Broken Shadows (17 page)

“That’s the Cliff House,” Jackson said. “Pretty famous restaurant. We should go sometime.”

I looked at him, letting my eyes smile. “Are you asking me out?”

“Are you saying yes?”

“Maybe I am.” He slipped his hand into mine, tightening his grip when I tried to pull away on instinct. The zaps that signaled a transfer started, and I remembered what Simon had taught me.

“I want to try something,” I said.

“All right.”

I stopped and kept hold of his hand, closing my eyes and focusing on the feeling in my palm, willing it to stop the way I’d once willed a pencil to move or a thought to leap from my brain to a friend’s. It was like swimming upstream, but slowly, the force of the impulse faded. I had to keep holding it in check—the second I let my concentration wander, the transfer started again—but I could do it. I let go of Jackson’s hand, a grin spreading over my face.

“You stopped it,” he said, his face lit with wonder.

“Simon helped me. I was hoping I’d be able to do it again.”

“That’s great. Really.”

“I just hope it gets easier.”

We kept walking, and I released his hand. Water from the sand soaked through the sides of my tennis shoes, and I realized I was still wearing my torn, bloody shirt. Hopefully we wouldn’t run into anyone out here.

“I used to come out here with my brother when we were kids,” Jackson said. “We’d set these fires on the sand and see how long we could keep them going before the cops came.”

“You little delinquent.”

“Oh yeah, that was me.” He laughed, but there wasn’t much humor in it. “No, Adam was the delinquent.”

“He was older than you, right?” I sensed him nodding. I was careful not to look at him as we walked. He never talked about his brother. I wanted to ask what he’d been like, how he’d died, but I kept quiet, waiting.

“He’s the one who got me into climbing,” Jackson said after a while. “I was fifteen when he took me out the first time, out at Mount Diablo.”

“Aren’t there gyms for people to practice that stuff?”

“Adam never went to a gym.”

“So you learned like that, out in the open?”

“Yep. We went every weekend in the summer.”

We kept walking, both of us quiet for a few minutes. Finally I asked, “What happened?”

“There’s this saying, there are bold climbers and old climbers.’” He shrugged. “Adam was bold.”

“He fell?”

Jackson nodded. “He liked to free-climb, no harness. He could pull—like Cass.”

I nodded. Cass could draw energy from people and her surroundings, like Ryan, the man who’d attacked me. It made her exceptionally strong.

“He could hold himself up for hours. He liked feeling like he wasn’t tied down.” He looked away. “It took us two days to find his body.”

“Oh my God.”

He tilted his head sideways. “I’ll never forget it. I already knew he was dead—my father and I, we could both tell.” I nodded, understanding perfectly. “My mother was still holding out hope, but we knew it. He was her stepson—Adam’s mother died before I was born. Anyway, the site where he’d been climbing...We’d gone there together more times than I can remember. I was supposed to go with him that day, but I had to work. It wasn’t even a dangerous wall. But Adam—he made everything so...” He trailed off.

“I understand,” I said.

“I felt it when he hit,” Jackson said. “They told us he broke his neck, that it was fast. But I swear I felt the pain for hours.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Doesn’t make it easy.”

He stopped at the edge of the water and turned to face me. “You’re right. It doesn’t.”

I stepped closer to him, into the circle of his arms, and tucked my head against his chest. We sheltered each other from the wind, the space between us warm. He stroked the back of my neck with wind-chilled hands, and I snuggled closer, trying to stop the transfer, feeling it stutter and stop like a weak radio station.

“Are you going to ask me in now?” Jackson murmured.

“Do you want me to?” I shifted my head up so I could look at him.

“Isn’t it obvious?” He leaned down and kissed me, almost chastely, and slid his cold hands to cup my face.

“Come on,” I said. “It’s too cold out here anyway.” We put our backs to the ocean and walked, and Jackson kept hold of my hand.

It didn’t register at first when I heard the gunshot. I thought it must have been fireworks or a car backfiring. Then Jackson staggered and put his hand to his arm. It came away bloody.

“Wha—?” I said, and then he tackled me.

Chapter Seventeen

I ate sand. Seawater soaked my clothes and more shots hit the water behind us with ridiculously tiny splashes.

“Wha—? Who—?”

Jackson was covering me, practically pressing the breath out of me. “The wall,” he said. “On three. Ready? One. Two. Three!”

I didn’t have time to overthink it. We ran. I slipped in the soft sand farther up the beach, and Jackson grabbed hold of my hand to drag me along. I wanted to pull away from him, sure he needed his powers, but he wouldn’t let go. We made it to the cement wall bordering the beach and put our backs to it.

“Are you okay?” I was panting. I made to touch his injured arm, but stopped myself. The last thing he needed was more of his powers grounded.

“Fine. Just a flesh wound.” Sand sprayed up behind us as another bullet hit, and we flattened ourselves against the wall. There was another shot, closer, but wherever the shooter was, he wasn’t going to be able to hit us now. As long as we didn’t move.

“Eight,” Jackson said.

“Huh?”

He ignored me and walked forward, out of the lee of the wall, craning his neck as though trying to see over it. He jerked to the right, and another bullet struck the sand. It looked as though it had missed him by inches.

“Nine.”

“What the hell are you doing?”

But Jackson was pulling a knife out of a sheath strapped to his calf underneath his pant leg. I goggled at him. He wasn’t watching me. He was looking up at the top of the cement wall as if he were trying to decide whether or not he could jump it. It was seven feet tall. No—too late. He took a few running steps and leaped up, grabbing the ledge and launching himself over.

“Jackson!” I hissed as he stood up. “Get back down here!” Even as I spoke, the smack of a bullet hitting concrete made me jump. Jackson didn’t flinch.

“Ten.” He squared his shoulders and flipped the knife once, catching it by the blade. Then he threw it. There was a satisfying
thunk
a second later, followed by a muffled shout. Jackson leaped down on the other side of the wall and started running.

“Hey!” I yelled. No way was I letting him leave me here. Then again, no way was I jumping a seven foot wall. I ran awkwardly in deep sand until I got to a set of concrete steps.

Jackson was already sprinting after our attacker. I was yards behind, and I couldn’t make out much, but I took off after him. He was getting away from us, and I didn’t know if the drops of blood I kept encountering were his or Jackson’s. I yelled at him to stop, but I wasn’t sure he even heard me over the sound of the ocean and the wind.

The shooter stopped, and I increased my speed, hoping to get to Jackson in time to help. He could be reloading, but it was too late now. We’d left the safety of the wall, and it was catch him or get shot. I was less than a hundred yards away when the buzzing engine of a motorized bike cut through the noise of the wind. The shooter took off, spraying sand from the road into the air, and Jackson sprinted behind him until he disappeared.

“Motherfucker!” Jackson said, and he trotted to a stop, leaning over with his hands on his thighs, breathing hard. The blood was definitely his. Even yards away, I could see it dripping from his arm to the pavement.

By the time I reached him, he’d moved off the street to sit down on a concrete bench overlooking the ocean. He was on his phone, holding it against his ear with his good shoulder. His good hand was pressed to the wound on his other arm, and as he spoke, he lifted his palm to check it. His hand was covered with blood; the sleeve of his shirt was absolutely soaked. For the first time in my life, I thought it might actually be a good idea for me to tear my shirt into strips for bandages. I was about to start doing it, but Jackson beat me to it. He ripped the bottom half of his undershirt off and wrapped it around his biceps, all while talking into the phone.

“...it’s too late...No, he got away on a motorized bike...No, no plates. I’m not even sure it’s street legal.” A pause. “Oh, no, I’m fine. Just a flesh wound. The bleeding’s mostly stopped...Yes, I’m sure...Well, let me check.” He looked at me and covered the mouthpiece.

“Caleb’s still tapped out. Can you drive me to the hospital?”

“No, I think I’ll make you drive yourself. It’s ‘just a flesh wound.’”

He smiled and uncovered the phone. “I have a ride. Thank you. Yes, same to you.”

He hung up. “You know how to drive a stick, right?”

* * *

It was awful. Every time I killed the car, Jackson winced, which made
me
wince, which made it inevitable that I’d kill the car the next time I tried to start it, too. Despite what he’d said, his wound was still bleeding, and I worried he’d pass out and I’d have to drag him into the emergency room. There was no way I’d be able to lift him. The car died at a red light and horns blared behind me while I got it started again.

“Who taught you how to drive?”

“Shut up and concentrate on staying conscious.”

“I’m fine. Once I get stitched up, we’re having a driving lesson.”

“Maybe you should not get shot again, ever, and then it won’t be necessary.”

He laughed, and I shook my head. The hospital, blissfully, appeared ahead of me, and I turned into the emergency room loading area. I parked on a red curb—if I couldn’t now, when could I?—and went around to open Jackson’s door and help him out.

“It’s only my arm,” he said gently, but he let me support him as we walked to the entrance.

The emergency room was busy, but since Jackson was still bleeding, the triage nurse got him into a room quickly. I had to wait outside while a doctor stitched him up, and I spent an hour pacing the waiting area and staring at the door, whipping around every time someone came out. My nerves weren’t improved when two uniformed police officers came in and disappeared into the patient area, but they came out again after a few minutes. I held my breath, expecting them to stop and question me, but they left without even glancing my way. I stared after them, wishing I could have read their minds.

“You got to relax, honey,” said an older woman. She’d parked herself in front of the television, which was showing a cooking show. They were frying fish. I stared at the oil spattering in the pan and tried to breathe deeply.

“Hey.” I jumped. Jackson was back. They’d cut his shirtsleeve off, and his arm was wrapped in clean white gauze.

“You sure are hard on shirts,” I said.

He tried to shrug but winced.

“I’ll drive you home,” I said. He didn’t argue, and we walked to the garage where I’d parked the car while I’d been waiting. I drove him haltingly back to his place.

“Do you want to come up?” he asked me.

I nodded. I didn’t like the idea of him being alone.

“So, what did the police say?” I asked him as we walked into the lobby.

“I told them it was a mugging. They seemed to buy it.”

“They didn’t ask me anything.”

“I didn’t tell them you were there.”

“Oh. Thanks.” I hit the button for his floor in the elevator. “It’s weird, right? I mean, the beach isn’t exactly a high-crime area.”

“I agree with you. The only question is whether he was after me, or you.”

“Why would he be after me?”

He gave me a severe look. “You’ve grounded half a dozen shadowminds. Some of them aren’t very nice.” The elevator dinged at the twenty-seventh floor, and we got out.

“Yeah, well you’re the one who puts their asses in jail.”

“Fair point.”

“Besides, you’re the one he hit.”

“He didn’t seem to have particularly good aim.”

“True.” We came to his apartment, and he paused while he fit his key into the deadbolt. “But if he was after me, it must be someone who knows what you’re capable of.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I heard the bike drive up right after we got to the beach. He was watching us. He had a clear shot for a good fifteen minutes—he didn’t take it until we’d been in contact awhile. Whoever it was knows how hard it is to kill a converter.”

“You mean he waited until he thought I’d grounded you so you wouldn’t be able to stop the bleeding?”

Jackson gave a funny, side-to-side nod. “Could be. Possible he even knew Caleb would be tapped out from healing you.”

“But that can’t be many people. I mean...”

“Exactly.”

“Maybe he was just trying to scare us. If he wanted you dead, why not go for a head shot?”

“As pleasant as that prospect is, I think he was aiming for something easier to hit.”

“You
do
have a nice broad chest.” I grinned, and Jackson wiggled his eyebrows at me.

“So I
am
making an impression on you. And here I thought you hadn’t noticed.”

He opened the door for me and gave me a little mock bow, motioning me in. My body craved sleep so badly I felt nauseated. Jackson couldn’t be much better off, and no matter what he said, the wound must have been painful. We walked through the dark entry hall, exhausted. I stopped short when I hit the living room, and Jackson ran into me. He stammered an apology, but went quiet when he looked up.

There was a woman sitting in the dark, her face half-lit by the pale light coming through the window. She looked right at Jackson.

“This had better be important,” she said.

Chapter Eighteen

“Cream and sugar?” Jackson asked from the kitchen. He was making a fresh pot of coffee. I was sitting on the couch with the woman who, as I’d guessed when Jackson didn’t attack her, was Cameron.

“Black, no sugar.” She gave me a thin smile.

Cameron was tall and slim, with muscular arms and a strong, straight nose. Her hair was boy-short and almost black, but her green eyes were incongruously big and feminine. She was wearing all black, and I got the feeling it was all she ever wore. She seemed relaxed on Jackson’s couch, one arm stretched out along the back, but the muscles in her neck were tense. Ready to bolt. Jackson came in with three mugs floating in front of him and lowered them down on his glass coffee table. I picked mine up immediately, eager for something to do with my hands, not to mention the caffeine.

“I got your message,” she said. Her voice was controlled, not quite flat, but careful. No unnecessary lilts or dips.

“I wasn’t sure you still checked that account.” Jackson sat in an armchair across from the couch and folded one leg over the other.

“Every now and then.”

“Thanks for coming.”

She nodded.

“Sorry I didn’t go into more detail in the email. I wasn’t sure...”

“It’s secure.”

“Of course.” He sipped his coffee. “Do Tim and Maggie know you’re in town?”

“No.” She was looking out the window. It might have been a nice view if it weren’t for the fog. The atmosphere hadn’t been exactly relaxed, but it got a few degrees more tense during the silence. Cameron finally blew out a breath. “Sorry,” she said, looking at Jackson. “Part of me thought this was some sort of ploy to get me back here.”

Jackson looked genuinely hurt. “Cam. You know I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“I know. Or I should’ve.” She paused. “What happened to your arm?”

Jackson looked down at himself. The right sleeve of his pale blue button-up had been hacked off, and blood had soaked his shoulder and spattered across his chest. “Right. Guess I should change.”

Cameron shrugged. “Not on my account.”

Jackson opened his mouth, closed it again and disappeared into his bedroom.

“So,” Cameron said. “You two together?”

“Um...”

“Meaning you don’t want to tell me, or you don’t know?”

“The second one.”

“Well, that’s only on your side. Just so you know.” She didn’t lean in or drop her voice to that conspiratorial whisper some people used when sharing gossip. She just said the words.

“Uh, thanks.”

“I’ve known him a long time. You can trust him.”

“That’s...good to know.”

She nodded once, crisply, and I had no idea how to make small talk after what had just passed. Luckily, Jackson came out of his bedroom, smoothing a dark blue long-sleeved shirt over his chest.

“Better?” he said, smiling at me. He was still holding his injured arm carefully.

“Much.” I didn’t trust myself to meet Cameron’s eyes.

She leaned forward with her elbows on her knees, hands clasped lightly between them. “Tell me why you need a bender.”

Jackson explained about the kid, the drugs. Cameron listened, expressionless, nearly motionless, while he spoke. Every so often she nodded once. When Jackson stopped talking, she leaned back. “So you need me to unbend him?”

“If you can.”

“But he’s a shadowmind.”

“Someone bent him in the first place. Maybe he’s susceptible.”

Cameron looked skeptical but said, “I’ll try.”

Sleep was going to have to wait a little longer.

* * *

Cameron had a motorcycle—the fast, Japanese import kind—parked on the street. I found this totally unsurprising. She followed us to Featherweight’s, keeping close on the nearly empty streets.

“Not much for small talk, is she?” I said.

“Definitely not.”

The coffee hadn’t made a dent in my fatigue. If anything, it was contributing to the loopy, hysterical feeling growing in my head. Even my vision was swimming. I wondered how Jackson was able to drive, especially with his injured arm, but he managed.

We parked at the entrance to the alley, and I used my key to let us all in through the back door. We took the side passage to the dungeon, and if Cameron was surprised to see it she didn’t let on. She didn’t let on much, actually, and I wondered what her thoughts would sound like if I’d been able to hear them. I guessed she’d be one of those rare types who’d achieved perfect mental calm.

Thomas was asleep on his cot, but he stirred and woke as Jackson flipped on the lights in his cell. He unlocked the door, and Cameron stepped through.

“Will she be all right?” I asked him in an undertone.

“Cam can take care of herself.”

“What do you want?” Thomas said. “Trying to sleep, here.”

“Just don’t try anything,” Jackson said.

He looked at Cameron, who was now kneeling on the floor in front of him. Her face was perfectly impassive in a don’t-fuck-with-me sort of way.

Thomas turned to Jackson. “Who’s she?”

“It doesn’t matter. Play nice and we’ll let you out a week early.”

He shrugged and settled his hands on his thighs. “What do you need me to do?”

“Be quiet and stay still,” Cameron said.

Jackson and I backed away, and Cameron covered Thomas’s hand with her own, bent her head and closed her eyes. He watched her, his eyes slightly narrowed. After a moment, she stood up.

“Whoever did this was sloppy,” she said. “Maybe in a rush. They didn’t even cover the whole memory—only the part where he picks up the drugs.”

“So you recovered it?” Jackson said, but Cameron shook her head.

“Can’t do it. He’s a shadowmind. Whoever did this must have a special gift. I can tell the plant was recent, though, maybe less than forty-eight hours.”

I pushed off of the wall. “But that’s how long he’s been down here.”

Cameron shrugged. I looked at Thomas. He was listening to the exchange and rubbing the back of his neck.

“Are your powers back?” I asked him.

He made a sort of snorting noise. “Why? You wanna get charged up again? No fucking way.”

Jackson turned to me. “Do you think...?”

“One way to find out.” I was pretty certain I hadn’t used up my capacity for grounding. I knelt in front of Thomas. “I’m sorry,” I said, and I put my hand on his arm.

“Fuck!” He tried to twist away, but Jackson held him. His fist came up once but stopped in midair a foot from my face, his face contorted with pain. I glanced back at Cameron and the grin she gave me was downright scary. I held onto him until the electric feeling in my hands faded. The rush of adrenaline was there again, everything sharper, everything in slow motion. I could tell he was on enhancers—the charge was more intense.

I backed away and let the energy slowly dissipate through my fingertips. The air around me warmed, a miniature heat wave. I rubbed my arms.

“Try it now,” I said to Cameron.

She raised a single eyebrow at me and bent down to Thomas again, covering his hand with hers as she’d done before. Only this time, whatever she was doing was bothering him. His hands twitched under hers, and his eyes moved back and forth, unfocused and wild. It went on for several minutes, and he was sweating through his thin undershirt. Finally, she broke away and stood.

Thomas opened his eyes and rubbed his face. “Shit. That was fucking weird.”

Jackson said, “Did it work?”

She nodded. I could tell when Jackson dove into his newly restored memory, because his eyes lost focus. After a moment, he unconsciously clenched his fists. Cameron and I exchanged a glance, then she shrugged and looked away.

“Well,” Jackson said finally, his eyes focusing again. “That certainly explains some things.”

* * *

“Conner?” I said. “Bridget’s brother?”

“Yep.”

We were driving back to Jackson’s apartment, just the two of us. Cameron had left from the speakeasy. She hadn’t said where she was headed, and Jackson hadn’t asked. Before she’d gone, he’d passed her a wad of bills, which she’d tucked into her bag as if they were spare socks. Her fee, he’d explained to me. Apparently she never worked for free, even for friends.

“Hasn’t he been missing for weeks now?”

“Maybe he just doesn’t want to be found.”

“Oh, God. You think he’s the one who cut me?”

“It would make sense. Thomas tried to mentally contact him once he knew we were after him. There was no reply, but that doesn’t mean Conner didn’t get the message.” He stared ahead, lips set in a line.

Cameron had done a great job of recovering the kid’s memory. According to Jackson, underneath the excised jump from the speakeasy to his apartment was the real, and much more believable, image of him at Conner’s apartment, the two of them sharing a joint. He paid a wad of hundreds for a bag of pills, and Conner put the money beneath the false bottom of a drawer.

I’d never met Conner. From the way Bridget talked about him, I had no trouble believing he was a small-time drug dealer. But an attempted murderer? A shadowmind drug lord?

“Do you think Bridget knows anything?”

“I doubt it.” Jackson rubbed his face with one hand. “But we have to assume she’s hiding something.”

“That’s a pretty elaborate game she’s playing if she’s asking you to look for him.”

“I agree. But after what happened to you...” His knuckles whitened. “I’m going to suspect everyone until we figure this out.” His eyes were bloodshot, and his skin looked a little green. I imagined I didn’t look much better.

“I’m going to break into Conner’s place tomorrow.” He looked at his watch. “By which I mean this afternoon. Want to come?”

“Sounds like a blast. Can we sleep first?”

He pulled into his parking garage and killed the engine but didn’t get out. “I could fall asleep right here.” He leaned his head back and tilted it sideways to smile at me.

“It’s tempting.”

“Probably not a good idea. Too cold.”

“We could leave the seat warmers on.”

He scrubbed a hand over his head, mussing his hair even more than it was already mussed. “Come on.” He opened his door. “Bed is softer.”

“I should probably sleep in the spare room.” I was getting better at consciously blocking power transfers, but I couldn’t vouch for my mental control if I slept next to him for hours in a state of total exhaustion.

He gave me a wistful look that made my heart flutter. “You’re killing me, but you’re probably right.”

We went through the lobby together, and I leaned my head on his shoulder in the elevator. He snugged me closer with his good arm, fabric between us everywhere. Maybe it was the exhaustion, or all the near-death experiences, or some combination of both, but it felt right to be close to him. I had a flash, a kind of miniature daydream of doing this every night. I quieted my mind before—I hoped—he could see it, but the thought remained buried there, warmer and more comforting than I wanted to admit. I knew it was impossible. I knew I had no future with a man I couldn’t touch. But as the lights flashed in sequence above the door, I let myself imagine it was something I could have.