Word and Breath (8 page)

When she reached his apartment, she pounded on the door. He swung it open with a question in his expression. “Riana? What’s the matter?”

For some reason, his familiar, pleasant face broke her weakening patience. She launched herself at him, grabbing him by the shoulders and trying to shake him. “This is your fault! My sister is gone, and it’s your fault for dragging me into this.”

Jenson reached out for her instinctively, taking her upper arms in a firm grip. “Riana? What are you talking about?”

“She’s gone!” Her voice was somewhere between a sob and a shout, the temporary calm she’d gotten from Mikel dissipating as she started to think about the significance of Jannie’s disappearance. “They’ve taken her. If they hurt her, I’ll kill you. I mean it.”

“Riana, not so loud,” Jenson hissed, gently pushing her into the apartment and shutting the door with a good sense that infuriated Riana even more. “Tell me what happened.”

“I just told you. I told you I wanted nothing to do with it. I told you it was too dangerous. But you arrogant, pig-headed ass—you got me involved anyway.” She felt outraged and terrified and absolutely helpless. Having no other channel for her feelings, she tried to shake him again. “How could you?”

Jenson’s face had altered from confusion to intense focus. He grabbed her wrists and used his grip to hold her still. “Riana, stop! I know you’re upset, but I can’t do anything unless you explain what’s going on. Did something happen to your sister?”

Riana took a ragged breath. Then another. She managed to compose herself to tell the story to Jenson—of going home and finding an empty loft, of the clues that Jannie hadn’t left of her own accord.

Jenson’s lips tightened as she spoke. When she finished, she glared at him defiantly, silently challenging him to tell her she was overreacting.

Finally, he said, “I agree. This doesn’t sound good. But—”

“No but! She’s gone. It’s your fault so you better help me get her back.” Now that her outburst was over, Riana felt shaky again.

Not shaky and soothed as she had with Mikel. Right now she felt shaky, pitiful, and terrified.

“I will help you. However I can. But we need to figure out what really happened. Perhaps there’s a different explanation.” When she started to object, he continued, “I know what you believe. But we have no proof right now. And I don’t understand how anyone would be served by kidnapping your sister. We need more information.”

Something about his practical response was reassuring to Riana. She swallowed over the lump in her throat. “So you think she’s…she’s been kidnapped. She isn’t—”

He shook his head and reached out to put a warm hand on her cheek. Like Mikel but completely unlike him. “Honey, if they were going to kill her, you would have found her body.”

The endearment surprised her but didn’t concern her. He wasn’t acting remotely sexual, and, combined with his blunt honesty, it was more comforting than anything else.

“Okay,” Riana said, taking a step back, although her expression softened as she let go of some of her resentment. “But what can we do to find her?”

“We have some resources in the Front that might be helpful. We need to study the loft and see what kind of clues it provides.”

She was about to say she’d found all the clues, but he seemed to predict her response.

“Not all clues are visible. We have a Soul-Breather in the city who is loyal to us. She’ll be able to sense any residual undercurrents in the loft. I’ll call her and see if she can get over there tonight.”

“A Breather,” Riana gasped, “But—”

“I know what everyone thinks, but they aren’t evil and they’re not all on the Union payroll. They’re good and bad, like the rest of us.”

“But they’re dangerous, aren’t they?” Riana didn’t know much about Soul-Breathers—just the stories she’d heard as a child and the random gossip she occasionally picked up. She’d never thought much about them, so she was startled and confused about hearing of one involved in the Front.

“They can be. But
I
can be dangerous.” For just a moment, he looked dangerous—focused and powerful. An odd impression for such a scholarly man. Then he continued, more naturally, “So can you. Tava is good, and trustworthy, and she can help you find out about your sister.”

“Okay. Call her. I’ll appreciate any help I can get.”

Incongruously, Jenson’s mouth twitched. “That’s a promising shift from your trying to strangle me and blaming everything on me.”

Riana felt a sharp pang of fear and anger—remembering what might have happened to Jannie because Jenson had dragged her into this mess.

Noticing her expression, Jenson let out an audible sigh. “I know, Riana. If anything happens to your sister because of my choices, I’ll never forgive myself. But we don’t know what’s happening yet. Let’s figure that out first.”

That was exactly what Mikel had said.

Riana wished Mikel was here now. His presence made everything seem less painful, somehow.

He wasn’t here, though. And Jenson was going to help her.

If she’d had to do this on her own, she wouldn’t have even known where to begin.

***

It was four in the morning, but Connor was still working in his office at headquarters. Sometimes he never went home—just dozed a few hours on the old sofa.

Jenson should have gotten in touch with him by now. He’d had more than enough time to meet Tava at Riana’s apartment, do the search, and then make sure Riana was safely hidden away somewhere.

His cousin must know he’d be waiting to hear from him. It was thoughtless to leave him hanging like this.

Connor had spent the last few hours writing messages—hiding his communication to Front contacts on various levels of the government and military in a miscellany of texts. Phone calls, however careful one was, had the potential to be tracked or recorded, so even urgent messages were safer written and then covertly delivered to their targets. They made calls occasionally—using carefully designed phones—but never very many at once and only when there was no time for a written message.

Connor had written the Front’s code himself, and he was the one who composed nearly all of the movement’s messages. They joked about his insistence on always doing it himself—even though most of his companions knew the code and knew how to write. He was a control-freak, they claimed. A micro-manager.

Maybe he was.

He knew how skilled he was at hiding the messages in harmless looking texts, though. And it would just take one sloppy composition for the Union to crack the code and bust open their entire communication network.

He’d never wanted to be any sort of leader. He’d been trained as a Reader and still thought of himself as one. In some ways, he envied Jenson, who’d been able to keep that part of his life intact.

Connor hadn’t been able to do so. He’d had to go underground completely, quitting his job, giving up his home and a lot of his friends, and dropping out of the Common Directory so he would no longer be on the Union radar.

He’d had no choice, and he didn’t regret it. There was too much work he needed to do.

And there was no sense in whining about what couldn’t be changed. It would only distract him from what was really important.

Right now, what was important was finding out what was going on with Riana.

When Jenson had called earlier to tell him that Jannie Cole had disappeared, Connor had been speechless. He couldn’t imagine why the Union would try such a thing, but the timing left few other explanations.

The repercussions were frightening, and not just for Riana.

If Riana was suspected, then she was in serious danger. And who knew how many more of them were suspected as well?

He’d been pacing the office, glaring at his phone—which wouldn’t ring—and his door—which wouldn’t swing open to reveal Jenson. As his growing fear started to overwhelm him, he shook himself off and returned to his desk.

No good would come from panicking. He might as well do what he could while he could do it.

He finished off another message—this one intended for the day manager at the diner next to the city’s Office of Public Security. He’d disguised it in an archaic menu—with meals and dishes written out with their descriptions, instead of presented in images as they were now—and he’d used aged card-stock and everything. He’d have the message delivered as a “gift” from the woman’s sister, claiming she’d seen the old-fashioned menu and thought her sister would like it to display in the diner.

It should do. She wouldn’t receive it until tomorrow afternoon, but hopefully that would be soon enough.

“I thought you’d be climbing the walls by now,” a dry voice spoke from the doorway.

Connor jerked and turned to see Jenson coming into the office.

“What took you so long?” Connor demanded, standing up and striding over to his cousin.

“We had a lot to do.” Jenson’s voice was mild, and his expression was infuriatingly calm. He leaned against Connor’s desk and crossed his arms in front of his chest.

Connor wanted to snarl but he knew such an obvious sign of frustration would only please Jenson—who took particular pleasure in teasing him about one of the few aspects of his life he didn’t feel completely in control of.

Riana.

“How is she? What’s going on?”

“She’s all right. Terrified, of course. But at least she’s stopped assaulting me.”

This cued a twinge of curiosity in Connor, but he didn’t take the time to pursue it. “Was Tava able to sense anything?”

“She concluded that the girl was taken out of the apartment by force.”

Connor closed his eyes briefly, trying not to imagine how Riana must have felt at this news. “Did she sense any…violence?”

“She didn’t think the girl was hurt, but she was sure she didn’t leave of her own accord. She said the residual currents of fear and shock were still strong.”

“She couldn’t identify who had taken her?”

“No. Apparently, they can only accurately identify people they’ve already met—they recognize the lingering aura or something. She wasn’t able to say who had kidnapped the girl. Just that she’d been kidnapped.”

“How did Riana take it?” Connor asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.

“As you’d expect. I’ve never seen her so pale. But she had herself under control and was already demanding to know what was being done to find and rescue her sister.” Jenson smiled faintly. “She’s something else—I can see why you have such a thing for her.”

“
Had
,” Connor corrected, although he knew the attempt to set Jenson straight was futile. “Where is she staying now?”

“At Tava’s. It seemed the easiest and safest possibility.” Jenson’s mouth twisted reluctantly. “I’m afraid she’s going to have to go completely underground now. We don’t know for sure that the Union suspect her, but we have to act as though they do.”

“I know. It’s too dangerous to let her go back to her job or her home now.”

It could happen so quickly, so permanently. Someone’s whole life could be transformed, turned upside down.

His had been. Three years ago now.

He hadn’t wanted it to happen to Riana.

“So what now?” Jenson asked, sounding tired for the first time. “What do I tell her tomorrow—or, rather, later today—when she demands to know what we’re going to do?”

“I’m sending out all the messages. We have to wait to hear back.”

“She’s not going to like that.”

“I know.” Connor stifled a groan. “It would be best if she just stays put all day.”

“There’s no way I’m going to tell her that. She’d lay me out if I even suggested she couldn’t be involved. I’m going to have to bring her along if we find out any information.”

“Just be careful.”

Things were getting riskier and riskier, and Connor felt torn in all directions trying to fix things. He just wished he had a plan to address all of these new developments.

“And don’t take any unnecessary risks with her safety.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” The corner of Jenson’s lips tilted up, and Connor knew exactly what he was thinking.

“Or yours.”

At this, Jenson looked slightly taken aback.

“You realize,” Connor added, with a different sort of twist in his gut, “That if Riana is suspected, very likely you are too.”

“I know. But I have to go back to work. There’s at least a small chance this has nothing to do with the Union’s suspicions, and we can’t throw away my position unless we need to.”

“Jenson—”

“I’ll be careful. I’m not a fool or a child. I’ve taken pretty good care of myself for more than three decades.” Jenson gave him a half-smile. “Believe me—I’m not a sacrificial victim.”

“I’ll vouch for that. But promise me you’ll keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary. And be ready to get out of there fast.”

“Will do.”

They were silent for a minute, and Connor tried to breathe around the clench in his chest. Although his life was now one crisis after another, he usually dealt with everything with a practical kind of composure.