“I know, the networks have been carrying the story. What a mess.”
“Yeah, half an hour in the shower and I still haven’t gotten all the mud off.”
“Maybe I can help you with that when you get back.” She could hear the suggestive grin in his voice and blushed gleefully. “Speaking of which, aren’t you supposed to be on a plane back?”
She sighed. “I made an executive decision to stay an extra day and give Ana a chance to sleep. She’s really wiped out, John. I’ve never seen her this bad, not since Egypt.” Egypt, when she was shot in the gut, after she’d cracked open the earth wide enough to swallow an army.
“Is she going to be okay?”
“I think so, eventually. But she could use a break. We need her too much to let her burn herself out.”
“I know. She’s not the only one.” He sounded as tired as she felt.
“Promise me you’ll give her a break after this. She hasn’t seen her family in months. I think a trip home would do her good. You’ve brought in half a dozen new aces, more people from American Hero—surely you won’t need her for a few weeks.”
“Okay. Yeah. That should work.” Then he sighed, reminding Kate that Ana wasn’t the only one who was wiped out. “I’ll figure this out.”
There he went, taking it all on himself again. I, not we. This was the Committee, not a dictatorship. But Secretary-General Jayewardene had named him the chairman, and John took that position seriously.
She was too tired to argue about it right now.
Then John said, “How about I send Lilith to come get you—”
Ah yes, Lilith, who could wave her magic cloak and whisk them around the world in a heartbeat. But only at night, which was somehow appropriate, considering what seemed to be Lilith’s other favorite activity. She’d turned the Committee into a soap opera all by herself.
“It’s daylight here, John.”
“Oh. Right. Maybe later, then.”
Or not. “We’ll be home tomorrow anyway.”
“Fine, okay. But there’s something else I wanted to talk about.”
“Oh?”
“I was watching news footage. You weren’t wearing your vest.”
She wrinkled her face, confused for a moment, then remembered: the Kevlar vest that had spent the trip stuffed in her duffel bag.
“That’s because no one was shooting at us,” she answered. “There weren’t even any soldiers. It was the Red Cross and us.”
“They don’t have to be soldiers to have guns, and you never know when someone might take a shot at you.”
“It wasn’t a Kevlar situation,” she said.
“Is it really that big a deal to wear the vest?”
“It is when you’re in a humid tropical country and need to move fast. The thing makes it harder to throw.”
“And you couldn’t throw at all if anything happened to you.”
“And a Kevlar vest is not going to save me from drowning in mud. Or from getting hit by some lunatic jeep driver.”
“Now you’re making shit up just to argue with me.”
Funny how he got all worked up over her not wearing Kevlar, but didn’t seem to notice that Ana had been in shorts and a T-shirt. This wasn’t supposed to be about her, it was supposed to be about the team.
She opened her mouth, ready to snap back at him, her pleasant flush at hearing his voice turning to frustration. These were stupid arguments, which didn’t stop them from happening.
Sitting back, she made herself relax and said, “This is when I’d kiss you to break your concentration.”
Saying so had about the same effect. She could imagine the nonplussed look on his face. Then he laughed, and the knot in her gut faded.
“I worry about you. I don’t know what I’d do if something happened to you.”
This, too, was an old conversation. She should have been pleased at how much he wanted to protect her, and she was. But it also felt like being put in a box.
“I’m sorry you were worried,” she said. “But the only way you can really keep me safe is to not send me out here at all. And that would just piss me off.”
“I know, and you can get killed crossing the street at home. Doesn’t mean I’m going to stop worrying.”
She smiled. “I love you, too, John. I miss you.”
“I miss you, too. Get some sleep, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
NEW YORK CITY
Kate and Ana shared an apartment on the Lower East Side. They went home from the airport, and Ana crawled into bed for another round of sleep. Kate checked in on her, then went to see John.
While she and Ana had gone for austere college chic in a close-quarters studio, John lived in his mother’s penthouse overlooking Central Park. Peregrine was in Los Angeles for the second season of American Hero and had given her son the run of the place.
Kate felt the disconnect every time she went there. She’d grown up with Peregrine on TV and all over the covers of magazines. She was an icon, probably the most visible and famous wild carder ever, with her stunning presence and spectacular wings. And here was Kate, dating her son.
The penthouse was beyond posh. It wasn’t opulent or over the top—that was just it. Everything was tasteful and perfect, from the clean lines of the gray leather sofa set and glass coffee table, to the giant arrangement of hyacinths on the twelve-seater dining-room table. Real flowers, not silk, changed every week by the housekeeper. Last week had been orchids.
John grew up with this. He walked in here, and it was home. Kate still felt like she’d landed in a photo spread in Vogue. She was getting used to it—it was definitely easy to get used to. But sometimes she wondered if she’d fallen down a rabbit hole.
She set her bag by the wall of the living room and took a deep breath, happy to be anywhere that didn’t smell like a third world country.
“Hello?” she called. Her voice echoed.
“Hey!” John appeared from the kitchen, a bottle of wine in one hand and a corkscrew in the other. She was on him in a heartbeat, arms over his shoulders, pulling herself into a kiss. Awkwardly, hands full, he hugged her back. Their kiss was warm and long.
“Hi,” she said when they managed to separate.
“Hey,” he said, his smile bright. “Let me put this down so we can do this right.”
John set the bottle on the coffee table, where two glasses were waiting. Kate pulled him down to the sofa next to her.
The light from the other room glinted off the lump in his forehead. Sekhmet. A scarab-like joker living in John’s head. She gave him his power—he wasn’t an ace on his own, not anymore. But Kate didn’t like to think about it, that she and John were never really alone. Right now, moments like these, John was all hers.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” John said. “You still look beat.”
“I’m just starting to wake up.”
She pulled her leg across his lap, half straddling him, and kissed him again. She rested her hand on his cheek, ran it across his curly hair. His lips moved with hers while his hands crept under her shirt, pressing against her back. She drew on his warmth, and the tension faded. They sighed together.
“Welcome home,” he said.
“Thanks. It’s really, really good to be here.” She could curl up in his arms and never leave.
“Yeah. I worry less when you’re with me.” He ducked his gaze, hiding a smile. “If it weren’t for you, I don’t think I’d have lasted this long.”
So serious. Of course he was, this wasn’t a game. The pundits sometimes joked: what, you kids think you can save the world? But they could. They did. Little parts of it at a time.
Not wanting the anxiety to creep back, she joked, “And if it weren’t for you, I’d have a million dollars and be the designated ace guardian of San Jose.”