38. Chapter 38

38

T he second Rebecca opened her bedroom door, the blaring alarm almost knocked her back with its strengthened intensity in the hallway.

No way in hell did this mean anything good.

Gritting her teeth against the sensory onslaught of the wailing siren and the flashing red light pulsing through the hall like the building’s heartbeat, Rebecca raced across the compound toward the common room.

It seemed the knot of apprehension in her belly and the hot waves urgency and harrowing expectation had become her new normal lately. Would she never get a break for longer than a few minutes at a time?

Things were supposed to have gotten easier after eliminating Aldous. Simpler, not more chaotic. But here they were.

She didn’t wait for Rowan, but she felt him just behind her, matching her pace through the red-lit halls while the last echoes of doors opening and shutting in the residential wing followed before other magicals joined them.

The common room filled with Shade members spilling in from all the intersecting corridors in all directions. The alarm’s deafening wail continuously drowned out the curious conversations and questions shouted across even short distances.

When Rebecca and Rowan slowed to a stop and she scanned the room for signs of what had set off the alarm, he snorted beside her and shook his head. “Is this just the catch-all room?”

“Just be grateful no one’s telling us to gather in the parking garage,” she replied, then turned to look at him with raised eyebrows. Rowan shot her a hesitant, baffled look, and she shrugged. “Never mind.”

The siren fell to its lowest pitch, started to rise again, then cut off mid-wail to fill the common room with a tense, ringing silence in its absence.

Rebecca read the room over and over, searching the gathered faces for someone who looked like they knew what the hell was going on. Most of them looked groggy and still half-asleep, which meant a significant portion of Shade members also looked pissed off for having been ripped from sleep and dragged back into the common room by emergency protocol.

Without the alarm, the multitude of whispered and muttered conversations mixed in a rush of indistinguishable voices. It looked like everyone was here. The entire task force.

Then her gaze fell on Zida, who stood a few yards away at the mouth of a different intersecting hallway, her bare feet visible beneath the hem of a nightgown that made her look more like she’d just escaped from overnight treatment at a human hospital.

The healer was already glowering at Rebecca. Her puckered scowl deepened when she met her current patient’s gaze.

The patient she had left in the infirmary after expressly ordering Rebecca to stay there for a twenty-four-hour observation period.

Well, Rebecca was busted now for recovering in record time and letting herself out of the infirmary.

When Zida’s dark and beady eyes narrowed and she shook her head, tsking loudly, Rebecca averted her gaze and pretended not to have noticed. It wasn’t like the alarm hadn’t reached the infirmary, anyway. If she had to deal with the healer’s wrath, fine. Later.

Scattered movement rippled across the common room while magicals jostled each other aside to make way. Murmurs of confusion and speculation increased until Maxwell emerged from the crowd on the far side of the room in front of Bor’s service window, which had been closed and locked up for the late-night hours.

Everyone turned to face their Head of Security when they noticed his presence. Rebecca’s stomach dropped when Rick and another member of Maxwell’s smaller security team took their places beside the shifter.

All three of them were covered in blood, either smeared on their clothes or splattered across their faces.

What horrible thing had happened now?

Even without the blood, she would have known it was something awful. She saw it distinctly in the hard set of Maxwell’s jaw, the heaviness behind his silver eyes as he prepared to address the entire task force at once.

Something had just taxed him greatly, and now it visibly took its toll on this shifter whose standard expression and composure made him look like he could stand against anything.

Whatever this was, it was bad.

It briefly occurred to her that she’d read Maxwell’s expressions in seconds, intrinsically knowing what they meant. Apparently, she’d been paying more attention to his moods and the way he expressed them than she’d thought.

“What happened to him ?” Rowan muttered beside her.

“Shut up and pay attention. We’re about to find out.”

“I get it,” Maxwell began, scanning the faces staring back at him. “No one likes getting yanked out of bed like this, but we have a serious problem.”

A tense hush rippled across the common room. A handful of magicals shifted tensely or exchanged wary glances with their neighbors, but the all-pervading silence proved their Head of Security had captured everyone’s full attention with that opening statement.

Rebecca diligently inspected Maxwell for signs of injury or indication that the blood all over him was his own, her belly churning with apprehension. He wouldn’t ignore his own injuries like that, would he?

“A little over an hour ago,” he continued, his deep voice ringing like a warning alarm of its own through the common room, “I sent a small team out with the shipment of surplus weaponry from Eduardo’s recovered cache. Nothing more than routine transport of supplies to one of our secure off-site storage facilities.”

Storage facilities? Was that another aspect of Shade’s assets she hadn’t yet been made aware of since taking over? Or had it been newly acquired?

Rebecca couldn’t help but wonder if any or all of these external facilities had once been privately owned and maintained by Aldous, but that was a question to be answered at a different time.

Then Maxwell’s words boomed across the room again, both his posture and his voice further stiffening with every word. “While en route, the transport team was ambushed in Englewood. They engaged the enemy to defend against the attack, but now we suspect seizing the weapons themselves may not have been the primary objective of that ambush.

“The overflow weapons were seized, as well as three members of that team, who were subdued and abducted from the scene.”

A muted rush of horrified exclamations and outbursts swept across the task force before someone on the other side of the room shouted, “How did you find out about this?”

Maxwell’s jaw muscles worked furiously. “Out of the four-man team, Nyx was the only one to make it back. She was barely coherent, but she shared that preliminary information with us before she lost consciousness.”

More whispers across the room, magicals shuffling uncomfortably at the thought of the katari doing what she’d done.

“Where is she now?” someone else shouted.

“We took her to the infirmary as soon as we realized what happened,” Maxwell replied, his eyes narrowing and his expression darkening despite the effort he clearly put into an attempt to mask it. “She was in pretty bad shape when she showed up, but we got her to the healer in time.”

“Pretty bad shape. No kidding.

If Nyx was the only one who made it back and she’d popped out of thin air in front of Maxwell and his security team, the blood all over them must have come from her.

Not all of it, Rebecca hoped.

“Speaking of which,” Zida croaked before clearing her throat and centering her gaze on Maxwell, “is there anything else I need to be made aware of personally, Hannigan?”

His silver eyes found the healer in the crowd, he looked her over once, then he shook his head. “Not for now.”

The healer dipped her head in acknowledgement, then her black gaze swung sideways to fix on Rebecca again.

At first, Rebecca thought the old woman was trying to make a statement, as if that single glance were telling her something like, “Now I’m off to tend to a patient who respects my expertise and actually stays put when I tell her to.”

In her mind, Rebecca heard the healer’s words all too clearly—and all the attitude that came with them.

But when Zida didn’t roll her eyes or snort or even leave the common room to tend to Nyx, Rebecca realized it had to be something else.

That look didn’t contain only condescension and exasperation. Zida also looked like she was waiting for permission, albeit begrudgingly.

Permission from Rebecca.

No, she realized with a shock of clarity that made her feel particularly dense.

Permission from the Thon-Da’al to be excused from the emergency briefing so the healer could do what she did best elsewhere.

Recognizing her unexpected part in this, Rebecca pressed her lips together and dismissed Zida with a curt nod before returning her attention to Maxwell.

The healer turned and shuffled down the hallway and out of view.

When Rebecca found Maxwell staring at her now, he looked surprised to see her here at all, like he hadn’t expected her to show up after setting off that alarm siren. His silver eyes widened, and he tilted his head.

Then he seemed to remember where they were and why, and that small change in his expression disappeared again beneath his normal stony apathy bordering on disapproval.

The emergency briefing wasn’t over yet.

“The attackers’ identities have yet to be confirmed,” Maxwell stated, “though there’s more than sufficient reason to believe the ambush was ordered, if not directly carried out, by someone who’d been expecting a shipment of Eduardo’s weapons they never received.”

“You mean the griybreki attacked our people?” another operative asked.

“Unknown,” Maxwell replied. “It could have been, though in my personal opinion, Eduardo isn’t smart enough to have tracked us down and waited for the right moment to strike back.

“It’s far more likely that this came from a client or contact, whoever Eduardo had sold the weapons to. Someone who figured they’d take matters into their own hands when Eduardo and his griybreki failed to deliver.”

“Wait, but how did anyone know it was us?” That sounded like Archie. “There’s no way even Eduardo could have gotten that intel. Not this quickly. His convoy never made it off the docks, right?”

“One or two did.” Titus’s thunderous voice boomed across the room, and bodies turned toward the enormous vuulbor standing a full head taller than the next tallest person among them. “Couldn’t be helped.”

“That being said,” Maxwell added, “this isn’t the kind of intel any griybreki from the docks would have had. Information about this small team carrying out a routine transport mission tonight. That’s difficult information to find.”

“Then what exactly are you trying to tell us happened?” asked the flighty witch from the library whose name Rebecca still couldn’t recall. “Do you even know?”

“Right now, we can only speculate, but this is what I think. Either we are being watched closely by someone with unauthorized access to Shade operations and movement, or the enemy behind this assault tonight made a shot in the dark and got lucky.”

Maxwell’s next low growl rumbling through the ensuing silence was terrifying. “For all I care, the son of a bitch who did this can keep the weapons. What matters is this unidentified enemy has three of our operatives, is holding them captive, and we’re going to get them back.”

Look at that. This wasn’t just a middle-of-the-night meeting to spoil the mood in the compound with particularly bad news. This was a briefing for a rescue mission.

“Intel and logistics have already tracked and confirmed the location of two cell phones in our team’s possession. We’ve made several attempts to contact them, but no calls were answered, and we haven’t yet received any replies. Which means those cell phones are still on and our operatives are unable to get to them. That’s all I’m willing to consider, because anything else is speculation and doesn’t help us.”

After a deep inhale through his nose, Maxwell widened his stance with a single step, clasped his hands behind his back, and nodded. “I’m taking a five-man team with me on this tonight. Everyone else hangs back to run intel support from headquarters. Scouring the web and call centers. Tapping human police scanners. Combing through every dark-web site for news of our people or the ambush or what might have happened.

“You all know where to look. Focus on the fringe sites and communities. Something’s bound to pop up there eventually. If you see anything we might recognize, you report it directly to Rick.”

Beside Maxwell, the blackhorn grunted, his expression mirroring the Head of Security’s determination.

It was the first time Rebecca had seen Rick look so sure of himself and prepared to carry out his assignment. Just another perk of command, apparently. She got to see her subordinates unravel from time to time while everyone else only saw them the way they were now—competent, confident, capable, ready and willing to do whatever it took to get the job done.

Especially with something like this, with individual Shade lives on the line.

Maxwell paused, giving the common room a tense moment of silence before ending this initial briefing. “Five operatives. That’s all I’m taking. Voluntary assignment.”

An explosion of hands in a multitude of sizes and colors shot into the air. In the widespread enthusiasm, Maxwell called out individual names, then those selected broke away from the rest of the gathered force to line up on the far side of the room behind the Head of Security.

Rebecca didn’t raise her hand. She didn’t need to. She’d be joining this rescue op tonight anyway, and if Maxwell had a problem with it, tough shit.

As soon as she had that thought, as if her Head of Security had learned to read her mind, Maxwell swung his gaze toward her but said nothing.

But he did incline his head in a barely visible nod, and that could only have meant one thing. Not explicitly that he wanted the Thon-Da’al with them on this one but more an acknowledgement of her right to be there, if she chose.

Of course she did.

Once Maxwell had selected his full team, the rest of the common room burst open in a sort of organized chaos specific to Shade. Rebecca strained to hear Maxwell’s directives when he spoke directly to his assembled team, but the sudden burst of activity everywhere else made it impossible until he shouted above all the noise.

“Recovery team, arm up and report to the armory. We move in twenty.”

Amidst the overwhelming bustle of activity and the shouts crashing against each other, Rebecca kept her gaze on Maxwell as he passed through the hubbub alone toward the hallway with the fastest route down to the garage.

She broke away from the others at the last second and followed him, waiting until the echoes from behind faded enough for normal conversation to take place.

“I know you like to drive,” she said, quickening her pace to catch up with him. “So I call shotgun.”

Maxwell stopped and spun around to face her, his scowl already fully formed.

Not the greeting she’d expected, but not entirely surprising, either. “You’re supposed to be in the recovery ward. Twenty-four observation, I heard.”

Rebecca shrugged as she caught up with him and kept walking. “I’m a fast healer.”

“Obviously,” he grumbled behind her, then took off after her.

“Don’t sound so surprised. I thought you already knew that about me.”

Then he came up beside her, matching her stride, and remained silent.

She could feel him studying the side of her face, that tingling energy and the ever-strengthening pull between them rushing across her skin as they headed toward the basement stairwell, side by side.

He had to be deeply confused. The last time he’d seen her, she had a wooden stake stuck halfway through her belly and had lost enough blood to leave her bedridden for a week, at least.

Yet here she was, perfect health, fully healed, out of that infirmary bed, and ready to ride out on this mission with the team he’d just assembled.

He paused again when they reached the top of the stairs, and Rebecca descended first anyway without slowing.

The Thon-Da’al didn’t have to explain herself, but if her Head of Security wanted a fuller explanation for why she was up and about right now and how that was even possible, he’d have to ask her directly. It wasn’t the kind of information she could just offer freely to anyone.

It wasn’t the kind of information she could easily explain to him, either, should he ask her for a direct answer the way he clearly wanted. She’d have to come up with some other mostly believable excuse on the fly, but she’d leave that to him.

Right now, they had a rescue teams to arm up and ship out of headquarters and three captured operatives to recover. That that took precedence over everything else.

Maxwell must have considered all that as well, because he harshly cleared his throat before hurrying down the stairs after her. They descended the enclosed stairwell in silence while one or two small, murmured, and indecipherable conversations rose toward them from those who’d already made it to the garage.

When they reached the bottom landing, Rebecca stopped to shoot the shifter another quick glance. If there was anything he wanted to say to her before they shipped out, now would be the time.

He acted clueless to her gaze on him at first, but then he turned toward her and opened his mouth like he’d finally found something to say.

“ There you are. What took you so long?”

Maxwell shut his mouth with an audible click before he and Rebecca both looked up to see Rowan strutting toward them from the back of the garage, his arms spread wide and that infuriating grin beaming in their direction.

How the hell had he gotten down here so quickly?

With a snarl, Maxwell glared at the Blackmoon Elf but muttered to Rebecca, “I noticed the two of you showed up together for the emergency briefing. Did he pull you from the infirmary?”

“Oh, for crying out loud.” Rowan threw his head back and laughed as he approached them. “Look at her. She’s fine.”

“That’s not what I asked. And I wasn’t speaking to you, elf.”

Before Rebecca could say a thing, the shifter took one surging step forward to meet Rowan head on, cutting him off from reaching Rebecca at the foot of the stairs. He loomed over the elf, releasing another low growl as they stood head-to-head once more, right in front of her.

“You don’t have the clearance to pull whoever you want out of Zida’s care,” Maxwell hissed.

“Yeah, okay.” Rowan widened his eyes and lifted both hands in concession, though the gleam in his hazel eyes betrayed his intentions, which were clearly anything but conceding to Shade’s Head of Security. “That’s fine by me. But I didn’t pull anyone out of anything. Might be time to pull your head out of your own ass, though.”

“Nothing but jokes from you.” Maxwell’s silver eyes flashed dangerously. “And you still haven’t shown an ounce of remorse for your stupidity. Which makes me wonder just how much of an accident that really was in the gym today.”

“So you’re gonna persecute me for something that’s clearly not even an issue?” Rowan said with a quick gesture toward Rebecca again. “’Cause I don’t see anything to be remorseful about.”

Rebecca fought the urge to roll her eyes, walk away, and leave these two to their own devices so they could figure their shit out on their own.

A few weeks ago, that would have been exactly what she did. But now she was the one in charge, the only person here who could do something about it…

The second she realized that, she stepped toward them and pulled out the authoritative voice she’d sworn she would never use on anyone again after the day she’d left home for good.

“Both of you need to get over yourselves. Whatever this is, it’s not our top priority. So you’re gonna put this down and leave it. The first one who picks it up again will answer to me. Any questions?”

Rowan’s snigger was the only response she expected from him before he spread his arms and dipped forward in a mocking bow. “None whatsoever, Your Highness. ”

Of course he had to be a pompous ass about it. But at least he’d answered the question.

Maxwell had higher standards and snarled at the Blackmoon Elf’s response before visibly shoving his anger and indignation all the way back down again. Then he turned toward Rebecca to offer a stiff nod. “Understood, Thon-Da’al.”

“Good. Now let’s go get our people back. And Blackmoon, don’t even think about touching the machine gun in the field. We’ve had enough friendly fire for one night.”

It wasn’t a joke, but Rowan barked out a laugh anyway.

She ignored him and headed toward the armory on the other side of the garage, ready to get this show on the road and hoping her warning had been enough for Rowan and Maxwell. Because she did not want to follow through on her promise with either of them.

As soon as she left them, Rowan tried to take off after her, but Maxwell stepped in front of the elf to cut him off again with another low growl.

“Okay, okay,” Rowan said. “Message received, buddy.”

Rebecca glanced over her shoulder to see Rowan backing away from the shifter, his hands lifted again in surrender until he turned around to take a different route toward the armory. At least he’d backed down. For now.

This was not the kind of extra distraction Rebecca needed tonight. She couldn’t focus on this rescue mission if she also had to keep tabs on the Blackmoon Elf and her Head of Security at the same time.

If they didn’t figure out how to pull their shit together on their own, she was bound to lose it on one or even both of them. That wouldn’t offer any permanent solutions, just temporary satisfaction.

She’d made it halfway across the garage when Maxwell caught up to her again and cleared his throat. “Blackmoon joining us on this is a bad idea.”

She shot him a sidelong look and grimaced. “I appreciate your opinion, but I’ve made my decision. We can use all the hands we can get. And if I hear another word about him before this is over, we’re gonna have some serious issues, you and me. Shade and its members, Hannigan. One and the same, right?”

His nostrils flared as he walked silently beside her, but then he finally murmured, “Right.”

“There you go. So every time you fight with him, you might as well be fighting yourself and vice versa. It’s gotta stop. I’d like to believe that of the two of you, you’re the one who’s mature enough to lead by example and not let him bait you every time you’re in the same room.”

Admittedly, that might have been harsh, but she’d employed all the patience and self-control she had left. Her unexpected and unwilling conversation with Rowan in her room had left her on edge and testy, and the need for a rescue mission tonight to recover three of their own certainly hadn’t helped.

Judging by Maxwell’s brooding silence and clenched jaw as they approached the armory, however, Rebecca’s lack of patience seemed to have produced the desired effect.

At least he wasn’t trying to argue with her about why Rowan Blackmoon should be ordered to stay at the compound.

That probably had more to do with the tension tonight and their impending rescue op, but she couldn’t help the feeling that whatever closeness she and Maxwell had developed over the last few days—whatever amount of trust they’d fostered, however reluctantly—was petering out now under that tension.

That was something she could address later. Right now, the urgency of their current situation left little room for personal feelings. Or even preferences.

Before she reached the armory where the rescue team had almost fully gathered with all their gear and weapons systems ready, Rebecca was also acutely aware that Maxwell’s footsteps in his usual bodyguard position, behind her and three feet to the right, were missing.

He’d accepted her orders, but he didn’t like them. So now he was pouting about it.

Wonderful. She’d just pissed off the one operative here who was as close to her equal as Rebecca was ever likely to get.

Somehow, it felt like calling both him and Rowan out on their unresolved differences might not stop either of them from trying to get at each other’s throats any chance they got. No matter what they’d told her.

If that were true, this wasn’t just a rescue op with three Shade members’ lives on the line but possibly ten instead—the prisoners and their recovery team. Assuming the Blackmoon Elf and the shifter didn’t break any standing records for collateral damage.

And it was Rebecca’s job to do the impossible and pay enough attention to both the dissension between them and the success of this emergency retrieval, no matter the cost.

The problem was, she had no idea what it was going to cost any of them.