know about that. So she flips the subject. “What about Demetria? What are we going to do about her?”
“Yeah,” he grimaces and darts his eyes at Owen. “I need to talk to you about that.”
She pulls her hand away from him and rests them on her hips. “What did you do?”
“Nothing…well, not really. I had a run-in with her the other day, sort of on purpose.”
“Quinn!” she shouts. Mick and two other trainers look over, but she ignores them. “Alone? Are you crazy?”
“No,” he shakes his head. “I’m not crazy, but she may be. Casper got me her psych evaluation. Beyond her abilities, she’s not stable. I wanted to talk to her myself.”
“What happened?” Owen asks.
He describes the scene and Astrid listens carefully. Demetria was her roommate, probably her only real friend at the group home. She’s terribly conflicted over how to handle her.
“She called you a Lost Boy?” Owen asks, immediately curious.
“Yeah, it was weird. She said she recognized me from the Gala and that her fairies told her I was there. She said it was time for us to come home.”
Owen’s expression turns grim and he shifts on his feet.
“What?” Astrid asks. “Does that mean something to you other than her standard nonsense?”
“There’s some stuff I haven’t told you about my time working for James.”
Quinn’s jaw tenses. There are too many secrets between them. Small ones. Potentially deadly ones. He holds her eye and says, “It sounds like we need to talk. Throw it all on the table before we go out in the field again.”
Owen nods in agreement.
“Everyone clean up and we’ll meet in the Lair,” she says. “Call Casper. He should be in on this, too.”
*
The instant Casper’s avatar appears on the screen, Owen starts talking.
“When my Aunt Sylvie died, I freaked. I don’t know if it was PTSD from my parents dying or just all the blood, but when I found the Pixie Dust baggie on the floor I knew I had a clue.” The words come out in a rush and none of them speak. Astrid waits for the story. The way his heart hammers makes her nervous. This is his secret. What he’s been hiding.
“Sylvie made it clear I was never to let anyone know about my power. Not to trust the police or any authority. I ran that day, terrified of what would happen to me. I had to call the police—so they would find the body—but I left the house and hit the streets. The next couple of days were a blur but the first thing I remember is sitting on Front Street looking out at the harbor, feeling like shit for leaving my aunt on the floor. Trying to figure out who killed her. What the hell was up with the Pixie Dust?”
“Did you go back?”
“Not then, because this gorgeous girl came up to me. She had on all blue and a ribbon in her hair. She sat next to me on the bench. There were these little toy fish in the water. They bobbed along but while I watched they transformed—shifting from toys into something more life-like. At the time I thought maybe I was just messed up, but the girl next to me laughed and pointed into the water. She saw them too.”
Quinn shifts uneasily in his chair. Casper is uncharacteristically quiet.
“She noticed how upset I was, or at least that’s what I thought, and she scooted next to me on the bench. She pressed her hand to my cheek and whispered that she’d been looking for me. That she knew about me and look, she had powers too. She called me her Lost Boy and said her name was Wendy and that she knew how to make it better. How to get back at the bad guys and make them pay for our pain.”
Owen leans back in his seat and rubs his eyes. The memory seems painful, but he’s also intent on getting it all out.
“She was right about one thing, I was lost. She tipped me into my anger, coaxed me to use my powers. I needed something to focus on and she told me she the perfect way to use them.”
“Selling drugs,” Astrid says.
“Yes. See, I thought she was just some crazy chick who needed Peter Pan in her life and understood the hardships of losing people. But the longer I stayed in the business, the harder I pushed and prodded into the hierarchy, I realized that it was all a charade. Just another one of her delusional games. She was the one behind the drugs and deaths. Pixie Dust was the means to her end. I was narrowing my options on her when you stormed the warehouse.”
“Oof.” Astrid exhales. “Bad timing.”
“Or good. You probably saved my life.”
“So what are you saying,” Quinn asks. “What’s the point of this story?”
“Demetria lives in a fantasy. She thinks she’s Wendy Darling, that I’m Peter Pan.”
“Is she mad that you betrayed her at the Gala?”
“She’ll only be upset that I’m gone. You know Peter has a penchant for mischief. That’s expected, but if you’ve read the books, Wendy’s biggest fear is growing up—losing her childhood. If everything you’ve told me about our past is true, then we’re all part of her game.”
“Why do you think you’re Peter?” Quinn holds up his hands and adds, “Not that I’m jealous, but there were a lot of boys in the home.”
Owen turns to Astrid. “I don’t know but I think there may be a way for us to find out.”
“How?” she asks.
“I need you to read my echo again. Find out what happened when we were kids.”
Quinn looks nervously between them. “Read your echo again?”
Astrid swears under her breath and confesses, “You’re not the only one keeping secrets.”
*
There’s a private bath and shower off of Atticus’s office. Astrid is washing off the sweat when she hears a knock on the door.
“It’s me,” Quinn says over the rushing water. “Can I come in?”
“In the bathroom or in the shower?”
“Well, if there’s an invitation for the latter…”
The joke loses its impact, knowing they’ve both been keeping secrets. He’d needed a minute and she used the time to clean off and to give him a chance to calm down. She peers around the corner of the shower curtain. He’s still in his workout clothes, leaning against the counter, and although it’s unbelievably tempting, she shakes her head. “I’m thinking that may be a bad idea right now.”
She drops the curtain and steps back under the spray. From the other side he adds, “How did things get so convoluted? I didn’t mean to keep anything from you.”
“Me either,” she says. “Can you hand me my towel?”
A red Elite towel appears at the edge of the stall. She takes it and her fingers skim over his. She hasn’t turned off the water but wraps the cloth around her body and steps out. “You’re up.”
His heart stutters when he sees her, but he doesn’t make a move. He simply kicks off his shoes and pulls his T-shirt over his head. The smell of his sweat and pheromones nearly knocks her off her feet. She can’t help but look at his body. Pure chiseled perfection. She turns her head when he lowers his shorts.
Once he’s behind the curtain and she hears the spray hit his body, she confesses, “Owen and I weren’t just at the house to get his things.”
Quinn stops moving and his pulse sounds like a beacon. “Okay.”
“We were there testing a theory he had about expanding my abilities.”
Still no movement behind the curtain.
“And?”
“And it worked.” She steps into a clean pair of panties and hooks her bra behind her back, adjusting the cups.
“That’s all you did.”
“Yeah, I mean, before those assholes came and shot up the house. We actually made a little progress. The methods we used were a little unconventional,” she says, drying her hair with a towel. “I didn’t want you to worry. Owen’s a bit of a wild card at times but we were completely safe. Sure, at first I was worried, and I knew you’d be pissed about it, but I think it was a risk worth taking.”
The curtain slides back and Quinn, with water dripping down every inch of his toned body, stares at her. Hard.
She reaches for the towel to cover herself but it slips and falls to the ground.
“Astrid, what the hell are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about taking Pixie Dust to allow my echo to work on Owen.”
He blinks. “You used Pixie Dust?”
“Yes.”
“On purpose.”
“Yes.”
“So tell me,” his arms cross and his jaw tics, “are you insane? Because that sounds insane. Or maybe Owen is insane? Because I’ll happily beat that out of him.”
“Neither of us is insane, Quinn. We took a risk and it worked. With the barrier down, I was able to read Owen.”
He swallows thickly and his eyes graze over her one last time before dropping the curtain. “You read his echo.”
“Yes.” He sounds mad. Is he mad? She’s not sure. There’s just a lot of questions.
“And?”
“And I learned a few things.” She’s not going to tell him what she read on Owen. That’s not her place to say. But she adds, “I managed to alter his emotions by pushing different ones back on him.”
The curtain slides again, swinging back quickly and giving her full view of Quinn’s body. His entire body.
It’s always a shock to realize how big he is. Like all of him. Is really big.
“You altered his emotions?” The stern look before is replaced by something different, genuine curiosity.
“Yes, he was pretty consumed with some dark stuff—things that had happened in his house—and it was painful. I just, I couldn’t take it, and I pushed back. I wanted him to feel better.”
The curtain falls and he vanishes again, but after a moment the water stops and his arm reaches out. Astrid hands him a towel and a second later he appears, wrapped from the waist down, water trickling down every curve and dip of his body.
She’s still in nothing but her underwear and her senses are overwhelmed by the steamy heat coming off his body and the concentrated scent of soap. Heart thumping, she backs into the counter and he approaches her with ease and confidence.
Damn. Damn. Damn.
He’s entirely too hard to resist.
Except he doesn’t make a move. He just reaches for her and pulls her into a tight bear-hug.
“Quinn?” she says, nose pressed into his chest. It’s not a bad place to suffocate.
“I knew you were special, Astrid. I could tell the first time I met you. You’re strong and talented but I didn’t realize how brave. You took a chance with Owen’s idea—a fucking stupid-as-hell idea—but it paid off. And you used it to help him.”
“I want to do it again to find out the truth about him and Demetria at the group home.”
He nods. “I can get behind that, but I want to be there too.”
“I want you there; to be honest, a lot of my memories of those days are mixed up and filled with fear and anxiety.”
“Me too.”
“We were just kids,” she says, leaning into his weight.
“Yep, but now it’s time to face the past so we can do what’s right for the future.
Chapter Seventeen
Quinn
We sit on the floor of the living room, circled up like kids over a Ouija board.
The Pixie Dust is already mixed in the cup of soda, and Astrid and Owen have split the contents. Quinn sits nearby, unwilling to drink on his own—more like a babysitter because of his wariness of the experiment. It’s not a bad idea, though, and probably something they should have considered the first time.
The feeling of Astrid reading his echo isn’t something easily defined. At first, it’s a tickle—if she was feeling a room, it probably wouldn’t be noticeable. But Astrid didn’t just touch his fingertips, she dug deep, probing for something beyond his current emotions. She wanted his echo. His memories. And she pushed her own feelings back on him. It was akin to having her fingers under his skin. She felt what he felt, and he felt it back in return. A circle of energy and emotion; he has no doubt that with a little practice she can become even more powerful.
“Ready?” she asks, holding her hands over his.
They’re not in virgin territory this time. Owen closes his eyes and does his best to clear his head. “Yes.”
Her fingers are cool against his, but warm instantly on contact. He feels the tickle first and the probing second. Then his brain peels apart like an onion.
The backyard is large with a garage in one corner. A basketball hoop hangs on the front, the net ripped and weathered. Music flows from inside the building and there’s the rhythmic clink of metal on metal.
“That’s just Junior lifting weights,” a voice says beside him. “He wants to be the strongest man alive when he grows up. That seems silly to me. Who wants be strong?”
I would, Owen thinks. He’s seen Junior’s muscles. They’re bigger than any he’s ever seen before. He opens pickle jars and carries out the garbage. Ms. Rosalie likes him because he’s nice and doesn’t hurt the kids.
Muscles are something you can control, unlike the darkness that builds in Owen. All he can do is make things disappear. Or change things—usually when he doesn’t want to. The doctor said the shot they gave him would help him control his mind. He doesn’t feel in control, though, and shoves his hands in his pockets.
“Come on,” she says, tugging his elbow toward the playset in the backyard. The girl with big eyes and pretty brown hair has been working on it, or so she said. “You’ve got to see my ship.”
All Owen sees is the sad-looking wooden structure. There are two working swings, but the slide has a bend in the middle. Demetria pulls a small object out of her pocket. It’s a small plastic boat with white sails. Like a pirate ship.
“Remember the book Ms. Rosalie made us read? About Peter Pan and Captain Hook?”
Owen nods. He didn’t care for it much. He likes comic books.
“I can’t stop thinking about it,” she says. Her brown eyes get a faraway look. “Having a magical place to escape to. A friend who can fly.” She smiles at him. “I think we can go there.”
“What?” he asks. He knows why Demetria likes him. He showed her what he can do. Their powers are similar. He can change things and she can bring objects to life. Together, they are probably very dangerous.
“I think we can turn this yard into our Neverland. I know we can’t leave. The doctors would find us and Ms. Rosalie would get in trouble, plus there’s cherry pie for dinner and I don’t want to miss that, but we can still make Neverland happen.”
The next moments are a blur of boats and treehouses and mean crocodiles on the ground. They’ve built an entire world in the whole backyard, and she calls him Peter and in return, he names her Wendy.
Owen blinks, his mind yanked back to the present.
“You okay?” Quinn says, his voice cutting through the haze. Owen blinks and finds the man crouched between them.
Astrid nods, but her eyes are pinned to Owen’s.
“That’s all you did,” she says.
“What?” Quinn asks. “What did he do?”
“He played with her. That’s all you did. It’s all she wanted.”
“That’s all?”
“What did you say about her mental illness?” Astrid asks. “She lives in a fantasy? That’s all she needed, someone to go down the rabbit hole with her. When she found you again, maybe she thought she could have it back.”
Owen hasn’t spoken since coming out of his memories. It’s the first thing he’s remembered about his childhood—and it wasn’t bad. Demetria was his friend. Everything feels very confusing.
“Owen?” Astrid asks. She makes an effort not to touch him again. “Are you okay?”
He nods, feeling exposed—raw. The look in Astrid’s eyes knows she understands this. “Thank you for doing that. Hopefully getting to the rest of my memories won’t be so difficult. I will say that going to that place helped me figure out how we’re going to defeat Kincade and keep Demetria in check.”
Quinn perks up. “How?”
“By doing the unthinkable. Doing what your mentors set us up to do. The reason behind all of this.”
“What’s that?” she asks, but she knows. They both do.
“The right thing.”