Apex Page 13

  If I called my brother now, even with the voice scrambler, the NSA, the government—the interested investigative parties—would have enough reason to be suspicious that they’d probably start watching him a little more carefully.

  Which meant he could no longer hang out on the Gulf of Mexico with me and escape notice.

  Which meant … if I made this call, I was saying goodbye to seeing Reed, in person, for the foreseeable future.

  I took a deep breath. There was this kind of warring clash within me. Why was this so hard?

  That clinging desire to sit on the patio at my rented condo, stare out at the blue waters while inebriating myself to the point of numbness … I was having a hard time letting go of it.

  What else did I have to look forward to?

  Oh, right. Getting punched in a Waffle House, getting dragged off to jail or somewhere else, and just generally enjoying the feeling of crawling through broken glass in order to try and return to some semblance of feeling normal—whatever that was before all the scotch and memory loss.

  “I’ve carved out a real wonderful life for myself,” I muttered.

  “Not exactly George Bailey, are you?” Harry said with a slight smile. “But yeah … you’ve made some friends.”

  “They’re all great,” I said, “but it’s my enemies that have driven me harder down this path. Still …” I sighed.

  Something in me felt like someone had grabbed my heart and squeezed tight, with meta strength, every time I thought about just giving up and going back to Florida to be alone with my scotch and maybe the occasional margarita. You know, to break the monotony of scotch.

  I didn’t want to leave this fiery asshole flying around, wrecking my friends. And I didn’t want to leave the Terminator rolling around out there, either, doing who knew what besides attacking innocent—well, okay, “innocent” was a strong word, but still—girls in search of waffles.

  That told me a little something about myself, something I hadn’t actually forgotten, but that had gotten buried under a few months of rust. “I need to make this call,” I said. “Set it up, please, Cassidy.”

  “Wow, that’s brave,” Eilish said, “cutting yourself off from your brother when he’s been helping you all this time. I mean, you’ll probably have to stop using his company credit cards after this, too, won’t you?”

  I clenched my teeth. Hadn’t thought of that. “Yes,” I said. “I suppose I will. So I hope you’ve got some gas money, Cassidy, because the revenge portion of this mission is going to require you to pay the daily expenses.”

  Cassidy shrugged. “I can float you some basic expenses, but nothing outlandish.”

  “And here I was hoping to R&D a full working replica of an Iron Man suit to use to destroy my enemies now that I’m more vulnerable.”

  Cassidy’s brow creased, folding in thought. “You don’t seem the type.”

  “Well, desperation does crazy things,” I said. “The call?”

  “Give me a couple minutes,” she said, and went to pecking away at her laptop.

  Eilish took the opportunity afforded by the silence to pipe up, as usual. “So … this us done with the condo in Florida, then?”

  My jaw tightened. “Yep.” I found her presence suddenly so annoying, and I couldn’t place my finger quite on why. She’d been around for months, sure, but that wasn’t it. She was always snarking, and not really doing anything useful. She’d been helpful in Scotland, no doubt, but as I sensed her behind me, all I could feel was irritated.

  What the hell was Eilish even doing here? Why had she followed me back from Scotland once that was all done? She could have been dropped off in London or Ireland or wherever, but …

  Instead she was following me, and suddenly I was really annoyed about all the baggage I was picking up on this trip. Like I didn’t have enough going on without managing this Irish girl when I was already incredibly irritable. I wasn’t exactly a world-renowned diplomat, but that wasn’t a formula for anything good.

  “Just as well,” Eilish said. “I was a bit tired of sun and sand and—I don’t know, whatever you want to call that wintery mess that you have on that coast. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it was a bit like summer back home, but still … if I’m to spend time on the beach, I’d like it to be a warm one.”

  “Well,” I said, a little tightly, trying not to let my irritation with Eilish consume me, “it’s about to get hot for us, so … I guess you get half your wish.”

  I heard her gulp, then Cassidy said, “Okay. I’m ready.” And then she tossed me something.

  I caught it and only then opened my palm to see what she’d thrown. It was a small Bluetooth headset, and when I looked at her, she nodded, so I put it on. It fit in my ear and had a very tiny boom mic that extended about halfway down my cheek. It didn’t fit very well, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was going to fall out at a critical juncture during my call.

  “Sound check,” Cassidy said.

  “Uhmmm … scotch?” I asked.

  “Microphone is functioning normally. Let me know if you can’t hear the ringing.” Her head was back down, focused on the laptop.

  “What ringing?” I asked, and then a second later I heard it. “Oh.” It was a telephone ring, in my ear.

  A moment later, there was a click as someone picked up. “Hello?” My brother’s voice was taut.

  I paused for a second as I debated the best way to approach this. Hopefully the voice scrambler would be in place already. I glanced at Cassidy and she nodded, so I said, “Hey, bro.”

  My voice came out sounding absolutely terrible, like a garbage disposal trying to grind up a tin can.

  “Who is this?” Reed asked, sounding somewhere between suspicious and appalled at the tenor of my voice. It was pretty bad.

  “It’s me, bro,” I said. “Come on, catch up. You can’t sit around all day trying to think your way through this like Rodin’s statue.”

  “S—what the … ?” I could tell he got it. “What happened to your voice?”

  “Been gargling rock salt,” I said. “Does wonders for my vocal range. Listen, I only have a few minutes.” Cassidy helped up two fingers. “You heard about Kat and Veronika?”

  He hesitated. “Are you out of your mind, doing this? I mean—are you freaking kidding me?”

  “Focus, focus,” I said.

  “Yes,” he seethed, “of course I heard about Kat and Veronika. Kat’s fine, by the way. And Veronika …” His voice trailed off.

  “Yeah … ?”

  “We don’t know yet,” he said. “Just like Jamie Barton, she’s been … worked over. She may make it, she may not, depending on how well her meta healing abilities kick in.” He picked up a little steam now. “Why are you calling me?”

  “I kinda got bushwhacked,” I said, figuring it wouldn’t do to lie. I also figured that if they hadn’t worked it out already, the government was going to get the picture about the Waffle House incident quickly, but I felt no need to tie that to this call, mostly for evidentiary purposes. “I’m in motion, and, uh … back in the game.”

  “For f—no, no.” I could envision him shaking his head on the other end of the phone. “You should be—safe.” Conducting this conversation was like trying to fight with one hand behind your back. He couldn’t say the things he wanted to say, and neither could I.

  “Safe’s a relative term these days,” I said. “Jamie Barton probably thought she was safe heading across the harbor. Veronika definitely thought she was safe at her own house. Are you noticing a pattern with these attacks yet, Reed?”

  I bet his jaw was just chock full of tension. “I noticed the pattern.” Which was me, of course.

  “Then you know ‘safe’ is an illusion right now,” I said. “Besides, there’s another player who’s come off the bench. Not sure if they’re related. I’m sure you’ll get deets soon.”

  “Look,” he said, “none of this is conclusive. We can speculate about the connection between these … victims,�
� he seemed loathe to say it, and almost ground the word out between his teeth like chewed cud, “but there’s no definite, final piece of evidence that says, ‘Hey, I’m targeting the known associates of’—well, you know.”

  “Hey,” I heard a voice in the background say. It was Augustus. “They spotted our guy in Minneapolis. Wheels up in ten.”

  There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “Shit,” Reed said at last.

  I glanced at Cassidy; she had a single finger extended, then lowered it. She mouthed, “Thirty seconds,” and I nodded. “Starting to sound like that connection is firming up,” I said, ignoring that grinding metal sound of my voice being scrambled. “Who goes to Minneapolis in January if they can avoid it?”

  “It’s still not definite,” he said, but dear God, was he a shit liar.

  “Sounds pretty definite to me,” I said.

  “Please,” Reed said, “let us handle it. I’m bringing everyone we’ve got left. This guy is going down. There’s no reason to—to expand the scenario to include undue risk to … other parties.”

  “That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s said to me in years,” I said, pretty dryly. “But you know that’s not how it works.” And by ‘it,’ I meant … well, me. Even with everything in a haze, I could recall that much about myself.

  Bench sitter? That was not Sienna Nealon.

  “I know,” he said, and there was so much tension in his voice that if he’d had a wooden spoon clenched between his butt cheeks right now, the handle would have snapped. Because meta strength, of course. Yeah, we had super-powered gluts. It was all part of the meta package.

  “So … this is kinda goodbye for a while, I think.” I tried not to sound too choked up because, scrambled as my voice was, it’d probably sound like a trash compactor crushing a metal garbage can. Or a Transformer making love to a steel beam. Horrible, either way.

  “Sounds like it,” he said, and man, did I feel the regret. “You know you can call me anytime. One way or another.” Subtle reference to dreamwalking. So subtle it couldn’t be used against him in court if he ever got charged with aiding and abetting me. My brother was a smart man.

  “I know,” I said. “Same goes—a little differently, though.”

  “Just … stand back, please.” He was begging. “Let us handle it.”

  “You’ll have a little bit of time before I insert the risk into this scenario, or whatever the hell you said earlier.” I felt a lump in my throat, like I’d swallowed my own fist. “Take care of yourself, Reed. And the others, too.”

  “Will do. Hopefully, after today … you can go seek out some other exotic locale and just chill for a while. Job done.” He sounded pretty confident. “And either way … I hope I see you soon. Somehow.”

  “Me t—” I started to answer, but the line clicked dead. I looked back and saw Cassidy nod. She’d killed it at the buzzer.

  I took the headset off and wordlessly handed it back to her. “Harry …” I said.

  “Minneapolis bound, I know,” he said softly. “We’ll take I-65 north through Kentucky, then make our way through western Illinois. It’s about thirteen hours from here if we drive straight through.”

  “Let’s drive straight through, then,” I said, and stared at the road ahead. The sun was rising to my right, and the city of Nashville was ahead.

  And somewhere, thirteen hours beyond it, was Minneapolis and St. Paul, the Twin Cities of Minnesota.

  Home.

  I was going home.

  And the thought that I wasn’t going to make it nearly in time for Reed and his battle with this metahuman who’d been attacking my friends and associates destroyed any of the joy I might have felt at the prospect of seeing home again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Where are we?” I asked as Harry guided the car into a rest area a couple hours later. I shouldn’t have bothered asking, because as soon as I did, I saw a sign on the rest area roofline—“Welcome to Kentucky,” and it had one of those information booths visible inside the glass front of the building, just like any visitors center when you crossed a state line.

  I’d completely missed our entry into the Bluegrass State, and our exit from Tennessee. It might have been nice, under other circumstances, to just enjoy a road trip like this.

  But when a deadly metahuman was pursuing your friends, and they were heading into a confrontation with the bastard, it was hard to pay much attention to the natural wonders of America. My mind was on kicking ass and taking names.

  Well, hopefully kicking ass and taking names. Getting your ass kicked and your name taken didn’t really bear dwelling on.

  Harry slid the SUV into a parking space and shifted it into park. He blinked a few times, moving at a pretty slow clip for him but still incredibly fast compared to most humans. He rubbed his eyes a couple times, and I realized that it was getting toward noon, and he’d been driving all night.

  He threw open the door just as Cassidy did the same behind him. Eilish opened hers behind me, and I got out as well. We all looked a little stiff, given that we hadn’t stopped since the ass kicking back near the Alabama line. I looked at Eilish; she was probably bruised beneath her clothes, unless her meta healing was stronger than I supposed. She walked a little more gingerly than the rest of us, though she moved quicker than Cassidy, who just freaking dragged.

  Cassidy had been on her computer for most of our drive, not saying a word. That was common in the car, the silence, for which I was generally thankful. The loudest noise was the slightly labored breathing of Eilish over what I guessed was a cracked rib or two. My assumption was that by tomorrow she’d be a hundred percent, but again, I didn’t fully know her healing capabilities.

  “I wish I could sleep more,” Eilish said as we entered the rest area. A couple women were behind the counter in the visitor’s booth, one smiling and facing us as we came in, another talking to a guy in a flannel shirt with a baseball hat on. She seemed to be giving him the tourist spiel, and was handing him brochures about the natural wonders of Kentucky, which I listened to with one ear while dragging myself toward the restroom, my tiredness far out of proportion with my day’s efforts.

  “Sleeping just wastes the day,” I said with a healthy serving of sarcasm. Like we could waste the day any more effectively than sitting our asses in a car.

  “I’m going to need to waste some of the day here when we get back in the car,” Harry said, pulling away from us to head to the men’s room, which lay to our right. “Decide among yourselves who wants to drive.”

  I looked at Eilish; Eilish looked at me. She shrugged, and I started to look at Cassidy, but she’d already disappeared into the women’s room, seriously dragging ass. “I’m injured,” Eilish said, suddenly favoring her side more dramatically.

  I started to argue, then just shook my head. “Fine, I’ll drive,” I said. Might as well; it may have been a while, but it was probably like riding a bike. Hopefully Rose hadn’t sucked the memory of how to do so out of my head.

  Eilish held the door for me, cringing at the movement. I ducked into the bathroom and found a row of stalls. There must have been twenty of them, and fortunately less than half were occupied, so I picked one and in I went. It certainly smelled better than that gas station.

  Once done, I came out and washed my hands, looking at myself in the mirror. Everything seemed to be about where I left it. Hair? Still bad, mussy and messed, cowlicked where I’d slept on the window. The blond notes were starting to fade, allowing my darker roots to show through. I had a couple centimeters before I’d have to deal with that, though I was sure a reasonably tall guy could already see them pretty clearly.

  My face still looked haggard. The dark circles hadn’t grown but hadn’t receded, either. My throat looked skinny, and I tried to assess myself as an enemy would. It just made me look like a prey animal, being this thin, like someone could grab me by that neck and snap it with so much greater ease than they could have before, when I was … sturdier. The fact that
my double chin had completely evaporated should have made me look so much hotter.

  But instead I just looked … dead. Even after three months of regular feeding, of sleeping in a warm bed instead of wherever I could find a sheltered spot, of being in the same place rather than being run all over the Scottish countryside, I still looked …

  Skeletal. Like I’d left a quarter of my body weight along with my memories. I looked to either side; there was no one out of the stalls. I lifted my shirt and yep, I could still see my ribs.

  Needless to say, this was not something I checked very often, even in the privacy of my own bathroom. Avoidance was key to my strategy of … well, avoiding my problems.

  My wrists were like little tubes, and when I lifted my pants legs, my shins and knees were bony and exposed. I wore slightly less baggy clothes now, but I still swam inside them.

  “Holy shit,” I whispered to myself. I could eat a thousand waffles and I wasn’t sure it’d make a dent in this … this …

  I didn’t even have a word for it.

  “Whew,” Cassidy said, the sound of her stall unlocking filling the air just before she popped out and hit the sink next to me, splashing cold water on her face. Eilish joined us a moment later, taking the sink on the other side of me. The Irish woman still looked sour, but when Cassidy came up from her splashing, she looked—

  Uh.

  Positively chipper.

  “I feel great,” Cassidy announced, mopping her face with paper towels. The cadence of her speech was lightspeed compared to where it had been when we’d entered the bathroom a moment earlier. I stared at her skinny frame, which … shit, I looked thin compared to her, which rang like an alarm bell in my head. She mopped quickly and delicately at her forehead, and then under her eyes, no makeup coming off on the towel because … well, she didn’t wear any. “It’s a beautiful day,” she announced, staring at herself in the mirror, and for a second I thought she might lean forward and kiss her own reflection. She seemed to think better of that, though, probably calculating the bacteria per square inch on a rest area bathroom mirror, and out she went, humming something awfully jaunty.