"What?" Now she stopped serving food as she swung around to stare straight at Kyle.
"I'll pay you. You can work for me. I'd love it, and you could meet my whole family, really get to know us."
She wanted to bang her head against the wall. What was wrong with her that she wasn't in love with Kyle? Not only did he like all the same things she did but also he wanted her to get to know his family. The heavens knew it was the one thing in her life she'd longed for more than anything.
"Look," he spoke again when she didn't. "Just promise me you'll think about it and you won't get killed helping Captain Foolishness do something he could handle himself."
She grinned; Kyle could always make her smile. "I promise." Captain Foolishness? Where did Kyle come up with this stuff?
****
The shower had helped her tension enormously and though Wendy wanted nothing more than to climb into bed and never move, now that she'd relaxed under the hot spray for half-an-hour, her standard insomnia had taken hold. She knew it would be hours until she wound down enough to contemplate hitting the pillow.
On most nights, she didn't sleep more than four hours. Since she was a child, it had been this way. Sometimes, the people who were supposed to man the orphanage at night would leave instead of staying. They'd lock the doors and leave them until morning. Wendy would sit up in bed and listen to the creaks and groans of the wooden floors in the substandard house, as it settled into the ever-shifting dirt of Upstate New York.
She'd never felt safe enough to sleep. Now, she lived in a modern building, in the heart of New York City, a doorman manned the entrance and exit, and she'd installed an alarm system.
Nothing creaked; nothing moved; and still, she didn't sleep much.
Pushing away the memory of her early days, she crossed her bedroom, stopping only to light the vanilla-scented candles, the only feminine treat she indulged in. Four white streams of light filled the room, along with a gentle aroma of what she imagined baking must smell like, if she'd ever learn how to do such a thing.
Sitting in her black leather desk chair, she ran her hands over the touchpad of her laptop and her desktop lit up as her computer came to life. The picture she'd chosen as a background was one of the Space Adventures pictures she'd framed on her wall. It was a famous moment from season three. During the entire year, the captains had maintained separate ships, not meeting, not knowing the others were still alive in the universe.
Then, in the last episode of the season, the three ship captains had arrived on the same planet in search of water. They'd looked up and seen each other. Silently, they'd approached and clasped hands, all three of them saying nothing as they just let their touch speak for them.
Her desktop was the screen shot made of the scene. To her, it represented what family was.
Not needing to speak, just knowing everyone understood how you felt.
Those you didn't need to explain things to were your family.
In a bizarre move she couldn't make sense of, her thoughts turned to Draco and how she had yet to thank him for rescuing her. Maybe she didn't have to. Maybe it was understood. Still, she'd make a point to express her gratitude first thing in the morning. Biting her lip, she wondered what his family was like. He'd never mentioned anyone.
He had to have been born. Guardians weren't gods; they didn't spring to life out of Zeus'
head. There had to have been a family somewhere at sometime.
Rolling her eyes at her nightly dive into the sentimental, she clicked on the icon that took her to the Internet. She clicked the bookmark to the online game she played every night. Hero Land was an online gaming community, where people logged on, became their avatars for a few hours while they solved great adventures, and acted like Guardians from the safety of their computers.
Wendy met regularly with the same gaming group. None of them knew any of the other players’ real names or what they did for a living. She had never told them she worked for the real thing, and the subject of Draco never came up. In the online community, people preferred the comic book version rather than the ones living in the real world. As nearly every other woman who played, Wendy had chosen an Amazon avatar, only she'd given hers a name no one else used. She was simply called, Lost.
She sighed, remembering the night she'd picked Lost as a name. It was her birthday—or at least the date the orphanage had picked for her. No one really knew when she was born, since she'd been abandoned on the doorstep of the place. Someone had guessed she was about three weeks old and had taken a date from the correlating week. Every year around her birthday, she wondered, though it was ridiculous, if her parents had lost her and were searching for her. Some kind of Annie-complex she needed to get over now, since she was twenty-six years old.
But Lost had become her name online, and in her gaming community, she was quite skilled at getting her job done, just like in real life. Maybe she should have called herself 'Skilled', instead.
Laughing at the thought, she looked at the virtual courtyard where she always arrived after signing on. All the characters automatically started there. The idea was you found a group of other people who had just signed on, and all of you went on a quest as a group, raking up points as you went along. The higher your point level and skill set, the more advanced you became, and therefore, the more sought after as a partner or team leader.
She was extremely valuable, after four years of playing religiously. Not a puzzle existed she couldn't solve. One more level increase—which she hoped to reach by the end of the week—and she'd be in the hall of fame. To achieve such an honor would open up a new welcome screen and the game would become more complex. Biting her lip, she admitted she was psyched by the idea.
"Hello."
A Guardian avatar wanted her attention. She scanned the skill set displayed next to his head.
Five points. Such a little number meant the person had just joined. You got five points for paying and signing up. She took a deep breath. Usually, she avoided the newbies. It wasn't nice, but she wasn't going to advance her own points teaching them how to play.
Her desktop background illuminating the screen behind the browser window drew her
attention. Space Adventures. Ignoring him didn't live up to the morals and values she liked to think she had.
"Hello." She typed in response. "You're new. How are you liking your first night?"
"It just got a lot better." Letter-by-letter, the words spelled out in front of her.
She imagined it had. It was hard to navigate the game until you got used to it and newbies often complained.
"How can I help you?"
Chapter Four
When Draco had text-messaged his brother from the dance club, it had seemed like a good idea to have Ace hack into Wendy's computer and find out the name of her avatar on the silly game site she visited every night. His intentions had been good.
When he got home, which had been sooner rather than later because of a rather boring date, he signed online to make sure Wendy was both there and fine. He'd planned to assure himself of her safety, then sign off and go to bed with a clear conscience.
If she hadn't been there, he would have known she'd been more disturbed by what happened than she'd admitted, and he could handle it accordingly the next day. Of course, what handling it meant, he wasn't sure. But at least he would know something; he'd been obsessing about the subject all through his date. "You do know women don't like this?"
He whirled around in his chair to regard Ace, who leaned against the doorframe of Draco's home office. Of course, no one knew he and Ace were brothers. It was better they didn't. Private life needed to be kept private. Still, at home, most times, Draco wanted to throw Ace into a vat of boiling lava.
Didn't his brother understand he couldn't speak to him right now? He was trying to understand the rules of this convoluted Hero game Wendy played. It was ridiculously complex.
Why did people do this every night?
He shook his head, final
ly answering. "Don't like what?"
"Stalker-esque behavior. If you are concerned for her well-being, she would probably prefer a phone call or a card with some flowers."
He turned his back on Ace, whose disheveled blond hair and red-rimmed blue eyes told him his brother had likely been on another adrenaline bender the night before. Draco had been the luckier of the two brothers; his body didn't constantly make adrenalin to maintain itself. Too many days without physical demands and Ace went a little nuts. Consequently, he sought out trouble and usually found it.
Draco would have laughed at his brother's statement if he'd been in a better mood. "And you are the expert on women? That's why you're hiding from your Handler, right? Because you know
how to deal appropriately with women?"
"Just because I know how to act doesn't mean I do it." He shrugged. "I suppose I'm dense."
Ace walked forward to look over Draco's shoulder. "You're playing the game?”
“I got sucked in. What can I say? Wendy calls herself Lost. Why do you think she chose such a name?"
"Why do you care? She's your Handler, not your friend or your girlfriend." Ace laughed.
"Although, I wouldn't mind being Wendy Warner's guy. Strip her naked and get her to loosen up by spanking her hot little ass. I bet she's a tiger in bed. The uptight ones always are."
"Hey." Whirling around, Draco shoved Ace hard, slamming him into the wall. For his efforts, he heard a crack as his younger brother hit the plaster. It helped their relationship—although Ace would deny it—that he'd always been stronger. "Don't talk about Wendy that way."
Grabbing his head, Ace looked at him with a mixture of amusement and annoyance in his gaze. He stood from where he'd half-landed—half leaned against the wall. "Or maybe you'd like her to be your girlfriend, which would explain why I had to break into her frickin' account.
Watch out, big brother; when you screw your Handlers it's hard to show up at work afterward."
He left without another word.
Draco looked back at the screen as he tried to keep up with the game. Wendy— or Lost, as she called herself in the game—had invited him to join the group she had formed. Together, they were looking for the 'Missing Pearl of Antiquity'. To get it, they needed to solve a puzzle. Each step they got closer to the goal, they'd all received points. When he'd first joined, they'd given him five points for signing up; right now, his meter read fifty points. He hadn't done anything to earn these rewards. No, as far as he could tell, Wendy had earned all of the team's points.
The woman seemed to have endless ability to solve any conundrum placed in front of her. He knew this to be true in the office as well. So what the hell was she doing working for him? He spun around in his chair, three times watching the room move in front of his eyes. It wasn't that he didn't want her. In truth, he might temporarily fall apart if she left. But the fact remained she was too gifted to be working for him. Warner should be running her own business.
Stopping his spin, he stared at the computer screen. He'd put it on 'Auto Follow', which meant his avatar automatically did whatever Wendy's group did. The Guardian character—
something he'd found truly ironic when he'd signed up—ran around following Wendy's Amazon.
"Having fun?"
He glanced up as the computer dinged a message's arrival. It was from Wendy. Should he be honest? "No, I'm not."
"Ah...honesty. So I guess we won't be seeing you on here again."
"Most likely not." Not unless he had another moment of insanity and desperation to see Wendy after work hours and didn't call her on the phone or e-mail her.
"What are you doing here tonight?"
He sighed. Leave it to Wendy to cut right to the chase. "I was looking for a friend."
"Ah...aren't we all?" Wendy's avatar handed his a bouquet of daisies. "It's hard to make friends out there in the real world, isn't it?"
Back home sitting in his chair, he found himself nodding. "True."
When was the last time he'd made a friend? Did he have any? Not really, but it had never bothered him. He had Ace, but they were brothers. He had all the other Guardians who worked for them. In their own way, they were like a family. Together, they shared a history of coming out of hiding and making a life for themselves in the open. Even if they had to hide their real identities and personal information like where they lived from public knowledge, it was better than never being able to use their gifts.
Many people hung around wherever he was. A multitude of women begged for his sexual favors. Little did they know that even if he took them to bed he had to hold back out of fear of injuring them. Not that the sex wasn't pleasurable; it was just always a bit frustrating, as if there was something missing every damned time. One of the last things his father had told him before running off to never be seen again was someday he would meet a woman he could really 'fuck well' and he wouldn't hurt her. The old guy felt strongly that Draco and Ace should pass on their genes with a woman like that. Like the perquisite for motherhood was the ability to survive unrestrained sex.
He closed his eyes and rubbed his temple. He was being unfair. His mother had been so much more than a vessel for his father’s genes. She’d been amazing and he missed her every day. Turned out, he could stop flying bullets but there wasn't a damn thing either he or Ace could do to stop the cancer that had riddled her body before it took her away. What was the point of being so strong if you couldn’t help those who mattered to you?
The computer dinged a response; Draco looked up. "So we can be friends here, if you want. I have a lot of friends in this place."
"They're not real friends." He didn't know why he responded how he had. Who was he to judge? She hadn't broken into his personal account to find out private information about him. He was clearly not in a position to make moral judgments about anything.
"They are to me. Most of them have been better friends to me than the people I meet in real life."
"Why is that, do you think?" Once again, he couldn't explain why he typed what he did.
Standing, he moved away from the computer. He'd still hear it if it dinged. Hell, he could leave the house, or the lair, as Ace called it, and walk two blocks away and still hear the computer when it signaled him. If there was one aspect of his powers he could have done without, it was his super hearing.
His ability to hear even the slightest sound forced him install the nearly soundproof door on his office. When he wasn't in the private sanctuary of his office, he could hear every strike of the keyboard, every cough, every flush of a toilet in the entire building. Some of those sounds he'd learned to tune out. Some, he never could, which was why the door was so important to his sanity. Wendy's gasp, when his replaceable— and soon to be replaced, if he could come up with a job-related reason—secretary had upset her the day before had resounded in his office as if she'd stood next to him. He hadn't been able to stop himself from rushing out there and interfering. His desire to protect Wendy was becoming a compulsion.
Clearly, he was getting too involved with his Handler.
The computer sounded and he rushed over, wincing at his level of patheticness even as he did. He sat down. "Good question."
She'd finally replied to his question about why it was easier to make friends in an online game room. Either she'd really been dwelling on the subject or she'd gotten caught up trying to solve the puzzle they were supposed to be working on as a team. It looked like she had to move certain jewels around until they all matched, and then countered those moves by uncovering hidden objects. His head hurt thinking about it.
There was enough of this type of thing to do during daytime hours.
He typed. "Is it?"
"Ha." An icon of a smiley face moved from her avatar to his. "You sound just like my boss. I never know how to respond to this level of sarcasm. You asked the question; shouldn't you think it's a good one?"
Wow, she'd just mentioned him. An unexpected heat formed in chest. He knew he was sarcastic, and
true, she really didn't know how to respond, but he'd never known she found it amusing.
"I guess you're right."
"To answer your earlier question, I think it's easier to make friends in a forum like this because here we're not bound by physicality, which ties us up in the real world. Here, I'm an Amazon and you're a Guardian. Out there, I don't look anything like that."
No, she was much better looking than the Amazon avatar, and screw his Guardian character.
"I bet you're prettier than your avatar."
"Not even close. Ha." She sent another smiley face to him. "In real life, I'm odd."
She was not odd. Well, maybe her costume was different, but considering all the things he saw in his line of work, she was downright normal.
"Tell me about your boss."
Why was he asking her this? Almost as soon as he'd typed the words, he wished he hadn't.
What was he going to do if she said something terrible?
"He's extraordinary but that's all I'm going to say. I'm a little protective of him." Draco read the words and slammed the computer shut, disconnecting the
Internet as he did so. His heart pounded as he got to his feet and began to pace like a caged lion.
She didn't gossip. He shouldn't be surprised. He'd hired her, amongst other things, for her discretion. Her word 'extraordinary' was throwing him for a loop.
Intellectually, he understood he was. Had always been, would always be just by the nature of his birth. Ace was more advanced, more talented, but their individual levels were unimportant now. Draco couldn't help but think Wendy wasn't necessarily referring to his accomplishments.
He ran a hand through his hair. Am I fooling myself? Lots of people called him extraordinary; he was a Guardian, which, by nature, made him unique and different. Maybe Wendy meant the same thing. Though he never admitted to anyone—let alone himself—just once, he'd like somebody to think of him as extraordinary just for being him, not for being powerful.
Deciding he'd had enough self-examination for one evening, he stalked from his home office to the bedroom. Stopping at the door, he checked the monitor. He'd installed one in each hallway. Each told him how many beings with heartbeats were currently in the house. The