Forsaken (21 page)

Adri,
please just leave me alone. I know u guys are worried, but I'm fine.

It
wasn't a number I recognized, but they obviously knew who I was. I
dashed off a quick response.

Who
is this?

What
do u mean? It's Ben. u know, the guy you've been bothering for the
last half an hour...

Hi,
Ben. It's nice to talk to you, but I don't know what you're talking
about. I've been with Albert for the last half hour.

Albert had finished
up his call and was headed back to our table. I was still trying to
puzzle out Ben's cryptic texts when my phone popped up with an
incoming call. It was Ben.

"You're
really there with Albert?"

"Yes,
why? Do you want to talk to him?"

"Yes,
can you hand the phone to him?"

I
passed my phone over to Albert, mouthed 'it's Ben' in response to his
questioning look, and then shrugged to indicate that I didn't know
what was going on. Right about then I was wishing my hearing was as
good as Dom's. All I could hear was Albert's side of the
conversation.

"Hey,
man. What's up...yeah, she's been with me for the last couple of
hours. Texts? No, there was one an hour or so ago to her mom, but
nothing since then. How come?"

Now
it was Albert's turn to look confused as he handed me my phone. I
shot Dom a questioning glance, but her headshake seemed to indicate
that she didn't know anything more than I did.

"Ben,
what's going on? You're acting kind of crazy."

"I
got a text twenty-eight minutes ago. It was a list of names and
dates, and it came from your phone number. Do you swear to me that
you didn't send it to me?"

A chill ran through me. "Ben, I didn't have your phone
number before now. I haven't sent you anything other than the couple
of texts before you called just now."

I
could just make out the sound of Ben breathing on the other end of
the line. Each breath was fast and shallow.

"I
recognize some of the names. They are customers, people we did work
for. I never had last names before now, but there were pictures
online. They are the same people."

My
breathing was speeding up. This was X-Files weird. "What does
that mean, Ben?"

His
response came fast and almost a little hysterical. "I'm not
sure, but if you didn't send them, then someone else is trying to
tell me the same thing that Dominic told me the last time I saw you
guys. Every single one of those customers is dead, and they were all
gunned down doing something illegal. Not just like smoking weed
illegal, like seriously messed-up stuff."

Dominic
caught my eye and mouthed 'give me the phone.' I nodded and jumped in
as soon as he paused.

"Ben,
Dom needs to talk to you."

She
snatched the phone out of my hand, like I wasn't moving fast enough.
She pulled out her own phone and started typing as she put mine up to
her ear.

"Ben,
you need to get out of there immediately. Don't go back to work,
don't go to anyone they know is your friend. Grab whatever money
you have there with you and get on a bus or a train. Walk if you have
to, but you need to get out of there. Leave your cell phone. When you
make it into Manhattan, get on a payphone and ask them to look up
Allen Anders in Pinedale, Wyoming. When he answers, tell him the cat
sends her regards."

There
was a pause in the conversation as Ben tried to process everything
Dom had just said. Dom passed her phone over to me face down and then
shook her head at whatever Ben had just said.

"Ben,
there isn't time for that. Allen Anders in Pinedale, Wyoming, the cat
sends her regards. Repeat it back to me. Okay, hang up and get
moving."

I
flipped Dom's phone over and saw the message she'd typed in.
Lose
the boys. Now!

There
probably wasn't anyone else on the planet more unsuited for spy stuff
than me. I panicked and just showed the phone to Albert. His eyes
were already pretty big after hearing Dom's instructions to Ben, but
they got a little wider. He nodded and pulled Danny to his feet.

"Come
on, Danny. You're going to need to go back and help John finish
setting up."

Dom
shook her head at me and then took her phone back and dialed another
number as Danny started to protest.

"No
way, man. Things were going really well."

"No,
Danny, they're going really, really badly. You owe me, and I'm
cashing in right now."

Dom
stood up and walked away from us as she talked very quietly into her
phone. For a second I thought Danny would argue, but he finally
nodded and grabbed his coat as Albert walked him to the door.

Dominic
had my phone partially disassembled and was reading something off to
whoever it was she'd called. I was still sitting there more or less
in shock when Albert came back to our table and waved for the check.

Dom
had put my phone back together and was powering it off. She gave
Albert a frustrated look when she saw that he hadn't left yet, but he
held up his hands.

"Look,
I don't know what the crap just happened, but Ben and Adri are both
my friends, too. I'm not just walking out the door and pretending
like nothing is wrong."

"Fine,
you can come, but only because I can't waste time arguing with you."

Dom
pulled out a wad of bills, waved them at the waitress, and then
slapped them down on the table. She was herding both Albert and me
out the door while Albert was still trying to tell her that he'd been
planning on paying.

"Albert,
you're a nice boy, but we just don't have time, and I can't risk you
paying with plastic. Cash is fast and safe. Now move."

We
set out at a fast pace. It was nothing compared to what Dom could
have managed if she were by herself, but it had Albert and me both
breathing heavily in short order.

"If
the first text came through less than an hour ago, then it's unlikely
that they've had a chance to make it here, but it's not outside the
realm of possibility. We need to make sure we're not being followed.
I need both of you to keep up for the next few minutes and then we
can get a cab."

I
didn't know that Alec's pack knew this kind of stuff. I'd known they
knew how to fight, but I hadn't realized they were super spies as
well. We jumped in a cab twenty minutes later, and Dom told the
driver to get on FDR Drive headed north.

"Dom,
where did you learn all of this stuff?"

"We
had a recent addition to the...extended family. He's been
bringing us up to speed on all kinds of stuff that we'd never had the
time or incentive to learn before. Hopefully he's taught me enough."

Dom
looked around, seeming to be checking our location against a mental
map, and then nodded and leaned forward so she could whisper to us.

"Okay,
we're making pretty good time. There's a block of road up ahead that
is obscured from overhead view by the trains. We're going to jump out
of the cab as soon as we make it there and then I'm going to steal us
a car. With any luck we can make the change fast enough that they
won't be able to track us."

Albert's
eyes got a little wider at the calm way that Dom had told us we were
just about to be accessories to grand theft auto, but he just nodded
and sat back in his seat. Dom watched our surroundings and then
suddenly reached up and hammered on the glass separating us from the
driver.

"Turn
left here!"

As
the elevated part of the tracks came into view, Dom pulled out two
hundred-dollar bills.

"If
you can stop directly under the tracks, and then keep driving across
the island after we are out you can have both of these."

The
cabbie nodded like he'd had similar requests in the past and then
brought the car to a sudden stop exactly where Dom had instructed.
All three of us barreled out of the vehicle and he was back on his
way only a couple of seconds later.

"Follow
me, and make sure you stay under the tracks."

We
walked for nearly ten minutes before Dom found a car she was happy
with. She pulled a metal probe out of a pocket and then stabbed it
through one of the front headlights. She waited only a second to make
sure the electrical system was really shorted out and then took off
her jacket and wrapped it around her arm.

The
windshield shattered with a rain of glass and then she was waving us
both over as she did something to the steering column.

"Albert,
have you ever driven stick?"

"Yeah.
The van's a stick."

"Okay,
get into the driver's seat and put it into gear. When I get it
moving, pop the clutch and give it some gas."

I'd
only thought Albert's eyes were wide before. When Dom proceeded to
get the car moving more than five miles an hour pushing all by
herself, I thought they'd pop right out of his head. Despite his shock,
Albert got the car running, and a few
seconds after that, Dom had moved him over to the passenger seat and
we were off.

The
next hour was a crazy blur as we went from the car to the subway and
then ditched our coats and walked the last little way to Dom's
apartment in the cold. Albert's T-shirt left him even more exposed to
the cold than our sweaters, but he didn't complain. Once we were up
to the top floor of Dom's building, she pointed the two of us to one
of the sofas in the living room and told us to sit down.

She
already had her phone out again. She'd pulled it out from time to
time as we'd been running, but now she seemed to mean business. I
watched as she disappeared into the hall and then turned and looked
at Albert. He looked a bit like he'd just stepped into a world that
failed to fit almost every facet of his definition of reality.

"Are
you okay?"

He
started a little and then nodded. "Yeah, I guess so. I just
wasn't expecting any of this. I mean, Dom's like frickin' Jason Bourne.
Not only that, she pushed that car like it didn't weigh anything."

I
found myself sighing. Albert was the last person I would have wanted
to drag into the craziness of pack life. He was just so painfully
normal. Even as a rock star, he was just so completely down to earth.

"Sorry,
but you're probably not going to want to talk to anyone about any of
that. If Danny says anything about the phone call he overheard just
tell him Dom's a little loopy."

"Are
you going to be okay? I mean, they've got your number and some of
what I overheard Dom say sounded like she was telling someone to make
sure nobody could link your number back to your address."

I
nodded. I'd actually never even seriously considered that I
wouldn't be okay. Dom and the pack always made sure that everything
worked out okay.

"I
should be fine. Dom will let me know for sure, but if Plan A to
protect me doesn't work then she and Alec will have a Plan B and a
Plan C lined up already."

Albert
nodded absently but I could tell he was already thinking about
something else. Several more seconds of silence passed and then he
looked back up at me and smiled.

"You
know, before we picked you guys up tonight, I thought the worst thing
that would happen was that you might turn me down when I invited you
to come see Les Misérables with me over Christmas."

"You
didn't ask me to go see Les Mis with you."

He
shrugged. "I was planning on doing it towards the end of the
date, but I didn't count on Danny being quite so obnoxious or on Ben
dragging us into some kind of CIA op. I guess I'm asking you now."

Mention
of Danny reminded me of the 'parties' that the rest of the band had
gone to, but which Albert had sat out.

"Can
I ask you something first?"

"Sure,
just don't sell my answer to the tabloids."

I
rolled my eyes at him and then just jumped right in. "You've had
to take down the last couple of shows pretty much by yourself..."

Albert
shook his head and then stared at the ceiling for a moment. "Danny
really is an idiot. No wonder Dom didn't like him. I didn't expect
anything to happen there, not with James in the picture, but how
stupid do you have to be to talk about other girls when you're on a
date?"

"So
why didn't you go with the rest of the guys? Don't get me wrong—I
think that's admirable—but that's hardly the kind of thing you
expect a guy our age to abstain from."

I'd
made him uncomfortable, but he gamely hung in there and gave me an
answer.

"I
could tell you that I figured you wouldn't approve, and that would
mostly be true, but that's not all. I guess I've always been a
romantic. Someday, I'd like to find that one person who makes me
excited to get out of bed in the morning. Joining in with the rest of
the band would have just been going through the motions. I'd rather
wait and have the real thing."

He
was practically perfect. We had a history and he made me laugh, but
what I felt for him wasn't the feeling he was describing. Even if he
thought he felt that way about me right now, it still wouldn't be
right. That kind of feeling couldn't be sustained unless it was
mutual.

"Albert,
what I'm about to say isn't easy. In fact, it's a lot harder than I
expected it to be. I can't go to Les Misérables with you because I'm
not that person. I really wish I could be, but I'm not."

He
met my gaze fearlessly and then nodded. "You knew that before we
went out tonight."

"I
didn't know for sure, but I suspected. It was hard for me to separate
everything out from the friendship I feel for you, so it took a
little while to really decide."

"Fair
enough. Why did you ask me about the 'parties' then? You'd already
made your decision by then."

"I
guess I just wanted to know how good of a guy you are. It...well,
it seemed only fair to know what it was I was saying no to. It made
it harder, but it was the right thing to do. I respect you even more
than I did before. I hope us not working out doesn't make you change
your views there."