Wildfire

  Rogan had plucked him out of his hidey-hole. Now Bug had filled out, his dark brown hair was neatly cut and clean, and he wore decent clothes. He seemed calmer. His paranoia had receded. He could carry on a conversation without twitching. Napoleon, also clean and a good deal plumper, snored by his feet on a little couch, upholstered with red fabric and Île-de-France motif.

  “You’re leaving?” Bug asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t leave,” Bug said.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  “What do I tell him when he comes back?”

  Did Rogan tell him to keep an eye on me? “Tell him whatever you want, Bug.”

  I crossed the floor, turned the corner, and descended the staircase. The lights were on. Half a dozen of Rogan’s ex-soldiers, four men and two women, carried on a quiet conversation. It died when they saw me.

  I recognized Nguyen Hanh, an Asian woman who worked as Rogan’s head mechanic, and Michael Rivera, Rogan’s second-in-command. About mid-thirties and Latino, Rivera had a great smile. He usually smiled after he shot someone.

  “Are you leaving?” Rivera asked.

  “Yes.” Kill me, somebody.

  “Why?” Nguyen asked.

  “Because I’m going home.”

  “But the Major isn’t back yet,” Rivera pointed out.

  “I realize that.”

  “You can’t leave. He said he would be right back, and we’re supposed to keep you safe while he’s gone. If you leave, we can’t keep you safe,” Rivera said.

  “You can still keep me safe. I’m going to my house across the street.” I pointed through the wide open double door at the warehouse. “You never close these doors anyway, so you can watch me walk twenty yards to my house.”

  “He’ll be in a bad mood if you leave,” a dark-haired man said.

  Rivera looked at him for a second, then turned back to me, smiling up a storm. “Maybe you could wait for him?”

  “No, I really can’t.”

  I walked straight at Rivera. He stepped aside, I marched through the doors and headed toward the warehouse.

  “It’s because of the Sherwood woman,” another male voice said behind me.

  “Of course it is,” Nguyen said. “I said when she first showed up she’d be trouble.”

  I crossed the street, punched the code into the lock, entered the office, and locked the door behind me. I had had one hell of a day. I had left my phone in my car, my gun in Rogan’s car, and I had no underwear. Walking around without underwear felt odd. Being without my phone was even more odd. There was probably some sort of deep conclusion to be derived from the fact that losing my phone disturbed me more than losing my underwear.

  This wasn’t me. I always had my phone and my gun. And underwear.

  I eased the interior door open. The warehouse was quiet. A lonely light glowed at the very end of the hallway in the kitchen. With four teenagers in the house, someone was always raiding the fridge during the night, and we usually left the light fixture over the table on for the midnight snackers. Tonight I heard no voices.

  It was a few minutes past eleven, and on a school night everyone would be in bed by then, but we’d decided to keep everyone in until the trials. Where were they?

  I tiptoed down the hallway, took a right, cleared another short hallway, and peeked out at the Hut of Evil, a small building within the building where Bern reigned supreme with all his equipment. Faint voices floated down to me.

  “. . . right . . . he’s on top of the building . . .”

  “Got it.”

  Right. Team Baylor was making the world safe from alien zombies one cyber shot at a time. At another time, I would get right in there and join them, but tonight wasn’t that night.

  I leaned a little more and caught a glimpse of Bern. He wasn’t wearing his gaming headset. His face, illuminated by the glow of the monitor, looked haggard, the eyebrows furrowed. He was focused on whatever was in front of him at the cost of all else. Probably going through the contents of Rynda’s computer, looking for the file the kidnappers wanted.

  I turned around and padded into the kitchen. When he found something, he would tell me.

  My cell phone lay on the kitchen table, illuminated by the lamp like a lure. Cornelius must’ve brought it in. Ha! I picked it up. One thing recovered.

  A missed call. I flicked the icon and listened to the voice mail.

  “This is Fullerton at Scroll, Inc. Please call me at your earliest convenience, no matter the hour.”

  All the muscles in my stomach tensed into a tight hard ball. It was past eleven. He said as soon as possible. I called the number.

  He picked up on the first ring. “Hello, Ms. Baylor.”

  “Hello, Mr. Fullerton.”

  “The analysis of your DNA is completed. Your familial relationships are verified, and you are clear for trials.”

  I exhaled.

  “We’ve received two requests for your basic profile. Under the circumstances of the impending trials, I felt I had to notify you as soon as possible.”

  “Let me guess, House Tremaine?”

  “That’s one of them.”

  “Denied.” Victoria wouldn’t be getting her claws on any of my information.

  “Noted.”

  “Is the second from House Rogan?” What do you know? Rogan did care about the genetic match after all.

  “No. House Shaffer.”

  “House Shaffer?” Of the three truthseeker Houses in the US, House Tremaine was the most feared, because my evil grandmother did business with the brutality of an axe murderer. House Lin had the most members. House Shaffer was the middle of the road and I knew very little about it.

  “Yes. Should I deny or accept the request?”

  “Why would they be asking about my genetic profile?”

  “There are numerous reasons,” Fullerton said carefully.

  “You’re an expert and this is brand-new to me. I’m just asking for a guess.”

  “The basic profile can be used for a number of things. It doesn’t contain enough information for in-depth planning. However, it is very useful in eliminating the possibility of familial relationships.”

  Oh. “Do you feel they are trying to make sure that we’re not related to House Shaffer?”

  “That would be my expectation. Truthseeker talents are very rare. As a gesture of goodwill, they’ve made their basic profile available to you, should you choose to peruse it.”

  “Have you examined their profile?”

  “Yes. House Baylor and House Shaffer are not related.”

  I pondered it. If I didn’t grant their request, they would wonder if I’m some sort of illegitimate relative. If I let them have access to the basic profile, they would quickly realize that I wasn’t anyone’s love child and leave us alone.

  If only it would be that easy. The block in Vincent’s mind was put there by a truthseeker.

  I felt like I was playing a game of chess blind.

  “Let them have access to our basic profile.”

  “As you wish.”

  “Thank you.”

  “My pleasure, Ms. Baylor. Have a lovely evening.”

  I hung up. Too late for that.

  What I needed now was a nice long nap . . . I turned. Mom was leaning in the doorway, her arms crossed.

  I had no underwear, but I was wearing sweatpants. She couldn’t possibly see through my sweatpants and ask me where my underwear was and why I was sneaking into the house in Rogan’s clothes.

  “What was that about?”

  “Another truthseeker House wants access to the summary of our records. Fullerton thinks they want to rule out the possibility of a familial relationship.”

  “What do you think?”

  “A summoner attacked Rynda tonight.”

  “Cornelius told us.”

  “I sensed a block in his mind. It was put there by another truthseeker.” I leaned against the table and crossed my arms too. “Brian’s kidnapping is tied to t
he conspiracy to create New Rome. Vincent, the summoner, told me that whatever ransom they want from Rynda is connected to her mother, and her mother was in this conspiracy up to her eyeballs. We also know that when the conspiracy first started to show itself, with Adam Pierce trying to put together pieces of an artifact which would make him powerful enough to burn down the city, the location of the artifact segments was entrusted to a certain family. Their minds were shielded with a protective hex. A truthseeker had managed to peer under that hex, just like I had done, to get the information Adam needed.”

  “And you think this other House . . .”

  “House Shaffer.”

  “House Shaffer is involved?”

  I sighed. “I don’t know. The hex was very powerful. It would take a Prime to get past it. It’s logical that it would be one of the three truthseeker Houses within the United States. They have the most skin in this game, which means it’s either Lin, Shaffer, or Victoria Tremaine. Our genetic profile couldn’t have been up for more than a few hours, and the moment it went up, Shaffer jumped on it. So I let them have the summary. Let’s see what they will do with that information.”

  “Was that really wise? What if they share it with your grandmother?”

  “Let’s say they do. It will confirm what she already knows. We’re her grandchildren.” I shrugged. “You know she had Dad’s DNA sequenced the moment he was born. She can probably predict our genetic makeup based on that alone.”

  My mother frowned. “This worries me. This is the world your father escaped, Nevada. He’d done it for a reason. He hated it. It’s dangerous and he didn’t want to have anything to do with it. He didn’t want his children to be a part of it.”

  I felt so tired. “What do you want me to do, Mom? We’re caught in this conspiracy. The only way out is to expose it. It’s a big tangled knot and the truthseeker is a string that’s sticking out. I’m pulling on it.”

  “I don’t want you to strangle yourself with that damn string. We should’ve never filed to be a House.”

  “Well, it’s too late for that, isn’t it? Mom, I’m trying to survive and keep everyone safe. You keep criticizing me, but there is nothing else I can do. You and Dad must’ve known that one day our grandmother would find us. What was the contingency plan?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “That’s right. There wasn’t one.”

  My mother’s face turned a shade paler. “We could run.”

  Not that again. I was so done with this.

  “No. You and Dad could run, because it was only the two of you. But we can’t. There is me, Catalina, Arabella, the boys, you and Grandma Frida. That’s seven people. Where are we going to go? How will we hide seven people? Should we split up, so Victoria can get the weakest of us and then use that person as a bargaining chip? You know that’s a bad idea. Your plan was to hide forever. Well, it doesn’t work like that. A magical talent will break into the light. It’s inevitable. It’s a part of who I am. I’m a Prime truthseeker, just like my grandmother.”

  Her expression turned harsh. “That’s not who you are.”

  “Yes, it is. I’m our best hope. It’s now up to me to keep the girls and Bern and Leon safe. Except you and Dad hid us so well that now I’m untrained. I have never even used an arcane circle until this year. I hadn’t even known that I had other powers besides being a living lie detector. It’s all on me now, and I have no weapons to fight with. You did the same thing to Catalina and to Arabella, and now you and I are doing it to Leon. You can’t stuff us into a glass box and keep us from using our powers, Mom. We will go crazy. How about instead of criticizing me, you just help me? Because I need help.”

  I turned and stomped out of the kitchen through the other entrance.

  I lay in bed. I’d abandoned the sweatpants as soon as I stomped into my loft, slipped on a pair of underwear, and climbed into my bed, still wearing Rogan’s T-shirt.

  When we sold the house and moved into the warehouse, my parents built me a loft apartment—a bedroom and a bathroom, accessible only by a wooden staircase. I could retract the last ten feet of it, which effectively frustrated my sisters’ attempts to bug me when I wanted to be left alone. I even had a window for my bedroom. It was a cozy space, my retreat from the world, my favorite place, where I ran away to when I was tired and overwhelmed. Right now it seemed empty. My bed seemed too big and empty too.

  How in the world did I get used to sleeping next to Rogan so fast? I could count on the fingers of one hand the number of nights we slept together.

  He didn’t ask for my DNA profile. I couldn’t decide how to feel about it. It depended on why he didn’t request it. Did he not request it because he loved me and didn’t care if we were genetically compatible, or did he not request it because he wasn’t thinking of anything serious like marriage?

  Did I want to marry Mad Rogan?

  Marriage meant exclusivity, but in the world of Primes, affairs weren’t just common. They were almost normal. I would do almost anything to stay with him, but sharing him with anyone else was beyond me.

  Something knocked on my window.

  Maybe it was a bat.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  I climbed out of the bed and walked to the window. A small grey rock tapped the glass from the outside. Knock-knock-knock.

  I looked down. Rogan stood on the sidewalk.

  Well. Think of the devil.

  I pulled the latch up and opened the window. The rock streaked to the ground.

  “I’m trying to sleep.”

  “I said wait for me.”

  “I did. I waited for an hour. Then I had to go home.”

  “You’re mad at me.”

  Thank you, Captain Obvious. “Why would I be mad at you? Is it because as soon as we had sex, you jumped out of our bed and rushed to see your ex-fiancée and was gone for almost two hours?”

  “One hour.”

  I checked the clock by my bed. “One hour and twenty-two minutes.”

  “There was a hysterical child on the other end of the line. When I got there, his sister woke up and started crying. Then Rynda cried.”

  “Did you soothe them to sleep?”

  He gritted his teeth. “I made sure they aren’t crying.”

  “Great. Then the problem is resolved. I’m going back to bed.”

  “I asked you to wait for me and you didn’t.”

  “Why would I stay there, Rogan? You weren’t there. I have my own bed right here.”

  “What exactly did you want me to do? Was I supposed to listen to her scream and tell her to fuck off because I would rather stay in bed with you?”

  “So now I’m the bad guy?”

  “Well, yes, a little bit. I went to do something nice and you got mad about it. You’re overreacting.”

  Ooh, no he didn’t.

  “Nevada, as the Head of a House, there will be times I will have to get out of bed, no matter what we’re doing, and go take care of things.”

  “Taking care of your ex-fiancée is House business?”

  “I’ve known her since we were children.”

  “Mhm.”

  “She’s practically family.”

  “And what am I?”

  He realized he’d walked into it.

  “As it happens, I’m also about to become a Head of a House. You’re right, sometimes things do come up, and we have to leave and take care of them. I’m not just going to lay all sad in your bed waiting for when you decide that you’re done blotting another woman’s tears. I have profile requests to evaluate and kidnappings to solve.”

  “What profile requests?” he growled. “Who?”

  “Not you, if that’s what you’re asking. You didn’t check on our genetic compatibility.”

  “Who, Nevada?”

  “Do you think if you snarl enough, I’ll tell you? You’re not that scary, Rogan, and I don’t respond well to intimidation. Maybe you should lather up some spit.”

  “Who was it?”

  He
was like a dog with a bone. He wouldn’t let go of it until I told him, and it had very little to do with what I wanted to fight about. Fine. “House Tremaine and House Shaffer.”

  “Did you say yes?”

  “Not to Tremaine.”

  “You said yes to Shaffer?”

  “Yes.”

  He lapsed into silence. His face arranged itself into a cold mask. “You’re right. You are becoming the Head of your House. Might as well start planning now.”

  Oh, for the love of . . . “They asked for my basic profile to eliminate the possibility of familial relations, because they’re worried I might be a Shaffer love child.”

  “They asked for it to ensure that there are no complications preventing a match,” he ground out. “That’s the first step.”

  I leaned through the window and savored the words. “You’re overreacting.”

  A door swung open somewhere and Catalina called out, “Mom says that you should either have sex or stop arguing, because it’s past midnight and all of us are trying to sleep. Figure yourselves out!”

  The door slammed shut.

  “That’s okay,” I hissed. “We’re finished talking. Just one question before I go: in your expert opinion as the Head of a House, when Rynda called you, was it a true emergency? Was it something that absolutely couldn’t be resolved without your presence, or was it another opportunity for her to make sure that you’re emotionally engaged to take care of her and her children if Brian doesn’t make it? And if it was a true emergency, why didn’t you ask me to come with you?”

  I slammed the window shut. There. I got it out.