"Are you aware you have worked for me for four years and you've never once stubbed a toe?
Now, in the last two days, someone has tried to kill you twice."
"Yesterday they may have been trying to kill you."
"It's possible, but after today, I'm rather certain you're the target."
"Draco," she shouted. "You are being ridiculously calm at the moment. I would rather you
use the super strength I have seen you pull out to find missing mob wives and get me the hell out of this thing."
"But they were clients. You're not paying me."
Her eyes got huge, and, even from where he floated, he could hear her blood begin to boil.
"What?"
"Obviously I'm joking, right?"
She pounded on the metal claw. "Was that a question?"
"Am I joking? Do you think I would leave you in there because you can't pay my fee?"
At first, he'd wanted to distract her, to keep her still and focused on something else until they reached the water and he could rip the god-forsaken claw off the machine and fly her to safety.
But now he'd asked the question, he wanted to hear her answer. It was perversely important to him to know what she thought.
Wendy's gaze bore into him and if he'd been standing, instead of flying, he would have squirmed under her hard regard.
"I think that you may be amongst the kindest human beings I've ever met and you don't want anyone on the planet to know," she said.
"Haven't you heard? I'm completely narcissistic and I only value material things.”
“I have heard that; I've heard that a lot, actually."
She had? His heart fell at the thought.
"But I've been with you when you've stopped traffic to save an old woman's dog. I've seen you fly to the top of a building to stop a man who was going to jump. I've seen you turn down the fee when someone couldn't afford to pay. These are things I've seen you do. So stop fucking around and get me out of this thing."
Wow. She'd been paying attention, but he supposed that is what he paid her to do. "Wendy, I want to get you out of there. I'm not sure how this is made. If a piece broke off, I'm not sure I could save you and stop the people at the bottom from being hit. If you need to get out right now, I will do that for you. I can make it another three blocks. Can you?"
He watched her swallow, her long neck straining as she was obviously grinding her teeth.
Wendy, his busy, industrious, oddball, gorgeous Handler, was trying to be brave. It nearly broke him apart to watch. "I can wait. But I need you to keep distracting me, which I know was exactly what you were doing with all your outrageous behavior."
"Fair enough. I had no idea I was so obvious."
She laughed. "You're not obvious. Almost every day, I learn something new about you."
The wind whipped her hair around so that periodically it struck her in the face. "Are you cold?" he asked.
"See, there you go with that being nice when no one is watching routine." She grinned. "Yes, I am very cold."
"Here." He paused mid-flight and pulled off his black blazer. "Manipulate yourself into this."
Flying closer, he handed it to her.
She contorted in a way he wasn't even sure he could make his body move, which included, at one point, actually arching her back into the metal thumb to put it on. He raised an eyebrow; the woman could twist herself into very odd positions.
"Thank you."
There was one block to go until they hit the water. He called out to Ace. "I take it you got the remote control thing in hand now."
Ace saluted him. "Yes, Captain, this baby listens to me now and it's going into the Hudson."
Nodding, Draco looked back to Wendy. "So what are the things that you didn't know about me until today?"
Wendy rubbed her forehead. "I had no idea that you and Ace were lovers." Wait...what?
"What?" Ace yelled, proving that he had been listening, as Draco suspected, to their conversation.
Draco ignored him as he tried to figure out if his little Handler was making a joke. The earnest, open expression in her eyes told him she wasn't. He'd been lusting after this woman so badly that the night before he'd actually come in his own hand because of a fantasy about her, and she thought he was gay?
"You think that Ace and I are lovers?"
"Aren't you? You don't have to hide it from me; I told you to trust me and I swear you can. I think it's just beautiful you two found one another."
"Draco, you have to stop this right now." Ace didn't sound amused.
"Have your own conversation," he called over his shoulder to his brother. "Talk to Zee or something."
"Warner, I think it's lovely that you are so trustworthy, but would you mind explaining to me
how you came to the conclusion I'm gay?"
He had many gay friends. Zee, for example, he knew was homosexual. If he were gay, he'd probably be parading himself around with the hottest men in town just to show off, as he did with the supermodels. However, he was not gay, and now, it was making him a little crazy that the subject of his sexual fantasies thought he was.
"It all makes perfect sense—although you do a good job of hiding it—the way you dress, the way you never date the same women twice, and then it all came together when you told me you and Ace live together."
"Wendy, can you do me a favor?" He had to try hard to keep the amusement out of his voice.
Moments earlier, he'd been a little annoyed, but now he couldn't help but see the humor in this experience.
"I'm stuck in a claw of a giant cat but I'd be happy to try."
He flew closer until he sat on the pinky finger. "Don't ever become a police detective or go into any kind of work requiring you to use too much deductive reasoning."
She shook her head. "I'm not following you."
"Clearly." He reached out to play with a strand of her silky hair. Wendy looked at where his hand stroked her hair, and she bit down on her lip. Ah, so she wasn't immune to him. Interesting.
"Draco, what are you doing?"
"Ace is not my lover, little girl; he is my younger brother by twenty months.”
“Your brother?" She shouted and a look of horror came over her face.
"Keep your voice down. Most of the other Guardians don't know.”
“But why—?"
He interrupted. "Because I don't like people knowing my weak points and Ace is my vulnerable center." At least he had thought it was Ace—until the Organization had pointed out it was actually his Handler.
"Draco, I'm sorry for making assumptions."
If she had any idea how hard he fought every single one of his protective instincts to keep himself from just smashing the claw to pieces and pulling her out, she would cease her apology right now. Wendy’s "sorrys" were only adding to his need to break something. He didn’t like feeling helpless. He didn’t like it one bit.
He held up a hand to silence her. "It's okay, but you're going to have to explain to me
sometime what it was about my clothes that led you to the gay theory."
He jumped up and moved beneath her. "Where are you going?" She shouted after him. The poor thing thought he was leaving her. "Hold on, Warner, we've just hit the river."
With that statement, he pulled hard, breaking the paw off from the rest of the cat body. She screamed, and, as he had feared, once separated from the rest of the machine, the fingers that had held her began to open.
Despite Draco having told her to hang on, she fell from the machine's grip, screaming at the top of her lungs. Free-falling from twenty stories up, she was going to hit the water in such a way it would feel as if she'd smacked into concrete. Except, he didn't intend to let her fall. Throwing the hand down toward the waiting river, he swooped down and caught her.
As his arms engulfed her, she stopped screaming and placed her head on his shoulder, like a baby seeking comfort from its parent. She completed the picture by closing her eyes and nuzzling him gentl
y with her nose.
He hovered in the air with her in his arms. There was going to be a tremendous amount of shit to shovel after a day like this one, and it wasn't even noon yet. But, for the moment, he was willing to let his heart stop pounding quite so hard and hold his Handler until she didn't need it anymore. For better or worse, she was his to protect.
Wendy Warner had become his official point of weakness and he couldn't bring himself to mind very much.
Chapter Seven
Wendy sat on the hood of one of the fire trucks that littered the city, still wearing Draco's blazer but now, also wrapped in two different wool blankets. She'd been prodded and poked at by paramedics, and after one check of her blood pressure they'd let her go. She waited for Draco, who had told her she couldn't leave. To ensure she followed his orders, he left Ace to sit guard dog over her.
She looked at her watch. It was nine o'clock at night and she hadn't eaten since breakfast. As if on cue, her stomach grumbled.
"Oh no." She sat straight.
Ace looked at her. He'd been staring at the sky with a casual laziness she believed was meant to disarm any passerby to not take him seriously. This left him in a position of power since no one ever saw him coming. He'd been impressive as hell, fighting the machine, pounding on it, moving its direction before Draco had shown up. Ace was a Guardians. She'd always known he was powerful; now she knew he was a force to be reckoned with.
"What's wrong?"
"I had a date tonight." And she hadn't thought to call Kyle, not once since the ordeal had started. If nothing else, he was her best friend. He should know what happened to her. He would be frantically worried.
"If he owns a television, he knows what's going on down here and that you're most likely too busy to go out for pizza, Chinese, sushi, or whatever it was you were going to consume this evening."
"We were going to Times Square and to see the King Tut exhibit."
Ace laughed, but it didn't sound like he was making fun of her so she decided to soften up the chip that was always on her shoulder.
"Why are you laughing?"
He smiled from ear to ear, and for the first time she noticed how much he resembled Draco.
It was in the mouth. The rest of them couldn't be more different. Ace was fair-haired and permanently tan, his eyes were green, his hair long and unkempt. But their mouths were the
same. That grin made them brothers.
"You and I would not do well on a date together."
"No." She shook her head. "I don't imagine we would. I'm a bit of a dork.”
“Hey." He shoved her lightly on the arm. "Don't talk about yourself that way.
You were the bravest non-Guardian I've ever seen today. You're way cool."
"Liar." She sighed. "Can I borrow your phone? Mine's still up there." She pointed at the destroyed Powers, Inc. building, where she supposed she would not be reporting to work in the morning.
Ace whistled as he narrowed his eyes at the sight. "Sure." He handed her the phone. "Don't feel too badly about the building. It's just stuff. Draco always lands on his feet."
Wendy sighed. "He built it from scratch. Earned every penny of the corporation with hard work. He's responsible for the livelihood and health insurance of hundreds of people. It's got to be devastating."
Ace was silent, his gaze hooded. She had no idea what he thought about what she just said.
"You're probably right," he finally said. "He and I, we see things differently."
She waited a beat to see if he would move so she could make her phone call in private, but instead he rested his head on the fire truck. She shouldn't be surprised.
Draco had told him to stay.
Sighing, she dialed Kyle's number. He picked up on the first ring. "Where the hell have you been? Are you okay?"
"I'm sorry, Kyle, things have been so crazy here that I—"
He interrupted her. "I saw you on television trapped in the hand of that thing. Are you crazy?
That's it, that's the last straw; you can't work for that monster anymore."
Wendy straightened. "You don't get to tell me what to do. I'll work wherever I want, danger or not." She bit the inside of her cheek as she decided what to say next. Kyle kept ranting and giving orders.
"I'm coming to get you right now."
She shook her head even though he couldn't see. "No, you're not. I'm safe here. I'm surrounded by police officers and Guardians. I might as well be in a protective cocoon. I'm not leaving. I'm sorry I worried you; believe me, no one was more scared than I was, but that doesn't give you the right to order me around. And one more thing," she added before he could interrupt
again. "I'm not going to let you say bad things about Draco. He's saved my life twice. He is not a monster. He's actually a really amazing human being and you don't even know him. He might be my boss, but he's also my friend. In the same way I'm not going to let anyone talk bad about you, I won't let you say anything about Draco."
There was silence on the other end of the phone. Wendy tapped her foot hard on the fire truck.
"And that's how you feel?"
She swallowed. "That's how I feel."
"Then I hope he's a good friend to you, Wendy, because I'm through with you, and you're officially out of the Space Adventures group too. I started it, it's my club, and I'm throwing you out."
With that, her closest friend and the one person in the world who she might consider family, hung up on her. She gasped as tears flew to her eyes. No, no, this was why she never said anything remotely upsetting to Kyle. No, this made her alone again. Oh god. She closed her eyes.
It was so hard to be all alone.
"Hey." A hand grabbed her arm and she opened her eyes mid-sob to look at Ace.
He stared at her through green eyes that were usually so remote but were now filled with concern. "Screw that guy. You didn't do anything wrong and that's no way to start a relationship."
She laughed through her tears, but it wasn't that she found anything Ace said amusing; no, it was the horror of the whole thing. "He wanted to be my boyfriend and I was willing to try because he's my best friend, my only friend, really."
"Your only friend? I thought you just said Draco was your friend." Ace narrowed his eyes as he spoke to her.
"I said that so he'd leave Draco alone. I know Draco isn't my friend." She shut her eyes again.
"I swore I'd never be totally alone again."
"Hey now." Ace jumped up onto the truck and put his arm around her in the manner she had seen older brothers do to younger sisters. That was the thing, she'd watched families her whole life. She'd never had one, and Kyle had wanted to make her part of his. She sobbed at the thought. Now she didn't have a family, she didn't have a best friend, and she didn't even have the Space Adventures club. She knew Ace was trying to be helpful, but his words only showed her
how all alone she really was.
"You must have family around. Why don't I call them for you?"
She hiccupped. "I don't. I was raised in an orphanage in Upstate New York. My parents didn't even keep me three weeks. The ladies who ran the place found me on the doorstep of the home. It was possible my birth parents left me there all night. No one ever wanted to adopt me either; I guess I'm just completely unlovable."
Remotely, she realized that if she were thinking rationally, she would actually feel badly for Ace right now. He looked so stricken.
"Wendy, I—"
A booming voice interrupted. "What did you do to her?"
Wendy found herself ripped out of Ace's embrace and yanked against Draco's chest. "Is this some kind of post-traumatic thing? We can call someone."
"No." She sniffed. "I'm fine. It's not Ace. He was trying to help. I'll just go home now."
"No." Ace and Draco spoke at the same time.
Draco continued. "I'm sorry, you can't, you're still in danger, and we have to assume they know where you live."
"What? I can't go home?” No, it was too much. She'd been dr
agged from a building and nearly killed, lost her best friend, and had made inappropriate remarks to her boss about his sexuality. Now, she couldn't go back to her safe place? As embarrassing as it was, and as much as she wished she could stop herself from being so weak, her knees buckled. Draco caught her and swept her into his embrace, making her feel like a romance heroine from a fifties film she'd watched on television in the middle of the night.
"Where will I go?" She choked out the words.
Her mind went back to a place she swore she'd never visit again, not even in her imagination.
Visions of Draco dropping her off on the stairs of the New Gate Home for Girls filled her mind.
He would knock; the old woman, Vespa Calhoun, would answer the door. The woman had to be in her nineties, but she still ran the place with an iron glove. Wendy would have to go back to eating her food at her assigned time and never speaking out of turn. Always being told how grateful she was supposed to be...
"Wendy." Draco shouted at her.
"W-what?" She shook her head, trying to clear it.
"Don't blackout on me, okay?" He looked at Ace. "Maybe I should take her to the doctor's."
Ace shook his head. "No, she'll be fine. She just needs some sleep. Where are we taking her?"
She wished she could thank Ace, but her mouth had stopped working. It wouldn't form words. Draco met her gaze and smiled. "Home with us."
Ace nodded. "Sounds good."
Sounded good? She was going home with them...
Draco took to the sky with her in his arms. Maybe it was the wind in her hair or just the whole day catching up to her, but she buried herself closer against Draco's chest and let herself fall asleep. Ace was right. Maybe when she woke up some of what had happened would make sense and she could figure out how to get Kyle back in her life.
****
Distantly, she knew she was asleep. She had to be dreaming. How else could she explain why she was sitting in the Captain's chair of the Roundabout, the ship that had only been relevant in the second season of Space Adventures? Dressed in the day-to-day uniform of the bridge crew, she looked around at the rest of her shipmates.