Now Felix snorted bitterly. “If he doesn’t already know.”
I nodded at that, then bit my lip. “Do you think Vanessa would like to see me?”
He frowned over at me. “Of course.”
I swallowed hard. “I just ask, you know, because they hurt her…”
He immediately began shaking his head. “They hurt her because she was doing her job-”
“Protecting the Kairos,” I said softly.
“Protecting her friend.” He put a hand on my arm, causing me to look over at him. “Not all of us see you as a weapon, Jo.”
“Oh.” I kept my eyes on the road, paused for a moment, then said, “Thank you, Felix.”
He settled back and pretended not to notice the tears staining my eyes.
8
The troop’s workshop, like most things in industrial Vegas, was hidden inside a windowless steel building that resembled a small airplane hangar. However, unlike the surrounding warehouses, this place was booby-trapped to the teeth. I suppose that as our weaponeer, Hunter considered it a moral imperative to keep the place properly secured, but every time I entered it I felt like Indiana Jones waiting for the boulder.
Felix beelined for the panic room, and I decided to give him and Vanessa a few minutes alone before joining them. But this left me alone with Hunter, who was half dressed in his Valhalla security uniform; dark pants, polished black shoes, and white undershirt that moved with his muscles. His moods lately had ranged from surly to sarcastic when dealing with me, so I only nodded in greeting, and waited to see what it would be today.
Felix’s talk about Vanessa and balance had fortified my emotions. I decided that I could stand up to whatever Hunter threw at me. I’d absorb both his anger and indifference, and give him nothing to beat against. And maybe soon, I thought, tossing my bag on the concrete floor, he wouldn’t feel the need to fight me at all.
Besides, I’d seen people and situations that were beyond fixing before-hell, I’d been one of them-and this wasn’t it. Hunter wasn’t broken. The possibility of us wasn’t broken. The silence echoing around us was only weighty in comparison to the cries and murmurs and soft sighs that had once preceded it. If I remembered that, he did as well.
“I should throw you out,” he said immediately, barely looking up from his drafting table. “Warren wouldn’t want you here.”
“Where is he?”
He lifted a shoulder. “You know Warren.”
Yes. He demanded to know where we were at all times, but disappeared whenever he felt like it. But it was for “our own good.”
“Vanessa?” I asked, jerking my head to the panic room.
“Better. You’ll see.” So he wasn’t going to throw me out. Good.
I headed to the chair next to his drawing board, careful not to wrinkle the navy dress shirt draped along its back. Yet spotting the half-finished sketches, I stood almost before I’d sat down. A conduit, drawn in varying sizes and angles, was depicted on half a dozen sheets. I knew immediately that it was for me.
“Wow.” All thoughts of romance, past wrongs, and other worlds, dropped away.
It was beautiful. Another crossbow, smaller than my original, and so sleek my palm itched to hold it. Vials of metal alloys were scattered along the table beside the drawing, along with a shiny lead crossbow bolt. Glancing around a plastic partition, I frowned across the length of the indoor firing range. The current target had bolts pinned to it as well. I gasped and turned toward Hunter.
“It’s only a model, so don’t try to take off with it. I’m still working out the kinks. Something’s off with the balance, and the bolts are more like paintballs than missiles, so you’d only bruise a Shadow, at best.” Though his tone was serious, a knowing half smile lit his face…and suddenly the sleek new conduit was in his hand. Any tension between us was immediately forgotten.
“Come to Mama,” I said, beckoning him, and the weapon, forward.
A conduit was an extension of an agent’s body and will, and once bequeathed or bestowed upon an agent, in a way became a part of the controlling agent…a fact that had been made painfully clear as soon as Regan snatched mine away. One of the few items my mother had left me in this brave new world, my conduit was perfect for the Archer sign, and its absence was almost a physical ache. Any other conduit, including this lovely little replacement, was a poor substitute-like pairing up with a partner you knew was wrong for you out of convenience, or until a better one came along-but I wasn’t in any position to be picky.
Hunter made me follow him around the shielding plastic, but instead of handing the weapon to me, he motioned me still and took his place at the shooter’s stand. Control freak, I thought, frowning, but stood back. He exaggerated his movements, demonstrating the proper stance-as if I needed to be shown-then stretched his arm to the side, one-handed, and aimed for a paper bull’s-eye fifty feet away. I’d have said he was showing off, but his facility with any conduit-though especially his own barbed whip-was physical poetry. He was pure athlete, war his chosen sport, and when he finally fired three bolts in quick succession, I had to admit I couldn’t have done any better.
The bolts dived for the target’s center, splitting air in chill-inducing hisses, as straight as if they were being reeled in…until the last moment, when they redirected-one, two, three-and barreled the opposite way. Right at me.
I ducked and the first whizzed by my head, a deadly whisper of wind trailing in its wake. The second one burrowed into my side with a white-hot pain. I cried out and instinctively dove for cover.
“Not behind me!”
So, at the last moment, I dodged the bolt by jumping into Hunter’s arms. His grunt against my neck let me know when it hit home. We froze there, both breathing hard for long moments, until I leaned back and looked into his pained face. “That didn’t hit anything important, did it?”
Wincing, he shook his head, but didn’t yet speak. When he finally caught his breath, he was succinct. “Oops.”
I eased down from him, a slow slide that let me experience all his athletic contours. I didn’t let the pleasure deter me. “You shot me.”
“No.”
I pointed at the iron dart sticking out between my ribs, the blood ruining my T-shirt, and raised my brows.
“The projectile was drawn to you. There’s a difference.”
“Well, the difference feels the same with a metal tip buried in my side.” And it didn’t feel like a mere bruise either.
“I told you I was still tweaking it,” he said, but even he looked frustrated. Still wincing, I put my hand on his shoulders as I looked down. He held me there for a moment, letting me use his body to steady myself, but shifted his gaze when I looked back up into his eyes.
Disregarding his own small injury, he stalked toward his shooting stand, simultaneously yanking the bolt from his thigh, while I relearned how to breathe. Thank God it was only a mock-up. Had that been a real conduit, neither of us would heal.
“I just don’t understand! I have the right metallic bonds…the frame is near identical. The bolts are slimmer, but that should make them more manageable, not less…fucking reactive, but I can’t get the right fit!”
He turned on me, eyes blazing, and I held up my hands in mock surrender in case he was going to shoot again. He didn’t, but he didn’t smile either. He just gazed at me in a way that made him look diminished. “Why can’t I get the right fit?”
I limped over to him, pain almost forgotten, and dropped the fired bolt on the shooting stand. “You’re going to,” I said, turning to him.
Hunter’s shoulders slumped and, turning away, he threw the replicate on the steel table. “I’m gonna get you killed.”
“You’re so arrogant,” I said, and he jerked his head up sharply to catch my smile. “Even I haven’t managed that yet.”