The Collectors' Society 01 (10 page)

“The thing is,” Mary says, “some people, when they retire from the Society, are still active. They become liaisons or just members that occasionally interact with the Society. Then there are the rare people who, once they leave, choose to have nothing more to do with us. Sara was like that. She asked to be placed back into her Timeline at the exact moment she once left, and then basically washed her hands of us. We were too much for her.”

“It’s not fair to judge her for choosing a path that’s different from ours.” Finn’s voice is low but firm.

Mary’s mouth opens, but the look Finn gives her then has her lips snapping shut and her skin paling and then flushing considerably. Thankfully, another knock sounds at the door. Before I can move, Finn tells us he’ll get it.

Once he’s gone, Mary leans forward and whispers, “They were tight.” She holds out two fingers twisted together. “Like,
super
tight. God forbid anybody have a negative thing to say about Princess Sara.” She rolls her eyes. “I wouldn’t be surprised to find out they once had a thing, you know? Although I hope not. God, I can’t imagine. She probably laid there like one of her dolls.”

Does she mean an attachment? “I take it you two weren’t
tight
.”

“Fuck, no. She was incredibly annoying. Always had to be little Miss Sunshine. Sorry, I’m being bitchy again. And on your first day, too. Normally I hide such thing for at least a week or so before letting this side show.”

She’s smiling, though. As bizarre as it may sound, I actually appreciate her honesty. And as I don’t know this Sara, and it appears I never will, her words really have little bearing on me.

“Well, well,” somebody drawls. “We meet again. I knew you couldn’t stay away from me.”

I turn around to find Jack Dawkins pushing a small cart with thick, brown sheets that look to be some kind of paper, a crooked grin on his rubbery face. He’s winking seductively at me.

Finn comes up from behind and smacks him on the back of his head. “Nobody finds that shit charming.”

Dawkins laughs. “Plenty of ladies find me irresistible.”

“Blind and deaf ones, perhaps,” Mary muses. “Or ones with head trauma that have left them with lowered IQs.”

Dawkins ignores this. “Although things have soured between us, I would truly appreciate you not messing with my game. Just because we didn’t find our happy ending doesn’t mean Alice and I won’t.”

A little bit of vomit surges up my throat, alongside an urge to find a sword and show him exactly what I think of that.

Finn picks up one of the large sheets and expands it until it forms a square. “Thanks for the boxes.” When Dawkins doesn’t move, he adds, “Leave the cart. We might need it to send things down into the basement.”

Dawkins rubs the back of his head. “I can stay an’ help.”

Mary stands up. “You can go through the boxes afterward. Get moving.”

Van Brunt’s assistant places his hands over his heart, wincing. “You wound me, Mary. After all we’ve been through, how can you treat me like this?” To me, he says mournfully, “Love is so fleeting. Ours won’t be, will it?”

“The day you genuinely fall in love will be the signal of the End of Days,” Mary mutters.

I watch Finn rip strips off a roll and use them to seal the flaps of the box shut. “Jack? Just one more thing before you leave.” He straightens up. “If you ever go running your mouth to Brom again like you did this afternoon, especially before you have any facts to back up your claims, I’m going to have to kick your ass.”

This makes Dawkins laugh. But it also has him finally on his way.

Mary grabs one of the folded boxes and sets about opening it. “Just to clarify, the A.D. and I never had a thing.” She shudders.

“But . . . the chemistry between you two was undeniable. I could have sworn . . .?”

Both heads jerk up in surprise. I hide my smile by dipping my head while I claim one of the newly constructed boxes.

We spend the next hour packing up the bulk of Sara’s things. While I appreciate the gesture behind not originally leaving the flat empty for me, it feels far too awkward to live amongst this Sara’s things. All of her dolls, all of her flowery wall art and embroidered pillows, all of her little porcelain figurines are put into boxes. During this time, I listen more than talk as Finn and Mary chat about a variety of subjects both related to Society matters and not. Despite their prior disagreements over the flat’s previous inhabitant, there’s an ease between the two that I envy in a way.

Mary leaves to go help Victor with one of his experiments. I know I ought to ignore him, or keep him at arm’s length, but there’s something about Huckleberry Finn that idiotically, impossibly draws me in like a moth to a flame.

So I talk to him.

I like his voice. It’s got just a hint of a rasp and is warm and alluring. I like how he talks with his hands, too, and how he’s all too aware of such actions and tries to combat them by stuffing them far too often into his pockets. I like how his eyes are so expressive and yet guarded all at once. I like that when he moves, it’s done with confidence.

He tells me about the building, and of many of the people who live here. I ask about views beyond my window, and he’s patient with his explanations.

My knees weaken when he asks if there’s anything he can get for me, because he’s been in my shoes. It shakes me, these sudden, inconvenient feelings. I don’t want nor need them. Thankfully, though, Mary reappears with Victor in tow. They’ve brought wine, beer, cheese, and crackers, and we all sit down in my emptied living room and share the treats. They ask me questions, but I always manage to divert them back toward things I wish to know about them.

When memories creep up upon me, ones of ease I’ve shared with others, I force them back. There’s no use in reliving these memories, no point in wondering
what if
or
what once was
no matter how desperately I wish things differently. For now, I need to focus on the people before me, the ones I’m supposedly to work with. I need to take in every little detail I can, because what I told Mary earlier is all too valid.

Knowledge is always one of the fiercest of advantages a lady can have.

I
WAKE UP TO sirens.

I’m out of bed, disoriented and stumbling toward the closet in this new, unfamiliar bedroom. The ear-blistering wail seems to be coming from both inside and outside my apartment, leaving my bones rattling as I fumble for a sweater or robe to wrap around myself.

Beyond the main door to the apartment, I find a shirtless Victor, his arm around a tiny satin-robed Mary. He’s shouting into one of those hand-held phones. The moment they notice me, though, Mary disentangles herself and comes over to where I am.

I raise my voice to lift above the din. “What’s happening?”

Before she can answer, Finn’s door wrenches open. He stumbles out, hopping on one foot as he yanks a shoe on. I try not to stare at how his shirt is not pulled all the way down, or how the last few buttons of his well-fitting trousers are undone, too, but I fail miserably.

One would think surreptitiously staring at him for hours as he helped pack up dolls would have been enough, but it appears I’ve yet to learn my lesson about beautiful men. And it’s patently ridiculous, because I don’t know him, he doesn’t know me, and chances are I’ll be leaving once we find the catalyst for my Timeline anyway.

Suddenly, the building goes silent, leaving Victor’s last few words echoing down the hallway. There are a few other people in their pajamas or robes, milling about outside their doors.

Victor passes his phone over to Mary, who tucks it into one of her pockets. “Couldn’t hear a bloody thing anyway. What’s going on?”

Finn finally tugs his shirt down, covering what appears to be a well-defined chest. Frabjous. I’m still staring, aren’t I? What in the world is the matter with me? “An attempt to open a window on the second floor, just off the fire escape.”

I tighten my sweater around me, my hands crisscrossing beneath my chin. “Do the windows here not open?”

It’s almost as if he’s just now realizing I’m standing outside my door, because Finn’s eyes widen for the teeniest moment as they flick from the top of my head to my bare toes. “Um, yeah, of course they do.” His voice is adorably husky, like he’d also been rattled straight out of sleep. “We have to enter a code into the system, so security measures can be set into place, though.”

“What he means,” Victor says, “is that little invisible laser beams are shot out across open windows, and if tripped, an alarm such as this sounds. I wonder if somebody simply forgot to enter their code.”

Yet another thing I feel ignorant about. Laser beams?

“Wendy says it was tripped from outside,” Finn is saying. “You guys ought to go back to bed. I’ll go down and meet up with Brom, see what’s going on.”

His slightly raised voice carries down the hallway, and it’s enough to send the remaining curious stragglers back into their flats.

For a moment, Victor says nothing. But then he holds out a fist—and just when I think there might be posturing or fighting, Finn holds his out and knocks it against Victor’s. “Update in morning?”

“Of course.”

Mary yawns as she rubs at her wild hair. “G’night, then.” But she pauses before she turns back toward her door. “Oh, and Finn?”

“Yeah?”

“Finish buttoning up your pants. Your blue boxer briefs are distracting me.” She nudges the man next to her. “See? I keep telling you boxer briefs are the way to go. Look at how yummy they can be.”

A slight, charming blush steals across Finn’s cheeks as he turns around to do so. Victor rolls his eyes, though. “Come on, then. We can discuss an overhaul of my undergarments behind closed doors. Goodnight, Alice. Finn, we’ll talk in a few hours.”

And now I’m blatantly staring as I watch Victor follow Mary into her flat. Well, now. Partners, indeed.

“You should get some rest, too,” Finn is saying. “You must be tired, what with all that’s gone on today.”

He’s the one who appears tired. “We’re to work together, correct?”

He shoves his hands into his pockets and rocks back on his heels. “That’s the plan.”

“Is it a plan you support?”

I’ve thrown him a bit off, which is nice, considering how he managed to throw me a little off over the course of a singular day. “Of course. I wouldn’t have agreed to it if I didn’t.”

“Nobody asked whether I agreed or not.”

And now I’ve thrown him a bit more, because his eyes widen. “Um—”

“I’m not airing complaints. I’m merely stating facts. That said, if I’m to be your partner, I ought to go with you to investigate whatever is going on.”

“You don’t have to. It’s late, and—”

“I need to put something on that’s more conducive to interacting with people. Do you mind waiting for me, since I still don’t have the best lay of the land?”

I’m pleased when he doesn’t argue further. “As long as it’s quick.” He’s smiling, though. It’s small and it’s bemused, but it’s a smile all the same.

I push open my door. “You can wait inside.”

“Are you sure? Because I can—”

“You spent the better part of the afternoon and evening inside my flat. How is this any different?”

“It’s three-thirty in the morning,” he says, but his feet cross my threshold.

I shut the door behind him. He’s got manners. My knees register that with yet another ridiculous, inappropriate weakening. “Victor is inside of Mary’s flat at just such a time.”

The chuckle I’m given is warm and delightful. “That’s different.”

I flip on a lamp in the sitting room and tell him to make himself comfortable.

Inside my closet, I flip through the foreign clothing that hangs there. Are these Sara’s? I have no idea, and didn’t think to ask earlier. I’m uncomfortable with the idea of wearing her castoffs, alongside living amongst her things and working with her partner, but I figure the clock is ticking. So I grab a pale-green dress that barely grazes my knees and throw it on, and then rummage around until I find a sensible pair of boots.

I twist my hair up into a bun and head back out to find Finn sitting on the edge of the couch. “Shall we?”

Minutes later, we’re on the second floor and inside an office just off the kitchen for the Institute’s restaurant. Wendy, Brom, Dawkins, and a few men and women I’ve yet to formally meet are already inside, talking and peering at a large window. Lights flash beyond the pane.

“Tardy twice in the same day?” Wendy mutters to Finn. She’s got pens sticking out of the green hair piled high on her head as she clicks away on the metal box from earlier in the day. “Who are you and what have you done with the Finn I know? For a moment, I worried you slept through the noise.”

Before he can answer, I say stiffly, “It was my fault. I asked him to wait for me.”

Wendy looks up in surprise, but my presence doesn’t faze Brom one iota. He acknowledges me with a nod of the head before returning to a conversation with another man.

“You texted me,” Finn’s saying to Wendy. “And I texted in return. So, obviously I did not sleep through the alarm.”

She grunts, her focus returning on the box in front of her. There are words on it, much like the phones they’re carrying. Finn leans into me and says quietly, “It’s called a computer. Specifically, a laptop.”