Invaded (25 page)

“I already know your trick,” Syrine said. “And you owe me a sandwich.”

“This is true. I never flake out on a bet.” David smoothed his hands over Syrine’s
upper arms, clearly reluctant to leave her. Gods, this was going to be a long, awkward
month.
“I’m supposed to stay with you,” David said. “I’ll call in the order and have one
of the guys in the hall pick it up.” He glanced at Aelyx. “You want
anything?”

Yes, he wanted Cara—alone on their colony, free from the worries of alliances and
assassinations and probes. “No. Already ate.”

David started to speak, but the phone rang from his pocket, and he stepped back to
answer it. At once, the smile fell from his face and he reflexively touched his arm.
As the seconds passed, it
became clear that the caller had delivered unpleasant news, and Aelyx suspected it
had to do with David’s medical condition. He wondered if his friend had confessed
his health problems to
Syrine. He made a mental note to talk with David later.

“I’ve got to take this,” David said, covering the mouthpiece. “Be right back.”

After a brief kiss, David left Syrine to continue the call from his room. From the
way she gazed longingly at his retreating form, you’d think they were parting for
eternity instead of
five minutes.

“You love him,” Aelyx said.

Syrine didn’t argue.

“Will you invite him to the colony?” Until now, he thought he’d known the answer.
But perhaps he’d underestimated her level of attachment for the young man.

She shook her head and lost an inch as she sank into her chair. “No.”

“Why not?” Aelyx asked. “He’s not like other humans.”

“Yes, he is,” she said. “And this feeling”—she pressed a palm to her chest—“won’t
last for him. I know how humans love. Their passion burns like a
lump of sugar—quick and hot. And when the fire dies, they seek a new flame. They chase
sparks instead of collecting the warmth of old embers.”

Aelyx understood her concern. He’d once read a study claiming the average American
had seven mates during a lifetime. But there were always exceptions. Cara’s parents,
for example.
They’d married young and had never parted. And if their constant kisses and touches
were any indication, their flame burned more like a centennial bulb than a sugar cube.

“You barely know him,” Aelyx said. “Why not keep an open mind?”

“I’ll keep a
clear
mind and enjoy the time we have left.”

Aelyx had once shared the same opinion—that pairing with a human would never last—but
now he couldn’t imagine his future without Cara in it.

“I’m back, so quit talking about me.” David rejoined them and took the seat next to
Syrine. He attempted a smile, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “Because
that’s what I always think when you’re speaking L’eihr.”

“He’s onto us,” Aelyx said in English, sliding Syrine a mock-serious look.

Syrine grinned at her new boyfriend. “Then I suppose he’s not as stupid as I thought.”

David didn’t laugh at her joke, instead choosing to lead her to the sofa, where they
gazed soulfully at each other.

Bleeding gods. It truly
was
going to be an awkward month.

David’s cell phone rang again. When he sat back against the cushions and tapped his
screen to answer the call, Syrine nestled against him, draping an arm across his chest
as if it were the
most natural thing in the world. In response, he rested his cheek atop her head and
pulled her tightly against him. Aelyx was no relationship expert, but they looked
like a perfectly mated pair.
Syrine was delusional if she thought she could enjoy the next four weeks and then
simply cut ties and return home.

“Private Sharpe,” David said into the phone, followed by some indeterminate
uh-huh
s and
mmm-hmmm
s. He ended the call with an abrupt, “Okay, then,” and
tapped the screen.

“That was quick,” Syrine said.

“Our food’s here, but the sergeant won’t bring it to us. Something about not leaving
his post. Maybe one of the guys at the door will run down and grab it.”

“I’ll ask them.” Aelyx opened the front door, expecting to find two armed soldiers
flanking the entrance, but the only thing greeting him was a half-full Starbucks cup
sitting
by the floor mat. That was unusual. He’d never seen the men away from their station.
He peered for them in both directions but the hallway appeared empty.

“Nobody’s out here,” he called to David.

“Probably a shift change,” came the reply. “Let’s just wait a minute.”

“I’ll check the stairwell,” Aelyx said. “There’s always someone posted in there.”

The front door was set to lock automatically, so Aelyx left it propped open when he
stepped into the hall. As he strode down the corridor in his socks, he made a mental
note to change into a
clean pair when he returned to the penthouse. The sidewalks of Los Angeles were littered
with contaminants, and though the carpeted hallway appeared freshly vacuumed, he knew
the residents and
guests tracked in all manner of filth on the bottoms of their shoes. Which was disgusting.
He’d never had to worry about this on L’eihr.

He was still grumbling to himself about the city’s poor sanitation when he pushed
open the stairwell door and came face-to-face with a uniformed soldier.

Only the man wasn’t a guard.

Aelyx recognized the pink keloid scar that bisected the male’s forehead, his familiar
brown eyes widened in surprise. Aelyx knew this man. When someone fired a gun at your
chest, you
committed that face to memory.

L’eihrs were quicker than humans, but not fast enough to outrun a bullet. There was
no way Aelyx could make it back to the room in time, and the soldier stood too close
for him to shut the
stairwell door and call for help. Luckily, the man seemed just as unprepared for this
meeting as Aelyx, something he intended to use to his advantage.

While the soldier fumbled for his gun, Aelyx charged him, doing his best to build
momentum as his socked feet skidded against the smooth concrete floor. When the man
realized Aelyx’s plan
was to knock him backward down the stairs, he released the butt of his pistol and
braced for impact.

Their bodies collided with a hollow
smack
that told Aelyx his enemy wore a Kevlar vest—another detail that gave him an edge.
The leaden vests were heavy and bulky—great for
stopping a bullet, but not the best choice for hand-to-hand combat. Aelyx balled his
fist and struck the sensitive area above the man’s groin, eliciting a grunt of pain.
He pushed with all
his strength, but his slippery socks afforded him no traction.

To keep from falling, the man gripped the metal stair rail, and Aelyx did the same.
With his newly gained leverage, Aelyx drew back his head and butted the soldier’s
face. He
couldn’t see what he’d struck, but the crunch of bone indicated he’d broken the man’s
nose. That was a good start, but the soldier didn’t need his nose to fire a gun.
Aelyx had to disable him long enough to get back to the suite.

He struck the soldier inside his elbow, slackening the man’s grip on the handrail
and sending him stumbling down a few stairs. Aelyx saw a way to use their sudden height
difference to his
advantage. Gripping both handrails, he lifted his legs and kicked the man squarely
in the chest, sending him careening backward down a flight of concrete steps. Without
hesitating, Aelyx turned and
threw open the stairwell door, then sprinted down the hallway and back to the room.

Heart hammering against his ribs, he darted inside and slammed the suite door. He
bolted the lock and shouted, “Call the guards!” to David in the next room. When Syrine
came running
into the foyer, Aelyx grabbed her around the waist and towed her back into the living
area. “Stay away from the door.” He locked eyes with David while trying to catch his
breath.
“The shooter from Christmas—he’s in the stairwell. I fought him off, but he’s still
armed.”

David dialed a number and tossed his cell phone to Aelyx. “When my CO picks up, tell
him what you told me.” He drew his pistol. “Stay here with Aelyx,” he told Syrine.
“Don’t open the door for anyone unless they say the password.”

Syrine held tightly to Aelyx’s arm. “What’s the password?”

“Pear.”

Before Aelyx could try talking him out of it, David disappeared into the hall.

They knew the gunman’s identity by midnight, but not because anyone had apprehended
him. The ex-infantryman—Anthony Grimes, if the military reports were
correct—had once again disappeared like smoke on the breeze. By the time David had
searched the stairwell, all he’d found were the bodies of three guardsmen.

No one was sure how Grimes had managed to infiltrate the building, but he appeared
to have killed the stairwell guard first, then ambushed the penthouse guards during
their shift change. Grimes
had just dragged the bodies into the stairwell when Aelyx had surprised him. Five
minutes later, and the man might have gained entry to the penthouse.

A chilling thought.

Aelyx had summoned a mental image of the gunman’s countenance and shared it with Syrine.
Together, they’d composed a sketch for Colonel Rutter to scan into the facial recognition
system. The search yielded a few dozen possible matches, and Aelyx had easily singled
out Grimes by his jagged scar—which had resulted from the same drunk driving incident
that earned the man
a dishonorable discharge three years earlier.

But what Aelyx found most interesting was that Grimes wasn’t affiliated with HALO.
He began to wonder if Isaac Richards had told the truth when he’d denied responsibility
for the
attacks.

But if the Patriots of Earth didn’t want Aelyx dead, then who did?

“I hate to say this.” David shifted forward in his seat, resting both forearms on
his knees. “But I think Grimes has someone on the inside. How else would he know the
shift
change schedule?”

“Maybe it was a coincidence that he showed up when he did,” Aelyx said. “Sheer luck.”

David shook his head. “I don’t believe in luck.”

“Okay then,” Aelyx countered. “Call it chance. Regardless, it’s the reason I’m alive.”
Because if he’d stepped out of the penthouse any later, Grimes
would’ve met him in the hallway with his weapon at the ready.

“I don’t know…” David rubbed his jaw, eyes trained on the floor. “It’s fishy how that
soldier wouldn’t bring up our food.”

Syrine looped an arm through David’s and clung to him. This latest attack hadn’t shaken
her as badly as the letter bomb, but she’d still needed to retreat to her room for
an
hour of
K’imsha
after dinner. “I agree,” she said. “It’s like he wanted us to come out.”

Aelyx had found that suspicious from the beginning. “What’s the man’s name?”

“No clue. All I caught was
Sergeant
. He mumbled the rest.”

If there were a “mole in the ranks,” as the saying went, Aelyx had an idea to draw
out Grimes and finally capture him. “Let’s have Colonel Rutter feed false information
to the unit—tell them I’m going someplace easily accessible to Grimes.”

“And have a trap waiting for him,” Syrine finished. “I like that.”

“Me, too,” David said. “I’ll talk to the colonel about it in the morning.” He checked
his watch. “Which is technically now, since it’s past midnight.
Guess we should turn in.” Then he and Syrine rose in unison from their seats.

Aelyx had a feeling somebody’s bedroom would be vacant tonight. “Be careful,” he warned.
The ambassador had returned from his meeting, and he wouldn’t approve of their
bodyguard mixing business with pleasure. “It won’t help if you get reassigned.”

Syrine stood on tiptoe to glance toward the ambassador’s bedroom, then lowered her
voice to a whisper and produced a tiny key from her pocket. “I locked my room from
the inside, just
in case he decides to check on me.”

“And I’m up hours before he is, anyway,” David said. “If you need anything, text me
or knock twice on my door.”

As the pair strode hand-in-hand to David’s room, a familiar surge of envy churned
inside Aelyx’s stomach. He did his best to tame the sensation, but it wasn’t easy.
Maybe
talking to Cara would help. He couldn’t share his fear that Grimes would eventually
succeed in killing him, not without worrying her. But simply hearing her voice would
make it easier to
sleep tonight. He returned to his room, hoping to catch her between classes.

But when he summoned her, she didn’t answer—a fitting end to a terrible day. Aelyx
slumped on his bed and tossed aside his com-sphere. He missed Cara more than ever,
and the thought
of spending another month apart made his insides feel raw.

He wondered what she was doing right now. Was she thinking of him, too?

C
ara paced the waiting area to Alona’s private-audience chamber, wishing more than
anything that Aelyx were here. He’d know what to do.
He’d remind her of the eleventy dozen rules for proper behavior during a hearing with
an Elder—when to sit and stand, whether to pick up the speaker’s baton for a one-on-one
meeting, how to ask sensitive questions like,
You’re not going to execute me for this, are you?
Aelyx would demonstrate the slight nuance in pressure and timing that marked the
difference between a greeting and a grope when touching the left side of the throat.
And more importantly, he’d hold her close and kiss the sweet spot behind her ear and
whisper,
Don’t worry,
Elire
. You can do this.

Cara wasn’t sure she could do this.

She’d only been here fifteen minutes, and already she’d stained the front of her tunic
with her sweaty palms. The Aegis guard was inside with Alona right now, no doubt filling
her
head with tales of Cara’s sociopathic hijinks. Silent Speech could save Cara, but
what if she opened her mind and all her secrets came flooding out? She’d harbored
some traitorous
thoughts against The Way, especially about Jaxen and Aisly. Cara hoped Alona wouldn’t
punish her for that, but she didn’t know what to expect.