Page 7

Terk, feeling the ping of energy, picked up the phone and called Bullard. “Okay, what just happened?”

“You tell me,” Bullard roared into the phone. “I can’t believe she just did that.”

Terk put it on Speakerphone, so the rest of the crew in residence could hear. People were always coming and going these days. “Calm down, and tell me what happened.”

Bullard took a deep breath. “She just blew up my gate and left.”

His lips twitched. “She what?” he asked, trying to figure out just what that meant.

“You heard me,” Bullard snapped.

“Why would she do that?”

Grudgingly Bullard admitted, “Because I asked her what would happen if I didn’t let her out.” There was little grace left in his tone.

“You mean, you threatened to not let her leave?” Terk asked in astonishment.

“I wouldn’t do it against her will, but all kinds of shit has been happening, and she wanted to take off. However, I wasn’t sure I was ready to let her go, not when she wasn’t answering my questions,” he explained. “I told her that she could stay here and rest instead, but she turned me down flat and demanded I open the gate. I guess I was being a little perverse and asked her what she would do if I didn’t.”

Terk pinched the bridge of his nose. “I presume she provided a visual response.”

“Yeah, ya think?” he spat in disgust. “I’m not sure I can even fix the damn thing.”

“No, you probably can’t, at least not easily,” Terk replied. “So, remember that saying about don’t play with fire ?”

Bullard muttered, “I had no idea she was dangerous.”

“Really?” Terk snapped. “We all know that every person when cornered is dangerous, and, in her case, I would say a little more so, and that is unfortunate. You don’t want her as an enemy, and definitely not when she came to help you.”

Bullard quietened instantly. “What do you mean, in her case?”

“Her family tried to keep her imprisoned, had locked her up in a mental institution,” he shared. “She swore she would never be locked up again.”

“You could have told me that,” Bullard snapped.

“Yeah, and when would I do that? When she came to your door, trying to tell you that you were in trouble, or when I sent over two men to help you out? Or maybe when you were off dealing with the apartment building where she found it completely wired for bombs?”

Terk had never lost his temper with Bullard before, yet he felt Terk’s anger bubbling even this far away.

Terk continued. “She’s tired. She’s worn down. She’s not sure of her welcome, and she’s obviously going through a bit of a problem, and you pushed a button.”

Silence came from the other end, until Bullard groaned. “And I suppose you’ll say I deserved this.”

“No, not necessarily,” Terk conceded, with a chuckle, “but you should know yourself what it’s like to come up against somebody who’s decided to imprison you. That will never go over well. In her case, obviously she’s more tired than we realized.”

“Yeah, she’s tired all right, and I think finding that bomb today really upset her.”

“Why did finding it upset her?” he asked. “Seems that’s a win, considering the alternative if she hadn’t found it and if it had gone off.”

“I think the police treated her more as a suspect than a hero, and she didn’t take that well.”

“Ah, well, that’s an entirely different story,” Terk muttered, “one that you should have been able to defuse easily and then placate her. She may have been tired, but she’s not unreasonable.”

“Yeah, I get that. I do,” Bullard stated, “and I did talk to the police, but I wasn’t thinking about defending her, more about why this would be happening to me.”

“Now you have the men and the power there to fix the damn gate,” Terk suggested, “and maybe next time you won’t be quite so harsh, so she won’t feel as if she has to explode your gate in order to get free. Honestly, at this point, I don’t even know if she will return to your compound. I can’t say I would really blame her.”

“Shit,” Bullard grumbled in disgust. “So, that’s my fault too, isn’t it?”

Terk wanted to laugh, but, aside from Bullard’s obvious discomfort, it wasn’t really a laughing matter at this point. “Listen. I know you’re angry about things happening in your compound that you don’t understand,” Terk began, “and that is why you let people like my team in because it’s our thing. Is she part of my team per se? No. Mostly because I’ve never really thought to bring her on. She’s a bit of a wild card because of her past, though she doesn’t know that I know about that, but I do. One of your best ways to deal with her and to keep her calm is by using Trevor.”

“That’s true enough. He does seem to have the magical answer to calm her.”

“Has she been upset or irate or unable to stay calm?” Terk asked. “Or is it more about her feeling uncomfortable, trying to find her way in a situation that she really can’t explain?”

“Yeah, the last one is probably more like it,” Bullard noted in disgust. “Goddammit, Terk. Why is this shit never easy?”

“If it were easy, you wouldn’t need people like me and my team,” he replied in a gentle tone. “Look. I’ll talk to her and see if I can settle her down.”

“No, I need to do it. It’s probably my fault to begin with,” Bullard grumped. “Will she even let me in, or will she send firebolts after me or some damn thing?”

“Let me know if she does because, in that case, I really need her on my team.”

“ Right ,” Bullard muttered in disgust. “Shit, if she can do that, I need her on my team.”

“Oh no you don’t,” Terk argued. “You made your opinion about her abilities quite clear,” he stated, still chuckling. “Let me talk to Trevor if he’s right there. If not, tell him to call me.”

“Will do.” And, with that, Bullard ended the call.

*

Terk stared down at his phone and started to laugh. Celia looked over at him, as she walked in with a baby in each arm, handing off one to him. He smiled down at the cherubic face that reached up a hand and patted him on the cheek.

She asked, “What on earth was that all about?”

“You won’t believe it,” he stated, just as Sophia and Clary walked in, and he told them all what had happened. They stared at him in shock.

“She blew up his gate?” Sophia repeated in astonishment.

“The electronics apparently, and honestly, I don’t blame her. Any one of us would have done the same. We don’t imprison well,” he declared, “and neither would Bullard.”

“Even for him to joke about it, or to use it as a test to see what she would say or do, wasn’t a good move. I don’t know that I would have taken that myself,” Clary shared, from the sidelines.

“So, Bullard just learned a very valuable lesson—hopefully.”

Clary asked, “The question is, did he get it, though? We all love Bullard dearly, but we also know that some of this stuff flabbergasts him and what he tolerates from us, versus what he’ll tolerate from somebody he doesn’t know, is a very different story.”

Terk sat back, enjoying the baby in his arms. “Look at it from his perspective, though. Bullard is trying to stave off what may well be an attack on his own home, not understanding who, where, why, or how, and he’s fighting mad about it. Somebody he doesn’t know showed up out of the blue, with all this crazy talk and a chip on her shoulder, and they end up averting a potential tragedy at that apartment complex, which had to leave Bullard rattled. Then she ends up blowing his gate to hell just because she can. And remember things are all different now that there are children at Bullard’s compound. That changed everything and multiplied the responsibility he feels a thousand times over. He doesn’t understand Reeni or what she can do. Plus, let’s face it. She can be a bit of a loose cannon at times, which will definitely push his buttons.”

“Maybe.” Celia looked at him. “Do you think she’s in trouble?”

“From Bullard? Never,” he said. “In trouble from herself? Maybe. In trouble from her own impulsive nature and her own fears? Yes, but, to some degree, that’s something we all deal with on a regular basis, isn’t it?” He looked from each of his team to the other, and they all agreed.

Sophia nodded. “I don’t think there’s anything worse than knowing somebody has the power to take away your free will. And how come she’s not on our team anyway?”

“Do you consider her stable enough to be part of our team?” Terk asked her.

She thought about it and then nodded. “I do. If she’s got abilities, and new ones, we could really use her. Besides, we all have limits, and anyone can go haywire under pressure.”

“Could we handle her?” Terk asked anyone in the room. “I can’t really send her out on too many missions if she’s erratic like that.”

“I don’t think that’s erratic,” Celia noted. “Emotional, yes, and maybe she was firing from the hip. However, she’s clearly not used to having backup. She’s not used to having support or somebody she can count on. That could really change her.”

Cara walked into the room and added, “We also know that, when we’re tired, when we’re exhausted, we don’t do a very good job of being the best humans we could be either.”

Tasha was right behind her. “Yeah, we heard that on the Speaker call,” she noted, rolling her eyes. “My sympathies are with her, and I get it. Bullard’s probably very upset and doesn’t understand what just happened, but, if he made even the slightest threat about not letting her leave, she was likely triggered and did what she needed to do. Maybe she could have done it differently. Maybe she didn’t need to do it quite so quickly, with such a great show of power. Still, the reality is, Bullard will not underestimate her again. The fact that she found that apartment building with the bomb in it tells us a lot about what she can do. I get that everybody is probably worried about her stability because we certainly have seen people with our types of abilities simmering at the edge of sanity. Yet I think what she did, considering the fatigue, frustration, and hurt feelings from her lukewarm reception, was not completely out of line. Add in an interrogation by the cops, the fear of all that suspicion, and I’m on her side.”

Terk agreed. He certainly wouldn’t have tolerated anything like that either. He also knew that, despite his loud and blustery demeanor, Bullard would never have hurt her, but Reeni didn’t know that, and that was the challenge.

“I know you believe he wouldn’t have hurt her, and I don’t disagree,” Celia pointed out, looking at her husband, “but I’m on her side on this one. Just the thought of being imprisoned again is triggering for anyone who has been,” she admitted, her tone dark. “I totally get where she is coming from.”

Terk winced and reached out a hand. “That’s not happening. Never.”

“You say that,… and I hear you,” she noted, “yet that innate reaction happens before there’s a chance to reason or to think logically. Bullard needs to know that he unintentionally laid wide open an old wound, and he’ll have to work at it carefully to begin to build her trust. Whether he wants her help or not, she did go there to help him. She may have been unorthodox, showing up completely out of the blue, and she’s definitely a bit dodgy, but her intention was to do the right thing.”

“Whoever would have thought that Trevor would be involved?” Cara asked. The others looked at her, as Cara stared off in the distance and then nodded. “He really is, isn’t he?”

Terk confirmed, “He is, and that is probably the biggest calming factor she has going for her. He appears to handle her brand of energy.”

“Which I’m not sure that Reeni knows,” Celia said, looking over at Cara. “Do you get that feeling?”

Cara shook her head. “No, I don’t think she really does. She acts as if she feels very much alone in this world.… I want to reach out and give her a hug.”

“Yeah, me too,” Clary agreed. “She’s definitely been alone way too long.” They both turned toward Terk.

He nodded. “That’s her father’s doing. When she started using her gifts, he couldn’t handle it and had her institutionalized,… for many years,” he noted. “Now, because of that, whenever people start doing any research into her background, that’s what pops up, regardless of anything else she’s accomplished in her life. That has stayed with her for way too long.”

“And that’s not fair,” Celia said. “That’s not her fault.”

“No, it isn’t,” Terk replied, walking over and giving her an armload-of-baby hug, along with a gentle smile. “But we also know that nothing is fair in life and that this is just one of those burdens Reeni has had to bear. Should I have warned Bullard? Maybe so, but I honestly didn’t think it was an issue.”

“It wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t threatened her,” Celia said. “Shame on him.”

“Yeah, well, he won’t do it again,” Terk noted, his lips twitching. “He’ll be a while fixing that gate.”

“But it’s fixable?” she asked.

“It’s fixable,” he said, with a nod. “She could have made it much worse.”

“So, this was her saying, Back off. I’ll do what I need to do, and you can’t stop me .”

“Something like that.” Terk nodded in agreement. “Maybe not the subtlest methodology she could have used.”

“I don’t think subtle was part of her instinctive reaction,” Clary stated. “I think it was all about being emotionally triggered, and that’s the part that’s dangerous.”

“It is,” Terk confirmed, “but I also think she’s very trainable. However, if you guys don’t agree or don’t like what you’re seeing, we’ll have to reconsider. We can’t collect injured and lone psychics who can’t be redeemed,” he noted, with a shrug, “no matter what they have for abilities. I get that’s not a popular opinion, but, until somebody comes up with a solution, that’s just where I’m at.” And, with that, he gave Celia another gentle hug, while handing over the baby. “You may want to talk to Leia.”

She chuckled. “I will. I’ll see if she can get Bullard to calm down a bit.”

“I think he’s calming down, or at least he will once he gets his gate fixed,” Terk replied, with a note of humor. “In the meantime, it might be best for him to just stay away from people.”

And, with that, he headed to the office. He had a lot to fix himself.

*