Any Port in a Storm (41 page)

There are too many people in my apartment, and half of them have bare butts.

Evis is in my room, asleep on my bed. He shook for a long time, holding my hand. I lost track of how many times I tell him that I want him alive, that I don't hate him. Nana curled up right next to him, and I don't know which of us was more surprised.

I try to push what he's done out of my mind. He killed norms purely because Gregor told him to. But then again, almost all the shades I know did the very same. Maybe even for less reason.
 

The tension in my living room is like a newly stretched guitar string.

I close the door, leaving Evis and Nana to rest.

Alamea limps past me and coats the cracks in my bedroom door with dust. By now, I'm familiar with the ear-popping that accompanies the spell, but everyone else jumps.
 

Except Carrick, whose face looks like a thundercloud that swallowed Eeyore.

"We can speak freely," Alamea says. "But we don't have much time. I have to return to the Summit."

Mira, Devon, and Ripper are all on the couch. Wane — back in human form and dressed — is perched on the end of the sofa next to Mira, and the shades all hover by the balcony door as if they have to have an escape route pinned down.

"Gregor is gone," Alamea says. "He was last seen heading west outside of town. I've communicated to the local police departments and sheriff departments outside the city that he is to be apprehended at all costs, and I've put out a bulletin to all other Summit leaders as well."

The last part is a little strange to me, since he can't go far.

"This is going to destroy the Summit," says Devon. His face is chiseled deeply with worry, and Ripper nods.
 

Alamea shakes her head. "I don't quite think so." A small smile appears on her lips, though the skin around her eyes stays smooth and unwrinkled. "I think anyone who supported Gregor will shortly be very chagrined."

It dawns on me what she's talking about only half a second before Mira, and we say in unison, "Cameras."

Understanding ripples out, and the tension in the room relaxes minutely.
 

I dance a mental jig at the thought of Ben Wheedle finding out.

The cameras in the Summit lobby will show everything that happened. Every last second.
 

"What about Evis?" Ripper says.

"What about him?" I ask, even though I already know.

He pauses, and all eyes in the room look anywhere but me. "Please take what I have to say with some…grace, Storme."

I nod, nervous.

"The cameras. While they definitely incriminate Gregor, he's not the only one they will damn."

Oh.

Migs and Kelby won't be enough. Knowing that they are dead will put people's minds at ease, but Evis still lives.
 

The weight of Ripper's words grows heavier with each tick of the clock on the wall.
 

"No," I say.
 

"Ayala, you need to consider it."

"I won't."

"Everyone's going to be calling for his head. You know that." This time it's Alamea talking.
 

"No," I say again.

"He murdered innocent people."

"I won't become what Gregor promised him I would be!" I yell it, and in the seconds that follow, silence reigns.

I try to collect myself, try to think of words of reason.
 

"They'll see what Gregor did to him," I say, and Mira nods. That nod means more to me than just about anything in the world right now. I give her a grateful look.

The shades look uncomfortable, and I meet Miles's eyes. I know he killed norms before we found him. Most of them did. They didn't know what else to do. They were hungry and alone in a strange world.

"A reason is not an excuse," Alamea says softly.
 

"I never said it was." My words sound hollow in my ears. "I won't kill him."

"We would never make you do it."

Tears burn at my eyes. "I can't let you kill him. He deserves a chance."

Alamea's eyes search me, and I can tell she knows I mean it. "Remember what I told you before."

I know exactly what she's referring to, and I nod without thinking.

That's all anyone else says on the subject.

I have a brother, and he will know what it means to have a sister who loves him. If he dies, it will not be at my hands or at the hands of any of my friends if there is anything in my power that can prevent it.

Friends.

It's strange, how just days ago, Alamea thought I had none.
 

Now I have friends. And family. And a bunny.

I'm downright domesticated.

CHAPTER FORTY

Alamea leaves first, heading back to the Summit to prepare for the inevitable fallout.
 

Ripper and Devon leave after that, both with hugs for me and handshakes for my shade friends. Wane goes with them. I think she's not sure how to take me kicking her off of Evis.

The shades vanish after that. I know without asking that they need to find the others and tell them what happened — and what Gregor did.

Soon it's just me and Mira in the apartment. I crack the door to check on Evis and to break the spell Alamea cast. I don't want more secrets from him right now. I sit down in the corner of the couch at the opposite end from Mira, and we clink glasses of sake.

"So," she says. "You have a shade for a brother."

I nod, not knowing what else to do.

"I get the feeling you're not entirely surprised."

That makes me shift uncomfortably in my seat. "No," I say carefully. "I'm not. Back when this all started, when Gregor asked me to look into the disappearances of those men and women and Lena Saturn and all that, it was because he found out I'd been looking for my mother."

Mira's eyes go wide, and she sets down her glass. "You went looking for your mother?"

Heat effuses my cheeks. "I was curious. When I found her name, it was in the papers. She'd disappeared six months before."

"Gregor knew."

I nod. "Gregor knew. I think he planned to blackmail me if I
 
didn't cooperate, but I played right into his fucking plot, so he didn't have to."

Disgust wrinkles Mira's face. I can see a few pink spots on her left cheek where the markat spit scarred. The entire left side of her neck is pink as well, and I know the line continues down her chest and beneath her breast, just as I'll bear the scars on my back for a long time. Maybe forever. It takes a lot to scar a Mediator, but markat venom'll do it. I'm going to start carrying the anti-venom in my belt.
 

"So you know," she says. "What it's like to find them."

"Yes." I pause, then lift my glass to her. "Thank you."

"For what?"

"For sticking up for him. I don't know what I'd do if everyone had tried to take him away." The thought makes me swallow hard enough that the sake burns my tonsil. "He didn't come into this world a murderer. He didn't ask for this. None of them did."

"You don't have to explain yourself to me," says Mira.

"I know," I say. And I mean it.

Mira leaves after a while, and I sit on the couch, quietly reading one of Carrick's favorite books.
 

My face is stiff and sore where Evis punched me, but it'll heal.

I take a short break to call and make sure Alice and Laura and the others are aware they can go home and return to work, then I go back to the book. Carrick's right. It's a good book.

Carrick comes home not long after dark, and he comes right to the sofa and sits beside me, not at the other end.
 

To his credit, he doesn't ask if I'm okay.

He just picks up a different book, and we read in silence.

Forty-five minutes later, my phone starts blowing up, and I find out exactly what Alamea meant by consequences.

She's sent out a video bulletin to all Mediators in the Summit territory. I grab my tablet and pull it up.

The first part is the video footage of what happened in the lobby. I skip that, feeling green. I can't watch Jaryn die again. Conroy got moved directly to debriefing and trauma care, which is actually something we have, and I always forget about it.

The second part is a message directly from Alamea herself.

"It is with extreme sadness that I inform you that our friend and loyal employee, Jaryn Trident, was killed today. He was a long term friend and someone I admired deeply. He will be missed, even more for who he was as a friend and person than for the services he provided to our Summit and our cause.

"Today I must also tell you, that from this moment forward, Gregor Gaskin is a traitor to the Summit of Nashville and the world Summit at large. He is charged with conspiracy to murder; willful, malicious, and intentional murder in the first degree; fraud; conspiracy to accept monetary compensation for murder in the first degree; wrongful death; conspiracy to manipulate vulnerable persons with complete disregard for human life; kidnapping; wrongful imprisonment of a civilian; obfuscation of Summit imperatives while acting as a representative thereof; exploitation of vulnerable persons; and finally, defaming in action the imperatives, mission, dignity, and good standing of this Summit."

The charges used by the Summit sound similar to those used in criminal and civil legal proceedings in the norm world, though for us, the last weighs much heavier than it might to anyone else. Alamea pauses and looks right into the camera.

"Finally, it is with great sadness that I inform you that from this day forth, Mediator Ayala Storme is hereby stripped of any and all honors bestowed upon her. She is henceforth censured by this Summit. She did knowingly and willingly harbor a person who was a danger to herself and her community. No direct punishment outside of this censure will be enacted. Ayala Storme is henceforth unknown to this Summit."

My heart stops.

Carrick reaches out and snags the tablet before it falls from my hands. My phone's still blowing up, buzzing relentlessly next to my leg.

She actually did it.

Ben was right.

I pick up my phone, more because I don't know what else to do. Mira. Ripper. Devon. Even Jax and Saturn.
 

And a surprise.

Alamea.

I open it, my fingers shaking.

Delete this immediately. Check your bank balance — you're still on the clock. Stay out of sight. Get out of town. This is not over, and you will be needed. You will always have a friend in me.

I delete the text, but not until after I take a screenshot.
 

If I don't, I won't believe it later.

I ignore the other texts and open my banking app.

And nearly drop my phone.

I'm not poor, and I have investments and hefty savings. But I'm not rich, either.

Or at least I wasn't.

She's put a quarter million dollars in my account.
 

I spend the rest of the evening trying to get a mover who will agree to help me put all my stuff in storage.

No one will take me.
 

I try begging. I try pretty-pleasing. And considering what Alamea gave me, I try outright bribery. Not a single mover will agree to help me.