Page 24

Joey

The delicious scent of pan-fried burgers cooking enveloped me as soon as I walked into Urban Grind with Callum. We’d decided to keep up the pretense of going out for dinner, because we were both ravenous and knew the food from Urban Grind would hit the spot.

Plus, the restaurant had an outdoor seating area that we figured would likely be abandoned because of the cooler weather, which would make it easier for Callum to use his own signal jammer he’d picked up the night prior without affecting any other patrons.

Callum had the bug and scarf in his hands, still in the Ziploc bag he’d put them in earlier. I’d assumed Callum was going to hide the device somewhere in the restaurant while we jammed the signal for us to talk freely with George, so I was more than a little surprised when he handed me the baggie after I’d placed my order.

“Find a table out the back for us?” he asked with a definitive nod at the baggie, and a pointed look out the back. “I’ll wait for the food and bring it all out when it’s ready.”

“Sure.” I shrugged, even though I found the request confusing. Why wasn’t he planning on dumping the bug? I couldn’t question him because, as far as we knew, the bug was still transmitting. I assumed I’d find out what he was up to soon enough.

I made my way out the back, and just as we’d expected, the tables were empty. Urban Grind was in the middle of a larger hub of restaurants, most with internal seating, so even though the staff were flat out filling orders, the customers weren’t willing to sit outside. That boded well for us tonight; fewer people to piss off about their phones not working when we switched the signal jammer on.

There was a table in the far rear corner that would suit our needs, so I made a beeline for it. I placed the baggie in the middle of the table, making sure the bug was facing up so we could point it out to George when he arrived, then played with my phone until Callum joined me.

Thankfully, I didn’t have to wait long.

“Foods ready,” Callum called, a tray of food and drinks in his hands. George had apparently arrived while our food was being prepared, as he was also carrying a tray full of food.

“Oh, thank God. I’m starving.” Smiling, I waved to George, then pointed at the bagged bundle on the table. I wasn’t sure if he wanted to say anything and announce his presence, so I kept the banter between me and Callum light and fluffy and relevant just to the two of us.

Heading to the seat opposite Callum and me, George remained silent, but nodded before he placed his tray down, staring at the bug with narrowed eyes. He and Callum took their seats at the same time in what looked like well-rehearsed movements.

“Double cheese for you,” Callum said from next to me, picking up what I’d ordered and placing it in front of me, while George opened the bag and carefully pulled the scarf out without touching the bug itself. “And bacon deluxe for me.”

Ignoring what George was doing, I eyed Callum’s food and started drooling. “Fucking hell, I should have ordered that.”

“A bit of food envy, mo lus na gréine?” Grinning cheekily, Callum plucked a fry from the bowl and winked at me before he shoved it in his mouth, licking his lips after it disappeared.

“Maybe.” I groaned and felt my cock plump from his teasing. With as much as I’d come my brains out earlier, I couldn’t figure out how I could possibly have enough in me to go again. Benefits of youth, I assumed.

With a nod of George’s head, Callum pulled out his signal jammer from his pocket and kept talking normally as George counted him down. “We’ll have to come again when you’re on break for Christmas, so you—We don’t have much time, so let me get straight to it.” He wiped his hands on the napkins, then held his hand out to George for the scarf. “Let’s see if I can get a read on this.”

Looking between George and Callum as they focused on the bug, I asked, “Not much time? How come?”

“Whoever’s listening will know it’s being jammed,” George explained, watching Callum’s eyes glaze over as he read the bug. “We’re on the clock now to find out who this guy is. Callum thinks he should be able to trace it back to this Agent, but to do that he needed to be able to speak freely, hence the jammer.”

I frowned. “But we have the hair. Why can’t you read that? Wouldn’t it be a better trace element, being straight from the source?” I held a finger up to George to let me finish my thought. “Also, I thought you’d dump the bug somewhere inside so we could talk with the jammer out here. And can I just point out how fucking similar your jammer is to the fucking Agent’s?” I looked pointedly at Callum, who ignored me, which was fine considering he had other things he needed to focus on. “I swear to God my theory’s right.”

“What hair?” George asked at the same time that Callum growled.

“I still can’t get a fucking read,” Callum spat. He threw the bug and scarf down and angrily picked up some fries to shove into his mouth. “It’s the polaroid all over again.”

“What hair?” George repeated when Callum sat back and crossed his arms while he glared at the bug.

“The Agent’s hair,” I said, keeping my eyes on Callum even when I picked up a fry. “Could you not get your scryer?”

“Boomerang is coming,” George answered, bouncing his eyes between Callum and me. “She’s been delayed because of family stuff, but she’s on her way.” He took a bite of his burger. “How the hell did you end up getting this guy’s hair?”

“You’ll like Boomerang,” Callum said absently, still frowning at the bug in annoyance. “She met her wife through the agency.”

“And she’ll be able to track the Agent with his hair?” I asked, ignoring George’s question.

“Yes,” George responded. “About this hair…”

“I can’t read the hair until Boomerang has used it,” Callum said. “The fewer people who touch it, the better result she’ll have.”

“Then wouldn’t it have been better to, I don’t know, wait for her to get here so you could do all this at the same time?” I glared at the two men in front of me and threw my hands in the air. “If we’re on such a time crunch now, wouldn’t it be quicker to have both of you working on things together?”

“She’s honestly not that far away,” George said, impatience seeping through his tone. “Can someone please tell me about this goddamn hair?!”

“It wasn’t me who grabbed it,” I said, sighing. I cleaned my hands before grabbing a smaller baggie out of my pocket that held my inside out glove and the hair in question. “It’s definitely the Agent’s, though.” Tapping at the baggie, I pushed it towards George. “These two guys came out of nowhere and somehow got it for me and said I’d need it tonight. They had a message for you, actually. You probably know them from work, because they literally disappeared in front of me. Had to be powered.”

“They disappeared?” George raised an eyebrow at me before placing a fry into his mouth. “I don’t know anyone with invisibility,” he muttered, then frowned. “They had a message for me?”

“Yeah.” I sat back and took a small bite of my burger before I answered. “They said to tell you that Polo and Cinthy say hi. You know them, right?” I looked at George expectantly as I took another bite from my burger, this time a bigger one.

George’s eyes widened and sat back, poleaxed. His hands dropped to his lap. “Can’t be.” His eyes shifted from side to side but weren’t focusing on anything, then they turned black as he started using his ability.

Even though it still creeped me out seeing George do his devil eye thing, I shrugged and took another bite. As much as I envied Callum for choosing his burger, I couldn’t complain about my own. It was delicious.

Callum grunted in frustration, then took a bite of his burger, before wiping his hands clean to pick up the bug again. “There has to be a way to get what I need…”

I picked up my drink to take a mouthful, and when I put it down I glanced at Callum to see his eyes unfocused again and some ketchup on the corner of his mouth. Absently, I placed my palm against his jawline, swiping at the ketchup before I withdrew my thumb and licked it.

Just as I was about to take another bite, Callum grabbed my hand. “Wait. Do that again.”

“What?” I put my burger down before I lost control of it. “Sorry. You had ketchup—”

“Doesn’t matter.” He placed my palm in the same spot. “Just touch my face again.”

“Okay…” I shrugged, letting him manhandle my hand to his cheek, before I grabbed a couple of fries with the other one. At least these I could eat with only one hand.

“Holy fuck,” Callum breathed, his eyes rapidly vibrating back and forth. “George, the Agent’s name is Leland Buckner.”

“What?” I asked, dropping my fries and my mouth. “But I thought you couldn’t read—”

“His name is Leland Buckner,” Callum repeated firmly. “And, holy shit, George, does he have a hard on for you.” His eyes cleared and gazed at me with adoration. “You were right, mo lus na gréine. He used to work for our agency until he was dishonorably discharged.”

“How…?” My brow furrowed as I looked at Callum, then over at George, who had the strangest expression on his face, his eyes now back to normal.

“I don’t know,” Callum admitted. “But I can see so much of his past now… He was wearing gloves before, and I couldn’t read through them. But now I can.” He shifted to look at George with his own confusion clear on his face. “Are my powers growing again? I thought—”

“Joey’s a boost,” George said quietly, interrupting Callum.

“What?” Callum asked, his jaw dropping open. “No, he can’t be.” He looked at me with astonishment. “Can he? We know all the boost lines. Right?”

“Apparently not.” George nibbled at his bottom lips as he appraised me, his eyes narrowed slightly in focus. “Joey, are you absolutely sure you don’t have any powered in your family history?”

“I mean… no?” I frowned, then shrugged. “Dad was adopted, so we don’t really have any knowledge about his bloodline. And I’ve got no clue about my birth mother, because she split pretty much as soon as she had me. Dad might know more, though. Why?”

“Because Polo and Cinthy ? Those two men you saw earlier today?” George asked and waited until I nodded. “They were Apollo and Hyacinthus. The Greek God himself and his eternal lover.” The corners of his lips tipped up as he smirked at me. “And they only appear now to those that are related to them.”

“But…” I looked between George and Callum with wide eyes. “The Agent… What was his name? Leland Buckner?”

Callum nodded.

“He saw them too,” I said, absolutely flummoxed. “They terrified him, but he definitely saw them.” I looked at Callum. “So did you. You said you saw them. Right?”

“I’m a descendant of the Teledamus and Pelops lines, mo lus na gréine,” Callum said gently, his hand gently gripping mine. “Of course I could see them.”

“And Leland Buckner is a descendant of the Pelops line, not that you’d expect it,” George added with a wrinkle of his nose. “Nasty man, he is. Not like the rest of his family. They’re known for dream reading, though he didn’t get the power himself.” He leaned forward and tapped the table between us. “If you’re a boost, you’re from the Cestrinus line. We’d have to test your dad’s blood to see if it’s come down through him, but I think it’s safe to say you one hundred percent are if you saw and talked to Apollo and Hyacinthus.” Shaking his head slightly, he chuckled. “No wonder my visions were so adamant about you being part of our team.”

“But…” I trailed off, completely at a loss for words.

I trusted Callum with my life, and he trusted George. What they were saying made sense, but I couldn’t wrap my head around the sudden shift in my worldview. It was one thing to accept that powered people existed, but to actually be one of them…? Was that a step too far for my brain to comprehend?

“What do boosts do?” I asked as I shut my eyes tight, sighed in frustration, then scratched my forehead, figuring I’d have to at least ask the obvious question. Knowledge was power, right?

Callum calmly stroked my hand with his thumb, soothing my frayed nerves.

“Exactly as described,” George said. “They boost other people’s powers.” He peered at Callum. “I’d say that’s what kicked your seer ability into action. You said you got your first vision when you shook hands with Joey, correct? How old was Joey then?”

“Fifteen,” I answered quietly on autopilot. “Callum was nineteen.”

“Still in puberty.” George nodded in understanding. “And based on what just happened and your history with Callum, I’d say your power runs through touch.” His fingers twitched as if he himself was eager to touch the hand Callum still held. “You were in a state of flux and your power would have been going haywire.” Not lifting his hand from the table, he pointed at Callum. “He shook your hand at the perfect time to pick up on a powerful blast of your power.”

I blinked, absorbing everything he was saying. Some part of me must have still been hungry, because I absently picked up a few more fries and shoved them in my mouth and chewed automatically.

George shifted his focus to Callum. “No wonder your shields exploded the way they did. There wouldn’t have been any way to protect you from that much raw power.” A soft smile settled on his face as he gazed at my boyfriend. “If you’d met Joey when you were both children, you would have burned, just like Iris. Your brain wouldn’t have been able to cope. Your shields saved you.”

“Is that why I can see Callum’s visions in my head?” I asked curiously.

With wide eyes, George immediately swung his focus back to me. “You can see his visions?”

“I mean… Yeah?” Looking at Callum, I shrugged. “I feel like you’re pushing them on me, though. Right?”

Gazing lovingly at me, Callum lifted my hand to his lips and kissed my knuckles. “I did that first time just to see what would happen. I didn’t actually expect you to see it.” Dragging his eyes from mine, he looked at George. “It takes focus, though. Otherwise, we end up in a feedback loop.”

Feeling my cheeks flush, I looked down at my plate. Yeah. I could easily see how Callum lost his focus this afternoon and got us both in that loop. Idly, I wondered when we could do it again. Now that I knew what to expect, a repeat could end up being a lot of fun.

“Huh.” George scratched his heavily bearded chin and looked off into the distance. “Looks like you’ve got some persuasion mixed in your powers, too, Callum. Could be they only work on Joey, though, especially given his boosting ability. I’ll have to do more research.” He took a bite of his burger and chewed as he thought. “The feedback loop probably happened because Joey hasn’t been trained on how to shield.”

Shooting me a filthy look, Callum smirked. “I can teach him.”

I suddenly wondered how our training was going to go. In answer, an image of us in his apartment filled my head. Callum was on top of me and hoovering my cock before he popped off and said with a smirk, “Come on, mo lus na gréine. You can shield better than that.”

Back in the present, Callum chuckled as my entire face burned.

I kicked him under the table, which only made him laugh louder. Pulling my hand from his, I grabbed my rapidly cooling burger and took a bite. It really was too delicious to leave on my plate uneaten. As I was chewing, I startled and looked at Callum with alarm. Swallowing hard, I grabbed his arm and shook it even as he was trying to finish his own burger. “We got sidetracked. Why did you let us get sidetracked?! The Agent! You got a name. Why’s he doing all of this? And how do we catch him?”

“Leland Buckner,” George said with a grimace. “I know why he’s doing this.”

Callum nodded at George as he stuffed more burger into his mouth.

George set his burger down and pressed his thumb and forefinger against his forehead with a sigh. “Leland was born to a powered family but didn’t develop powers himself. Like most people in his situation, he went into training to join the Agency as a normie. It was the worst thing he could have done.”

Swallowing my mouthful, I felt my eyebrows go up. “How so?”

“Growing up,” George said. “Leland was only surrounded by those powered that had the dream reading ability. His parents, siblings, and his cousins, you know?”

Nibbling on some now lukewarm fries, I nodded, easily following it so far.

“When he joined the Agency, he was suddenly presented with people that had all these other types of powers.” George shook his head sadly. “He got jealous. Why had all these other people received such amazing gifts when his family was stuck with only dream reading? He saw his family’s ability as a weak power, and here he was, not even able to develop that . The knowledge ate at him from the inside.”

Imagining myself in his shoes, I couldn’t deny that I felt some sympathy for the Agent, but then I remembered how he’d threatened my family. Needless to say, the compassion I felt quickly disappeared.

“He’d only been with the agency for a couple of years when one of our empaths flagged him as a person of concern.” Pushing his plate away, George crossed his arms on the table, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly before he continued. “He’d met up with some like-minded people who had somehow found out about the powered families. Leland started feeding them information about our workers: what they did, where they went, what sort of powers they had, that sort of thing. He was sanctioned on numerous occasions, but nothing changed. When one of our psychic shadows ended up badly injured directly because of his actions, he was court-martialed.”

I felt my stomach sink. That sounded all too familiar. How had George not put the pieces together before now? Why had it taken until now for him to be named?

“I was called as an expert witness, as I’d seen something similar happen overseas,” George explained, unknowingly answering my questions. If this wasn’t the first time he’d come across this sort of thing, then it made a bit more sense why he hadn’t realized who the culprit was this time. “They kept his identity secret until the case was over, so as not to sway any of the jurors or specialists they called in. I only ever got his name, never his picture, because once he was convicted of being an accessory to treason, his whole family disowned him. They went scorched earth, destroying all records of him. No photos of his childhood or as he was growing up remain.”

Fuck. Treason? I guess it made sense, though. If he worked for the government and he was actively trying to hurt or kill those who worked in said government, of course, they’d try him for treason. Hell, I could make an argument that what he was doing with me was an act of sedition. Trying to get me to act against the authority of the US government? That was sedition, right? How the hell hadn’t he learned his lesson the last time?

“He was sentenced to six years in prison. That would have been… what… twenty years ago now?” George shook his head in astonishment. “How time flies.”

Until now, Callum had been nodding along with what George had been saying. Now he leaned forward and crossed his arms, mirroring George’s body language. “Leland holds you responsible for him being convicted. He fully believes that it was your testimony that caused his dishonorable discharge and how long he was sentenced to prison. He blames you for it all.”

George sighed, a deep sigh from his bones, before wiping his hands down his cheeks. “If that’s true, it’s obvious he hasn’t read the court transcripts. My testimony got his sentence down to six years. Without it, he would have been serving fifteen.” He shrugged in resignation. “I guess it doesn’t really matter either way. He’d still be out by now, and he would have come after me, regardless. I just wish he hadn’t gone after people I work with. It’s like he’s learned nothing.”

“Sorry I’m late, guys.” A slim woman with a rather distinctive accent that appeared to be in her late twenties with long bottle-blonde hair approached us. Regardless of the cool weather, she was wearing a flowing, vibrantly patterned skirt, long enough to hide what she was wearing on her feet, and a black-and-white checkered, long-sleeved top that was tied in a knot at her waist. A wide-brimmed black felt hat completed her eclectic ensemble. “The day’s been your typical Thanksgiving long-weekend crap-shoot with the in-laws-from-hell. Don’t tell Sav I said that, or she’ll have my tits barbecued. And then on the way here, I got caught on the freeway when some dickhead decided to do a header into the back of a ute and turned it into a carpark.” Without waiting for a response, she pulled a chair from a neighboring table and sat herself down at the end, next to George, and pointed at me. “Who are you?”

Blinking, I looked at Callum. “Um… It’s like she’s speaking English, but I only understood half the words… Help?”

Thankfully, everyone at the table, including the brash woman, burst out laughing.

“Sunflower,” George said, obviously taking pity on how lost I was. It was interesting that he was using the code name he’d gifted me last night, but I’d roll with it. “This is Boomerang. Don’t mind her. She’s just Australian.”

“Ooh, are we using our code names?” She grinned and leaned forward to stage-whisper in my direction, her hand up between her and George. “Forget I said anything about Sav. She doesn’t exist. Everything’s made up and the points don’t matter.”

Okay, I had to admit she was going to be a riot to be around. Once I got a handle on her accent, that was. I grinned back at her. “Hi, Boomerang. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Sunflower. Nice.” With an appraising look, she leaned back to place an elbow on the back of her chair, cocked an eyebrow and looked at George. “He’s fancy. Where’d you find him?”

He rolled his eyes. “Never you mind. We need your help tracing something. You’ve got your tablet?”

She pointedly rolled her eyes right back at George and leaned into a highly amused Callum, their shoulders pressing together in a way that spoke of their obvious friendship. “Do I have my tablet? He calls me out here urgently on a Saturday night when I’d rather be next to my wife, all bundled up and warm, so we could both be sparring with my in-laws instead of leaving her to fight our battles alone, and he asks me if I’ve got my tablet. I mean, really.” Seemingly out of nowhere, she pulled a tablet and placed it on the table, shoving all the plates back without care.

Without complaint, both Callum and George hurried to move things out of her way to avoid anything spilling, giving the distinct impression that she did that sort of thing fairly often.

“What am I reading?” she asked, her focus on powering up the tablet with one hand, while she held out her other, palm up, before curling her fingers in a gimme motion.

“Hair.” George picked up the baggie that held both the hair and my glove. He opened the baggie, and without touching the contents, dumped them on her outstretched palm.

She gripped the glove for less than a second, then looked directly at me. “Well, the owner of this glove is sitting right there.” She pointed in my direction. “But you said hair. Is it in the glove?”

Christ, she was quick; I’d grant that. I nodded. “It was placed in my palm and the glove was turned inside out so I wouldn’t lose any.”

“Okay.” She nodded in understanding. “Shouldn’t take too long. Please hold.” Frowning at her tablet, she looked this way and that, pinching at the screen of her tablet several times before she gave up with a huff. “I’m not getting a signal. Why am I not getting a signal? This place has Wi-Fi, right? Maybe my data’s cactus.”

“Crap,” I said, looking nervously at the jammer. “We forgot about the bug. Do we just turn the jammer off, or…?”

“I’ll get rid of it,” George said, getting up from his seat. He picked up the bug and scarf, zipping them both up in their baggie before switching the jammer off and striding towards Urban Grind’s indoor seating area.

Boomerang watched him go and shrugged, before refocusing on my glove that was still rolled up in her tight grip. This time, when she connected to her maps, everything worked smoothly. She brought up an image of the world on her tablet, then unfolded my glove to get at Leland’s hair and dumped it into her open bare hand. Tilting her head to the side, she stared at the hair, her eyes narrowing with focus, before she muttered under her breath, “Bloody hell, old man. What have you got yourself into?”

Initially somewhat amused that she called George old man, just like Callum did, I shot an alarmed look at Callum. “I thought she was just going to scry for the location?”

While he watched her work her tablet, Callum leaned over to me and nodded. “That’s what she’s doing. She always receives something of a tease of the target’s frame of mind before her focus drills down on a current location.”

“So, he’s thinking about George right now?”

With his eyes still on Boomerang as she transitioned from a map of the world to a map of the Continental US, Callum nodded. “After what I saw earlier? It’s like nothing else exists other than George and how to bury him.”

Somehow, I felt like Callum meant that literally. Silently, I watched the man in question return, his hands now free of the baggie. George settled into his seat and leaned forward to watch the proceedings without a word.

The longer she focused, the more detailed the maps got. Soon, the map of California zoomed into an area that covered both Granmere, where Callum lived, and Hulwin, where our parents lived.

I held my breath as she hovered on this map for a moment. “He’s been focused on this total area for a good three weeks or so.” She gripped the hair tighter in her fist and frowned. “But as to his current location…” She moved the map around slowly, turning it this way and that until she was happy before zooming further in. “He’s in Hulwin.”

My heart stopped, and I stared at Callum in horror. No, not our parents. I grabbed his hand in terror. “Callum…” Oh, God.

“Looks like… Fletcher Lane, Hulwin.”

“George,” Callum said, his voice sounding just as worried as mine, and eyes frantic as he gripped my fingers so tightly that I felt the bones grind.

“On it,” George replied, already pulling his phone out and swiping at the screen.

“Sixty-eight Fletcher Lane, Hulwin.” Boomerang took a deep shuddering breath and lifted her head from the screen before noticing how frantic we all looked. With George on the phone, waiting for his call to connect, she looked at Callum with wide eyes. “What’ve I missed?”