Authors: Erin Kellison
Jordan made a face back at Maisie. “No, you shut up.”
The old script felt good. Felt right. The panic faded.
Mr. Steve wasn’t so bad. And he did have really pretty green eyes.
Maisie took a big deep breath. Okay, so she’d fake out Graeme and get some answers. She could do this. She
would
do this.
But first, before floating, one small matter…
Maisie jabbed a finger toward her sister. “You show me how these stupid columns work.”
***
“Rook, I’m going to need you on this,” Steve said.
Malcolm Rook hit the Agora column with his hand and the Sunrise flying dream faded, like one dream morphing into another. Only darkness lingered, columns wavering as if reflected on water before growing more distinct.
“Okay,” he said, “but I’m still awaiting disciplinary action for getting personal with Jordan on the job. As I’m still breaking the Code of Conduct every chance I get, they could suspend me. I’m restricted to the Agora. You, uh, might want to take note, considering your sudden preference for pink.”
“Not sudden. She grows on you. Like a migraine.” But yeah, when he closed his eyes, he saw pink, and he liked it.
Rook grinned. “You need me to track her?”
Steve’s mounting tension released with Rook’s offer. He was willing to risk suspension for him. But Steve intended to push the friendship even further.
“No. I need you to be me in the waking world so that I can track Maisie.” Rook was a good tracker, but Steve had been Darkside longer and could do things Rook couldn’t.
Rook frowned. “How can I be you? Doesn’t this Graeme already know what you look like?”
He’d jumped to the obvious, literal conclusion, that Steve wanted him simply to take over in the waking world.
Here goes.
“Yes, he does. I’ll make you look like me.”
Rook blinked. “Come again?”
“In the waking world I can make you look like me. Maisie is going to have to knock me out to get away, but it can’t be
me
she knocks out, because I have to follow her without her or anyone else knowing.”
“In the waking world.” Rook couldn’t seem to get past that bit.
“A waking dream, yes.”
Rook was the first person Steve had thought of to keep his secret. Rook had experience with dark minds, with monsters inside.
“Since when have you—?”
“All my life. Chimera doesn’t know.” Couldn’t know.
“But you’re telling me.”
“Yeah.”
Rook looked at him steadily for two beats. “You really do like her.”
“I’m not leaving her alone to return to Graeme and a dream so evil she still goes white at the thought of it.” The intensity of dreams usually faded in the waking world. But not this one.
“And when you follow her, you’ll look like—?”
“They won’t see me.”
“Right. Because in the waking world you can also be invisible,” Rook said dryly, disbelieving.
“Waking dream. You never saw me when I was first scouting you.”
Rook’s attention narrowed, looking at him more closely. Really looking, which was dangerous. “I didn’t?”
“Not until I wanted you to.” Steve turned away just in case Rook could penetrate his mask. Eventually he would, but Steve would worry about that when the time came. “How soon can you get to Vegas, preferably without Chimera support?”
“We’ll leave right now, but we’ll have to drive,” he said.
We.
Of course he’d bring Jordan.
Steve turned back slightly and inhaled to speak, but stopped himself from asking Rook to keep the plan—and his talent—from her. If something happened, Rook might not have a choice.
And anyway, when the job was over, Steve would be moving on again, except this time moving on from Chimera as well.
With people like Maisie on board, there’d be little choice anyway.
CHAPTER FIVE
When Maisie woke, she found herself alone, lying lengthwise on the sectional, her shoulder in an achy jam. During the past year, she’d slipped into the dreamwaters from many uncomfortable positions (in dubious locations as well), but she and Steve had a freaking gorgeous suite with a couple of beds, and they hadn’t used one. Insane.
She sat up, arching into a yawn and wondering where he was.
He’d said he liked pink, and one of things she loved best about Darkside revelations was that they were almost always true. It was the waking world where intent and feeling were often indistinct, mangled things. Like right now, twisted together in her chest was guilt over the old man, fear about going back to Graeme, and a weird pleasure that Steve liked her in spite of the Graeme situation.
Her mood soured at the thought of Graeme. She’d have to go back to him today. How would that go?
Hi Graeme, so it turns out I want to make more money after all. By the way, what’s in the packages?
Okay, that sucked.
Her stomach grumbled. She hadn’t eaten much of that octopus, and the dollop of crème on the fruit was not her idea of a dessert.
Graeme, I was faking interest in Chimera to stay out of jail. My own sister turned me in and I had to play along. Did you know there was a naked old man in that package? Crazy, right?
Crazy stupid.
Graeme, thank God it’s you.
That Chimera Steve Coll has been holding me against my will.
She grinned. She actually liked that one. What would it be like to have Steve restrain her? He’d have to use one of his boring ties.
No, Steve! Not the pinstripe!
It was useless to plan what to say to Graeme anyway. She was best going with the moment, or anything else would sound rehearsed. Simple was better.
Chimera was not what I thought.
And the statement was true, too. Steve wasn’t what she’d thought.
Her gaze was captured for a second by the tremendous view, the early morning world white-bright as the sun began its climb, and then she went in search of her captor.
Off one of the bedrooms, she found the closed door of a bathroom, the hiss of the shower beyond, and guessed he was in there.
The fear of returning to Graeme on her own rose inside her like heartburn, and she rested her forehead on the door. In the waking world she simply didn’t have the same confidence she did Darkside. It had been nice during the past few days to have Steve buffering the danger.
She didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t want to go back. She wanted to hide in her city and forget the world existed. But she couldn’t do any of that, not after burying an old man under a tree.
When the door opened suddenly, she almost fell forward. The shower was off, bathroom smoky with steam, and Steve was wrapped in a towel.
He caught her. “Morning.”
She pushed herself back up, hands to rock-solid pecs, blond fuzz super-curled and wet across the chest.
“I was just going to order breakfast.” Her gaze traveled lower. She was trying really hard not to ogle his amazing physique. Trying and failing. How very…underhanded of him to hide these chiseled abs and dizzying obliques with suits. Steve-o had been holding out on her. Reluctantly she took her hands off his shower-hot skin. Her throat was dry when she added, “You want anything?”
“Omelet. And coffee.” His hair was a little spiky with the dampness. A hot punk.
She folded her arms to prevent herself from reaching out again. “Omelet. Right. Should I see if they have anything disgusting like duck tongue to go in it?”
Steve smiled, that glimmer in his eyes, and Maisie’s heart thumped hard.
“I like mushrooms,” he said.
“Fungus. Got it.”
She turned away from him, blinked a couple of times to clear the sight of his naked, glistening torso from her vision, then headed out of his room.
People prejudged her all the time because of her hair and her clothes and the fact that her mouth started moving before her brain had completely formed the thought that she was already speaking.
She’d been guilty of the same with Steve. He was not boring, for one. He was reserved. Contained. He presented an interesting puzzle, a challenge, should she live through the Graeme thing. She was going to metaphorically undress Super Agent Steve Coll. While she was at it, she might be required to literally undress him as well. She’d like to examine those pectoral muscles a little more closely.
When he emerged, she was off the phone, but distracted by the array of tickets and vouchers in the big portfolio The Wake’s clerk had left behind.
For the first time in the three days of Steve’s constant, unrelenting company, he was wearing sweats, not a suit. The personal shopper had purchased the slim-fit variety of T-shirt, and Maisie had the urge to place a second call to thank her. Maisie couldn’t think of a better distraction from Graeme than admiring a well-toned male body.
“The food will be here soon.”
“Thanks,” Steve said. “We have a couple of hours before Rook and Jordan join us. I’d like to work out our plan before then.”
“Rook and Jordan are coming?” Her mood darkened. She didn’t want her sister anywhere near Graeme.
“As backup only.”
Steve didn’t know her sister. “If she thinks I’m in danger, she’s going to act.”
“No, she won’t. This will be a good learning experience on the job. When you become Chimera, she can’t follow you around to make sure you’re wearing a coat and have bus money.”
Um…what?
There were a few things to take exception to in his last statement, each equally irritating, but Maisie was stymied about which to argue against. It took her one second to realize the tactic for what it was—a strategy for him to get his way. Well played, but she was smarter than that.
“I don’t want Rook in danger, either. No one can follow me. That’s non-negotiable.”
“The only way Graeme and whoever is behind him are going to contemplate trusting you is if you sleep—an utterly vulnerable state, by the way—in a place under his power.”
Steve had switched from trying to piss her off to trying to scare her. And, yeah, a couple of horrible
What ifs?
glimmered briefly in her mind—what if anyone touched her while she was sleeping? what if they drugged her to keep her under?—before she forced herself not to think about it too much. All that mattered was finding out whether she’d been a party to hurting anyone else.
“I’ve slept next to crueler people.”
He flinched at the jab. Good.
“This is going to be hard, Maisie.”
“I’m tougher than I look.”
A resigned smile tugged one corner of his mouth. “You look plenty tough to me.” He came over. Stood a little close. “Rook and I will get you out. I swear it.”
Seemed she’d passed his scare test, so she let herself speak one fear. “How will you even know where I am?”
“I can find my marks just about anywhere.” He spoke with his characteristic self-assurance. Mr. Cool. Steve-o. His competence wasn’t feigned or exaggerated. He’d been solid these past days, and she had no reason to doubt him now.
Somewhat reassured, she said, “So I’m a mark, eh?”
“You’re the Ultimate Mark.”
She cocked her head, considering. “Ultimate is better.”
He was looking at her again, looking deep, the way that had made her so tense last night. Except this close together, the tension had a distinctively magnetic quality. She was pretty sure that even closer, the tension between them would burn.
Which is why it hurt when he closed his eyes and shut himself off, as if telling himself no.
She got the message, too, and stepped back. She hadn’t brushed her teeth yet, so she supposed it was a good thing they hadn’t locked lips. “I’d better grab a shower while I can.”
The phone buzzed, and Steve picked up the line and listened. “Yes, that’s fine. Send it on up.”
The food.
“I’ll be just a minute,” she said. Although she had no intention of hurrying.
She was going to let the water and the steam wash everything away, including hopefully, her screwed-up feelings about Steve. When she came back, she’d come back new, focused on what she had to do.
When she came back, she’d be saying no, too.
***
A cart laden with covered dishes came rattling out of the elevator, pushed by a uniformed waiter. He positioned the cart near a circular dining table with the view of the city, and began unloading the dishes and condiments, while setting silver at the same time. It took him two minutes to prepare the table.
When Steve approached with tip in hand, the waiter began a rundown of the dishes.
“This morning we have Belgian waffles with extra strawberries, bacon, and country-fried potatoes—” Maisie’s breakfast “—as well as a mushroom omelet, with a side of beef heart tartare. Coffee and orange juice, as well.”
Beef heart tartare? Raw heart to start the day, huh?