Shattered (39 page)

We
only made it a dozen feet down the hall before I heard the door open
again.

"Graves!"

I
didn't need to turn around to know that it was Taggart who had come
to give me the third degree, but I turned to face him anyway. This
had the potential of getting heated, but I owed it to him to face him
like a man.

First
though, I needed to make sure that Brindi wasn't around to hear what
I was about to say.

"Brindi,
can you please take the car and go hunt down a clipboard for me?"

"Was
that all you wanted? I'll just stay here until the two of you are
done and then we can go together."

"I
don't know how long it will take to cover everything that Taggart is
going to want to talk about, Brindi, and we're on a pretty
restrictive deadline. Here's a hundred bucks, can you go ahead and
fill up the gas tank while you're out too?"

Somewhere
between leaving the conference room and now she'd managed to lace her
fingers through mine. Her hand tightened on mine now, but I carefully
untangled myself from her and gave her a stern look.

"Fine,
but you better still be here when I get back. I don't want to have to
hunt you down to wish you good luck before you leave on your
mission."

It
was on the tip of my tongue to point out that she didn't care about
wishing me good luck as much as she cared about making sure that she
got a little more time to fill her skin addiction before having to go
on an enforced fast for the next hour or two until we all joined back
up after freeing Adri's family. In the end, I was glad that I was
able to stop myself though because that wouldn't have been entirely
fair to her.

She
was still sneaking in physical contact without my noticing what she
was doing, but she'd gotten a lot better lately. Even her extended
exposure to me after the incident in LA hadn't set her back as far as
I'd been worried it might. She was still addicted to me, but even if
that hadn't been the case she still wouldn't have wanted me to die.
She had a lot of character defects, but when you got underneath all
of that, she was a decent person who just needed some time to figure
things out.

"I
promise that I won't make you hunt me down. As long as you hurry,
you'll get to say goodbye before I go after Adri's sister."

"Okay,
I'm not sure that a hundred will be enough to fill up the car
though…"

She
said it with such big eyes that I couldn't help but smile at her. I
fished out a fifty-dollar bill and dutifully handed it to her.

"Don't
go buying so many things that there isn't room for
us
in the car."

"Silly
Alec. I'd need way more money than this to fill up the entire back
seat."

I
watched her walk out of sight and then turned and faced Taggart.

"Please
be brief, Taggart. Adri needs you back in the conference room and I
have things that I need to be doing."

"You
lied back there."

"Indeed
I did. I'm not proud of that, but it was the only way for me to
convince Adri to do what needs to be done without making her feel
guilty about it for the rest of her life."

"You
didn't actually manifest an ability, did you?"

"Actually
I did, it just doesn't always come when I call it."

Taggart
slowly nodded. "That's not unheard of for some abilities. It
often takes time for them to work consistently. Agony theorized that
there was a kind of neural rewiring that had to take place before
most abilities could work. Depending on the complexity of the ability
in question and the amount of practice that the hybrid in question
was able to rack up, it could take as little as a few days or as much
as months for the process to become instinctive. How frequently are
you able to summon your power?"

"So
far? It's only come that one time."

The
silence between us stretched out as he tried to grapple with the fact
that I'd done something completely at odds with his view of my father
and therefore to a certain extent his view of me.

"So
you actually don't expect to survive your attempt at freeing Cindi?
What are you thinking getting Adri's hopes up like this? You're going
to fail and get her sister killed in the process!"

"Keep
your voice down or we're going to have a problem. Of course I don't
expect to win. Even when my power worked it wasn't up to killing five
vampires all in one go. Killing the two I took down in LA put me out
for hours and even once I woke up I wasn't good for much for a while
afterwards. If that is how things go this time I'd need to catch
these guys unaware enough that I'm able to kill three of them before
they realize what is going on. I can pretty much guarantee that's not
going to happen, but this is still the best way—the best thing
for Adri."

Taggart
turned to go, and I grabbed his arm to stop him. It wasn't the
smartest thing I'd ever done, but I didn't have any other choice—not
if I was going to stop him from telling Adri what I was going to do.
Taggart's eyes instantly flashed over to the yellow of his hybrid
form, but something—maybe the fact that I hadn't shifted
already myself—stopped him from completing the transformation.

"There
isn't any other solution, Taggart. Think about it instead of just
reacting emotionally. There are too many of them and too few of us.
We can't possibly beat them fighting on their terms. The only thing
that even gives us a chance of beating them is the fact that Heath is
with us.

"Somebody
is going to die and we all know it, but asking Adri to make that
choice would be beyond cruel, it would destroy her. This way she
doesn't have to make the choice. She'll go into the fight with you
guys thinking that we have a chance of saving her whole family and
when I fail she won't have to blame herself for Cindi's death.

"Adri
gets her happily ever after with her parents and you guys end up
killing the bulk of the vampires and then dash over to my building
and hopefully kill the rest of them too. Everyone wins, well,
basically everyone."

Taggart
shook his head at me, but his eyes had shifted back, so I took that
as a sign that I'd managed to get through to him. I let go of his arm
and stepped back as he finally responded to my argument.

"Adri
isn't an idiot, Alec. Maybe for a time she'll believe that you were
just outmaneuvered, but she'll eventually realize that you never had
any intention of winning. She'll come to blame you for tricking her.
She'll end up hating you."

"Maybe,
but it's not like it will make any difference to me by that point."

"Why
are you doing this?"

That
drew a chuckle out of me. "I thought I just finished telling you
that."

"No,
really. Why sacrifice yourself for Adri—not even for her life,
just for her happiness?"

"For
the same reason that you would, because it's Adri and I care about
her. Besides, it's not just about her happiness, it's about the lives
of her parents. I was willing to die to get Rachel away from my
father when everyone else in the world seemed to be telling me that
the smarter thing was to just wait until my power manifested and then
avenge her."

"They
told you that because it
would
have been the smart thing to do, Alec."

"Yeah,
but it wouldn't have brought Rachel back. It's more than that though.
I realized a little while ago that there is always going to be
another reason to delay doing the right thing. Back then it was
because my power hadn't manifested itself. Now it's because my power
isn't trained enough to do me any good. Tomorrow it will be because
someone else's power is stronger than mine. At some point you have to
just do the right thing regardless or you stop being able to look
yourself in the mirror."

There
was something behind Taggart's eyes that told me I'd struck a nerve.
He cleared his throat and shook his head. "If you follow that
position to the extreme then you'd have every young hero throwing
himself on his sword in a futile effort at fighting evil before they
were ready to combat it."

"I
know. I also know that once I say my life is a fair trade for someone
else's, it's a slippery slope as to whether or not it's fair for me
to ever fail to sacrifice it for anyone else, including people I've
never met, but I'm not just trading it away to save a stranger, I'm
trading it away for Adri and two of the three people who mean the
most to her in the entire world. It's my choice and that's why it's
okay."

Taggart
looked away from me as though searching for something off in the
distance, something that it didn't seem as though he was finding.

"You're
a better man than I've been giving you credit for, Alec Graves. I'm
sorry that I've spent so long lumping you in with the likes of your
father. Even once I finally decided that you weren't actively in
league with him, there was still a part of me that was convinced that
it was only a matter of time before you would betray us all for other
reasons of your own."

"I
know, but you risked it anyway because it meant so much to Adri. See,
you and I aren't that different after all. You were willing to chance
death just to keep her happy too. Do me a favor and take care of her
after I'm gone?"

"Of
course. I'll let you be about the things that you need to do and I'll
return and help keep her distracted from your true goal."

"Thanks, Taggart."

He reached out and gripped my arm. "No, Alec, thank you."

Alec Graves
Pinnacle Hotel
Cloquet, Minnesota

My calls took longer than I expected them to, especially since I needed
to work in my goodbyes without actually making it sound like I was
saying goodbye. I called Jack first and confirmed that the mopping up
there in LA was still on track. He indicated that they'd managed to
kill two more of the vampires who had ambushed his team.

I
thanked him for his update and then again for his support, for his
willingness to back me despite all of the reasons why it would have
been smarter not to, and then I once again expressed my regret for
the people he'd lost. There wasn't anything that I could do to bring
them back, but if I could have I would have.

After
I finished with Jack, I made a similar call to James, Jess and Jasmin
in turn. The words were different each time, carefully woven into the
fabric of the conversation so that the call would seem like nothing
more than a friendly desire to see how they were doing or possibly
just a bit of homesickness on my part.

That
last bit was actually the easiest thing to fake simply because it was
so close to the truth. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't missing
Sanctuary, but Sanctuary hadn't been my home for a while now. Home
was where my friends were. Rachel, James, Jess and Jasmin had been my
family since even before I'd left home and the fact that I was
leaving them behind was my biggest regret about what I was about to
do.

None
of my friends seemed to notice that anything was up, which probably
spoke more to the fact that they'd been working nineteen-hour days
trying to cover the entire city of LA on foot ever since I'd left
rather than because I'd somehow magically become a more convincing
liar. I was just glad that I'd managed to catch them on one of their
rare breaks and that they weren't asking any of the tough questions
that I'd been so afraid that they were going to ask me.

By
that point I'd only had enough time to call one more person before I
needed to go back into the conference room. It was down to Carson and
Rachel.

Carson
picked up on the first ring.

"Alec,
how is everything going there in Minnesota?"

"You
know, Carson, I was planning on lying to you like I did everyone
else, but I just can't bring myself to do that to you for some
reason. The truth is that things are going very badly and I'm about
to throw myself into a hopeless fight so that someone I care about
comes out of this experience as untraumatized as possible, but I'd
appreciate it if you would wait to tell everyone else that until
after I'm gone."

"Are
you sure that there isn't another way, Alec? Have you stepped back
from the situation and really tried to look at it dispassionately?"

"No,
not like I should, but I've gone through it all at least a dozen
times now and I just can't live with the idea of watching Adri tear
herself apart over having had to pick and choose which members of her
family are going to die. Does it make me a coward for choosing the
easy way out instead of trying to help her come back from that?"

Carson
paused for several seconds. "From what I know of you, Alec, you
aren't the kind to pick the easy way out of anything, not when you
feel your honor is at stake."

"Fine,
am I being an idiot if I throw my life away over something as
esoteric as honor?"

"Alec,
for as long as you may live I hope that you never again refer to
honor as being esoteric. Honor isn't an intangible thing that has no
relevance in today's world. That idea actually couldn't be further
from the truth. Honor is one of the main driving forces in the world.
The presence of honor ensures that criminals run from the police
rather than the police running from the criminals.

"Honor
is what puts a roof over the head of a three-year-old child who has no idea
what sacrifices her parents make to ensure that she is clothed and
fed. Honor is what built civilization and allowed us to begin
learning the mysteries of the universe. A country, a civilization is
only as strong as the honor of its citizens and if society ever
begins to wilt under the pressure of a majority that has no honor,
that country will not long stand.

"There
are absolutely those who would tell you that you are foolish for
standing for your convictions, but as someone who has had to face
someone I cared about and tell them that I had lost the person she
cared the most about, I can absolutely say that I wish I had been
able to find a way to trade my life for the one I failed to protect."