Guardian Of The Grove (7 page)

I didn’t know what to say. His faith in me had thrown me for a loop. I held out my fist, and he gave it a bump. Then I turned and started to walk through campus a little more quickly than I had been before. This had been a mistake, one that I didn’t want to repeat. I ducked around a corner and called on my gift to shield myself. Once the spell was in place, I used another to bend the light around my shield, and I took off, basically invisible to the naked eye.

How could I have been so dumb? I knew their murders were unsolved, and I had that gut feeling that no matter what happened, the police would have always thought of me as the number-one suspect. So what did I decide to do? I decided the best course of action was to walk through the one area of town that could be full of people who could have known me at some point. I mean who grew up in Tucson that didn’t want to go to the U. Super smooth, Jackson, super smooth.

The rest of the trip to the copy shop went much smoother. Being invisible had its perks, the best one being no more interruptions. It was probably too late to be discrete. Nothing spread like fire on a college campus faster than interesting gossip. I wondered how much time I had left before that picture of me made it to the cops. I was about to go viral; nothing too exciting happened in Tucson unless it was basketball season. So as soon as the news was out, it would spread like wildfire. There were only a few places the police would come looking for me, and wherever Alby was would probably be their top choice. That meant I needed to make this stop quick. In and out, and hopefully hidden back in our hotel room before the police figured out where I was going. If they found me I would have an even tough choice to make.

T
he copy shop
looked exactly like I remembered it. It seemed like only yesterday I had been working here with my best friend. The overnight shift had been amazing. We spent about two hours stocking and cleaning, and six hours watching movies together. You really couldn’t beat it. That all changed when I told Alby about the visions I was having. The next morning, I had been let go with a full month of severance pay. Not long after that, my life changed forever.

I dropped my invisibility on the sidewalk outside of the store. Hopefully, no one was staring too intently at the front of the copy shop when it happened. The door let out a jingle as the bell placed over it rang to announce a customer’s arrival. The man at the counter didn’t even put his magazine down. He just looked at me over the brim. When I didn’t signal to him that I needed anything, he went right back to reading.

Turning to scan the store, I saw exactly what I had been looking for. The top of a bright blonde ponytail peaked out over one of the printers. I found it odd that Alby was stocking the printers while some random guy was just sitting around. Maybe she was trying to lead by example. I started toward her, threading my way between the machines. Finally, I rounded the last one, and she came into view.

She rose, sliding the paper drawer closed with her foot. She turned toward me, and my heart froze just for a second. She looked exactly how I remembered her—tall and thin, but with a few muscles to spare. She had short khaki shorts; you know the ones that are jean cut and have fancy pockets on the sides. At one time, those pockets would have held a phone, but I could see hers poking out of the top. She also wore a plain white T-shirt. When she stretched, it lifted up just enough to give you a peek at her belly button.

When she stopped her stretch, her eyes turned toward me, and I watched them grow wider by the second. I didn’t say anything at first; I didn’t know what to say. All of the speeches and thoughts that I had turned over in my head on the way over vanished in an instant. I sat there just staring back into her eyes with my mouth open. What in the hell was wrong with me? I mean, I knew where I was going and who I was going to see. Why was it such a shock all of a sudden?

Alby broke the tension in a way only she could. She smiled and pulled me into a fierce hug. She whispered into my ear. “You’re alive.” Then I felt the warm moisture of her tears on my neck.

“Hey, Alby.” Did I mention how smooth I was with the ladies? I was going to have to see if the academy had a class on that. There might be a time when I’m out in the field and I needed to manage more than a
hey
.

She pulled back from our embrace and slugged me in the shoulder. Now that was more like the Alby I knew. I rubbed my shoulder and watched her face. I felt a little sheepish that I hadn’t been able to say anything else yet.

Her smile and tears dried up into a look of frustration. “You’ve been gone for a year after your family was killed and the best you have for me is a ‘hey, Alby’?”

“Would a hiya have worked better?” She slugged me again. “Damn, Alby, you still pack a wicked punch.”

“Don’t you forget it.” She grabbed my hand and started to lead me into the back of the store. “So tell me, Jackson, why are you here?”

We made it into the break room. It still had the big flat screen TV in it, but it lacked the video game console we had used to play movies. I looked around for a moment, feeling the nostalgia of this place; nothing much had changed. “I came to say goodbye to my parents. Their deaths have been eating away at me. I just thought that maybe if I came and saw where they were buried, it would help. When I saw the stone between their graves, I had to come and see you.”

“I thought they would like that. I also planted that tree between them.”

“You planted it? It’s huge,” I said, giving her a sideways look.

“I’m a Fae, remember? It’s kind of what we do.”

“We haven’t really covered that in class yet. I’m still trying to get caught up with werewolves and vampires.”

“So you guys have some kind of school.”

“Yeah, I guess you could call it that. It’s more of a combat academy.”

Her face paled. “See, Jackson, that is why I told you that we couldn’t hang out. Your people hunt ours.”

“I’d never hunt you, Alby. Since I have joined with the Ascendancy, I haven’t hunted anything except a ghoul named Gaston.”

“Wait, you were involved with that? It’s all anyone has been talking about.”

“Yeah, I was there.”

“I’m still not sure how much I can trust you. It’s like my best friend turned into the boogeyman.”

“Would it help if I told you my mom was a Lycan?”

“That’s impossible, Jackson. None of the Gifted have ever had children with one of the Pretenders.”

“Impossible, but true. She’s actually in town, if you’d like to meet her?”

“I’m not sure that would be a good idea.”

“I understand.” I stepped back and looked at her again. Damn, it felt good just to be around someone I had known for so long. “Hey, do you know if they sold my parents’ place? I swung by there and everything looked the same.”

“Actually, it’s in a trust along with their life insurance money. They put me down as a trustee, so I pay the taxes out of the trust and get the house and yard cleaned once a month. I wanted to make sure the money lasted so you would have something to come home to.”

“Thanks, Alby.” I felt the first tear start to work its way out of the corner of my eye.

She pulled me into a hug again, and the tears came a little bit faster. “It’s the least I could do, Jackson; your parents were like family to me.”

“I’m sorry you had to deal with all of that alone. I should have been here to do it.”

“I always knew that if you could have been here, you would have been. So can you tell me what happened?”

I launched into the entire tale of events—coming home and then going into the kitchen and watching them die. That I woke up in some kind of prison only to be broken out, and then found myself enrolled at the academy. I told her all about what had happened while I was there—that someone had tried to kill me, and that I was supposed to be some kind of savior. I filled her in on what had happened with the Jar of Souls, and then sat back, waiting for a response.

“Well, damn, I can see why you never called,” she said, laughing.

“I’ve been a little busy.” Her laughter was contagious, and when I looked at the situation from the outside, I could see how crazy all of this sounded. It was just yesterday that I had been wondering if all of it was a dream. How could I expect anyone else to understand it? Somehow Alby did.

“You could say that. Well, if you’re back, I can get you all of the documents for your parents’ property and the bank information. That way you can move in or sell it, whatever you want to do.”

“I’m not back yet, just helping my mom with some business and trying to ease my guilty conscious. I know it’s a lot to ask, but for now, do you think you could continue to run the trust? I don’t know when things will settle down enough for me to manage it.”

“I can handle it.”

“Listen, if you need to be paid or whatever, just take out what you need for you.”

“Jackson, you don’t even know how much is in there. What if I took it all?” She just giggled at the look of confusion on my face. “It’s some serious cash; they had a generous life insurance policy, plus the money forms the lawsuit after the arson investigation. I could pretty much pay for the house and the cleaning service forever. The best part is I have it all set up to be paid automatically; it basically runs on autopilot. I stop by a couple of times a month to make sure the workers are actually showing up, and that’s it.”

“It still seems like a lot to ask.” I pulled her into another hug. “Thank you so much, Alby, for what you did for them and what you’re doing for me. I can’t thank you enough. Before I leave, we should grab dinner or something. I’d love to catch up more.”

“I think I could handle that.”

There was a knock on the open door. The guy from the front desk popped his head in, and he looked scared. “Abigail, I’m not sure who your friend is, but four cop cars just pulled up out front and they all have guns pointed at the door.”

“Shit, you should go Jackson.”

The sound of cars screeching to a halt in the alley behind us came through the thin walls. “I guess that really isn’t an option anymore. Why don’t you guys head out and I’ll wait for the cops to come in.”

The guy turned around and headed toward the door. Alby just looked questioningly at me. “You could sneak out of here, right?”

“I could, but now that they know I’m back, it wouldn’t do me any good. Anywhere I went they’d be looking for me. I need them to leave me alone.”

“Just be safe, Jackson.” She rushed forward and gave me one last hug before taking a napkin off the table and writing her number on it. “Call me when they let you go, ok?”

“Of course, I will.”

I watched her walk out the door of the breakroom and then counted to thirty. I stepped back into the main copy shop and could see the four cars parked across the street out front. Each car had two officers behind it with guns pointed toward the door. Alby and the guy working here had been moved behind the cars. Alby looked pissed, and the guy couldn’t close his mouth. It was like this was the coolest thing he had ever seen.

I walked slowly toward the door with my hands above my head. I knew they could see me moving through the building. I covered myself with a shield just in case, but I hoped it wouldn’t come to that. I opened the door to the shop slowly and stepped outside. I waited on the sidewalk with my hands up.

“Jackson Fairfield, remove the bag from your shoulder slowly and place it on the ground.” One of the cop’s voices boomed over a megaphone. I took the bag off of my shoulder as slowly as I could and set it on the ground before putting my hands back up. “Step forward three steps and then slowly go to your knees. Place your hands behind your head and interlock your fingers.”

I walked away from the bag and dropped to my knees. I interlocked my fingers, with my hands behind my head. Two cops with handcuffs rushed around the car, and another two moved forward to keep their guns on me.

They all started shouting commands. “Don’t move.” “Stay right there.” “Move and you're dead, asshole.” Two of them slammed into me, forcing my face down onto the hot asphalt of the street. One of them jammed a knee in my back while the other worked on trying to rip my arms from their sockets. Once he had twisted them behind me, I felt the cuffs clamp down on my wrists. I could have melted the locks and slid right out of them, but it would have defeated the purpose of me giving myself up.

My mind raced through about ten ways that I could have gotten out of this. All of them ended up with eight dead cops, so I pushed my anger back down and endured their abuse. The last thing I needed was someone snapping a picture of me running away, with police cars and officers in pieces. At least now I didn’t have to wonder why everybody else always ran from the police. They weren’t exactly kind when you gave yourself up.

I was picked up by the handcuffs. The weird leverage from being picked up from my wrists almost forced my shoulder out of the socket before I could get my feet underneath me. I glared at the cop who had lifted me back to my feet.

“You got something to say, tough guy?” he said with a smirk.

Every part of me wanted to slip out of the cuffs and hit him in the face. Instead, I fell back on my old friend sarcasm. “Nope, me and your mom worked it all out last night.” Oh shit, did I really just say that? Hanging out with Marcus and April had given me a smart mouth. Ok, maybe it was me who was giving them a smart mouth, but hey, I was getting dragged around in cuffs, so it felt better to blame them for my slip. Not that I really minded; the guy was obviously an asshole overcompensating for something else by trying to be a hard-ass. This time, it might have been better to stay quiet. I had the feeling smarting off might have gotten me in more trouble than it was worth.

My suspicions were confirmed when instead of being placed in the back of the car, I was shoved down onto the hood of it. The air rushed out of my lungs as the officer slammed his hand against my back. The cop kept me pressed me down against the warm surface of the hood of his car and took his time searching my pockets. I could feel the heat coming through my shirt, threatening to leave a burn. If he only knew what I could do with fire, he might not feel so high and mighty.

With my pockets emptied, he walked me slowly around the car and placed me in the backseat. He gave me a look that said,
see, when you screw with the law, I can do whatever I want
. I just smiled back at him. They didn’t have anything to tie me to the deaths of my parents. I hadn’t killed them, so they were fishing. It was odd that they came at me with guns drawn as if I had been trying to run. A simple “can you come to the station and talk to us” would have been enough.

Oh well, it was too late for that now. I guess tonight’s dinner would be courtesy of the state of Arizona. Hopefully, they didn’t serve prison food at the local jail. I guess it really didn’t matter; unless they brought me some McDonald’s, I didn’t plan on eating a thing. This was going to be interesting. How would I ever be able to explain this to Adam? Not to mention my mom. Damn, she was going to see this on the news and have to stop whatever she was doing. She was going to be pissed. My version of keeping my head down didn’t seem to be working out so well. So much for just swinging by to say thank you. I hoped Alby’s uncle didn’t get pissed at her.