Dragon: Allie's War Book Nine (87 page)

He fell silent.

I felt that pain still coiling around his light though, still pulling on me.

After another minute passed, he didn’t seem to be able to stay silent any longer.

“You really wouldn’t trust me with your daughter?” he said, his voice openly hurt. “Allie...I’d kill myself before I let anything happen to Lily. I’d raise her like my own, if you let me...I’d lay down my life for the two of you. Do you really not know that about me?”

Once my mind understood what he’d said, I couldn’t believe it.

I couldn’t believe what he’d just said.

I saw him clench his jaw, felt regret slide off his light in a darker cloud.

“I just mean…” he said. I felt his skin warm, saw his eyes avoid mine as his voice grew more subdued. “If you were still alive. If you were alive and he wasn’t…or if he wasn’t able to be with you. I would help you with her. You wouldn’t be
alone,
Allie…I would never let you be alone. No matter what we were to one another…even if we were just friends.”

I felt that pain in my chest worsen.

It felt like he’d just stabbed me in the heart again, only with a broken bottle that time. I almost didn’t know what hurt the most right then…what he’d told me about my parents, the thought of raising Lily without Revik…

Whatever it was, it was more than I could take.

I felt myself fighting to breathe, losing touch with the room…

I couldn’t see him anymore. I couldn’t see anything.

“Allie…”

His voice felt far away.

“Allie…darling.” His words grew soothing, his light vibrating with a thread of harder fear. He kissed my mouth, caressing my face with both of his muscular hands, calming me with his light. “Allie…I’m so sorry. It’s all right. It’s all right…he’s going to be all right, Allie.”

I fought not to hear him, shaking my head.

He gripped me tighter though, forcing me back into my body.

“You’re going to be all right,” he murmured. “Both of you…and Lily. I’ll help you. I’ll help you however I can. And I’ll help you save him if I can. I promise. I promise you…” He kissed me again, his light lulling, soothing as he continued to caress me with his hands and aleimi. “I’m sorry, darling. I’m sorry I said that…I’m sorry…”

I shook my head, but I couldn’t speak.

Tears filled my eyes, but for a long time both of us just lay there. I could feel his hands on me still, his light in mine, trying to calm me down, to open me to him again.

As I lay there, though, the thought kept repeating, over and over.

This wouldn’t end well.

There was no way this was going to end well.

Not for any of us.

28

DESPERATE TIMES

“Yeah, well, I’m asking you to hold off on that,” I said, fighting to keep the impatience out of my voice. “In return for that very significant favor, I’m now willing to negotiate a number of the larger concessions you asked for from me, Madam President…”

The virtual image went dark.

It felt like it went dark before I’d even finished speaking.

Silence met me on the other end of the line.

I bit my lip, fighting not to read her.

I knew what that darkness meant. She hadn’t hung up on me; I could tell that from the live link indicator blinking in the corner. She’d pulled herself out of the conversation with me to confer with her own people. Even so, I had to fight not to violate our agreement about me not using my seer abilities when the silence continued to stretch.

Jem and I were camped out in the same building where we’d spent the night, what used to be the consulate for the country of…Paraguay, I think?…or was it Uruguay?

I supposed it didn’t really matter at this point. Whoever they’d been, they were gone now.
 

Only seers occupied these rooms now, although I knew that wasn’t true of all of the buildings in this neighborhood.

Distracting myself, I took a sip of the coffee one of Jasek’s people had brought me. It was real coffee, so it was hard not to clutch the porcelain cup like the contents were liquid gold. I didn’t realize how used to instant I’d gotten until I could smell the real thing. Every sip gave me a little ripple of pleasure that was almost embarrassing in its intensity. The real cream and sugar were just a bonus.

I might have to find something to barter with Jasek to see if I could bring some of it with me when we left.

We were hoping that would be later this day, although we’d gotten a fair bit of resistance. From Balidor and Wreg. From Jasek, who warned us the reports coming out of China were alarming, to say the least…and who didn’t like that we hadn’t yet located Dragon or found a way to track him. From Chandre and Mara who were still at Langley.

Now I was hearing it from Brooks too, whose people seemed to have an increasingly itchy finger over the big red button in regards to Beijing.

Jem was still muttering under his breath about us going to China, too.

I could tell he was fully on board though, and not only because he’d been the one to first voice the change in plans aloud. He’d already spent most of that morning negotiating weapons, ammunition and transportation help with the London seers.

Since we shared a bed these days, too––meaning for sleep in addition to whatever else––I knew he’d started pretty much as soon as we got up.

I’d also gotten to know him better by then. He was a verbal worrier, which often came in the form of arguing with me, or muttering about me in front of me. I’d also learned it was almost a weird sign of affection, so I didn’t usually take it personally anymore.

He was probably working on requisitions for us still.

I had no way of knowing without pinging him; I sat alone in that formal dining room on the third floor. Brooks requested a private audience, so I’d done my best to give her that.

Truthfully it suited me, too. Mostly.

It would have suited me more if she’d extended me the same courtesy.

“President Brooks?” I said, when the silence stretched. I cleared my throat. “We’re under considerable time pressures at the moment…I’m sure you can appreciate that. I understand your need to be cautious, but I need an answer. Today.”

At that, she let out a low grunt.

The space reconfigured around me from where it had gone dark.

Great, at least she’d taken her finger off the damned mute button.

I found myself looking at her, meeting her cool gaze under hair that was significantly more coiffed than when I’d met her in that farmhouse in Colorado. She wore an impeccable gray business suit today as well, so apparently the Feds in Langley still had access to some of the higher-end clothing stores that once dotted the East Coast.

I wondered why they bothered to keep up the pretense.

Then again, I suppose I knew why. Even so, I wondered how long that would last, assuming that textile manufacturing didn’t go back to pre-plague levels anytime soon.

“When do you estimate Dragon will reach China?” she asked me, her words crisp.

I shook my head, indicating a negative in seer sign language by making a downward slash with one hand. “We don’t know that. I told you that already.”

“We need an estimated time frame, Alyson.”

“I won’t be able to give you that until we get there, Moira,” I said, my voice holding a faint warning. “I told you that, too.”

“Why not?”

“Because we won’t
know
anything until we get there,” I said, my voice closer to a growl. “Look, Madam President…I don’t know how you think this ‘being a seer’ thing works, but it doesn’t mean we’re omniscient. If a seer takes certain precautions, we can’t see them at all. And Dragon’s abilities are completely undocumented at this point…and seemingly unprecedented. A good portion of this trip to Asia will be intelligence-gathering. Right now, we’re relying on mythology for the most part, which isn’t exactly reliable, in terms of––”

“You must know something,” she threw back at me, more than a little testy herself. “…Or you wouldn’t be going there at all. The last time we spoke you told me you were
months
away from Beijing, Esteemed Bridge. ‘Two months, minimum,’ you said. That was three weeks ago…so clearly, something’s changed.”

I flinched a little at her using my seer title.

Either someone was coaching her at Langley, or this was Brooks genuinely trying to communicate with me, using seer terminology. It could be either, honestly, or both...and I knew I might have to read her for the truth at some point, if only because it might give me some indication of how serious she was about creating a real alliance with me.

Of course, it might do me little good, depending on how far Shadow had infiltrated Langley and who might be shielding or manipulating her light there.

After another beat, I made my tone more conciliatory.

“The change in timing is due to a different concern, Madame President,” I said.

“Which is what?”

I bit my lip, fighting that still-coiling anger. Doing my best to keep it from my voice, I gave her a seer’s shrug with one hand, my voice carefully respectful.

“It’s in regard to my husband, Madame President,” I said.

“What about him?” Brooks asked, her voice even more wary.

I exhaled, then told her the truth. “I have serious concerns for his well-being. And therefore my daughter’s…and mine, for that matter.”

Silence fell on the line once more.

Instead of the dark, the line just went quiet. I saw Brooks turn her head, answering something one of the others with her was saying. Frowning slightly, she looked back at me. I saw the flicker of understanding in her face and eyes.

“I see,” she said, exhaling. “You still think you can extract him? Or do you think they’ve turned him?”

I shrugged, remembering to do it the human way that time. “I honestly don’t know. But I’m worried if they can’t turn him within a certain timeframe, killing him might be their next step. I have to get there before that happens.”

She nodded, once.

The fact that it was close to a seer’s nod might have amused me at another time. Then again, she was a politician, so of course she’d be good at mirroring people.

“I might still need the other,” I told her cautiously. “The contingency we talked about. But I would need to request it from there…”

“Understood,” she said.

For a moment, her eyes looked distant.

Not in a checked-out way, which might have made me nervous. Rather, it was more like she was watching something other than me. A few seconds later, I realized she was probably looking at a monitor on the other side of our comm, just from the way her eyes tracked the movement. Probably the news feeds then. Or live satellite transmissions of one kind or another.

Having seen far too many of those myself since C2-77 broke, I found myself understanding the frown at her lips more than I wanted.

“All right,” she said, her voice holding an open concession that time. Looking away from the wall she’d been focused on, she rubbed the bridge of her nose.

“Your people have explained to me that you would need radio silence for the first half of this operation. Including in terms of how you people…err, communicate.”