Binds (19 page)

“Sorry that you’re being given extra work. Reece is just really worried about my husband getting his hands on me again. If you want, I can ask him to lay off.”

“Reece? He isn’t the one asking me to check every five minutes, Spencer is,” Jinx says with a scowl.

“Oh.” It’s all I can say because I wasn’t expecting to hear that. It seems to be a sore subject anyway, so I decide to ask him something that has been on my mind for some time. “Jinx, how did you end up with Spencer anyway? You’re what, eighteen?”

“Nineteen,” he corrects.

“Oh … then you were fifteen when Oberon started taking the children.” I gaze at him and mentally strip away those years from his face. “Not that I’m not happy that you didn’t end up in one, but how did you manage to evade being sent to a reformatory?”

He’s digging through a cabinet, trying to find a shoulder holster for me, but he stops and gives me a melancholy look at my question. “Do you really want to know, lady?”

“Yes,” I answer as I lean over and help him load clips.

“All right,” he says with a shrug. “My family lived in the apartment directly above this one before the reaping happened. It was my mom and dad and my little sister, Silvia. My sister was a Natural too, like me, only her ability had to do with music and sound. It was so damn cool to watch her sometimes, the gift she had with instruments. She could play anything, but her favorite was the violin.” Jinx closes his eyes and smiles a sad smile. It’s as if he is no longer with me in this stark room but somewhere else, where a little girl with sleek black hair, chocolate eyes, and the same toffee skin as himself is making soul shattering notes emanate from her violin.

“Man, you could hand that girl anything, and she would turn it into an instrument and make it sound better than any pop crap artist out there. And, when she sang … I’m no pussy, but I’ll admit to having to wipe my eyes a few times while listening to her. If what the rest of us do is magic, there’s got to be a better word for what she could do. It was a miracle.” He goes silent for a moment to reminisce and I leave it unbroken. I know that when I am in this mode where I can actually smell my mother through the memories, I’d do anything to prolong it and hold on to it with my fists until my knuckles whiten with the strain of time.

“The funny thing though, was that Silvia’s room was directly above Sammy’s nursery,” Jinx continues and I give him a questioning look. “Sammy is Spencer’s daughter. Her name was Samantha, but Spencer was the only person I ever heard call her that, even Spencer’s wife, Melody, called their daughter Sammy. It used to bug the crap out of him. He was kind of like one of those old lady neighbors that will keep your ball if you hit it over their fence, you know, grumpy all the time. So we, being the kids with the bats, would do little things to piss him off every chance we could. He used to come pounding on our door because Silvia’s music was too loud, or she was stomping around making a drum beat with her feet and waking Sammy up when she was a baby. My parents used to get real pissed off because Spencer was our landlord, and they were worried that our pranks would get us all evicted from the building. We weren’t worried though—Melody loved us like an aunt and there’s no way she would have allowed that to happen.”

I wonder about Spencer’s wife, Melody. I hold a lot of respect for any woman who was able to stick up to Spencer’s crotchety ways. “So what happened when everyone went to the reformatory that day? Spencer told me some of his story. Why didn’t you end up imprisoned like the rest of the children?”

Jinx turns his head to the side, a question in his eyes. “Wait, Spencer told you what happened to him that day?”

I nod. “Some of it, not everything.” Uh oh, I remember Spencer’s warning that day about how his business was his own. Well, telling Jinx that he told me of it isn’t the same as telling him exactly what Spencer said, so I’m really not going against his wishes.

“Damn, he’s never even told me any of it.” Jinx looks a little crestfallen, but recovers quickly. “Anyway, the night before everyone was supposed to go in and be catalogued by the NWO, I got into a massive fight with my dad because he read a post on my facebook page about plans to meet up with some of my hacker friends the next day. Dad was a stickler for keeping away from commons, but seeing as how most of my friends were people I talked to on the internet, it was kind of hard to be choosy. He told me there was no way I could hang out with them and Silvia stood up for me, so he took my computer and her violin away as punishment. I blew my top. It’s dumb … freaking out over meaningless objects the night before I lost everything that really counted. I got so mad, that I stormed out and stayed the night with this girl I was macking on at the time. When I finally calmed down enough to come back to the apartment the next day, they were already gone. I didn’t think it was a big deal, not going with them. At fifteen, stuff like that wasn’t even at the bottom of my list of importance.

“Four days passed and I was alone in that apartment, waiting for them to come back. I had no idea what had happened, all I knew was that the building was empty except for Trey, who lived on the same floor as us. Trey didn’t know what happened to the other Mages either. We don’t have our own news channel and I hadn’t invented the illegal net for our kind yet, so there was no way to find out what had happened to everyone. I was so worried and afraid that I freaked out and just started throwing things in the apartment. I was crashing around, really tearing things up, when what I really wanted to do was tear myself up for not being there with my family, not knowing what they could possibly be going through or where they were … over a fucking computer.” He shakes his head, and I put my hand on his arm to give him some comfort. The pensive expression on his face tells me this is something he still hasn’t forgiven himself for, and while I know that nothing I could say would help to exonerate his guilt, I know that sometimes just listening can help to ease a troubled mind.

“That’s how Spencer found me,” he says. “I was alone, surrounded by shards of glass scattered about from the bathroom mirror I had just put my hand through. I must have looked like a baby, crying and huddled on the bathroom floor like a fool. He told me they were gone … but he also told me that he was still here and that I was going to come live with him for the time being. He told me to have hope because he didn’t know what had happened to Silvia but she may still be alive, and he was going to do everything in his power to help me get her back. He saved my life that day. It was probably hell on him to take in a mouthy kid like me when he was already devastated by his own losses, but he put up with my crap. I’ll never forget what he did, what he still does. I lost my mom and dad … maybe my sister, but with Spencer, I still have someone. I have a brother.” He gives me a stern look and I take it for what it is. A warning against harming the only family he has left.

We finish loading the clips and getting the shoulder holster fitted to me in relative silence. When it’s on right, fitted snug against my black tank top and concealed beneath the leather jacket Spencer gave me on the second morning here, Jinx’s phone vibrates. Before he can look down at the screen, I grab his arm to get his attention. “I just want to thank you for telling me your story, Jinx. I know it’s too late, but I wish I could have done something to stop it. I didn’t know what was happening, but that doesn’t excuse it. I just…”

“Lady, I know,” Jinx cuts in. “It’s been four years anyway, the time for words is over. Spencer tells me you had nothing to do with it then you had nothing to do with it. You want to have our people’s back now and so I’ll have yours, even if it’s a pain in the ass to keep up with all the extra work I have to do now that you’re around. Just…” he smiles playfully and I can see him four years ago, a happy, carefree kid running around this place causing Spencer grief. “I know you white girls are all touchy feely, but, could you not? Every time you touch me, I feel like I’m a felon on death row. It’s like, damn, can I at least get a last meal before getting hooked up to the electric chair?”

I laugh, but it’s a strange thought that my spark might bug him as much as Spencer’s bothers me. “All right, I forgot about that with you, since you don’t have a spark. I’ll promise to keep my hands off in the future.”

He accepts the assurance by not acknowledging it at all but by putting his phone up to his ear to answer a call.

“Hey, it’s not my fault.” I hear him tell whoever is on the line. “Ophelia just wanted to have a heart to heart with me—that’s what’s taking so long. What do you mean, keep my mouth shut, fool? I know what’s up…all right, we’ll be right there.” He shoves his phone into his pocket and scowls at me. “Great, Boss Man is pissy. Seems like he always is now that you’re here. Let’s go, everyone is in the ops room waiting on us.”

Great, Spencer is in a bad mood because of me. Well, what’s new? I can handle that, but I feel a little queasy knowing that we will soon be out of this building taking on our opponent. I second-guess myself and my power, but I know I have to put all doubts behind me now. The time has come for me to prove to myself that I won’t back down, and I damn well won’t let anyone else fight this battle for me.

We exit the garage in four sleek black Acura TLs that smell like they just recently drove off the dealer’s lot. I ended up in the group with Spencer headed for the capitol, much to Reece’s chagrin, although Spencer’s explanation for the separation made sense. If the NWO is looking for Reece in connection to me, it’s probably best that we’re not seen out together again.

I kept catching Reece giving me these weird yearning looks as Spencer gave a briefing about rendezvous points and passed out some high tech walkie talkies that Jinx had jinxed to keep our contact from being intercepted. As the meeting broke and everyone started heading for the parking garage, via either the stairway or elevator, Reece pulled me aside and I got the feeling that he wanted to tell me something important. Before he got the chance, Cass came up to us to make sure she could ride in the same car as him. He ended up only giving me another look full of longing and what appeared to be worry, telling me to be careful and to stay with Spencer no matter what happened.

As we weave through the darkened streets of downtown and draw closer to our destination, I can’t help but speculate on what Reece might have wanted to tell me. Over the course of one day, he has been kind of hot and cold with me, and I really don’t know what to make of it. I wonder if I'm reading too much into it, I mean, we are about to go confront an armed police force who has orders to kill any of us on sight—that’s enough to drive anyone to mood swings. Reece has just always been unerringly friendly with me, so it’s unnerving to see the moodier side of him that he displayed back in the arms’ room.

I am in the backseat, wedged between two Mages that I have seen around the apartment, while Spencer drives and Trey rides in the front passenger seat. An identical car carrying the rest of our capitol bound group is following an inconspicuous five or so car lengths to our rear. There is a stocky man with dirty blond hair and a strong smell of cologne on my right and a woman with curly black hair, fierce blue eyes, and a nose ring on the left. There's something about the way she keeps giving me wary looks out of the corner of her eye as we drive, that makes me think she is even more nervous about this mission than I am. She’s drilling her short black lacquered fingernails on the grey leather seat and looking out both side windows erratically. I pick up the nerves in her as if they’re currents vibrating out of her skin, but I also feel a strong resolve in the set of her shoulders that tells me she is ready for whatever we are about to face. I wish I could say the same for myself.

By the sporadic light of the passing streetlights, I check my shoulder holster again and make sure that I will be able to draw my weapon quickly if the time comes that it’s needed. Then I sit back in the seat and take a deep breath, trying to convince myself that I’ll be able to get through this night unscathed. I start feeling like I’m being watched again and peer over to Blondie, only to see that he’s looking out his window. I shift my eyes to the rearview mirror and see the glow of Spencer’s steely blues illuminated by the headlights of a passing car before he quickly flicks them away from me and back on the road.

We come upon the capitol and Spencer pulls off on a side street, a short distance away from the offices of the Chancellor. It’s a quiet night and we haven’t seen many others out on the streets, I guess the commons have decided to stay indoors tonight. I wish I could be among them, safe and sound and ignorant of the malice in the night just beyond their doors.

As the car’s tires crunch over the gravel and come to a stop, Spencer speaks into the walkie talkie to the other car of Mages who continued past us down the street and turned a corner. “We’re going to split up and search the area for any NWO officers or commons who may be about. If you come across an officer, I want you to take every precaution to not be seen, however if you are, don’t hesitate to use force. It’s either you or them; don’t be afraid to protect yourselves. Now, that being said—try to avoid any fatal shots. If you can take them down, disarm them and then radio for me. I’d like to question every person we come across tonight. If you run into a common who appears innocent, use caution, but attempt to subdue them by Bind or force until I can be reached.” His words sound rushed as he tries to pack as much as he can into the directions. I can tell that he’s nervous, but I doubt it’s for himself. The safety of these people is in his hands. The sheen of sweat on his brow on this chilly evening is evidence that he realizes just what is at stake.