Requiem (18 page)

“
So what’s Isaac like?” Bex
said, dropping more fragments into the plate.

“
He’s highly trained,”
Jared answered.

“
And psychotic,” Kim said.
“You should have seen them. It was like a scene from Rambo. Neither
of them would quit, and they’re both Hybrids, so it was like a
never-ending fight scene. One punch here, knife wound there, elbow,
face punch, and then one of them goes flying across the room.
Lather. Rinse. Repeat.”

“
That’s enough,” Jared
said.

My stomach wrenched at her words. “Please
don’t go back. Not until Bex or Claire can go with you.”

Jared looked away. “It’s not that I couldn’t
handle it on my own, Nina.”

“
That’s not what I meant,”
I whispered.

He frowned, apology in his eyes. “I know.
I’m sorry,” he said with a sigh. “Kim’s right. We did learn a lot
last night. The problem is, Claire’s not here, and Bex has to stay
with you.”

“
What about someone else?
Another Hybrid?” I asked.

Bex laughed once. “If it comes down to it,
we’ll have to take Donovan down. No one is going to help us down
another Hybrid without good reason.”

I looked down at Jared’s bloodied hands, and
then back to his stormy blue-grey eyes. “And saving me isn’t good
enough for them.”

Jared nodded. “We have to persuade them that
something big is coming, and to do that we need the book.”

Kim knocked on the door jamb. “Now that’s
irony. C’mon, Nigh. I’ll take you to work.”

“
Is that okay?” I asked
Jared.

“
I’d rather you wait,” he
said.

“
Don’t be ridiculous,” Kim
said. She pulled up her shirt, revealing a handgun stuffed half-way
into her jeans. “I’m packin’, demons run when they see me coming,
and as Donovan learned last night…my right hook is wicked
accurate.”

The glance Jared and I traded turned into
involuntary smiles.

“
Bex will be right behind
you,” Jared said.

I kissed his cheek. “Maybe I should stay
home today.”

“
This is nothing. You
should see the other guys,” Jared said with a wink. “Go
on.”

Kim lifted my briefcase off the floor, and
held it out. I rushed to the bathroom, washed the blood from my
hands, and then followed her down the stairs.

“
Let’s take my car,” I
said.

Kim shrugged. “Whatever.”

As promised, the ride to work was safe and
uneventful, and Bex pulled into the parking lot on his new,
barely-street legal Ducati Streetfighter just as I stepped out of
the car. Kim stayed behind as I rushed into Titan, thankful that
being the CEO sort-of-in-training granted me a spot on the
elevator.

“
Good morning,” I said to
my co-workers as the doors slid closed.

Riding in close proximity to so many proved
not so lucky after all. The thought of everyone breathing in such a
confined space made me a bit claustrophobic.

When the elevator doors opened, I pushed my
way out, taking a deep breath when my heels hit the carpet. “Oh,
thank God.”

Grant's door was open, and his ankles were
crossed on top of his desk, and he was lazily leaned back in his
chair. My momentary relief from the elevator was short-lived, and
my face screwed in disgust.

I made a bee-line for my office, hoping
Grant would be too comfortable to get out of his chair.

“
Hey Peanut,” Grant said
just as I sat down.

“
Nina,” Beth said, walking
in with her head down. She was biting on the end of her pencil,
concentrating on her notebook planner. “The meeting with
Yawa…Yaw…the Japanese is on Thursday, but the Wellington’s will be
in town, and hoped to squeeze in some time.”

“
Make time. I’d love to
steal them away from Donaldson,” I said tapping a pen against my
desk.

“
Sounds like it’s a better
day,” Grant said, nodding. He bowed out without another
word.

“
Now it is,” I said, noting
Beth’s smile as she stifled a giggle.

“
So,” she said, forcing her
smile to fade. “Chad’s been asking. Have you heard from Ryan
lately? Or at all?”

I no longer had to fight a smile, my face
immediately fell. “No. Nothing.”

Beth nodded. “I hope he’s okay.”

“
If he wasn’t, we would
find out, right?” I said to reassure her.

She took a deep breath, and nodded. “Right.
I’ve gotta make some copies. You want coffee?”

“
No, thanks.”

Once Beth was off doing other things, Grant
returned.

“
I actually had a point to
coming in here. I needed to talk to you about Beth.”

“
Oh?”

Grant flashed his million-dollar smile, and
I had to physically restrain myself from recoiling.

“
Peanut, I realize she’s
your friend, but it’s not exactly cost-efficient to keep her
on-board during the school year.”

“
Are you suggesting I fire
her?” I said, raising an eyebrow.

Grant sighed. “You’re not looking at this
objectively. You’re in the office, yes, but technically you’re
still an intern until you graduate. Why would I pay someone to
assist an intern?”

“
Because I told you
to.”

After a short pause, Grant smiled, wider
than before. “You’re going to do just fine here.”

“
Thank you, Grant. That
will be all.”

He shook his head, chuckling to himself as
he left the way he came.

Buried under a few stacks of documents, Beth
brought me back to reality with her chirpy voice. “Time to go home,
Nigh.”

“
Oh.” I looked at my watch,
and then smiled. “Home.”

I haphazardly stuffed a few files into my
brief case before rushing down the hall, and then pressed the
button. As soon as the doors opened, I hopped inside, fidgeting the
entire trip to the first floor. The doors slid open, revealing the
brilliant late-afternoon sun gleaming through the lobby glass.
Jared was waiting by the Escalade, a contrived smile on his
face.

“
What is it?” I asked,
after greeting him with a quick kiss. My excitement to see him was
infiltrated by a sense of dread. The two didn't settle well, and I
instantly fell nauseous.

He raised a pair of my sneakers. “I thought
we could check out what’s left of the loft. See if anything’s
left.”

I could only nod, dreading the sight of our
home reduce to a heap of ash.

“
Put these on,” he said.
“It'll be hard enough sifting through everything, let alone in
heels.”

I took the shoes in my hand, and then sat on
the curb. Jared handed me a pair of socks, and I tugged those on,
followed by the sneakers. He watched me in silence, a residual
forced grin on his face. He wasn't looking forward to the aftermath
anymore than I.

The drive seemed to take an eternity, yet it
still wasn’t long enough for me to prepare. When Jared pulled to
the curb, I stumbled from the Escalade, each side of my hair
bunched in my fists. “Oh my God,” I whispered.

Jared milled about the charred remnants,
bending down once in a while to inspect something not-quite
destroyed.

“
There’s a few boxes in the
back,” Jared said. “Would you grab one?”

I took wide steps and hopped until I was
clear of the debris, and then went to the Escalade, opening the
back door. I brought back a large, cardboard box. There were two
more, but it was overly optimistic to bother with them, we couldn’t
fill up the first one. Silverware, a few brittle-edged pictures,
and the monitor of my laptop were among partially intact documents,
and a set of throwing knives. Yellow tape surrounded most of the
carnage.

My hands turned black as I dug slowly, but
surely through the black mess under our feet.

“
What are you looking so
ambitiously for?” Jared asked.

“
I was hoping we’d find at
least pieces of your journal, but I haven’t even seen the binding.
Have you come across it?”

He smiled. “I keep it in the Escalade. It’s
safe and sound.”

“
Good,” I said, overwhelmed
at the mountain of rubble.

“
We should go. The Fire
Marshall has already interviewed me twice. If anyone sees us poking
around, it’s going to attract attention.”

“
I guess.” I stood up from
my squatted position, throwing down a charred piece of the frame
that the last picture of my father was in.”

“
I’m sorry about that,”
Jared said. “I should have tried to get that out, too.”

“
It’s not your fault. They
did this to get a reaction, to see if we’d retaliate, or if it
would cause dissension between us. The last thing I’m going to do
is give them what they want. It’s just stuff.”

Jared walked over to me, tenderly wiping my
face. “You’re covered in soot. Let’s go home.”

“
That’s not home, Jared.
This was home, and it's gone.” I was surprised at the tears that
welled up in my eyes. Crying hadn't crossed my mind until that very
moment.

“
Maybe we should start
looking for a place?” he smiled.

“
So they can torch it
again? No, thank you.”

Jared’s expression was pained. “It won’t
happen again.”

“
You don’t know that,” I
said, tugging on his hand, leading him to the Escalade. “We have no
idea what they’ll do next.”

Chapter Ten

New

Summer wound down, and Beth and I undertook
the process of delegation. Our schedule at Brown would make it
impossible to maintain the hours we’d been keeping at Titan.

Jared made frequent calls to Claire to check
on Ryan’s progress, which steadily improved. At times faster than
Claire would have liked. To all of our surprise, Ryan wasn't
fighting the decision to decommission him. He was focused on
getting well and getting back to the States—something none of us
had anticipated.

As promised, Jared didn’t try another ambush
on Shax, or Donovan and Isaac. Instead, he became obsessed with
constructing a fail-safe plan, one that included a Plan B, and
help. He refused to let the book get away from him a second
time.

Bex grew two more inches, which was a good
thing. His inflated ego needed all the room he could give it.

Jared and I spent my last day of Summer
Break at our Oak Tree. We stretched out across a blanket Jared had
spread over the grass, just inside the shade of the tree. I kept my
eyes closed, quiet and lazy, listening to the bugs buzzing and the
grass dancing in the wind.

“
You’re officially a
college junior tomorrow,” he said with a proud smile, brushing the
petals of a wildflower down the line of my jaw.

“
I am,” I said. “Another
summer gone by. Just one more left before I graduate.”

Jared squeezed my hand, turning his
attention to the carving above us. “Hmmm…where do you see yourself
this time next year?”

I breathed out a laugh. “I have no idea. Why
don’t we make this an annual event? We spend the day at our Oak
tree the last day of Summer Break next year, too.” Jared grimaced,
and my expression mimicked his. “What?”

He worked to smooth out the deepening line
between his brows. “Nothing.”

“
Jared,” I warned. I became
impatient very quickly when he kept things from me, and he seemed
to be taking that risk more frequently.

He sighed. “I was hoping your answer would
be different, that’s all.”

“
Different how?” I
asked.

“
I was hoping that you
would say you saw yourself
married
this time next year,” he said quietly.

“
Oh,” I said,
sheepish.

“
I’m trying very hard to be
patient about this,” he said, his voice suddenly strained. “I don’t
understand why you’re putting it off.” He chuckled nervously. “I
thought we’d be married by now.” His eyes were still bright, but I
could hear the edge of worry in his voice.

“
We’ve discussed this,
Jared. A lot. I don’t have time to plan a wedding right now. It’s
not that I’m putting it off, I’ve just got a lot on my plate is
all,” I said, twisting my ring around my finger.

Jared rested his hand on mine. “I know you
do. But it doesn’t have to be an elaborate event. We’re engaged,
we’re living together…is there a problem I should be aware of?”

“
Of course not,” I smiled.
“I just need a little more time.”

Jared’s contrived smile didn’t hide the
heavy disappointment in his eyes, but I pretended not to notice. I
wanted to marry him more than anything, but I wanted to do it
right. I certainly didn’t want to feel rushed to get home from our
honeymoon because of chapters to study, papers to write, or
learning how to run another department of Jack’s company.

“
A year is a reasonable
engagement. Two years is….” he trailed off, clearly vexed by the
idea of waiting another year.

“
We won’t have a two year
engagement, Jared,” I assured him.

“
So you’re going to settle
on a date sometime this year?” he asked, hopeful. The look in his
eyes made it impossible to say anything but yes.

“
I will. I just have to
find time to plan a wedding between twenty hours of school and
Titan.” I felt my expression compress as I thought about the
ramifications of my statement.