Page 29

28

THE CAPTIVES

I crushed Angel in a hug, squeezing her tightly from where she stood next to Cowboy, holding her husband’s hand without letting go. I saw Cowboy wipe tears from his eyes, and my throat closed even more. He’d barely said two words since he woke up in that garage, and when I looked at him now, I still mostly saw exhaustion and shock in his eyes.

I wondered how long it would take before that turned into rage.

Not long, I was guessing.

“You should go to a hotel,” I told Angel as I let go of my death grip on her. I couldn’t make myself release her entirely and held her shoulder tightly with one hand. “You and Javi. Cowboy, too. You don’t have to come along for this part.”

She shook her head. I saw fear skate over her eyes.

“No,” she said. “I can’t sleep, doc. I can’t.”

I bit my tongue, wanting to argue with her, but I caught the hard stare from Cowboy and wouldn’t let myself. I understood. More than I wanted to.

“You want some coffee?” I forced a smile. “There’s a shop right there. I’ll get you whatever crazy, heart-attack-inducing drink you want.”

She forced herself to smile back. I saw the tick in her cheek.

“Something with at least four shots of espresso would be great,” she said, smoothing her braids back with her fingers and glancing at Cowboy. She still wouldn’t let go of his hand. His eyes welled up again as soon as they were looking at one another, then he pulled her closer. She leaned into his chest and side, and he wrapped his arm around her waist.

I saw her close her eyes longer than a blink as she rested more of her weight against his body. I also saw her nod at something he’d said as he murmured quietly in her ear.

I fought my own emotions as I turned away, willfully not listening.

I walked straight over to the coffee shop near the seating area of the gate.

I glanced over the menu, ordered her a five shot mocha in their largest cup with 2% milk and extra foam, then, after a bare pause, I ordered a five-shot latte with oat milk for Javier. I had to hope the combination of sugar and caffeine would help, and not just make the two of them crash even harder in about forty minutes.

I brought both drinks back and handed each to their respective owner.

Angel, Javier, and Black were all talking now.

Nick had re-joined us, and was listening from next to Black.

His deep voice was the first I heard as I walked up on them.

“You’re sure there was no one else there?” Nick asked Angel, gruff. “Jem was alone with the three of you? The entire time?”

Angel shook her head slowly. “No, I can’t be sure of that,” she said bitterly. “But I don’t remember anyone else. On the commercial flight, I didn’t see him talk to anyone, or in the airport, apart from stewardesses and ticket salespersons and so forth. If anyone was with us on the flight, they didn’t sit in our row.”

Black stared at her, then at Nick.

“You think Brick might’ve actually traveled with them?” Black asked, blunt.

Nick stared flatly back. “I have no fucking idea, Quentin. I just would like to know, either way. Wouldn’t you?”

Black nodded, but he didn’t look satisfied.

Cowboy still held Angel tightly. I didn’t hear him say anything, but somehow his silence managed to speak volumes anyway. I definitely got the impression he would take Angel out of there, and likely out of the country, at the slightest provocation. For now, he simply listened to the rest of them talk, his jaw set.

I couldn’t blame him one bit, for any of those sentiments.

Hell, I might cheer if he took Angel away from this mess.

At the very least, I’d probably help him do it.

Black turned back to Angel and Javier.

“And neither of you have any idea where he might have gone with her?” Black asked, his voice gruff. He aimed the question mostly at Angel, but glanced at Javier after he asked. “You don’t remember anything he said in passing? Anything he might have said on the phone to someone else, any glimpse of him looking at maps, or at hotels, or––”

“No, Quentin,” Angel said, sounding a touch exasperated. “How many times are you going to try and re-word the same question? He didn’t even let us look at him during the flight. If he was on the phone, he either erased it from my mind or he did it from the toilets. Javi and I were basically strapped to our chairs and forced to watch movies the entire flight. He had us put in headphones, crank up the sound, and find the loudest movies we could.”

I winced, then felt my jaw harden.

It was getting harder and harder to not make this personal against Jem.

Still, he could have hurt them. He didn’t.

He could have knocked them out instead of using his mind to keep them from following him once they got to the airport. He could have killed them.

Instead, he’d let them go.

“Why did he grab you at all?” I asked, causing Black, Cowboy, Nick, Angel, and Javi to turn and look at me. “If he didn’t want you as hostages, in order to force us to keep our distance, then why––”

“I don’t know.” Angel’s voice sounded even more bitter than before. “He had me babysitting the girl on the way to New York while the two of them flew the plane. I have no idea why he needed me for that. I sat in back with the girl handcuffed to my wrist the entire time. I’m pretty sure that was my only function. The only thing I could think is that he couldn’t push her, her being a seer and having that implant, so he pushed me to watch her, instead. I remember thinking I was supposed to scream if she did anything, or tried to get free.”

I frowned, glanced at Black, then back at Angel. “Did he hurt her at all? Aura?”

Angel frowned, but shook her head slowly.

“Not that I saw,” she conceded. “He didn’t speak to her at all during that first flight. He basically ignored both of us. After we arrived in New York, I heard him talk to her a few times, but it was so low I couldn’t hear it. It seemed like he might be threatening her, maybe to stay quiet, but I don’t know what he threatened her with. She didn’t fight him once we got on the commercial plane, but for all I know, he might have drugged her with something.”

“Were you still handcuffed to her?” Black asked.

Angel shook her head. “No. He left her free the whole time, including in the terminal at J.F.K. She mostly slept on that second plane.”

“He didn’t keep her up?” I asked, surprised. “Only you and Javi? Why?”

Angel shrugged, a little helplessly. “I don’t know. It was odd, though, how complacent he got about her all of a sudden. And how calm she seemed.”

“Why didn’t he just leave you and Javi in New York?” Kiko asked.

Angel shrugged again. “No idea.”

“How long were you in New York?” Black asked.

“Only about forty minutes,” Angel answered. “I’m pretty confident about that. I didn’t notice any weird gaps while we were there… and I checked the time. A lot.”

“How was he acting?” Nick asked. “Jem. Did he seem calm at the airport? You said he seemed ‘complacent’ about the girl. Was he too calm, maybe?”

Angel frowned as she turned that over.

“No,” she said slowly. “I wouldn’t say he was calm. He didn’t seem worried about the girl by then, or about her running off, but he wasn’t exactly calm, either. He seemed really tense bordering on paranoid to me. Like he worried people would be waiting for us there, or that the cops might be after him. He was definitely in a hurry to get us on the plane. He kept checking his watch, and I think he must have pushed the ticket sellers to give us someone else’s seats, because I distinctly remember her saying the flight was completely full.”

Black and I exchanged looks.

If Angel noticed, she didn’t react.

“Sorry I’m not more helpful,” she said, leaning her head on Cowboy’s shoulder. “I’m just really damned glad he decided he didn’t need me and Javi anymore.” She shoved her hands in her jeans pockets, still leaning against Cowboy, and swallowed. “Where’s everyone else?”

Her voice sounded worried, almost like she was nervous to ask.

“Looking at video.” Black checked his watch. “They should be back soon. I sent Alisha to see if she could find a way to plug into the camera system all over the city. I’m pretty sure the local police have them all networked since that last big terrorist attack a few years back.”

I thought about everything we’d just talked about.

There were still so many unanswered questions.

I was so glad to have Angel back, I told myself the answers didn’t matter right now, but I could feel all the gaps, and there were gaps in every part of this. There were gaps in Angel and Javier’s story. There were gaps in Nick and Black’s theory about the vampires being behind this. There were gaps a truck could drive through in the story we’d gotten from Prometharis. There gaps in what we knew about Aura, and why Jem reacted to her the way he did.

Would Brick really orchestrate all this, just to get his hands on sight-blocking technology he could use against seers?

The thought made me feel faintly sick.

The alternative was worse, though. Could Jem really be working alone?

He’d violated my best friend.

God, why? Why had he done it?

“One more thing, Ang,” Nick ventured, as if he’d just thought of something. “Was Jem agitated here? When he landed in Paris?”

Black turned to listen to her answer. So did the rest of us.

“No,” Angel said, as if surprised by her own answer. “No. He wasn’t. He seemed calm. Mostly, he was all-business. Like they were on a tight schedule.”

“They?” I asked.

She blinked, as if surprised by her own words.

“Yes,” she said, sounding more sure. “Him and the girl.”

“What was she like?” Black asked. “The girl. Was she walking under her own power? Did she seem alert? Out of it? Was she––”

“Alert,” Angel said, sounding more and more positive. “He barely had to lead her. He definitely didn’t need to prop her up. He turned to go, and she went with him. They left together, both walking fast. Her head was upright. She didn’t fight him at all. He didn’t even hold her hand. He didn’t touch her once, as far as I saw.”

Angel gave me another look, and that time, I saw anger seething in her brown eyes.

Honestly, it was a relief. I’d much rather her angry than afraid.

“Fuck,” she said, annoyed. “Why didn’t that even occur to me until now?”

I rolled my eyes a little, and gave her a faint smile.

“Gee, I can’t imagine,” I said. “I’m sure it has nothing to do with being kidnapped and not getting any sleep for forty-eight hours––”

“Javi and I couldn’t move,” she said, that anger seeping into her voice. “So I just sat there, and watched them walk away. My mind was mostly fine by then, but we couldn’t do anything but sit in two of these chairs, like a couple of posed mannikins.” She motioned at the vinyl seats in the terminal waiting area. “It felt like I’d been tied there with duct tape. When the straightjacket finally dropped, we both fell to the floor.”

“I had to piss like you wouldn’t believe,” Javi said with a strained smile.

I could see he was trying to make light of it, but he didn’t really succeed.

Angel reached out and Javier squeezed her hand.

I saw the understanding pass between them.

I could feel it on Angel better, maybe because she was my best friend, and there were fewer walls between us. She’d been made to feel powerless, helpless, manipulated like a doll, afraid for her life, and completely used. She’d been treated like she wasn’t a person at all, and by someone she considered a dear friend, basically family.

Afterwards, she’d been discarded like trash.

I’d never wanted to hurt Dalejem before, but I did now.

I knew it was irrational. I knew he likely had no control over whatever this was, even if he’d simply lost his mind. I knew it probably wasn’t fair.

I still couldn’t help how I felt.

You’re not alone in that, doc, Black muttered in my mind.

Black’s fury sparked around me like a icy wind. I felt an even hotter rage on Cowboy, as soon as I opened my light, although not a thing showed on his angular face, or in the set of his blue eyes.

It worried me, though.

Not just my anger, but all of our anger.

It worried me a lot.