Page 19 of Muted Voices (Broken Ashes #1)
“D escribe to me exactly where it is in your house, in as much detail as possible, and I’ll try to get it for you,” he offers. We’re now the only ones still left in the room.
“It’s too dangerous for you to go back there in case HID are watching it. But thank you, it means a lot to me that you’d offer,” I say.
“I wasn’t going to go back. I should be able to grab it without going there. You certainly described it well enough. I just need a description of where it is, and I might be able to get it. I can try at least,” he offers again.
On complete impulse, I jump up from my seat and wrap my arms around him, “Thank you so much.”
He wraps his arms around me, his chuckle echoing in my ear and making a shiver run down my spine, “You’re very welcome. We need to be quick though; the guys will be ready soon.”
I step back and quickly describe exactly where I know my jacket is, and I’m extremely glad that, for once, I actually do remember where I left something.
He listens intently and then smiles as my jacket, along with the other clothes that I told him I usually wear, appear in his hands. I only just manage to hold myself back and stop myself from kissing him.
“Thank you so much,” I tell him instead, hugging my pile to my chest.
His smile is broad, and his eyes twinkle, “You are very welcome. Now go and get changed quickly, and I’ll meet you at the bottom of the stairs so you can choose your weapons. We have a vast amount, so I’m sure that we’ve got something that you will like.”
“Oh my god, you have a weapons room?” I exclaim as I follow him out of the meeting room and toward the stairs.
“Yes, should I be worried about how excited you sound about that?” he questions, raising an eyebrow.
I shrug, “Nah, we’re on the same team now.”
His laughter follows me down the hallway and through the door to my bedroom. As soon as I’m through the door, I do a thorough visual search of the room. I’m half expecting Winston to be lounging on my bed, and I’m somewhat relieved that he’s not there. I want to know more about him and why he’s hanging around me, a human, but right now, I want to make a good impression on the guys and prove to them that I’m a valuable member to have on their team.
They’ve taken a massive gamble, not only helping me but also letting me join their team, and I don’t want to let them down or make them think that they’ve made a mistake, especially since there is most likely going to come a time when my past catches up with me, and they have to help me sort out a mess of some kind.
I throw my clothes on, feeling so much better now that I’m properly dressed and in something that I’m familiar with.
“This is it, Betty. Time to show them what I can do,” I say to Betty, who is still lying on my bed because I really can’t take her to a crime scene, not one like this anyway, and I don’t have a bag. “I’ll be back soon.”
As promised, I meet Doc at the bottom of the large staircase and follow him through the house to a set of double doors. They’re left open at the moment, so I can easily see the room beyond and the guys already inside, choosing their weapons from a wide and impressive variety. If the doors were shut though, someone would have a hard time getting in since the core of the door is actually steel, and there’s a keypad on the left side of it, which I’m assuming isn’t just your run of the mill security keypad. Those are only the things that I can see. I have absolutely no doubt that there are magical things in place to make sure that it’s secure from everyone, human or supernatural.
Well, everyone apart from Winston, I have a feeling that the normal rules don’t apply to him.
“Wow, look at you,” River compliments as soon as he sees me, making the others all stop what they’re doing and look at me.
I smirk, “Yeah, I don’t look too bad when I’m not half dead and covered in mud.”
That makes them all chuckle, and I head further into the room.
“You look like a kid in a candy store,” Ransom points out with a smile.
Evander chuckles and answers before I can, “Neith’s always been a fan of weapons. All weapons, and in fact, even anything that she can make into a weapon.”
“Seriously?” Raiden questions, once again looking at me like he doesn’t quite know what the fuck I am.
You and me both, buddy.
“Yeah, there’s just something about them that I find comforting,” I reply completely honestly, “which is not a normal response to weapons. I am aware of that.”
“You clearly know how to use them well,” Ransom points out.
“He’s right. You shot that shifter hybrid in between the eyes while he was charging at you,” Griff adds, still sounding a bit pissed that I did that, even though it saved their asses.
“I’ve had a lot of practice,” I shrug and then change the subject because I just can’t be bothered to get into the reasons why I’ve had so much practice. They can just assume that it’s because of what I did in the HID. “So, are there any weapons that I can’t use because they’re someone’s favorites? Also, do you have harnesses?”
“We’ve already got the ones that we prefer, so you can choose whatever,” Doc replies as he puts a gun in his holster. “There are harnesses over there.”
“She needs to be trained with a sword,” Reed suddenly announces, and then glances at me with a wince, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to speak as if you weren’t here.”
My eyebrows hit my hairline. It just seems like such a trivial thing to apologize for, and it's definitely not something that anyone has bothered to apologize to me about before.
“That’s okay,” I tell him as I grab a couple of guns and a harness, putting it on underneath my jacket. I have to admit that it fits me a hell of a lot better than my old one. “I’m a bit rusty, but I do know the basics of fighting with a sword, Van’s family taught me.”
Van chuckles, “She’s being modest. She was better than me. I would be incredibly surprised if she suddenly can’t use a sword.”
“I said I was rusty,” I reply with a smirk. In all honesty, it's been a long time since I’ve had to pick up a sword, and I actually lost my sword the last time I used it. They’re not that easy to get hold of, especially for humans, and they’re fucking expensive too, and since I wasn’t likely to need one, I didn’t waste money on purchasing one just because I wanted it.
“Alright, if everyone is armed up, let's get going,” Van orders.
We all head back through the house and out of the front door. When we all get into a big black van that only just has enough room for us inside, I assume that the crime scene must be reasonably close by if we can drive to it. Unless we’re going to fly somewhere? For some reason, I just assumed that Doc would be transporting us, but maybe he can’t transport people and can only transport things?
Interrupting my inner ramble, the man himself looks at me, “I’m going to transport us to the crime scene. That’s why we were given the coordinates and not just the directions. I find it easier to transport us all in the van, but I can transport us all without it if the need arises.”
I smile, “Okay, that makes sense.”
He returns my smile, “It might feel a bit strange at first, but you’ll soon get used to it.”
I nod that I understand and smile again as I try not to let my excitement show on my face. I feel his magic charge the air and it feels completely different to Reed’s. I’m pretty confident that if I were pushed, I would be able to tell them apart by their magic alone.
Raiden, who is sitting by the back doors of the van, gets up and opens the doors, revealing that we’re now parked down an alley, goodness knows where.
“Wow,” I mutter.
The guys all look at me worriedly, and Doc asks, “Are you feeling okay? You don’t feel sick? Not in pain?”
“No, I feel fine. I mean, I felt your magic build, kind of like when Reed does his thing, and it affects all of you, but I’m not in pain or anything. I’m just fucking shocked that it happened that quickly.” I explain, still in awe, if I’m honest.
Once again, I find myself on the receiving end of lots of stares.
Reed’s gaze is like a laser as he says, “You can feel my magic?”
“Yeah, I can. It definitely doesn’t do to me what it seems to do to the others, though. I can tell you’re crazy strong, just like I can tell that Doc’s strong.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Doc whistles.
“You are aware that humans aren’t supposed to be able to feel magic, right?” Raiden asks while River looks at me like I’m far more fascinating than I actually am.
I sigh, “Yeah, I am. I just sort of assumed that it was because I grew up with Evander and his family. I just sort of became more aware of it.”
Ransom frowns, along with others, as he replies to me, “Yeah, I guess that could be the reason. I mean, it’s quite a rare situation that you were in, so there’s no other comparisons to make it to.”
“We really need to get going, don’t we?” I ask because I don’t have the answer that they’re looking for, and quite frankly, we could spend hours speculating, especially if I told them that I could tell that everyone had magic and how strong they were from my very first years there.
“Yeah, you’re right,” Evander says, getting everyone back on track, “let's go.”
“We can just add it to the list of things that we need to talk about later.” River grins, actually sounding excited about the amount of stuff that we need to go through.
Without any more to be said, we all stream out of the back of the van. I had assumed that we were parked as close to the crime scene as possible and that the body was in the alleyway, but that’s not the case at all. In fact, the guys walk to the end of the alleyway, and I can see the cordoned-off area further up the street.
Seeing my confusion, Doc says, “I’m stronger than I should be, and other than Ty, no one else is aware, and I’d like to keep it that way. If I materialized the van at the crime scene, it would raise more than a few eyebrows.”
“Ah, gotcha,” I reply because that makes a lot of sense. Why paint a target on your back? Something else occurs to me though, and I ask, “Couldn’t one of the locals wonder how the hell a van suddenly appeared in the alleyway?”
“Well, they could, but my magic usually warns me if there are any witnesses around,” he explains and then adds, “plus we’re in the supe part of the city, any humans that do live here are actually more than used to shows of magic, and they don’t necessarily have the knowledge to be a threat.”
“That is so fucking cool,” I reply because it really is. It’s incredibly exciting. Most of the bigger cities are split into supe and human sides.
While I’m glad that means that the supes have somewhere safe to be, where they don’t have to worry about prejudices from humans, although there is still species prejudice between some of them, it also makes me sad that it’s necessary.
As we approach, all eyes turn to the guys. They’re obviously well liked because it’s smiles all around until their eyes land on me. It doesn’t take them long at all to realise that I’m human, and then their eyes just fill with questions instead. They must either really respect or be really afraid of the guys because none of them question why I’m there; they just accept it.
I decide to stay back and just watch how they work as a team. I’m keen to prove myself but I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes, and it's going to take a while for me to find exactly where I fit in this group of extraordinary men. They start talking to witnesses and looking over the body, which they quickly realise is definitely a hybrid, while I focus on seeing if there’s any evidence around the body or further afield. It allows me to see how the guys work while also not just standing there and looking like I’m dead weight.
It would be a lot easier to find something if it wasn’t night, but thanks to how long I slept after my visit to the Darkness, the sun set before we even left the house. I don’t give up my search though, because I have one of my feelings that there is something here to find, and my uncanny ability to find things has definitely kicked into gear, and I know that it’s just a matter of time before I find it.
It's late enough that we haven’t got a massive crowd surrounding the crime scene, which I’m grateful for because, quite honestly, it is a nightmare, and it annoys me that some people have absolutely no respect for life. There are only a couple of witnesses that the guys are talking to, but I highly doubt that they’re going to be any help. The guys work together like a well-oiled machine, and just from watching them, you can tell that they’ve been working together for years and know each other exceptionally well. They wouldn’t be able to work like they do otherwise.
A tingle runs down my spine, letting me know that I’m being watched; I pause my thoughts as I focus on the feeling, no not me specifically, someone is watching all of us. As I take a casual look around, I can’t locate the person at all, and considering we’re in the supe part of town, there’s every possibility that they are cloaking themselves and that I have absolutely no hope of finding them, especially since my instinct is focused on the evidence that it knows is here.
My gift leads me away from the body and closer to the two buildings that the body is laid in front of; technically, it’s two buildings, but the gap between the two is small enough that I’d only be able to get an arm into it, and that’s only because I’m small, one of the guys would probably only be able to fit their hands in it.
I grimace as I approach, there is something in there that will help us with this case, which is great. What isn’t great though is that it means I’m going to have to put my hand in that space, not knowing what else is down there, and I have an incredibly active imagination, which, as soon as it saw the small gap, started to flit through all sorts of freaky scenarios at me.
I pull on a pair of gloves and make sure that I know exactly where the evidence bags that River handed me when he went to look over the body. I did like that they trusted me to do my own thing; none of them felt the need to watch me in case I tempered with something and they trusted my reputation and that I was good at what I do. I’m still going to have to prove myself so that they don’t carry on seeing me as a weak human. I’m anything but that. They wouldn’t do it intentionally; it’s just a fact: I am human, and I am weaker than they are. The only difference is that I’m not as weak as some and against lower level supes and maybe a couple above, I can hold my own.
I am definitely putting off reaching into the abyss between the buildings, and that’s definitely what it looks like. I really wish I had my phone so that I could shine my flashlight in there first, but I lost it on the way here, and if I hadn’t, I would’ve had to destroy it, thanks to the threat from the HID. Actually, fuck this, I don’t work alone, not anymore, and that means I don’t have to struggle.
I quickly retrace my steps and try to find the person that looks like they’re not really busy. My eyes land on Reed. He’s standing near the body but not as close as the others, and everyone is avoiding him and giving him truly terrified looks, I can tell that although he looks stoic and like he’s unaware of the fearful looks and the way that everyone is avoiding him, that’s not the case and he is in fact very aware, and it’s affecting him more than he’d like anyone to know. I can see it though, and I don’t fucking like it.
It's for that reason that I decide to ask him. I practically skip over to him, grinning and earning myself some looks on the way that I ignore entirely.
“Hey,” I grin up at him.
His lips quirk as he glances down at me and replies, “Hey, Neith.”